Chapter Text
Clarke did not even know why she was here.
In a high school party with drunk kids everywhere. Looking around, she could see people smoking what looked suspiciously like weed and running around like madmen around the house that she was sure was going to collapse soon if this party went on for any longer.
She would much rather be back home right now, taking pictures of flowers under the moonlight in her garden or getting out a nice, slow novel to read in her bed under the lamp. Not in this high school party with all the… popular and cool kids.
She didn’t belong here.
Ugh. What is the time?
How have only thirty minutes passed? How is it only six-thirty in the evening? How is she going to endure this until morning?
Why was she even here?
Oh yeah, Raven made her come. She said that it was going to be fun, that they were going to dance to the music together, but as soon as she saw some white boy she ran away and left Clarke all alone. Which brought to her now, sitting at an empty table, sipping on some fruit punch while bass was pumping out the speakers, shaking the whole house.
She rolled her eyes. Maybe she should just get up and leave. Oh wait. Bellamy said specifically that the door was locked, no one was to get out until after midnight because he wanted everyone here for the New Years Countdown, so she was stuck here until morning when hungover people would hobble out like penguins lost in Australia.
“And…” she heard a voice call out over the music. “Clarke!”
Perking up at her name being suddenly called, she whipped her head around to the source of the voice and saw that there was another group of teenagers sat in a circle, with Bellamy stood up, holding the slip of paper and staring straight at her.
Clarke resisted the urge to roll her eyes again. These were the popular kids, the sporty people so to speak. What on earth did they want with her?
Bellamy kept on staring at her expectantly, so she just called back, “What?”
“You’re up!” Bellamy grinned, a borderline evil glint in his eye. “7 minutes in heaven with this gorgeous girl right here,” he said, pointing at someone who was also in the circle.
Clarke panned her vision down to where Bellamy was pointing at, and there she saw luscious brown hair and she could swear that her eyes widened when she saw who it was.
It was Lexa. The mysterious, alluring, hypnotising brunette that she knew yet didn’t know at the same time. She was the captain of the school hockey team, and she was so incredibly bitchy!
“W-What?” Clarke stuttered, feeling her jaw go slack. “I’m not even playing!”
“She’s not even playing!” Lexa echoed, arguing hotly. “Come on, this is dumb.”
“Well,” Bellamy drawled, staring at the slip of paper, amused. “It definitely says Clarke G right here. I don’t see any other Clarke Gs around, do you?”
“I don’t want to go with her!” Lexa continued to argue. “She’s such a freak!”
Ouch. That hurt.
“Why can’t I repick? You got to repick when you got Murphy!” Lexa huffed.
“You can,” Bellamy smirked. “You get one repick through this whole, what is it, hour-long game? Use it wisely. Would you like to use your one repick on little Miss Clarke Griffin here?”
Little?
“Ugh,” Lexa rubbed at her temples. “Fine. Let’s just get this over and done with.”
Wait, Lexa didn’t get a repick? So… this was really happening?
“Hey!” Clarke spoke up. She didn’t like speaking in front of all these popular people, but she felt the need to right now. “Why was my name even in the hat? I’m not playing?”
“I put you in when I saw you drinking punch,” Bellamy shrugged. “Figured, the more the better, right?”
“I’m not playing!” Clarke shouted again.
“You get picked, you go in the closet, rules are rules,” Bellamy smiled. “Besides, Lexa is a good one, trust me. Ow!” Bellamy winced when Lexa punched him harshly in the shoulder. “Alright, alright, let’s get you in the closet.”
Clarke looked helplessly at Lexa, who had a scowl on her face as a set of hands grabbed them and soon, they were shoved into a tiny closet and the door was slammed shut behind them, blocking all light so all that was there was darkness.
“Do we have to be so close together?” she heard Lexa complain as the lock slid shut. She was right. The closet had barely enough space for one person, let alone two. She was literally nearly flush against the brunette.
“That’s the way it is,” she heard Bellamy laugh from outside. “Your seven minutes starts now. Have fun, ladies.” With that, she heard receding footsteps and soon, it was silence. The only thing that she could hear was Lexa’s breath and her heartbeat.
“This is so stupid,” she heard Lexa groan petulantly. “Why did they have to put both boys and girls in the same hat? Because this happens.”
“And what’s so wrong with this?” Clarke asked back, surprised that she had the courage to do so.
She had expected a list of all the reasons why this was wrong, like how they were both girls, how Clarke was a huge freak who had an obsession with butterflies and flowers, how Lexa was way out of her league, blah blah blah.
But she was surprised that Lexa didn’t say anything.
“N-Nothing, I guess,” she heard Lexa breathe, and if she didn’t know that Lexa was pressed right up against her, she probably wouldn’t have known it was Lexa who spoke. Her voice was so different, carrying a new strain of vulnerability that she didn’t know the mean brunette had.
Maybe Lexa was not the bitchy girl everyone thought that she was.
“You know,” Clarke mumbled, starting to gain confidence. She figured that if they had to spend seven minutes in here, they might as well spend it talking instead of in uncomfortable silence in an uncomfortable position. “I watched you in that hockey game the other week, you were amazing.”
“R-Really?” the same vulnerable voice mumbled.
“Mmhmm,” Clarke hummed. “I saw you dribble past three players on the counter-attack, and shoot right at the edge of the D. It was incredible how fast the ball was, how it soared past the keeper before she knew what happened.”
“O-Oh,” Lexa breathed. “T-Thanks.”
She couldn’t see the brunette, but she could swear that Lexa’s heart sped up slightly and her cheeks got a bit warmer.
Clarke merely hummed in response, racking her brain for something that she could bring up for conversation when Lexa spoke up again.
“I saw your entries in the photography competition,” Lexa mumbled. “It’s amazing what you can do with a camera, you really deserved to win.”
Lexa saw her pictures? She was so surprised. She thought that no one bothered to pay attention to these sort of things, but hey, the mysterious captain of the hockey team saw it and liked it!
She liked this side of Lexa. One when she did not have to pretend to fit in with all the other popular kids, the one when she was just being herself, not trying to hold her reputation because they were in private.
“T-Thank you, Lex,” Clarke stuttered, the nickname slipping out of her lips.
She cringed inwardly and waited for her to be berated, but the harsh words never came.
The two of them fell into silence after that. It was a little awkward, because suddenly she could feel this palpable tension that wasn’t there before and the closet felt like it was ten degrees hotter.
Her heartbeat was getting faster, and she didn’t really know why. Lexa’s heartbeat was also speeding up to match hers.
“How much longer do we have left?”
“I don’t know, maybe three minutes?”
More silence.
Clarke’s mind was working in overdrive. Three minutes. 180 seconds. She could make good use of this. The Lexa pressed up against her right now, she will probably never see again when they leave this closet.
“Hey, Lexa?”
“What?”
“Close your eyes.”
“It’s not like we can see anyway.”
“Just do it, please.”
“Fine,” Lexa relented. “My eyes are closed. Now what?”
“Now…” Clarke gulped, trying to quell the nervous butterflies that pooled in her stomach and slow down her erratic heartbeat. She closed her eyes too and braced herself.
She could feel a small tremor in Lexa’s breath as she leaned in.