Work Text:
maybe stars
are the
pieces god
left of himself
after he made man
and gave the earth
to strangers
- christopher poindexter
Objectively, Lexa is attractive, even by sky people standards who used to see beauty only in the pale skin and dark circles that comes from generations of living under fluorescent light. But Lexa, with her sunrise skin and paint smeared eyes, like most of the Grounders, makes for a startling contrast to Clarke's utter lack of color and blonde hair - they are a study in opposites though truly never as far from each other as most would assume. Clarke wonders how beauty translates in their language.
"Do your people use political marriages?" Clarke walks behind, avoiding a particularly large root. It's a stupid question, but she wondered. Bellamy's history lessons were scattered in the back of her mind and Lexa, with all her disdain for emotional attachments, was a powerful commander who might consider an alliance of this nature if that was an acceptable practice. Could she lose her to marriage? Clarke thinks, and then backs up because there's nothing to lose - nothing except quiet walks through the forest and calloused hands steadying her elbow. Nothing.
"Do yours?" Lexa responds, giving her an unreadable look.
Clarke smiles and shakes her head. "No, no need. With such limited space and numbers everyone got along or you were floated."
There's a chatter above their heads, and a buzz in the air. It smells like spring and new things in the forest just surrounding this village, a nice change from the iron tang of blood they'd spent so long living in. Now, they get to learn - about each other - and peace looks well on them all. She's pretty sure Bellamy had nearly cried when they'd salvaged a digital library from the Mountain and Raven was dragging Wick through every scrap heap they could find. Enthusiasm, long drained from them all had returned slow and unbidden as the remaining few rediscovered themselves. They hike now, for pleasure, not simply for the hunt or scouting. It is living instead of surviving.
"Floated? You speak of this frequently. I understand it to be a punishment? A death?" Lexa waits at a small grove for her to catch up, reaching for her animal skin water pouch, and Clarke is momentarily mesmerized, watching the sunlight stream through the treetops and catch the reflection of the water leaking out from between her lips, dribbling down her chin and catching on the front of her clothes. Wow. "Clarke?"
"Uh. Yeah." She swallows, "Floating meant releasing," Not the right word, but all she can think of is her father, the volunteers, the fate she escaped. It's bitter, but no longer hurts like the fresh, open wound it was for so long after they dropped from the sky. "people into space. There's no gravity so they would just... Float away."
Lexa simply nods, still standing and waiting for her to climb up and join her on the giant root. "Why are you concerned with marriage?" Lexa drags a hand along the tree's trunk, letting her fingers catch on the bark and avoiding Clarke's gaze. "Do you wish to secure an alliance with me through marriage, Clarke?" Her tone is teasing and sly and Clarke can feel her face heat up - it wasn't where her thoughts had wandered, but it wasn't exactly wrong either. "I am sorry to inform you, that an alliance already exists so, our union would be unnecessary."
"Would it ever be something you'd consider?" She pursues the topic and her heart beats a little too fast for someone uninvested in the answer.
"It is not without merit." She speaks stiffly as Clarke approaches, boots cracking against twigs. The trees shadow their movements but nothing can hide the sounds of Clarke's clumsy steps as they traipse through the forest - she is a warrior, but not a hunter and she has lived in the sky for far too long to yet understand how to correctly walk on land.
"So, you might?" Clarke asks gently, not pushing for an answer. She stands to the side, legs wide and balanced, watching her companion.
"It would be considered on an individual basis." Lexa carries herself rigidly as it is, but there is no mistaking the sudden straightening of her back or the abrasiveness of her response -this was not a comfortable topic for the Commander and Clarke wants to apologize, but is stopped as Lexa stares meaningfully at her.
What does it mean? What does it mean? she wants to shout. Probably nothing she believes.
The tension is broken though by Lexa perking her head up into the air, holding out a hand, halting any further inquiry and Clarke freezes, following the other commanders lead, hands going to the gun on her hip. She doesn't hear anything, but that doesn't mean much Clarke has learned - the Grounders hear what she cannot during the hunt
(Late at night Clarke contemplated, once, whether their ability to hear so well is a metaphorical indication of how suitable they are for this land and how much Clarke and her people ARE not - a sign of how they will not survive with all their conflict an infighting and inability to speak to each other without remembering all the atrocities they committed in the name of survival as they orbited the earth, but then she'll remember Gustus' betrayal or the General that so hastily pursued and attempted to kill her and, it's a disgusting thought, but Clarke is a little comforted by the Grounder's failings. Lexa is impressive and clever and Clarke is fairly sure she would follow the other girl into battle in most circumstances, but her near-godlike ability to unite her people shines a glaring light on Clarke's own failings. The hearing is genetic, she thinks.)
"Clarke." Lexa turns to her, face rigid, "Run."
Something is barreling through the forest after them and Clarke can see nothing, but hears the cracks of trees far too large for anything human size to break. Her adrenaline is kicking in and she sprints over outcroppings, slipping against moss covered roots before finding her balance and taking off again. Lexa should be right behind her, she thinks, right behind. But she knows if she turns around there will be no grounder commander following her and that thought causes her to fully trip, falling dizzily in between two smaller roots and getting her foot caught. It's now that Clarke sees the beast that has chased them in it's entirety.
It's almost comical in size - head large and boxy, black with piercing yellow eyes and it almost reminds her of a cat, but for the drooling mouth and unholy stench. She tries to make herself as small as she can, hoping the shadows of the trees will be enough to hide her. Luck is, unfortunately, a bitch, and, while, the monster doesn't see her it charges in her direction and Clarke pulls unflinchingly on her foot, already knowing it will do no good. The colossus steps on her hiding space, cracking the branches over head and raining pieces of wood down on her, the long worm-like tail sweeps further over and the last thing Clarke sees is the collapse of all that surrounds her.
She wakes to furious whispers, and a wretched smell underneath her nose. Clarke sits up suddenly and then, immediately lies back down, fighting back the urge to upchuck everything she'd eaten that day. Lexa kneels over her and her lips move, but Clarke is still trying to just acclimate to the dizzying amount of stimulus in her head right now.
Blood is dripping down across her face, coating some of her hair and, annoyingly, running down between her brows over one eye. She attempts to stand, falls and vomits and knows she must have a concussion - grade three since she lost consciousness. Lexa scrambles closer to her, and attempts to get her to stand again so they can move, but Clarke halts her movements, wiping away the strings of stomach acid from her mouth with the back of her sleeve.
"I - wait - shit." Her head pounds and she's not sure she could differentiate the throbbing in her skull from the thundering feet of a predator if the need arose, the commander tugs insistently on her arm, "Okay, okay, i'm up."
And she is. Sort of. Clarke stands in this half-hunched position, leaning heavily to the right and feeling as if she might tip over any minute.
"We must move away from it's territory." The words don't sound quite right and Lexa's image swims a little in front of her, "We will head South, away from it's scent, and circle - "
"Lexa." Her tone is desperate, "I can't - I can't go far. I - my brain - I need to lie down or else..." Clarke trails off, losing her train of thought, and, she might be imagining it, but Lexa seems to pale a little bit when she stops talking.
The grounder surveys the area quickly and encourages Clarke to step to her right, leading them closer to the ground instead of on top of the root systems they'd been walking on all day. Clarke's pretty sure she falls at some point, or, at least, sways precariously side to side because next thing she knows Lexa is carrying her on her back. They climb down, down, down where the sunlight isn't as harsh and this is a relief to Clarke's aching eyes and head. The moss growing down here makes the spongy new flesh slightly softer than the fully formed adult roots that twists above and Clarke is grateful for it as Lexa sits her down and then, hand on the small of her back, urges her to lie back.
"We should be well hidden here." Not safe, but hidden. Lexa stays calm, but Clarke's face is bloodless and head wounds had killed many men. Clarke was the healer, not her.
"I'll be okay." Lexa blinks from where she'd been staring at the blonde girl. "I just - just need to rest and do as little as possible for a while and - " The fog takes over her brain again, "It'll be okay."
Lexa nods and moves Clarke's head to her lap before wetting a cloth with water from Clarke's canteen and beginning to clean her face. She rubs away the itchy, dried blood, cleaning the skin. It makes her feel useful. The cloth is gentle and Clarke's eyes droop, and she probably looks like a complete dope right now, staring up at the magnificent commander through half-lidded eyes. The dim lighting and placement of the sun leaves a halo arching over Lexa's head and Clarke thinks it's one of the most beautiful things she's seen since the day she'd walked off the dropship and stood on Earth.
"I love love." She says. The words are slurred, but, fuck it, when better to be ridiculously honest then, when you can blame everything on brain trauma. "I mean it hurts like a bitch sometimes, but I dunno what I'd do without..."
"Love is so important."
"Your mind is sick. You should not speak." Lexa frowns at her and Clarke frowns back.
"It is." She says it insistently, like a child, and hates her voice at the moment - but really she can't control it at the moment, and that's kind of the point of saying all these things right here, right now because her brain is swollen and numb and Clarke cannot be held responsible for anything she says with a grade three concussion.
They continue to frown at each other until Clarke loses her patience. Lexa's hands are running through her unbraided hair and it feels so nice and she's really pretty and - Clarke looks down at her hands and they're red. It's her blood - she knows this, but then there's Finn and her brain can't keep up with anything and she's sad now and tired and Lexa will never love anyone again.
"Why do we love if we lose? Why - if it hurts - can't we stop it?" Clarke whispers it to the looping tree root above her and then quiets completely, but Lexa doesn't answer, so Clarke asks one more question. "How do you stop it?"
"I do not understand." Clarke hums, shifting slightly under Lexa'a hands as they detangle the knots in her hair. "Clarke?"
"Do you love me?" Lexa's hands still in her hair, tightening and pulling a little on the strands wound about her fingers.
"I don't - I don't under-" The grounder begins to respond. There are severed heads and burning fires, and consequences and she promised - never again.
"Fuck. S'okay. Never mind. I don't either." She smiles a little as Lexa'a face twists into confusion - it's pretty adorable and completely incongruous on the commander's face. Clarke moves to bury her head further into Lexa's lap, the stars burst behind her eyelids, blurry and unfamiliar. Everything moves with her and she almost gags, wanting to vomit again, before promptly passing out - head wounds are such a bitch.
They are close to the camp, to the point that another half mile will certainly put them within view of scouts, especially if they have extended the border due to the missing commanders. Clarke stops, leaning heavily against a tree. She slept for hours last night, but not well, and the blood loss hasn't helped - she needs rest, and food, and more rest before the symptoms will fade. Clarke is lucky that they encountered the beast only a few hours into their hike and so, their return is quick, though they move slow. Lexa comes to her side, slight concern marring her stoicism. "We are close. Only a little farther and you will have more adequate medical care."
"I'm not - I'm fine." She replies stubbornly, cheeks pinking.
"Only a fool does not seek to asses their own limits and accept them."
"Then I suppose I'll be a fool in your eyes." Lexa draws back at the amount of ire in her voice. Clarke sighs, regretting her tone already, and tips her head forward, hair falling like a curtain, and, not for the first time, is Lexa a little entranced - the color is rare on her people, reserved for flowers and the sun and it waves a lot when Clarke moves and when Lexa runs her fingers through it. Not for the first time, does Lexa find herself thinking of the sky princess in terms unbefitting of an ally.
Clarke stretches out her hand, wiggling her fingers to ask for help and takes a deep breath when Lexa intertwines their hands pulling her forward. She stands far too close, ignoring the urge to squirm as Lexa steadies her, arms on Clarke's shoulders. When Lexa catches Clarke's gaze she sees steel and flint in her eye, the beginnings of a fire and almost loses her breath at the image. But then Clarke presses her lips to Lexa's and she definitely can't breathe - not at all.
Their lips meet in quiet places, where they are both young and full of heat and feelings and their touches have no bearing on the rest of the world. Lexa's hands leave burning paths across Clarke's face and hips, wrinkling ripped clothes and it's been a while since either has allowed themselves to indulge - Clarke traces Lexa'a lips with hers, jumping everytime the strange twitch of a smile emerges on the other girl, but when she pulls back to stare at Lexa she realizes she's smiling too and it's - it's not perfect, but, it's really, really nice. They tug off clothes among piles of furs, stripping pants and pulling aside underwear behind tents and in tree lines - anywhere they can hide from the eyes of their people.
The war is over and there is time for dalliances, though Lexa is loathe to admit it - even Indra has encouraged her cohort to rest easier (the older warrior takes a sadistic pleasure in walking around kicking and shouting at the break of dawn after a particularly alcoholic celebration among her warriors).
The Grounders had put together a bonfire tonight, to celebrate a visiting head from the north, and it stretched blinking into the sky - a collection of different firewood settled off to the side and different brush would cause different colors to burst among the flames - like flightless fireworks. Lexa is smiling and Clarke imagines that must mean she is happy - then again, she's only been able to read the commander in a cursory number of situations. Either way, she really wants to kiss her.
The fire sparks and shoots a blue flame into the sky and there are loud whoops from those surrounding it, Clarke catches Bellamy's eye and grins - remembering their first bonfire on earth and the disastrous months that had followed it and, eventually, their partnership. Octavia drags him away by his shoulder, pulling him into a new dance Lincoln has shown her and the Blake siblings laugh together. Clarke is startled from her staring by a hand wrapping it's way around her waist and a head resting on her shoulder. "You gaze at him."
A smile threatens itself on her lips and she leans backwards into Lexa. "We had a bonfire, not quite like this, but - it was at the beginning. When we'd first landed."
The other girl grumbles into her neck, braids falling over her shoulder. "You should have eyes only for your commander."
This does make Clarke laugh, "You're not my commander."
The smell of berries and moonshine float across her nose as Lexa blows out hot air against her ear. Monty's new recipe, a combination of fermented berries the Grounders had shown him how to make and his own special alcohol, was a godsend and Clarke would have to thank him later, when the Grounder commander wasn't pressing sloppy kisses against the column of her throat.
"Mmm. True." Then she's dragging Clarke away from the fire, into the darkness of the forest and the shade of the circle of tents and pinning her to the side of a tall Mutant oak. Lexa grins fiercely, her teeth white and sharp against the night, and Clarke's heart skips a beat. Her hands are warm from the fire as they creep under Clarke's shirt tracing the burn scars that lace her right side and the small of her back. Lexa quiets and let's her fingers wander the raised skin, "I couldn't leave that night." Clarke doesn't say anything, confused, "Everything would burn and I froze, thinking of you burning with it." Her knuckles graze a particularly large puckered scar, "I stood among the trees and watched you run into death. How utterly foolish."
Clarke tilts her head to the side fondly, "I'll always be a fool to you." Lexa stares straight into her eyes before kissing her again, fiercely, pressing her fingers into the dips of Clarke's hips and moving closer into her space. Lexa sighs into her mouth and doesn't correct Clarke's statement, tongue slipping out as she elicits some delightful noises from the back of Clarke's throat. Clarke lets loose a whining little moan, burying her hands in Lexa's hair and canting her hips up against the more petite girl. The action draws a strangled, half-sobbing sound from them both and they tip forward together until their foreheads meet, noses brushing.
I am a fool, Lexa thinks, worriedly sober, and kisses Clarke again.
"Do you understand now?" Lexa murmurs one evening, head coming up from between Clarke's thighs, mouth wet and dripping from Clarke's sex, and Clarke trembles with the aftershocks of all the orgasms Lexa's lips and fingers had wrung out of her. She's so caught up in the quaking of her body (because, holy shit, multiple orgasms are the best and she's never been happier about being a girl) that she misses the words the first time they are said, not hearing them until Lexa bites on the lobe of her ear and whispers them again.
"Understand what?" Lexa smiles down at her, eyebrow twisting haughtily before leaning in to kiss the edge of her chin, tracing down her neck to her collarbone before sucking and Clarke watches, a little in awe, as another dark spot rises to join the multitude of others scattering her flesh. "Lexa." She murmurs, reaching to bury her hands in the lose dark hair hanging above her chest, "Understand what?"
Lexa looks up at her from where she's licking a particular dangerous path down the side of Clarke's hips, tilting her head at the other girl and laying it against her abdomen. "I can hear your heartbeat." Clarke groans at the dodge - she wants to know what she should understand. She's spent far too long trying to keep people alive to not understand that knowledge is power - that not knowing something could lead to death and, besides, Lexa's doing the thing where her tongue swirls around a patch of Clarke's skin, while her hand rolls around Clarke's breast and Clarke is fully aware she is attempting to distract her and she hates being distracted from an answer. So she bats Lexa's hands away and then goes to pull on her hair, making sure the commander is looking straight at her. "What do you mean?"
"You are like a - " Lexa uses some word that Clarke doesn't understand, "with a piece of meat - I should not have said anything if it means we are not allowed to continue."
"But you did so, yeah." Clarke responds dryly comes up on her elbows, sliding a little on the bed of furs, "What should I understand?" She prods again.
"Not should." Lexa sits up and straddles her hips and Clarke whimpers a little at the loss of heat and the pressure of the commanders hips against Clarke's own. "It is... I do not know your word for it. A reminder? A question you asked many days ago and I bring it up again - mistakenly." Lexa's lips twist wryly, flashing teeth.
"Why do we love when we know we will lose."
"Do you love me?"
The memory comes unbidden and Clarke stares at Lexa in awe, that she should spend all this time contemplating her silly muddled musings - thoughts she'd voiced when her brain was closer to mush than matter and coherency was lost on her. She surges up and kisses the other girl, all knocking teeth and hands coming up to twist and pull her closer, licking into her mouth and sucking on her bottom lip - pressing as far into Lexa as she can. The commander looks a little stunned when Clarke pulls away, and the tips of her ear are turning a bit red and she looks at Clarke like she is the ocean and Lexa would gladly drown in it. It is both flattering and untimely.
"It is a weakness."
A sadness bubbles up in Clarke's stomach, right above where Lexa's hands rest and she has never felt like this - the overwhelming want of something she cannot have. In these moments, when it becomes apparent that Lexa returns her feelings, but cannot hand herself over to them completely, that Clarke gets a little lost in the future. Lexa will not entangle her heart, not in this. She will not compromise herself for Clarke and Clarke would never ask her to - never want her to do so.
"I do - a little." She curls into Lexa's side, and the other girl winds her arm around her, "It hurts. It's horrible. It puts targets on the back of people close to us (Fire, fire, the missiles and her mother and Octavia and all those people died for her, because of her, and they haunt her. When Clarke thinks of her regrets she uses two hands and finds herself biting her nails). But - " and she stops, taking in a shuttering breath, "I also know that something that makes you feel like this can't be - it can't be nothing. It's still important whether the risks make sense or not. That is what I understand."
"Love does not follow logic. That is why it is dangerous." Lexa assents and Clarke nods, forehead buried in Lexa's collarbone, "It is also why I..." She pats Clarke's hair, running her fingers through it absentmindedly, and tastes acid on her tongue. She remembers an unrecognizable body, an impaled head and how it felt for her heart to wither and die. "Cannot seem to stop wanting this."
Clark stills and her heart leaps into her throat.
"Want isn't always enough."
"No." She whispers into Clarke's hair, "and neither is love."
Clarke closes her eyes in thought. Their relationship is as it is and she sees no reason to dissolve it - Clarke is too frightened at the prospect of having her own Kostia, of having another Finn, another Wells. This is safe, straddling the line between politics and love, between want and need. Going forward is an unlikely option and going away from this, from Lexa is not a decision she would make without considering every other option.
"But we are at peace and this world is big and maybe you are." Enough
Clarke's lips press against her pulse point as the words escape Lexa's mouth and she can almost feel the other girls heartbeat thrum nervously underneath her kiss, the way her chest stutters as she breathes in, swallowing years of apprehension. She squirms out of Lexa's tight grip and sits up, straddling the commanders knees and cupping her face. "I don't have to be. I would never ask that of you."
Clarke holds her breath, this is important. She has to know that Clarke will have her in any capacity she is comfortable with, that she would not leave if Lexa wasn't comfortable enough to love her completely. There is no threat of dissolution if Lexa is never able to publicly acknowledge how she feels about the sky girl. But Lexa already knows all this as she knows the changing of the seasons, the everlasting fate of her soul, and the dangers of wandering to close to the mountain. She knows Clarke. They are the same - leaders first, everything else second - Clarke and her are a study in opposites occupying the same space - they are intertwining and streaming and the same in so many ways.
"I know." It is almost entrancing, the way Clarke's thumb press into her cheeks and she has been lost in this since the moment this sky girl pulled her from the clutches of death.Maybe, her soul would say, from the moment she feel from the stars. "This is not an answer to some unspoken question. It is a thought I had, a decision I have made. You."
Lexa pushes up to slant her mouth against Clarke's hard and heavy. "Okay." Clarke says, in between Lexa whispering you, you, you, and kisses her again. "Okay."
She's not sure, but she think Lexa might have just proposed to her - it's not important at the moment though, not with her fingers grasping for the edges of Lexa's breasts and Lexa's mouth and hands making their way further south with ever breath she takes. Her breath hitches and heart stutters as two fingers slide into her and she's wet again. Fuck. Yeah, that question, at least, can wait until morning.