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Raven’s eyelashes are a long flutter against her cheeks, and Clarke’s not sure she’s ever known what to say to her when their world isn’t collapsing; in their quieter moments there’s nothing to say that isn’t tangled and too full of blame.
Clarke looks away, instead, to smoky-tipped mountains and sky and the things she longed for for so long that she’s still not sure how to handle having them; even with caveats, it still feels too much like being gifted with something she hasn’t been able to deserve.
“Did you want something?” Raven’s voice is soft; Clarke feels her hackles rise, drop as she realises it’s not a confrontation. She doesn’t know where they fit when they’re not half made of clashing edges, bitterness.
Clarke shakes her head and makes to go; Raven stops her with a hand to her thigh, and Clarke looks down at it, at her dirty broken fingernails, the cuts and burns that litter her skin, occupational hazards.
There’s so much to say and none of it is anything Clarke wants to vocalise.
She links their fingers together instead, and Raven lets her, and says nothing.
Sometimes, Clarke feels like she’s already lived too many lives, and if she feels that way, Raven must feel worse, and half of those things seem to string their way back to Clarke.
She opens her mouth; Raven’s lips tick at the corner, and she says: “don’t.”
Clarke should, but she doesn’t, and instead they don’t move at all.