Chapter Text
Clarke Griffin was your average 27 year-old. Broke, living with far too many people, and spending her Friday night in with said people and cheap booze. Her apartment was currently occupied by not only her two roommates, Raven and Octavia, but her neighbors as well. Bellamy, Miller, Monty and Jasper were all spread out over her living room yelling at whichever UFC fighter was currently getting the pulp beaten out of him. Raven and Octavia cheered them on just as loudly and Clarke took a long pull from her whiskey soda.
“Who do you got this round Princess?” Bellamy yelled to her across the room with his trademark grin.
Clarke rolled her eyes and squinted at the screen, “The one in the green pants. I like the little jig he’s got going on.” Monty looked over to her with a laugh while Octavia groaned and launched a pillow her way.
“Do not call his warm up a jig Griffin. He’s psyching himself up! Irish Thunder so has this round!” she cheered as she high-fived her brother.
“Irish Thunder?” Clarke drawled with as much disdain as she could muster.
“Don’t worry Griff,” Raven smirked, “The ladies are up next and I know you want to see them all sweaty and rolling around on top of each other.” Jasper let out a hoot of approval and threw Clarke the perviest wink he could. Clarke was slightly worried that her eyes were going to get stuck with the amount of time she was rolling them tonight.
Hoisting herself off the couch, the blonde moved into the kitchen to make herself another drink before sliding into her room and sitting down in front of her easel. A blank canvas stared back at her, taunting her with its lack of color. She looked around her room hoping for some sort of inspiration to strike but all she saw was the stack of unfinished orders sitting on her desk. Deciding to open her work on Etsy was fun at first but now doing the same few projects over and over again for strangers was getting tedious. She longed for the times where she would paint canvas after canvas (and the occasional wall) with what seemed like a never ending flow of ideas. Lately though, it was if she had dried up. The yelling coming from her living room was doing nothing to help her focus so she drained her drink, reached over for her phone and keys and quietly slipped out of the apartment in the cool night air.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lexa’s night was shit. Friday night was always rough with it being the end of the work week and the guys looking to blow off steam, but tonight’s crowd was on edge. From behind the bar the brunette could see Murphy running his mouth to a few of the regulars. Usually the men could take it from the scrawny boy and would sometimes even egg him on, but tonight they weren’t having any of it.
“Lincoln!” she called over the full bar. Her bouncer and best friend looked over at her and Lexa just nodded back to the corner where Murphy was starting to get really riled.
Lincoln nodded and made his way over as Lexa poured a round of shots and handed the tray off to Anya. “Take these back to Titus and his crew and apologize for that jackass for me.”
Anya laughed as she accepted the tray. “I don’t know why you don’t just ban the little prick. Can I toss him next time?” Lexa just sighed and shook her head before turning back to the bar.
Polis was Lexa’s pride and joy. She bought it off of the last owner and the closest thing she had to a father figure, Gustus, just 6 months ago. Since that time she, and her two best friends Anya and Lincoln had made a few changes to try to generate a younger crowd. The regulars were fantastic and Lexa preferred them to whatever else rolled in but Anya and Lincoln had made some good points. This place would go under within the year if they didn’t bring in fresh customers. The result though, were sometimes disastrous as was evident as she watched Lincoln grab the back of John Murphy’s shirt and shuffle him towards the exit.
Lexa had been working at Polis since she was 16. Gustus had seen her out on the street one day walking home from school when she was confronted by three men who quickly surrounded her. The bartender was about to intervene when he witnessed the skinny young girl take out all three of them before stepping over one and making her way down the sidewalk. He laughed to himself before calling out to her and offering her a job as his new bouncer in jest. The brunette made her way over to the kind older man and looked past him into the bar. She seemed to be contemplating something before nodding to herself and sticking her hand out. “My name’s Lexa. I’ll be ready to start Friday at 5. Don’t expect me to flirt with any of your male customers or to show any skin. I’m not that kind of girl.” Gustus could only laugh and shake her hand and before telling her he would see her Friday. From that day on, Polis became Lexa’s home away from home.
Shaking herself out of her thoughts, Lexa noticed that Lincoln hadn’t come back in after Murphy. She stepped out from behind the bar to go and check on him while she called out, “Lincoln? Everything good out here?”
Lincoln turned towards her and that’s when she noticed a gorgeous blonde standing behind him. The girl’s bright blue eyes widened slowly as she drank Lexa in inch by inch. As nice as it was being admired by a beautiful woman, Lexa didn’t have the time. She cleared her throat loudly and the blonde’s eyes snapped to hers as a dark blush spread across her cheeks. This was going to be a long night.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clarke knew she was stuck. It wasn’t that she couldn’t do her job. In fact, her paying gig was the only thing in her life going well. When it came to one dimensional advertisements for subway stations or commissioned work needed done by strangers, she was on a roll. It was her personal work that was suffering. Inspiration usually struck her everywhere. Sometimes all it took was the bloom of color from a sunset or the laughter of children in a park to get her brush flowing, but lately all of her old haunts were coming up empty. She needed something new, something fresh, something to take her breath away.
Clarke wandered the streets of Philadelphia with no real purpose. All she knew was that her apartment was stifling. Being constantly surrounded by work that she was putting off or her exceptionally loud friends didn’t help her break down the creativity block. So she walked. And tonight, she was determined to find something, anything.
When Clarke thought about being struck by inspiration, she didn’t think she’d actually get physically bowled over. Hitting the ground with a loud, “umph,” the blonde looked back at what ran her down. A young man, clearly drunk, had just gotten tossed out of a bar, quite literally, and was lying sprawled out on the ground opposite her.
“Shit.” Clarke looked up to see a very muscular man leaning down to help her up. “I’m sorry I didn’t think anyone was out here.” Clarke took the man’s offered hand and dusted herself off as she looked back at the drunk that was tossed out and back to the bouncer with a raised eyebrow. The man grinned and walked over to the drunk kicking him lightly.
“Alright Murphy. Time to stumble home.” Murphy grumbled as he pushed himself to his feet, mockingly saluting the bouncer as he turned and made his way down the street.
The bouncer turned back to Clarke and asked, “Are you alright?”
Clarke nodded before replying, “Is he going to be alright?”
“Murphy? Yeah he’ll be fine. He lives around the corner and always manages to make it home. At least as far as I know. He’ll be back in a few days.” Clarke smiled at the bouncer, taking in his close shaved Mohawk and extensive tattoos. The man’s soft voice and sweet personality coupled with his menacing look caught her attention. Clarke was intrigued.
Just as she was about to ask him his name, they were interrupted by a woman calling, “Lincoln? Everything good out here?”
As Lincoln turned toward the voice, Clarke’s breath caught. Standing just inside the doorway was the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. The stranger’s brunette hair was wavy and pulled back from her face with intricate braids exposing her unbelievable jawline. Her long, lean body was clearly taken care of and her black pants were hugging every part of perfectly sculpted legs. The white tank top she was wearing looked as if it was painted on, exposing tattoos down her arm similar to Lincoln’s. Clarke stood there blatantly staring when the woman cleared her throat. Loudly. Clarke’s head snapped back up to the woman’s deep green eyes and she realized she’d been caught. Her face flamed as the woman cocked an eyebrow at her before being saved by the bouncer. Lincoln.
“Yea boss, everything’s good. Murphy took out, uh –“ Lincoln said looking back at Clarke.
“Clarke,” she supplied tearing her eyes away from the other woman.
“Clarke,” Lincoln said with a smirk, “but he’s moving on. Everything calm down in there?”
“All good,” the woman smiled before turning a glare on Clarke. “Did you need something?”
Clarke’s blush returned in full force before she started shuffling her feet. “Uh, no. Nope. I’ll, uh, just be on my way.” The green eyed woman nodded once before returning inside the bar. Clarke turned to Lincoln with a grimace.
“Don’t worry,” he said smiling, “The Commander has that effect on everyone.”
Clarke grinned, “The Commander?”
Lincoln smiled right back. “Yeah she owns the place. But maybe don’t call her the Commander in front of anyone? She might kill you.” Clarke’s grin fell and her eyes widened. “Sorry again for the whole throwing Murphy at you. If you ever want to come in, your first drink is on me.” Lincoln turned back into the bar and Clarke was left staring. Looking up at the building, she saw a small sign dangling precariously.
Polis.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lexa was wiping down the bar after the last of the patrons had left for the night when Anya walked by and smacked her with her wet towel.
“HEY!”
The brunette whipped around ready for war when Anya backed away with her hands raised, “Truce?” Lexa rolled her eyes and went back to the task at hand while Anya leaned up next to her.
“So I was thinking.”
“Not tonight Anya.”
“We need some theme nights.”
“We do not need theme nights. This isn’t some college bar.”
“At least let us have the open mic night. We have a stage! Why aren’t we using it more?” Anya knew that she was pressing Lexa’s buttons by strategically placing herself between the bartender and her task. Lexa stopped what she was doing to fully turn her attention to this conversation.
“I know we have a stage, we used to play on it every Saturday remember?” Lexa said crossing her arms and leaning back against the opposite side of the bar. “Speaking of which, you promised you’d find a replacement and you still haven’t. Not one that’s good enough anyway.”
“I’ve brought in dozens of bands! None of them meet your standards. Stop being so picky.”
“Stop bringing in shitty bands.”
“Let me host an open mic night and who knows, maybe we’ll find our next Saturday night rockstars,” Anya said with a smirk knowing she had Lexa on this one.
The brunette’s brow furrowed as she realized what she was getting herself into and after a few moments sighed a soft, “Fine.”
Anya whooped and threw her wet towel down on the bar before grabbing her things and moving towards the door, “You won’t regret this. I’m going to go home and get started on some adverts. Later Commander!”
Lexa rolled her eyes as she picked up Anya’s towel and finished cleaning up. She was absolutely going to regret this.