Chapter Text
"Get behind me."
Clarke steps back abruptly at the voice beside her and nearly trips over the wrapped canvases against the wall behind her. They make a terrible amount of noise and she’s halfway through cursing herself from here to Melbourne when someone shouts from the next room. Low voices mingle together in what filters through the wall as nothing but disgruntled growls. Clarke bristles; they sound just a bit too close for comfort.
"Fuck ," the woman's eyes are wild. They're the only goddamned thing Clarke can see in all the shadows.
“I swear to the motherfucking lord of all saints, I’m just here for the painting,” Clarke says in rapid fire, the words all strung together because she can't seem to get her damn mouth to stop making sounds.
"Get behind me."
She only has about half a clue what the flying fuck is going on here but something about the woman’s voice that makes Clarke listen. Or maybe it's the guns cocking loudly enough that she can hear them through the wall like they're right against her ear. The sound is metallic, heavy. It makes her skin crawl.
"What the hell is hap-"
"Shut the fuck up," the woman hisses, silencing Clarke at the same time as she grabs her arm. Her grip is like iron. "Just follow me."
She'll never be able to explain why, except that she probably couldn't wrench her arm out of this girl's grasp if she wanted to, but she lets this terrifying stranger yank her towards the opposite wall without giving it much thought.
Snatched canvas in hand, Clarke shimmies through a narrow backdoor she’s sure she wouldn't have seen even if the only light in the room weren't streetlights filtering in through the window.
Catch her again next week for Impulsive Decision Making 101 with Clarke Griffin: the surest ways out there to get your ass kicked by a dozen goons with guns and probably die along the way because a pretty girl rudely told you to.
-
It might be the biggest fuck up in her entire career. This shit, it's worse than the job that got her banned from most of Canada. It's worse than the time she took out the wrong mark and had to scramble to fix it before her boss caught word of it. She hasn’t made a mistake anywhere near this phenomenally catastrophic in years, not since she was just starting out in this business. Kids make mistakes like this, the ones that are inexperienced and unsure on their feet. Rookies. Idiots.
Lexa prides herself on being miles past those kinds of moronic slip ups.
Well, she did .
Tightening her grip on the blonde's wrist as she drags her down a stairwell, Lexa is too busy mentally mapping the route to her nearest safehouse to properly kick herself for whatever possessed her to do something as reckless as taking a stranger with her.
This job was supposed to be simple, a small thing she'd only agreed to because you’ll be in an out before the weekend is over, Woods . She wasn't far from Milan as it was, and the target was all but confirmed to be making an appearance at the art museum's unveiling party. It was an easy hit, and she had no qualms about taking out marks with track records of climbing the social ladder at others’ expense like this one.
What she hadn't counted on was the blonde that had wandered up onto the top level like she owned the goddamn place. She strutted up into the rafters in a caterer’s uniform with a rolled canvas tucked up under her arm and she’d gotten a good, long look at Lexa's rifle setup. As if that wasn’t enough, Blondie had squeaked and Lexa jumped, like a fucking rookie idiot, accidentally flicking the switch on the laser sight. Because life is just a goddamn blessing like that.
Half the crowd in the room gasped when the little red dot popped up on an old man in an overpriced suit. On any other day, Lexa might have stopped to smirk at her perfect aim; right between the eyes. There’s a reason she’s survived so long in this business. It helps to be the motherfucking best of the best.
But apparently, rich men in high social standing tend to have a lot of security. And those security officers tend to notice things like that. Fuck .
So, she’d grabbed the blonde by the wrist and she doesn’t even have a fucking clue why she did it, except that for some godforsaken reason she couldn't bring herself to leave this girl behind.
Fucking. Stupid.
" Quiet ," she hisses, tugging the blonde's arm again. She isn’t stumbling like Lexa expects her to be; she moved with a practiced ease that Lexa doesn't have time to consider right now. Still, her heels click against the metal stairs and she struggles to keep the large canvas in her arms under control.
"This would be easier if you'd just drop that."
The woman pulls the rolled canvas in tighter against herself and Lexa swears she rolls her eyes. "Not gonna happen."
Lexa huffs out a sigh because she doesn't know what else to do at this point and she doesn't have time yet to regret this decision. Several sets of heavy footsteps are trailing after them from not far up the stairs and this whole chase thing is decidedly not her kind of scene.
"Pick up your goddamn feet," she mutters, and the girl doesn't say anything else.
-
They end up in a motel five blocks down from the gala. Clarke counts every turn they take and tucks the rolled canvas in her hand closer against her body. It's raining out, a light and dreary kind of wet and she can't afford to have this painting ruined.
It's not until they make into the lobby of the motel that the girl in front of her lets go of Clarke's wrist. She mutters something to the man at the front desk and doesn't look back to be sure Clarke follows her to the room.
Clarke does anyways. She skirts the girl’s heels because this looks like the kind of place you go to fuck a senator or put a gun in your own mouth. It's grimy, the walls are stained and the carpet is frayed and pulled away from the edges of the walls. Clarke rolls her ankle and feels the blade tucked into her boot, a familiar weight that settles her stomach.
Something about the woman in front of her makes eases Clarke’s nerves as well, and she doesn't feel like trying to figure out why.
The lighting in the hallway while they walk in silence is fluorescent and flickering, absolutely terrible, but it offers a small pocket of something Clarke can almost describe as peace. They’re not running anymore, there’s no one behind them, and her heart has finally stopped racing quite so much. It’s a nice reprieve from the shadows and rush of skimming through alleyways.
The light allows Clarke to get a look at who she's been following around. The woman’s delicate features are almost girlish, they don't fit the steeled look in her eyes or the hard set of her jaw. Everything about her is tense and rigid; she wears it like a stiff second skin and nothing about it seems unnatural on her but still, some part of Clarke wants to see all those lines smoothed out, wants to see her with her guard down.
It's fucking stupid, the way her mind is throwing these kind of thoughts out right now about a stranger she caught with a rifle pointed at a dignitary less than an hour ago. Clarke blames it on the adrenaline and shakes her head. A pretty face is just a pretty face, this girl isn't anything special. She should probably be more concerned with the sidearm tucked into the waistband of the woman’s pants.
"So," Clarke says when the door to the room is finally shut and locked behind her. "Is this the part where you wipe my memory or cut off my pinkie finger so I don't tell anyone about the pretty girl in the rafters with a gun?"
The woman drops her backpack on the bed and doesn't respond.
"Do I at least get to know the name of the woman that abducted me?" Clarke paces to the tiny window and toys with the hem of one of the threadbare curtains. She thinks she catches a smirk on the other girl's lips when she turns just enough for Clarke to see the side of her face. Probably just a trick of the light.
When the woman sits on the bed and finally looks at Clarke, she doesn't say anything. There's something in her eyes that makes Clarke's throat go dry. Fucking stupid.
"Let me guess," Clarke continues in order to keep herself from staring at the green of the girl's eyes when they catch the light. "You'd tell me, but then you'd have to kill me?"
The corner of her mouth twitches up and she stifles it as quickly as it appeared. "I didn't abduct you," she deadpans. "I'm keeping you safe."
Clarke tucks the canvas still in her hand behind the coffee table, the only piece of furniture aside from the beds and the TV mounted to the wall. "Safe from what , exactly?"
The girl sighs like Clarke is some kind of moron for even having to ask the question. "Those guys saw you with me. Dignitaries aren't usually too fond of people who try to take them out. They'll be looking for both of us," she rattles it all off like it's old, boring news and Clarke kind of wants to scream at her or throw something across the room. Anything to pull a reaction out of her instead of all this stoic bullshit.
"And a sleazy motel in the homeless district is safe?" Clarke quirks an eyebrow, mirroring the girl's unimpressed stare.
She shrugs, "You can leave if you want."
Clarke gives her an exaggerated once-over before dropping down onto the other bed.
“Even if I had planned on skipping out on this merry little adventure of ours,” she grins at the girl and sinks into the musty pillows. “What kind of person would I be to turn down a free night in this lovely motel?”
The original plan was to be on a plane home by dawn; Clarke only had to get in, get the painting, and haul ass back home to make the hand off in time to call up a friend for lunch plans. This job was child’s play- or it had been until some green eyed goddess with a rifle stepped in and mucked it all up. She has a point, though. They’ve already been seen together, and going toe to toe with the band of gun-toting gorillas potentially still after them doesn’t exactly sound like Clarke’s idea of a good time.
Locked in a motel room with the prettiest human statue she’s ever seen sounds like a considerably better plan. Even if she is terrifying. Even if her duffel bag is practically a fucking armory in and of itself.
“You don’t seem like a terrible roomie,” Clarke mutters while the other girl methodically turns back the sheets on her bed, checks them over, and remakes the bedding before perching gingerly on the edge of th e mattress .
Even now, she still holds herself so stiffly. Like the second she falters or relaxes, the whole situation could just fall apart.
It can't be an easy way to move through life, shouldering all that tension all the time.
Maybe it's just because she's exhausted or the pillowcase is blocking half her vision, but Clarke swears she sees the other girl soften. Her shoulders fall and all the hard edges of her expression relax just slightly. Just enough to catch if you're looking closely.
"Lexa," the girl says after a few beats of silence, once Clarke has turned onto her back to stare at the ceiling. It comes out so quietly, Clarke might've missed it if she weren’t so hyperaware of everything.
"Hmm?"
Clarke twists just enough to see her. The softness is still there, lurking just under the surface. She is timid almost, in a small kind of way that seems polar opposite from the girl she’s seen over the past hour and Clarke doesn't understand how even so, the look on the girl’s face feels somehow familiar.
"My name is Lexa."
-
Clarke doesn't sleep. She's exhausted, but can't bring herself to do anything more than drift off for a few minutes at a time. Lexa is on the other side of the room assembling and dissembling her rifle, from the sound of it. The clicks of the metal are almost soothing. A bullet rolls off the bed and the pull out couch squeaks and groans something awful under her as Clarke twists to pick it up off floor.
The lead is cold in her palm and Clarke feels it all the way in her spine. She's never liked guns.
The motel room is small and she doesn't have to reach far to place the bullet back on the bed, beside a small pile of empty casings. If Lexa notices the way Clarke's hands shake just slightly, she doesn't say anything about it.
Another two hours tick by before Clarke gets bored playing games on her phone. Her entire body screams with exhaustion but her mind is still running too hard for sleep to be an option. Lexa even gives up fiddling with her guns after a while and goes silent, but Clarke can hear her uneven breaths. There's a tension in the room that she can't quite explain but it stifles any conversation and has every nerve ending in Clarke’s body buzzing. It’s fucking miserable.
Clarke is almost relieved when she starts hearing noises from down the hall. They're muffled by the walls but she can hear heavy boots shuffling across the floors, low voices talking amongst themselves. She is relieved until she remembers the men chasing them at the museum, the sound of the guns clattering through the wall.
"Lexa," she whispers at the same time as the other girl hisses out a fuck and Clarke wonders momentarily if that's the only word in her vocabulary. Lexa grabs her arm and nearly snatches it out of the socket before Clarke can even think about what they're going to do next.
"We need to move," she whispers, already standing over Clarke with her backpack thrown over her shoulder. Clarke's eyes dart to where the canvas is tucked behind the table and instead of letting Lexa tug her towards the door, she lunges across the pull out to grab it.
"That had better be a nice fucking painting," Lexa hisses from behind her while Clarke deftly slides to her feet. She opens her mouth to rattle off the value of the artwork but Lexa is already sidled up to the door, peeking out to get a look at the hallway. "Get behind me," she demands for the second time that night and Clarke figures they can spare half a second for her to roll her eyes at Lexa's bossiness.
We're probably gonna die anyways , she thinks. May as well have a good time .
-
"Is anybody home in there? Earth to Lexa, your attention is required."
Lexa blinks. Her new companion is incredibly chatty.
The taxi cab shudders over a dip in the road and Lexa braces her hand on the vinyl seat. They've been out of the city for longer than she cares to keep track of but Clarke has been antsy ever since Lexa pulled her inside by the wrist and slipped the driver some cash with a request to just keep driving like she didn't even realize that she looked like she was channeling her inner Jason Bourne.
"You're so spacey," Clarke says, waving a hand in her direction. She’s looking out the window and she doesn't say it like an insult. Lexa doesn't think it was ever meant to be one but she rolls her eyes anyways.
"I'm focused," Lexa responds flatly. Maybe it would be more convincing if she hadn't just spent the past god knows how long thinking about Clarke ducking her behind a shelf while the men after them had stomped past. Her palm had been hot on Lexa's hip and the residual warmth is so fucking distracting.
Clarke hums and fidgets with her hands. She's impatient and Lexa can feel the anxiety rolling off of her in waves. It makes her antsy in some secondhand way. Clarke chews on her bottom lip for a while and Lexa looks past her at the window on the other side of the cab to keep from staring at it.
So fucking distracting.
"Where are we going?" Clarke finally asks and she pauses only for a moment before she continues. "Actually, what the fuck is even going on? Because don't get me wrong, I'm having a grand time on this little adventure, I just have this thing about following potential hitwomen around foreign countries where I usually like to know what I may or may not be hunted down and killed for."
She speaks quickly and animatedly, with none of the bite or callous Lexa expects to hear. There is nothing but curiosity, maybe a little confusion and excitement, lurking behind Clarke’s words and Lexa stifles an urge to smile that bubbles up out of nowhere.
"We're going to a safehouse," Lexa says simply and Clarke looks at her like that doesn't really answer any of her questions at all. "It's off the radar," she continues. "Outside the city."
Clarke snorts at that and glances out the window at the miles of absolutely fucking nothing they've been driving past for a while now. She seems unimpressed and Lexa thinks this might be the end of the conversation but then Clarke's attention is back on her and the quizzical look is back on her face without missing a beat.
"Why do we need to be off the radar, though? And why are those stomping fuckers still after us? I mean, I assume it has something to do with the stuffy asshole you almost shot, which, no judgement, he seemed like a fishy bastard." She sits back again and her foot catches on the duffel bag that Lexa stashed under the seat. Metal clacks against metal and if she blinked she would've missed Clarke's wince.
"That's partially your fault, you know," Lexa retorts matter of factly, without any bite. "Actually, it's almost entirely your fault. I could be sitting pretty on a flight home right now."
A smirk worms its sneaky little way onto her mouth and Clarke looks so fucking smug that Lexa considers kissing her just to wipe that expression off her face.
She's been considering that long before Clarke gave her that goddamn look. Whatever .
"Obviously your day needed to be spiced up a little," Clarke nudges Lexa's arm like they're old friends and settles back against her seat in a position that doesn't look very comfortable. She pulls her leg up under herself and her knee bumps against Lexa's thigh but neither of them make a move to create more space.
"This safehouse had better have a goddamn bed," Clarke mumbles, staring at the back of the driver's head like she's willing them to magically pull to a stop in front of anything other than the fields they’ve been passing for miles. The cab isn’t exactly tiny and Lexa doesn't know why Clarke doesn't slide to the other side of the backseat if she's so exhausted but for some reason she can't explain, she appreciates the blonde's nearness.
Lexa moves to pat her knee out of what can only be excused as instinct, but stops halfway and drops her hand back to her side again.
When she finally calls for the driver to stop, Clarke is mumbling nonsense in her sleep. She's leaned so close that Lexa doesn’t really want to wake her.
-
"Holy shit, Lex."
Lexa slings her bag onto the front steps as Clarke slowly makes her way from the road. The cab dropped them off somewhere in the middle of buttfuck nowhere, about two miles away from the place and Lexa had insisted they walk the rest of the way. The dirt road was seven different kinds of hell on Clarke's feet and her black dress pants are now covered in a thin layer of of dust. She's never spent so long daydreaming about a shower.
Until they made it up the hill, Clarke had all but convinced herself that Lexa was a delusional maniac and that the professed safehouse had never existed. They would be walking forever or until Clarke's legs gave out and she withered away by the side of an abandoned road somewhere in Europe.
"I told you I wasn't trying to recruit you into an obscure woodland cult," Lexa throws over her shoulder as she rifles through her bag. Clarke can barely see her past the overgrown shrubs but the brick house behind her is still impressive. It's a storybook kind of house, warm and cozy and Clarke pinches her own thigh because she's not entirely convinced she didn't pass out ten minutes back and this all isn't some dehydrated fever dream.
"You continue to astonish me," Clarke says with a tired flourish, finally making her way to stand beside Lexa. The brunette pulls a set of keys from her duffel with a triumphant smile that sends Clarke's stomach into a flutter. She blames it on the sun and the idea of things like a bath and a pillow under her head.
Lexa unlocks the door and lets Clarke inside first, stopping by the door probably to run a mental perimeter of the place and check for the hundredth time that no one is following them.
The kitchen is large and barely furnished aside from a clunky gas stove that someone probably dug up from the 1800s. There's a musty couch in the main room and an old rug on the floor that looks like something Clarke is pretty sure her grandmother had in her house.
Oh yeah. And there are candles. Everywhere .
"Lexa?"
"Yeah?"
"This isn't some elaborate House Of Wax-style scheme to kill me, is it?"
Keys clatter to the kitchen counter as Lexa rounds the corner into the main room with Clarke. She jumps a little and Lexa chuckles, it echoes in the nearly empty safehouse and the space suddenly seems warmer somehow.
"The generator cuts out a lot," Lexa says as way of explanation. She shrugs her shoulders and such a casual gesture seems foreign on her. "And I just like candlelight."
"Isn't this some kind of hazard?" Clarke runs her finger along a cluster of at least a dozen candles shoved off to the side near a toaster. There's dust on everything and Clarke can't help wondering how long it's been since Lexa has had use for this particular spot. How many others like it she may have squirreled away.
Lexa snorts. "You're alone in the middle of nowhere with a mercenary, and the candles are the red flag for you in this situation?" There's an amusement in her eyes that Clarke is growing rather fond of. Somewhere between the motel room and here they've become comfortable in this camaraderie and Clarke likes it too much to question it.
"What can I say? You're a charmer."
Clarke wanders while Lexa busies herself flipping switches on and digging lighters and matches out of drawers. She peeks in a door left ajar and the noise that leaves her when she sees the bed is probably X-rated. The whole room smells musty enough to choke her if she had the energy to pay any attention to it and the mattress looks to be from the 1950s but it's about the prettiest damn sight she's ever seen and suddenly Clarke understands how starving people can eat worms.
"Wake me if the zombie apocalypse happens," she throws over her shoulder in Lexa's general direction. "Otherwise, I'm going to slip into a minor coma for several hours."
-
Lexa wakes in the master bedroom after only a few hours of sleep. The curtains are all drawn closed but there is enough moonlight peeking its way through for her to know that it's well into the night; the stars are always bright here, tucked away from all the bustle of people and cities. It's quiet and she knows she should go back to sleep while she can, but her mind is already up and running again.
The tin of herbal tea she stashed away last time she was here is still in the drawer by the sink and she fiddles with the gas stove for a few moments to get the kettle going. All the mugs in the cabinet are caked with dust and she takes her time cleaning a handful of them, setting them out on a dish towel to dry. There are too many for just one person and Lexa bristles just slightly at the realization of how easily she accommodates for Clarke’s presence.
She’s always been skilled at adapting; that’s all it is.
The kettle whines and pulls Lexa from her thoughts. She shakes her head and goes about making her tea, intent on removing her focus from the girl passed out two doors down the hall.
Something about the men tailing them at the motel is bothering her. It's one thing to be chased out of the gala; Lexa can't count the number of security details she's seen running around wild at events like that looking for someone to tackle while their boss bleeds out on some expensive rug. That much is expected, if not guaranteed.
But tracking her to a motel the morning after, stomping in like a shitty attempt at a SWAT raid? It doesn't make any goddamn sense.
The whole situation leaves an uncomfortable itch under her skin, the kind she only gets when shit is about to go seriously, epically, stunningly sideways. She hears her boss' warnings ringing in her ears for the millionth time since she was dragged into this world of shadows and weapon silencers.
Get in. Get the job done. Get out. Don't make friends, don't let anyone see your face.
Get caught, and you're on your own.
It leaves her blood running as icily as it always has. She’s always known any slip up could end with her looking down the business end of her own rifle.
By the time Clarke shuffles into the kitchen, Lexa's tea has gotten cold. Her hands are still clasped around the mug when she snaps out of her reverie just in time to see Clarke sleepily wave at her.
"Thought you had plans to remain comatose at least until morning?" Lexa's eyes skate over Clarke's figure in the dim light as she leans against the table. She's only wearing the black button down caterer's shirt from the gala and her long legs are on full display. Lexa's focus drifts immediately and if Clarke weren't still half asleep Lexa would be entirely sure she's distracting her like this on purpose.
"Mmm," Clarke screws up her face into a sleepy version of a pained expression and draws a hand to her own stomach. "Woke up hungry," she mumbles.
Lexa points to a cabinet near the sink where she has a decent supply of non-perishables stashed away. Clarke perks up so much you'd think she just struck gold.
"If the world ever ends, remind me to track you down," she says, setting her sights on a can of chicken noodle soup and a bottle of Jack Daniels. Lexa sets herself about lighting a few of the candles around the room while Clarke makes a valiant effort to set the kitchen on fire while she struggles with the gas stove.
When she's satisfied that the soup is edibly warm, Clarke cleans two bowls from the cabinet and sets them both on the table, one in front of her and the other beside Lexa's tea. Something about the act makes Lexa feel warm in ways she doesn't feel like explaining and knows she shouldn't get used to but she seems to have adopted a mantra of fuck it these days so she lets is slide for now.
“Eat it,” Clarke says, like she has nothing better to do than make sure her new housemate doesn't go malnourished. “If you were a soul sucking vampire trying to feed off of me you surely would’ve died of hunger by now, and if we have to hike back to civilization and you pass out because you haven't eaten, I’m not carrying you.”
Lexa hums an easy laugh and let's a comfortable quiet settle over the kitchen until Clarke slides a mug half full of whiskey over to Lexa.
"Isn't four in the morning a little early for drinking?" She quips, folding her fingers around the mug as Clarke pours another for herself. "Or is it late?"
"Bite me. I'm still on American time." Clarke swallows most of the whiskey in her glass in one go. The sigh that slips out is bordering on sinful and Lexa brings her own mug to her lips to cover the way her jaw falls just slightly slack at the sound of it.
"It's 10a.m. in the States," she retorts past the burn of the alcohol. She's never been one to drink much and the warmth doesn't waste much time curling in her belly. Some part of her mind reminds her to pace herself but Lexa ignores it and throws back the rest of the whiskey anyways.
"Smartass."
Somewhere after the third time Clarke refills her mug, the two of them end up on the kitchen floor, slouched against the lower cabinets. Lexa drinks straight from the more-than-half-empty bottle and passes it back to Clarke. Their fingers tangle around the neck of the bottle for a few seconds longer than necessary and Clarke giggles quietly. It's contagious. Lexa grins and blames it on the alcohol.
"Are we safe?" Clarke slurs after a few sobering moments of quiet. Lexa turns to look at her and finds her eyes wide and glassy, locked on an imaginary point on the opposite wall. She leans towards the blonde, overshoots her own trajectory and all but falls into her side.
"I don't know," Lexa shakes her head. The room spins and so she trains her gaze on Clarke, the only anchoring point she can find for the moment. The blonde shuffles closer and Lexa feels the conviction bubbling up and out of her before she can stop it.
"I'll keep you safe. I swear on it."
Clarke nods, her eyes slipping shut while the sun finally starts to rise outside the window.
-
Clarke wakes leaned against Lexa with a cramp in her neck and the barrel of a gun to her temple.
" Fuck ."