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butmakeitgayblog · 4 months

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I think I speak for everyone when I say the answer to “Y'all want a lil snippet? 👀” will ALWAYS be HELL YES WE DO! No matter which story.

That's cuz you guys are sweet 🥰

Ok, it's only mildly edited and also my first attempt at canon. So, please lmk what you think, but be gentle 🥺 👉👈

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A tap against the door barely breaks the silence of the night for how soft it is. The sound makes Clarke's stomach swoop with elation and a wonderful sense of dread as the hairs on her arms rise on end. Instinct has her grabbing up her knife and resting a hand on the pistol at her hip again. She slips away from the table, back to the very edge of the shadows, prepared to sink further into the darkness that cloaks the farthest corners depending on what comes through the door that eases open.

Her own heartbeat pops like gunshots as Clarke holds her breath, watching. Waiting. But the fingers that wrap around the wood have her sighing in instant relief.

She knows those fingers intimately.

The hinges whine in protest at being shaken yet again from their slumber after such a good long sleep. Still, they obey, and twist enough to allow a head of intricate braids to ease past. Clarke's heart jumps to her throat when the head turns and surveys the candlelit room, eyes as dark as the kohl mask that surrounds them sweeping from one corner to the next, before landing squarely on her.

A flurry of emotions wash through Clarke at the silent stare that seems to stretch far past dawn. It feels as though days pass in the static silence that hangs between them in the cramped space of the room, despite it surely only being a handful of seconds. It is The Commander who breaks the moment and slips the rest of the way inside, of that there is no doubt. Her shoulder guard, sword, and dagger strapped to a lean thigh scrape against the wood as she squeezes herself in through the gap - all the trappings that mark this meeting as purely business.

Clarke's heart sinks.

The door shuts with a thump that echoes in Clarke's ears long after it's settled in its frame. The sight of her causes some piece of Clarke to uncoil in violent release of breath, like a spring let loose from its point of tension just to wobble and fall riotously still. Dark eyes stare at her in silence. Reminding Clarke so vividly of her first weeks here on the ground. Their depths carry the memories of alliances born and broken in the deathly quiet of night. Of trust found and lost, of promises made and broken, back when she'd gone toe to toe with the foreboding commander of the blood and somehow lived to tell about it.

The glittering pools of those eyes seem endless against the burnished amber of the room's candle light. But… Despite looking every bit as menacing as she had in those early days before Clarke had seen the girl beneath the warrior, Clarke can't help seeing the tenderness she knows is patiently waiting underneath. She can see it in the way her throat flexes with a swallow as Lexa takes another step into the room.

"You came."

The hand holding her knife drops back down to her side as Clarke lets out a whisper of a laugh. “Of course I did.”

The thought of anything else twists like snakes in the pit of Clarke's stomach. The question that laces the words feeling almost like a slap to the face. Lexa had asked her to meet here. After so many weeks of one-way messages being delivered and left unanswered, the slip of scroll with a crudely sketched map next to a date and time had felt like a lifeline. After everything, in what alternate timeline would Clarke have entertained being anywhere else?

Lexa's eyes scan her face, trace her shoulders, fall to her feet and back up. “You're well?”

Horrible, unimaginable thoughts race through Clarke's mind. Thoughts of crying, of collapsing in a relieved, exhausted heap at the Heda's feet. Thoughts of crossing the room and flinging herself against the commander's chest just to feel the strength of those arms cradle her close and make things simpler again. It's a humiliating collection of scenes that play through Clarke's head in the seconds that they stand there simply watching each other. Neither moving. Neither breaching the chasm that divides them.

All Clarke does is lean heavier against the wall behind her. “Yes, Lexa. I'm, I'm fine… You?”

Lexa's chin dips in the mere suggestion of a nod instead of answering, but Clarke hopes that she is reading the lines that flex along the edges of her eyes for what they are: a chip in the armor. A crack in the facade. An acknowledgment that, maybe, Lexa had been as nervous for this meeting as her.

Whatever the emotion is, it's gone as quickly as it came, because it's all business when Lexa draws herself up a moment later. Her body falls into its second-nature stance of a queen ruling from the steps of her throne. Even in the absence of her halo of antler horns, the effect is just as striking.

Lexa's hands tuck neatly together at the front and her shoulders set, she nods toward the table between them. “Your last correspondence suggested you have news?”

The tap-clunk, tap-clunk of Heda's boots against the neglect-brittled flooring as she steps to the table is enough to startle Clarke from her staring. Apparently the time for pleasantries was over. She loops her way around to stand beside the commander as Lexa takes in her every move with that cool, detached gaze she seems to have down to a science.

It's unnerving. No, she thinks. Not unnerving. Rather it's… Disarming. Penetrating in how it cuts Clarke down to the bone. That constant sensation of Lexa's eyes on her, taking in Clarke's every minute act and twitch of her face as she upturns the rest of the contents of her bag into a pile on the table. She'd forgotten the exact flush that inches up her neck whenever she feels that weighted stare on her.

In a crowded council meeting, across a village bustling with life. Far too often than is strictly necessary: exactly three damn inches from her own face. In the beginning, Clarke had wondered if such blatant disregard for personal space was simply a Woods clan quirk. But in the preceding months on the ground she's learned that lapse in skaikru etiquette is most definitely just a, ‘Lexa Thing’.

But whatever the distance or cause, Clarke finds herself entirely too aware of herself whenever Lexa's eyes land on her. Which does nothing to help steady her hand as she lays out the newer sketches of Arkadia she'd painstakingly prepared in the days prior. Nor does it make her find the specific page she'd marked in her journal any faster. Flashing past sketches of hands draped across furs, collarbones bruised by fervent lips, past drawings of tattoos committed to memory put down on paper without pause.

“So, things are… progressing,” Clarke says more to buy her time than anything. She sets the journal down and slides the nearest candle closer to better read the script of her own writing. Lexa leans her hands on the table next to Clarke's as she looks over the pages. Clarke only lets her eyes dash to the inch of space between them before continuing on. “The, um, the first month was basically a lost cause because I was stuck in solitary—”

“Your messenger informed me,” Lexa interjects in an expelled breath, tight lipped in its delivery, but adding nothing more.

Clarke nods to that, knowing she herself had been the one who made sure the information was delivered. Because three nights into her confined stay at “home” had been all it took for Lexa's, admittedly dramatic, words of ‘You've been living with their enemy. If it were me, I would kill you on the spot’ to begin ringing continuously in her ears. Knowing her own tendencies to always brace for the worse, the decision had been easy. With little more than a scrap of napkin and chip of charcoal from the remnants of her drawing set, Clarke had sent word with Octavia - the only one she trusted to wriggle her way in and out of Ark without detection - to pass the whereabouts of her status along.

Still, Clarke rolls her eyes for good measure.

“Right. And, as you also know,” she says with a pointed edge to her words, “these last few months have been… difficult. But I'm making ground.”

It feels like a race against the clock explaining what she's been doing the past few months since they parted ways - convey in carefully selected tidbits of information how the days trickle by only inches or miles. Nothing in between. It sounds feeble to her own ears, the lack of tangible progress to show the commander undoubtedly growing impatient with the ever troublesome Skaikru, but Clarke barrels on with each lack of response from Lexa whenever she dares to pause for breath. Doesn't give the Heda time to point out the finer points of her lackluster coup, thus far.

She leaves out any glimpses into her days that her better judgment tells her to keep hidden. Ones that allude to exactly how precarious the situation is behind the Ark's heavily gated walls. Like the fact that she had to run for her life the second she crossed the skaikru boundary - that sneaking past the commander's own kill-order guard wasn't the thing that had spiked her adrenaline, but rather the trigger happy guards set to walk the parameter. The ones collared with a kill order of their own.

Every glance at the commander leaves Clarke grasping for another sentence. Something more to prove that this time hasn't passed in vain. But it all feels empty under the scrutiny of the woman standing at attention beside her, not a twitch of muscle or bend of brow giving any of the Heda's thoughts away.

She's just staring. In that arresting way only Lexa seems able to do. Eyes a midnight slate wiped clean of emotion, brittle in their vacuum of light - iris and pupil so cloaked in the shadow of her war paint it's hard to discern between the two.

A near quarter mark of the candle burns in rifts of her fumbling vibrato and drops of spilled oily wax, when the air becomes more stifling at Lexa's sudden shift closer. Near enough Clarke can feel her body heat slice clean through the cold. “I'll admit, at times it's like pulling teeth. Everything is always two steps forward, one step back with them. But I promise, Lexa, my people— Our people, they're getting restless with—”

“Have you slept?”

The question lands like a punch just below the ribs, the softness of Lexa's voice feeling almost violent as it slices through the ringing in Clarke's ears. It cuts her off as effectively as clamping in vice grip around her throat. The skim of a glove-clad knuckle against her cheek makes her sway. She'd almost forgotten such tenderness actually existed in this world.

Her eyes flutter closed and she leans into the touch without a thought. The table wobbles under Clarke's hands as she gives up the fight and sags her weight onto her palms. She opens her mouth to assure the commander just how fine she is despite the display, but—

“Not much,” is all Clarke can manage in the sudden exhaustion that floods her bones. “I try. When I can, but…”

The knuckle slips down to bend a delicate hook around her chin. It curls inward, turning her face with it. Eyes darkened in shadow and half-spent candlelight take their time with her, searching for everything Clarke doesn't have the energy to say. Time expands and contracts to the razor point of a knife, plunging itself into her most vital, beating organ in those few precious moments when Lexa simply holds her there. Giving her every chance to pull away.

Despite all the unanswered questions and emotions that still linger between them - doubt, mistrust, hunger, betrayal - Clarke doesn't have the words to explain why she can't make herself move even one inch away. Or… exactly how much she doesn't particularly want to.

“Clarke,” Lexa whispers in an exhale that sounds like it's been held since the day Clarke had left her standing there in her room. She is so close Clarke can measure the exact flutter of her lashes as she warms under the chilled puff from her lips. In her silence, Lexa inches closer, leaning down enough to bring her forehead to Clarke's. Barely close enough for the touch to tickle against the fine hairs of her skin, but Clarke feels its burn everywhere. “Breathe.”

Fingers fan out and smooth along her neck. The feel of them tangling in the curls that cling to her skin send a shiver down Clarke's spine. It makes her tip forward, press fuller into the steeled softened woman all but propping her up, trusting Lexa to accept even more of Clarke's burdens as her own.

“It's hard sleeping there now,” Clarke admits. It feels like a weight lifting off of her shoulders just releasing that truth into the world. But the guilt of it lingers. Because how can she explain that the stale air and metal of the Ark's inner workings that used to give her a sense of peace and safety, doesn't anymore? How can she explain that despite her duty, and her unyielding love for her people… none of it feels like home anymore? How can she explain that between the darkest hours of midnight and the breaking of every dawn, feelings of home come in memories of incense scented furs, and a breeze that winds through cracked windows of a certain tower?

Most nights she pushes the feeling away. Stares at the rust lined rivets and peeling paint of her quarters on the Ark, chastising herself for just how far she's drifted from being that girl who crashed down from the stars.

Clarke pulls back and meets the worry that lingers in Lexa's eyes with a wry smile. “The war drums beating twenty-four seven don't particularly help.”

There's something endearing about the guilt that creeps into Lexa's stare. “It's strategic.”

“I gathered as much. Is the strategy to drive everyone insane?”

Clarke finds Lexa's hand when she sighs and lets her arm drop, unwilling to break all contact just yet. Not after so many weeks apart. The shadow of Heda's eyes slant down to the touch and linger there, watching the way Clarke's hand holds hers. “Not… entirely.”

“Lexa, that really isn't—”

“I need your people to see what being part of the coalition means. And more, what breaking from it will bring,” Lexa cuts her off. The tenderness with which she laces her fingers through Clarke's is starkly at odds with the frustration that bleeds into her words. “All that most of them know is what they have heard from your chancellor, or decisions made before they were one of my clans. They take no time to see things beyond the gates of Arkadia. But now it is there. We are there so they can see the strength in our numbers. The unity in which we fight. They can see with their own eyes the safety that comes from being with us.”

It's annoying that an argument doesn't immediately spring to Clarke's mind, even as the more stubborn pieces of herself howl a tinny echo of revolt. But her exhaustion keeps her quiet. The higher reasoning within her, too. All the pieces of herself that have heard the misgivings of so many of her fellow Skaikru, and still know that what Lexa is saying is… not technically wrong.

“And the dangers of being against you,” Clarke tacks on just for the hell of it, sighing as she untangles their fingers and turns to lean back on the table. “I understand that, Lexa, I do. But I'm not entirely sure if psychological warfare is the right tactic given the circumstances.”

The shuffled thunk of Lexa's boot as she steps closer is enough to pull Clarke's gaze back to her. “While a show of strength is a factor, that is not the only goal here, Clarke. And I believe you know that.”

Again, the lack of obvious points to needle at or undermine is infuriating, because what Lexa says is true. Because the boundary of warriors that stretch off in the distance does do so much more than stand guard over the lines of the blockade.

The first flood of the kongeda infantry that had erected the initial boundary of the kill-order came in a wave of tents, fanfare, and flying coalition flags. Axes and hammers had split through the surrounding trees like warm butter to make room for large temporary settlements, each dotting the forest eye-line with the colors and symbols of the twelve clans. At every angle from the watchtower's view from the Ark, the only sight that mingled within the sea of forestry was warriors of the coalition converging in a united front. Floukru beside Sankru. Yujleda beside Ingranrona. Azgeda camped close, under guarded Trikru eyes.

It hadn't taken long for the second wave to join them. And then a third right on its heels. Even warriors from the Capitol join their ranks - faces covered in familiar streaks of warpaint, ones that Clarke had spoken to personally within the beating heart of Polis itself peppered throughout the encampments to stand vigil among the festivities. All bringing with them a level of noise that Clarke knew meant the warriors must have been given explicit orders to be as loud as humanly possible. The weeks that had followed had been nothing but an unending cacophony that surrounded Arkadia on all sides.

Each day the forest filled with the sounds of relentless training from each settled camp; the singing clash of swords and the whistled-thump of arrows, blotted only by seconds of eerie silence between rounds. But the nights. The night's were somehow even worse. A fresh hell with every setting sun. Because after full days of training, the warriors are allowed to rest at ease. Under a canopy of stars, the air swells in a clattering of music that mingles with the steady beat of the war drum. Each night the forest echoes with the roar of their laughter as the salty perfume of mead and slowly roasted meats hangs heavy in the noses of Skaikru.

Clarke understands the strategy for what it is: a mindfuck on all fronts. An unambiguous message to the village of invaders-turned-kru directly from Heda herself. A truth simply waiting to be accepted. You're either with us, or you're against us. Flourish beside us, or wither within your cage. I understand your struggles - your hunger and your fear. And while one day all of our bodies will return to salt the earth, carrying on this way only ensures that death is far, far more miserable. Either way. We're thriving.

And we are not going anywhere.

It's an effective strategy, if not polarizing in its delivery, at least as far as messaging goes. Though to be perfectly honest, at the core of Clarke’s frustration is the fact that she hadn't exactly been prepared to deal with the pain in the ass fallout of yet another political pissing match to begin the second she'd slunk back to the place she once considered home.

Lexa reaches out and picks Clarke's hands up from where they'd fallen against her lap in a sigh of utter defeat. “I'm not trying to make things more difficult for you. Our agendas are the same, Clarke. And I think, given time… they will see it too.”

“Yes, but when you called for the blockade I was expecting, like, a sentry or two. Not a thousand warriors practicing their knife skills and having nightly feasts.” If Clarke squeezes Lexa's hands back a few hundred pascals tighter than strictly necessary, the commander has the grace not to show it.

“That had been the plan. Initially. I had every intention of waiting Pike out. But then, after we… After everything…”

Clarke feels her heart wobble at the flex of Lexa's jaw. “What?”

“I felt… inclined to hurry the process along. I do want to give you time to work within your ranks, because I trust you, and I know how capable you are. But also I—” Lexa falters, then swallows. Gives the barest shake of her head, her eyes staying glued to the hands held within her own as she visibly forces herself to speak. “Selfishly, I want this conflict finished as soon as possible.”

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#macolethings #in secret au #it gets sexy shortly after this don't worry 👀#and also sweet #it's not all business let's never forget these two are hormone driven thirst monsters who are Bad at keeping things professional

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