#in which Anya is rendered speechless

[prose-for-hire]

Face your demon

Pairing: Spike x reader

Request: Could you do A Spike x reader where the reader is in love with him, but doesn't show her emotions (except for getting easily flustered around him), but Spike overhears hears her talking to willow about it and he confronts her, ending in them being together?

Requested by: @wiccanindigo​

Requested tags: @fictionalhoomanofnowhere @artsymaddie​ @shy-ginger-in-the-graveyard​ @cameo-greaves​

​You were pretty neutral in public. Your face rarely shifted other than to a polite smile or perhaps a confused frown should the moment take you by surprise. Other than this human reaction, you would usually maintain a resting face. One that appeared to most as if you didn’t wish to be in their company. Or anywhere at all really.

You felt a lot. You really cared about your friends, the people you loved. It was just near-impossible to express this. At least, in a way that you were comfortable. It was much easier to hold people at a distance. That way, you didn’t risk rejection. Or painful, bitter emotions that you didn’t enjoy.

So, you tended to hide your emotional side completely. Rather than wrestle with articulating the way you felt. It wasn’t necessarily a conscious decision, just one that you lived with. You struggled expressing your emotions – not only on your face but also verbally. Any way, really. It could be so hard.

Luckily for you though, you had some very caring and empathetic friends. The Scoobies. They understood and gave you the time you needed – between fighting apocalypses of course.

You were sat in the Magic box with all of your friends around you. Buffy, Willow, Xander, Anya, Tara and Giles. You were characteristically just staring into the centre of the room as the usual antics played out around you.

You contributed now and again although not as passionately as the others, it must be said. You tended to bounce off of someone else’s point and repeat it if you agreed with it with a shrug. As if you would rather be anywhere but there.

You weren’t shy. In fact you came across as the complete opposite. Cool, collected. Near apathetic should your friends not understand how deeply you truly did care – you just didn’t express it as much as most. There was no need to gush in your book. You weren’t one to keep your heart on your sleeve and make the entire room look at it.

Well, that was until him.

Spike ran in, slamming the door shut behind him. It slammed so hard the entire store shook and he sauntered in as if it was nothing. It made the corners of your mouth tug into an almost-smile but you looked down to avoid anyone seeing.

There he was, your weakness. The one that could render you speechless. A flustered mess. A heat would rise in your cheeks and your voice would appear weak and just wholly unlike yourself.

You had it bad. He always did this, walking in with that swagger. Those cheekbones. That look…

His eyes were straight on you. As they always were. You were a mystery to him, one he was so desperate to figure out. You had noticed the way he always made his way to you. The way he dropped his voice and made comments about the others in the room in the hopes of you cracking a smile.

You spoke to him as much as you could, but often your words failed you. You didn’t want to give anything away. Couldn’t. You didn’t want him to tease you, reject you in such a painful way.

He was Spike, after all. He could have anyone he wanted you were sure of it.

The point was, though, that he wanted you. And you were too wrapped up in focusing on how to breath properly when he was around that you didn’t notice.

Spike found your resting face beautifully morbid. He found you to be strong-willed and the very little he sensed or heard from you he found himself clinging to. You would be stamped onto his brain for the rest of his un-life, he was sure of it.

He was in so deep. Thought about you constantly. Wanted to know what you were doing, what you were thinking. Imagined himself by your side. Taking you into his bed… oh, and I won’t even start on the dreams. They left him aching. Such deep, unending desire. For you. God, it could only ever be you.

“Alright, pet? Don’t rush to say you missed me, written on your face already” He smouldered in that way he did. Hoping for any kind of reaction.

You looked up at him before immediately looking away. A ghost of a smile on your face as you shifted in your seat. He took this as an invitation to sit beside you and so he did.

“Hi Spike” You just about managed before your voice wavered. You didn’t like the way he rendered you this flustered mess. But, at the same time you couldn’t help but completely love it.

Your usual cool demeanour gone. Lost in those beautiful eyes of his. You could happily live in his eyes for the rest of your life.

You managed to position yourself in your seat in such a way that meant he made up most of you vision, without it looking glaringly obvious to anyone else. He lived in your peripheral vision. At least this way a little part of him was yours.

You became a little brave and moved your eyes to look at him properly, no longer just from the side. He was beautiful. The way that t-shirt clung perfectly to his torso. The way his leather duster managed to land in such a relaxed way on his shoulders. Effortless cool. Or, that’s what you assumed.

You loved him. His looks. His personality. Just everything. You couldn’t escape it.

Something snapped you out of staring. Everyone’s eyes were suddenly on you. Staring.

“Huh?” You asked, feeling a heat rise in your cheeks as he turned to face you properly too. You had apparently managed to miss the entire meeting. Not one scrap of the plan had entered your head. You were consumed by him instead.

“Y/n? You sure that’s okay?”

“We’ll be fine on patrol, right love?” Spike smirked at the rest of the room and raised an eyebrow which made everyone reconsider.

“We can switch if evil dead makes you uncomfortable” Xander offered kindly which made spike glare. He wanted you to himself.

“No that’s good- uh, fine. It’s fine. I’ll patrol with Spike” you rushed out at a completely different pace than anyone was used to hearing you speak.

What you were supposed to be looking for, you didn’t know. You hadn’t been listening just focusing on regulating your breathing. Wiping the sweat from your palms at the proximity. He was sat so close to you. You wanted to just lean against him. Whisper how you felt.

You and Spike walked out into the cool night air. Mostly in silence, although you could almost hear the cogs in his mind whirring to come up with something to say. You didn’t realise but he was trying to impress you. Trying to get you to smile. He loved it when you smiled. Near melted.

He then finally asked something he had so wanted to say to you. For such a long time.

“We could, uh, blow this off, go for a drink?” He let the proposition hang in the air.

You didn’t even begin to consider this had been something more than a teasing joke because he didn’t want to be stuck patrolling anymore. Just wanted to rebel against Buffy’s sudden authority in his life.

“Yeah, because I’ve always thought you’d look great with a redwood through your chest” You spoke, referring to what Buffy would do to him should he leave you or the demon to run through the streets.

“Pet-”

“It’d make a pretty accessory. Bring out your eyes” You deadpanned and he just stared. Why were you like this? Why did your flirting so quickly descend into just being rude?

It was like a disease. You were riddled with it. Any sense that your mouth would spill the contents of your mind and something took over. Possessed you, began to say the very opposite of what you wished to say.

You wanted him to ask you out for a drink. Tell you that you looked nice, that he felt lucky to have someone like you to take out. Have on his arm. Show off. You wanted to loop your arms around him and embrace him. Kiss his lips. Have him in your bed. His body yours and only yours.

But, instead, you had just told him he would look better dead. Or, well, more dead. He had taken this as a firm no, you didn’t want to go out with him. He looked upwards, trying to stop the stinging at the back of his eyes before he nodded firmly and just shrugged.

“Whatever, let’s find this vamp”

Oh, right. It was a vampire. You were supposed to be looking for a vampire. That at least narrowed it down… kind of.

Both of you took turns in glancing at the person beside them. So desperately wishing to touch them. Have some kind of intimacy. It was hard having the one that you loved so close and yet emotionally so far away.

There was a distance. A canyon between you that you both wished to cross. But it was so hard. There would be no turning back.

You never caught up with the vampire you were meant to find and Spike walked you home instead when it got too late. You tried to thank him for the gesture but he had turned and walked away. Licking his wound at the rejection you had inflicted upon him without realising.

Despite the fact you had hurt him though, he had needed to make sure you got in safe. Protecting you from harm meant everything even if you wouldn’t give him the time of day.

It had been a couple of days since this unwitting rejection and you and Willow had arrived early waiting to meet with the others at the Magic Box. Giles had gone to pick up some order sat the back. Which left just you and your friend. Well, that’s what you thought anyway.

She was the only one that knew how you felt for Spike. She had seen you watching him, a new expression unlocked on your face. As if she had won a quest or something in a video game and been allowed to see it.

Conversation had quickly turned to this man that you were so in love with it managed to fluster even you. You near hid your face from your friend at even the implication you liked him. But you were comfortable that Willow was being supportive.

You discussed that you liked him. Truly admitted it out loud for the first time. Not realising that the man himself was stood around the corner listening. He loved to hear your voice and so had stayed back because you seemed to speak less in his company.

Spike’s jaw tensed as he heard you talking about this mystery man though. He had never heard you gush this way before. Stumbling over your words to describe such longing. You usually appeared so calm, collected. He wished to be the one that sent you weak at the knees in the way that this nameless idiot did. He guessed it was probably Xander.

Stupid bloody Xander. Gormless nit.

“Maybe, uh, you should tell him? You can’t know his feelings unless you try” Willow offered.

Spike guiltily hoped that you would have to face rejection so that he could comfort you instead. Spend more time with you, prove to you that you could trust him with your emotions. He so longed to have your attention. Your trust.

“I can’t… I-it’s too hard” You sighed and his spirits lifted, maybe this would be his chance instead. While you tried to build up your courage, he could show you how much you meant to him. How much he wanted you.

Nothing could have prepared him for what came out of your mouth next. There had been only a slight pause while you sifted through your emotions.

“He’s so- he’s… he’s Spike” You had no other description other than this spike-ness was all that you wanted. You near craved it. But also these words explained how hard it was. How trying to speak to him was near impossible. Willow nodded in understanding and patted your shoulder sympathetically.

“It could be good for you, y’know? Facing your, uh, demon…” Willow’s voice dried up. Turned into a little squeak. You looked up, confused.

There he was, as if your longing had been a magnet to the man himself. Your eyes bulged and your mouth opened in shock. The most your face had ever given away.

Willow stumbled over some excuse that neither Spike nor you heard before she left for the exit. Allowing you to both speak.

“I’m the bloke you’ve been harpin’ on about?” He said slowly. He did this only because he wanted to hear it from your mouth again. As if he wasn’t entirely sure if he had dreamed it or not.

“We don’t have to make it into a big deal… I’m sure I’ll, uh, get over it” You tried, avoiding the rejection you could feel coming.

“Don’t” He said quickly, “God, please bloody don’t get over it. You’d break a poor dead man’s heart if you did”

“What?” You asked, frowning in confusion. He couldn’t possibly feel the same way… could he?

“Don’t be daft, love. Asked you for a drink didn’t I? Trailed after you despite you not even pretending to take an interest. Been there just in the nick of time before somethin’ nasty ate you?” He reeled off things he had pretty much done in the last fourty-eight hours. It made you gasp with surprise. How had you missed this? “Tell me I haven’t bent over bloody backwards for even a shred of your affection,”

“Spike…” You looked away, it was so hard. You didn’t even know how to begin to say what you needed to.

“Please, don’t shy away. Can’t stand it when your eyes wander…”

“Spike, I…” He took your hand, nodding subtly to show that he was there. That he liked you, that he needed to hear it. Whatever it may be, “I love you”

Spike pulled you into him immediately, knowing this must have bee hard for you. He was beginning to understand. You were like him, petrified of the rejection. The idea that the one that held such promise and stirred such feeling could ruin everything. You restored his faith in love. Rekindled his affections for the notion as well as confirming that he loved you too.

He crashed his lips to yours, his reply to your words communicated in this way. And you understood completely. Lips moving against yours, a display of affection only for you. he was firm in his love but so very tender. He embraced you close, a hand along the small of your back that made you shiver and lean further into him. Deepening this perfect kiss.

You parted, somewhat reluctantly and just gazed at the other for a moment before he spoke.

“I’m just glad you don’t have eyes for the whelp” Spike grinned and it made your face brighten. A smile. One that he savoured as you rolled your eyes at him being so pleased you liked him more than Xander.

He took your hand in his and sauntered beside you. Chest puffed out and proud to have you by his side. As if you had just gifted him the entire world.

Now you just had to break it to your friends. There was no way you would be hiding this.

#Spike btvs #Spike x reader #Spike imagine #Spike x you #Spike #btvs #btvs x reader #btvs imagine #btvs x you #Buffy The Vampire Slayer #buffy the vampire slayer imagines #spike fic #buffyverse #btvs fic #x reader #gn #gender neutral reader #gender not mentioned

[resurrectionoftheprincess-blog]

a golden rose, emitting a soft glow && gentle scent. as if nature could create something this beautiful. though here it was a token from the new order's right hand to one of it's many pillars.

                            Blue eyes brighten at the sight, awe overtaking and rendering her speechless. Yes, this was indeed the Consultant to Death, however, something so, beautiful. How could death be so?

                  Voice was robbed of her, soft glow, mere sight alone enchanting the young meister. Anya tries her best to speak, to say something, it was rude to say nothing. Yet even as she moved her mouth, nothing came through. She had not seen anything like this, even within her own home, where such things could be summoned on a whim,

                           Nothing like this, however. Nothing that so completely garnered her attention. Finally, after moments of stunned stupor, Anya regains herself.

                               “It is...so beautiful.” Anya had no doubts, such a golden rose could never be grown by her own hands. Or anyone else’s for that thought.

                    It was a humbling thought, and, she couldn’t even bring herself to be jealous of that. It was simply too much so, for anyone else to ever grow, she was certain of it.

#creatordeath #{ V: NOT Settled } #in which Anya is rendered speechless #she'll be embarassed over it later I'm sure #xD

[truthofherdreams]

people can surprise you (or not)

Wednesday (2)

also on ao3

“They know your English isn’t so good, but they don’t mind at all,” Lily is in the middle of explaining him, before she takes another sip of champagne. “It’s a French publication anyway, so you will be fine.”

“My English is nonexistent,” he can’t help but state. As thrilling as this job opportunity in London is, especially offered on such a silver platter, anxiety still gnaws at his stomach. All his life, he has only known Russia and France, and the idea of moving to a new country, even to escape the nightmare that is BuzzClick, makes him nervous. But if Lily believes in him, enough to recommend him for the job, it must be before he’s qualified for it, right?

“No better way to learn the language then.”

He’s about to tell her it’s not that easy, when someone drapes themselves all over the older woman. It takes a long second for Dmitry to recognise the light brown hair as belonging to Maria and, by that time, she kisses Lily soundly on the cheek.

“Well hello, my darling,” Lily cooes. Actually cooes, instead of the usual sarcastic tinge to her voice. That’s new. “How are you doing?”

“Fine,” Maria answers as she steps away, only to wrap both her arms around Lily’s. She spares Dmitry a quick, polite smile, before she adds, “Lucie and I are planning on sneaking out in five minutes but don’t tell anyone.”

Lily’s grin is nothing short of mischievous. “Oh, to be young and in love…” She stops, before she adds, “Which reminds me! How is that little bet of yours going?”

Maria visibly tenses, her body going stiff for half a second, before she throws Dmitry a worried glance. He frowns at her, but she’s already looking back at Lily, bottom lip caught between her teeth. When she replies, it’s in such a flat tone that dread immediately rises up Dmitry’s throat. “Nastya won, actually.”

“Really?” Lily replies, a little too loud. “Our Nastya? Still dating someone a week later?”

Another glance from Maria, but Dmitry barely registers it. Something is ringing in his ears, loud, painful. Something…

Lily perks up as she looks above his shoulder. “Nastya, darling! We we just talking about…”

“You sick son of a bitch!”

The slap echoes even above the sound of music and chatter. Maria gasps loudly, and Lily is rendered speechless, but Dmitry doesn’t notice them. All he sees is the fire, and pain, and fury in Anya’s blue eyes, all he feels is the pain in his cheeks and his own heart in his throat. He chokes on whichever words are trying to escape his lips, speechless, brainless.

All around them, people are staring. Whispering. Guessing.

He doesn’t care; he can only stare at her, can only witness the tears pooling in her eyes, her body so tense she starts trembling. He did that too her. He’s doing that to her. This is all his fault. He knew from the first day, he knew this would happen, and this is all his fault and still he did nothing to prevent it.

“Nastya…” he starts in a broken whisper.

She raises her hand again; he flinches.

That is when Olga jumps in, seemingly from nowhere. She grabs Anya’s elbow, and whispers “Not here,” into her ear, with a pointed look at the curious crowd around them. Even Maria is left speechless, or she would surely be helping her little sister to destroy Dmitry.

“I don’t give a fuck about…”

“Nana does. I do. You’re making a scene. Do it outside.” She pushes Anya toward the entrance doors, with an insistent nod. Anya protest a little, so Olga repeats a little more firmly, “Outside. Now.”

Anya finally obeys, gathering the skirt of her dress to make a quick exit. Dmitry makes for following her when a sharp finger against his chest stops him. His eyes are wide and panicky when he looks up into Olga’s, stern and serious. “Whatever it is, you fix it,” she tells him.

“Gosh, yeah. Fuck.”

“Indeed.” He’s already running outside when he vaguely hears Olga says, “No, Maria, you stay here.”

Perhaps it is indeed better to suffer the wrath of only one Romanov woman for now. He will barely survive it as it is, he doesn’t need her sister to gang up and finish him in a matter of minutes.

He finds Anya outside, struggling to walk down the stairs leading from the hotel to the street. Her heels are slowing her down, the only reason why Dmitry manages to catch up with her before she has time to hail a cab and disappear into the night.

“Anya,” he calls after her, and grabs her elbow.

She snatches it away from him and turns around. The intensity of her glare makes him flinch, but not as much as the tears freely rolling down her cheeks now. How can he comfort her, when he is the one bringing her pain? When he shouldn’t even be allowed in her presence, after what he’s done?

“You used me,” she seethes. “You used me and you lied about it, and I was stupid enough to fall for it.”

“Oh, because you entered this relationship without any motives, did you?” he can’t help but shot back. She opens her mouth in a wordless expression of surprise, and he takes it as his opportunity to climb down the last two steps that still separate them, and to move into her personal space. “Tell me, Anastasia, how much did you earn, parading me around tonight?”

Her lips move of their own, silently, before she finds hers words again. “Nothing.” It startles him as much as the slap did. Her voice is small and broken, her eyes red, her cheeks soaked with tears. “It was just a silly game. It didn’t mean anything.”

“So why didn’t you tell me?”

His voice is low, dangerous. He has no right acting the way he does, when his actions were so much worse than hers, when he hurt her so much more. But he is angry, mostly at himself, and he has never been known to be level-headed. He needs to snap, if only to let go of all the emotions boiling under his skin.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were using me?” she argues back. “Because that was the big thing you couldn’t explain, right? So what, Dmitry? You were going to explain everything once your stupid article was published and hope for the best? That was your plan?”

She’s working herself up, red in the face and her voice grows louder. Dmitry’s hands rise to cup her face and calm her down, but she only slaps them away and glares at him some more. He wonders if this feeling in his chest, this tightening grip around his heart that almost leaves him breathless and panting and light-headed… Is that what it feels like, when you break your own heart?

“Anya…” he tries again, uselessly. He deserves her anger, her scorn. “Anya, please…”

“You’re such an asshole!” The sentence starts angry but ends with her voice cracking into a sob, before she bites down on her bottom lip and looks away. Tears are falling down her face again, and she shakes her head with a small, pathetic laugh. “I can’t believe I fell for it.”

He moves closer to her once more, in a pitiful attempt at grabbing her hand again, but of course she pushes him away once more. The motion of her arm, jerking and stiff, barely conceals the fact that her entire body is trembling, from her limbs to the bottom lip still caught between her teeth. Dmitry has never felt more like the kind of guy who reads his articles before going back to Reddit.

“Anya, listen…”

“Listen what?” she snaps against, and moves back into his space so she can slap his chest and push him away. “That I was a pawn in that scheme of yours? That you made me feel I matter to you just for some bullshit article? I was stupid and naive when I met you, but I never was that dishonest!”

He looks away as he takes a deep breath, finger carding through his hair, but the fire under his skin doesn’t fizzle out. Quite the contrary, and he offers her such a murderous glare in return that she can only take a step back in shock. “Don’t talk to me about honesty when you only were interested in me for a fucking bet with your sister! How old are you, six?”

“You think I’d introduce you to my entire family if it was only a bet?”

“I don’t know, Anya. Seems like we both need to reevaluate a lot of things, don’t we?”

It doesn’t leave her speechless as much as it creates a much needed pause in their fight. Or, well, a pause, at least. Because the more silence stretches between them, seconds ticking by without one of them speaking up, the more Dmitry accepts the only conclusion to this story. The one he has been dreading for days now, looming over his head like his own, fucked-up sword of Damocles.

Anya’s hand rises up to grab her elbow, all of her fury and will to fight gone. She looks small and vulnerable, shielding herself away from him, still shivering. She looks so delicate, breakable, lost. All because of him. All his fault.

“You used me,” she says again, in a whisper so low he wouldn’t have heard her were they not so close to each other. “Your big talks about how much you hate your job, but you’re not any better. You’re just like them. You used me, and I hate you for it. I wish we’d never met.”

He opens his mouth, but his heart is in his throat, blocking the words. It’s only when he tries to breathe, and chokes on a sob, that he notices the fat, warm tears on his cheeks, the shiver of his lips, how taut the muscles in his fingers are, to the point of hurting. Still, when she takes a few step backward and away from him, he contracts his entire body to force himself not to move. It’s better that way, he reminds himself. She’s better off without him anyway. He shouldn’t have even tried in the first place; girls like her, they’re not supposed to date losers like him. She deserves better. She deserves the world.

Maybe it would make it easier, if she’d told him it was over. Oh, it’s obvious enough, but hearing it out loud would have made it permanent, immutable. A finality, the foregone conclusion to a week of heaven and hell. But she doesn’t say anything, and turns around, before she disappears around a corner.

And him, the damn fool, stays rooted on the spot. Even when Maria, who must have been spying on them from inside, calls her name and runs after her, Alexei at her heels. Even when Olga is soon to follow, slowed down by her high heels. Even when Tatiana stops in front of him. He stays rooted on the spot, staring at the emptiness where Anya was, only a minute before. In front of him. At his side. But no more.

Tatiana’s eyes are as cold as the winters of Siberia when they land on him. Dmitry’s mind is too dumb for him to flinch away, to cower and protect himself. “Don’t ever come near her again,” she tells him, the threaning edge to her voice just enough for Dmitry not to want to fight back.

Why, anyway? It’s not as if he could fix anything at this point, anyway. Better go home to lick his wounds, and hope Anya will one day find her happiness away from him. She deserves it, even if he doesn’t. She deserves to be happy; he deserves what he got.

“Don’t worry about it,” he replies.

Better go home to lick his wounds.

So he does.

#dimya #dimya fanfiction #anastasia the musical #fanfic #ff: anastasia #ff: people can surprise you (or not) #IGNORE ME I JUST DELETED THE ORIGINAL POST LIKE A MORON

[almostafantasia]

the golden rules of college

Clexa Week Day 2 - Roommates

Don’t date your roommate.

Don’t have sex with you roommate.

Don’t masturbate when your roommate could walk in at any moment.

In which Lexa is a small flustered gay and all Clarke wants is to get herself off without being disturbed. And then the roommate situation ascends to an entirely new level…

Read on AO3.

When Lexa returns to her dorm after a busy morning of classes to collect something that she forgot to bring with her when she left in a hurry this morning, she knows to expect that Clarke will probably be in their shared room, perhaps working on her laptop on her bed, or sketching at her desk. What she does not expect to find, is that Clarke is on her bed with her back arched, her hand down the front of her pants, and her mouth forming a perfect circle as she gasps out her pleasure.

“Oh fuck!”

They both say the words at the same time, except that while Lexa’s is an ‘oh fuck, I’ve just walked in on my roommate in the middle of an orgasm’, Clarke’s ‘oh fuck’ is soft and breathy and deliciously sinful.

Lexa’s ‘oh fuck’ is accompanied by wide eyes that cannot stop staring and a paralysis that grips her entire body as she stands frozen in the doorway, because while Clarke is still fully clothed and Lexa can’t really see anything, the hand down the front of Clarke’s pants is moving visibly and Lexa can see everything.

Clarke’s ‘oh fuck’ is quickly followed by a second profanity as she realises that she is no longer alone in the room, and she flails around to crawl underneath her duvet, despite there being nothing to cover up.

Lexa remains frozen by the door, her eyes and mouth both comically wide as her brain attempts to process what she’s just witnessed.

“Lexa, what the fuck?” Clarke yells. “You never come back before five on a Friday!”

At Clarke’s words, Lexa snaps out of her trance, only to notice that Clarke’s hair is mussed and her cheeks are heavily flushed.

(She tries not to ponder too deeply on whether the colour comes from her embarrassment, or if her cheeks had already been a little red before Lexa burst into the room. She fails, obviously.)

“I…” Lexa’s eyebrows furrow together as she gestures vaguely at her side of the room, the happenings of the last thirty seconds having taken her so much by surprise that she has a little trouble recalling why she decided to return to her dorm in the first place, instead of heading to the library as she normally does on a Friday after her morning classes finish. “I have a deadline but I accidentally left my essay here.”

Making as little eye contact with Clarke as she can, Lexa stumbles across their room to her desk, grabbing a stack of paper that she knows has her essay in it somewhere and, not bothering to look through it to get rid of the sheets that she doesn’t need, stuffs the whole lot haphazardly into the bag hanging from her shoulder.

She leaves the room in a rush without a word, nor another glance back at Clarke.

With the memories of Clarke getting herself off permanently burned into the front of her mind, Lexa doesn’t return to her dorm room for two whole days, instead spending the weekend crashing on Anya’s floor. Anya, thankfully, doesn’t push for an answer as to why Lexa has temporarily moved out of her own bedroom, nor does she hurry Lexa into returning to her dorm.

But Sunday evening rolls around and Lexa knows that she has to go back at some point, and she can’t keep wearing the same pair of jeans for too much longer without completely disgracing herself and her usually impeccable hygiene routine.

Clarke seems surprised to see Lexa, and as Lexa crosses the threshold into the bedroom that somehow doesn’t really feel like hers anymore, she’s hit with the memories of what happened the last time she walked through this door. She wonders if she’s perhaps made the wrong decision by coming home. Maybe Lexa would have been better off going straight to the RA and asking for a room transfer to save her having to face Clarke again after seeing what she did.

Clarke starts speaking at once, a fumbling apology that Lexa knew to expect yet somehow didn’t think to prepare a response to.

“I’m sorry about…”

“It’s fine,” Lexa cuts Clarke off, dropping her bag down onto the floor at the foot of her bed and immediately going over to her closet as an excuse to have her back to Clarke. “We don’t need to talk about it.”

It takes almost three minutes of uncomfortable silence for Lexa to realise that actually, maybe they do need to talk about it.

“I get it,” she blurts out suddenly, disturbing the stillness of the room and causing Clarke’s head to snap up at her words. “You’ve got urges. There’s nothing wrong with it. Everybody does it. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I’m not ashamed of it,” Clarke says indignantly. “I’m just worried that I’ve made you feel uncomfortable.”

“I’m not uncomfortable!” Lexa practically squeaks.

“Sure,” Clarke says, with a disbelieving tone.

“I’m not,” Lexa insists, shutting her closet door and walking over to her bed to take a seat near the pillows, her legs crossed underneath her. “I … I just wasn’t expecting it.”

“I wasn’t expecting you to come home early,” Clarke admits, and when Lexa finally looks up at her for the first time since entering the room, she notices the dusting of pink on Clarke’s cheeks, much paler than the flush that had crossed her face when Lexa had interrupted her alone time.

(The very fact that this is the first thing that registers in Lexa’s mind has a blush passing across Lexa’s own face.)

“Obviously,” mumbles Lexa.

“Are we still cool?” Clarke asks, a hopeful expression on her face.

Lexa hesitates before answering, letting out a long breath and closing her eyes, before finally replying, “Yeah, we’re cool.”

They are anything but cool.

Things don’t go back to normal, and Lexa thinks that the problem is that she can no longer remember what normal feels like. Not when the only thing that she can think about whenever she looks at Clarke is the whine of pleasure that she lets out when she came, or the visual of Clarke’s hand moving rapidly up and down within the confines of her pants.

They barely speak to each other – Lexa’s efforts to remain out of the room whenever she knows that Clarke will be home are a big part of that, but even when they are both present, there are hardly any words spoken between them. The air in the room is always thick with some kind of unresolved tension, and Lexa isn’t quite sure what can be done to get rid of it.

Or if anything can be done at all to get rid of it.

It’s Clarke who comes up with the solution. And it’s a solution that, in hindsight, is probably the best thing to ever happen to Lexa, though she never would have even thought about suggesting it herself.

It happens when they’re both silently working on their respective sides of the bedroom. Lexa is one and a half pages into a four page report, diligently working her way through her highlighted notes from class, when she hears the heavy sigh come from Clarke’s side of the room.

“I’m sick of this.”

Turning around in her chair to look at her roommate, Lexa finds that Clarke is staring right back at her, a disconcerted frown on her face.

“Sick of what?” Lexa asks, feeling the way that her heart starts pounding slightly harder in her chest in anxiety for no apparent reason.

“Sick of this.” Clarke gestures between them as if it is supposed to answer Lexa’s question. When Lexa’s expression remains blank, Clarke lets out another sigh and elaborates, “Things have been weird ever since you walked in on me…”

She doesn’t finish the sentence. She doesn’t need to finish the sentence and Lexa is rather grateful that she doesn’t.

“Yeah, well…” Lexa starts, then abruptly stops and closes her mouth when she realises that she can’t actually find any words to say on the matter. Apparently Clarke isn’t the only one having trouble finishing her sentences.

“Look, I know that it’s my fault. But you’re not making it any easier.”

Lexa’s eyebrows dip into a frown and she opens her mouth to protest, but before she can get the words out, Clarke has started speaking again.

“I think I could possibly have dealt with this situation a little better if I hadn’t been on the verge of asking you out when it happened.”

Anything that Lexa might have been about to say drops from her tongue when she hears Clarke’s words. She’s only been rendered completely speechless once in her life before – walking in on your roommate masturbating tends to do that to a person – but never has she been reduced to the point where her brain stops functioning completely.

“I … what?” she chokes out.

“I am insanely attracted to you,” Clarke continues to ramble, apparently unaware of Lexa’s current lack of cognitive functions. “I mean, look at you. Who wouldn’t be? And yes, before you start, I know it’s like the golden rule of college that you should never date your roommate but I was just about to say fuck that and ask you out anyway when you just had to walk in on me getting myself off. You fucked it all up!”

“I fucked it all up?” Lexa questions, finally regaining her voice and at least a little part of her brain back. And then she registers everything else that Clarke has said, and realises that perhaps she’s focusing on entirely the wrong thing. “Wait, you think I’m attractive?”

“Yes!” Clarke insists, rolling her eyes as if to say ‘well obviously’.  “And if you’d only come back a few minutes later then you wouldn’t have seen anything and I wouldn’t have spent the last couple of weeks dying inside at the knowledge that the girl I’ve got a massive fucking crush on has seen me mid-orgasm!”

Crush. Lexa says the word over and over again in her mind, as if repetition will make the entire situation a little less surreal, and then remembers how she’s spent the last couple of weeks. Which is to say that she’s been agonisingly torn between wanting to wipe the memory from her mind completely, and desperately hoping each time that she returns to their room that she might walk in on Clarke doing the same thing again.

“What if I’ve been dying inside too?” Lexa says slowly. “What if I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you – about what I saw?” Feeling a moment of bravery inspired by Clarke’s own confession, Lexa adds shakily, “What if I’ve been hoping to see it again but under different circumstances?”

It’s Clarke’s turn to be dumfounded into silence. She just stares at Clarke, the only sign that she’s actually heard what Lexa has said is that way that her eyes gradually widen and her mouth drops open.

“What if,” Lexa continues, when Clarke says nothing, “I were to ask you out? What would happen then?”

“It depends,” answers Clarke, her voice dry and croaky.

“On what?”

Lexa thinks she might be about to pass out in anticipation of Clarke’s next words. Either from cardiac arrest or from lack of oxygen. Whichever one happens first. It feels a little bit like all of her vital organs are going to stop working in favour of contorting into a twisted mess deep inside her chest.

“On whether this is all just hypothetical or if you’re actually going to follow through.”

Her heart thudding against her ribcage so loud and fast that Lexa is pretty sure that Clarke will be able to hear it from her side of the room, Lexa says, “Clarke Griffin, will you go on a date with me?”

Clarke is nodding before Lexa has even finished asking the question.

“Yes. Yes, I will.”

The flood of relief that washes over Lexa’s body feels a lot like slowly sinking into a piping hot bath, warming her right to her bones and filling her with a pleasant haze.

“How does tonight sound?” Lexa asks, hoping that her voice doesn’t come across as too eager and then realising that the twist that this conversation has taken means that she really doesn’t care at all. “Dinner?”

“Dinner tonight sounds perfect.”

“Great.”

“Awesome.”

They hold each other’s gaze for just a second too long, then both glance away at the same time with flushed cheeks and stifled giggles as if they are middle schoolers passing ridiculous love notes in class instead of college freshmen, one of whom has seen the other in quite a compromising position.

Lexa turns her attention back to the work spread out across her desk but it’s the last thing on her mind. She can’t stop smiling to herself at the progression of events – at how she’s gone from not even being able to look Clarke in the eye or think about her without blushing profusely to scoring a date with her. It’s not at all how she thought her evening would go when she took her books out of her bag earlier to settle down for an evening of work.

And her mind – Lexa really hates her mind for doing this, but she also kind of really loves it – immediately jumps back to the memories of how this all started, and now she definitely isn’t going to be concentrating on her work any time soon.

Turning around in her chair once more, Lexa ignores the pounding of her heart and speaks as casually as though she is discussing the weather.

“I just thought I would let you know that it’s taking all the restraint I can muster to wait until after dinner before asking for a repeat performance of what I walked in on.”

They don’t make it to dinner that night.

#clexaweek2017 #clexa #clexa fanfic #clarke griffin #commander lexa