woodslexas

[woodslexas]

Lexa was appalled at the sudden laughter, so much so that she took a half step back, head tipping, affronted. How could Octavia be laughing? Nothing about this was funny. It was intrusive and uncomfortable and too unexpected for Lexa to want to deal with. She scoffed at the behavior, having half a mind to turn on the spot and walk away. It wasn’t as if she expected to have some sort of actual conversation with the other women. That would imply a level of civility, something she had never expected from a Blake. 

“What am I doing here?” Lexa parroted, annoyed that she was being asked. What she was doing there was getting her life together. What she was doing there was once again in her life trying to put her past behind her. What she was doing was none of Octavia’s business. Though Lexa realized it was the exact question she had just put to her and she resisted the urge to snap that very response. 

“I’m...” She paused and thought about it, beyond the obvious. In truth it wasn’t just a job. On her worst nights, when she wakes in a cold sweat before the sun is up, she curses the first responders that pulled her from a mangled mess of a car first. Logically Lexa knows that she had the better chance, she was the easier access but in those dark hours she wishes it had happened a different way. The path that she set herself on was simultaneously a step toward a productive career and a desperate grab at closure she was never able to fully find. She was hoping to find understanding, or usefulness. Perhaps a chance at prevention for someone else like herself. 

She shrugged, brushing Octavia off. 

“I’m here to be professional.” Lexa asserted, trying to mean it. “If we’re... we’re going to have to work together. I’m not getting my ass flagged on any old hurt feelings so... just...” She faltered, unsure how to finish. “I need this job.” 

Old Flame

#old flame #001

[woodslexas]

Lexa forced herself not to sneer, she didn’t need the trouble. Calling on an old habit she righted her expression, letting it fall into something stony and blank. Reactionless. 

“If that were the case I would be incredibly bad at it.” She retorted, only just failing at keeping the contempt from her tone. “What has it been... six years?” It felt like a lifetime ago. That wasn’t long enough. 

Octavia was from a time in Lexa’s life she chooses to forget, it was easier that way. She blocks it out, pretends most of it didn’t happen. It was her way to deal with most things. Though the thing that Lexa never learned was that no matter how hard she turned away and how far she tried to run from anything, it always had a way of turning up again somehow. 

In Arizona it was certain songs and any time a beat up Toyota corolla of just the right shade rolled by. Lexa could turn her face, she could close her eyes against the weight in her lungs but it never kept it from catching up with her. The past was just like that. 

A Blake standing in front of her when she was putting every effort into carving out a life divided from anything familiar was proof of that. 

Just to be sure, Lexa scanned over the list again. “We are assigned the same station.” She said more to the paper than anyone else and then suddenly she was angry. Her gaze fixed to Octavia’s, hard and questioning. In another instance she may have looked the woman over, gauged how the length of time since she had last seen her had it’s affect. In her eyes, or the strength of her posture. But Lexa wasn’t interested in sizing Octavia up just yet, she had questions. 

“What are you doing here?” There, specifically in that spot, in D.C., in her life suddenly. 

Old Flame

#old flame #001 #para

[woodslexas]

Old Flame

It didn’t really count as her first day, there had been preliminary testing, fitness tests, drill tests, Lexa had been going at it for weeks. Anya kept texting her to make sure she was still alive because disappearing for weeks at a time was sort of Lexa’s specialty, especially when she was focused on a goal. So not exactly the first day but it was the day she had been waiting for, a graduation of sorts. Officially certified and receiving assignment. All the candidates that had made it through the affectionately known Fire Fighter Boot Camp were required to attend the assignment meeting, midday Lexa assumed to accommodate both the morning and night class groups. She was an early riser herself and it was no skin off her back to get to the meeting way earlier than necessary. She was the first geared and on the line, a nervous excitement coursing through her. 

In the past few years Lexa had made a lot of life altering decisions. She had to work to shake the mentality growing up in foster care and group homes gave her. She went to college, fell in love, dropped out of college, and moved clear across the country. Arizona was her own personal punishment, dry, flat, and isolated. Lexa exiled herself for two years before returned to DC, intent on making something of her life. On her return Anya, her half sister, without warning punched her straight in the face. Lexa’s rage had swelled at the action but she didn’t retaliate, she’d deserved it, she was an asshole. That’s how they squared things away, though Lexa would have rather they talk it out, a little screaming and name calling---like adults, Anya wasn’t one for words. 

A few shitty jobs and a year later she was stable enough the pursue a career, getting in the rig wasn’t the final stop on her list of goals for the future. Lexa had her eyes on captain and she was going to do everything by the book to fast track herself there in the next ten years or less. No distractions, no fucking around. That was the plan anyway, it just so happened that the universe had a way of fucking with her and no sooner had she read the familiar name Octavia Blake off her station assignment sheet, right beside her own, Lexa looked up to see a woman she hadn’t seen or thought about it years. 

The muscles in her jaw flexed and an old loathing crept its way back into her body, starting and spreading from deep in her stomach. 

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” 

[ @blakesoctavias ]

#old flame #001 #the 100 1x1

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