Chapter Text
It could’ve been real. It felt so fucking real.
Lexa’s insomnia hollowed eyes, shadows glowing purple by the dim light of her cigarette. Lips a sister shade from careless wine bottle pulls. Finger tips chilled blue, as they released the dampened filter hung limply from glistening enamel.
And then it flittered to the ground, tamped out by round toed, well loved Chelsea boot. The smoke hung between them like a veil, giving them one last chance to pull away. To change their minds. But it was too late for that.
Lexa urged Clarke through it. First by knotted fingers, now free from nicotine obligation. Then by hands finding jaw bone and unbound curls. She was soft and still, but there was a fierceness to her wanting that Clarke wasn’t ready to disregard.
Because Lexa wanting her in this way, with eyes on her lips, and fingers in her hair, and breath buzzing against her cheeks, was different. Was lawless and crooked in just the right way. Disruptive enough to make Clarke wonder if it was really disruptive at all. If the moment before the kiss could really feel this wrongfully right.
And when they finally gave in to the tension still clinging to the last cloud of silver smoke, Clarke was certain she had never wanted anything more. Nicotine buzz roiling off Lexa’s breath, right into Clarke’s bloodstream. Her fingers tightening, nose puffing out invigorated exhales. Knees bumping, chests colliding, hips meeting. This was a high Clarke couldn’t manufacture if she tried.
And boy had she tried. In the bed of Finn’s beater truck wrapped in patchwork quilt and benign innocence. At the other end of Bellamy’s spin the bottle turn, egged on by every voice in that room except the one in her head. Under the bleachers after a football game, Niylah’s lips sickeningly sweet from peach schnapps and Arizona iced tea chasers.
She had lost herself in all the trying.
And right when she thought she finally had it all, between her teeth, settled in her hands, buried in her chest, she woke up.
She woke up to Lexa pressed into her back, arms wrapped around a Taco Bell bag, puffing out stale cigarette breath and the remanence of a cinnamon Altoid.
Because in all the ways it felt so real, it could only ever be a dream. Lexa got wasted. Lexa called her to take her home. Lexa cried on her shoulder as she drunkenly side stepped crucial details in the retelling of a fight she had with Costia. She begged Clarke for a cheesy Gordita crunch. She begged Clarke to let her stay the night in her bed, no matter how much Costia hated that, because she couldn’t be alone. She didn’t beg Clarke to hold her hair back as she ducked her head in the toilet bowl. She didn’t need to, because she knew Clarke would always be there to do it anyway. She begged Clarke to love her in all the ways Clarke was capable of loving her, except in the way Clarke really wanted to.
It could’ve been real, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t because Lexa didn’t want her like that. Could never want her like that. She wanted Costia. And Clarke wanted to go back to sleep. To dream of all the wanting she wasn’t allowed to have.
It felt so fucking real.