#hewm

It was a day like any other. They woke, finished their chores in haste, and snuck away with a book tucked beneath Lexa’s arm. Spoke and laughed as they made their way to this spot, to this place that belonged to them, stole their fruit and settled against the tree, swathed in its reprieve, and spent the next hours with only Lexa’s soft voice and the occasional birdsong breaking the silence. 

"Whenever you tell me your story, it will be made up chiefly of some one great romance."

Clarke had been dozing lightly, drifting in that cherished limbo somewhere between awake and asleep, Lexa’s words guiding her like a safe harbor. 

And then her next words, spoken with uncharacteristic hesitation followed by a gruff clearing of her throat, changed everything.

“She kissed me silently.”

Clarke’s eyes had flown open. She peered down from where her head was propped on Lexa’s shoulder, her heart stuttering in her chest as she focused on the words printed on the paper moments before Lexa said them aloud.

"I am sure, Carmilla, you have been in love; that there is, at this moment, an affair of the heart going on."

"I have been in love with no one, and never shall," she whispered, "unless it should be with you."

How beautiful she looked in the moonlight!”

Lexa paused when Clarke took an audible, sharp intake of breath, and Clarke cursed herself for a moment because she didn’t want Lexa to stop. But she could feel the weight of her uncertain stare, so she tilted her head, craning back to meet her gaze, and a thrill wracked through her when their eyes met. It was a calm, breezy day, barely a cloud in the sky, but suddenly it felt as though thunder could rumble and lightning strike at any moment.

“What?” Lexa said, voice small.

“She kissed her,” Clarke said dumbly, cursing herself for her lack of wit. Her face warmed, touched with embarrassment. 

Lexa swallowed, green eyes flitting between each of Clarke’s as though searching for something. “Yes.”

Clarke paused, her heart thundering. She struggled to control her breathing. “They...they are both women, are they not?” She may not have paid as much attention to this book as she could have in favor of napping, but she was fairly certain of this. 

Lexa swallowed again, and Clarke was enchanted and besotted by the dusting of pink on her cheeks. “Yes.” 

She kissed her.

Clarke’s gaze drifted, as it was already wont to do, but typically not so openly. Lexa’s lips were full and pink and beautiful, and Clarke had felt their softness on her countless times before, however fleeting. Kisses to the top of her head, to her hand, even on occasion to her cheeks. But never on her mouth. Her body seized and burned with the ache coursing through her at the thought, the need. She realized all at once that Lexa was still staring at her, and panic struck high in her chest; she promptly dipped her head down, hiding her face in the curve of Lexa’s neck, shaking in response to the hitch of breath Lexa gave.

For a long moment they were silent, still, uncertain, until Clarke couldn’t stand the tension in the air any more. 

“Keep reading,” she whispered.

It took another moment, but Lexa did. Cleared her throat first, and quietly read out,  “Shy and strange was the look with which she quickly hid her face in my neck and hair, with tumultuous sighs, that seemed almost to sob, and pressed in mine a hand that trembled.”

Clarke’s face burned against Lexa’s skin, and Lexa’s wild curls tickled her nose. She couldn’t stop herself from pressing her trembling hand to the one Lexa had clenched in a fist atop her thigh. She could feel Lexa’s whole frame shaking against her, and without thought Clarke tipped her chin up to press what was meant to be a soothing, placating kiss to any part of Lexa she could reach; she landed on the column of Lexa’s throat, and her heart thudded at the fact that she could feel Lexa’s pulse thrumming wildly just beneath her flesh.

Lexa continued to read, her voice rough, lower than Clarke had ever heard it.

“Her soft cheek was glowing against mine. "Darling, darling," she murmured, "I live in you; and you would die for me, I love you so."

The words echoed within Clarke, rebounding in the confines of her skull, singing out a chorus in the caverns of her chest. It was instinct, the way she pressed more firmly against Lexa. The way she sought out more of her, nose trailing the arch of her neck and the hard line of her jaw, the hollow high of her cheek, and finally, the soft tip of her nose. All Clarke could hear was the rushing in her ears as she struggled to open her eyes; when she did, all she could see was Lexa, less than an inch away and closer than Clarke had ever been to her, her brow creased with something akin to desperation, her lips parted, rapid breaths puffing warm over Clarke’s lips.

She kissed her.

It was as easy and natural as anything else Clarke had ever done by instinct. As simple as breathing. She didn’t know who closed the gap, but one moment they were both breathing one another in and the next, their mouths were pressed together. Lexa was impossibly soft against her, warm, and Clarke realized all at once that she was wrong about breathing being easy before. She felt as though she had never breathed properly until this moment, which made little sense considering how much difficulty she was having sucking air into her lungs, but she would happily remain here like this, motionless, pressed into Lexa, propping herself up with one hand on Lexa’s knee and the other clenched tightly over Lexa’s fist, their mouths fixed perfectly together.

But all too soon, the need for air won out, and she and Lexa broke apart. They remained close for a while longer, ragged breaths mixing, foreheads resting together, until Clarke managed to force her eyes to open and she found Lexa already watching her with a particularly dark shade of green Clarke had only ever seen on a handful of occasions. She very nearly kissed her again, except then Lexa blinked, and blinked once more, before drawing back and putting space between them. She pulled her arm free from beneath Clarke’s grip as she hauled herself to her feet, bracing against the tree trunk when she swayed uneasily. 

“We, um. We.” She cleared her throat, shaking her head as though to clear it. “We should probably head back, it— it will be dark soon.” The sun had yet to even set, but Clarke couldn’t find her voice. “We can, um. We can read more tomorrow.” She blinked; her face had gone from red to pale, drained of all color, and uneasiness curdled in the pit of Clarke’s stomach. She’s not quite sure what happened, except she’s squirming beneath the uncomfortable sensation that something that felt so right should have felt wrong, and there was perhaps wrong with Clarke for not knowing that. “If you...if you still want to, that is.”

The uncertain implication behind those words coupled with the terror in Lexa’s face as she said them had Clarke propelling to her feet. “Of course I want to.” She tilts her head, mouth suddenly dry as fear trickles through her— fear that they had ruined and destroyed everything. “Do you?”

“Of course,” Lexa said quickly, and it provided enough relief Clarke felt weak in the knees. 

The relief was short-lived, however. They remained standing in silence thick enough one could not so much as cut it with a knife, and the longer they stood there, looking anywhere but at the other, the more Clarke burned. She shifted her weight on her legs, dazedly noting she’d never been lost under such tumultuous emotions, a verifiable maelstrom that crashed into her with all the strength and ferocity of ships wrecking into the rocks at Polaris Cove.

“We…” Clarke’s voice trailed away as dizziness flooded her again; she could scarcely believe what just happened. Despite the anxiety that was itching at the bottom of her spine, there was an exhilarating thrill thrumming like the wings of a hummingbird in her chest. She looked at her friend in an entirely new light, and realized the light wasn’t actually new at all. 

“Naught happened,” said Lexa quickly, and Clarke blinked, jarred and taken aback. Her denial brought Clarke back to the ground with an abrupt jolt, for she had been at risk of surely floating right up off her toes and sailing clear into the very sky itself.

“Lexa…” she began helplessly, but Lexa shook her head at once. 

“Don’t.”

“We kissed.” Saying the words aloud was frightening, but this was Lexa; this was her dearest friend, the person she trusted most in this whole entire world. A girl who was always so fearless, whom Clarke had once watched stand tall and proud against her father, jaw set and eyes blazing, despite the imminent belting she would undoubtedly receive as punishment for her failure to complete her chores in favor of accompanying Clarke and her mother to town. A girl Clarke had once spent a tense afternoon huddled in the kitchen with, tending to her bloody, bruised knuckles after a tussle with John Murphy, a low-born boy who had tried one too many times to pester Clarke by attempting to lift her skirts to display her shins for all the world to see—and another belting from her father lay waiting for her then, too, which was perhaps why she seemed so reluctant to leave Clarke’s care, watching her quietly as she’d bandaged her up with the clumsy hands of a child, and thanking her with a blush when Clarke gently kissed her knuckles to urge them to heal. 

For as long as she’d ever known her, back when they were wee babes and Lexa’s wild mane of hair was nearly as big as her entire scrawny body, Lexa had been bold. So larger than life in her fierce spirit and unyielding confidence.

Yet now she stood before Clarke looking so shaky and willowy she appeared in danger of being knocked over by even the gentlest of breezes, and her eyes were filled with more trepidation than Clarke could ever have imagined her capable of feeling. 

And Clarke was tempted for a moment, by guilt and her own fear, to follow Lexa’s initiative and let it go. 

But her lips tingled and everything about that kiss was magic, and she knew if they didn’t discuss it now then they never would. And if there were one thing Clarke was known for, it was her mettlesome relentlessness. 

“Stop.”

“We kissed,” Clarke persisted. Her entire body bloomed with warmth at the mere words. “It just happened, I can still feel you on my lips— how can you deny it?”

“Clarke, stop.” Clarke’s heart twisted into a hard, painful little knot, and she had never known such devastation as watching Lexa shake her head in dismissal. “You don’t—you don’t have to say anything. I understand.” There was a split second of blinding pain as those two little words sank in. Lexa understood? She understood but she didn’t feel the same way, she was rejecting— whatever this is? But then Lexa continued, “You were just…caught up in the book.” Clarke blinked, not connecting the words until Lexa lifted the thing in her hands, gave it this small, pitiful gesturing wave.

Lexa froze when Clarke gave an angry scoff before marching over to her and snatching the book right out of her hand. Lexa cried out in protest when Clarke promptly flung it away; it hit the tree trunk and fell with a final thud to the ground. 

“The book, the book! I don’t care about the book! That wasn’t— that wasn’t why I kissed you.”

Lexa looked at her, struck dumb, her exquisite countenance a mixture of dread and heartbreaking hope that seemed so unfamiliar on her features yet the longer Clarke looked at it, the more she realized how often Lexa wore it when looking at her.

“I kissed you because every part of me has ached to for as long as I can remember,” Clarke said, voice hushed, her heart thrashing wildly and her hands trembling violently at her sides, desperate to reach for Lexa, who stood there shell-shocked. “I—I don’t know how this is possible, or what it means. All I know is that you are my favourite person, and the most beautiful girl I have ever seen, and I can’t take my eyes off you for fear you’ll disappear as I’ve imagined you up because you are so...you are so precious and perfect to me.” She swallowed hard and Lexa echoed it, green eyes wide and glossy and filled with fear and awe that Clarke was sure was reflected in her own. “And all I may do is pray that you can understand even a margin of all this I’m telling you. That you—that perhaps you kissed me back, and your own reasoning had little to do with the book as well.”

Silence, save for her heart pounding. Lexa took a shaky breath and exhaled it, once, twice, before swallowing again, and whispering, “I feel as if I can no longer remember a time when I did not want to kiss you.”

Warmth bled through the shock that stilled Clarke’s body, the relentless, fervish hope that wracked her spine. There was a time to worry about what all this meant, Clarke knew. A time to be struck with terror at how cruel life is, to love someone in the dark, forbidden, stuck in a world where they could be killed for it. 

But right then, they stood in their meadow, the orchard just behind them. It was sunny and warm, a gentle breeze ruffling their hair. Lexa’s cheeks were pretty and pink and Clarke’s heart was so swollen she was sure it could burst. 

Lexa took a deep breath, her eyes shining with that hope again, and Clarke felt it spread its own wings ever wider in her chest. “May I kiss you again?” asked Lexa, voice soft but hopeful.

Clarke bit her lip to curb her beaming smile, already tilting her face up expectantly. Just before their lips met, she paused, and Lexa’s brow knit in concern, previously half mast eyes lifting in renewed alarm. “For future reference, you can assume the answer to that question is always an unequivocal yes, so as to avoid wasting any unnecessary time asking me that, and skip right to the kissing.”

Lexa’s lips quirked in Clarke’s favorite crooked smile. “Is that truly preferable, my lady?”

“It truly is, my lady.”

Lexa’s eyes lowered again, dark, focused on Clarke’s mouth, and Clarke couldn’t help the way her own gaze drifted to lips she now knew were every bit as soft as they looked. “Then it will be done. As you know, I follow no one’s orders but your own.”

“Lexa.”

“Yes?”

“Please kiss me already.”

“As you wish.”

When their lips met again, it felt like coming home. Clarke shivered under the onslaught of emotions rushing through her, leaving her weak-kneed and trembling. And just when she thought it couldn’t get any better than this, Lexa’s mouth opened beneath her own. 

Their tongues didn’t yet meet—Clarke was too shy to broach that far forward, and Lexa must have felt the same. But Clarke could still smell the fruit from the orchard on her breath, knew she would taste of it, burned to find out. But she didn’t. Couldn’t. Not yet.

Clarke had no idea what she was doing, but she seemed to be faring fairly well all things considered. She moved on instinct, her hands clutching Lexa’s forearms, fingers twisting into the fabric and gripping, pulling despite the fact that it was nigh impossible for them to be any closer than they were, hips aligned, breasts and stomachs flat together, so close she could feel the wild beat of Lexa’s heart keeping time against her own.

Their lips moved with a whisper of movement, languid and soft and slow. Though a part of Clarke was roaring, aching and urging her to drive recklessly forward, to tangle her hands into Lexa’s rich curls and kiss her with abandon, another part of her purred, content to remain here in this perfect bubble she never, ever wanted to leave. The gentle breeze stirred golden leaves from the tree and they floated down all around them; the birds sang a beautiful tune that wrapped around her heart. Lexa’s lips were soft and warm and Clarke had never known something so perfect could exist.

By the time they parted for air and Clarke opened her eyes again, the world around them was considerably darker. The sun was inching lower over the horizon, and the sky behind them, towards home, was as dark as the pupils focused on Clarke. Lexa’s eyes were wide and dark and luminous, and her hands no longer shook so violently as they squeezed around Clarke’s own. They stared at one another for a second longer before they each split into breathless, giddy grins, delirious with one another.

“You’re so beautiful,” Lexa whispered, and if Clarke did not blush at the words she most certainly did when Lexa reached up to tuck a curl of Clarke’s hair behind her ear. “There’s so much I want to tell you. So many thoughts I’ve kept to myself all this time.”

“I have the same plight but I fear there are not enough hours in the day,” confessed Clarke, grinning more broadly when Lexa gave a breathless laugh. She joined in a moment later, their sweet laughter echoing around the meadow, before they finally sobered, eyes shut and foreheads tipped together, gentle smiles curving their lips.

She could stay here forever. Truly, Clarke would be happy to. To forget about the lives that wait for them outside of this place, full of endless responsibilities Clarke didn’t even want to think about facing. One day she and Lexa both would move on from their duties of caring for their fathers and instead care for their eventual husbands and children. The thought moved Clarke to nausea, but she swiftly pushed it out of her mind. That is then, and this is now— and right now, Lexa was in her arms. 

But the day was ending, dusk was approaching, and Clarke couldn’t bear it if Lexa was punished for being late. 

“We need to return home,” Clarke sighed, wrenching the words free. 

Lexa’s face crumpled with devastation, hanging her head and shutting her eyes as though she’d never heard such terrible news. Clarke hid her smile by kissing her again, chastely, resisting the urge to sink into it. 

“You know we do. Your father already fears I am too much trouble for you, and you arriving home late again won’t help matters.”

Lexa still hadn’t opened her eyes, but her lips quirked as she tipped her forehead against Clarke’s, arms wrapping around her shoulders. “You are trouble for me, Clarke Griffin.”

Clarke hummed, loving the feel of being in Lexa’s arms. Loving the way it feels to have Lexa in her own, as she winds her arms around Lexa’s slim waist. “As if you don’t go looking for it on your own.”

“I would always go looking for you.” 

The sincerity broke the teasing, and Clarke expelled a shaky sigh, her heart fluttering, tightening her arms to hold Lexa close. Lexa returned the embrace, the both of them burying their faces in one another’s neck and hair, breathing each other in. 

And then, as all things do, their time had to come to an end.

Lexa gathered her book and took the hand Clarke held out for her. They made the whole journey back, some twenty minute walk, with their fingers entwined, walking in a comfortable silence filled with shy smiles and furtive glances.

By the time they emerged from the woods, the sun was nearly completely gone, dousing the world in shadows. They dropped one another’s hands and their smiles slipped away when they neared their houses. Titus’s carriage was pulled up the drive, and the house windows glowed from the lit lanterns.

Clarke’s heart sank as she turned to see Lexa’s grim face.

“We can lie. I can fake an injury, a limp, and we’ll say you helped me—”

“You know that doesn’t matter, Clarke.” Lexa’s shoulders were rigid and stiff, even as she sighed. “It’s nothing new. I’ll be fine.” 

Clarke opened her mouth to protest, but before she could say anything, Lexa turned to fully face her, and Clarke’s mind went blank beneath Lexa’s full attention. She found it difficult to meet her eyes when her own kept dropping to Lexa’s full lips. 

Lexa clearly noticed, if the way a corner of them quirked up was any indication.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said seriously, her voice low. She glanced over her shoulder, ensuring no one was around, before grasping Clarke’s hand and lifting it to her lips. Clarke smothered a quiet gasp, her heart thudding ever faster, and wished for nothing more than to push Lexa back against the wooden fence they stood beside and kiss her senseless. “We can go to the meadow and finish Carmilla, if you’d like.”

“Always,” Clarke answered, gaze still fixed on those damning lips. “Or,” she added, voice slipping into a lower octave, one that has Lexa’s grip on her hand automatically tightening, “perhaps we could find something else to do.”

She would happily have almost all of her company with Lexa be spent kissing, if she had it her way. By the brightening of Lexa’s eyes and consequent smile, she felt the same way, and that more than anything had elation soaring within Clarke. She half wondered if the moment Lexa stepped away, she truly would just float off into the sky.

“Goodnight, my lady,” whispered Lexa as she stepped back.

“Goodnight, Lexa.”