Roommates (M)
"I just saved your ass, Griff."
"What do you mean?"
"You can stay in your apartment. I found you a roommate."
"Really? Thank you, O! I owe you big time!"
"Just don’t fuck it up, okay? She’s my personal trainer, and she’s nice."
"Thanks, O!"
"You should have warned me, O."
"She’s my personal trainer and ex-military. Weren’t those warnings enough?"
"Octavia!"
"Can’t you keep your legs closed for a hot alpha, Griff?"
"You know I’m not like that! She's polite… stop laughing."
"Don't fuck it up. You need a roommate until next year."
"You should have warned me."
"Just … don’t show your true self right away. Take it in slow doses."
"I’m flipping the bird at you right now."
"Love you too."
Clarke almost falls asleep watching the monotonous stir of her coffee. Her spoon clicks on the floor when she tries to throw it in the sink, and she doesn’t bother to catch it when a jaw breaking yawn hits.
Why is she up before 8 a.m. again?
"‘Morning, Clarke," Lexa says as she joins Clarke by the kitchen counter. Lexa fixes cereal and orange juice for her breakfast, and Clarke pretends she’s still watching her coffee and not her roommate. Her sexy, beautiful, and morning person roommate. Lexa smiles her goodbyes and adjusts her shirt inside her pants before leaving for work.
And that’s why Clarke wakes up before 8 a.m. nowadays.
Raindrops hit the windows with loud splashes, singing a staccato rhythm on the glass. Days like this have a tendency to screw up plans and make people stop and think why they had plans in the first place. It’s a break from real life, full of cozy pillows, blankets, and procrastinated responsibilities.
Clarke nudges closer to her friend, her socked feet pulling the blankets up to herself until Raven pulls it back.
"Get your own blanket," Raven murmurs without real heat, passing the popcorn over to Clarke as a show plays on the living room TV.
"But I like your body heat," Clarke whines, mouth full of popcorn.
Raven looks at her longtime friend, one sculpted eyebrow up. "You must have it bad, then."
Clarke’s next whine is long and resentful, carrying the weight of weeks of denial. "You have no idea, Reyes. She’s obscenely gorgeous, and I can’t even start to describe her butt." Clarke buries herself under the blanket, muffling a string of profanities in frustration.
"Damn, are you in heat?"
Clarke cries out her denial from under the blanket, a suppressed sob accompanying it.
"So you have it really bad."
Clarke nods, and Raven watches with a smirk as the blob under the blankets moves in agreement.
The apartment door bursts open right then, a shrill following what sounds almost like a neigh. Soaked sneakers pad the floor, and, with a grunt, a wet shirt falls heavily into a puddle next to the door.
When Lexa finally looks up, a new gasp echoes in the room along with the rain. Lexa has the decency to clear her throat before another embarrassing sound comes out. "I didn’t know you would be home. I thought…" She isn’t sure she should cover her tank top, but she doesn't care as a shiver runs down her spine. Her long hair falls damp on her back and shoulders; her hairband was lost in the rain long ago.
"Hi, I’m Raven." Raven smiles at Lexa from her spot on the couch, since Clarke is frozen and incapable of coherency since Lexa took off her shirt. The fact that the omega still has the pink blanket around her head is one of the reasons color rises to Lexa’s cheek.
"Nice to meet you, Raven," Lexa says as politely as she can muster, freezing and shirtless. "I should…" She points to the hallway bathroom, and Raven nods.
"Yeah, we’ll brew some tea. You might need it!" Raven calls back, and Lexa smiles with blue lips before closing the bathroom door.
"Holy shit," Raven breathes and falls back on the sofa.
Clarke is still frozen.
"Did you see those abs?"
Clarke nods; that’s the most she can do. Raven laughs quietly. "You’re so fucked, Griffin." Clarke’s throat is dry and raspy, and it vibrates in need as the first words scratch free since Lexa came in.
"I wish."
Tea becomes a ritual. It doesn’t matter if it’s raining or if any of them is soaked; Clarke brews a pot right before Lexa comes home, and they share stories about their days, dreams, and mistakes.
Lexa is much more than toned abs and a godly carved jaw, Clarke learns. She learns of her time in the military, the shadow that covers her face each time she mentions her comrades, and how she used to play hockey in college. She tries to memorize all the freckles that blossom on Lexa’s face in summer and listen eagerly to the legends behind the tribal tattoos on her arms and back.
Clarke opens herself in ways reserved for a type of friend she doesn’t make anymore, and watches Lexa’s face when she talks about her dream to live off her art. She doesn’t find pity, only curiosity, and it lights a warm flame inside her chest. Lexa’s eyes shine with true wonder when Clarke shows her canvases stocked away in her room, and one of the paintings ends up on Lexa’s bedroom wall.
On another rainy day, Lexa shows Clarke her old uniform, battered and safe in a box that smells like pain.
It’s a cold autumn night when Clarke shows Lexa a diploma she never used, dusted and filled with memories of her late father.
She can’t pinpoint when it happened, but it isn’t a crush anymore.
And losing her apartment is the least of her worries.
There are good and bad days. Until then, today was a bad one for Lexa. Her leg had been throbbing since the morning's chilly air welcomed her out of the apartment, and paperwork piled endlessly on her desk throughout her shift. One of the students canceled at the gym, and she found herself earlier at home.
The walk back doesn’t warn her. The way birds shrink away in the evening breeze doesn’t tell her to be careful or prepare herself. Though that is what happens on the days that everything changes: they are untamed, and there is no warning.
Lexa’s keys jingle and scratch their apartment door, and she swears to herself to oil it this weekend. She opened the door with her shoulder, stretching her bad leg as she gives herself a moment on the living room couch.
That’s when she hears it.
At first, it’s not a call, not a plea, but a simple, desperate cry. Lexa’s ears grow hot, and she stumbles to be on her feet, brows furrowing under memories of people calling her name in their last breath.
But it is her name: clear and needy, breathless and scared. She doesn’t think. She acts on instinct, protection soaring through her as she pounds on Clarke’s door.
"Clarke?" she reasons in the last moment before kicking the door down. "What’s wrong? Do you need any help?"
The gasps of Lexa’s name turn into a loud crash and a sequence of profanities, and Lexa bangs the bedroom door again. "Clarke?" More curses flow from the bedroom, and Lexa knocks on the wood with a heavy hand. "Clarke, what’s going on?" She rattles at the doorknob. "I’ll open the door, okay?"
"No, wait!" It’s all Clarke can muster, and Lexa doesn’t hear it anyway, because as soon as the door’s lock cracks open under the force of Lexa’s kick, she is hit with an onslaught of omega pheromones that call for her to take a step inside. Lexa shakes her head and jumps out of the room as if on fire.
Naked, Clarke lays terrified on her floor, skin flushed and shining with sweat. The omega closes her eyes and covers her nose. It’s not an easy heat to handle with an alpha so close.
And not any alpha. Lexa.
Lexa tries to close the door in growing desperation, but the broken hinges don’t fall into place, and Clarke starts to sob, and they both want to die of embarrassment. After excruciating ten seconds, Lexa gives up on the door and marches out the apartment, yelling under her breath she will come back in a few hours.
It takes Clarke an entire hour to realize that it wasn’t a heat induced dream.
"I fucked it up, Raven. Seriously, I suck."
"You suck as in you finally got to suck—"
"I’m serious here!"
"Just so you know, O is on the line, and—"
"What did you do, Griff!"
"I fucked up, O, sorry."
"Lexa’s been in the gym for four hours, and I’ve never seen her fidget so much. She jumped when I asked what was wrong."
"Clarke?"
"Tell her it is okay to come home."
"Clarke? Are you in heat?"
"On suppressants now."
"Shit."
"Double shit."
"Do you want us to come over? I can bring beer."
"She can’t drink on suppressants, moron."
"Hey, I’m the only certified genius here."
"Guys, just… O, tell her to please come home."
The pink note is carefully written, and it doesn’t smell as tantalizing omega as Lexa fears it will. She touches it gently, pulling it off the front of her bedroom door. She eyes the shower curtain as a makeshift door down the hallway, but there are no sounds from inside.
Steeling herself, Lexa reads the short note, crunching it when done. She jumps in place a few times, preparing her body and mind. Step by calculated step, she ventures closer to the colorful curtain and swipes it aside.
The same room that made her pants tight instantly now feels like an old locker room, with only the lingering smell of sweat to prove something happened there. Clarke sleeps like a rock, snoring softly under the heat suppressors.
Lexa knows suppressors can take a toll on an omega, and guilt bubbles in her stomach at the thought that she is the one who forced Clarke to take them.
But when she looks at the sleeping girl on the bed, her golden locks wild and damp, Lexa wonders when was the last time she responded so strongly to an omega. When was the last time she dreamed about a woman the way she dreams of Clarke—the last time her skin crawled with need and tickled with innocent nervousness at simple touches?
Shaky fingers brush blonde curls away from a sleeping face. Lexa leaves a cup of water and ibuprofen pills on the nightstand and goes to take a shower in a curtainless bathroom.
It’s not the headache that wakes her up. Nor the light invading from the window and lack of door, nor the annoying sounds of someone in the kitchen. Like a dull fire coming to life, the throbbing between her legs escalates to forest-consuming intensity, and that’s what rouses Clarke from a blank dream. She groans, searching blindly for the suppressants on her nightstand. She finds other pills, but, afraid of losing control of her heat, forces them down anyway.
Ibuprofen, she concludes once she’s steady enough to stand.
Clarke pads to the living room, wrapped up on her blanket, eyes half-closed under the light.
"I can leave for the week if you want." Her voice breaks the silence in the quiet apartment, and Lexa jumps in surprise.
"Clarke." Lexa stands, unsure, looking at the blonde tresses poking out from the pink blanket wrapped around the omega. "Are you feeling better?"
"After another dose, I will." Clarke squirms in place. If she doesn’t want to force herself on her friend by this point, it’s better to sleep the week away high on drugs. "And I understand if you don't want to share the apartment. I get it; I was out of line. I—"
"Clarke."
"—really understand if it’s too much, I didn’t think this—"
"Clarke," Lexa tries again, one step closer. At her proximity, Clarke’s chin snaps shut. "Are you listening to me?"
Clarke is lost in the forest green staring back at her, and her rational side warns her to flee to the safety of her room before making things worse.
Lexa clears her throat when she realizes she has Clarke’s full attention. "It’s been awhile since I’ve last been with an omega, and, no, wait." She fumbles for words, and it brings a smile to Clarke’s face. "Being with you wouldn’t just be because you are an omega, it would be because you are you, and I know heats can be hard to handle and—"
"Lexa."
"—if you would accept me, allow me to help you, not only because of your heat, you see, these last months I—"
"Lexa." Clarke reaches for the hands fidgeting on Lexa’s waist, and Lexa smiles down at her shyly.
"Clarke." She leans down and places a chaste kiss on Clarke’s forehead, then frowns at the high temperature of the skin. "You need to rest."
"I want you."
"I want you, too." Lexa surrenders to her need to wrap her arms around Clarke, sighing in relief at the way the omega fits against her body.
"Will you stay with me until I wake up?"
Lexa smiles at the words mumbled against her chest.
The thin wire wriggles and twists inside the keyhole, jumping and spinning under frustrated huffs.
"I thought you said this was easy," Octavia comments from behind Raven, arms folded.
"Just give me a minute!" the engineer complains, and mercifully the lock clicks open, and she releases a triumphant laugh. "Told you."
"Hurry up, she could be dead." Octavia pushes Raven in half-joking, but both of them are honestly worried. Clarke hadn’t called or answered the phone for 24 hours, and neither had Lexa, which can mean two things. One: Clarke died in an OD of suppressants, and Lexa ran away before it happened; or two: they are locked in a heat-hazed sex marathon.
"I still think they’re just banging," Raven whispers once they are inside the apartment, quiet and calm.
They see the broken door at the end of the hallway and the colorful curtain doing a poor job as cover. Clarke’s room is empty, and Octavia steps up to Lexa’s door.
"Can you hear anything?" Raven whispers while Octavia leans over the wood.
"No," she replies, her dark brows knitted. "Should we open it?"
"There's only one way to find out." Raven takes a deep breath and opens the unlocked door with a loud kick, unceremoniously, much to Octavia’s eye roll behind her.
"Holy shit!"
"Raven!" Clarke’s desperate shriek echoes in the entire apartment, and a flushed Octavia pulls Raven back to the hallway and closes the door to Lexa’s room.
"And that answers our concerns," Octavia says in a furious blush, pushing Raven back to the front door.
"Did you see that ass?" Raven asks in awe.
"Don’t remind me," Octavia growls.
"Clarke is fucking lucky."
"Just lock the door already."