Chapter 2
Octavia wakes up thinking that someone is trying to smother her. She's still lying face first on the couch. As she pushes herself up, her left hand is near the edge and slides off.
She has no idea how it happened but somehow she finds herself on the floor now. She landed on her back and it hurts quite a bit. Fuck my life. She shakes it off and stands up to find something for the headache she might get soon.
Her eyes land on Raven's brace that Clarke put on her coffee table. After gulping down her aspirin, she picks it up and goes into her workstation. It's the biggest of the two rooms in her apartment. The other one is her bedroom. She doesn't need a lot of space to sleep anyway.
Octavia is muttering curses under her breath. Raven should really take better care of this thing. It's not like you can just buy one in a store. Also, some appreciation would be nice... Then again, Raven actually wearing it and preferring it over her cane should count for something, right?
As she soldering some joints to reinforce the overall structure of the walking aid, her mind wanders back to the photo she found. She wonders why the women kept it but still remains to be so stubborn. For someone that says she doesn't care, this seems to be out of character.
She forces herself to stop thinking about how things were finally starting to get to the point where she could be happy before everything went to hell. Thinking about it will only lead to tears and she already cried today. Or yesterday. She positively has no idea what day it is now.
**
Raven is pacing her living room. Well, she would be but walking is turning out to be a pain in the ass so she settles for throwing her cane in the air over and over again. She’s restless. She tells herself it’s because her brace is currently not in working condition but she would only be fooling herself. It’s because a certain brunette didn’t bother to show up. It’s not like they agreed on a time but damn, it’s already way past midnight.
Maybe something happened? Should I go and check on her? Should I call? Would that be too invasive? I don’t want to let her know it’s OK to call me sometime or something. She would’ve come to return my brace, right? Or would she make me beg for it back? No. She’s not like that. Maybe fixing it just took a little longer than expected. Then again, it’s O. She’s a genius or something. OK, so maybe something did happen. I should check. Or. Call. Or. Fuck.
Raven is giving herself a headache with all the thoughts occupying her mind at the same time. She doesn’t know what the best course of action is. Going over there would be way too much but calling isn’t OK either. She tries to think of a middle way and finds it in a text message.
She takes out her phone and goes to write a message. She has no idea what to write. She doesn’t want to seem like she’s only asking for her brace – but she kinda is. No, that’s a lie. She wants to know if Octavia is alright.
| Thank you for fixing it. – R.
Yeah, that’s non-committal in every way while still being polite. The only problem might be that Octavia doesn’t answer because there’s nothing to reply to. She amends the text message, types in the number she knows by heart and quickly hits send before she can change her mind.
**
Her phone dings with a new message. She looks through the crack between her curtains. It’s pitch black outside so it must be well into the night. Wondering who would text her at this hour, she sets aside the brace she was polishing up and grabs her phone.
She clicks on it and stares at it for a few minutes. The last thing she expected was a text message from Raven. She really tries to keep her breathing even and deep, but shit – the woman actually texted her. This is definitely progress.
While typing out her reply, she can’t seem to keep the smile off her face. There’s no reason to text back since there isn’t a question but she can’t let it slide either.
| Ring the doorbell? I’m not the delivery boy, Rae. Try again ;)
Octavia doesn’t expect a reply but sure hopes she’d get one. She goes back to oiling the brace before going to bed. It’s not like Raven will be going somewhere in the middle of the night, right?
**
She tosses her phone onto the coffee table. She will not reply. She. Will. Not. No. She knows what the younger woman is doing; she’s trying to find a way back in. Instead of giving in to what her heart wants, she clicks off the lights and flops down onto her bed. Whatever problems there are, will still be there tomorrow.
Raven feels eyes on her. Her hands are already balled up into fists under the duvet. Whoever is standing there will surely regret it the instant they touch her. She listens closely for movement. The person is creeping up on her. They are only a few steps away. She holds her breath – NOW.
She jumps up and aims to land a punch on their jaw. The other person seems to somehow know what Raven was going to do and expertly evaded the punch. Raven took almost no recovery time and smashed their body onto her bed.
“Rae!”
Upon hearing her name, she immediately lets go. She looks, really looks now that all the grogginess of sleep left her system and is replaced by adrenaline.
“Damn you, O. I could’ve…” Raven trails off, terrified of completing that sentence.
“But you didn’t,” Octavia easily quips back.
Raven’s mind is momentarily blank when she looks into Octavia’s eyes. She’s still hovering over the woman and none of them speak for a few seconds.
“Hi,” Octavia says, smiling at the woman above her.
Raven can see she’s genuinely smiling and not smirking or anything. She involuntarily smiles back for a split second, swallows thickly and promptly steps away. Fuck, she hopes she didn’t blush at the way Octavia was looking at her. It is kinda nice to know that Octavia still remembers the move she taught her.
“Hi Octavia,” Raven says as she’s backed herself up against her bedroom wall. She didn’t really think that through as she’s only wearing a shirt.
Octavia has to tap into all her self-restraint to not look at those beautiful legs because that’s what they are to Octavia. Raven, however, would never believe that.
“Why do you call me Octavia?” she asks confused. While she does, her eyes flit down to Raven’s legs. Raven follows her eyesight and wordlessly goes to put on some pants, totally missing how Octavia was subconsciously licking her lips.
“That’s your name, right?” Raven yells from the bathroom.
Octavia rolls her eyes, not planning on dignifying that with a reply. She should probably get off of Raven’s bed but it smells like her and she can still feel Raven’s hands slamming her into the bed. If only that were to happen under different circumstances. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, willing her heart to shut up already.
When Raven returns, clad in jeans and another shirt, Octavia is still lying on her bed. She doesn’t really know what to do or say, so she clears her throat hoping that Octavia would say something.
“I brought your brace back, it’s on your couch.”
Raven hobbles over, not knowing what she did with her cane last night, and puts the brace on. It feels good to be able to sort of walk again, normally.
“Thanks,” she whispers more to herself than anyone else. Octavia, however, does hear it as she’s now standing behind Raven. She lowers her head to whisper in her ear.
“You’re welcome, Rae.”
**
Raven is aimlessly driving around the neighborhood. Her leg is acting up again so driving is the best option to spend her evening instead of being alone and letting destructive thoughts be the boss of her. As she’s about to round the next corner, something catches her eye. It's a woman who is quite obviously being harassed by some guy. Her blood runs cold as memories come flooding back. Raven wills herself to calm down but only half succeeds. She brings her car up to the pair as close as she can, as carefully as she can. The woman seems startled by Raven’s actions and she internally curses herself for not thinking her actions through. It might seem like Raven is about to abduct them or something, judging by the way she just parked her car and effectively blocked their path. Shaking her head to herself, she exits her vehicle.
“Is there a problem here?” She looks up at the woman but can’t make out any features due to the darkness, since she immediately shut off her headlights upon approaching. No one has to witness her potentially kicking some punk-ass into tomorrow.
The woman stays silent, apparently stunned for the time being. Not knowing what to do now that she isn’t quite sure if the man is harassing her or is an acquaintance, she continues:
“Is this guy bothering you?”
The man – previously too amused to speak up – finally does. “Look, lady, nothing to see here. Get lost.”
Raven feels the adrenaline rushing through her body at his words. Her hands are balled up into fists, ready to connect with a jaw. She completely ignores the guy in favor of looking at the woman, who she notices now, is visibly shaking. In that instant, she has her answer. Why do men always treat women like something less than human?
“Look, dude. I’m going to tell you nicely, just once. Move along. Now.” She emphasizes her last word and she sees the guy waiver briefly before standing tall again. Raven really doesn’t care what his plan is.
She raises her eyebrow at him and takes a few steps forward. He gulps audibly before his eyes land on her brace. He snorts at her now. “I’d tell you to move along instead, but I see that’s going to be problematic.”
Raven doesn’t seem affected by his words. If anything, it spurs her on even more. She keeps walking toward him until she’s standing face to face. “What hand do you write with?”
The question throws him off. “What?”
She moves closer toward his face, “I asked what hand you write with.” Her voice is level but laced with venom.
He’s feeling smug and can barely contain his laughter. He thinks he followed the wrong girl, as this one in front of him now is hilarious as hell. “Right. Shall I give you a test drive with it?” He replies denigrating. He moves his right hand toward Raven to let her know that he isn’t all play.
Wrong move.
She grabs his hand, connects her right fist with his jaw and sidesteps him all in one swift move. Somehow his right hand ended up on his back as his left is now clutching his shattered jaw. He tries to speak and free his hand but fails at both. Raven pushes her brace-clad knee into his back and forces him to smell the ground before twisting his wrist in such a way that he has no choice but to scream out in agony. It only adds to his pain as he seemingly forgot about his jaw.
She lets him go and walks up to the woman who flinches as she approaches. She smiles at the woman and stops at a respectable distance. “You better leave as well," she tells the woman with a soft voice, indicating that she's not going to harm her. She doesn't really give a shit about this lady as long as she's not being harassed, but it's better she leaves first in case this guy gets any other bright ideas.
“Thank you. Nobody ever stood up for me like that.”
Raven nods back, not really knowing what to say.
“I’m Harper.” She extends her hand for Raven to take who reluctantly does. She wasn’t really planning on being all social this evening. “Reyes.”
Luckily, Harper's phone begins to ring. “I have to take this, I’m meeting a friend and I'm already late.”
She nods, already planning on getting back in her car when Harper stops her with a hand on her shoulder. Raven cringes and refrains from hitting Harper. She takes a second to calm herself down enough to turn around and pretend not to be affected by the sudden physical contact. She moves her head in a questioning matter and Harper hands her a business card. When Raven doesn’t accept it, she practically shoves it in her jacket pocket, shouts a ‘call me’ and walks off.
As Raven tries to process what just happened, she hears the guy on the ground grunt at her. She makes a mock gesture toward him and he flinches, shielding his head with his hands. She smirks, shakes her head and takes off in her pickup truck.