Scene 10
“I was wondering, we didn’t specify a time.”
There was a beat.
Clarke didn’t need to be told which time Lexa was talking about.
“How about midnight?” Clarke replied without a break.
“Sounds …. Sadistically appropriate.”
The sign read Mt. Pocono.
The place, or precisely as Lexa corrected, a borough, was quaint.
A small kind of town where every person knew one another. Clarke was sure of that. She pondered if anyone ever got bored of seeing the same old things, same old howdy y’all faces, talk about the same rehearsed lines as if out off a play, and poke their pinocchio noses in each other’s business. It seemed avoidable anyway.
The frost weighted graciously in the weather. It wasn’t too hot nor to cold. Just an optimum temperature that would soothingly settle in your skin.
Her hands were on the wheel, the breeze that crashed against her vehicle beautifully settled in her lung. Maybe this was a first time in a long run, Clarke felt her endless crowding thoughts run away in the winds.
She felt acid in her stomach, her intestine walls churning in depleted voices of hunger. She squeaked out of her seat when they finally reached Bloomsburg earning a distinct eye roll from her another companion who was eyeing the lines of the map.
“You are drooling, Clarke.”
“No, I’m not.” Clarke answered defensively.
But she was. The water watering fragrance of bacon, blueberry pancakes, waffle dipped in syrup and a cup of hot cocoa was sitting in front of her and she was devouring her prey with languid eyes. She fidgeted, blue eyes fluttering to meet green ones, whether it would be offensive if she started eating even though Lexa’s had yet to arrive but Lexa amusedly shook her hand.
“Do devour your prey, Griffin.”
Clarke might be dying of hunger but before digging in she squatted at Lexa’s hand for her statement.
Clarke Griffin was inhaling the food, disgusting, might she add. One time, her hand is summoning the pancakes, next it’s tearing up the bacon and within a blink, and it’s twirling up its fingers and licking the golden syrup. When Clarke had offered her a slice of her pancake, Lexa refused, she bit her inner cheek, to falsify her smile but she couldn’t. She didn’t want to either. And moments such as this, though small were filled with utter content was happening too often that was making her smile.
Lexa took a measured bite of the special cheesecake and instantly moaned in silent pleasure. Her indulgence was clipped but soon she felt the curious gaze of Clarke Griffin on her.
“You didn’t offer me.”
Lexa’s following bite midway stopped. She rounded her own tongue inside her mouth cavity to brush off the effects of another impending smile, because let’s be honest, Alexandria Mikealson didn’t smile at all and now she couldn’t pass a moment without smile. Especially not when Clarke was furrowing her brows, pouting like a petulant child.
How are you still eating?
“Ok.” Lexa paused. “I’ll cut you a piece.”
But in milliseconds passage, she felt lithe fingers gentle clasp her own palm, gently pulling it away from herself. She watched in slow motion as Clarke hummed joyfully, tongue licking swiftly on chapped lips as she took in a bite of the cheesecake, from the same piece as Lexa’s, all the while as Clarke’s own hand was holding onto a sweaty Lexa’s.
Clarke didn’t even notice it, but Lexa did. She was aware. She was painfully aware when she felt a flicker touch of warm tongue sweep teasingly at the tips of her fingers. Her hand rooted to that very position, her own lips ajar. It was such a meagre touch, but it was arousing, tantalizing, so invigorating and ….
“Ahem, Ladies. Cheque?” the waitress cleared her voice at the scene before her. Lexa folded her arm back to herself, leaving a mildly unsettled Clarke on the other end.
There were a few minutes of under the breathe argument in hushed tones about who was to pay but Lexa won in her war of words.
“I’ll pay, Clarke.”
The ginger haired waitress twirled in her position, eyes drifting back and forth between the two girls. Finally when big doe eyes fell on narrow blue ones, the waitress cunningly shifted her gaze towards the brunette and then to Clarke herself, a sly grin floating in her features as if she knew something they didn’t. Clarke blushed red under her knowing glances, hands nervously moving fallen strand of blonde hair behind her ear.
Lexa had changed the stations for the tenth now, constantly changing from one to another when she couldn’t find the music of her choice. Long fingers was shooting forward to change again when Clarke beat her to it.
“No.”
But Lexa, offended, opened her mouth to ask something.
“No.” Clarke reprimanded.
“But, I …. “
“No and No to all the questions, Lexa.”
“But the mus …..”
“No …. “
Lexa slumped back in her seat. Hands crossed in front of her chest and she glared at the hanging glove compartment, her face acutely resembling that of a crouching tiger.
Clarke shifted the rear glass so she could look at the crouched up cub next to her seat and immediately felt waves of closet cuteness and guiltiness wash over her.
“It’s not much but I have some music in my phone. You can check it out, grumpy.”
“I’m not grumpy.”
“Sure. That’s the same thing all grumpy people says.”
Lexa didn’t retaliate. Minutes passed but the phone on her dashboard lay untouched. Clarke couldn’t help but worry if Lexa was truly offended. Apologies were on the tip of her tongue when in her periphery view, she saw hesitant hand reaching out for the phone.
Seconds later, the solo music of How To Save A Life filled the silence.
The music had a tone of depressing appeal in itself, she herself wasn’t so fond of it. Clarke couldn’t help but wonder, what made Lexa choose it.
The drive to Milton wasn’t that far off.
It was nearly as quaint as the previous places but it was open. The vast, endless vineyards stretched for miles overhead. They passed innumerable stalls on standby, lavishly decorated with country winery, various shades of golden liquid peeking out from the glass windows, free sample tasting plastered on bold in the front.
“Want to try?”
“You wanna try?”
Lexa pressed her lips in a thin line. “Yeah.”
“Ok.”
“Ok.”
The first shop was a total bust. The old aged woman with silver linings had smiled in a malicious way through her crooked teeth when she had gestured herself to follow her to the inner depths of her voodoo chamber?
The shop was creepy to saw the least. It was dark, it smelled like a corpse and … Clarke was pretty sure she had just seen a rat somewhere around run through the door crossing. That was Clarke’s breaking point. Trust Lexa to pick the creepiest of creepy places.
She clamped onto Lexa’s hands and pulled her out front to the next shop.
The following tours weren’t so bad. Lexa hadn’t realized Clarke and she had been holding hands until she felt a certain lack of something warm in her palms. It was Clarke, who was already on the next one. To a third person it would have definitely appeared as creepy when Lexa had goofily stared longingly at the left hand that was still clinging the smell of Clarke’s.
If Lexa had been keep count them she would say that this would be there 3rd country wine tasting.
The present shop they were in had a grocery store right at their front. Lexa shuffled through the goods, picking out what she thought would be a necessity all the while keeping a third eye out for the blonde who was scraping something against a wine bottle.
A tall, well-built guy, man, with uncanny rugged blonde hair dipped his head to address Clarke. One of his hands were settled behind his back and the other in his pocket as he flashed Clarke, what Clarke assumed, one of those smirks that made girls go dingy dong for him.
“Travelling cross country, eh?”
Clarke rolled her eyes. “Yes.”
Though she hadn’t exactly looked at the man, she was pretty sure that he had been talking to her chest and not to her face like most men and not to be biased, most women did to her. Frustrating. “Alone?”
“No.”
The man shamelessly moved one or two steps forward, a bit unruffled and unsatisfied at her answer even though Clarke had stepped away from him but there was no downside to that smirk. The cheap cologne stuck her like a bee bite.
Clarke looked up his tall shoulders for the search of her brunette but all felt through. She cursed underneath, when her back pressed against the following shelf. It was then, almost out of thin air, Lexa appeared behind her, placing a feathery touch on the back of Clarke’s ramrod back. Her sheer presence spoke volumes.
“She’s with me.” Replied her stern voice bereft of any emotion.
Her steel ice gaze penetrated through her by stander’s one. Heavy booted steps immediately retreating.
Clarke found herself falling into the coolness of Lexa’s. Warm hands found the cold ones as if they had always known where to find each other.
“Oh. I …” Lexa didn’t bother to let him finish his stammering words, pulling the blonde out by her wrist.
“Thank you. But …”
“But you could have defended yourself. I know. Consider me a helping hand.”
Cool hands finally left hers and Clarke was hit by its absence. Her warm palms fell too clamped up and hot and somehow she yearned for that touch again to elevate herself from her own uneasiness.
“Thank you.” Clarke replied shyly.
“Hmm.” Lexa hummed against her. “I bought lots of snacks, just in case, Hungry Clarke comes out to play.”
Clarke blushed at the appraisal and averted her eyes from Lexa’s. “You love it.”
“Hmm, maybe.”
Lexa reddened at her Freudian slip. Maybe? You are such a piece of shit, Lexa. You are a piece of shit that digging herself into a bigger shit.
Stupid crush. Stupid crush. Stupid curse …..
Her internal battle of words was so vigorous that she didn’t notice the tinge of red and pink that embroidered Clarke’s ears and cheeks.
Their pace wasn’t fast but it was sublime.
Brookville. Clarion. Hermitage. All of them were now left behind in the rear mirror.
When finally Clarke couldn’t take anymore, she handed the keys over to Lexa.
Lexa was stubbornly determined to reach Cleveland soon so they had decided to not stop for a motel for the night.
As they ran fast the darkened environment, Clarke rubbed her head as she eyed the tangent lines of the map. Now if Clarke has been reading it correctly, which she highly doubts since she has been pretty much fighting to keep her eyes open against it gravity, there should have been some sort of a pedestal or any landmark on her right side. But there was none.
The last thing she heard was a frustrated huff from the driver’s seat before finally dozing into her dreamless slumber.
There was a light crack in her neck when Clarke shifted audibly against the glass window of Ark. Sleep riddled eyes creaked slightly at the darkened surroundings and the apparently empty driver seat. Clarke straightened up in the passenger seat, hugging onto the supposed big blanket, which Clarke was pretty sure she had left it in her bag which was in the trunk. Lexa.
That was Clarke one and only thought when she realized she didn’t know where the brunette was.
The car was nicely parked along the side of the long farmlands. Clarke locked the door behind her, hugging the hefty blanket to her bod when the wintry breeze clattered against her pale skin. Blue eyes looked up to the infinite distance in search her and it was then she saw a darkened figure sitting hastily atop a short hill only a few feet away from her under the open skies.
When she neared the still oblivious brunette it was then she realized the tangent orange colouring up in contrast to the starlit glory of the night. Dawn was due soon.
She almost gasped in shock when she saw Lexa wearing just a baggy overburdening shirt that Clarke wonderingly thought might have belonged to Lexa’s father. In worn out jeans and bare feet, Lexa sat and the blonde shuddering in the mere thought that why hadn’t Lexa frozen already.
“You are drinking.”
“And you are here. Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”
“Aren’t you cold?”
Lexa gestured to the cheap wine bottle, sheepishly smiling. “Keeping me warm somewhat.”
She saw Lexa stare out into the illuminating infinite, before sighing under the weight of the fading star light. Her gaze was numbed and fragile, a little bit broken around the edges but all Clarke could see was a masterpiece in its own creation. An un-paralleled beauty that Clarke itching to paint out again and again and again and she wouldn’t even get tired. What the hell is wrong with you, Griffin?
“It’s been a while since I have slept under the stars.” Admitted Lexa in the ongoing comfortable silence.
She didn’t list out the pros and cons in her list but some unknow-est heavenly power bewitched her, pushing Clarke forward until Clarke flung her blanket over Lexa enclosing her close to her warmth.
“God, you are cold Lexa.”
Her breathe was eerily cold. Her cotton shirt was dripping in frost breathe as well and her eyes, oh, glassy eyes they echoed a warmth that was pulling Clarke towards her. her flame.
Lexa shifted closer but there was a space between them. It made Clarke frown. Why?
“I smell.” Lexa replied groggily as if she could read Clarke’s wandering thoughts. The smell of cheap alcohol clogged in Clarke’s nostrils, sure, but somehow it didn’t deflate Clarke. She found it oddly soothing. It reminded her of something her father used to do. He would never hug her, nor even remain in close vicinity of her unless and until he was fully freed off the reeking smell of alcoholism. Clarke had always found it endearing. It was something that Niylah had never done. Alcohol had always made Niylah move two more steps forward to Clarke, than she had deemed necessary.
But this time, instead, Clarke moved up to cross the distance until cool breaths flushed against her heated cheeks. She felt Lexa stiffen but thankfully she didn’t move.
Clarke placed her head just on the edge of Lexa’s shoulder blades, answering soothingly to her distress. “I don’t mind. Really.”
“Still.”