Right, so. In case anyone was wondering, @blindwire is a highly questionable influence at best and due to a combination of her excellently recommended craft beer + the Trikru Brewery logo sticker release + honestly just some lovely spring weather in New England today, I was feeling pretty nostalgic for apu!Clexa and couldn’t stop myself from a little drabble.
This is likely set around the time of ‘a pleasant undoing’ in which Clarke and Lexa’s “very safe friendship” began to unravel. (Thanks to @blindwire for the use of this lovely sketch, on which I still tend to flail about from time to time. And to @orangeyouglad8 who is always at least partly culpable in terms of my persistent apu headcanons.)
The truck is big and cumbersome. Not at all what she would choose to drive, having never before been licensed to drive anything, let alone a massive, refrigerated delivery vehicle. Of course Lexa would go from never having driven to operating this monstrosity on a daily basis—she has never done anything by halves.
She’s gaining her confidence incrementally. She spends far less time obsessively checking her mirrors than she once did, and has even managed to accelerate above a slow crawl on the wider roads of her route. Her daily commute is enjoyable, changing with the days of the week so that it rarely feels repetitive. She is learning the lay of the land in the same way that her feet memorized a map of Brooklyn for all her years of walking its streets.
Gravel crunches beneath the truck’s tires, and a jolt of something electric and uncontained shoots through her. The bland side of a beige, clapboard building should not have this effect on a person, and Lexa has told herself many times that she is not at liberty to feel this way about an establishment, or its delivery hatch, nor, most importantly, the smiling face who will soon appear to greet her.
She reverses the truck into position and then sits quietly for several forced breaths. Her fingers drum against the black, rubber wheel while her mind spins. It is the most intense part of her day for no other reason than that she anticipates that laugh and smile and those flirtatious glances more often than she would like to admit.
Costia leaves tomorrow for a long weekend away, not that her absence isn’t already felt around the apartment and even in the bed they still share. They have started and stopped the same conversation a hundred times, but neither seem willing to embrace total honesty. Lexa, for all intents and purposes, is stuck in a pattern of guilt and self-doubt.
Her phone buzzes loudly in the console between the front seats, and her thoughts shutter harshly as if someone has intruded upon her personal space without notice. Not someone. She reaches for her phone and doesn’t bother to curb her smile. Clarke’s name is still on the screen as she swipes it open to read the text.
Clarke Griffin (10:00am): omg you’re late!
Lexa’s smile grows as she taps a reply.
(10:00am): I am not late. I have been here for at least 3 minutes.
Clarke Griffin (10:01am): WHAT?! no way I didn’t even hear you pull in
(10:01am): That is because you let Octavia play music really loudly.
Lexa has barely hit send when her phone buzzes again, this time with an incoming call. Ridiculously, it is from Clarke.
“Why are you calling me from ten feet away?” Lexa cannot properly maintain an exasperated tone for how badly she is trying not to smile.
“Because.” Clarke is out of breath, moving as she talks, and Lexa clenches a fist around the armrest of her seat. “I’m proving to you that Octavia is not listening to loud music today—see?” Lexa can already picture it: Clarke waving her phone around in mid air just to prove a point. “So, I totally should have been able to hear your truck pull into the lot. Unless you’ve installed some kind of military-grade, anti-tracking cloaking device.”
Lexa chuckles softly, shaking her head at Clarke’s conspiracy theories. She exhales, reaching for the door handle and opening the driver’s side door to the sounds and smells of the harbor. Dockside has many appealing qualities, but ambiance is definitely one of them. Gulls cry out and soft clouds hang above the water and Lexa can hardly hate her new line of work despite it being so far removed from her prior trajectory.
“Are you planning on letting me complete my delivery at some point today?” Lexa taunts, hopping down from the raised cab onto the dusty gravel. The weather is crisp but the sun is warm, and though Lexa’s bare arms pebble initially at the cool breeze, she knows by the end of her shift she’ll be glad she opted for the tee shirt instead of something warmer with sleeves.
“I am, I’m just—shit! Goddamnit!”
There’s a muffled crash as Lexa approaches the still-closed hatch door. “Clarke?”
She doesn’t answer even as the line goes quiet and the metal door clatters open. Lexa looks up to see Clarke at its opening, frowning, shoes covered in dark splatters that climb up her shins.
“Are you okay?” Lexa asks from the ground, placing her phone into the back pocket of her jeans.
“I brought you a coffee.”
Lexa inhales while she takes in the scene near Clarke’s feet, trying not to look amused. More spilled coffee pooled and spreading across the floor. An empty plastic cup. A bright pink straw still stuck through its lid.
“Oh,” Lexa repeats, this time without successfully covering a small laugh.
She can’t help it. She laughs again. “Sorry.”
“Lexa! This is a tragedy.”
“I have towels in the truck,” Lexa supplies. “And, as much as I appreciate the gesture, I’ve already had plenty of coffee.”
Yesterday they ate bagels and shared a bench alongside Bartlett Pond while geese squawked and autumn leaves filtered around them. Today it’s spilled coffee, and tomorrow it will be other stolen moments that Lexa is not allowed to crave let alone enjoy.
“I have a lifetime supply of towels here,” Clarke pouts. “That’s not the point.”
Lexa swings up onto the ledge so that she and Clarke are eye level. “Either way, I’ll help you clean up.”
“Sorry about your coffee,” Clarke grumbles, somehow less dejected now that Lexa is closer. Her brow furrows though her mouth is less of a frown.
Girlfriend, girlfriend, girlfriend. Lexa’s pulse accelerates with every iteration of her pointless mantra.
“It’s fine.” She swallows, stuffing her hands into her front pockets only to clench them into fists. “Do you want to—”
“You should come over tomorrow. For a movie or something. Like we talked about.”
Girlfriend, girlfriend, girlfriend. “Okay.”
Clarke smiles. The world tilts. Lexa hopelessly keeps her balance.
“I’m going to get you another coffee,” Clarke says.
“Don’t worry about it. Just … keep me company.”
The air smells like dark roasted beans, diesel exhaust, and saltwater. Clarke lingers, her gaze skating across Lexa’s features, and her stomach feels hollow in the most pleasant way. There are so many things to say and boundaries to keep or to blast wide open. Lexa can feel it all brimming—the potential of what if and what now.
But then Clarke breathes out and Lexa can feel the air relax around them. “Okay.”
There are protocols for this and ways of conducting business that Lexa cannot keep in the face of Clarke Griffin. She tries and she tries and she flounders every time. Clarke catches her eye and in spite of it all, Lexa can’t help but return her smile and think: it is a very good day.
