'Give me the book.' | One Shot
Pairing: Clementine x Blair (!OCS!)
Summary: blair comes back from rehearsal completely dead on her feet and immediately crashes onto clem's bed, only to catch clem red handed writing about her in her journal. chaos, teasing, and a very flustered clem trying to hide her softest thoughts ensue.
Word count: 3218
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The door to the dorm didn’t so much open as it yielded to the sheer weight of Blair leaning against the brass knob.
She stood in the threshold for a long second, bathed in the harsh, yellow light of the hallway, looking like a marionette with its strings cut.
Her long, straight blonde hair, usually pinned up in a severe, impenetrable bun that didn’t allow a single stray flyaway, was half unraveled, hanging down her shoulders in loose, frizzy strands. Her oversized knit sweater swallowed her whole, the sleeves pulled down so low only the tips of her fingernails peeked out.
Across the room, sitting cross legged on her unmade bed, Clem didn’t even look up at first. The soft scratch scratch scratch of her pen against thick paper filled the quiet space, accompanied by the muffled hum of Phoebe bridges bleeding out of a cheap speaker.
"You're late," Clem murmured, her curls bouncing slightly as she tilted her head, pressing the pen harder against the page to shade something in. "I was about two minutes away from sending a search party. Or Sera. Which would have been worse for everyone involved.
Blair let out a sound that wasn't a word. just a long, deflating sigh that sounded like it took the last bit of oxygen out of her lungs. She kicked off her shoes without looking down, letting them clatter against the floor, dragging her feet across it.
She didn't stop at her own bed. She didn't even drop her dance bag on her side of the room.
Instead, Blair made a beeline for Clem’s bed. She collapsed forward like a felled tree, her knees hitting the mattress first before her entire upper body caved, burying her face directly into the soft dip between clem’s neck and shoulder.
"Woah, hey!" Clem let out a breathless laugh, jostling violently as the mattress absorbed Blair's dead weight. She instinctively threw her right arm out to keep her journal from sliding off her lap, her pen making a long, dark skitter mark across the margin. "Okay. Rough rehearsal?"
Blair didn't move. Her face was pressed so firmly into Clem's shirt that her answer came out in a series of muffled, pathetic grunts.
"Didn't catch a word of that, Princess," Clem teased softly. She shifted her posture, trying to adjust under the sudden, heavy warmth of blair’s body, but Blair only wrapped her arms around Clem’s waist, locking her hands together behind Clem’s back.
"I said," Blair muttered, turning her head just enough so her mouth was pressed right against the skin of Clem’s pulse point, her breath making Clem’s collarbone twitch, "Jean-Luc is a tyrant, my toes are bleeding, and if I have to run the Cygnet entrance one more time in full pointe shoes, I am going to throw myself off the balcony."
Clem chuckled, a quiet, rumbling sound in her chest that Blair felt more than heard. Clem brought her free hand up, the one not clutching the journal, and drove her fingers through the messy blonde strands at the nape of Blair’s neck, untangling a knot with slow, practiced patience.
"You love the balcony," Clem whispered teasingly. "It has great acoustics."
"I hate everything," Blair grumbled, but her grip on Clem’s waist loosened just a fraction, her forehead dropping down to rest heavily against Clem’s collarbone. She let out another slow breath, the tension in her shoulder blades, usually so rigid, so impeccably held, finally starting to melt away. "I hate Jean-Luc. I hate gravity. I hate my own feet."
"You don't hate your feet," Clem said softly, her fingers gently massaging the tight muscle at the base of Blair’s skull. "They are the centre of your life. Or... well. You know what I mean."
Blair made a tiny, muffled noise of agreement, leaning into the touch of Clem's finger behind her ear.
For a few minutes, neither of them said anything. The room was quiet except for the faint, steady rain tapping against the windowpane and the low strumming of an acoustic guitar coming from the desk speaker. It was the kind of heavy, comfortable silence that only existed in this room, between the two of them. Outside this door, Blair was the disowned girl trying to prove she wasn't a disgraced fluke, the flawless lead who didn't sweat or stumble. But here, pinned under the weight of her own exhaustion on Clem’s messy duvet, she was just Blair.
And Clem... Clem was just the anchor holding her down.
Blair shifted slightly, her hair spilling over Clem’s lap like a curtain. Her eyelids fluttered open, lashes sweeping against her cheeks as she looked down.
Right beside her thigh sat Clem’s journal. Blair’s eyes tracking down to the open page resting under Clem’s left hand.
Clem’s handwriting was messy, fast, and distinctly her, a mix of slanted print and rushed cursive, dotted with quick little ink doodles in the margins. Blair’s eyes casually scanned the top line, not really intending to read, just watching the rhythm of the blue ink.
...the way the light hits the back of her neck when she's tying her hair, like she doesn't even realize how ridiculous it is that she looks like a painting just existing in a gross studio...
Blair froze.
Her breath hitched, just a tiny bit, but Clem felt the sudden tension in Blair’s frame immediately.
Blair blinked, her eyes darting to the next sentence.
...she keeps doing that thing with her lower lip when she gets frustrated with the tempo, and I swear to god I forgot my count three times today just watching her-
Before Blair could read another word, a pair of warm, ink stained fingers slammed down flat over the page.
"Nope," Clem blurted out, her voice suddenly an octave higher than normal.
She scrambled backward against the headboard, dragging the book away so fast she nearly clipped Blair in the chin with the binding. A dark, instant flush hit Clem’s cheeks, blooming up from the collar of her shirt and spreading rapidly to the tips of her ears, right under her dark, messy curls.
Blair lifted her head off Clem’s chest, her eyes wide, a slow, dangerous curl forming at the corner of her lips.
"Clem," Blair said, her voice dropping into a smooth, teasing register that she usually reserved for highsociety events she hated. "What was that?"
"Nothing," Clem said quickly, snapping the journal shut with a loud thump and shoving it behind her back, pressing her spine flat against it. She stared at Blair with wide, utterly guilty eyes, her chest rising and falling just a little too fast. "Nothing at all. Just... class notes. Boring stuff. choreography. Spacing. Counts."
"Class notes?" Blair raised a single, perfectly sculpted eyebrow, leaning up on one elbow. The sudden shift from 'exhausted Blair' to 'Scary Blair' was staggering. "Class notes about the back of my neck?"
"I didn't write that," Clem lied horribly, her cheeks burning even hotter. She crossed her arms tightly over her chest, trying to look defensive, but her entire posture was radiating pure, unadulterated panic. "You're hallucinating. You're sleep deprived. You need water."
"Clem," Blair purred, reaching out one long, elegant arm, her fingers twitching playfully in the space between them. "Give me the book."
"Over my dead body," Clem said, pressing herself even harder into the headboard, her knuckles turning white where she was hugging the leather notebook behind her back. "Literally, Kensington. I will swallow this book whole before I let you read another word."
Blair didn't back down. A slow, mischievous smirk curled the corner of her lips, erasing the exhaustion that had been weighing her down only moments ago. She shifted onto her knees, long, fluid limbs moving with an effortless grace that made even a messy dorm bed look like a stage.
"You're making this infinitely worse for yourself," Blair warned softly, her tone laced with rich amusement. She lunged forward, not fast, but with the precision of someone who knew she had the upper hand. "If it was just class notes, you wouldn't be looking at me like I just caught you committing a crime."
"It's private!" Clem yelped, scrambling to swing her legs around to the side of the mattress, trying to use her body as a shield. "There's... personal stuff in there. Deeply embarrassing, crazy thoughts!"
"Thoughts about me?" Blair teased, reaching over Clem's shoulder. Her fingers brushed against the spine, and Clem let out a dramatic, squeaking noise, twisting away so fast her curls whipped across her face.
"You have an ego the size of the tri-state area," Clem grumbled, lunging to the other side of the bed to put distance between them. She was breathing through her mouth, her face practically glowing red under the warm glow of the fairy lights strung above the headboard. "It's not about you. It's about... my deeply intellectual analysis of the dance."
"Right. Intellectual analysis." Blair crawled across the duvet after her, her hair spilling over her shoulders like silk. She looked so ridiculously pretty, even in a faded sweater, that Clem actually groaned aloud at the sheer unfairness of it all. "Which includes the phrase 'look like a painting just existing in a gross studio'? I didn't know the dance was so poetic."
"You're a nightmare," Clem muttered, clutching the journal to her ribs like a football and tucking her chin into her chest. "An absolute, unmitigated nightmare. Why do I even let you on my bed?"
"Because my bed has a terrible mattress, and because you adore me," Blair said simply, as if stating a universally acknowledged law. She reached out, her fingers gently catching Clem's wrist. She didn't pull hard, she never had to, just held it there, her thumb rubbing tiny, mesmerising circles over Clem's racing pulse point. "Come on, Clem. Just one page. Or one paragraph. You can pick."
Clem stared down at Blair's hand on her wrist, then up at Blair's face. Blair had dropped the predatory smirk, her expression melting into something softer, her deep blue eyes wide and pleading in that infuriatingly cute way she only ever allowed Clem to see.
"You're evil," Clem whispered, though the fight was rapidly draining out of her voice. She looked down at the bulging notebook, feeling her face burn all over again. "It's so embarrassing, Blair. Seriously. You're going to hold it over my head for the rest of my life."
"I won't," Blair promised softly, leaning in a fraction closer. The scent of her perfume mixed with the faint, sharp smell of rosin from the studio drifted between them. "I swear I won't mock you. well... not for more than three days."
Clem let out a breathy, defeated laugh, dropping her head back against the wall with a soft thud. "Three days. How generous."
"I'm a humanitarian."
"Okay, fine," Clem groaned, covering her eyes with her free hand for a second. "Fine! But under one condition."
Blair tilted her head, her interest clearly piqued. "Name it."
"You don't get to look at the paper. At all. You close your eyes, or... or I cover them. And I get to pick the entry, and I read it, and then we never, ever speak of it again as long as we both shall live."
Blair's eyes glittered with quiet victory. "Deal."
Before Blair could settle back down, Clem reached her hand out and gently placed it right over Blair's eyes. Blair let out a tiny, breathless huff of laughter, but she obeyed, letting her eyelids drop shut beneath the soft weight of Clem's fingers.
"No peeking," Clem warned, her voice dropping into a hushed, nervous murmur as she used her other hand to awkwardly flip open the heavy book on her lap. The sound of paper rustling filled the quiet room, punctuated by the soft pitter patter of rain against the window.
"I'm not peeking," Blair murmured, her lips twitching into a small smile. She rested her hands on Clem's thigh to steady herself, feeling the quiet tremor in Clem's muscles. "Take your time, author."
"Shut up," Clem said, but there was no heat in it. She shifted the pages, her eyes skimming furiously through messy handwriting and scribbled out lines. She passed three different entries that were way too intense, pages where she'd rambled for hours about the exact way Blair's voice sounded when she was tired, or how watching Blair dance made her chest ache with something huge and terrifying.
Finally, she stopped on an entry from a few weeks ago, written late at night after they'd shared a slice of pizza on the dorm fire escape.
"Okay," Clem swallowed hard, her heart pounding against her ribs so loud she was sure Blair could hear it. "Okay, I found one. It's... stupid. Don't say anything."
"My lips are sealed," Blair whispered, tilting her head up slightly toward the sound of Clem's voice.
Clem took a deep, shaky breath, clearing her throat. Her hand over Blair's eyes tightened just a fraction, a subconscious shield against the sheer mortality of being this vulnerable.
"'Blair fell asleep on the floor today during modern history. She was trying so hard to look like she was taking notes, but her chin kept dropping, and every time it did, she'd snap her head up and glare at the chalkboard like it had personally insulted her. It was ridiculous. She looked like a tired kitten trying to act like a tiger.'"
A small, genuine giggle escaped Blair's lips, vibrating softly against Clem's knee. "I do not look like a kitten."
"Shh! No commentary!" Clem bumped her hip against Blair's gently, though a smile was betraying her embarrassment. She swallowed and continued, her voice softening as she read the next lines, the playful edge melting away into pure, unfiltered truth. "'I didn't take notes either because I was too busy watching her. Sometimes she gets this look when she thinks no one's paying attention, like she's carrying the whole world on her shoulders and if she relaxes for even one second, it'll all crash down. I hate it. I hate that she feels like she has to be perfect all the time. I just wanted to drag her out of the lecture hall, take her back here, and tell her that she doesn't have to prove anything to anyone. Not to her family, not to Jean-Luc, not to me. I just... I really, really like her. Even when she's stubborn. Which is always.'"
Silence settled over the bedroom, heavy and sweet. The only sound was the low strum of the acoustic song playing from the desk speakers and the soft, rhythmic tapping of the rain.
Clem stared at the ink on the page, her face burning, her chest tight. She hadn't realized how intensely real those words sounded until she said them out loud. It wasn't just a silly crush entry, it was everything she felt every single day, watching Blair work herself to the bone, watching Blair pretend she was fine when her whole world was splintering.
Slowly, carefully, Clem began to lift her hand off Blair's face.
Her fingers slid down Blair's temple, tracing the soft line of her jaw, lingering there for a second before dropping away completely.
Blair's eyelashes fluttered open. Her eyes weren't bright with teasing or mocking laughter like Clem had feared. They were soft, dark, and impossibly deep, glistening under the low light. She was looking at Clem like she was the only thing in the entire room, maybe the entire world.
"Clem..." Blair whispered, her voice barely a thread of sound.
"I told you it was stupid," Clem mumbled quickly, looking down at her lap, her fingers blindly picking at the corner of the journal's cover. She let out a breathless, awkward chuckle, trying desperately to defuse the sudden, suffocating intimacy hanging in the air. "Totally cringe. I should probably burn it. Or throw it in the river—"
"Clem."
Blair reached out, her cool fingers sliding under Clem's chin, gently but firmly lifting her face up so their eyes met again. Blair didn't let go. Her thumb rested against the warm skin of Clem's cheekbone, stroking softly, brushing away a rogue curl that had fallen over her temple.
"It wasn't stupid," Blair said gently. the defensive sarcasm, the untouchable dancer persona, it was all gone. There was only Blair, raw and quiet, sitting on a messy bed in a cozy dorm room. "It was... really sweet."
Clem bit her lower lip, a helpless, flustered smile breaking through her embarrassment. "Yeah? You're not gonna mock me for the kitten thing?"
"Oh, I'll definitely mock you for the kitten thing later," Blair murmured, a tiny, breathless giggle escaping her lips as she leaned in a little closer. "But not right now."
"No?" Clem's voice was barely a breath, her eyes darting down to Blair's lips and then back up.
"No," Blair whispered.
The distance between them closed so slowly it felt like floating. Blair shifted forward, her hand moving from Clem's chin to cradle the back of her neck, her fingers tangling in her curls. Clem let out a shaky breath, her own hands instinctively reaching out to rest on Blair's waist, pulling her in until there was no space left between them.
When their lips finally met, it wasn't frantic or rushed. It was soft and unbelievably sweet. Blair let out a soft, contented hum against Clem's mouth, leaning her weight into the touch, letting all the tension from rehearsal completely dissolve into the kiss.
Clem tilted her head, deepening the kiss just a fraction, her thumb sliding under the hem of Blair's sweater to touch the warm skin of her waist. Blair shivered softly at the touch, a quiet giggle breaking through the kiss as Clem's cool fingers tickled her side.
They parted just an inch, their foreheads resting together, both of them breathing a little fast, tiny, giddy smiles plastered across their faces.
"See?" Clem murmured teasingly, her breath brushing warm against Blair's lips. "You do adore me."
"Shut up," Blair laughed quietly, bumping her nose playfully against Clem's before leaning back in to kiss her again, softer this time, perfectly content to stay right there, wrapped up in the only place that felt safe.
End.