Prompt Fill: OT4 (Clextaven) - Supernova Remnant
The fight happened too quickly for any of them to stop it, growing mass and exploding in a burst of energy before any of them had a moment to take a step back. They were pulled so quickly into the unrelenting gravity of the disagreement that they all sat in shocked silence as the aftermath settled around them.
Rare was it that they screamed, really screamed and tried to shout down each other without listening. There were times that their passion prevailed. There were moments. It was never all of them.
It should never have been over this.
Clarke, Octavia, Lexa, and Raven sit in the living room around the coffee table that had seen them at their best and their worst. Stunned silence, like the deafening kind of silence that follows the last amp being turned off after a rock concert.
Raven trembles. Lexa clenches her jaw. Octavia has her head between her knees. And Clarke has tears streaming down her face.
That morning had started so softly, the four of them in bed talking about the future. That’s where the energy had spilled from. Lexa had stumbled over a marriage proposal and the talk of kids the day before, something all of them wanted but none were sure how to take forward. With four of them it was complex.
Arguing over who would marry whom was not something they should have had to do and that morning it had seemed simple, a matter of legality.
Lexa takes in a deep breath as if to speak.
Lexa narrows her eyes and pushes her feet in an instant. She strides across the room, slamming the fall of the piano closed as she does.
“Lexa…” Octavia’s voice is strained.
“NO.” Lexa whirls around. “We aren’t doing this, not over this. Legal bullshit will not be what breaks everything we’ve fought for.” Her face is ashen and she leans heavily against the dining table.
Loving too much had never been their problem. They opened their hearts and arms and fell into each new challenge. Whose name went next to whose on a piece of paper felt like tearing them apart. The energy shattered and screamed across the galaxy of their love. It erupted in bright colors, blinding and deafening all at once.
It shouldn’t have mattered. Should be just another stroke on the canvas of their relationship.
It mattered too much because they were never just two, even when alone in pairs they were always four.
Maybe, once upon a time they could divide and not have it burst like this.
Clarke wipes her eyes and sniffles. Slowly she makes her way to her feet and across the room toward Lexa. As she passes she cups the back of Octavia’s head and scratches her scalp. She brushes a thumb across Raven’s cheek and lifts her chin. When she reaches Lexa she stops, hands propped on her own hips. She looks up at Lexa, lips pursed as if she’s evaluating the weight of her next words.
“No,” Clarke says definitively, “We aren’t. We aren’t breaking over this, that’s the most asinine thing we could do.”
Lexa opens her mouth and closes it once more.
“Then how do we decide?” Octavia straightens up. She’s feels as if her insides are trembling. It’s the fight itself, the raised voices, more than the subject matter. It hurts, and it makes her afraid of what they might become. The vicious anger that had blown them to the far corners of the room is not something that will fade easily. It leaves a mark and their shape will be forever changed. “How do we fix this?”
Silence stretches, deep and dark and fathomless.
Raven stands and reaches for Octavia’s hands to bring her to her feet. Before twining their fingers and bringing the two of them across the room to Clarke and Lexa. “Logic.”
Lexa raises an eyebrow and Clarke opens her mouth to ask for clarification. Raven presses a finger to Clarke’s lips.
“Trust me.”
Clarke swallows and nods.
“People marry for a few reasons. Mostly love, sometimes money.” Raven starts.
Lexa starts to protest, “Law dictates that we can’t marry for love, otherwise we-”
“-that we can’t all marry each other. So,” a small grin tugs at the corner of Raven’s mouth. “We take love out of the equation. We figure out what partnerships make the most sense legally and fiscally. It’s a legal document.”
“It doesn’t dictate how we feel about each other,” Clarke smiles softly at Raven.
Lexa leans against the table and nods. “There is sense in that. O?” she looks up wide and glossy eyed.
Octavia reaches for Clarke and stops herself from falling into her oldest friend, her only friend that had ever seen the fights she grew up around. The one that would understand the deepest. Her voice quavers, “We don’t get to use the licenses as a bargaining chip. They can’t be leverage.”
Lexa jumps to her feet and reaches forward to cup Octavia’s face. “Of course not!” She pauses, not certain where to go from here. The energy from the fight has burst around them and they’re aching and scared in its wake. Still, words had been hurled like weapons and she didn’t miss the way that Octavia had flinched slightly when Lexa had reached for her. “I’m sorry for starting this.”
Raven leans her forehead against Lexa’s shoulder and sneaks her arm around Lexa’s waist.
Clarke presses a kiss to the side of Octavia’s head and turns to Lexa, “We need to know what we’re going to do if we’re going to have kids. And it’s clear we all want to do this as best we can.”
Lexa nods. In turn she tugs each of the girls closer to her until they’re leaning in a pile that’s somewhat like a hug and somewhat like a huddle. “I know,” she whispers.
They’re in this together. They’ve gotten this far, figured out how to talk through the hard stuff. Together they’ll figure out how to keep moving forward together, explosions and all.
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