The ski trip couldn’t have come at a better time. Lexa was facing the sad prospect of staying at Berkeley alone over Christmas until Anya pulled through with a chalet in the Swiss alps that a contact through her firm was giving her the keys to.
The only hitch is Clarke.
Who perhaps is less of a ‘hitch’ and more of a ‘girl she hasn’t seen in six months since she went to grad school on the East Coast leaving Lexa and the feelings she waited too long to realise behind.’
The ski trip au based on the video for Ed Sheeran’s Perfect
read on ao3
Clarke has Lexa skiing confidently again by noon.
Similarly to when she invited her to Aspen two winters ago, Lexa falls the first time she attempts the slope and Clarke laughs at the powdered snow heaping up on the shelf of her goggles, shuffling over to brush it off with a gloved hand.
She’s running out of excuses to find herself in the brunette’s personal space but Lexa doesn’t seem to need excuses now and Clarke wishes she would just come out and say it.
Clarke’s decided Lexa will never be Octavia — who careens over the jumps on her snowboard at a rate of knots, leaving a trail of powder as the goes — but by late afternoon she is evidently hot enough to strip off her jacket and double-knot it around her waist, leaving her in her tight thermals and overalls. Clarke unzips her own windbreaker when she hands Lexa’s things back and lets it hang loose off her frame.
It gets dark early here. Where this morning had consisted of four straight hours of perfect sunshine, now the clouds dull the white glare and it snows.
“You want to go again?”
Lexa nods and pulls her goggles off, setting them on her forehead so that Clarke can see how she smiles, regardless of how badly her cheeks are chapped from the snow spray. They find the chair lift and hook their skis into the bottom, sitting and pulling the bar down into their laps. The metal is freezing against her and Clarke tucks her fingers into her sleeves to save off the chill, squinting against the snow as it buffets them in their perch halfway up the mountain.
“My Dad used to dare me to lick the pole when I was younger,” Clarke grins, blowing on her wind-chapped fingers to stave off the frost-bite. The fresh powder has worked its way beneath the elasticated hem of her gloves to melt in the tips of her fingers and she eventually decides to forgo them completely, tucking her hands under her armpits as she empties her mittens out into her lap.
“Let me guess,” Lexa drawls. “You had to be unstuck by search and rescue?”
Clarke sticks her tongue out at the memory. She doesn’t think Jake actually expected her to do it but she was even more stubborn at eight-years-old as she is now — she’s nothing if not his daughter — and the result was the chairlift being stopped for a full half-hour while red-suited men carefully pried her tongue free form the frozen metal and her mother watched on in slack-jawed horror.
They didn’t go back to Aspen the winter after that.
“You’re too smart for your own good,” Clarke accuses, giving Lexa the satisfaction of seeing her pout. It’s a strange thing to say because all she really wants to tell her is that she’s the dumbest law student in the world if she thinks she’s anywhere near as subtle as she thinks she is. “Just remember who has the power here. I could just as easily tell Octavia you wiped out the moment she set foot on the slope.”
She watches Lexa go red beneath her goggles, ducking her head in concession.
//
They take the slope again, slower this time because the visibility has taken a rapid downward spiral and by the time Lexa meets her at the bottom, she’s shivering to her bones. The big floodlights are on but the sun is nearly gone now. When the others join them, they make a unanimous decision to head back.
They hang their skis up outside the first place that looks warm and sells alcohol, peeling off their heavy jackets and unzipping their fleeces as they slide into a booth in the very back corner, far away from the karaoke machine and the already drunk group of girls pouring over the laminated book of songs.
Octavia has that eager glint in her eye that Clarke doesn’t like when she sees it — the one the says they aren’t leaving until they’ve covered every song in Destiny’s Child’s repertoire — but it reminds Clarke enough of undergrad that she doesn’t say anything.
Instead, she orders a beer, then another, then pitches in a couple of Francs when Raven declares she’s ordering a ShotSki from the bartender.
“This doesn’t look like a good idea,” Lexa whispers into the shell of her ear as a cheer goes up. She’s pressed so close to Clarke in the booth that Clarke can feel every bit of contact even through her fleece, like a set of little shocks that surge through her every time Lexa moves, making her heart beat fast and her adrenaline skyrocket.
“Anything is a good idea if you’re brave enough,” she fires back, watching Lexa’s brows shoot up.
From what, she doesn’t know, but it’s the sweetest thing she’s seen. She leans back a little bit against the back of the booth like she’s impressed at Clarke’s bravado and it’s the kind of posture that is dangerous.
There’s enough alcohol in her system now that, if they weren’t in a bar full of strangers, Clarke might just be brave enough to kiss her. She even imagines it as a single ski, the length of the table is placed down in front of them, five, little shot glasses lined up along it.
She would slide a hand under Lexa’s jaw first — the lightest touch, just a couple of fingers until she can see Lexa properly and steel herself enough to reach up to stroke a thumb over her bottom lip. Then she’d kiss her. She’d find the little bits of her hair that are damp from the melted snow and wind them through her fingertips and feel Lexa’s heartbeat flutter, warm and safe under her palm.
An elbow digs itself into her rib and her fantasy disappears from her so fast she can almost hear it leave — this harsh, fast woosh that echoes through her head and in her ears and she has to look over at Lexa — who stares at her, a little perturbed — to make sure she’s still there.
(She is. She always is).
“You helping?” Raven calls next to her, shooting her a confused look and Clarke nods, leaning forward to slide her fingers underneath the smooth shape of the ski. Whatever German beer they’ve been adding to her tab in the meantime is dangerously lowering her inhibitions.
It takes a bit of maneuvering and some counting from Anya and the bartender to get them all lined up but eventually, they just have to go for it. Raven bails halfway through her own countdown. So does Octavia on the other end so that the whole thing lurches towards Clarke and Clarke has to lunge forward to meet her shot of tequila. Most of it ends up down the front of her fleece.
What does go in her mouth goes in the wrong way. It burns on the way down. Her eyes smart at the shock. She coughs and hacks at the feeling, coming back to herself as Lexa’s fingers work their way beneath the lip of her top to rub her back, sending sharp, hard shocks of warmth across her skin. She blinks.
She feels dangerously close now to how she felt in bed with Lexa last night — this warm, fuzzy feeling that had been because of the eggnog then but probably the fault of something a little bit stronger now. Her cheeks feel hot. Lexa stares at her in the low, shifting light of the bar — there are fairy lights somewhere, and spotlights across the room near the karaoke stage, all red and green and purple, like a twisting kaleidoscope — and Clarke wonders if they’re about to have another moment.
She remembers Malibu with crystal clarity; the heat of the night and the sand under the straps of Lexa’s bikini as they spoke. She can see Lexa’s wet, salt-brushed hair and taste the prosecco and feel Lexa’s breath on her cheek when they kiss and —
She closes her eyes against the memory. Dizzy.
She’s waited nine months for another night like that but it hasn’t come.
(Now, she thinks she’d do just about anything to know what Lexa tastes like again).
//
Lexa is ninety percent alcohol by the time they stand up for karaoke.
She can feel it rattling around inside her every time she moves to let someone out of the booth.
Clarke asked her three times to come up and sing with them. “C’mon Lexy,” she’d said, tugging forlornly at the straps of Lexa’s overalls, “like old times”.
(Lexa hadn’t had the heart to tell her old times is exactly what she’s afraid of).
Instead, she sits in the booth, a few tables back from the stage, and nurses the remainder of Clarke’s beer, twisting the neck between her fingers while Clarke and Octavia flip noisily through the plastic folder of songs, slinging themselves over each other like Lexa remembers them doing in college.
It makes her nostalgic.
She hasn’t felt this spectacularly fuzzy and out of control as she does now since April and it scares her as she watches Clarke step up on stage, stripped down to her t-shirt. Her sleeves are rolled up, the hem of her shirt riding low across her stomach where the weight of her overall straps hang down and, at the sight of it, Lexa feels herself unravelling.
The thread snapped, the entire stupid, web she’s created for herself — all of the she’s my best friend's and Maryland isn’t that far away’s — coming apart strand by strand until she’s bare and shivering and more confused than she thinks she’s ever been.
//
By the time she makes it outside, jacket wound tight around her, she thinks she might be able to breathe again.
The snow is falling lighter now than it was when they arrived; softer, more powdery flurry than the sharp, dark flakes they fled from earlier. It coats everything — the cobblestones, benches, lit Christmas trees on the corner of each block — in this thin, opaque blanket and Lexa stands under the eaves of the bar’s roof for a moment, appreciating the silence it lends. If she stands here long enough it might be able to quiet the drumbeat of her heart.
Snow dulls everything.
(Or it does, at least, in her limited experience of it. California born and raised the only time she’s ever seen it is with Clarke, as a tag-along on Griffin-family ski trips or through their friends’ contacts. It’s become so interwoven with her now that Lexa doesn’t know if it’s the snow that makes places like this feel like a fairytale or Clarke herself and trying to separate the two now just makes her feel dizzy).
She’s hungry now. There’s a blinking, neon sign advertising pizza — at least she thinks it’s pizza — across the street and she walks toward it like a mirage in a desert. If she can just get something into her empty stomach, maybe she’ll be able to think straight. Her thoughts will stop coming to her in metaphor and verse.
(She might even be able to pick herself up by the bootstraps and be brave).
The snowball hits her squarely in the back of the head before she even has the chance to breathe.
It shatters against her beanie, loose powder spilling under the collar of her jacket and she spins in alarm, arms held out in defence, to see Clarke standing on the ramp outside of the bar, the door swinging a little in her wake. Her jacket is slung on haphazardly, hanging open at the front and spilling off at her shoulders so that Lexa can see her candy-striped thermal underneath and the way the straps of her overalls have been tied at her waist and her cheeks are Starburst red, eyes smarting in the stinging cold.
More than that though, there’s something — mischief or wanting or something else entirely — tucked into the upward curve of her lips as she smiles; big and wide, her arms hanging limply at her sides.
“Clarke…” Lexa tries over the quiet hush of falling snow but she doesn’t know what she’s trying to say. She doesn’t even recognise her own voice as she speaks but Clarke must because she shakes her head and shrugs; this big up down of her shoulders as her smile plateaus that makes Lexa nervous.
“When are you going to kiss me!”
Lexa frowns. “What?”
“My god, you’re clueless,” Clarke laughs, moving toward her in three quick strides. Her fingers sting when they slide under Lexa’s jaw, tipping her chin up to meet her mouth and the kiss — sweet and purposeful and commanded squarely by Clarke — steals the air from her faster than the snowball did.
(For a moment, it feels like Lexa will never take another breath in her life).
It takes a moment to understand what’s happening.
Clarke tastes warm; like whiskey and German beer. Her nose is cold but her breath is hot and it takes seconds for Lexa’s brain to start firing again once she pulls back, rocking on the heels of her heavy boots so that the snow crunches beneath her feet.
“But that morning…” Lexa whispers, blinking slowly at the stripes on Clarke’s thermal. The blond’s fingers stay cradling her jaw; a quiet, little pressure that keeps her mind from straying but, if she’s been interpreting this — them — wrong all this time, keeping her trait on thought is going to be the least of her worries. “You didn’t say anything.”
“I didn’t think I needed to,” Clarke says, head tipping forward in exasperation when Lexa doesn’t reply. “I thought we were already dating you weirdo! I thought you’d invited me to Malibu as…you know…” she leans in, ducking her head comically like she’s afraid of being overheard, “more than a friend.” Lexa’s stomach drops at that; she can feel her chest heaving under the breath she can’t let out. “But then you were all hot and cold the next morning and I didn’t know what to do.”
“So…” Lexa frowns, fingers finding the lapels of Clarke’s coat if only to give them something to do, trying to process Clarke’s words. She knows she isn’t exactly the brightest when it comes to her love life — she probably wouldn’t know flirting if it slapped her in the face, but then again, who does? — but is she really that stupid?
“Yeah,” Clarke laughs, her brow unfurling and it sounds like a relief.
Snatches of conversation floated out from the bar but out here it’s perfectly quiet as they search each other’s faces, reaching for what to do next; as if they’re standing in a shaken-up snow globe trying to catch the flakes with their tongues. Lexa can feel every single brush of skin against hers, every heartbeat and breath.
Her world is turning upside down but she thinks it’s the steadiest she’s felt on her feet in a long time.
(Sometimes, it feels like Clarke’s entire presence is enough to loosen reality’s hold).
//
Clarke giggles when Lexa kisses her again.
Her fingers slide from Lexa’s jaw to the zipper of her jacket where it nudges her chin, winding around the cold, metal tab.
They left their skis back at the bar, along with a text on Octavia and Raven’s phones telling them they were going back to the chalet and Clarke is already steeling herself for the teasing she knows she’s going to endure. Their friends have the emotional maturity of seven-year-olds but that’s OK, Clarke’s resigned herself to it.
What she hasn’t resigned herself to though, is this. The after part. Despite all of her bravado, all of her fantasizing and how sure she was of Lexa’s undeniable feelings, she hadn’t thought about what she would do after she kissed Lexa, even in all of her months of pining and now that it’s here, she’s nervous.
They stand in their bedroom under the eaves, staring dumbly, high on the thrill of it all, and it makes Clarke feel jittery — like she’s in the eleventh grade again and standing in Mike Mirovski’s bedroom in her underwear after the Spring Formal.
(The least satisfying night of her life, if she’s being honest).
She hasn’t been that nervous high schooler in a long time but, but every minute with Lexa makes her feel eighteen-years-old again and walking into her room assignment on move-in day to find a serious girl with tortoiseshell glasses tucking her fitted sheet around the mattress on the far bed.
The same girl is standing in front of her now too. A little older maybe, a little taller, sporting a bachelor's degree and a pretty gnarly scar above her lip from where she slipped and fell on the edge of her desk after a night out during Freshman orientation — Clarke thinks the ensuing emergency room visit and eight hours of holding an ice-pack to her new roommates face is what sealed the deal between them — but the same nonetheless.
Clarke thinks she’s the same too, in all the ways that matter at least.
When she thinks about it that way it feels silly to be scared.
(No sillier than spending almost a year as just friends because they were too dysfunctional to talk to each other, though. That takes the whole damn idiot cake).
They make it down to their thermals before Clarke feels her hands shaking.
She curls her fingers into the shoulders of Lexa’s thermal. It’s the only layer left between her and bare skin and she watches her fingertips whiten against the dark fabric, the collar pulling away from her neck enough for Clarke to see the cheap, silver necklace she’d bought her for Christmas their first year of college.
“You kept it,” Clarke tugs a little on the chain. The tarnished infinity charm swings free of the thermal and Lexa looks down smiling —
A bang echoes through the empty house. Fireworks being let off, maybe, or a car exhaust backfiring.
They spring away from each other like kids being caught, fingers untangling themselves from thermals. A moment later, the lights go out.
“Shit,” Clarke hisses, heart hammering against her chest in fright. “What was that?” She reaches out to Lexa through the darkness, relieved when her hand hits warm skin. It slides down, fastening itself to Lexa’s, fingers entwined.
“Where’s the light switch?” Lexa asks, her frown almost invisible. Without the ambient light, she’s just a collection of shapes and shadows but Clarke clings to her, half-blind as her eyes adjust.
She moves when she can feel Lexa moving and listens to the light switch being flipped once, twice, three times.
Nothing.
“Power’s out,” Lexa deduces finally.
Clarke snorts. “No kidding.” Forced into darkness, she feels even more on edge than she did in the light. Sure neither of them can see the way her hands are shaking now, or how her lips bunch together in apprehension but, now, she can’t see Lexa either; can’t tell what she’s thinking or if she’s scared too without reaching out to map the contours of her face under her fingertips.
Not to mention that, without the steady thrum of the radiator pumping out hot air, the temperature is dropping.
She shivers involuntary and Lexa frowns. “Are you cold?” she curls her arms around Clarke’s middle and Clarke nods, resting her chin on Lexa’s shoulder.
It’s nice. Nicer than sharing a bed at college ever was; even with all that bare skin pressed up against hers in the hotter months thanks to the teeny, tiny tank top and sleep shorts Lexa called pyjamas. Nicer now because it’s real. Not the kind of real she takes for granted until she wakes up one day — the day after she thought they made it official — to find it being taken away from her; a proper kind of real. A mutual kind of real that was just about to lead to some amazing sex if the hot feeling slung in her belly at the thought of Lexa’s hands on her is any indication.
(Damn Anya’s client and their faulty chalet. Can’t a girl get a little action without the universe conspiring against her?)
Now, instead, the house is dark and still. Even the fairy lights on the bannister in the hall are off and if it wasn’t for the white glare of the snow outside, Clarke wouldn’t be able to see anything. She closes her eyes and rests her cheek against Lexa’s, staying there for a moment.
“Come on,” Lexa says finally when Clarke is sure the mood is all but gone. She lets go of Clarke for long enough to strip their bed of its pillows and quilt before taking Clarke’s hand again and leading her downstairs, steps careful and tentative.
Once they get downstairs, Lexa leaves the bedding on the sofa, pressing her weight against the love-seat so that it slides backwards. She moves the coffee table next, motioning for Clarke to take the other end and they walk it sideways until it sits against the windows, leaving them with a flat, clear space in front of the fireplace.
“It’s warmer down here,” Lexa explains, nodding to the still smouldering fire as she shakes their quilt out onto the rug on the hardwood floor. “I thought we could camp out down here until the power comes back on — could you get that?” Clarke dutifully fetches the blanket from the back of the sofa and hands it to Lexa who layers it on top, then steps back to assess.
“Or not,” she says quickly when Clarke doesn’t reply — she’s watching her against the wide, dark frame of the windows instead. “We could just go back to bed if you want…not like that, just…” she shrugs. “Whatever you want.”
“Relax,” Clarke grins, leaning forward to press a pillow from their bed into Lexa’s chest before kissing her. “It’s sexy when you take charge. Like a sexy…” she pinches her lip in thought, “girl scout.”
“That’s not sexy in the slightest,” Lexa deadpans, nose cold against Clarke’s and Clarke shrugs, tucking her lip against her teeth.
“Tell me that next Halloween,” she promises and Lexa’s eyes go wide. Clarke files that away for future reference; if they’re going to do the girlfriend thing — the proper girlfriend thing, not the I thought we were already girlfriends girlfriend thing — they’re going to do it well.
She thinks it’s what Lexa wants too. No, she’s sure it’s what she wants, has known for months, just left it up to Lexa to realise it.
(Well, she’s never doing that again).
“Did you see a lighter anywhere or a box of matches?” Lexa asks, extracting the squat candles from the decorate vases lining the dining room table. She has another couple tucked under her arm too, long thing ones — emergency candles by the look of it — that she wedges into a few mugs as makeshift holders.
Picking her way across the dark living room, Clarke goes in search. She finds both in a drawer by the oven, as well as a corkscrew, which leads her over to the rack in the corner, each slot filled with a different bottle. She picks one at random and picks her way back to the living room with two, tall glasses in tow.
“Matches, lighter,” she recounts, “and something to keep us warm,” she shakes the bottle suggestively. Standing outside the bar in the cold was sobering and the buzz she had has fast worn off. It’s not that she necessarily wants to be drunk for this — she doesn’t, in fact, she wants to remember every second of this night forever; every expression Lexa’s face makes and every way her touch feels different on her skin — but the courage she’s used for the past nine months to wish Lexa would pull her head out of the clouds and look has been found wanting.
“Not sure that’s in the Official Scout’s handbook,” Lexa purses her lips, taking the bottle and the glasses anyway as she sits down.
“Har-har,” Clarke eases herself to the blanket beside her, setting one glass in the circle of her legs as she motions for the bottle back and pushes the corkscrew into the top. After some tugging, it comes free with a pop and she grins, pouring a liberal dose into both glasses and handing one over before leaning back on one hand.
They sit in silence for a long moment. The fire — down to its last logs — spits and crackles but with it, along with the candles set up around them in a little semicircle it’s easier to see and Lexa looks prettier now, stripped down to her thermals, socked feet and sweatpants than she had in the snow. She looks perfectly cozy — comfortable even.
Clarke watches her bring her glass to her lips and swallow a long sip, head tilted just-so so that her hair is out of her face and Clarke can see the firelight in her eyes.
“I suppose that cookie money has to go somewhere,” she whispers after a long while, so quiet that Clarke isn’t sure she’s supposed to hear. It’s too serious to ignore though — this pensive, still little voice from her left — and Clarke laughs.
It starts off quiet at first, concealed beneath a tiny shake of her shoulders but soon she’s almost crying with the force of it and she can’t seem to stop. Lexa looks over, dazed as if shaken out of a trance and starts laughing too, loud and hard so that wine sloshes out of her cup and splashes on the white rug. It makes them laugh more.
By the time they are done Clarke doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to breathe again except for in tiny, snatched breaths. Lexa stares at her from across the blanket, wild-eyed and red-cheeked and Clarke doesn’t think she’s ever felt happier in her life.
She puts her cup down and crawls over, easing a leg over Lexa’s waist until she’s straddling her, back to the fire, and tucks a kinky lock of hair behind Lexa’s ears, pressing her lips carefully — gently — to hers in a sweet, soft exhale.
It’s been so long since Malibu — so, so long — that she almost forgot what this feels like and she hates that because this is easily what heaven feels like. This, right here, with Lexa’s hands under the thin fabric of her top, fingers pressing softly against the valley of her spine and lips against hers. She’s so sure of it in fact that she’d happily damn herself for eternity, safe in the knowledge she’s already experienced all there is to experience.
Lexa sighs against her, her pendant swinging free again at the movement of her chest and Clarke lets her fingers tangle in the chain, nail smoothing over the little symbol, over and over in an infinite loop.
“I’m sorry I didn’t say anything,” she says, resting her forehead against Lexa’s. She can feel her eyes pull closed. “That morning, I mean,” her finger keeps tracing — over and over. Infinite. “I should have and I didn’t. “
“It’s not your fault,” Lexa whispers, her hands retreating until they rest at the small of Clarke’s back, just above the waistband of her pants. With her shirt ridden up, Clarke can feel the heart of the fire and the warmth of her hands.
“I just don’t want you to think I didn’t want you,” Clarke reiterates, leaning back enough to look into Lexa's eyes. They’re hazy and hooded and, clearly, it was cruel of Clarke to stop in the middle of…whatever was about to happen but she needed to. She needs to say this. “Because I did. I do.”
“I know,” Lexa nods.
“Good. Now you apologize.”
“For what?” Lexa frowns.
“For being an idiot.”
She can feel Lexa’s lips curl lazily into a smile.
So I found out about allegedly orgasm-enhancing gels and I thought of Starscream. Small bottle, fancy looking, overpriced, probably smells nice and comes in a package with fancy overpriced massage oils. He'd get it for aesthetic if nothing else. Now imagine Megatron getting the entirely Wrong Idea, all other evidence to the contrary. A horrible blow to his ego. The gel serves its purpose without ever being applied now that the big brute's gotten it into his head that he needs to Try Harder.
Like Megatron isn't going to take Starscream's expensive, pretty little bottle of gel and dump the entire thing all over his spike like the stubborn, fragile old bastard he is, and then spend the entire evening curled up in the fetal position because he wasn't wearing his reading glasses and it wasn't the orgasm enhancing gel at all it was the 'temperature tingling' gel and his spike is on fire and Starscream left it out planning the entire thing because he was annoyed at Megatron for always falling asleep after round one.
Starscream finds out hes carrying but doesnt know how to tell megatron. So he does it as subtley as he can( which isnt very much) and hintscto megatron that hes carrying. Unfortunately, megs is too thick to realise hes going to be a sire and thinks starcream is trying to leave him or something
Starscream takes an extra fuel ration, and at Megatron's disaproving look, jokes, "Well I am fuelling for two now."
Megatron spends all day wondering who this second person is and if he should be worried...
Star introduces megs to the very intimate act of preening that all seekers do with their trine and mates. Star does megs perfectly to show him how to do it. But when megs tries...lets just say screamer ends up in the medbay with a shattered cockpit, dented frame, and somehow is missing a wing
Seeker preening must be a painstakingly slow and delicate process, where armour is fluffed to expose all the intricate wires and sensors beneath, putting them at their vulnerable anyway, part of the reason why only trine or mates are allowed to do it.
Megatron with his big clumsy hands and impatient personality wouldn't stand a chance when faced with the delicate, finely tuned perfection that is Starscream's body.
Megatron wakes up after a night of drinking to find a seeker in his bed. Its not screamer. They didnt do anything, just both passed out on his bed. Afraid what star would if he hinds out, do he works hard to prevent him from finding out he "slept with" someone else
Megatron wouldn't need to worry about it because Starscream would know by morning and will have already arranged for the other seeker to have an unfortunate accident for encroaching on his territory
