fragile | clexa

chapter eight

A soap laid next to the bathtub but when Clarke tried, she couldn't lift her arms. She just wasn't able to move. The skin that clutched her bones was dripping wet as Clarke looked down to see what was wrong. It wasn't exactly a question at the sight of total lack of any fat or muscle. You could see the exact, sharp outline of every bone and joint in her arm, only covered by pale skin and wet bandages.

"Lexa?" she asked hesitantly.

Lexa's head shot up. "Yes?"

"I- I can't move my arms."

"You can't- oh. Oh, yeah, right um- do you need me to help you with anything?"

Clarke nodded the tiniest bit. "I'm sorry."

"No, no, don't worry." Lexa got up and sat back down in front of the bathtub. "Should I wash your hair?" Lexa asked unsurely, not wanting to cross any boundaries.

Clarke already regretted asking Lexa for help. What the fuck was she thinking demanding attention and effort from the Heda? As a slave?

"I do not mind anything," she just said, leaving Lexa the choice.

So Lexa reached down into the water and back up a few times to wet Clarke's hair. She grabbed the soap and spread some of it on her wet palms, buried her hands in Clarke's hair and massaged the soap into it.

Clarke's head unwillingly fell back and an even more unwilling hum left her. God. Those hands had killed. They shouldn't feel so good in her hair. They shouldn't feel good at all. What the hell.

Her mind had little power over the comfort creeping up her body. She tried to push it down, but in the end, it just made everything worse. Lexa's fingers were rubbing over her scalp and brushing through her hair as the smell of fresh strawberry filled Clarke's senses. When Lexa was done with her hair, Clarke was almost... disappointed.

Which couldn't be because she didn't get to feel that.

Her damn body should shut the fuck up.

"Can you move at all?" asked Lexa then. "Your legs I mean, or something to get out of the tub when you want to."

Clarke tried. She honest to God tried her very best, but just ended up even more exhausted. "No," she admitted.

"Okay. That's not a problem. Just tell me when you want to be out of there."

Clarke nodded. Right. Just tell Lexa.

She should have taken some guard as an option. The Heda deserved so much better ways to spend her evening, the comfort of Clarke was in no place there to take Lexa's time like that.

Which was why she said she'd like to be out of the tub after a few more minutes already. It wasn't too short to be impolite for taking the offer in the first place but it wasn't too long either. She could do better there and take the Heda's time over her comfort. As she should be.

When Lexa approached her, the panic of how she would get Clarke out of the tub filled the blonde. Why hadn't she thought about that?

"I will have to touch you, I'm sorry. I could call a guard if you were more comfortable with that?"

Clarke shook her head.

Fuck. There she was choosing her comfort over the Heda's time again. What was wrong with her?

"Okay," said Lexa. Clarke could see her hands, could feel them reaching under the water and breaking the, to her, seemingly unbreakable shield of the water. So there was a pair of hands in the bath now too. Clarke should have known she couldn't escape them.

But, to her own surprise, she did no more than flinching shortly when Lexa's hands wrapped around her waist and she got lifted up. There strangely was no panic.

No, Lexa's hands felt... soft. Just soft. No more. Gentle around the fragile thing that was her entire being. She just needed to be dropped and there her body would be gone.

Clarke was aware she was naked. Clarke was aware that Lexa was aware that she was naked.

But Lexa's eyes were trained nowhere but her eyes when Clarke looked up hesitantly. The Heda changed the position of carrying the girl to a more comfortable bridal style and carefully walked Clarke out of the bathroom. The blonde could feel the warmth of Lexa's arms under her skin, could feel the muscles flexing against it.

And she wasn't afraid that Lexa would drop her, somehow. She was afraid, but not of that. She might not have felt safe, but she didn't feel unsafe either. It was the first touch on her naked body in years that her mind didn't instantly associate with anything bad.

Lexa just set her down on her own bed and took her hands back to herself. "I'll be right back with clothes and a towel."

When the brunette dried the slim body, her hands were kept covered by a towel the whole time and her eyes were on the floor. Clarke couldn't help but notice those things. Lexa even skipped drying Clarke's whole chest and both her thighs.

Not ten minutes later, Clarke was lying in Lexa's bed with clothes on and was focusing on that candle again. It was so fucking weird what was happening to her. There you go for five years with cruel people treating you the way you should be and when you come to the cruelest of all, the Heda, you're treated like some valued, easily breakable thing. Life certainly had its ways and Clarke hated it because she'd never been more thrown off and confused, even if it had just been for a handful of days.

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