The 100 One Shots

mechanical(Clexa)

They're stuck in the elevator.

It's almost too stupid to believe, but here they are, suspended somewhere between floors twenty-one and twenty-two (she thinks) in Lexa's ridiculously tall tower. And Clarke would probably be handling it a little better if Lexa weren't so infuriatingly calm about it.

"The wheel breaks down from time to time. It will not take long to fix."

As if that changed the fact that they were still stuck hundreds of feet above ground.

"We are in no danger of falling. There are several fail-safes to prevent just that."

Well, at least she was being kind and thoughtful and reassuring.

"...Are you uncomfortable with heights, Clarke kom Skaikru?"

Clarke withdrew her generous compliment. Lexa was a sarcastic little shit.

It takes approximately four and a half steps from one end of the platform to the other, which makes pacing a little bit awkward, but Clarke stubbornly keeps at it. Lexa stands nonchalantly smack dab in the middle, weight canted to one leg, hands clasped patiently at the small of her back. There's a slight, constant breeze lazily fluttering the long coattails of her jacket, and Clarke can't help the way her eyes keep stealing peeks at the sharp, neat edges of Lexa's form.

She can't pinpoint exactly what it is about it, but she's maybe just a little bit obsessed with Lexa's coat.

It's tailored so perfectly to slim shoulders, cinches so snugly to a trim waist, and flares so dramatically to the floor (and that part really kills her, because you'd think Grounders were utilitarian and all about the practical but no, here Lexa is, Commander of all thirteen clans, swishing and swanning about in an ankle length coat with something suspiciously like ruffles running up and down the sleeves).

And sometimes, with alarmingly increasing frequency, Clarke finds her fingers twitching against the desire to just hook under that one strap buckled over her chest and pull.

(She briefly recalls that time she backed Lexa into a table, and it wasn't exactly a moment she was proud of because she had scratched and dug and clawed at Lexa's confidence, tore into walls she really had no right to dismantle, but the hitch in Lexa's throat as she was cornered still sends a guilty little flare of arousal curling in the pit of her stomach.)

It's like an unsatisfied itch, this urge to handle Lexa. She's not quite sure why. Was it the intrigue of seeing someone so strong, so in control and commanding be meekly led around? Or was it the forbidden little thrill at the knowledge that Lexa would never allow such an indignity, unless it was Clarke?

Clarke paced faster, as if she could outrun the thoughts swirling through her mind. Despite her efforts, she was well on the way to forgiving Lexa, and with every little block that fell from the barricade protecting her heart her attraction to the other woman kept surging up through the cracks in rushes of affection and lust. It was already starting to become a problem, because just the other night Lexa had sat in her room all soft and pretty with her hair down and wearing a fucking nightgown with a slit all the way up her thigh and then, after a day of blood and fighting she chose peace and Clarke had basically thrown Lexa out of her room before she kissed her.

"How are you finding Polis?"

Clarke paused mid-step, pulled harshly from her inner thoughts, and blinked owlishly at the random question. "What? Polis?"

Lexa tilted her chin vaguely in the direction of the outer wall. "You have had some time to explore the city?"

When Clarke didn't respond, Lexa shifted uneasily on her feet. "You would enjoy the day markets, I think. If you have not been, I could take you. Tomorrow. Perhaps for lunch."