Clexa One Shots

Love Is Loud

By: caballlah

As Lexa dressed, the flickering candlelight dancing her shadow across the tent's walls in a manner almost more alluring that the shaded bronze body going back into hiding, Clarke luxuriated in her nudity. There wasn't much right in her life. She was determined to enjoy what she'd found with Lexa. Ignore all the things that didn't make sense. Embrace all the things that felt right.

She reached out, fingers alighting on the decorative carvings marking the vambrace that laid on the ground. It was usually quite hard to see, Lexa's arms either locked at her sides or moving in clear, sweeping gestures. Now Clarke marveled at the intricacy that had gone into the carving. The determination the artisans had shown in honoring their Commander.

Lexa took hold of the vambrace, ready to put it on, and Clarke playfully hung on. Lexa tugged on it for a moment, then with a sharp grunt of effort, she ripped it out of Clarke's hands.

"You cannot do that," she said simply, teeth clenching, then relaxing.

"Why? Are those the sacred armor pieces of Morlock, passed down from generation to generation..."

"They are the property of the heda," Lexa said, patience growing thin. "The property of the heda is beyond sacrosanct. You cannot take liberties!"

Clarke watched silently as Lexa strapped the vambrace on. She had to think about whether pouting would annoy Lexa or earn her some sympathy points. She decided not to chance it.

"You're in an awful hurry," she observed instead. "One you didn't seem to be in last night."

"That was last night. If I am short with you, it is not because I am angry. It is merely because-" Lexa looked to be having trouble adjusting her vambrace. She gave up on it for the moment, facing Clarke instead. "The role of the Commander does not come as naturally to me as you might think. I am not without weakness; I simply have to suppress it. I... school myself in the ways of a good leader before I present myself to my troops. I prepare myself so that their eyes do not find weakness when it is mine alone."

"You put your game face on."

Lexa nodded and said a phrase in her own language that Clarke didn't yet know. It actually sounded like 'game face' and Clarke guessed it meant the same thing. An actual bit of pidgin English that had survived all the years. Clarke wanted to laugh.

"Well," she said, "your secret's safe with me."

"It's not," Lexa insisted. "The way you treat me in the privacy of this tent is not the way you must treat me outside it."

"No kissing for the boss, huh?"

"Not quite. I am the Commander. I am subordinate to no one. If you were known as my mate, you would be expected to be... submissive to me. In all things."

Clarke blinked. "That's not what I seem to recall making you come this morning..."

Lexa closed her eyes slowly, opened them slowly. Grounders didn't blush, but if they did, that would be it. "And that is why I have taken no mate-officially. As a fellow leader, you can be respected. As a lover, you would be my property. That is our way."

Clarke raised an eyebrow. "That doesn't sound so bad..."

"I would not make it so. But you could not lead your people and be mine at the same time. A new representative of the Sky People would have to be sent." Lexa suddenly smiled. "And I just finished training the old one," she added wryly.