Clexa One Shots

The Candle Store (AU)

                             By: almostafantasia
Of course Abby would have Clarke out running errands on a day when it's raining torrentially.

When she takes refuge in a candle store, Clarke realises that she probably looks a little bit like she's decided to go for a swim fully clothed. Her clothes stick to her uncomfortably, drenched almost entirely and dripping onto the wooden floor at the front of the store. She pushes the hood of her waterproof coat down – for all the good it did her being up, as her hair still manages to be completely soaked and plastered to her forehead and the sides of her face.

"Hello, can I help you?"

Clarke looks up unexpectedly at the voice, only to find its owner, a girl of about Clarke's age with tumbling brunette curls and green eyes that are wide in a genuine query. She suddenly becomes aware of her own appearance, and then in turn embarrassed by it, because the whole almost-drowned-in-a-storm aesthetic that she has going on right now doesn't match at all with pastel colours and the overly fragrant scents of the candles that line every shelf.

"No thanks," Clarke replies. "I'm just looking."

And just looking is exactly what Clarke does for the next ten minutes, slowly making her way down one of the aisles as she peruses the shelves and pretends to know exactly what the difference between the four different apple scented candles are, even when they all smell exactly the same. Because truth be told, Clarke has no idea what her mother is looking for in a candle, whether she even plans to light them or if their only purpose is to give some semblance of having her shit together.

"Can I at least get you a hot drink?"

Clarke startles at the unexpected question, almost dropping the candle that has been held up to her nose for an olfactory inspection.

"What?"

"You're soaked," says the store attendant, gesturing down at Clarke's clothes, which are still leaving a trickle of rainwater behind on the floor wherever she goes. "I could see you shivering from over there. The rain is only getting worse, why don't you stay here to warm up until the weather lets up?"

Clarke ponders the offer for just a second, her top teeth digging in her lower lip, before she glances out of the wide windows that line the front of the store and look out onto the street. Even just looking at the rain outside is enough to send a shiver down her spine, and the prospect of going back outside any time soon is not an appealing one.

"Sure. A coffee would be good."

The girl beams at Clarke happily.

"One coffee coming right up."

As she waits for the girl to return with her drink, Clarke continues to take her time browsing the candles. She momentarily wonders if perhaps she would have been better off not coming to a specialist candle store at all – perhaps if she wasn't presented with so much choice, the decision would be much easier – but when the ominous sound of thunder rumbles overhead, she realises that she can't really leave the store and go somewhere else right now, even if she wanted to.

The girl returns with a steaming mug of coffee in one hand and a mug of something that looks like green tea in the other for herself. For the first time, Clarke glances down at the name badge pinned to the front of the girl's sweater. Lexa. Somehow that name seems to really suit a girl who drinks herbal tea and makes a living by selling scented candles.

"Are you sure I can't help?" Lexa asks, as Clarke accepts the coffee with a grateful mumble of thanks. "You've sniffed almost every candle on that shelf, some of them twice. What is it that you're looking for?"