Chapter Text
Although Octavia had been blasted the night before, she was still awake before Clarke. That’s girl’s internal clock really didn’t know how to recalibrate in extenuating circumstances.
She may have still been a little drunk since she was in that moment crawling into Clarke’s bed. She reached her friend and curled up with her knees to her chest, facing Clarke who was on her stomach with her head turned to the side. Octavia giggled to herself at the tiny bit of drool that had trickled out of Clarke’s mouth and she reached out her hand with her index finger extended, and poked Clarke in the forehead.
“Clarke.” Another poke.
“Claaarke.” A slightly harder poke.
She shifted and brought her own forehead to rest against Clarke’s and she changed tactics. She poked her cheek instead.
The pokes still elicited no response, if there was one thing her blonde friend was, it was a heavy sleeper.
With a small huff of annoyance Octavia decided she had to bring out the big guns. So without a second thought she threw herself bodily on top of Clarke and started chanting her name in her ear.
“Clarke! Clarke! Clarke! Clarke!” Octavia continued her chant as she tickled the exposed hips of her best friend who was finally stirring.
“Octaviaaaaaaa. What are you doing?” The blonde opened one eye to the absolute minimum that would allow her to see the brunette squirming on top of her. She should have known better, really. Interacting with the beast only encouraged her.
Octavia’s face was absolutely gleeful as she took note of her now conscious friend. She looked down at Clarke momentarily and she bit her lip, mischief was evident if Clarke knew her at all.
The brunette looked down at their position again and smirked, wiggling her eyebrows at the blonde.
Clarke’s eyes widened comically. She knew what was coming next and although she’d never admit it, she thought Octavia’s tick of waking people up in her...... unique way was hysterical. Clarke whispered her next sentence in mock horror. “Octavia, NO. You wouldn’t dare.” That was the nail in the coffin and she knew it. Egging Octavia on was one of her favourite activities.
Giggling like a maniac Octavia let out a battle cry and started dry humping Clarke at an alarming pace. Clarke joined her in her hysterics and laughed far harder than most (sane) people did that early in the morning. She allowed the activity for a moment before she fought back.
Twisting her body quickly she grabbed the arms of her best friend and pulled her to her chest where she used her full strength and squeezed her arms, effectively (softly) crushing Octavia. The smaller girl let out a breathy wheeze before she thrust her arms up between their bodies and through Clarke’s arms as she rested one forearm across Clarke’s throat, wrapping the other around the blonde’s squirming shoulders.
Clarke sucked in a breath through her teeth as she grinned maniacally. She bucked her hips violently very suddenly and while Octavia was still airborne she brought up her legs so the brunette landed on them, hip to knee.
Never one to back down from a challenge, Octavia laughed throatily as she and Clarke wrestled, eventually rolling and falling to the floor between their beds. Clarke landed on Octavia and she allowed her body to go limp, acting as though she was simply going to go back to sleep.
“Claaaaaarke. Day three awaits! Get your lazy ass up and lets gooooo!” Octavia pushed Clarke with force, almost lodging her under a bed. The brunette stood up and grabbed some clothes before turning to regard her friend.
Clarke had taken advantage of her position and she rolled fully under the bed, which surprisingly wasn’t dirty. It seemed the cleaning staff of this particular hotel were very thorough. There was nothing hiding under there and the floor was vacuumed recently. Thus, she didn’t feel gross for being there. And bonus, Octavia couldn’t tackle her under there.
From her cave she saw Octavia’s feet come over and move out of sight again as the girl got down on her knees and peered under the bed at the lazy blonde.
“Dude. It’ll be kind of hard for you to come with me from under there.” She smiled crookedly, thoroughly enjoying the lengths Clarke would go to in order to remain sleeping.
Clarke groaned before replying. “Go without me today. I don’t want to see any of the panels that you’re going to and I already bought stuff.” She sleepily gazed at her friend, trying to gauge her reaction. She hoped Octavia wouldn’t be upset but she really didn’t have it in her to walk around a hall she had no business in for a third day in a row.
Thankfully the only emotion Clarke saw on her friends face was understanding. Early in their relationship it had taken Octavia a while to figure out Clarke’s moods and motivations, in fact they had sorta been enemies in high school. Two extremely opinionated and headstrong women, both vying for the captains position on their soccer team? Yeah, you can imagine the drama.
Then they had both attended an afterparty for the schools football team and had been dragged into a game of spin the bottle. They had been 17 years old and of course as fate would have it, one spun the bottle and it landed on the other. Amidst the cheering, oooohs and suspense in the room, they shared a look that said, ‘I don’t like living up to expectations and they’re all expecting us to fight. Let’s do the opposite instead, mmkay?’
And thus Octavia had crawled across the circle and planted one directly on Clarke’s lips. There were hoots and hollers and a few punches on the arms by their friends who were shocked but they both just laughed at the ridiculousness of the situation. They’d started hanging out after that and although there was a steep learning curve, they became inseparable.
There had been a few bumps on the road to where they were now, there was no doubt about that. Octavia tended to be ruled by her emotions and although Clarke certainly had a bit of that herself, she tended to let logic overrule those feelings. So when it came to big decisions they often went head to head, just like they had back when they were enemies. They still did occasionally but they usually made up quickly and had netflix binges with pints of ben and jerry’s and lots of cuddling.
So to say Clarke was relieved when Octavia didn’t look mad about her ditching out that day would be an understatement.
“Got it.” Octavia then pushed herself from the floor for the second time that morning and headed into their shared bathroom for a shower.
Clarke considered staying under the bed for a moment before dismissing the idea. She had already slept funny while the other day and she did not want a repeat of how she felt after that. Although, the end result of that bad decision was Lexa soooo... she couldn’t really regret it.
So she clawed her way out from under the bed, looking like some supernatural boogeyman from a B horror film and she pulled herself up to the mattress where she flopped lengthwise across the fluffy expanse of nirvana.
Not much later Octavia emerged from the bathroom and in a stark juxtaposition of her friend, steam erupted from behind her and haloed her, making her look like some sort of goddess. Clarke didn’t appreciate that she was only slightly drunk and looked like death while Octavia had been completely hammered and looked like the epitome of beauty.
Grinning down at the blonde who hadn’t bothered to even situate herself properly on the bed (honestly the woman was always tired and never slept in a normal fashion, often times just passing out wherever she found herself.) Octavia leaned down and crossed her arms on the side of the bed, dropping her chin to rest on them. She gazed at the sleep addled face of Clarke and waited for sleepy eyes to open and (sort of) focus on her.
“Have fun while I’m gone, don’t get into any trouble or there’ll be hell to pay. I’ll text you when I get there, alright?” She stood up straight and ruffled the blonde mop of hair splayed around Clarke’s head.
Clarke just grunted in response, already far enough into dreamland to be incapable of human speech.
***
She didn’t sleep much longer, only another two hours. She woke feeling semi-refreshed and she decided to get dressed and head down to the hotel restaurant for something to eat.
Clarke didn’t bother dressing up much, she wasn’t leaving the premises after all. Throwing on a pair of sweatpants and a tank top she grabbed her wallet, phone and room key before she stepped into her high tops and left the room.
They were on the fifth floor so she deigned to take the elevator even though going down stairs was barely an effort. The contraption moved slowly and dinged sharply when it reached the main level.
Stepping out, Clarke turned left from the embankment of elevators and strode through the archway into the little grille where she was seated rather quickly, much to her pleasure.
The waiter dropped off a glass of water and a menu and Clarke ordered even before she had left. The biggest breakfast they had was right up her alley so long as it had waffles and eggs.
She was halfway through her apple juice while waiting for her meal when she felt something hit her smack dab in the middle of the back of her head. She turned slowly, wearing her best glare when she spotted the culprit. Her glare dissolved into a smile as she saw Raven readying a second grape on her spoon. The girl was only a table away and thus situated about 8 feet behind Clarke. She didn’t know how she had missed her when she came in.
“Raven. Being a pest I see. What are you doing here? I figured you’d be at the expo hall with the rest of your group.” Clarke turned fully to regard the other girl who had instead plopped the grape into her mouth once she saw she had Clarke’s attention.
Raven just shrugged, a crooked smile adorning her features. “I took the day off since we don’t have any appearances. Being in costume for 10 hours out of the day is exhausting and I’ll take any opportunity to rest my leg. Plus, we’re all sort of hungover.” She plopped another grape into her mouth.
Clarke noticed Raven smack a hand on a brace wrapped around her left leg as she spoke. She hadn’t realized that the contraption she had seen when the girl was costumed as Gaige was real. Clarke had thought it was a part of the costume but seeing it now she realized she had made an assumption. Clarke was slightly embarrassed that she hadn’t noticed it the previous night either when first Raven was dancing for her with Lexa and Anya and then later when they were all hanging out. She came to the conclusion that she had been altogether too focused on Lexa and she would definitely be working on that in the future.
Glancing around the room Clarke didn’t see any of the others around. And of course, Raven picked up the movement and her grin became far more amused. “She isn’t with me.”
Clarke looked to Raven and pasted on her best ‘I’m innocent’ face. “I’m sorry, who?”
“Cut the crap blondie, you have a giant lady boner for Commander broody. She isn’t with me right now. She went to the gym, she was going to get food after.” Raven just laughed good naturedly.
Sighing, Clarke realized she had been nothing if not obvious. “Sorry. You’re awesome too, seriously. I am actually glad she isn’t here at the moment, I didn’t do a thing to look presentable today.” Clarke wrinkled her nose down at herself, causing Raven to chuckle.
“Trust me, you look miles better then we do after taking off armour that has been strapped to us for a whole day. Lexa wouldn’t bat an eyelash. Speaking of her though, I need to say something to you.” All humour dropped from Raven’s face as she regarded Clarke with an intensity she had only seen matched in Lexa. It was unnerving and Clarke gulped audibly.
“I want to preface this by saying I also think you’re awesome and I think we should totally be friends. Barring that though, Lexa has a thing for you.” Clarke almost smiled at that but she held it in at the doubled intensity in Raven’s gaze when the blonde got too comfortable. “And as her best friend I have to tell you that if you hurt her in any way, shape or form. I will cut you. Seriously, don’t doubt the truth in my words. That girl may act like this strong and intimidating person but underneath she is soft and gooey and hurt easily. So treat her right, or you’ll have me to answer to.” Raven pointed her thumbs at herself, raising her eyebrows at Clarke who just nodded her head in a macabre imitation of a bobble head.
It seemed that wasn’t enough for Raven and she raised her eyebrows even further, still staring intently at Clarke.
The blonde coughed nervously. “Of course. Yes, I’ll be careful. You don’t have anything to worry about Raven. I like her too, as you’ve already guessed.” Clarke laughed nervously, shrugging her shoulders in an apprehensive manner.
At this the cosplayers glare softened and she grinned at Clarke, all menacing expressions gone as though they had never existed.
Releasing a breath in relief, Clarke was saved any more embarrassment by the arrival of her breakfast. She smiled and waved at Raven who was getting up to leave, check in hand. Turning to her meal Clarke smiled to herself, forgetting for a moment the mortal fear she had just felt.
Lexa has a thing for me.