#clexa ss 2017 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

almostafantasia · 7 years

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hurry down the chimney tonight

Merry Christmas @hedaforr! lots of love from your secret santa xoxo

Summary: Lexa isn’t a scrooge. She isn’t. But when the Christmas music is blaring and the apartment is covered in decorations and it’s still the middle of goddamn November, Lexa starts to question her decision to move into the spare room of an apartment with three strangers for her junior year of college.

Unless a certain one of those three new roommates can use their persuasive charm to convince Lexa that it’s never too early to start celebrating Christmas…

Read on AO3.

It’s November.

Fucking November.

There is not a good enough reason in the world why Lexa should be able to hear the familiar voice of Mariah Carey from the next room when it’s still November.

Lexa realises only too late that this is a question she should have asked her new roommates for junior year of college when she met them for the first time over the summer. When do you start playing Christmas music? And anybody who gave an answer of before mid-December would have been out of the door ready for the next set of prospective roommates to be brought in.

Considering she’s living with people who were total strangers until a few months ago, in a spare room that the girls didn’t want to have to cover the rent for themselves in order to keep their cushy apartment near the centre of campus, Lexa has done pretty well for herself. The three girls have been welcoming and respectful, and despite having known each other for much longer than they’ve known Lexa, they’re always keen to include her in the group.

And they aren’t bad people to live with either. It’s not too messy, there’s a clear washing up rota that they generally all stick to, and Lexa’s leftovers have only gone missing from the fridge once. (Lexa blames Clarke, Clarke blames the inordinate amount of tequila that was consumed about an hour before the leftovers were last seen.) But they are good people and easy enough to live with.

There’s Raven, who spends long days in the engineering department followed by long nights at the campus bar. There’s Octavia, who has a busy life between going to the gym and spending time with her boyfriend and visiting her brother at his apartment on the far side of campus.

And then there’s Clarke, who thinks it is okay to start playing Christmas songs in November.

Lexa doesn’t want to be misunderstood; she loves a good Mariah Carey singalong as much as the next person, but not when it’s still November.

(It isn’t even late November yet – Halloween was less than a week ago!)

As Mariah fades out and the opening chords of Wham’s classic Christmas hit drift through the thin walls from the bedroom next to hers, Lexa lets her head fall down against the heavy textbook open on her desk and groans as she realises that the only way she’s going to put a stop to this preposterously early barrage of Christmas music is to go to Clarke’s room and ask her to switch it off.

Which is okay, because Clarke is definitely the person that she gets on with best in this apartment, but Lexa is also very aware that she’s still the newbie around here and she doesn’t want to ostracize herself when things are going so well by becoming that roommate.

With a heavy sigh, Lexa pushes her chair back and gets to her feet, plotting out in her head the least confrontational way to ask Clarke to switch the Christmas music off until it’s actually Christmas.

Lexa leaves her own bedroom and walks three paces down the hallway to Clarke’s, raising her fist and knocking three times with a sharp rap of her knuckles that she hopes Clarke will be able to hear over the music that thrums beyond the closed door.

“Lexa!” Clarke greets her enthusiastically upon flinging the bedroom door open. “Hi!”

As if on cue, the music changes, the end of one song signalling the start of a new, much sultrier number. Clarke smiles to herself and shimmies her hips gently in time with the swung rhythms of the big band accompaniment to Santa Baby – and it’s really not helping Lexa’s brain to put together a logical argument against the music that Clarke is dancing to. Because Lexa has a weakness for pretty girls and Clarke is the prettiest and she is dancing and there’s sexy music and oh boy…

“The music…” Lexa stammers awkwardly, almost forgetting why she had a problem with the music in the first place.

(Because it is November, the rational part of Lexa’s brain reminds her, though it takes every bit of willpower that she has to stop that part of her brain from being swallowed completely by the gay part of her brain that can’t take her eyes off the way that Clarke’s hips swing from side to side and her lips mouth the words ‘santa baby’.

“Do you like it?” grins Clarke.

Lexa is so disarmed that she almost says yes, but then she shakes herself out of the trance and focuses on her matter at hand, staring over Clarke’s shoulder into the room beyond as she says, “Well, actually no. Do you know what day it is?”

“Monday?” shrugs Clarke, eyebrows furrowing slightly as she forgets about the music playing from the speakers of the laptop behind her and frowns at Lexa as if waiting for her to make her point.

“It’s the sixth of November,” Lexa answers her own question. “It’s a little early for Christmas songs, isn’t it?”

“It’s never too early for Christmas songs, Lexa,” Clarke replies matter-of-factly and, because it’s Clarke, Lexa almost believes her. “But I can turn the music off if you want.”

“Just…” Lexa sighs, and then gives in. “I’m trying to write an essay, so maybe just turn it down a little.”

“Sure! No problem.”

Lexa wouldn’t be able to run away faster if she tried.

It starts with some fairy lights. Lexa can deal with those. Fairy lights aren’t specifically festive, they’re aesthetically pleasing all year round. So pleasing, in fact, that Lexa considers the merits of buying a string of twinkling white lights to hang up in her own room.

But then the rest of the decorations start to appear.

It feels a little like Lexa’s life is becoming a horror movie – a weird, Christmas-themed horror movie where her apartment is slowly getting taken over by decorations. Because it’s not like Lexa wakes up suddenly one morning to find the apartment covered from floor to ceiling in red and green glittery madness. It happens gradually, a garland of tinsel draped over the television one morning, a wreath on the door the next. And what’s even weirder is that none of the others seem to talk about it, like they’ve just accepted that there’s a supernatural decorating demon that sneaks into their apartment when they’re not looking to add something else.

(A supernatural decorating demon that Lexa has every suspicion is called Clarke.)

Lexa deals with it in the way that she deals with most things, in stoic quietness with a series of passive-aggressive huffs and disapproving glares each time there’s a new piece of tinsel hanging from the furniture.

Until the dancing reindeer appears.

There’s a table beside their front door, a table which mostly gets used as a dumping ground for junk mail and keys and empty beer cans. But one day Lexa comes home from a day of classes to find that the table has been tidied and the crap that usually litters its surface has been replaced by just one new item.

The dancing reindeer.

It’s quite clearly motion activated, because every time Lexa enters or leaves the apartment, the stupid thing starts lighting up and dancing along to a tinny rendition of Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer. And every time one of the other three comes or goes, it doesn’t matter which room Lexa is in, because she can still hear the faint sound of the music and can picture the little stuffed reindeer bobbing from side to side on that table by the door.

Every. Fucking. Time.

So one day, she just decides to unplug the damn thing.

She chooses the wrong moment, because right as Lexa is on her knees, reaching under the table to the wall socket that the reindeer is plugged into to finally put an end to the torture of having to hear and watch it every time she walks past, Clarke enters the apartment.

There’s no hiding what Lexa is doing. The reindeer is in one hand, the plug in the other, caught red-handed on her knees by Clarke, who is frozen to the spot in the doorway with her mouth open and her eyes furrowed.

“I was just…” Lexa fumbles for an excuse, but she falls short.

In what seems like the biggest overreaction of the century, Clarke promptly bursts into tears.

“Oh, shit,” mutters Lexa. She fumbles desperately with the plug, trying to slot it into the socket, but it’s a much greater challenge under pressure than it seems, not made any easier by the added distraction of the weeping girl just two feet away. “Shit, Clarke. I’m so sorry.”

Lexa gives up on the plug entirely after two failed attempts at putting it back in its socket, and scrambles to her feet, reaching out with one awkward hand to give Clarke’s shoulder an apologetic squeeze.

“It’s just…” Clarke sniffles and wipes at her ears with the sleeve of her sweater, before she continues, “my dad bought me that reindeer when I was younger.”

Lexa realises her mistake immediately and decides that she is the shittiest person to have ever lived. Clarke doesn’t mention her dad often but Lexa knows there’s a reason for that – Clarke’s dad passed away just over a year ago – and she doesn’t feel as though she knows Clarke well enough yet to be initiating conversations that might involve talking about him.

“Oh god,” Lexa groans, “I am so sorry. I had no idea.”

Lexa considers trying to justify her actions, to explain that the reindeer has been annoying the hell out of her since its appearance next to the front door, but Lexa can tell how important this reindeer is to Clarke and she certainly isn’t going to rub salt into the deep gash that she’s opened up already by trying to remove the reindeer.

“I had a bit of a shitty day and I took it out on the reindeer,” Lexa concedes. “I can’t apologise enough for that. I can tell how much that reindeer means to you.”

“It’s dumb, I know,” chokes Clarke.

“No!” Lexa protests, reaching out with one hand and placing it on Clarke’s knee, which she squeezes with her fingers. “It’s not dumb at all. It’s important to you and so it’s important to me. The reindeer can stay by the front door all year if you want it to.”

“We’ll take it down after Christmas, don’t worry,” says Clarke, smiling knowingly through her tears.

Lexa tries her best to not let the relief show on her face.

If she goes out later that day to buy some tinsel and fairy lights for her own bedroom, it’s only out of guilt.

And definitely not because she’s getting soft under Clarke’s influence.

Buying a Christmas tree ends up being a group outing. Lexa should be revising for midterms and really can’t afford to waste an entire afternoon choosing a tree for their apartment when her time would be much better spent in the library, but she allows herself to be persuaded otherwise when Clarke comes knocking on her bedroom door to inform her of the planned outing and Lexa’s expected involvement in it.

(Lexa tells herself that the ease at which she says yes is because she still feels guilty about the reindeer incident, and not because she has a susceptible weakness for a pretty girl with pleading eyes and a pout.)

“How about that one?” Lexa suggests, as she traipses around the tree farm behind her three roommates, all of whom are significantly more enthusiastic about looking at tree after identical tree than she is.

“It’s a little crooked at the top,” Clarke shakes her head. She walks along the row of trees, critiquing each one on why it isn’t quite good enough to be their tree. “Too small, too small, not fluffy enough…”

“Why does the tree need to be perfect?” Lexa dares to ask, because they’ve been wandering up and down rows of fir trees for thirty minutes already and don’t seem to be any closer to choosing one than they were before they even left the apartment.

“It just does,” Raven shrugs. “It’s the centrepiece of all the decorations, it needs to be worthy.”

“But isn’t any Christmas tree worthy if you make it so?” sighs Lexa.

She doesn’t mean the words in a deep philosophical way at all, more in a way that will get the three girls to stop bickering over what features make a tree perfect for long enough to just pick one and take it home. But when Raven opens her mouth to protest, Clarke holds up a hand to stop her, blue eyes focused on Lexa with an expression of intrigue.

“Go on,” she prompts Lexa.

Lexa falters, unsure how to continue, but with Raven and Octavia watching her expectantly, and Clarke giving her a reassuring little nod, she carries on speaking, “I mean, whichever tree we’re going to take home, we’re going to decorate it and make it ours, aren’t we? So that makes the tree special to us, regardless of whether it’s a little bit small, or has crooked branches, or anything else that you might think is ‘wrong’ with it.”

Lexa feels the passion surging up within her – most unexpectedly, as she didn’t join this shopping expedition with an expectation to come away from it with anything other than a slightly greater distaste for the commercialism of the festive season.

“And,” continues Lexa, as she gets more involved in her argument and the thoughts just keep on flowing, “there are probably thousands of perfect Christmas trees out there – tall, and straight, and bushy – but what makes those trees any better than the others? It’s like, if you wanted to get a dog, would a puppy with three legs be any less ‘worthy’ of adoption than one with four?”

They stare at her dumbfoundedly for a few seconds, and Lexa flushes pink under their gaze, until Raven pipes up in a weak voice, “Christmas trees have feelings too.”

“Stop it, Raven,” says Clarke, rolling her eyes. Shooting Lexa a smile that washes relief over her at the realisation that she hasn’t just ruined an established festive tradition with her impassioned speech, Clarke asks, “So which tree would you choose?”

Lexa turns her head this way and that, looking at the trees that surround them, until her eyes fall on the one that she pointed out earlier, the one that got rejected by Clarke’s for having a crooked branch at the top.

“That one,” she says conclusively.

If she’s expecting a protest, she doesn’t get one. Clarke merely shrugs in acceptance, before she says, “That one it is then. You girls got a problem with that.”

Octavia shakes her head and mutters, “Nope.”

Raven takes slightly longer to answer, her eyes flitting between Clarke and Lexa with something dark in her eyes like she knows something that they don’t, before she finally says, “Yeah. I like it. It’s got character. Now let’s go and cut that bitch down and take it home.”

Lexa ends up carrying the tree back to their apartment, or at least, she ends up with the base of the tree’s heavy trunk being supported on her shoulder while Raven holds onto the much less chunky tip a few feet in front of her. Clarke, despite being the one in their group who seems to be the most excited for Christmas, doesn’t help at all, but she does fall into step beside Lexa as they lug their new tree back to campus.

“Only you would turn choosing a Christmas tree into a lesson on prejudice and acceptance,” she teases Lexa.

Lexa can’t really shrug with the tree on her shoulder, but she speaks with an indifference that would match such a gesture when she says, “They’re just trees.”

Clarke glances away and, with a smile tugging at the corner of her lips, she asks, “You’re a Scrooge, aren’t you?”

“I’m not a Scrooge,” Lexa argues back, eager to defend her stance on Christmas. “I just think that Christmas should be celebrated, you know,” Lexa looks at Clarke as she pauses, before finishing pointedly, “at Christmas.”

Clarke shakes her head and looks away as she fights the smile that crosses her lips.

“You know that feeling you get just before Christmas. When you’ve got all the decorations up and the presents are under the tree and everything is so fun and exciting?”

Lexa nods reluctantly.

“Okay, so imagine that, but for longer.”

Lexa can’t think of a response to that and, to be quite honest, she isn’t sure that she wants to. Clarke’s enthusiasm for Christmas, while it seemed annoying at first when Lexa’s eardrums were being assaulted by jingle bells and upbeat Christmas songs, is actually quite endearing, and she doesn’t want to make Clarke feel like she has to change anything about herself, even her excessive celebration for a holiday that is still a month away, just to please Lexa.

“You know I’m right,” says Clarke, when Lexa says nothing in response.

“I know you’re crazy,” Lexa quips back.

Clarke’s smile of triumph is ridiculously cute and Lexa tries to burn it into her memory for later.

Okay, this is something that Lexa can get behind.

There’s a candle – a cinnamon scented one – next to the reindeer that greets Lexa when she walks through the front door, and two spiced orange ones, one on the coffee table in the living room and one beside the microwave in the kitchen. And, upon further inspection, a fourth candle that just calls itself a “Christmas candle” on the edge of the bathroom across the hall from Lexa’s bedroom.

They might call themselves festive candles, but they are still candles, and Lexa has always had a weak spot for the sight of a delicate flame flickering in her peripheral vision, no matter the time of year. The fact that these particular candles smell of cinnamon, or spiced orange, or something else supposedly festive, is just a moot point as far as Lexa is concerned.

And so what if she picks up her laptop and textbooks and moves them into the living room to study for the test that her professor is giving them the following day, with the dim glow of a single candle dancing on the table beside her steaming mug of coffee?

Lexa vaguely registers the sound of the musical reindeer as the front door opens and then shuts, and she removes her earbuds as Clarke enters the living room, wrapped up in a thick coat and a cosy scarf, her face flushed pink from the cold weather outside.

Nodding at the candle that flickers on the coffee table, Clarke smiles and then says, “It’s good to see you finally getting into the Christmas spirit.”

Lexa shoots Clarke an I’m done with your shit glare, then stuffs her earbuds back into her ears as Clarke leaves the room with a grin on her face.

(Clarke doesn’t need to know that Lexa is listening to a YouTube playlist of Christmas carols sung in the relaxing tones of a British cathedral choir.)

On the first of December, Clarke enters Lexa’s room while Lexa is on her bed procrastinating from the studying that she really can’t afford to be skipping out on, with a gift in her hands.

“I have something for you,” she tells Lexa.

Clarke extends one arm, holding out a polythene shopping bag, which Lexa accepts and peers inside tentatively. It’s hard to tell exactly what is inside just by looking – an item of clothing, it seems – so Lexa takes the contents out of the bag and unfolds it on her lap to get a better look at Clarke’s gift to her.

It’s a sweater, knitted from royal blue wool and adorned with a giant cartoon penguin on the front. Definitely not Lexa’s usual style, and she looks back up at Clarke with wide-eyes, not quite sure how to react.

“We’re having a Christmas party. Sweaters are compulsory and I knew that you wouldn’t have one of your own so I thought I’d get you one.”

“It’s…” Lexa starts, pausing to carefully select the right words to describe the sweater. “Wow. It’s very festive. So when is this party?”

“Well,” Clarke replies sheepishly, “Raven is setting up the table for beer pong and I think people will start arriving in about thirty minutes.”

“Thirty min-“ Lexa trails off, letting out a sigh of resignation as she realises that she isn’t going to be able to avoid this party. “Let me see what I can do.”

“Looking good, Lexa,” Raven hums appreciatively, when Lexa joins them in the living room twenty minutes later, having changed into her nicest pair of dark jeans and the sweater that Clarke bought her.

Lexa shoots Raven a glare in response, and then complains, “I look like the village idiot.”

“You look very festive,” says Clarke, entering the room behind Lexa in a short dress in an emerald green colour with white trim, a matching hat adorned with little elf ears on each side perched over her blonde curls.

Lexa’s eyes widen in surprise at Clarke’s getup and her mouth goes very dry, mostly at the generous amount of creamy skin that the dress reveals, and suddenly her mind is blank of all previous embarrassment at her own outfit.

“Wow,” Lexa exhales stupidly, trying her best not to gawk too much.

“Okay,” Raven interrupts, folding her arms across her chest impatiently, “when Lexa has put her eyeballs back in her own head…” She gives Lexa a deliberate gaze that only darkens the blush on Lexa’s cheeks, then continues, “How about we get that game of beer pong going?”

“Ignore her,” Clarke mumbles to Lexa, quiet enough that Raven, who has started to fill up the red plastic cups with cheap beer with Octavia and Lincoln’s help, can’t hear them. “Do you want to be on my team?”

“Yeah,” Lexa breathes a sigh of relief. “I’d like that.”

The party has been going on for a couple of hours now – the apartment is full of guests and Lexa has long since stepped away from the beer pong table, choosing instead to watch with a drink in her hand as Raven and Clarke team up to take on a series of fresh opponents with increasing levels of rowdiness as they get more drunk.

Lexa herself is delightfully tipsy, buzzed enough to be enjoying the Christmas music and the assortment of festive outfits worn by their guests.

But not quite drunk enough that she will admit that to Clarke, who has finally given up on beer pong and has joined Lexa at the side of the room.

“So, have I convinced you to enjoy Christmas yet?”

Lexa bites her tongue and then, fighting a smile, answers, “I’ve already told you, I do enjoy Christmas, but only…”

“But only when it’s actually Christmas,” Clarke finishes with a smirk. “Yeah, I got it.”

They’re interrupted by a raucous cry from the game of beer pong, though since Clarke’s appearance at her side, Lexa has lost track of who is even playing, let alone which team is winning.

“One more chance,” Clarke speak up unexpectedly.

“What?”

“Give me one more chance to prove to you that Christmas is worth celebrating as early as possible.”

“Clarke, I…”

“Lexa,” Clarke says, resting one hand on Lexa’s arm, and the pleading expression on her face is almost sobering. “One more chance.”

“Fine,” concedes Lexa, “but I was actually going to say that you don’t need to convince me anymore. While I don’t quite agree that Christmas should be celebrated in November…”

“It’s December now,” interjects Clarke.

“… I’m not going to stop you from celebrating it as early as you want. It’s quite sweet actually, how enthusiastic you are. Anybody who would want to stop that is just heartless.”

Clarke smiles shyly to herself, then says, “So tomorrow afternoon? I promise you won’t be disappointed.”

“Sure,” shrugs Lexa. “Why not?”

Anything to spend a little more time with the girl she is rapidly becoming more infatuated with as Christmas draws closer and closer.

“Gingerbread,” Clarke announces the following afternoon, placing a bag of groceries on the kitchen counter with a heavy thunk.

“This is it?” Lexa asks in surprise as Clarke starts taking the ingredients out of the bag. “Your last attempt to convert me to celebrating Christmas early is by baking gingerbread?”

“Don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it,” Clarke quips back. She slides her phone across the counter, with a gingerbread recipe open on the screen, then asks, “Start weighing out the ingredients?”

A slow smile spreading across her lips, Lexa salutes Clarke mockingly and replies, “Yes, boss.”

Baking is fun. Spending time with Clarke is fun.

(Perhaps, though Lexa is reluctant to admit it, celebrating Christmas early is fun.)

Their gingerbread is far from the best – the dough is more crumbly than the dough in the pictures on the recipe, and the baking trays now in the oven are covered in cookies that although may smell great, are lopsided and messy in places – but that hardly matters when Lexa has had such a good time making it.

And that’s mostly down to the girl she’s been making gingerbread with, but whatever.

“Well that was fun,” grins Clarke, echoing Lexa’s thoughts exactly. “Let’s hope they taste good.”

Lexa hums absently in agreement, dropping the empty mixing bowl into the sink to be washed up later.

There’s a sharp intake of breath from beside Lexa, and when her head snaps up in curiosity, she finds Clarke staring at her with wide eyes, pointing up at the ceiling above them.

“Lexa, look…”

And Lexa does. She slowly drags her eyes upwards, frowning as she investigates the cause of Clarke’s surprise, until her eyes fall on…

Mistletoe.

It’s so cliché that it has Lexa blushing instantly. Lexa wonders how she didn’t notice it earlier. In fact, she is almost certain that the mistletoe was not there when she entered the kitchen earlier, which only means that it must have been placed there while they were baking. And as Lexa didn’t put it there herself, and the only other person ho has been in the kitchen this afternoon has been Clarke, then…

Oh.

“You know what that means, don’t you?” says Clarke. Upon seeing the panic that flashes across Lexa’s face (because hello, yes she would love to kiss Clarke but she’s still having a hard time reacting to the fact that Clarke has deliberately set up a situation for them to kiss and so must clearly want to kiss her too), Clarke adds, “It’s okay, I know you aren’t one for Christmas traditions, so I guess we can let it slide.”

It feels an awful lot like a challenge. A lump lodges itself in Lexa’s throat, one that makes it even harder for her to talk than before, and she has to push past it to get her next words out in a croaky voice.

“I…” she stammers. “There might be some traditions that I could get behind.”

“Like playing Christmas music in November?” Clarke teases her.

“That’s not the tradition I was thinking of,” replies Lexa.

“What were you thinking of?”

Clarke has somehow moved closer without Lexa noticing, because all of a sudden she is right up there in Lexa’s personal space, their front almost flush against each other, and while Lexa isn’t complaining, it makes it much harder to think when Clarke is so close.

“I mean, it’s bad luck if we don’t kiss under the mistletoe, right?” Lexa attempts to reason, as much for her own benefit as for Clarke’s.

“Bad luck,” smirks Clarke. “So that’s the excuse you’re going with, huh? I didn’t have you down as the superstitious type.”

“I’m not,” confesses Lexa. And then, because Clarke’s face is dizzyingly disarming in its proximity to Lexa’s, “Can I kiss you?”

“I wouldn’t have put the mistletoe there if I didn’t wan-”

Lexa doesn’t let Clarke finish. She crashes their lips together, fisting her fingers into the material of Clarke’s sweater to keep her closer. Clarke’s lips are soft and pliant and she tastes like Christmas, the barest hint of ginger from the raw cookie dough that she’s been eating on her tongue as it sweeps through Lexa’s mouth for the first time. Clarke lets out a little sound, a hum of delight, and one of her hands goes up to the back of Lexa’s head, cupping it through dark curls with a firm enough grip to anchor Lexa’s mouth against Clarke’s, like it would kill Clarke for their lips to part for even a fraction of a second.

As first kisses go, it’s as close to perfect as Lexa imagines that it could be, and she quickly decides that she would be content to start celebrating next Christmas now, if it meant kissing Clarke for the next thirteen months.

But even the best of things have their flaws, and the flaw in this kiss turns out to be the throat that gets cleared in the door to the kitchen, interrupting them long before Lexa is ready to pull her lips away from Clarke’s.

Raven is watching them from across the kitchen, arms folded across her chest and a smile of smug delight on her face as she says gleefully, “Just a reminder that you’re using the oven and that I really like living in an apartment that hasn’t burnt down.”

Lexa wonders if it’s possible for her cheeks to turn any redder than the shade of crimson that they currently are.

“Anyway,” Raven shrugs jovially right before she leaves the kitchen once more, “I guess we know who will be coming down Clarke’s chimney on Christmas Eve.”

#clexa #clexa fanfic #clexa ss 2017 #clarke griffin #commander lexa #fanfiction #hedaforr

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