Chapter Text
“Is Heda actually losing her mind right now or is she just insanely drunk? Klark what in the name of the spirits did she drink?”
The one that was apparently Anya questioned. To be frank Lexa was still extremely fuzzy on what was going on…also a bit grumpy it had effectively put a bucket of cold water on her mood, but she was mostly very very confused.
“I’m annoyed she even greeted you first. After all we’ve been through? Klark, Alexandria.”
Sensing her sister's irritation she went with it just to see if she could further irk the girl by using her full name, “Elena.”
Clarke rolled her eyes at the both of them. Honestly for the Commander of the Coalition and an elite Trikru assassin, the siblings could be so childish. She jumped nimbly down from the tree branch she was perched on and walked the two steps to hug the younger brunette, “Hey guys. And come on El, Lexa, could you try to get along for my sake?” She asked with her best puppy dog eyes.
Both sisters huffed and nodded, Lexa even let out a small, “Fine.” And also jumped down from their branch, still eyeing who seemed to be a familiar dirty blonde warily. She must have been forgetting something because this woman being Anya didn’t really seem to click in her drink filled head.
The one who was possibly Anya chuckled, “You see the both of you? What is that Skaikru term? Whipped I believe.”
Lexa narrowed her eyes as her younger sister grumbled and Clarke smirked.
This woman acted like Anya and even bared a striking resemblance but was this truly Anya? She may never know…her drunken brain thought ominously.
“She’s still looking at me weird, Clarke.”
“She’s obviously had more to drink than I originally thought. I mean I’m not the most sober right now either.” Clarke answered with a shrug
“Anya?” Lexa asked once again, a bit annoyed that the other two females in the group did not seem to be forth coming on this matter.
The other blonde just stared at her like she had grown another head, which, after a quick and ‘subtle’ inspection, she could assure herself she had not.
“No not Anya, Anya’s twin sister. Idiot.” Elena and Clarke laughed aloud while Lexa puzzled the hidden meanings of the statement.
She still greatly struggled with Skaikru sarcasm and was unable to tell whether or not the statement was sincere. Although, what should have troubled her more was the fact that she couldn’t recall whether Anya did in fact have siblings or not.
Making to question her again she let out something akin to a whine when Clarke just shook her head at her still giggling, tugging her hand forward, the four began walking back to the clearing.
“So.” Elena began angling her head towards her sister, “You guys wanna explain why you were doing that up in a tree?”
Lexa just put her chin up determined to ignore her sister’s jibe but Clarke made to answer.
“Hey, no one should have to justify the presence of trees in any kinds of situations ok. Trikru, tree people. Trees are a way of life El.”
“Riiiggghtt” her sister drawled, “so I’m just gonna go with you freaks couldn't keep it in your pants.”
“Ughh.” Clarke groaned, “Exactly how much time have you been spending with Octavia?”
--
“So no hard feelings right big guy?” Linus rolled out the kinks that he had gotten in his hour of being tied up and nodded his head, “You do not have to worry Raven of the sky people, I am just proud that the Skai Prisa has such passionate and loyal warriors that are willing to defend her honor.”
He said from his position just behind an amused Ryder. One could say, it almost looked as if Linus was cowering behind his mentor, but of course this was Linus we were talking about. A strong, resourceful, hulking man. So no if anything he was simply, scouting for danger from his perch in between where Indra and Echo sat and Ryder stood which was just a bit away from where Sky People happened to be standing.
“So what’s next on the agenda for tonight?” Jasper asked rubbing his hands mischievously
“Well, nothing is really ever planned in these things Jas. I mean how do you plan half the random and wild things we’ve gotten up to in the past few days? I mean it would take some kind of really psycho freaky mind to come up with half of this stuff.” Raven answered followed by rounds of nods of agreement. You just couldn’t plan this kind of shit.
"Hey, you say crazy, i say ingenious." Jasper rebuffed
“Very true, we’ve gotten up to some very amazing shit,” Wick hobbled over to the scrawny teen, cup of moonshine in hand, “that’s not something you plan Jasper that’s just the world man and the world is a deep and scary place like the stars and shit. We’re all just a part of that great big circle. From the day we arrived on this planet, and blinking stepped into this sun.”
“I don't even know why you're asking Jasper,” Harper said coming to lean an arm on Jasper to steady her wobbling legs, “I have a feeling you already have something up your sleeves, mister mastermind.”
Jasper, Miller, Monty and Harper smirked at that but the other Sky People looked confused for a second, seeing this Miller spoke up, “Mountain inside joke guys, don’t worry about it.”
Octavia scoffed, and grumbled something about them having their own inside jokes too
Jasper was cringing under Wick’s weight, and looked thankful when Raven finally extracted him and sat them down on a log, “No more drink for you.” She snatched the cup away and guzzled it herself, “And how is that fair? But then again what truly is fairness? Who gets to decide what we do and don’t deserve? Was fairness invented or did we as humans discover it? Does fairness even exist?”
Everyone turned to the engineer intrigued, “He makes valid points.” Bellamy agreed
Raven rolled her eyes, “He’s obviously the kind of guy that gets high and drunk at the same time. Please pay him no mind…although his eyes are kind of red and-
“You know now that you mention getting high-“Jasper said suddenly full of energy
She looked up at him annoyed, “I didn’t mention getting high I said he seems to actually be-“
“Formalities Rae now, “ he shirked back behind Monty at her murderous glare but continued on regardless, “Uh I may have a way for us to end the night with a bang.”
“No, no no no. NO.” Monty instantly spoke up bringing his hands up with his index fingers raised*, “Do you not remember the last time we were high!? Just be thankful we were nowhere near the grounders or the adults when it happened.”
“Now we have, Indra, Echo, Lincoln and possibly the Commander, hell no.”
Even Octavia had to agree on that one, “That shit went from zero to a hundred too quick. I swore the drop ship was legit gonna take off back into space.”
They all had thoughtful expressions on their faces as they recalled their own parts in that fateful day
--
Smoke. That was the first thing that Lincoln registered, lots and lots of smoke, in fact. Was part of the forest on fire?
Yes…yes it was.
He balked but then ran through the few burning trees emerging in front of the drop ship. He heard the pounding of feet coming from his right and from the fiery glow of the forest emerged a shirtless Bellamy a snarl on his face, both arms around what looked like a giant pale green snake. It was truly enormous, the width of its body was about the size of his torso.
The poor mutated creature had a large opening for a mouth that seemed like it couldn’t close. From behind Bellamy’s incoherent grumbles came a shirtless Miller and another one of the 48 that Lincoln did not know as well. Maybe his name was Jacob, or Tobias…maybe Peeta. Maybe he was simply mixing up the 48 names he had been told with the stories of the olden days that Octavia insisted on reading him.
These epics told of the history of the old world which apparently was ‘dystopian’ where pale teenagers that glittered in the sunlight and had wolf like tendencies fought to the death to celebrate peace and people were segregated by their main emotional attributes. Where people that felt more than one of these attributes were hunted down and killed for not being able to fit into only one category. He shook his head, and to think they had first believed the Trikru to be cruel.
The boys’ struggling re-caught his attention as they seemed to be stumbling with their footing. Suddenly from the mouth of the great beast water spewed forth like a raging projectile and a liquid substance coated the area around them as they wrestled with the creature to get it under their control. Finally they pointed it towards the burning trees and whoops of excitement could be heard from unseen feminine voices.
Clarke leading them through the now smoldered ashes of the trees wasn’t what surprised him the most, no rather the state of undress of the group that he now realized was a recurring theme among them. The Skai girls had stripped to their chest bindings, few of them still wore their pants. Thankfully none of them were fully naked but that did little to stop the blush climbing up his neck as he averted his gaze. Octavia thankfully was covered with Raven’s jacket though it looked as though she too had lost her shirt.
Clarke, Raven and Octavia walked in almost synchronized grace, hair blowing dramatically in the sudden howling wind. He blinked realizing they hardly moved an inch, in fact it was as if they were purposefully moving in exaggerated slowness despite there being no impediments he could see on their person.
Behind them Monroe seemed to be chanting some indiscernible phrases as she sprinted past them wielding a thin tree branch as if it was a sword. At the tip of which he recognized a familiar pair of red Skaikru chest bindings…that would explain why Octavia was wearing Raven’s red jacket.
It was then that Bellamy released the snarling creature in their grasp and Lincoln watched stunned as it writhed and wiggled still spewing forth it’s inner fluids.
He was unable to retain his surprised yelp when he found himself drenched in the substance…and that was when the Skaikru finally noticed him.
That night still came back to him in flashes, even now as he feared what Heda would do if she was interrupted by those Indra had escorted. While he doubted what he endured that night would be anywhere near as fear inducing as Heda’s wrath it was still something he found himself very much wishing to avoid.
He was thankful that he could not remember the full events of what took place after the Skaikru had seen him. Sometimes in his dream it would come back, being tied to the side of the drop ship, Raven’s explosions, having moonshine funneled down his throat. By the end of it all, when the sun had finally arisen he was only startled awake by Clarke’s yell of “These trees branches are hella firm!”
He was glad that even while intoxicated she was still able to fulfill her tree maintaining duties by what he supposed was checking on the only lightly burnt tree bark.
He was shaken out of his musings when he finally stumbled upon Clarke and…was that Elena? Laughing like mad men- er women, while Lexa glared at the only other person with them. He gulped momentarily thinking that Clarke had somehow gotten more of the Moonshine into the three other women.
That was when Lexa turned her glare to him.
--
Raven shot up suddenly from where she was lying down. Eyes wide open in realization, a small part of her wondered how the heck she got from reminiscing to lying in her bed back in her tent but the other part of her was playing on a loop of left over moonshine musings:
After staring down and blatantly lying to the grounder Commander, tailing, intoxicating and then tying up Clarke, almost dying for injuring her, almost dying again by scaring the grounders with their music, learning even more cringe and goal worthy aspects about Clarke’s sex life, almost getting Octavia stripped for her red underwear, tying up Clarke’s loyal guard.
After all of this
They were even further away from figuring out who the heck Clarke’s secret squeeze was
“Well.” She sighed, “Back to the drawing board.”
After Octavia woke up to find the resident genius missing from breakfast she found her laboring over a white board with very explicit drawings and details.
The two girls eyed each other before Octavia had her own revelation, “Oh fuck me, the secret squeeze isn’t Linus.”
“Nope.”
“We have literally no other leads.”
“None.”
Sigh, “Ok what’s the plan so far…”
Later in the afternoon when her friends had finally recovered from the more than exhausting antics of last night Raven and Octavia had gathered them all around to explain her final plan.
Miller gave a low whistle, “I don’t know about this Raven…”
Bellamy shook his head wildly, “No, this is incredibly insane, what if there’s an emergency? I think you and O have finally lost it.”
“Aw come on bro! So what? You don’t have a problem with drunken manipulation tactics but THIS is too far for you, is that what you’re saying right now?”
“THAT is exactly what I’m saying. Obviously I’ve let you guys go a bit too far, to be fair none of us has been completely sober in days, and I don’t care if I gain permanent freaking downer status, I am officially out!”
“Bell wait…” Lincoln placed a hand on Octavia’s shoulder, “We should give him some space.”
She nodded and turned to address the group, “Anyone else out? Cause once you’re in, you’re all in.”
“Afraid I’ll have to sit this out too guys, they need me in engineering.” With that Wick gave a quick peck to Raven’s cheek and followed Bellamy’s footsteps.
Harper also opted out, as much as she wanted to help someone had to look after Monroe, somehow the girl always managed to retain her liquor well into the next day and they couldn’t leave her unattended while the others would be busy with their pan.
Everyone else gave nods, some more tentative than others. Monty would have gladly opted out and dragged Jasper with him but he knew someone had to keep the group from getting too crazy and without Clarke or Bellamy he was the next voice of reason.
“Ok then, this shit’s about to get real. By the end of tomorrow, we’ll finally have this sorted.” Octavia said with a final nod and turned to look at Raven, drastic times called for drastic measures
“Yup, if all goes as it should, there’s no way we don’t figure out whoever the hell this secret squeeze is.”
--
She woke up groggily hearing the argument outside between Linus and someone that sounded an awful lot like Bellamy. She sighed in her still half-asleep state and rolled to her left. She stopped finding a tight grip around her waist. Stroking the limb until it relaxed she then continued her rolling right when it seemed the argument outside was escalating.
She was pretty sure she was still at least a little drunk, and barely awake, struggling to get her feet to co-operate and stop the noises before they woke up the owner of the limbs she just had to extract from around her body.
At last she arrived at the cabin door, flung it aside and hissed angrily, “What?” she was met with stunned silence.
Linus and Bellamy jumped back at the abrupt disturbance to their ‘conversation’ and stared wide eyed.
Linus hurriedly shrugged off his coat and cautiously approached the grumpy blonde to drape it over her shoulders. In her exhausted and drunk daze Clarke had stumbled outside in just a bra and very short…shorts. Thankfully Linus was so huge compared to the Skai Prisa that the coat acted like a giant leather trench coat on her frame, stopping at her knees.
“Skai Prisa,” Linus put his hands up in an attempt to placate her anger, “we are sorry to have disturbed you, I promise it will not happen again. Perhaps you should go back to bed.”
Clarke let out an incomprehensible grunt still glaring at the two men. Suddenly something seemed to click in Bellamy’s mind. Wasn’t this the Commander’s hut? He realized he voiced his question aloud when he saw Linus was also glaring at him. Bellamy just raised his eyebrow as if to say, ‘what?’
Linus rolled his eyes, a very Skaikru habit he was beginning to get used to and replied, “Sha.”
“Yes this is the Commander’s hut? Then why were you in there dressed like…well not dressed I mean. Did you sleep here last night?”
She just grunted in affirmation, he made a not to talk to her when she was a bit more coherent and instead got to the reason for his early morning visit, “Look I just wanted to warn you that the others…well. It’s a long story.”
Bellamy went on a half hour long tirade explaining how their group had been actively trying to uncover the identity of the one they called the secret squeeze. They had questioned multiple men that had fit the description, attempted to interrogate Ryder, when that failed they intoxicated both her and the Commander to see if they would spill the beans, but then the two with Lincoln had engaged in some sort of Trikru drinking game which led them away from the planned interrogation. After confirming Linus was indeed not the squeeze and realizing that the blonde leader could very well be into girls.
“And that’s the new plan those brilliant minds have concocted. So? What are we going to do now?”
Clarke gave one last grunt before slamming the door in Bellamy and Linus’ faces.
Both jumped once again after hearing a tremendous yell of, “LLEEEXXXAAAAA!” from the blonde who was earlier restricted to grunt communication…gruntication…huh.
Bellamy looked at Linus and Linus looked at him before returning to stand guard in front of the hut, stoic expression firmly in place.
He walked away shaking his head, “Two things I’ll never understand, women and grounders.”
He briefly wondered how he had started falling for Echo
--
*“Uggghh. Klark haukom yu chichnes laud-de, hodness?” She asked wondering why her love was yelling while sitting up on their bed. She only vaguely recalled almost continuing her chase of Lincoln before Clarke promised her that they could snuggle in bed if she refrained from killing her best friend’s lover.
That was right before they made their way back to the clearing to find all of the Sky people staring up at the stars in thoughtful silence, Indra, Ryder, Echo and Linus looking at them worriedly all the while.
Thankfully they had shaken them out if it…some more forcefully than others, and were led back to their respective tents and cabins.
“Don’t haukom yu chichnes laud-de, hodness me. You know I wondered why Linus was suddenly here. Polis is like a full day’s ride non-stop and last I heard he was recovering with the healer Leksa so let me ask. Why was Linus suddenly brought here when I have more than enough, capable, personal guards here in TonDC and the Ark?”
When Lexa moved to get up and placate her Clarke held up a hand, “Did you know about my friends’ missions to find out who I’m with?”
“I-“
“And did you send for Linus because he matched the description? Long brown hair? Right bicep tattoo? Muscly?”
“Klark-“
Clarke turned away towards the bedside table and grabbed a cup of water. She turned back around to find Lexa standing right in front of her “Ahh-“ Her startled gasp was cut off by a pair of lips on her own.
“Lexa.You.Can’t.Stop.This.With.Kisses.” Clarke managed to get out in between the press of soft lips against her own
Not five minutes later Linus found himself taking a few steps away from the cabin behind him…eight minutes after that he decided the tree line had a much better vantage point of the area around the Commander’s cabin.
--
“Seems like my sister and Clarke aren’t making it to breakfast today.” El said shoving a piece of thick bacon into her mouth.
The woman beside her nodded, “I still can’t believe she didn’t recognize me.” Moving to partake of her own breakfast
Indra and Echo took seat to the right of them with their own bowls of food, “I believe the term for her state is wasted. It would explain why very few Skaikru are present for the food.” Echo supplied.
Indra scoffed beside her, “They have Linkon and Nyko’s remedy for their drinking illnesses. I will tell you now El, be thankful you learned your lesson in Polis not about accepting rooms near to the Commander's bed.”
El and Echo blushed at the insinuation while the two older women sitting between them shared a chuckle.
“At least Leksa has found someone to keep up with her.”
They nodded softly at that, even if a few of them had reservations about the Skaikru in the end both women had proven themselves to be exceptionally strong leaders and if anyone deserved such well-earned moments of weakness, it was them.
Octavia and Raven plopped down on the chairs opposite the table to the four grounder warriors.
“Hey guys, don’t suppose you know where Clarke is?” Octavia asked
El mumbled under her breath, “Perhaps you should try her cabin." The taller woman next to her nudged her hard with her elbow while keeping a straight face. Octavia raised her eyes at Elena’s hunched over and pained expression, “We did try the cabin.” Octavia answered
“Yeah but then Linus stopped us like 30 feet out. It sounded like Heda was getting her game on.” Raven said whilst waggling her eyebrows suggestively
Elena sighed sitting back upright and taking a sip of her drink, “I really did not need to know about my sister’s love life but thank you Raven kom Skaikru.”
Indra spoke up before Elena made anymore…suggestions, “I am sure Klark will turn up when she is ready. No doubt Ryder is guarding her if Linus is with Heda.”
The two brunette sky women nodded and departed to grab their own plates of food knowing the first part of their plan had likely already been acted on.
--
Clarke had once again, awoken first, this time to the naked skin of her girlfriend. Their legs were tangled together and Lexa’s head was tucked under Clarke’s chin. She detached herself despite Lexa’s tired mumbling and quieted her with a kiss to the forehead and the promise of food…lunch to be exact they had kind of been uh too busy, for breakfast, discussing important, um training things.
After said training they had had a chat about the merits of at least trusting Clarke’s closest friends with the secret of their relationship. Especially since Lexa had taken it upon herself to bring in Linus as a decoy and, if the way they had treated him was any indication, it would be in everyone’s benefit to tell them before the Skaikru set about interrogating any other grounders for information.
With that she had decided to tell her friends the moment she saw them. Or at least that was the plan anyway. But when she woke up in a dark and dank smelling cave, tied to what could only be a chair and with no other noises to indicate where she was well she guessed today was going to end a lot different than she planned.