Another Love | Clexa (Completed)

Chapter 22: Carnival Of Rust

D'you breathe the name
Of your savior
In your hour of need
And taste the blame,
If the flavor should remind you of greed
Of implication, insinuation and you will
Till you cannot lie still
In all this turmoil
Before red cave and foil
Come closing in for a kill

Lexa watched her lover helplessly as the other girl sat in the edge of the bed, with a defeated expression on her face. She looked like someone who had just got the news of losing a war she had been fighting for a very long time.

"Costia I..." Lexa began.

"What can you possibly have to say that can make me feel better, Lexa?" Costia asked.

Lexa walked down in front of Costia and knelt on her haunches, her head hanging low. "I do love you, you know. I always have. Before I've even known what it is like to love someone."

"No,Lexa. You've always needed me. To keep you tied to your past. Thats what I've been, all this time. A string connecting you to all that you have lost. I see it now. You needed me, Lexa. You never really loved me."

"No! Don't say that. I do need you, yes. But I love you. I was with you all this time, against everyone's knowledge and wishes. Against my own better judgment. You're the only person I've ever been with, Cos. I was with you even when I got married to her."

"You've had something for her from the first day! You always liked her!"

"She is an amazing person, of course I like her."

"That is not what I want to hear, exactly," Costia said crossly.

"What do you want to hear me say? That I'm sorry? Because yes, I probably am," Lexa pleaded with her.

"Did she kiss you or did you?" Costia asked pointedly.

Lexa looked around uncomfortably, and then said, "She did."

"I'll have her killed," Costia said, her face etched with disgust.

"And I reciprocated. And honestly speaking, I kissed her first. On the Harvest Festival night," Lexa confessed. For a moment she felt like she had shed a heavy burden she had been carrying around.

Costia looked like she had been slapped. "What did I ever do to you? I've loved you like there's no tomorrow, Lexa. I've always loved you. And this is not what I deserve."

"I know," Lexa nodded. "You deserve the world, my love."

"I don't want the world! I want you!"

Lexa looked down, wondering what she could possibly say to make the girl on front of her feel better. She loved Costia, yes. Buy Costia would never belong to her world of forests and storms like Clarke did. She loved Costia, yes, but she would always belong to the spring and wildflowers. Clarke and Lexa, they were tainted, broken, ripped and torn at the edges, haunted by nightmares of burning flesh and rivers of blood. Clarke alone could simply place a hand on Lexa's shoulders and calm her demons. She loved Costia, but she strived to be painfully human every second she was with her. With Clarke, she could be herself, and Clarke would still love her for it.

"Lexa? Do you love her?"

"I love you."

"I know. But are you in love with Clarke?"

"I don't know, Costia..."

"Please...look me in the eyes and say that. You owe me that decency atleast."

Lexa looked up, and Costia's face broke her heart. "I tried so hard, Cos. I tried to be in love with you every single day. I am still trying. But Clarke... She's special..."