Douse This Fire

3

Clarke; Saturday, 11:14pm

    Her wrist hurt, but she barely felt it through the numbing effect of the alcohol she drank. It was more of an annoying ache than the sharpness it usually was, so she ignored it in favour of accepting the shot glass slid to her across the bar. A woman with honey blonde hair smirked at her as she lifted her own glass, eyebrow raised as she put the rim to her lips and drank. Clarke copied her with a smirk of her own, then slammed the small glass down and sauntered over. Another pair of shots was ordered, and the woman, Nylah, asked her a question.

    “Doesn’t that hurt?” She nodded at the cast on Clarke’s wrist, and the artist shrugged. Gave her the same answer she’d given her every weekend she’d been there.

    “Not right now.” Another pair of shots downed, followed by another and another, and the music was thumping in her head, the lights pulsing in time to the beat, and the vodka thrumming through her blood. She reached for the woman’s hand, smirk on display again. “Come dance with me.”

    She hadn’t seen Finn since the explosion over a month ago, and the chats she’d had with Raven revealed she hadn’t either. She’d tried calling  his cell, texting him, even dropped by his apartment. She had even called a couple of his friends, and he was nowhere to be found. It was all very confusing for both women, and they’d talked it out and agreed to just dump him next time either of them saw him, they both deserved better.

    But Clarke still looked for him, because she liked him, she didn’t want it to end, this carefree happiness she’d had with him. Or maybe she just missed the distraction he could provide.

    Tonight, she was going to try her hardest to drown out the images that haunted her in her dreams. The images she saw every damn time she closed her eyes for too long. The destruction, the injured, the dying, the dead.

    So she was drinking. And dancing. And apparently, drunk-Clarke decided flirting was also a good idea.

    She had her back to Nylah’s front, grinding into her as she danced with the music pounding out of the speakers. Nylah’s fingers traced patterns over the strip of exposed skin on Clarke’s hips, her lips whispered husky words into her ear. This was their little routine since Clarke had started going to this club. But then drunk-Clarke took it up a notch and turned around, wrapping her arms loosely around Nylah’s neck, her fingers finding the baby hairs at the nape. She was sweaty but uncaring as she pulled her impossibly closer, her left hand moving to trail down a slender neck, down a smooth chest, over perky breasts, down a toned stomach, down-

    A hand grabbed hers and stopped its descent, and Clarke looked up with a gasp. She honestly had not been expecting to be so bold, and now-

    “Let’s get out of here,” Nylah propositions, backing away with a firm grip on her good hand. This was a first.

    Drunk-Clarke followed without question, and if there was an extra sway to her hips as she walked, she chose not to acknowledge it.

    Nylah’s apartment was just around the corner, above the Trading Post, where they stopped in to grab a few more bottles of some sort of liquor that drunk-Clarke didn’t read the labels of. Drunk-Clarke didn’t care what it was, just as long as she got to drink it. Drunk-Clarke didn’t even notice that Nylah had used a key to get into the store and that the stairs leading to the apartment were in the storage room of the store. Drunk-Clarke was too busy pressing her lips to sweaty skin, tangling her fingers in honey-blonde tresses, and tugging at articles of clothing to notice much of anything.

    The night was steamy and passionate, fingers leaving burning trails and lips leaving marks on skin.

    Sober-Clarke woke up with a headache she remedied with the remains of a bottle of whiskey left on the floor by the bed. She gathered her clothes and left Nylah still sleeping, stumbling home with the last bottle clutched in her hands like a lifeline.