Disclaimer: Is not mine, never will be. Still want it.

When Lexa's lips brushed Clarke's own, they were as soft and smooth as water, warm and yielding even as Clarke pressed forward, her thirst only whetted by the Grounder's series of gentle, plucking kisses.

Clarke had rarely thought of how the Grounders approached intimacy - she was too often plagued by either fighting against them or with them to think of anything else. The rare moments she had pondered, she'd pictured it as another kind of battle for them. A climb, a fight, all bold movements and tangled limbs and nails and teeth. Intimacy and the Grounders seemed at odds to her, incompatible. Surely they weren't capable of the softness, of thevulnerability,of simply holding someone and not conquering them. There was too much of the flame in them, in the need to ravage and destroy.

On the battlefield, Lexa was fire. She moved hungrily, flickering from life to life, consuming it as she pleased. When she struck, it was hard and whip-fast, eyes burning with a fierce joy. Clarke wondered if that was part of the reason Lexa wore her face paint as she did; to show her enemies those terrible blazing eyes.

Her face was clear now, free from the black smears that marked her as a harbinger of death. Without it, her face was softer, younger. Lexa could almost have been just another girl, certainly not the ruthless, fierce commander of a savage group of warriors. Although Clarke supposed the same could be said of herself, only her ruthlessness and strength seemed much more fleeting to her, borrowed and faked. She was no blazing inferno, only a quiet smolder.

Clarke shivered as Lexa's lips brushed her neck, tracing their way down the soft skin of her throat. Lexa was certainly helping to stoke that smolder, even as the fire in the brunette seemed to die away. There was a gentleness in her movements, in her touches and kisses, that Clarke had never expected. If she was fire in battle, then she was water now, soft and insistent and everywhere. Her lips trickled along Clarke's jawline, fingertips dripping down the blonde's torso. As her lips met Clarke's again, almost infuriatingly soft and slow, Clarke wondered if perhaps fire would've been better. Fire burns, scalds, it would've been easy to pull back at the first sear of flame, to stop herself before she immolated. But this? Clarke pressed into the taller girl, deepening the teasing kiss. She was already drowning, lungs filled and lips dripping.

Clarke drew a shaky breath as the kiss broke, blue eyes studying the brunette before her, the great and feared commander of the Grounder army, the leader none dared to question or cross. Those mantles fell away as easily as clothing under Clarke's gaze, and stripped of them, Lexa seemed nothing more than a girl just as scared as Clarke was, even if she was still garbed in her bedraggled and blackened armour. Clarke knew the memory of Costia still pained Lexa, knew how the thought of feeling something,anything for someone terrified the Grounder. She knew, because she felt the same thing. Finn's death still haunted her, his blood still wet her hands, no matter how clean she scrubbed them. Yet still, she couldn't help but rise up to kiss the taller girl again, couldn't help but curl her fingers against Lexa's back, couldn't help but wantmore.With every soft, leading kiss, every brush of skin on skin, Lexa washed away a little bit more of her fear, her doubt, until all that was left in Clarke was Lexa, Lexa in front of her, around her, against her. An inexorable tide that lapped away at everything that told her to stop, to stop this before she was swept away.

The foam of Lexa's lips and the salt of her tongue were already drawing her out though, her feet already slipping in loose sand as she fought for footing. Clarke knew though, that if she hesitated, pulled back, the brunette would let her go, would let her clamber back to shore with nothing more than concern and understanding. No, Clarke wasn't getting pulled out to sea, she was wading in, arms outspread.

Something released in the blonde with that realization, some tight little knot she'd tied up in her chest after Finn died. She wanted this, she wanted Lexa. She was sick of fighting, against the Grounders, against the Mountain Men, against her own people. Most of all, she was sick of fighting against herself, tearing herself to ribbons over what she should do, could do, did do. Maybe that was why she felt little more than a wavering smolder against Lexa's decisive inferno.

Lexa's fingers plucked at the hem of Clarke's top, a wordless question. Clarke wavered a moment before giving a short nod, top obscuring her face as it was pulled off, only to be replaced once again by the brunette's lips once the garment had dropped to the floor.

Lexa's fingers were droplets of rain, pattering over the newly exposed skin until Clarke felt drenched with her touch, until even her insides felt warm and heavy and wet. It wasn't until her teeth nipped at Lexa's bottom lip that Clarke realized it wasn't water seeping into her, but warm oil, swelling her tiny smolder into a hungry blaze, a blaze that fed off every soft touch and caress Lexa spilled into her until she ached to fullness with it.

Her next nip was harder, the brunette gasping, hips twitching forward against Clarke. For a moment Clarke feared she'd gone too far, bit too deep and burned too much. The smile that curved Lexa's lips allayed that fear, laughter in her next kiss, delivered just as softly and gently as those previous.

With every slow kiss and tickling touch, Clarke found herself pushing back harder, the heat in her more and more desperate to escape until she left herself breathless with the want of it.

It was then Lexa backed her towards the bed, a slight pressure against Clarke's hips all she needed to guide the girl. A single soft kiss before Clarke lowered herself to the furs, warm and ticklish against her back. In the short time it took Lexa to free herself from her weighty garments, Clarke realized that the Grounder was trembling, her own breath short and shaking. Yet she'd kept herself soft for Clarke, even as her own hunger must've gnawed at her. It made Clarke ache all the more for what was to come.

Something roiled behind Lexa's light eyes as she stepped forward, freed from her jangling clothing. Her body was slim, hard yet with the soft curves of a girl, the occasional scar tracing a ragged line over her skin, yet it was her eyes that drew Clarke's focus, so full of something the blonde couldn't determine. As Lexa crawled onto the bed, a leg slipping between Clarke's as she moved on top of her, Clarke saw what swirled behind the brunette's eyes. Clarke had learned by now that Lexa never spoke of what she felt, indeed, pretended not to feel anything at all. It wasn't until she'd learned to read the Grounder's eyes that Clarke had realized Lexa was a liar. That she felt, that no matter how hard she crushed her feelings, they still bled from her. And the blood that pooled now was mixed, a whirlpool of fear and desire, apprehension and excitement, and something softer and quieter yet that made Clarke's heart twist in her chest until it hurt.

Her fingertips found Lexa's jaw, touching lightly to draw her lips to the blonde's hungry ones. The water fled from her kiss with Clarke's burning urgency, a soft sound escaping the brunette before they parted, panting. Lexa's knee stirred, rubbing over her as if to chide the smaller girl, Clarke's breath tangling in her throat in its rush to spill out.

"Battle is not something to be rushed through." Lexa spoke softly, planting a light kiss on Clarke's cheek. "Nor is this." Her breath whispered into the delicate seashell of Clarke's ear, lips following an instant later.

Clarke couldn't help the quiver in her hips when Lexa's hand deftly unfastened the blonde's pants, slipping inside for a brief, aching moment before skimming back over Clarke's flat stomach. Clarke's bra provided slightly more trouble, a wrinkle appearing in Lexa's brow as she fussed. The blonde placated her with a soft kiss, hands slipping behind her to undo the taut undergarment.

Lexa's skin was hot against her own, yet her mouth was surprisingly cool as it closed over a nipple, tongue soft and insistent against the stiffened pink flesh. Clarke couldn't stop the quiet moan from escaping her, fingers tangled in Lexa's messily fastened hair. The brunette smiled then, switching her attentions to the opposite breast.

Fire squirmed in Clarke's belly, hot and cloying, and for a moment she feared the soft water of Lexa's touches would turn to steam on her, too brief and sweet to sate her.

Her fears melted the instant the brunette's hand delved into her pants, trickling over the thin material of her underwear to rub against her in soft, long strokes. Pleasure shivered along Clarke's spine, threading through bone like red hot wire. Her breath shuddered out, teeth sinking into her lips to stop the embers of sound that threatened to spill forth, eyes shut tight and brow furrowed.

Her face smoothed as the cool liquid of Lexa's lips found her again, sounds softened by the brunette's deft tongue. When they broke apart, Lexa withdrew her hand, eyes fixed on Clarke's. "I would not have you hold your tongue now of all times, Clarke." There was no fire in her eyes still, yet they glowed all the same, warm as honey and just as easy to get stuck in. "None will come." Her fingers dipped beneath Clarke's underwear in a languorous movement, matched by her tongue as it slipped over the blonde's trembling lower lip in a drawn out kiss. "Save for you." The words were promised against Clarke's mouth, a whisper of wetness that dripped down the back of her throat, cool and choking.

Hand withdrawn once more, Lexa reared upright, poising herself with fingers hooked in the waistband of Clarke's unfastened pants. Acquiescing, Clarke raised herself, tight material walked down with some difficulty, Lexa carelessly letting the material slip to the ground, leaving Clarke as bare as her. Before she could press herself tight against the blonde girl once more, Clarke took the chance to explore the Grounder's slim body. Hands hot, she touched over the soft swell of Lexa's breasts, nipples hard against her palms. Her hands felt clumsy, great callused paws that groped where she wanted to brush, scraped where she wanted to trace. The brunette responded regardless, body quivering wherever Clarke's fingers roamed. When they met together on the small of her back, she pressed herself forward again, sweat already melding their skin together.

When Lexa kissed her next, hand cradling her cheek like a precious thing, Clarke tasted salt. It clung to her lips, a harbinger. She had thought of the brunette as the sea, thought her soft and gentle as water. But the sea could be rough too, could sweep away anything in its path. You couldn't stop the sea, you could only weather it. She had feared Lexa's touches would turn to steam on her skin, but there was always another crash of the tide to wet her again. It was inexorable.

As Lexa's fingers slipped between the blonde's parted legs to touch her directly, Clarke felt the first wave dash itself inside her, sizzling and foaming against the heavy heat in her belly. A heat that only increased and swelled with every stroke of the brunette's fingers. The blonde made no attempt to stifle her moans now, the sounds low and threadbare, forced of necessity. Lexa moved to kiss her, Clarke arching up into the embrace, fire clashing with water and leaving them both breathless and wet-lipped.

Clarke held herself together with increasing difficulty, fire seaming her limbs like an ember-scored log, ready to pop and burst and slough apart in a shower of sparks. Her head swam, breath escaping in short, hard bursts edged with voice, eyes screwed shut as she focused on the tremor of heat boiling within her. Steam rushed through her veins, whistled in her ears as Lexa's voice drifted to her from afar, urging her eyes to open. She did so with difficulty, fingers slipping on the brunette's damp skin as she shifted closer, gaze locked on Clarke's own. She held it for a long moment before moving her lips to Clarke's in a short kiss, broken by Clarke's sobbing breath. She was fire, white hot, her hips bucking into Lexa's hand, to have those crashing waves come faster, closer, until she was nothing but steam and ash. Until she was nothing at all but that feeling.

Then there was a moment, Lexa's lips wet on her throat, in which she seemed to shatter, breath broken and limbs trembling, voice bleeding white hot into Lexa's tangled brunette locks. Lexa planted a last, soft trembling kiss on Clarke's neck as the blonde's breath slowed, hips stilling as the last of her was extinguished.

She took a moment to enjoy the hot weight of Lexa's body as her skin cooled, slick with sweat. The heat that had pooled in her had spread, settling throughout her. Warm ash misted with rain. As Lexa's lips found hers once more, softly, so softly, Clarke understood. Lexa was fire in battle, scorching, ravaging, unforgiving. She was destruction and death, smoke and ash. She was strength. Yet with love, she was water, soft, yielding, gentle. She was tenderness and concern, saltwater and foam lapping. What the Grounders would call weakness. What Lexa would call weakness. To Clarke it felt much stronger than that. Fires burned themselves out, waves never stopped crashing.

Author's note: Reviews are always appreciated. Like deer in a dappled forest, I always hope to spot one.