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♍ She Does • Clarisse/Silena
She Does
Clarisse/Silena
• 4,468 words
• a rather high PG-13
• "She says 'I don't want this' but she does, she does, she does."
She knows, in the way that she knows that fighting is in her blood, that she shouldn't notice things like tits and ass and pouted lips. She knows it's wrong, and it feels like some weird obsession grafted on to all the other things that make up who she is. Because she isn't a girly girl, she doesn't like girly things and she's damn happy being all muscle and no curve. She has posters of guys she admires on her walls - sports heroes, and a big one of Achilles (from the movie, yeah, and shut up it was awesome), but they're all mostly clothed, and she remembers a friend coming over when they were still in middle school and moaning that they should just get naked already, and why didn't she have the shirtless one up?
Clarisse hadn't known what to say.
But late at night (or half-awake in the morning, or in the middle of the day for fuck's sake), when she's lying on her stomach with one finger - just one - crooked tight against the fabric of her underwear, it's all she can think about.
Curves. Lips. Hands tucked in the back pockets of tight jeans. Long necklaces falling into v-neck shirts. Curls escaping from ponytails, trailing down bare necks, lying between winged shoulder blades. She thinks about painted nails and all things delicate hands could do. She thinks about -
And usually, she's done thinking by then, because it's way too fucking quick - embarrassingly quick - and she wipes her hands on the inside of her pillowcase and gets the fuck on with her life.
But it isn't anyone in particular. She has a lot of girl friends, her sports teams, her gamer friends that don't get it when she laughs at the new release - God of War, oh really? - but they're her friends. Objectively, some of them are attractive. It's not like she's gonna stare. Besides, they're nothing like her fantasy. She can't see brand names or bleached hair or racerback sportsbras. Even those minuscule gym shorts are only barely noticeable, not distracting.
She thinks about how lace underwear would feel under her hands, kissing lips without lipgloss, delicate gasps and strawberries and wine.
She looks at herself in the mirror and thinks, Clarisse, you have a serious problem.
It's like there's this big gap between what she is and what she wants, but somewhere along the line the body parts got confused.
She hangs out with a group of guys that she plays roller hockey with, but leaves when they start talking about the girls they want to fuck. Because that's fucking disgusting.
There has got to be a middle ground.
But camp, camp is the best part of Clarisse's life. She doesn't have to hold her strength, doesn't have to try and make sense of Middle English let alone regular English because everything's written in a language she can actually understand, she gets to beat things with sticks all day and she gets to see her brothers and sisters, who she actually likes, thanks.
Even Mark.
Well, sort of.
But he was fun to wrestle with?
Anyway.
She's two weeks in and having the time of her life, as usual, sticking things with pointy objects and yelling battle cries and winning, she's very good at winning. It's also the first year that she's head of the cabin, because Reece got killed doing some stupid idiotic thing in Egypt and she can't even be sad about it because he fucking deserved it. He was kind of a dick, anyway.
So she tells herself.
They're playing God of War in the Hermes cabin, actually. It's so great - better than stand-up, and everyone's laughing themselves silly. Ares the dinosaur! The Oracle of Athena! It's so fucking rich.
"BACKUP AT THE GATE!!"
It's an instant call to arms. They drop everything, scramble for weapons, and rush right out - Clarisse takes the lead and everyone falls in behind her, because they've practiced this.
Unfortunately, they're too late.
Too late to do any fighting, and Clarisse throws her sword down, huffing. "Just had to make it on time, didn't you?" She dimly hears someone behind her growl, Shut up!
"Yeah, just had to. Rotten luck I guess."
Clarisse turns and offers a hand and the blood drains from her face.
This girl is unquestionably, distractingly, head-spinningly gorgeous.
She isn't hot, she isn't cute, she isn't sweet - though, if Clarisse were being honest with herself, she was all of those things and then some - but the first word that comes to mind is 'beautiful', like a pre-raphaelite painting or something out of myth.
Which is, you know. Pretty accurate, all things considered.
The boys are whispering behind her and Clarisse has already got a pretty good idea of who's child this is, but she doesn't care - that is, she could've been a mortal, she could've been anyone and it wouldn't matter. The other Aphrodite girls don't impress her, they're the worst sorts of females, and they're all on about boys, boys, boys. Especially the Ares boys. It's like all that manliness makes them even stupider.
Clarisse likes her brothers. For the most part, they think the Aphrodite girls are full of shit.
"But thanks anyway. It's good to know it's... safe, here."
She only has one suitcase, a battered duffel bag in black and purple. Clarisse is taking it before she even knows what she's doing. The way she talks, the way she says 'safe', makes her think that the journey must've been a tough one.
Someone behind her says, Oh just kiss already! but she chooses selective deafness. "I'm Clarisse."
"Silena." She lets Clarisse take her bag, but she doesn't act like it was mandatory, which is almost a new concept. It's graceful, and ladylike, and it sort of makes Clarisse want to kiss the living daylights out of her.
"I'll-" she stumbles over her words, and right in front of half her cabin, too, fuck. "I'll take you to the Big House, yeah? Find out where you belong." With me. In bed, with me, right now. Or against a wall. Or in my lap, on a chair. Or in the woods. Or, fuck, the fight ring. Right there in the dirt with your hair down.
Clarisse realizes this is going to make life fucking impossible.
+
That night, she's in the shower, and she still can't think of anything else.
Unlike a lot of the Aphrodite girls (she is one of them, and she's known it for a long time, which is kind of a relief), who are mostly blonds and redheads, Silena's hair is black - that warm, natural black, not like that dyed goth bullshit with a blue sheen. And unlike those weeaboo goths, her skin's a cream pale (not a pasty, sunless, socially awkward pale) and she has a hint of a swimsuit tan, and a few freckles in places that Clarisse shouldn't've been staring.
So, Silena isn't exactly like her fantasies at all - she even wears makeup, but it's classy and tasteful, in a way that she'd never imagined it could be. Like, bright pink lipstick, with a bit of shimmer to it. No one should be able to pull that off, it should've just looked tacky. Black hair. Clarisse had never specifically thought of black hair, she usually pictured brown, or natural gold. But then, she'd never met anyone on whom black hair looked right.
Clarisse is slumped face-first against the shower wall with one arm pressed across her forehead, before she even realizes what she's doing. It's awkward standing up - but the water's hot and slick, and it's the only place she can be alone, so.
Then she thinks about Silena with her hair wet and her shirt soaked through, water trailing down the curves of her hips.
It's over way, way too quickly, and all the soap in the world doesn't make her feel any less unclean.
+
So fuck this, anyway.
+
Clarisse throws herself into training and puts the whole damn thing from her mind. It works, too - she's even more aggressive, sharper, and the more she focuses the better she gets, so it isn't a bad thing, not by a long shot.
But at night her mind goes crazy.
+
She manages fine for a whole week. Of course, she doesn't see much of Silena, just mealtimes and in passing and that sort of stuff. She tries not to look - well, she tries not to look too hard - but she's usually surrounded by a crowd of people anyway, simpering admirers and snotty, selfish sisters. Silena holds herself like a queen. She's got dignity, and grace. Even with her hair (wavy, like she just rolled out of bed, though it would take any celebrity at least two hours to produce that stunningly mussed effect) in a simple ponytail and wearing a camp shirt of all things (orange, by the way, looks good on no one. Not even Silena. Clarisse has to admit that, and it's gratifying), she still manages to outshine everyone in any given room. So Clarisse looks, and she sees, and then she looks away and tries to pretend that her cheeks aren't burning.
Every now and then, when she looks, Silena's looking right at her.
And then the whole world just sort of... spins.
+
So, a week. A week and most everyone's calmed down, and life goes back to normal. It really is just Clarisse, then. She's got no more excuses, now that everyone's done fussing over their shiny new toy.
She watches, from the corner of her eye.
Silena, sitting at the Aphrodite table, one pink-nailed hand spreading the pages of a book, the other spearing absently at her plate, completely missing the actual food.
It's ridiculously endearing.
Clarisse wonders if there's a spell to turn your brain off.
Or maybe just your libido.
It probably involves a prayer to Aphrodite, who probably thinks this whole damn thing is utterly hilarious.
Anyway, it's Capture the Flag day.
She looks away quickly and shovels food into her mouth. For fuck's sake, Clarisse. Get a fucking grip. You don't even know her. Just because she's the first person out in the real world you're actually attracted to doesn't mean it's okay to moon like a sick dog.
Then Silena stands up and stretches her arms over her head, with one leg propped up on the bench. "So, Capture the Flag. It's basically an excuse to beat the shit out of each other, right?"
No one from her own cabin answers. Clarisse feels her back stiffen, she won't turn around, won't rise to the bait. But then she meets Jaime's eyes over the table - the one sister who hasn't actually teased her about this whole mess - and realizes that it isn't about her, it's just what's expected, as the head of the Ares cabin. So she takes a deep breath, and stands up, and leans back against the table.
"Yeah, pretty much. Think you can handle it," pretty girl? she adds in her head because she's nervous enough about this already. It would be different, for example, if she didn't mean it.
Silena's smiling far too innocently. "I don't know, but I suppose I'll find out, won't I?"
It's not the right response. That is, it's not a challenge, and what the fuck do you say to that? Yeah, well, we'll beat your asses so hard you'll have to double up the infirmary! She's the daughter of a dick, but she isn't one herself. Most of the time.
But really all she hears is I don't know, but you want to fuck me, don't you?
"Uh," Clarisse says. "Um. Yeah?"
Half the hall is staring at her and she wants to die so this stupid, stupid obsession can die with her.
+
So.
Capture the Flag.
"LET'S GO!!!"
+
Somehow, Clarisse has ended up too far away to be heard, which isn't cool at all. She wants to keep pressing on - something tells her that Luke's going to make them really hunt for it, this time - but she sighs, and turns back. Every now and then she whistles out a call, but no one responds. Fuck. How did she get this far out?
Without warning, something jumps at her, but she's still on full alert, and catches the attack with a perfect parry, and slides into a cross-cut without thinking about it.
A second later, she realizes it's Silena, and shock makes her freeze.
Unfortunately, that leaves her wide open for a split second, and her opponent doesn't hesitate.
The tip of the blade touches her chest, but does no more.
Clarisse stares at it.
"What, that's it?"
"What do you mean, that's it?" Silena's brows snap together in something like aggravation, and Clarisse is uncomfortably aware of her sweat, her heavy breathing, how her hair sticks to her cheeks.
"I'm still standing."
"I'm not going to hurt y-"
Clarisse lunges, and before Silena can finish her sentence, she's disarmed her and tackled her to the ground.
Because that's exactly what you're supposed to do, of course.
Um.
Silena sits up slowly, until she is very obviously straddling Clarisse's hips and it's fucking ridiculous, how much of a turn-on it is.
"Um."
Then - with a small swallow, like she's actually nervous, which is kind of a mindblowing thought and would definitely have to be filed away for future reference - Silena leans down and cups Clarisse's chin with her delicate, beautiful hands (and the paint's chipped on two of her nails, probably from the sword, which is somehow even hotter) and kisses her.
Clarisse has been kissed exactly twice in her life.
Both times had been boys. Both times, it was messy and sort of uninteresting.
This kiss is - well, it's also messy. But it's sinful and passionate and fucking delicious, and Clarisse darts a hand up to bury it in Silena's hair, to feel the line of her dainty neck and the clasp of her necklace under the rim of her leather armor. She tastes like lipstick and sweat.
Gods, Clarisse thinks, this is perfect.
It's too soon when Silena sits up, breath short and cheeks flushed a brilliant red. "Um."
And then Clarisse hears it.
They're victory calls, and they aren't from the red team.
It isn't a flush of desire, it's guilt.
She's been played. Like a fucking violin.
If Ares was watching, he could've been proud at the glare that Clarisse launches, burning with the rage that only a daughter of blood and fire can muster.
"Get. Off."
+
"It's not your fault," Mark says, the second they get back to the cabin.
"Isn't it?!" Clarisse throws off her armor and it crashes into the wall. She's seething.
"Travis and Connor-"
"I wasn't there, and I should've been." She hasn't actually told anyone what's happened, but she figures it would only be a matter of time. They must've been planning that strategy all week. "Don't you dare fucking tell me it wasn't my fault."
"Great fucking Zeus nuts! Not everything is about you!"
Clarisse stares. Mark is shaking, from head to toe, and she'd know that look of suppressed rage anywhere. "...What?"
"Gods, Clarisse." He looks like he wants to spit on her. "I know you've kind of been out of it, but the last time I checked, we were a team."
He stalks out with his armor still buckled, and Clarisse stares after him, feeling like she's been punched in the gut. Because he's right - to a certain extent. It isn't Silena's fault, it isn't anyone else's fault. It's still hers. Because she should've realized that. She should've been planning better. If it wasn't for her stupid obsession -
She's done, now. She's absolutely done.
Really.
+
Another week, and things are once again almost back to normal.
Almost, because half of her cabin still resents her - and she lets them, it's their due and she wants to prove herself. Ares kids know how Ares kids deal with shit like this, so they give her the silent treatment, she takes it in good stride, and the other cabins gossip about how awfully they're ~fighting. But all of Cabin Five knows how these things go. She has to earn their forgiveness. And that's going to take a little time.
It's strange, though. Gossip spreads like wildfire around most of the camp - Aphrodite and Demeter are the worst of them, and the Athena kids claim to be better but they know what's going on. And yet, no one seems to be talking about The Kiss, as Clarisse has privately coined it.
The Kiss, because she's mostly all right, and she's mostly back to herself, but only because mostly, she doesn't let herself remember.
She grabs a random child of Athena, on the way to the training grounds after breakfast one day. She's a little blond thing - they all are - and way too skinny, with eyes too big for her face. Noted, observed, discarded. Clarisse hates the way her brain works. "Hey, I've got a question for you."
"Let go," she hisses, and Clarisse sighs, holds tighter.
"Answer my question, and I'll let you go."
"That's not exactly the biggest incentive, is it?"
"I didn't ask you to like it." Guttersnipe, Clarisse thinks. "What's your name?"
"Annabeth."
"All right, Annabeth. About the Capture the-"
"That's two questions." The girl lifts her chin, and she's got courage, all right. That was the worst thing about the children of Athena. They were pretentious and courageous. But they were usually impartial, and that's why Clarisse needs them.
But, of course, this one has to be the most difficult child in all the history of existence. "Smartass. Capture the Flag. I wasn't there for the finale. How did the Blue team win?"
"Why don't you ask your - oh."
Yeah, smart one, wise girl. Not that she would've asked her brothers in the first place, but that's beside the point.
Annabeth starts reciting like she's reading from the pages of a history book. "The Hermes cabin was split into four groups..."
To anyone else, maybe, it might've been boring as hell but Clarisse hangs on every word, piecing the battle together in her head. "Wait - the left flank. How far out did they sweep?"
"It's - hang on, let me show you." Now that they're talking tactics, the little girl's face has lit up and she's much more cooperative. Clarisse lets her go, and crouches down to watch as she scrawls a map into the dirt.
"The left flank came through - here," and that really was right next to where Clarisse and Silena were kissing, generally speaking, "and broke through the line of archers by sending in a decoy and then coming down from the trees." Her eyes are nearly sparkling when she breathes, "it was brilliant."
So. It had been a distraction. She should've been there, heading them off, taking out the decoy before he even got there.
"And that's... it?"
Annabeth blinks up at her with wide, owlish eyes. "What, did you want more detail?"
She shakes her head and waves her off, and suddenly doesn't want to train today. At all. Because everyone should be talking about the kiss that killed the red team, but no one seems to even know that it happened.
Clarisse doesn't get it.
+
She goes back to her cabin instead, and it's wonderfully empty. Chiron might get pissed at her later but that's later, and she's never skipped a day of training in her life. She just needs to... unwind, a bit. Get her head in the right place.
Apparently that actually translates to 'curl up in bed and take a nap'.
+
Someone's knocking on the door, or rather, the doorframe. The door's open to let in a little breeze, like it always is, and Clarisse struggles awake - fuck, did she fall asleep? Fuck.
"Um."
Her own personal nightmare stands at the door, waiting.
Silena has her hair braided back from her face, and she's wearing a deep purple shirt, under a set of practice leathers, worn and obviously old. She's a little out of breath - a little winded, like she's just been running, and it takes Clarisse a second to remember, oh. Training.
"Good morning, Aurora."
Unexpectedly, the reference makes her snort. "I am no sleeping beauty," she responds automatically, because it's easier than thinking Why is Silena in my room? and even easier than trying to figure out how she feels about it.
"Eye of the beholder." Silena shakes her head, looks at the ground, smiles. Clarisse has the totally unrelated thought that she wants to lick the sweat from the hollow of her neck.
"What?"
"You know, the saying?" She doesn't have any clue what she's talking about. "...'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder'."
Oh. Well. That doesn't make any more sense.
It doesn't.
Nada.
"Never mind. Why weren't you at training?"
"Is it over?" Clarisse pretends not to watch as Silena moves closer, sits on the bed opposite, but it would look stupid if she didn't look, because there's nothing else to look at. Also, she really hasn't decided whether she's okay with this yet. In fact, she should probably start screaming and yelling any second now. She should.
She doesn't. Instead, she simply looks as Silena starts unbuckling her breastplate. "Yes, but everyone's decided to have an impromptu swimming contest, and all I can do is dog-paddle."
Clarisse snickers and it sounds demeaning - fuck - she doesn't mean that - "...Cute," she says, and that could very easily have made it worse but, with something like surprise, she realizes Silena is blushing.
Which makes her think of the last time she blushed like that, and her eyebrows snap together.
"Why did you do it."
"What?"
"Why did you kiss me." There's all hard lines in her face, all steel, and Clarisse is dimly aware that she's crossed some sort of line, that this could go one way or another but nothing will ever actually be the same.
Silena sighs with something like relief, like it's an easy question. "Because I wanted to." She doesn't add the 'obviously' but it's there in her tone.
"You weren't trying to distract me."
"From what?"
And Clarisse realizes, then, what she probably should've known a week ago - Silena is very, very new here. She doesn't hear 'Capture the Flag' and immediately associate it with blood-soaked Ares victories, gloating to the point of every other cabin hating their existence - even the ones on the same team. She doesn't see Clarisse, the best fighter at camp, the stalwart fiend that always, always carries the weight of the battles. She doesn't have any idea what Silena sees.
She's covering her mouth and turning absolutely red. "I mean, I've noticed you staring," she mumbles from in between her fingers, though her eyes are bright and almost teasing above them, and it's Clarisse's turn to blush.
"Yeah. Well."
She really isn't any good at this.
"If you promise not to hate me anymore, I promise not to distract you when you're fighting," Silena offers, and her hands are back in her lap - enough that Clarisse can see the outright flirtation in her smile.
"You are not gonna be able to keep your side of the bargain," is all she says, trying not to grin like an absolute doof (and utterly failing).
"All right. Deliberately. I won't deliberately distract you, which I wasn't trying to do, but I did, and I'm sorry - "
Clarisse reaches over and grabs her by the hand, pulls until Silena has stumbled into her lap, graceful but unsteady. "I never hated you."
She leans forward and touches one fingertip to Clarisse's lips. She hasn't repainted her nails since the fight. "I know," she whispers, their mouths an inch apart, before she pulls her finger away and bridges the space for a kiss.
+
Clarisse looks at herself in the mirror and thinks, you have a serious problem.
Silena puts her arms around Clarisse's shoulders from behind, smiles, and nibbles at the edge of her ear. "You're not like anyone I've ever met," she says.
It's name is Silena Beauregard, and don't you ever dare get it fixed.
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Clarisse/Silena
• 4,468 words
• a rather high PG-13
• "She says 'I don't want this' but she does, she does, she does."
She knows, in the way that she knows that fighting is in her blood, that she shouldn't notice things like tits and ass and pouted lips. She knows it's wrong, and it feels like some weird obsession grafted on to all the other things that make up who she is. Because she isn't a girly girl, she doesn't like girly things and she's damn happy being all muscle and no curve. She has posters of guys she admires on her walls - sports heroes, and a big one of Achilles (from the movie, yeah, and shut up it was awesome), but they're all mostly clothed, and she remembers a friend coming over when they were still in middle school and moaning that they should just get naked already, and why didn't she have the shirtless one up?
Clarisse hadn't known what to say.
But late at night (or half-awake in the morning, or in the middle of the day for fuck's sake), when she's lying on her stomach with one finger - just one - crooked tight against the fabric of her underwear, it's all she can think about.
Curves. Lips. Hands tucked in the back pockets of tight jeans. Long necklaces falling into v-neck shirts. Curls escaping from ponytails, trailing down bare necks, lying between winged shoulder blades. She thinks about painted nails and all things delicate hands could do. She thinks about -
And usually, she's done thinking by then, because it's way too fucking quick - embarrassingly quick - and she wipes her hands on the inside of her pillowcase and gets the fuck on with her life.
But it isn't anyone in particular. She has a lot of girl friends, her sports teams, her gamer friends that don't get it when she laughs at the new release - God of War, oh really? - but they're her friends. Objectively, some of them are attractive. It's not like she's gonna stare. Besides, they're nothing like her fantasy. She can't see brand names or bleached hair or racerback sportsbras. Even those minuscule gym shorts are only barely noticeable, not distracting.
She thinks about how lace underwear would feel under her hands, kissing lips without lipgloss, delicate gasps and strawberries and wine.
She looks at herself in the mirror and thinks, Clarisse, you have a serious problem.
It's like there's this big gap between what she is and what she wants, but somewhere along the line the body parts got confused.
She hangs out with a group of guys that she plays roller hockey with, but leaves when they start talking about the girls they want to fuck. Because that's fucking disgusting.
There has got to be a middle ground.
But camp, camp is the best part of Clarisse's life. She doesn't have to hold her strength, doesn't have to try and make sense of Middle English let alone regular English because everything's written in a language she can actually understand, she gets to beat things with sticks all day and she gets to see her brothers and sisters, who she actually likes, thanks.
Even Mark.
Well, sort of.
But he was fun to wrestle with?
Anyway.
She's two weeks in and having the time of her life, as usual, sticking things with pointy objects and yelling battle cries and winning, she's very good at winning. It's also the first year that she's head of the cabin, because Reece got killed doing some stupid idiotic thing in Egypt and she can't even be sad about it because he fucking deserved it. He was kind of a dick, anyway.
So she tells herself.
They're playing God of War in the Hermes cabin, actually. It's so great - better than stand-up, and everyone's laughing themselves silly. Ares the dinosaur! The Oracle of Athena! It's so fucking rich.
"BACKUP AT THE GATE!!"
It's an instant call to arms. They drop everything, scramble for weapons, and rush right out - Clarisse takes the lead and everyone falls in behind her, because they've practiced this.
Unfortunately, they're too late.
Too late to do any fighting, and Clarisse throws her sword down, huffing. "Just had to make it on time, didn't you?" She dimly hears someone behind her growl, Shut up!
"Yeah, just had to. Rotten luck I guess."
Clarisse turns and offers a hand and the blood drains from her face.
This girl is unquestionably, distractingly, head-spinningly gorgeous.
She isn't hot, she isn't cute, she isn't sweet - though, if Clarisse were being honest with herself, she was all of those things and then some - but the first word that comes to mind is 'beautiful', like a pre-raphaelite painting or something out of myth.
Which is, you know. Pretty accurate, all things considered.
The boys are whispering behind her and Clarisse has already got a pretty good idea of who's child this is, but she doesn't care - that is, she could've been a mortal, she could've been anyone and it wouldn't matter. The other Aphrodite girls don't impress her, they're the worst sorts of females, and they're all on about boys, boys, boys. Especially the Ares boys. It's like all that manliness makes them even stupider.
Clarisse likes her brothers. For the most part, they think the Aphrodite girls are full of shit.
"But thanks anyway. It's good to know it's... safe, here."
She only has one suitcase, a battered duffel bag in black and purple. Clarisse is taking it before she even knows what she's doing. The way she talks, the way she says 'safe', makes her think that the journey must've been a tough one.
Someone behind her says, Oh just kiss already! but she chooses selective deafness. "I'm Clarisse."
"Silena." She lets Clarisse take her bag, but she doesn't act like it was mandatory, which is almost a new concept. It's graceful, and ladylike, and it sort of makes Clarisse want to kiss the living daylights out of her.
"I'll-" she stumbles over her words, and right in front of half her cabin, too, fuck. "I'll take you to the Big House, yeah? Find out where you belong." With me. In bed, with me, right now. Or against a wall. Or in my lap, on a chair. Or in the woods. Or, fuck, the fight ring. Right there in the dirt with your hair down.
Clarisse realizes this is going to make life fucking impossible.
+
That night, she's in the shower, and she still can't think of anything else.
Unlike a lot of the Aphrodite girls (she is one of them, and she's known it for a long time, which is kind of a relief), who are mostly blonds and redheads, Silena's hair is black - that warm, natural black, not like that dyed goth bullshit with a blue sheen. And unlike those weeaboo goths, her skin's a cream pale (not a pasty, sunless, socially awkward pale) and she has a hint of a swimsuit tan, and a few freckles in places that Clarisse shouldn't've been staring.
So, Silena isn't exactly like her fantasies at all - she even wears makeup, but it's classy and tasteful, in a way that she'd never imagined it could be. Like, bright pink lipstick, with a bit of shimmer to it. No one should be able to pull that off, it should've just looked tacky. Black hair. Clarisse had never specifically thought of black hair, she usually pictured brown, or natural gold. But then, she'd never met anyone on whom black hair looked right.
Clarisse is slumped face-first against the shower wall with one arm pressed across her forehead, before she even realizes what she's doing. It's awkward standing up - but the water's hot and slick, and it's the only place she can be alone, so.
Then she thinks about Silena with her hair wet and her shirt soaked through, water trailing down the curves of her hips.
It's over way, way too quickly, and all the soap in the world doesn't make her feel any less unclean.
+
So fuck this, anyway.
+
Clarisse throws herself into training and puts the whole damn thing from her mind. It works, too - she's even more aggressive, sharper, and the more she focuses the better she gets, so it isn't a bad thing, not by a long shot.
But at night her mind goes crazy.
+
She manages fine for a whole week. Of course, she doesn't see much of Silena, just mealtimes and in passing and that sort of stuff. She tries not to look - well, she tries not to look too hard - but she's usually surrounded by a crowd of people anyway, simpering admirers and snotty, selfish sisters. Silena holds herself like a queen. She's got dignity, and grace. Even with her hair (wavy, like she just rolled out of bed, though it would take any celebrity at least two hours to produce that stunningly mussed effect) in a simple ponytail and wearing a camp shirt of all things (orange, by the way, looks good on no one. Not even Silena. Clarisse has to admit that, and it's gratifying), she still manages to outshine everyone in any given room. So Clarisse looks, and she sees, and then she looks away and tries to pretend that her cheeks aren't burning.
Every now and then, when she looks, Silena's looking right at her.
And then the whole world just sort of... spins.
+
So, a week. A week and most everyone's calmed down, and life goes back to normal. It really is just Clarisse, then. She's got no more excuses, now that everyone's done fussing over their shiny new toy.
She watches, from the corner of her eye.
Silena, sitting at the Aphrodite table, one pink-nailed hand spreading the pages of a book, the other spearing absently at her plate, completely missing the actual food.
It's ridiculously endearing.
Clarisse wonders if there's a spell to turn your brain off.
Or maybe just your libido.
It probably involves a prayer to Aphrodite, who probably thinks this whole damn thing is utterly hilarious.
Anyway, it's Capture the Flag day.
She looks away quickly and shovels food into her mouth. For fuck's sake, Clarisse. Get a fucking grip. You don't even know her. Just because she's the first person out in the real world you're actually attracted to doesn't mean it's okay to moon like a sick dog.
Then Silena stands up and stretches her arms over her head, with one leg propped up on the bench. "So, Capture the Flag. It's basically an excuse to beat the shit out of each other, right?"
No one from her own cabin answers. Clarisse feels her back stiffen, she won't turn around, won't rise to the bait. But then she meets Jaime's eyes over the table - the one sister who hasn't actually teased her about this whole mess - and realizes that it isn't about her, it's just what's expected, as the head of the Ares cabin. So she takes a deep breath, and stands up, and leans back against the table.
"Yeah, pretty much. Think you can handle it," pretty girl? she adds in her head because she's nervous enough about this already. It would be different, for example, if she didn't mean it.
Silena's smiling far too innocently. "I don't know, but I suppose I'll find out, won't I?"
It's not the right response. That is, it's not a challenge, and what the fuck do you say to that? Yeah, well, we'll beat your asses so hard you'll have to double up the infirmary! She's the daughter of a dick, but she isn't one herself. Most of the time.
But really all she hears is I don't know, but you want to fuck me, don't you?
"Uh," Clarisse says. "Um. Yeah?"
Half the hall is staring at her and she wants to die so this stupid, stupid obsession can die with her.
+
So.
Capture the Flag.
"LET'S GO!!!"
+
Somehow, Clarisse has ended up too far away to be heard, which isn't cool at all. She wants to keep pressing on - something tells her that Luke's going to make them really hunt for it, this time - but she sighs, and turns back. Every now and then she whistles out a call, but no one responds. Fuck. How did she get this far out?
Without warning, something jumps at her, but she's still on full alert, and catches the attack with a perfect parry, and slides into a cross-cut without thinking about it.
A second later, she realizes it's Silena, and shock makes her freeze.
Unfortunately, that leaves her wide open for a split second, and her opponent doesn't hesitate.
The tip of the blade touches her chest, but does no more.
Clarisse stares at it.
"What, that's it?"
"What do you mean, that's it?" Silena's brows snap together in something like aggravation, and Clarisse is uncomfortably aware of her sweat, her heavy breathing, how her hair sticks to her cheeks.
"I'm still standing."
"I'm not going to hurt y-"
Clarisse lunges, and before Silena can finish her sentence, she's disarmed her and tackled her to the ground.
Because that's exactly what you're supposed to do, of course.
Um.
Silena sits up slowly, until she is very obviously straddling Clarisse's hips and it's fucking ridiculous, how much of a turn-on it is.
"Um."
Then - with a small swallow, like she's actually nervous, which is kind of a mindblowing thought and would definitely have to be filed away for future reference - Silena leans down and cups Clarisse's chin with her delicate, beautiful hands (and the paint's chipped on two of her nails, probably from the sword, which is somehow even hotter) and kisses her.
Clarisse has been kissed exactly twice in her life.
Both times had been boys. Both times, it was messy and sort of uninteresting.
This kiss is - well, it's also messy. But it's sinful and passionate and fucking delicious, and Clarisse darts a hand up to bury it in Silena's hair, to feel the line of her dainty neck and the clasp of her necklace under the rim of her leather armor. She tastes like lipstick and sweat.
Gods, Clarisse thinks, this is perfect.
It's too soon when Silena sits up, breath short and cheeks flushed a brilliant red. "Um."
And then Clarisse hears it.
They're victory calls, and they aren't from the red team.
It isn't a flush of desire, it's guilt.
She's been played. Like a fucking violin.
If Ares was watching, he could've been proud at the glare that Clarisse launches, burning with the rage that only a daughter of blood and fire can muster.
"Get. Off."
+
"It's not your fault," Mark says, the second they get back to the cabin.
"Isn't it?!" Clarisse throws off her armor and it crashes into the wall. She's seething.
"Travis and Connor-"
"I wasn't there, and I should've been." She hasn't actually told anyone what's happened, but she figures it would only be a matter of time. They must've been planning that strategy all week. "Don't you dare fucking tell me it wasn't my fault."
"Great fucking Zeus nuts! Not everything is about you!"
Clarisse stares. Mark is shaking, from head to toe, and she'd know that look of suppressed rage anywhere. "...What?"
"Gods, Clarisse." He looks like he wants to spit on her. "I know you've kind of been out of it, but the last time I checked, we were a team."
He stalks out with his armor still buckled, and Clarisse stares after him, feeling like she's been punched in the gut. Because he's right - to a certain extent. It isn't Silena's fault, it isn't anyone else's fault. It's still hers. Because she should've realized that. She should've been planning better. If it wasn't for her stupid obsession -
She's done, now. She's absolutely done.
Really.
+
Another week, and things are once again almost back to normal.
Almost, because half of her cabin still resents her - and she lets them, it's their due and she wants to prove herself. Ares kids know how Ares kids deal with shit like this, so they give her the silent treatment, she takes it in good stride, and the other cabins gossip about how awfully they're ~fighting. But all of Cabin Five knows how these things go. She has to earn their forgiveness. And that's going to take a little time.
It's strange, though. Gossip spreads like wildfire around most of the camp - Aphrodite and Demeter are the worst of them, and the Athena kids claim to be better but they know what's going on. And yet, no one seems to be talking about The Kiss, as Clarisse has privately coined it.
The Kiss, because she's mostly all right, and she's mostly back to herself, but only because mostly, she doesn't let herself remember.
She grabs a random child of Athena, on the way to the training grounds after breakfast one day. She's a little blond thing - they all are - and way too skinny, with eyes too big for her face. Noted, observed, discarded. Clarisse hates the way her brain works. "Hey, I've got a question for you."
"Let go," she hisses, and Clarisse sighs, holds tighter.
"Answer my question, and I'll let you go."
"That's not exactly the biggest incentive, is it?"
"I didn't ask you to like it." Guttersnipe, Clarisse thinks. "What's your name?"
"Annabeth."
"All right, Annabeth. About the Capture the-"
"That's two questions." The girl lifts her chin, and she's got courage, all right. That was the worst thing about the children of Athena. They were pretentious and courageous. But they were usually impartial, and that's why Clarisse needs them.
But, of course, this one has to be the most difficult child in all the history of existence. "Smartass. Capture the Flag. I wasn't there for the finale. How did the Blue team win?"
"Why don't you ask your - oh."
Yeah, smart one, wise girl. Not that she would've asked her brothers in the first place, but that's beside the point.
Annabeth starts reciting like she's reading from the pages of a history book. "The Hermes cabin was split into four groups..."
To anyone else, maybe, it might've been boring as hell but Clarisse hangs on every word, piecing the battle together in her head. "Wait - the left flank. How far out did they sweep?"
"It's - hang on, let me show you." Now that they're talking tactics, the little girl's face has lit up and she's much more cooperative. Clarisse lets her go, and crouches down to watch as she scrawls a map into the dirt.
"The left flank came through - here," and that really was right next to where Clarisse and Silena were kissing, generally speaking, "and broke through the line of archers by sending in a decoy and then coming down from the trees." Her eyes are nearly sparkling when she breathes, "it was brilliant."
So. It had been a distraction. She should've been there, heading them off, taking out the decoy before he even got there.
"And that's... it?"
Annabeth blinks up at her with wide, owlish eyes. "What, did you want more detail?"
She shakes her head and waves her off, and suddenly doesn't want to train today. At all. Because everyone should be talking about the kiss that killed the red team, but no one seems to even know that it happened.
Clarisse doesn't get it.
+
She goes back to her cabin instead, and it's wonderfully empty. Chiron might get pissed at her later but that's later, and she's never skipped a day of training in her life. She just needs to... unwind, a bit. Get her head in the right place.
Apparently that actually translates to 'curl up in bed and take a nap'.
+
Someone's knocking on the door, or rather, the doorframe. The door's open to let in a little breeze, like it always is, and Clarisse struggles awake - fuck, did she fall asleep? Fuck.
"Um."
Her own personal nightmare stands at the door, waiting.
Silena has her hair braided back from her face, and she's wearing a deep purple shirt, under a set of practice leathers, worn and obviously old. She's a little out of breath - a little winded, like she's just been running, and it takes Clarisse a second to remember, oh. Training.
"Good morning, Aurora."
Unexpectedly, the reference makes her snort. "I am no sleeping beauty," she responds automatically, because it's easier than thinking Why is Silena in my room? and even easier than trying to figure out how she feels about it.
"Eye of the beholder." Silena shakes her head, looks at the ground, smiles. Clarisse has the totally unrelated thought that she wants to lick the sweat from the hollow of her neck.
"What?"
"You know, the saying?" She doesn't have any clue what she's talking about. "...'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder'."
Oh. Well. That doesn't make any more sense.
It doesn't.
Nada.
"Never mind. Why weren't you at training?"
"Is it over?" Clarisse pretends not to watch as Silena moves closer, sits on the bed opposite, but it would look stupid if she didn't look, because there's nothing else to look at. Also, she really hasn't decided whether she's okay with this yet. In fact, she should probably start screaming and yelling any second now. She should.
She doesn't. Instead, she simply looks as Silena starts unbuckling her breastplate. "Yes, but everyone's decided to have an impromptu swimming contest, and all I can do is dog-paddle."
Clarisse snickers and it sounds demeaning - fuck - she doesn't mean that - "...Cute," she says, and that could very easily have made it worse but, with something like surprise, she realizes Silena is blushing.
Which makes her think of the last time she blushed like that, and her eyebrows snap together.
"Why did you do it."
"What?"
"Why did you kiss me." There's all hard lines in her face, all steel, and Clarisse is dimly aware that she's crossed some sort of line, that this could go one way or another but nothing will ever actually be the same.
Silena sighs with something like relief, like it's an easy question. "Because I wanted to." She doesn't add the 'obviously' but it's there in her tone.
"You weren't trying to distract me."
"From what?"
And Clarisse realizes, then, what she probably should've known a week ago - Silena is very, very new here. She doesn't hear 'Capture the Flag' and immediately associate it with blood-soaked Ares victories, gloating to the point of every other cabin hating their existence - even the ones on the same team. She doesn't see Clarisse, the best fighter at camp, the stalwart fiend that always, always carries the weight of the battles. She doesn't have any idea what Silena sees.
She's covering her mouth and turning absolutely red. "I mean, I've noticed you staring," she mumbles from in between her fingers, though her eyes are bright and almost teasing above them, and it's Clarisse's turn to blush.
"Yeah. Well."
She really isn't any good at this.
"If you promise not to hate me anymore, I promise not to distract you when you're fighting," Silena offers, and her hands are back in her lap - enough that Clarisse can see the outright flirtation in her smile.
"You are not gonna be able to keep your side of the bargain," is all she says, trying not to grin like an absolute doof (and utterly failing).
"All right. Deliberately. I won't deliberately distract you, which I wasn't trying to do, but I did, and I'm sorry - "
Clarisse reaches over and grabs her by the hand, pulls until Silena has stumbled into her lap, graceful but unsteady. "I never hated you."
She leans forward and touches one fingertip to Clarisse's lips. She hasn't repainted her nails since the fight. "I know," she whispers, their mouths an inch apart, before she pulls her finger away and bridges the space for a kiss.
+
Clarisse looks at herself in the mirror and thinks, you have a serious problem.
Silena puts her arms around Clarisse's shoulders from behind, smiles, and nibbles at the edge of her ear. "You're not like anyone I've ever met," she says.
It's name is Silena Beauregard, and don't you ever dare get it fixed.
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