4kennedy | Foolish bravery

Title: Foolish bravery
Fandom: Heroes
Pairing: Claire/Gretchen
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 500
Warnings: spoiler for 4x05
Prompt: Challenge #226 ~ past prompts revisited, #158 ~ Fool(ish) at

slashthedrabble
Note: As always beta read by the fabulous

gsr_rocks. I wrote this before the episode had aired, but I'm going to watch it right now.

It was dark, cold and scary on campus during the night. Gretchen had wandered around aimlessly for hours, she was freezing and tired. All she wanted was to crawl into bed and sleep. When she would wake up tomorrow morning hopefully Claire and her could just pretend that it’d never happened. It probably was the best for everyone.

Gretchen couldn’t believe what she’d done. When words had failed her to explain to Claire why she’d googled her, that she didn’t kill Annie and why she was a little bit stalkerish, her emotions had shut off her brain entirely. One moment she’d stood in front of Claire, struggling to make the blonde believe and trust her with teary eyes and the next moment she was kissing her.

Usually Gretchen wasn’t that bold, but for her it wasn‘t brave to simply kiss the girl out of the blue without any warning. It was foolish. She would lose her friend and her roommate, of that Gretchen was sure.

Therefore she’d run away, not giving Claire the chance to break her heart.

*****

Her hands were shaking and her heart racing when Gretchen put the key into the lock of their room.

What she found inside wasn’t what she’d expected; the sight caused a new wave of tears to fill her eyes.

Claire was asleep, but in Gretchen’s bed, above the covers and with the bedside lamp turned on.

Cautiously Gretchen made her way over to the bed, but she was so focused on Claire that she bumped into a chair and knocked it over. “Shit,” she whispered, seeing the blonde stir.

“Hey, you’re back.” Claire sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “Sorry for falling asleep on your bed, but I didn’t want to miss you.”

Gretchen pulled on the sleeve of her sweater, Claire’s sweater actually, which she was still wearing, and chewed on her bottom lip. “It’s alright. I always wanted a hot girl like you in my bed,” she joked to cover her nervousness.

“Come here,” Claire said, her cheeks flushed and patted the mattress. “You left before I had the chance to kiss you back.“

Gretchen looked dumbfounded at Claire. She sat down on the edge of the bed and asked, “This isn’t a ‘college is about experimenting’ thing for you, is it?” Gretchen looked down at her folded hands in her lap. “Because for me it’s not and if you just wanna play around somewhat I’d rather stay friends as losing you completely over this.”

Claire reached out to her, lying a hand on Gretchen’s hands and squeezed them. “Honestly, I don’t know what it is, it kinda hit me over the head,” she said with a grin. “But I want to give it a try. We can find out what it is together.”

All Gretchen could do was nod and say, “Okay.”

“So why don’t put your pajamas on and come to bed?” Claire asked, getting under the covers and holding them open invitingly for Gretchen.

The End

Feeling:

productive