Chapter Text
Oxford. Present day.
Sometimes morning isn’t about light.
Sometimes it’s about the taste of someone else’s mouth you don’t want to remember. About the weight of a body you wish weren’t there. About a bed that smells of cheap cigarettes and spilled wine. About tacky skin, about a sharp silence where the heart keeps beating not because it’s alive, but because it hasn’t given up yet.
Clark lay on her back, staring at the white ceiling. A ray of sun crept through the halfdrawn curtain—a thin, almost humiliating line. Like a scar. Like a reminder of something once real.
She didn’t remember the girl’s name. Didn’t remember how they made it to the flat. All she had were scraps: smeared laughter, the street’s icy air, club music that seemed to keep playing in her head even now, in the quiet.
Her head hurt; her mouth was dry. An empty glass on the nightstand. Why does it always end like this?
She slipped out of bed quietly, trying not to wake the sleeper beside her. The girl breathed out something in her sleep—nonsense, almost childlike—and Clark, without looking back, went to the bathroom.
Cold water on her face. A mirror she didn’t want to meet.
She looked like she hadn’t slept in three years. Skin pale, lips chapped, a smudge of lipstick at the corner of her mouth. Not hers.
Clark stood for a long time with her arms wrapped around herself, as if she could hold something in place. But there was nothing left. No anger, no guilt. Only emptiness dusted with glitter.
She washed off the makeup. Pulled on a sweater and jeans. And she was back outside—like being tossed out again, an empty bottle.
The city was loud, alien, too bright. She walked without choosing streets until she found herself by the university library. Not because she wanted to study. Because you could still hide there.
“Clark?”
She turned. Imogen. White scarf, a book in her hands.
And in her voice there was that rare, unguarded softness that felt impossible this morning.
“Are you… okay?”
Clark smiled—slowly, crookedly.
“Of course. Brilliant. New day, new mistakes.”
Imogen narrowed her eyes.
“Was that sarcasm or… the truth?”
“Is there a difference?”
Wind battered the library windows, snuck under Clark’s jacket, dragged at her loose hair. She leaned on a column, hands shoved into her coat pockets, cigarette bitter at the corners of her mouth, indifference carefully staged.
“I was looking for you,” Imogen said softly, like she might scare her off. “You said you’d come to the seminar.”
Clark lifted her gaze lazily, eyes still on her phone screen.
“Sorry I didn’t clear my schedule with you, Mum,” she drawled. “Forgot to send you a copy of my planner.”
Imogen stopped a step away. Folder of notes in one hand, a steaming travel mug in the other.
“I was worried, Clark.”
“Aren’t you tired of that?” Clark flicked the lighter, but the flame died in the wind. “All of it: trailing me around campus, pitying me, watching me like I’m about to pop—like some soap bubble?”
Imogen sighed and silently held out the mug. Clark took it without looking and drank.
“Do you want me to say I’m fine?” Clark went on, a different register now—mocking, dulled. “That I’m doing great. That I don’t drink alone at three a.m. to Joy Division. That I don’t fuck people whose names I don’t bother to ask. That I don’t care about Team GB or who made it in. Should I say that?”
Imogen looked at her as if the person in front of her wasn’t Clark at all, but her charred shadow.
“I don’t need your confessions,” she said quietly. “I can see it all.”
Clark flicked the lighter again. This time it caught. The cigarette tip flared; she drew in, turning away.
“Then what do you want, Imogen? You want me to sob on your shoulder? Admit I’m dying without her? Send her a letter via the bloody BBC?”
“I want you to stop acting like you don’t care,” steel edged into Imogen’s voice. “You do care. You always have.”
“Me?” Clark laughed—hard, joyless. “Imogen, I’ve notcared for a long time. You know what changed after her interview?”
“Everything,” Imogen said, unblinking. “You changed. In your eyes, your gait, the way you hold a cigarette, how you talk, how you walk, how you go silent.”
Clark pushed off the column sharply.
“Enough. Stop dissecting me. I’m not your term paper.”
“And you’re not a ruined castle we can just ignore,” a spark of anger flickered in Imogen’s tone. “Clark, you’re not a party. Not a cigarette. Not someone’s ex. You’re a person, you’re my friend, and I can’t stand here and watch you wreck yourself because—”
“Not because of her!” Clark almost shouted. A few students turned their heads. She bit her lip. “Not because of her,” she repeated, quieter, barely audible. “This is me. It’s only me.”
Imogen shut her eyes a moment, inhaling through her teeth. Then she stepped closer. Very close.
“Then tell me the truth. Once. Just once. Look at me and say that when you saw that interview it didn’t feel like someone carved you out from the inside.”
Silence. Only the wind. Only a string pulled tight in her chest till it hurt.
Clark didn’t answer. She stared past her. Inward.
“She didn’t even say your name,” Imogen whispered. “But you heard it in every bloody pause between her words.”
Clark laughed softly. Sad. Almost childlike.
“God, Imogen. Sometimes you talk like someone wrote you into a tragedy.”
“And you—like you already died in it.”
Clark closed her eyes for a second. When she opened them, there it was again—what scared Imogen most: not pain, but the emptiness where pain had long since thinned out and vanished.
“I have to go,” she said quietly. “I… have a meeting.”
“Another her?”
Clark didn’t answer. She stubbed the cigarette out on the heel of her boot.
“Does she even know who she’s sharing your body with?”
“And do you know who you’re trying to save?”
Before Imogen could reply, Clark turned and walked away—into the shadow of the trees, into the hum of empty paths, into the eye of the storm she’d built for herself.
Imogen stood alone, fingers locked tight around her folder. The wind tore at the pages. Somewhere behind the library glass, music played.
And nothing but her own heartbeat kept the silence from breaking apart completely.
Clark walked fast, almost blind. The pavement crumbled under her shoes as if the surface had gone unsteady. City noise fractured on the edges—cars, footsteps, other people’s conversations. Everything was too loud, too real.
When her phone buzzed, she knew who it was.
“Yeah,” she snapped without checking the screen.
“Clark.”
“Mum.”
A pause. The kind that twanged like a wire, as always.
“Did you get my message?”
“If this is another family protocol for reputation rehab—yes.”
“Don’t be snide. This matters. A week from now there’s a reception—fund reps, journalists, your sponsors.”
“My sponsors,” Clark twisted her mouth, “unfollowed my Stories ages ago.”
Abigail exhaled into the line. Not irritated—trained restraint, maternal cool.
“This isn’t a discussion, Clark. You will attend. Well dressed, sober, and coherent. We need your name back in public view. You still have a chance.”
“A chance?” Clark stopped dead. “Mum, I’m twentyone. I’m not a tumor you have to rush to cut out.”
“No. But you’re a Griffin. And that carries obligations.”
“God, do you hear yourself?”
“I do. And you? Look at what you’re doing to yourself. Look at you.”
For a heartbeat there was only quiet. People passed; no one looked at her. No one knew she was slowly splitting open from the inside.
“I’m not coming,” she said hoarsely. “I won’t play your vanity fair. I won’t stand there in some bloody dress with a flute of champagne pretending I’m not coming apart.”
“I’m giving you three days to think. Then you’ll tell your father and me what you’ve decided.”
“And if I say no?”
“Then you can say it to the paparazzi at the gallery door. Looking as you do now.”
Click. Tone.
Clark exhaled hard and smashed the phone against the nearest wall. The pieces flew, shards of anger. Passersby startled; someone turned, someone sped up. She didn’t look at anyone. Only at her breathing. At how it tore out of her throat, heavy, hot, ragged.
She wiped a hand over her face, then her hair, and just kept walking—as if the phone had never existed.
Two hours later, in the warm, anonymous brightness of an electronics store, she stood at the counter with a new smartphone. Her fingers trembled as she typed her Apple ID. Backup. Restore.
She opened contacts, messages repopulated, and she found her.
No name. Just a number. Last draft—nearly six weeks old. Never sent.
She stared at the screen for a long time, then finally typed:
[K.Griffin] Where are you?
The reply came five minutes later.
[.?.] So you do want to learn my name?
Clark wet her dry lips with her tongue. Inside was cold and empty.
[K.Griffin] No. I just want everything to disappear.
A short pause.
[.?.] Sounds familiar.
[.?.] The bar on Fifth?
[K.Griffin] You read my mind, angel.
[K.Griffin] In an hour.
[.?.] On my way.
Clark killed the screen and, for a moment, stood looking at her reflection in the shopfront—dull eyes, bruised halfmoons, jacket hanging open. She didn’t recognize herself, and still—didn’t want to be anyone else.
And she walked again. Into the dark.
The bar was halfempty. The kind that sells alcohol without questions, where the DJ spins only vinyl, and the light is like the afterimage of someone else’s dreams—smeared, yellow, like film on old photographs. Flaking plaster walls, a ceiling that looked ready to drop—exactly why it throbbed at night. But now—only the first tide of people, those who came because they couldn’t not. Like Clark.
She stepped in without taking off her coat, slipped past the counter, and spotted her almost immediately. Inkblack hair. Bladesharp cheekbones. Half a head taller than Clark, maybe more, even without heels. Black blazer over a sheer blouse, a short skirt, and a face that expressed nothing. Only the mouth—tilted at the corners. Like someone who always knows something.
“Rockstar,” she drawled when Clark approached. “Back for an encore?”
“You still call me that?”
“And you still look like you just bailed on tour and forgot your address.”
Clark’s smile went crooked; her eyes dropped to the neckline.
“Sheer blouse. Unexpectedly modest.”
“I’m growing up. You aren’t.”
They looked at each other in silence. No romance in it—just tension, electric, humming like wires in the rain. Clark tipped her head slightly.
“You’re prettier than I remember.”
“Sobriety is a vicious liar.”
“Or the lighting. It flatters everyone here.”
They laughed. Easy, tipsy—even if they weren’t drunk. Not yet.
“Drink?” the stranger asked, already turning to the bar.
“Only if you pour.”
“I always pour.”
A couple minutes later they each had a glass. Bourbon for Clark. Something clear with lime for her. They clinked without looking away. The first swallows burned—throat, gut, memory.
“Where were you all this time?” Clark asked.
“Far away. Where no one tries to screw me in a toilet.”
“Tragic life.”
“Mindnumbingly dull.”
Clark drank again. Lips burning. Cheeks too. The music swelled, but they stayed by the wall as if inside their own cocoon.
“Come on.” The stranger took her wrist. “Dance floor’s waiting.”
Clark didn’t argue. She didn’t want to. Her body reached for another body as naturally as night reaches for morning. The floor grew crowded. Hot. Dense. The stranger moved like she had nothing to apologize for—slow, precise hips, each touch calculated.
Clark laughed when hands slid along her waist. Tipped her head back, pressed her spine into her, let fingers slip under her Tshirt. It was all a game. A bluff. A shield. A way to hurt herself on purpose.
“People are watching,” she whispered, without protest.
“They’re jealous.”
“Or want in.”
“I don’t share.”
Clark turned, pressed chesttochest, fingers clamping the stranger’s sharp shoulders. The music crashed. The world shook.
“You’re going to fall in love with me.”
“Promise?”
They laughed again. And then—vanished down the corridor to the toilets.
It smelled of mold, antiseptic, and other people’s stories. A cracked mirror, peeling walls, a dim bulb buzzing in time with the drone in her head. Clark shoved her inside and elbowed the door shut. It happened too fast—and had been building too long.
“Seriously,” Clark breathed as hands pushed at her jeans, “are you always this…”
“Fast?” she murmured against Clark’s mouth.
“Hungry.”
“With you—yes.”
It wasn’t a kiss. It was a demand. Control. Punishment. Clark pinned both wrists to the wall and kissed like she meant to erase months of loneliness, hangovers, indifference. A kiss turned bite; a bite turned into a sound torn from the throat. The stranger arched against the cold tile, legs opening like a ritual that needed no language.
Clark’s hand slid under the skirt—rough, unasking. The rest blurred into a hard, breathless tangle: she forced her back to the wall, gripped her throat with one hand and took what she wanted with the other—movements sharp, careless, closer to a fight than anything tender. Nails carved Clark’s shoulder blades—not as a caress but a mark: I’m here, I’m real, we’re both going under.
The stranger came quick, loud, head thrown back, hair sticking to her neck with sweat.
Clark didn’t stop.
“Too fast,” she grated. “What, you missed me?”
“No. I just know what I want.”
Clark breathed her in—alcohol, powder, sweat, tobacco—and crushed her mouth again. Dirtier now. Wet. Mindless. She ground against her, dragged a hand down her stomach and lower, driving harder, at a different angle—relentless, unsparing. The stranger shook, arched, moaned into Clark’s mouth, not hiding a thing.
“Go on,” she rasped. “Break me.”
“Count it done,” Clark shoved her, catching the edge of the sink to keep her balance.
When it was over, they could barely stand. Knees loose, breath ragged. Clark looked in the mirror: hair wrecked, lips swollen, shadows under her eyes black as soot. Beside her—the Stranger, a small smile, a scratch at her collarbone, a strange calm in her gaze.
Then she pulled a zip bag with white powder from her pocket, like this had been inevitable.
“You want everything to vanish so badly,” she said, offering oblivion again. “I’m just helping you forget.”
The smell was familiar—not the powder itself, but what came after. Silence. Numbness. The deadening.
Clark didn’t take it immediately—she hung there for a heartbeat in the flicker of the bad light over the door. The tiles were slick underfoot; her fingers still trembled from the climax, but it wasn’t pleasure—it was something more predatory. As if there lived inside her another version of herself—the one that didn’t fear, didn’t feel, didn’t remember. The one that came out only to bass lines and the scrape of someone else’s nails down her thighs.
“You know it works,” the Stranger smirked, rolling the baggie like a magician flips a card. “One breath. And it’s gone. Promise.”
Clark exhaled. And took the packet.
“Just to shut the voice in my head,” she muttered, almost apologizing—not to the Stranger, to someone else.
“Shut them all up. Not just yourself,” the Stranger whispered, trailing a finger along Clark’s cheek, a staticbright line.
Everything smeared. Edges, breath, thoughts. As if someone had poured bleach into her skull and it burned away everything: names, faces, cause and effect.
Clark stood with her forehead against the cool tile, breathing. Not because she wanted to—because the body still did it on its own. In. Out. Whatever.
She didn’t think of Lexa. Didn’t think of the team, of her mother, of the lectures she hadn’t been to in two weeks. Didn’t even think of her own body, which she’d just used like it wasn’t hers—like a weapon, like a way to make the noise inside finally shut up.
Just… off.
She didn’t know the girl’s name. Didn’t remember what she’d said before ripping her clothes. Everything blended into a wet, trembling lump pulsing between her legs and in her temples.
But it was meaning. Or its parody at least. A moment that didn’t need thinking. No need to explain why the word “congratulations” in a BBC interview made her chest ache. Why it made her want to howl and smash glass with her fists.
Just breathe and it all disappears. Promise, she repeated in the Stranger’s voice. A voice she’d heard before—in another toilet, to another song, with the same shine in someone’s eyes.
It burned her nose. Worse than the burn was this: it worked.
Everything vanished. Pain. Guilt. Even Lexa’s face—drained of color, alien, stolen from a dream. Only Clark remained, turned inside out, eyelids sticking, ears ringing, sliding down under the tile, under the concrete, under the earth.
Forget.
That’s all. That’s it. Oblivion in exchange for control. For strength. For memory.
Clark laughed, a dry rasp, no longer sure whose laughter it was.
Probably not hers.
They were back on the dance floor—as if no time had passed between Clark pressing her brow to the tile and the spotlights cutting her pupils open. As if the world had simply hit rewind like old tape—crackle, a jumpy hum in the speakers.
Now it was loud. Too loud. Each movement cut at her body—but it was better than feeling from the inside. Better than hearing what hammered at her ribs.
Clark danced like she was trying to tear out what thoughts were left.
Head thrown back, fingers digging into her thighs, the music pushing through her skin. The Stranger was close—behind, beside, in front. Sliding like a snake. Anticipating, shoving, pinning, a hand at Clark’s throat.
Everything blurred. Light. Glasses underfoot.
Hands—someone’s—skimming her waist; she wasn’t sure if they were hers.
She laughed. Hoarse. Mean. On inertia.
At some point—ten minutes, an hour—the Stranger kissed her again. Didn’t ask. Not gentle. Teeth clacked.
“Let’s go,” she breathed. And Clark went.
The cab smelled of air freshener and somebody’s broken life plans. They sat in the back and said nothing. Clark—swollen mouth, wedged into the corner, fingers trembling. The Stranger—eyes halfclosed, a hand heavy on Clark’s thigh.
The car rocked them like a womb. Everything swam.
The flat was tight but expensive.
Exposed brick, glass and steel. Halflight; a single kitchen lamp glowed dull in the corner. Clark didn’t take off her shoes. She crossed the parquet straight to the bedroom. The girl followed.
This time—no foreplay.
No jokes. No lines except one:
“Undress,” the Stranger said.
And Clark obeyed. Not because she wanted to—because she didn’t want to think.
Because something inside was howling: more, harder, empty me out, wipe me clean.
The Stranger pinned Clark’s hands over her head. One palm, both wrists. With her other hand she yanked Clark’s jeans down—careless, forceful, buttons popping.
Clark arched like a drawn bow. From the cold. From anger. From need.
“You like it when it hurts?” the girl whispered, moving lower.
“I like it when it’s real,” Clark ground out.
What followed was rough and deliberate: no easing in, no mercy. Clark didn’t scream. She clenched her teeth and drove her heels into the sheet. The sheet was black. Dense. Like a body bag.
Teeth at her chest. Then at her collarbone. A bite—drawing blood. Clark jerked, but didn’t push her off. She drank the pain like venom. Like oxygen. Like an excuse.
Then a kiss to her stomach—like a spit. A dare. A brand.
Clark tore free, sat up, stripped off what clothing remained.
Fisted a hand in the girl’s hair and hauled her up to meet her eyes.
“Hurt me. Or leave.”
The Stranger smirked.
“You’re stunning when you come apart.”
She reached out and squeezed Clark’s throat again. Harder this time.
Clark choked—and moaned. Not from fear. From freedom.
Fingers, mouth, nails, hips—it all blurred. Positions flipped by the minute.
Clark on top. Then underneath. Then slamming into the headboard.
Then the Stranger’s mouth on her thigh, leaving wet and teeth behind.
They fucked like strangers who would never meet again.
Like people intent on beating the last warmth out of the other and pitching it out the window.
“Louder,” the girl whispered. “You want to be heard.”
“I want to be gone,” Clark rasped.
Grapple. Sweat. Tears. A bite. Scratches along her thighs. Blood on the sheets.
And then—the drop. Not an orgasm. A collapse.
Like someone shut the lights on the whole world.
Clark lay on her back, staring at the ceiling. Her chest heaved.
Beside her—a body. Strong. Hot. Indifferent.
“So, rockstar,” the girl breathed, “want a third act?”
Clark didn’t answer. She only closed her eyes.
She wasn’t here anymore. Not in this room. Not in this body.
The morning smelled of coffee and sweat.
And something sweet-bitter. Oblivion, maybe.
Clarke woke to the feel of another body—warm, naked, sliding confidently under the sheet and pressing against her back.
The Stranger’s lips touched her shoulder. One kiss. Another. Then—lower.
Rough. Without tenderness. But not without want.
Clarke didn’t pull away. She only exhaled softly and rolled over.
Sticky with sweat, hair a tangled mess, red marks still on her thighs.
In this light, she looked almost innocent. Almost—if not for the swollen lips and the lingering ache between her legs.
“Good morning, rock star,” the woman smirked, dragging a finger down Clarke’s chest to her stomach.
“What makes you think it’s good?” Clarke muttered, but didn’t move away.
“Because you’re still here.”
Clarke snorted. She reached out, set her hand on the woman’s thigh, squeezed lightly.
Dirty, lazy lust slid between them again, like a second sheet.
“Were you expecting me to disappear?” Clarke asked, biting her lip.
“Mmh. Usually, girls like you run off without even putting their panties on.”
“And I’m not like that?”
The woman smirked. Leaned in, caught Clarke’s bottom lip between her teeth, kissed her hard.
The kiss was long, wet, tasting of the night and something sharp, almost cruel. Hands moved down again—familiar, as if not even an hour had passed.
Fingers gripped her thighs.
Clarke’s breasts flared with a dull ache—from yesterday’s bites. She moaned into the kiss. She felt good. As good as it can be in Hell, when everything else is worse.
“Want coffee?” the woman murmured, standing up, still naked.
“Only if it comes with a side dish,” Clarke smirked, propping herself on her elbows.
Minutes later they were back in bed—mugs steaming, a rolled hundred-dollar bill and a neat line of white powder laid out on the plate beside them.
“Breakfast of champions,” the Stranger chuckled, sliding the mirror closer.
Clarke inhaled without flinching.
Her head tipped back. Inside—an icy flash, followed by warmth curling over her nerves. The world tilted slightly. In the good direction.
“Well?” she asked, licking her lip. “Still think I’m going to disappear?”
The woman smirked, leaned forward and straddled her, mug in one hand.
Kissed her—slow, with mounting pressure, tongue deep.
Fingers trailed down her stomach, between her legs again, asking for no permission.
Their knees brushed the coffee cup; it wobbled, but didn’t spill.
“I still think you want to disappear,” she whispered against Clarke’s ear. “I’m just helping you do it.”
Clarke laughed. Dry. Low.
Held her breath. Pressed closer.
“What’s your name?” she exhaled. Not asking. Not pleading. A challenge.
“That’s not something we need right now.” The Stranger smirked, looking her in the eye with defiance, her hand stroking the inside of Clarke’s thigh.
The Stranger kissed her again. Rough, yanking her hair, pulling her in.
And this wasn’t romance.
It was a form of survival.