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She has to admit, as far as vessels go, her parents made a good choice.
This girl-- Clarke-- had a similar likeness to her original self. Blonde hair, pale skin, lithe figure. The only differences were the eyes, bright blue, and the only slightly distracting chest that peeked out from under the deep vee of her neckline.
Yes, as far as vessels go this one would do nicely.
After their initial welcome, her father and mother had given her a run down of ths Clarke person. A girl born in the stars before being sent to earth to fight for her life, the two apocalypses that she managed to survive before showing up here, on Sanctum, with her friends. Friends who she would have to convince that she was actually Clarke, at least until after the naming ceremony was over. Her father didn’t tell her what he had planned, just asked her to bear with him until then, after which she could finally don her real name.
They left her with a change of clothes-- a boring pair of jeans and a dark tank top, nothing like the fine fabrics and custom tailored clothing she was used to-- and she slowly strips out of the dress, examining herself in the mirror while twirling a lock of hair around her finger.
Not too bad, although it was clear that this Clarke didn’t care much about her appearance, judging from the plain clothes to the choppy haircut and nails that were bitten down to the quick.
But she had to blend in, so with a sigh she pulled on the clothing and finger combed her hair before heading out into the world as Clarke Griffin.
-
Sanctum hasn’t changed much.
The main buildings are all the same with a few new structures in place. People don’t say anything to her as she walks by which only gets under her skin slightly . She’s Josephine Lightbourne after all. They should be honoured to be in her presence.
Still, she continues, relishing in finally being able to walk and move and do as she pleases. The naming ceremony is in a few short hours and after that she can finally drop this ridiculous charade.
It does leave her with some free time on her hands though, and, as she was debating whether or not she could try and sneak back into her old bedroom, she spots him.
Her father mentioned Bellamy to her, dark haired and broad shouldered, Clarke’s closest confidant, but he didn’t mention that he was so gorgeous .
Josephine feels a spark of interest flare within her, as well as a spark of something else deep in her stomach as she examines him from afar, a coy smile playing around her lips.
He’s not as tall as she’d imagine, but he’s built with muscular arms and legs, and a patchy beard that she imagines must feel great scratching against skin. His hair is slicked back bust she can see a few tendrils of curls freeing themselves from the sides and she just wants to run her fingers through it and tug .
He’s talking-- or rather, arguing judging from the tenseness in both their stances-- to a brunette. Josephine barely spares her a glance. As far as she could tell this Bellamy boy deserves someone better than that bitch. Someone cuter and shorter and who looks far better with him than that pinched faced looking bitch. Someone who won’t snap at him before storming off like she’s doing right now.
The argument ends with the woman stomping away and Bellamy closes his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. He seems stressed.
She figures she could help him with that.
“Hey,” she calls, when she’s just a few paces away and he starts, glancing in her direction. She grins at him.
“Hey,” he says, eyeing her a bit suspiciously. “You seem awfully chipper this morning.”
She quickly tries to school her face into a more neutral expression. “Yeah, well. You know. Good night and all that.”
Bellamy smirks at her, though it seems clipped at the corners. “Yeah I bet. Missed you for a while on the dance floor.”
She hums noncommittally. “You look a bit rough.”
He winces slightly. “Tough morning I guess.”
“Something happen between you and… her?” She struggles to place a name to the face that Bellamy was arguing with and hopes that he doesn’t notice her slight stumble.
He doesn’t seem to as a heaves a sigh, scrubbing a weary hand down his face. “Things have been… strained between Echo and I since we came back down. Sometimes I feel like the only reason we worked before is because we were literally in a bubble. Now it seems like every five minutes we’re fighting about some stupid shit.”
“So what was that fight about? Did you break up with her?” she asks, intrigued.
“Yes. No. Fuck I don’t know,” he sighs. “Things are just complicated.”
Josephine hesitates for a second before putting a hand on his shoulder. “You should be with someone who makes you happy, Bellamy. And if you’re not happy with Echo…”
“Yeah I know,” he says. “I just wish things were easier.”
“I know,” she says before letting her hand slide into his. He looks down at their joined hands for a second but doesn’t say anything, doesn’t pull his hand out of hers. “Let’s go get a drink, yeah?” she says, tugging him behind her.
“Don’t you think it’s a bit early for drinks?” he asks, bemused, but her lets her pull him along anyway.
She throws a smile at him over her shoulder. “Come on, Bellamy, live a little.”
They end up in the small bar tucked away in the corner of the main square. It’s mostly empty and she leaves Bellamy to find them seats while she gets them drinks from the bar. It’s nothing much, just a couple shots and something called Jo Juice which she’s absolutely delighted to learn of, but he still lifts an eyebrow at her when she makes it back to their table.
“You trying to give me alcohol poisoning?” he asks as she sets down the tray in front him and she laughs.
“A few shots aren’t going to kill you,” she says, looking up at him from beneath her lashes, and he just rolls his eyes and gives her that exasperated smile. “Come one,” she grabs a shot and lifts it towards him. “Cheers.”
“What are cheers-ing to?” he asks, grabbing his own glass.
Josephine smirks at him and says, “To whatever the hell we want.”
She doesn’t know why his eyes widen like that or why a muscle in his jaw twitches, but he meets her glass in the centre with a clink nonetheless. “I can drink to that,” he murmurs and then throws it all back, wincing a bit as it burns its way down.
She watches the column of his throat bob as he swallows, imagining what it would feel like to trace it with her teeth, before she downs her own drink as well.
She doesn’t say much as they drink, instead letting Bellamy get everything off his chest about his relationship with Echo, only interjecting ever so often with a quip that makes him smile. He has a nice smile and she finds herself wanting to see more of it.
The more they drink the more relaxed he becomes. He tells her about his time on the Ring, when Clarke was apparently stuck on the ground while he was safe in space. It’s almost nice, listening to him animatedly go on and on.
The lines on his face seem to disappear, little by little, and his curls start making themselves known a bit more. It’s also nice to see him looking more like a twenty something year old and not Atlas holding the world up on his shoulders.
When the last shot is downed and their glasses are empty, Josephine feels light in a way she hasn’t in a long time. Bellamy does too she imagines as she looks at him sidelong.
During the course of this little venture his foot ended up on her chair, appropriating some of her space, and his head is tipped back, eyes closed, content. She has one of her hands on his thigh, slowly inching its way up as they spoke, mindlessly tracing patterns into his skin.
They’re not drunk off course, she doesn’t want him to get drunk. She just figures that he could use some help to loosen up a little. Which she did. Although, the more he drank the more he looked at her in that way. It’s both heavy and light at the same time, filled with hope and wonder and love. She finds herself wondering just how blind this Clarke girl was to not see the utter devotion in this man’s eyes whenever he looks at her.
Still thought, there’s that tug in her gut, the one that wants and she’s Josephine Lightbourn, not Clarke Griffin. She’s not used to wanting. She’s used to taking .
So she leans in close to him, so close that her breasts almost brush against his arm and says, “Come on. I want to show you something.”
He barely cracks open an eye and huffs, that same lazy smirk from before playing around his lips. “You really are full of surprises today, aren’t you?”
“You have no idea,” she says, tugging on his hand. “C’mon.”
They slip around to the back, where she knows there’s a secret entrance to where she used to live. No one would be guarding it, no one she would have to worry about running off and tattling to her father.
“How’d you even find this place?” he asks as she clears some of the bush and bramble out of the way.
“Where’d you think I got all those pretty dresses from?” she grins, quick, before twisting the knob to reveal a narrow, dusty hallway. “Follow me.”
The hallway leads directly into her room, and after a short trek down the length of it and up a couple stairs, it opens into the back of her old closet and she breathes a sigh of relief when she finds that, for the most part, her room seems to be untouched.
“What is this place?” he asks, looking around somewhat awestruck.
She runs her fingers over the easels stacked against the wall, all of her old paintings still here. “This was Josephine Lightbourne’s room,” she says, willing away the blurriness in her eyes. It’s so odd to speak of herself in the third person, to act like she’s dead .
“Russell’s daughter?”
“Yeah. She died a few years back.” Her fingers graze against the portrait she was looking for and she pulls it out. “This is her.”
It’s a self portrait she did, one of her lasts and it feels like a completely different person now. She hasn’t seen her real face in a while.
She turns to Bellamy, holding it up side by side to her face. “Think we look alike?” she asks, twirling a strand of her around her finger with her head cocked to the side.
The moment draws out and Bellamy remains quiet. She’s almost worried that she did something wrong, that something happened in those past five minutes to give her away when he shakes his head.
“Nah,” he says, taking a step closer to her so that their toes almost touch. “You’re Clarke. You’ll always look like Clarke to me no matter how many questionable hair choices you make.”
She finds herself laughing. “That’s a bit rude don’t you think. I don’t make fun of your beard.”
“What’s wrong with my beard?” he asks, affronted.
“It’s ugly.”
“Echo liked it.”
That’s all it takes for her. “Yeah, well, you aren’t exactly dating her anymore, are you?” she says, stepping into his space and gazing up at him. “Why should it matters what she thinks anymore?”
“You’re right,” he murmurs, a dark heat smoldering in his eyes as he looks down at her. “It shouldn’t.”
When she smiles, it’s all Josephine and no Clarke. “Good,” she says, before leaning up and kissing him.
His entire body jerks and then goes tense, but she doesn’t stop, slowly letting her lips press against his savouring it. Eventually he relaxes, his hands finding their way to her hips and he kisses her back, slowly, tentatively. She takes the opportunity to card her fingers through his hair, ruffling it up a little and he growls when they get caught on a knot, pulling it. The sound is unbearably hot and she’s reminded of just how much she loves this, how much she loves feeling hands and mouths and the heat of skin against skin.
She pushes him back into a wall and he stumbles a little but rights himself just in time, his hand moving to cup her jaw while the other comes down hard on her ass, squeezing it. He changes this angle of the kiss, the scruff of his beard scratching against her cheek and she sucks his bottom lip into her mouth.
He makes that sound again, the one low in his throat and his hand continues to knead her ass and god, she has never wanted to get fucked so hard in her entire life .
They eventually do break apart, panting for air, and he looks wrecked, his expression a mix of half horror and half lust as he looks at her and she can’t have that, not at all. Her fun has only just started.
“Clarke--”
“I thought of you,” she breathes, slowly kissing her way down the slope of his neck, “When I was all alone. I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
He makes another sound, a cross between a groan and a sigh when she nibbles his earlobe. “I know, Madi already told me about the radio calls remember?”
Josephine doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about with those radio calls but she doesn’t care. She just presses on.
“I’m not talking about that,” she says, pushing his jacket off his shoulders. “I used to think about you when I was alone. I used to think about you fucking me, Bellamy.”
“Fuck,” he grunts, letting his head fall back. “Clarke you can’t--”
“I used to think about you pinning me down and making me come for hours. You’d like that huh? Having me at your mercy?” she taunts, grinding her hips into his. He groans again, soft and breathy.
“Oh god. Yeah. Yeah I’d love to make you feel good princess,” he breathes, squeezing her hips so hard she hopes it leaves bruises.
“You could, if you wanted to. All you have to do is ask.”
“I’m not going to turn you into a rebound, Clarke,” he says softly and she just leans up and kisses him deep and wet again.
“You won’t. Trust me. I want this,” she assures him. “I want all of it. All of you .” The hesitance that clouded his face disappears slightly and she continues, “I used to think about all the ways you could fuck me. How much you’d love to just get me on my hands and knees, pull my head back and get your hand around my throat.”
His eyes flutter open but only for a second as she bites down on his pulse point. He stops pressing his hips into hers but she’s too far gone to care about. Her panties are already soaked through and the heat between her legs is almost unbearable. She needs him to give her something soon, his hands or mouth or cock, she doesn’t care once it’ll help alleviate the ache.
“I still think about you, you know,” she teases, trailing her fingers over the lip of his pants and feeling his muscles twitch and jump in response. “I thought about you last night when I let that guy fuck me. I wished it was you instead.”
“Enough Clarke,” he says, and when he speaks his tone is cold, a complete change from before. She almost gets whiplash from the 180 and almost doesn’t hear him as he presses on, too busy trying to gather her bearings.
“You’re not Clarke,” he says, glaring at her. The anger radiates off him in waves and she shrinks back.
“Of course I’m Clarke, Bellamy,” she says. “Who else would I be?”
“I know Clarke and she doesn’t act like you,” he growls. “So I’ll ask you one time: who the hell are you and what have you done with Clarke?”
She tries to laugh. “Do you hear yourself Bellamy? Maybe you had too much to drink or--”
“Bullshit,” he snaps and she flinches away from him.
“Bellamy, who else could I be? I’m Clarke. I love you,” she pleads and he stops in his tracks for a second, his entire face going slack before he shakes his head.
“That’s how I know that you’re lying,” he says, an undercurrent of sadness colouring his tone.
Quickly, before she can even blink, he has her pinned against the wall, crowding her into it as he grasps her wrists behind her back.
“I don’t know what sick, twisted shit you’ve done or what you have planned, but I do know this,” he breathes into her air, voice tight with anger. “You’re not Clarke, and when I find out what you’ve done to her there’s going to be hell to pay.”
Josephine stops fighting against him, recognising her defeat, but she still smiles, just as coy and just as secretive.
“I’d like to see you try,” she says, giggling a little. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”
His grip on her wrists tighten and she hisses at the slight pain. She can feel his smile against the back of her head but tell that it contains not an ounce of humour.
“No,” he says, grabbing her and shoving her forward towards the door. “ You have no idea who you’re dealing with. Come on, let’s go.” he shoves her forward again and it’s only his tight grip on her that keeps her from falling down. “I need to have a little chat with Russell about where the hell Clarke is.”
She snorts as he leads her down the corridors, clearly not knowing where he’s going, but determined nonetheless. She can’t help but admire his spark. He really would be a lot of fun if he wasn’t so hung up on Clarke.
“Clarke Griffin is dead,” she hisses as he leads her out a set of double doors. “And you’ve just started a war.”