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Clarke’s teeth chattered, her hands shaking so bad that she almost dropped the small flashlight she was clutching. The rain had been pouring down for the past forty minutes, the icy wind turning and slanting the rain so it pummelled into her face, managing to almost freeze against her skin. It’d become dark ten minutes after the rain had started, dropping the temperature even further. She’d lost feeling in her feet not long ago, her boots having been damaged last week, could no longer hold up against any weather at all, let alone torrential rains. The feeling in her fingertips had started to go as well, the very air leeching any warmth from her.
She flicked the torch around trying to find somewhere, anywhere, to get out of the rain, and maybe not catch hypothermia before someone found her. The very idea of someone finding her was debatable, and then there was the matter of who would find her. She had left Wells in charge of the camp, Monty and Raven had been separated for the good of the camp, and the explosives had been locked up. She’d gone out to gather some herbs, well, that’s what she’d told Wells and Miller. It’s not exactly like she could tell them that she was going to meet a Grounder. (Not after the treaty with Anya broke apart for the fourth time.)
But Octavia hadn’t been at the rendezvous location, and Clarke had waited there too long, unaware of the storm that was barreling towards her. She’d started back when the sky had turned grey, hoping to beat the worst of it, but luck wasn’t on Clarke’s side (it rarely was). The already cold day turning bitter and making Clarke’s journey back to the drop ship almost impossible.
She could hardly see three feet in front of her when the rain first began and it had only gotten worse from there. She’d found her way to a cliff wall and trailed along it in hopes of finding a familiar land mark, or somewhere to hide out of the rain. She was willing to fight a panther for somewhere dry to hide out.
By the time she was able to make out the small shadowy recess in the cliff wall, she ached from her hands, into her wrists and up into her forearms, her grip on the flashlight so tight, yet it still almost fell from between her numb fingers.
The little nook she wedged herself into turned out to be a lot deeper than she thought it would be. After the initial squeeze, it surprisingly widened out into a passage which after a few twists and turns, led her to a room. It was a room in every definition of the word, a small fire pit in the middle of the room, with the wood already half burnt into embers, along some of the walls were hand built shelves, filled to the brim with books so old their spines had started to fray, their covers faded, random pages yellow and brown. Old maps and posters pinned to the walls, some of landscapes, others of people whose names were long forgotten. A chest stood in one corner, made with old wood, smooth from use, filled to the brim with furs and clothes. Beside it, against the wall, was a pile of furs, a bed.
Clarke stumbled towards it, wanting to dry herself as quickly as possible. She didn’t see the lumps in the blanket until they woke with her shuffling footsteps. She jumped backwards, a startled yelp leaving her lips.
The shape turned to the noise, their dark hair moving with it.
“Please,” she began in Trigedasleng, her accent obvious and harsh to her own ears, though the word was barely discernible over her chattering teeth. She tried to think of the right words to say. She might already have a few languages from the Ark under her belt, and she knew that she’d be able to understand it eventually, but at moments like this, she couldn’t find the words, only the simple few that Lincoln and Octavia had taught the group.
“Princess?” Clarke felt her heart clench in her chest, there was only person who called her that outside the camp…
“Bellamy?”
She looked around the space again, and it clicked. Of course it was Bellamy. It had to be the Grounder who helped them prepare for winter, the one who only watched with hawkish eyes as they began. The one who’d spoken only in soft tones, stepping in only when they made a big mistake. The one who’d laughed when she’d messed up the roof to her cabin. The one who made her feel like an idiot. The one who’d snickered whenever he saw her. Of course it had to Bellamy, the one who seemed to always know what to say to set her off.
(They still complained about it in camp, how she’d bicker with him, fighting tooth and nail over the smallest of things. They didn’t talk about how hat changed a few weeks after their arrival, how they avoided each other for a few days before the Grounders were called back to their village. The tense silences, the glares tossed across camp, the bristling when one got too close to the other, the way their eyes always seemed to find the other. Nobody dared mention the night that had set it motion, the night the moonshine had flowed and harsh whispers in a dark corner had turned into kisses, teeth sinking into lips, only to be interrupted by a loud crash.)
Bellamy stood up, and Clarke had to divert her eyes. It wasn’t that he was naked, but fuck his chest looked good. Unfairly good, and those tattoos of geometric shapes that went up his arms and down his chest, ending curling around his ribs.
She could recall her lessons about ancient cultures from Earth, and once she’d over heard one of the younger kids ask Bellamy about his tattoos, and he’d told them about his heritage, his family had originally come from an island the other side of the world, south east Asia. His family had been descended from the Batuk’an, called the Pindatos by the Spaniards, he told the child, how the tattoos represented many different things, like the motifs of his family and ancestors, of their history, and the ones that showed his own story.*
As she stood there staring at them, her body still racked by the cold, she couldn’t help but wonder how they would feel beneath her hands. If the skin would be raised, or smooth, if he’d flush under her touch or if he’d tense his muscles…
“What are you doing here?”
“Got caught out in the storm,” she shuffled closer to the fire. She completely forgot her lessons on the Ark about exposure and hypothermia, her hands reaching out to warms themselves. They looked so pale from her fingertips to her second knuckles, then they turned dark red, almost purple.
“By Gods, your hands!” Bellamy was in front of her, bringing her hands into his own. His hands felt so hot compared to hers, almost burning. *
“Cold,” she mumbled out, looking up at him through her eyelashes.
“You’re going to get hypothermia if you stay in those clothes much longer,” Bellamy gestured towards his bed. Clarke blinked her eyes slowly, confused, what was he thinking? Why was he herding her towards his chest? It didn’t make any sense.
Clarke tried to put her hands closer to the fire again, wanting the feeling to come back in them.
“No, Clarke, we need to warm you slowly, or the cold blood going to your heart will make it stop beating.”
No, Clarke thought, that didn’t sound right, she just needed to warm up a little, just enough so that her joints weren’t frozen solid. She tried to sidestep Bellamy as he came into her space again, but he moved with her, his hands falling softly on her shoulders, maneuvering her towards the chest.
She thought about trying to argue with him, push past him and just leave, but then his breath hit the skin of her face and neck, feeling like a blast of the icy wind from outside. Her body almost attempted to shiver, but couldn’t, it felt like all her energy was gone. Completely drained out of her.
She stood limp, as Bellamy stripped off her clothes, barely able to keep her eyes open, her head bobbing as she clung to consciousness. She knew she should care that she was so cold, and that Bellamy was taking off her clothes (and not in the way she thought it would happen). But she was so tired, she just wanted to fall asleep, to let her mind fall into blackness and not worry about everything. She was so sick of the worry, the anxiety, that came with being a leader, she just wanted a break, a rest. Hell she’d settle for a day off in all honesty.
Her eyelids flew open when Bellamy’s voice began, just soft words that didn’t sink through the haze. The darkness closed in around her again and she was just so tired.
It receded again as a soft material first rubbed feet, ridding her skin of the water. Her eyes fluttering open to see Bellamy kneeling before her… now that made a very pretty sight, she thought, I wonder if he’d worship me on his knees if I asked. I’d have to return the favour of course. He’d reached her thighs now, his strokes soft and gentle. Clarke took a deep breath and tried to calm her racing heart, because she really shouldn’t feel this way when Bellamy was only drying her legs.
She didn’t even realise Bellamy had stood up until the soft material was drying up her stomach, soft grazes against her ribs. She tried not to flinch as he quickly attempted to dry her bra. He didn’t linger, or even bat an eye as he did so, and it almost hurt Clarke’s feelings as he went onto her arms. She attempted to dwell on that feeling, she thought she was done with that, that he didn’t have that effect on her anymore. But Bellamy was moving around her and drying off her back.
She hissed in pain as his fingers threaded through her dripping hair, catching on knots and tugging on her scalp. She tried not to make a sound as he continued pulling on the strands, her lips pressed into a thin line.
“Clarke,” his voice was soft in her ear, his breath warm on her ear and her heart stuttering in her chest.
“Yeah,” the breathy reply felt clichéd to her ears and she thought about those movies she used to watch on the Ark, the heroine all breathy and wanting for the dark, mysterious hero. Bellamy was certainly dark and mysterious, even after the month he’d stayed in her camp.
“We need to warm you up,”
“Fire?” she murmured trying to shuffle towards it.
“No,” his arm went around her and his hand grasped at her bicep, guiding her towards the pile of furs. His bed, her mind supplied. And then promptly shut off, like a switch in her head. She didn’t lose consciousness, she just let Bellamy guide her.
She watched as Bellamy peeled back the top layers of his bed, gently moving Clarke to lie in it.
.
Bellamy was drifting between being asleep and awake, he could feel his exhaustion dogging his every step, but he kept waking, fearful that Clarke had slipped into a coma or had stopped breathing. He’d been so scared when he’d felt her hands after she’d wandered into his cave, even after he’d dried her as much as possible and lay her down in his furs, his fear still clung on. It abated slightly after he decided to sleep with her, reasoning that the shared body warmth would increase her temperature, ignoring the part of him that thought it may be the only chance he’d ever get to hold her.
It was only with her in his arms, occasionally wracked by shivers, that he had calmed down enough to fall asleep.
.
Clarke knew she was dreaming because she woke up wrapped in soft furs and the rich, heady smell of Bellamy, her arm around him and warm, so warm, almost hot. It couldn’t be anything but a dream, because she hadn’t seen Bellamy in months. Plus she had a tendency to dream about him… normally the dreams were decidedly more explicit, thought recently they’d been about things like this, domestic things. Like him teaching her how to cook a meal, or teaching her how to swim, or just reading some old, ravaged book with the old paper cover crinkling beneath her fingers, Bellamy’s soft voice in her ear as she leans back against him.
It was probably around time for her to have a dream about sleeping with him.
She let her hand drift across his stomach, soft, warm and so intoxicating.
She couldn’t believe how beautiful his skin felt under her fingers, she moved her lips forward, wanting to feel his skin beneath her lips, tempted to know what he tasted like. She wondered if it was similar to his scent, wood smoke over the top of that smell, like the first bite into fruit, when you think it is going to be sweet and it is for a moment but then it has a chase of tart and you are left confused as to the flavour in your mouth. (The taste had haunted Clarke the night of the party, keeping her tossing in her bad and once she realised what it was, she longed to find him and see if all of him tasted like that.)
She hummed in the back of her throat as she tasted it, her hand slipping further down his body until her fingers found the edge of his pants. Could she? Would it be wrong?
No, she reassured herself, it was just a dream, no one would know and no one would care. It was just a dream, but she had to ask.
She let her fingers dwell there, relishing in the feel of his skin, her blunt nails dragging back across his skin as her fingers find the fastening on his pants. He stirs slightly beneath her touch, a sharp intake of breath, as her hand slipped down to trace his cock.
“Clarke,” he groaned, shifting his hips to follow her fingers.
“Is that all for me Bellamy?” her voice was muffled by his back, but his response, the soft hum and his hand on hers, guiding it back to his cock.
“All for you,”
“Do you want me Bellamy? Do you want my hands on you?”
“Yes, yes,” he groaned, deep and throaty, her thighs rubbing together.
Clarke bit her lip, as she manoeuvred his pants down over his hips, somehow both nervous that she was actually doing this; that she was touching him and somehow exhilarated, drunk on the idea. She wanted him to come undone in her hand, feel his whole body shake before her, to know that she could do to him. She took a shaky breath in, before moving her hand back to him.
She wrapped her hand around his thick shaft, letting herself explore him and sweet Jesus, her hand was barely able to wrap around him. He was so hot and heavy in her hand, she could feel him throbbing through that vein ran on the underside of him.
She felt him giving a shuddering sigh, the little noise from the back of his throat followed by the low “fuck.” She let her hand slide up and down him, but was stopped when Bellamy’s hand gripped around her wrist pulling her hand upwards.
He steered her hand up until it was up near his head. She revelled in his breath rushing across her skin in shorts pants, and then his lips were brushing across the heel of her palm, just a shadow but then again harder with just a touch of his tongue.
Her heart thundered in her chest, she rubbed her thighs together in hopes that the friction would reduce the ache settling between them.
She had to stop her eyes rolling back into her head as Bellamy ran the flat of his tongue from the heel of her hand, up over her middle and ring fingers.
His hand guided her hand back down to his cock, the friction must have been painful, her mind supplied before the thought completed fled her mind and instead she found herself completely consumed by how big his hand was compared to hers, engulfing hers as he used her to stroke up and down his magnificent cock.
His breath came in shorter bursts, the tiniest, dirtiest vocalisations leaving his mouth as she twisted her wrist every couple of strokes.
His hips started to shift with their movements, almost shuddering back and forth as their hands slowly sped up. Bellamy’s hips tried to keep up with strokes, but couldn’t keep pace, especially when she sunk her teeth into the flesh joining his shoulder and neck.
His whole body tensed beside her as and she felt him come undone, her mouth sealed on his skin (almost like she was trying to keep a part of him inside her).
He kept her hand stroking, as his release spilled across her hand, slower, with more sensuality and intimacy than she realised could be in this moment.
The dream faded into nothingness, sleep calling her back to its embrace.
.
.
.
Her eyes opened, at first she took in nothing, not the sunlight peaking in from the corner, nor the flickering of the dying embers. She did note that she was warm, all traces of the blasted cold finally gone from her system, and surrounding her was the intoxicating scent of … Bellamy.
She shifted so she could see more of the cave, she leant up and found Bellamy tending to the fire.
She tried not to blush as she remembered her dream, so hot and steamy. The last thing she needed was to embarrass herself in front of him.
She couldn’t repress her gasp however, as he moved a piece of wood and the light hit his bare shoulders, showing the blooming mark that lay perfectly between them.