hey guys! this was written for tai-chi-leigh's birthday! she turned 18 on march tenth, and i'm terrible because i wasn't around to say happy birthday.

casey! happy (belated) birthday! you're probably the sweetest person i've met online and i love you a whole damn lot. we both kinda have a mildly unhealthy obsession with hozier, so that's probably why i wrote this fic. i hope your birthday was as cool as you are, casey!

thanks to rachel (somethingmorecreative) for beta'ing! you're the best bby!

title and lyrics are from Work Song by Hozier

i'll crawl home to her

"when my time comes around, lay me gently in the cold dark earth

no grave can hold my body down, i'll crawl home to her"

Silence surrounds him in the pressing heat of the med bay. It's an eerie kind of quiet; the kind that tells him he is alone in a place he knows is normally scattered with patients and medically-trained Arkers alike. The edges of his vision are tinged dark and he can only distinguish some of what's presented in his sight: blurry, gray metal and dim lighting.

Although the air is hot, Bellamy feels cold. He resists the urge to pull his paper-thin sheet of a blanket over his bare torso, feeling the ghost of the strain before even moving a muscle. His head feels like it's swimming. Possibly in a world of confusion and lost thoughts, because he hasn't a clue what he's doing in the med bay, wrapped in maroon-stained bandage.

A groan escapes his chapped lips as he tries to shift up, in search of any sign of life. It's odd to be in a place familiarly stocked with commotion and noise, when he can only sense himself and the flickering candlelight off to his left. He wonders where everyone is; Abby, Jackson, the patients... Clarke.

Her name shocks him, retrieving memories as forcefully as cracking a whip against his skull. He sees them walking in the woods, she was talking about an idea she had to break the forty-seven out of Mount Weather, simultaneously scrounging the ground for an herb to help reduce the swelling of some kid who broke their ankle jumping from a tree last week. Her eyes were an incredible shade of blue in the setting daylight—the kind of blue that Bellamy couldn't have ever imagined before landing on Earth—and he could hardly keep from staring at her as her gaze brushed along the woods surrounding them.

When he felt her eyes turn onto him, his own snapped away, feeling heat creep up his neck at the thought of having been caught gawking at his co-leader in a way that surely didn't feel as platonic as he swore it was—or at least had been. He wasn't exactly sure when that changed.

But it was as he looked past her shoulder that he caught a glint of metal against the matte colors of the forest. A movement so slight, he doubts he would have caught it before his time on Earth; before living through the heinous experiences brought from the Ground; before the vigilance and survival skills he obtained from the constant living nightmare that was being on the lookout for a hundred different lives at all times.

He saw the gun trained at Clarke's temple.

There hadn't really been a moment of indecision—impulse had gotten the better of him and he remembers knocking her to the ground. He remembers her indignant shout. He remembers the feel of a bullet tearing through the skin of his chest.

And suddenly, he knows why he's in the med bay.

His vision swims and all thoughts feel like they're being pressed through a paper shredder before tumbling into a hopeless pile at his feet, but he tries to pull himself up, ignoring the sting of freshly stitched skin tugging tight across his chest. The rooms spins but he manages to lean back against the metal rungs of the headboard without passing out, though he might not be far at this point.

It's then that he hears a startled gasp. His head hurts too much to search for the culprit, he only squints his weary eyes at the line of vision in front of him—barely making out the sheets draped across his thighs.

"You're awake?" he hears next, and it's the rasp that clings to her voice in the most delicious way that tells him it's Clarke who's talking.

At first he thinks it's a dream; a wonderful blurry dream where they're happy and mountain men aren't out to kill one of the very few people Bellamy actually gives a damn about. And maybe in the dream she isn't so out of reach—maybe he's just as good as she is, and he's on her level; maybe she's close enough to touch.

The pain in his lungs tells him this is reality, without a doubt, and his confusing string of thoughts and mindless fragments of hope are put to rest. He tries to hum in response, finding that he doesn't have the energy to form the words that desperately float on the edge of his tongue. Are you okay? Did he hurt you? A halo of yellow appears in the haziness that is his sight and he thinks it's her hair; he loves her hair. "Bellamy?" she asks, and yeah, he loves her voice, too. "Can you hear me?"

He makes the sound again, an affirmative half-groan. Forcing his tongue to move, he says, "Yeah?" Part of him wishes it could be a dream. It sure feels like one. Her image is bright, pretty and pure, and he's sure he's gone crazy.

What happens next, he doesn't expect—although maybe he should at this point, seeing as he knows Clarke like the back of his hand. A sharp slap to his shoulder and a steaming young leader in front of him tells him he's in trouble. "Are you a moron?"

His chuckle is dry and at the sound of it, she brings a glass of water to his lips. "Sorry, Princess. Care to enlighten me?" He asks once the cool drink is down his throat and moistening his airways.

"You- Bellamy Blake, you literally took a bullet for me. You could've- God, I can't believe you sometimes."

As her mindless muttering progresses to somewhat nervous rambling, Bellamy gives all he has to bring a hand to her arm. The jolt he feels from her skin against his gives him strength, it fuels him. And he's already feeling more alive at the touch. "Clarke," he sighs, somehow finding the energy to feel exasperated even after a bullet was lodged into his chest mere hours ago. "Calm down."

She whips around to him, incredulity masking her emotions behind a front of anger. "You had no right, Bellamy. You don't get to put that kind of guilt on my shoulders. Does 'I need you' mean anything anymore—or does it just not mean anything to you?"

The forced breath of air he releases this time is more frustrated than anything. He tugs her hand closer to him and twines their fingers. Maybe the blood loss has him dopey, but he's feeling warmer now that she's around, his skin fitting more comfortably around his body. She doesn't look hurt; her eyes are rimmed with red and her hair is limp against her shoulders, but he notices no sign of physical pain. The sheen in her eyes tells a different story, though, and that's when he realizes that it isn't anger charging her to the throw these words of defense at him.

Clarke has been worried about him. "You could have died," she grits out, moisture filling her eyes and threatening to leak from her hold. "And I would have had to live with it."

He's not going to mention how he could have lost her—that won't help either of them. Even if it had been the sole purpose of his brush with the afterlife. "But I didn't die, Princess," he tries instead. "I'm right here."

Her hand squeezes his tightly and she lets out a harsh breath. "And what about next time? What happens when it's not a mountain man with a cruddy shot? What happens when it's fatal and my mother can't save you? I can't save you?"

Shaking his head, he focuses his hazy vision intently on her face. She's beautiful and if he doesn't stop staring at her, she's going to get ideas about him and what he's hiding. His secret. The thing that's constantly looming behind him, watching over his shoulder and influencing destructive decisions that get him caught in situations like he is now—in the med bay with a bullet wound. And she can't know the things he is willing to do for her.

"Clarke," he says, and even he is surprised at the clear conviction that ties through his voice. "I'm not going anywhere."

"You almost did." She is quiet, but the words burn him.

For a second, he tries to imagine what she feels. What is was like to watch her partner get shot, fall to the ground and almost lose his life in a matter of hours. It's different for her though. She doesn't have these...feelings he's dealing with. Without him, she'd survive. But with the tables turned, Bellamy's not sure how long he'd last.

It's hard to have the thought—he's used to relying on only himself. Not needing anything in the universe but the safety of his sister. But things are different now, somewhere along the way, one hundred teenage inmates became important to him, and above all, their little blonde leader did, too. His princess is coming in around the top of his list of things to worry about. She'd kill him if she knew, and that fact only further strokes his fire.

"Something as weak as Death would have a tough time holding me back," Bellamy states. "Nothing's going to keep me from crawling back here on my hands and knees if that's what it takes."

Clarke sighs, frustrated, her hands tugging harshly through her limp yellow locks. But there's an expression on her face he can't read. "You can't just say you'll magically resurrect yourself, Bellamy. Your death isn't something I'm willing to gamble with."

"Don't worry about me."

"I am worrying about you."

"Then stop."

Her jaw is tight and her watery eyes are searing a hole into the side of his head. He'd long ago moved his gaze somewhere away from her. He hears her boots scuff along the floors before he feels her calloused fingers take hold of his chin, forcing his attention strictly onto hers. "I can't."

In the next seconds of a life that's become equal parts magical and miserable, Bellamy feels the floor drop out from under him—or in his case, the bed drop out from under him. Clarke's lips are on his and Bellamy has lost all sense of direction. His brain has melted into his stomach, and his heart is beating somewhere in his gut because, holy shit, her lips are soft.

In his nights of guilty sin, when he had imagined this very moment, and maybe something a little more, her lips weren't nearly as smooth and plush as they were on his right now. It doesn't feel real, and now he's wondering if he could have been mistaken in determining current circumstances to be reality. The only explanation for this bliss was that he was stuck somewhere in a post-hypovolemic-shock wishful dreaming. Sweet, warm delirium.

Once their mouths had connected, she immediately sucked in a sharp breath, desperation moving her closer to him. His body shook as he stretched as far as his damaged skin would let him to attach more of himself to Clarke.

Suddenly, the scratchy blankets can't hold his attention; the lack of animation about the med bay doesn't seem nearly as questionable. All Bellamy can comprehend is that Clarke is kissing him and—finally.

He knows she's too good for him; too good for this gritty, hellish world. But that doesn't stop him. If he only has this and his dreams, he knows he's far too selfish to give up any one bit of it. Clarke is out of reach, absolutely and irrevocably better than him. It's always felt like that; like he could be holding her in his arms yet their skin would never touch. Their souls could never meet.

The Earth around him continues to spin on its axis, yet in this room, time has stopped. With a stutter to his heart, he pulls on her arms, tugging her into his space. The scar etched into his skin burns and the stiff mattress creaks under their combined weight, but he ignores the pain as Clarke settles over his knees.

"I'm angry with you," Clarke mutters between breathless kisses, finding control and using it to slip her tongue into his mouth. "I'm fucking infuriated."

"Uh-huh," he pants, dragging her hips forward and covering her sweat-dampened neck with his puckered lips. She goes willingly, but there's a second of a glare shot his way before her head tilts back to accept his open-mouthed kisses on her pulse point.

Her body sways as she pushes forward, and Bellamy watches on lustfully. "If you ever-"

"I'll always come back, Clarke. You can count on that."

And as their clothes left their bodies, their skin touching; their souls meeting, he knows he has no intention of leaving in the first place.

"i was kissing on my baby, and she put her love down soft and sweet

in the low-lamp light i was free, heaven and hell were just words to me"

happy birthday casey! hope you enjoyed the shitty bellarke!