A/N: This takes place somewhere roughly in early/mid Season 1, in the perhaps non-existence period after Jasper is able to leave camp again, and before the Grounder war really heats up.
x
They're not far from camp—maybe a half hour out—when it starts to rain. Monty doesn't feel it at first. He's examining two very similar plants, trying to determine which one is probably medicinal and which one is probably not. It's just a little frustrating, because they never grew plants like this on the Ark and the illustrations in the books he's read are only so detailed, after all. His back is to Jasper, who's picking mushrooms and probably, Monty imagines, looking skeptical about the enterprise. Then he hears a sudden "Hey!" and immediately turns.
His first thought is Grounders, which doesn't make sense at all: Jasper sounded surprised but not terrified, only vaguely startled. But they've been so conditioned to see this particular danger, become so primed to it—and Monty still worries when his friend wakes up at odd hours, alarmed at nothing—that he can't help the instinct.
When he turns, he only sees Jasper rubbing the back of his neck, looking vaguely in awe and not frightened in the least. "Raindrop," he says, catching Monty's eye and smiling. They both look up at the same time. The sky is a soft gray, almost colorless. It doesn't look like how Monty used to picture the sky, which he'd always assumed would be vivid, always, natural bright blue or dark overcast gray or bleeding into sunset or sunrise colors. There's one cloud above them, huge, moving ocean-liner slow but with purpose, like it's sliding into a predetermined place.
They missed the first rain, the day they arrived. But Monroe told them about it, about how the sky opened up, just like in the movies, and one minute it was clear and the next they were standing under a downpour, and it was the most strange and unexpected thing. Some people danced. No one cared that it was cold after-dark rain, that it soaked through their clothes, that it left them, afterward, chilled deep down and water-weighted. They welcomed it, this pure Earth phenomenon, primal and new.
Monty glances over at Jasper, sure he's thinking what Monty's thinking: downpour's gonna start soon. It's oddly exciting. They watch the raincloud for several long minutes, and Monty realizes he's started holding his breath. Which is a bit silly. But this dust-dirt ground hasn't seen any rain in a while, he's pretty sure, and he can't know when he'll get this chance again.
"You think we should set up the tent?" Jasper asks, just as another raindrop splashes, out of nowhere, onto Monty's forehead. He wipes it off with the back of his hand, awed, like Jasper had been awed. He's pretty sure it's not a real suggestion. They brought the tent in case of acid fog, and the rain isn't something they need to run from.
"No," he answers, waving off the suggestion like it's nothing, "don't bother."
Jasper makes a sound that is almost a laugh, and agrees, "Yeah, it's just water, right?" Monty hears in his friend's voice the same excitement he feels, the same expectation.
Out of the corner of his eye, Monty catches sight of Jasper crouching, putting the mushrooms away safely in his bag no doubt, but then something in the distance distracts him and his gaze settles squarely on the horizon instead. Something far away and bright, a sharp and jagged line of light, there only a moment, then gone, has slanted over one of the mountains in the distance.
Lightning?
Jasper didn't notice it, and Monty's about to tell him about it when they feel the raindrops again, not an isolated one or two this time but a steady splatter of fat water droplets breaking on their hair and shoulders. This is not the downpour rain Monroe told them about, what she said was like thin spikes of rain, but something lazier and slower. Monty's barely registered it—water falling from the sky, just as strange and as wonderful as he'd always thought it would be, cool and pleasant against his skin—when he feels Jasper's hands on his shoulders. They're there just for a moment, pressing down in happiness and excitement and then gone—but enough to startle him. Jasper doesn't notice him jump, or pretends he doesn't. "You're right," he says. "We definitely don't need a tent for this."
Monty gets the feeling that Jasper is standing a little too close.
But he pretends he doesn't notice, and he pretends it doesn't matter, and he pretends he can't feel his own pulse at his throat.
When he glances over his shoulder, he sees Jasper with his head tilted back and his tongue sticking out, catching raindrops. It's a little bit funny and a little bit sweet, too. He wants to ask Jasper what he thinks he's doing, but more than that, he wants to ask himself why he's not doing it too. He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. Something far away rumbles but it barely registers. The raindrops are warm, like the afternoon Earth air is always warm, and soft, and if they're falling a little faster and a little closer together now, that's okay. He flicks out his own tongue. The rainwater doesn't taste terribly good, but neither does the river water they drink, and this feeling is so novel and the sound of Jasper, next to him, starting to laugh, is so pleasant and freeing, that he really doesn't care. He knows why Jasper's laughing. There's a giddiness building up in him too, swimming up, taking over.
His jacket feels too heavy, already too rain-burdened, so he starts to take it off. Jasper's had the same idea. They catch each other's eye, each with one arm halfway out of a sleeve, and then it's a silly, stupid race to see who can shed the dumb thing first. Jasper gets his arm stuck, swears, and loses, Monty's red jacket falling in a crumpled heap on top of Jasper's bag two long beats before Jasper manages to throw his off as well. "You definitely cheated," he says, voice serious but face split wide in a grin, and pulls his goggles down over his eyes.
"Yeah, sure, I made you uncoordinated with the power of my mind." He's never quite sure where Jasper's looking when he wears the goggles, but Monty hopes he caught the elaborate eyebrow motion that went with the word mind.
Jasper hits his shoulder with the back of his hand.
He hits back.
Jasper goes for his stomach this time, and Monty responds by bumping his shoulder against Jasper's arm, and at some point not long after these joking play-fight gestures devolve into an actual, and, they'll realize only later, terribly ill-conceived wrestling match. The rain has already turned the dirt into mud, and it's only coming down harder now, soaking them through as Monty tries to get hold of one Jasper's gangly, flailing limbs and Jasper tries to tangle up Monty's legs with his own. They are both terminally uncoordinated. Jasper's just a little more ungainly, though, and this is how he ends up trapped beneath Monty's weight, struggling to breathe through his laughter, as Monty grabs both of his wrists and pins them to the ground.
"You give up yet?"
"Never!"
On the Ark, a yell like that would echo, clanging and reverberating against their metal walls, but here on the ground it only rings out free and then dissipates into the air.
Slowly, Jasper's laughter dies out, he takes a few deep breaths, and then he tilts up his chin and says, again, "Never. Do you feel like this was a bad idea?"
"I feel like this was your bad idea."
"My bad idea?" Monty can't actually tell, but he imagines there's a quizzical expression hidden behind the goggles. "Who tackled who here?"
"Who hit who first?" he counters. He is not, definitely not, thinking about Jasper underneath him, unfazed by their closeness, unbothered by Monty's body on top of his. He's not thinking about how this is awkward, and not at all awkward, or about how he can feel Jasper's lungs breathing in, breathing out, or about how if he moved just a little, their noses would touch. He moves his thumb back and forth against Jasper's wrist. Jasper's skin is rain-slick and soft.
Perhaps a moment is building, welling up slowly and softly, but if it is, Jasper's retort punctures it, and just as quickly, it's gone. "Okay, but which of us is lying in the mud right now, and which of us is using the other as a shield against the mud?"
Monty rolls his eyes, then lets Jasper's wrists go and scrambles up to his feet. He reaches out a hand to help Jasper up, too, and smiles just because Jasper's smiling, just to seem normal, not letting his distraction show. Is his friend just oblivious, or was he giving Monty a hint? Did he break the moment on purpose, to let him down easy?
The rain's a proper downpour now, and Monty, at least, isn't so interested in standing outside in it much longer. The air is starting to cool and he feels soaked-through and shivery; there's mud splattered across his clothes and in his hair—he's sure he looks disgusting, and Jasper looks like he's fared even worse. "Okay," he sighs, glancing down and away, letting the thin smile fall from his face, "I take back what I said about no tent."
"I take back what I said about agreeing with you," Jasper answers, but the words are a little muffled because he's in the middle of taking off his shirt. He's having a bit of a hard time with the task. This is because his shirt's gotten stuck on his goggles, which would probably be hilarious, if it weren't so—confusing. There is no way, no way, Monty decides, that Jasper doesn't know what he's doing. There is no way that he can just take off his shirt, now, after that moment, and not know what sort of thoughts he's putting in Monty's head.
Right?
"What are you doing?" he asks, as he picks his eyeballs off the ground and grabs for their tent. "You'll... catch pneumonia or something." That sounds like something serious that could happen from being out in the rain. Maybe. At least it sounds like something Clarke would warn against.
"I don't think I'm going to be much warmer wearing a wet, disgusting shirt covered in mud than wearing no shirt," Jasper counters, finally getting free, then walking over to help Monty unfurl their tent. Between the two of them, they set it up quickly and then duck inside, Jasper dragging their bags and rain-soaked jackets after them. The rain sounds much louder now, drumming on the outside of the tent, and as Monty shakes the water from his hair and rubs at his arms, goose-bumped and rain-chill, he realizes for the first time that they're not experiencing rain, they're experiencing a storm.
Jasper is using his t-shirt as a makeshift towel to dry off his torso and his hair. "Monty, what do you think the chances are that these mushrooms are hallucinogenic?" he asks—noticing, apparently, that he's caught his friend's attention—and gesturing in the direction of the day's finds.
"Are you scared they are or hoping they are?" Monty returns, and arches an eyebrow.
"I'm hoping they're not because I'm hungry and if I got high now I'd probably just hallucinate... I don't know, cake probably—fancy shit like in the movies."
"I didn't realize cake was 'fancy shit.'"
"Ummmmm," Jasper hums, slouching down against the side of the tent and drawing out the sound. "How would you know? Have you ever eaten cake? Did they have cake in Farm Station and it just never made it down to Tesla?"
"You have no faith in our friendship. I would never hold out on you like that." He feigns great offense. "I'm just saying that you should be more creative in your food fantasies. Here." He leans forward and pulls at the corner of Jasper's bag, yanking it over to sort through their morning's finds. "And no, I don't think these will get you high." He tosses over one of the mushrooms and Jasper catches it easily. "Probably."
"Your certainty inspires great confidence." Jasper's probably rolling his eyes, behind the goggles, but he eats anyway.
"I know, and you're welcome."
Monty isn't hungry, so he shoves Jasper's bag out of his way and wastes some time, while Jasper eats, trying to find a comfortable place to lie down. Easier said than done. There seems to be a tree root under him, and if he thought using his water-logged jacket as a pillow was feasible, he was definitely mistaken. He has to use his arms instead.
When he glances back over at Jasper, he sees his friend has taken the opposite approach. Instead of lying down and stretching out, he's brought his knees up to his chest, wrapped his arms around his legs, and rested his chin on his knees. He's probably just trying to keep warm, but the position makes him look young and, Monty can't help thinking, vulnerable—nervous.
"Hey, Monty," Jasper says, clearly trying for a casual tone, but his voice too soft and too uncertain to fool anyone. He pushes his goggles back up, so his wet hair is out of his face and Monty can see the open, clear expression in his eyes. "How long do you think this is going to last?"
His tone is definitely not helping the situation.
"I don't know," Monty answers honestly. There's nothing teasing or mean in his voice, only regret that he doesn't know how to be comforting. He wants to say probably not too long, but that might not be true. Who knows how long Earth storms last, or how bad they get, or what they feel like? Earth Skills classes on the Ark never got quite that detailed. "Maybe it will let up enough for us to—"
He can't finish the thought, because instead of letting up, the storm makes a sudden crashing sound, as if the sky were breaking apart right over their heads, and they both jump. Monty feels a startled frisson go through him, shaking him up, but Jasper hits the ground with his arms over his head. His expression is one of utter panic.
Not moving, but looking up just a little, he whispers, "What was that?"
"That would be thunder," Monty deadpans. He's staring up at the tent above them, as if he could see the sky right through it and as if it could be any help at all, and he remembers the lightning he saw flashing over the mountaintops earlier. That was a while ago, and far away. This thunder sounded much closer. He's pretty sure they're right in the center of the storm.
"Great." Jasper sounds on the verge of despair, and when Monty looks over at him again, he sees that he's pulled his jacket up over himself, hiding beneath it with only his goggles and a bit of his hair showing. He looks so miserable, and so helpless, that Monty doesn't even think before he says a very impulsive, potentially very stupid thing.
"Get over here."
Jasper's head pokes out from under the jacket. "What?"
Monty sighs, hoping to sound both exasperated and confident—nothing weird going on here, all normal—and gestures broadly for Jasper to join him on the other side of the tent. "Get over here. Look, hiding under that jacket isn't going to make you any safer."
"And sitting next to you will?" Jasper counters, rolling his eyes but moving over nevertheless. He slumps down so he's resting his head against Monty's chest, and Monty's arm slides around his shoulders easily, the most natural thing in the world.
"Yes," he answers. "Obviously." The word's little more than a whisper, not the sharp, joking answer he'd been aiming for. All he can think is that Jasper's on his left side, which means his ear is right over Monty's heart, and he can probably hear that it's beating just a little too hard, just a bit unnaturally, suspiciously strong.
"I'm not scared of the storm, you know," Jasper mumbles, after a few long moments, filled with only the sound of the rain drumming on the tent and Monty's pulse beating in his own ears. Jasper's fiddling with his jacket, trying to turn it into a halfway decent blanket for them. Rain-soaked, mud-stained, and too small, it's more of an annoyance than a comfort.
"I know."
"The thunder just startled me."
"It startled me too."
Jasper opens his mouth to give some other excuse, but Monty cuts him off. He fully planned to say it's okay, I get it, because he does: Jasper's always been a little jumpy, and Earth has turned his energy into the nervous, on edge type, and it's fine, it's really all right, but those words don't come. Instead, he grabs the jacket out of Jasper's hands, shoves it aside, and tells him, "Stop it. That's never going to work." If there's any harshness to the words, it's more than dulled by the way he takes Jasper's hands, empty now, nothing to play with, in his own, and holds them as if they were precious, breakable things.
He could pretend he's just trying to stop Jasper's annoying fidgeting, but there doesn't seem to be much point in attempting to make that particular lie sound real, even to himself. He slides his fingers between Jasper's fingers, linking them together.
"So what, we're just—" Jasper's breath hitches a little. His voice is quiet and he's looking at Monty, flicking his eyes to his face and away and then back, uncertain. "We're just relying on shared body heat to keep from freezing then?"
Monty nods. "Yeah, guess we'll have to," he says, a line he thinks comes off pretty smooth and which he is planning to use as a segue, a clumsy, awkward, but definite segue, into I really think something is happening here, is that just me, or are you thinking what I'm thinking because I really want to—when a flash of lightning illuminates, briefly, the outlines of dark forest trees beyond their thin tent walls, and steals Jasper's attention entirely away.
This storm has fucking terrible timing.
The sides of the tent are opaque again now, only a vague, blurry shadow of slashing down rain visible from outside, but Jasper's staring out anyway, eyes wide, counting quietly under his breath.
When another wave of thunder rumbles past them, he doesn't duck and cover, but he presses so close to Monty's side that Monty can feel the way his whole body goes tense. It hurts as if it were his own muscles clenching, his own body preparing for defense.
"That was close," Jasper mumbles. "Twenty-five seconds. Five miles away." He catches Monty's eye and announces, very seriously, "We're going to die."
"We're not going to die."
"Monty, we're in a tent. Do you really think a tent is going to protect us from lightning? Do you really think—?"
"Jasper." He lets go of his friend's hands, so he can place his palms against the sides of his face, force him to focus. "Look at me. I'm not letting you do this. You're safe here. I absolutely promise you that." He doesn't even care anymore that this is a false promise, that he doesn't actually know if they're safe. In truth, he's starting to get nervous too, starting to wish they were back at the dropship with the others, and away from this.
A part of him is wishing they were somewhere else, anyway. Another part is selfishly, perhaps stupidly, glad they're stuck here all alone in the middle of the woods.
Jasper stares at him for a long moment, his eyes shining. Then—"Are you suggesting that we make a run for the dropship?"
That breaks the moment soundly, and Monty laughs, just a little, just under his breath. "I'm really, really not suggesting that."
He feels, more than sees, the tiny little nod Jasper gives, then gets utterly distracted by the way Jasper's eyelashes move as he blinks several times, very fast, and in the ensuing confusion, his mind fairly screaming at him, just do it, just do something, this is the most perfect moment you'll ever get, he almost misses Jasper mumbling to him: "Then you really have to find some way to distract me because otherwise I'm going to make a dash for it right now."
That seems like an invitation, so obviously, he has to kiss him.
Kissing Jasper is probably the most impulsive, reckless thing Monty's ever done, and he can't even enjoy it, because it lasts only a moment and the only thing he can think, through every short second during which their lips are pressed together, is: if this wasn't what Jasper meant, if this is a mistake, he is totally fucked. There is literally nowhere to run.
Then he does pull back, and lets his hands drop down to his lap, and steels himself to glance up at Jasper's face.
And he sees that Jasper's smiling.
"Yeah, that's a good distraction," he murmurs. "Pretty much what I had in mind."
Monty feels such a great flood of relief at those words that it surprises even himself. It's only by the strength of that feeling that he can gauge how nervous he really was, and he almost wants to laugh, just as an outlet for those now useless nerves, that built up tension now uncoiling, untwisting from around his lungs. "You couldn't have just said something?" he asks, caught between the urge to kiss Jasper again and to shove him down against that tree root—maybe both.
Jasper shrugs in a what?-me? totally innocent way and keeps smiling that goofy smile. Monty would mock him for it but he's pretty sure he has the exact same grin on his face. "I—" Jasper starts to answer, but he's cut off by another flash of lightning, briefly lighting up the whole tent daylight-bright. His eyes go wide and he grabs for Monty's hand, squeezing it hard so Monty knows he really needs the reassurance: this isn't some obvious excuse for contact. They both count out the seconds this time. Monty can feel that Jasper is tense with waiting, right on the edge with expectation, but when the thunder finally crashes around them it still makes them both jump. Monty presses his hand against the side of Jasper's neck and feels his pulse beating hard and fast just beneath his skin.
"I wasn't kidding about the distraction," Jasper mumbles.
"I know." Monty kisses his cheek, which feels silly when he does it but like the right sort of thing the moment before, then his lips one more time. "I wasn't kidding about being a distraction. Don't think about the storm, okay?" He intersperses his words with slow kisses. A part of him still can't believe this is really happening, but Jasper's not pulling away, just nodding and kissing back, leaning more into each one. "Just focus on me."
"Yeah… focus on you."
After a few minutes, Jasper's mouth opening to his and the drumming of the rain on their tent subsiding into little more than pleasant background noise, Monty feels the tension start to leave Jasper's body, and, at the same time, a certain calm come over himself, too. Making out with his best friend feels remarkably normal. They should have started doing this ages ago. Sitting next to each other isn't the most comfortable position for kissing, though—they can only get so close and it's frustrating—so Monty gently pushes at Jasper's shoulders until he's on his back on the ground.
"Ow—what was that?"
It's not the most thought out plan, and he pulls back with an apologetic, slightly guilty smile. "I think it was a tree root. Probably should—"
He's about to say 'move to the side' but Jasper suggests, "Other way," instead, and before Monty can even ask what exactly that's supposed to mean, Jasper's sat up, pushed Monty down, and climbed on top of him instead. There's the slightest bit of a scuffle, but Monty gives up fast and just wriggles into a semi-comfortable position instead, and pulls Jasper down properly on top of him.
"Not what I had in mind," Monty admits. "But not bad."
He lets his hands rest just above Jasper's belt, on the warm skin of his lower back, as he leans up into a series of short, almost teasing kisses. Each one inevitably breaks apart because they're both smiling too much to kiss properly, because their mouths just won't stay in the proper shape.
"Stop it," Monty orders, but the words come out too light; they could almost be an endearment, if he didn't sound on the verge of laughter.
"Stop what?"
This time Jasper kisses Monty's nose, which tells Monty he knows very well what he's supposed to stop doing.
"Making me smile. It's distracting me."
"You stop first. You started it."
"I did not."
"You did too."
They have these sort of silly arguments, these back-and-forths, all the time, but they're not usually quite this close, they're not usually interrupting each other with kisses; they've never let an argument trail off when the kisses become more important than the words.
This is something else Monty could get used to.
Their kisses aren't urgent or frantic; they're both content to learn each other slowly, and it's not that they're gentle with each other, but they're forgiving: when their noses bump or a new angle isn't quite right, they just grin, murmur incoherencies, try again. The ground beneath him is uneven and uncomfortable, and they're both shaking slightly from the cold, still shivering from being out in the rain—Monty can feel goosebumps forming on Jasper's skin—but still he wouldn't trade these moments or this place for anything.
The storm could go on another hundred years and he'd be fine.
Or so the storm leads him to believe, as it seems to become nothing but rain, falling down around their tent and over them in a rhythm so persistent it becomes simple white noise. It blends into the background of the quiet noises Jasper makes, the subtle noises Monty won't admit he's making too. He almost forgets about it. It's an excuse not to go back to camp. Nothing more. They probably don't even need an excuse anymore, the storm could fade away, the clouds clear, the sun shine, but instead—
The rumble, which comes first, loud surround sound crackle, is so far away, seems almost to blend into the rain, that neither of them notices it. But as it builds and builds, rolling toward them, it gathers strength until what breaks apart over their tent is a true crash-bang of noise, the sound the sky might make if it were fabric tearing in two, the sound of gods punching through walls—the sound the apocalypse itself might have made, what their great-grandparents watched from above but they're in it now— the sound is on them and over them and in them. Monty feels it right in the center of him.
Not even a good kiss (a great kiss) can distract Jasper from noise like that. It breaks all his nerves at once: he makes a strangled, high-pitched noise and then bites down, hard, on Monty's lip, which—
He doesn't want to blame him, but it really fucking hurts.
It also completely ruins the mood.
Jasper is immediately charged with nervous energy; he stutters out an, "I'm sorry—sorry—wow, sorry," as he sits up and passes his hand over his face.
Monty moves more slowly, a little stunned. "I think you drew blood." He sits up and leans his weight on one hand, while with the other, he presses one finger gently against his lip, searching out the break in the skin. The throbbing in his mouth, the aftermath-adrenaline of surprise, distracts him. It takes him a long moment to look over to Jasper, but when he does, he sees how his friend has started shaking again and how his gaze won't settle, how he looks on the verge of maybe illness, maybe tears. Then nothing else matters but wrapping his arms around him, hugging him and murmuring, "Hey—hey, it's all right. It's fine."
Jasper slumps down until his head is on Monty's shoulder, his arm curled around Monty's stomach. All his energy drains immediately from him; his body, pressed against Monty's side, feels heavy and limp. But he's like this because he feels safe like this, and Monty pulls him closer, feels pretty confident that it helps.
"I know" Jasper mumbles. "Just thunder."
Somehow—Monty's not sure who reached for who—they're holding hands.
"Are you really bleeding?" Jasper asks, after a long moment, tilting his head back just enough to glance up at Monty's face. He sounds maybe a little skeptical, or maybe just a little guilty.
Monty flicks his tongue across his lower lip, and yes, the taste of copper lingers there. "Yeah. You bit down hard."
"Sorry about that." This apology, less frazzled, quiet and soft, makes Monty smile, and when Jasper leans up and kisses him again, lingering, sweet, Monty's pretty sure he'd forgive him anything.
"No big deal," he breathes. Jasper smiles, and Monty feels him smiling, which is the best feeling; a warmth travels from Jasper straight through to him, seeping into him at every point they touch. He doesn't care that his lip is still throbbing, that he's cold and covered in mud, that the rain won't let up, probably, for a while still, and when it does they'll have to trek back to camp with only a few mushrooms to show for their troubles—none of that matters at all. For now, he's exactly where he wants to be.
x
A/N: Written for the prompt: "Imagine your OTP is stuck without power during a thunderstorm, and since Person A is a bit jumpy, Person B volunteers to make them feel better with a few kisses/makeout session. During all that, a loud crash of thunder rolls outside, making A jump and accidentally bite B's lip. (OT3 bonus points if C sees the whole thing and can't stop laughing.)."