a/n Thank you, wonderful reviewers! You are excellent people. As recompense for your awesomeness, please enjoy every minute detail of The Birthday!
Bellamy arrives bright and early on the morning of his birthday, and Clarke wonders for the eighth day in a row why he bothered going home at all the night before. The hour was late by the time they finished working on project procreation, yet he still insisted on returning to his own bed. This is, she thinks, evidence if any were needed that their relationship will dry up when she takes that pregnancy test. She'll take it soon, she tells herself, because she realises she must, but she's determined to at least enjoy spending his birthday with him before she worries about changing things so irrevocably. And she knows things will change irrevocably, because she's nigh on certain that she has, in fact, conceived.
She greets him with a hug, and he greets her with a rather unexpected peck on the lips. Well, it is unexpected to her, but he is looking at her as if going around kissing her is perfectly normal behaviour. To be fair, it is something they do a lot, just not quite so casually.
"Sleep well?" She asks, and then curses herself. Can he hear her implicit criticism of his decision to go home last night? Because, really, he does have every right to go home. She just happens to think it's a bit of a waste of time.
"Yeah. You?"
"Yeah." Somehow she still seems to be in his arms, but it seems foolish to object. "Happy birthday."
She supposes the rather lengthy kiss that follows is his way of saying thank you. She's certainly not complaining, because it's rather an engaging sort of a kiss, and she's just beginning to wonder whether they have time for a quick detour to the bedroom when she hears Madi's footsteps behind them.
They are clearly in agreement on one aspect of their relationship, she notes, as the pair of them spring apart. They are clearly in agreement that their daughter is not to catch them making out in corridors.
"Morning, parents." She greets them, eyes narrowed playfully. "I'm sure there's nothing to see here. Happy birthday, Dad."
If Bellamy is surprised that he is so decisively being referred to as Dad, these days, he does not show it. "Thanks, kid. Are you excited for our adventure?"
"Yeah. Do you want your present now?"
"Present?" He does, Clarke thinks, a decent job of looking surprised. "You didn't have to get me a present, Madi."
"We wanted to. It's from both of us. And it's not big or anything it's just – it's from us."
The sketchbook is duly produced, and admired, and sure enough, Bellamy's praise is even more effusive than it was last night. Clarke can't help feeling, though, that he schools his expression a little more carefully when he gets to the final drawing, this time round.
It takes a while, but at last, Madi is satisfied that the sketches have been sufficiently admired and the three of them prepare to leave the house. There is breakfast to be eaten, and there are family members to be collected, and there is, most importantly of all, an adventure to be had.
…...
They are a merry party as they set off into the woods, laden with more picnic food than a group of six can possibly be expected to eat, and carrying what Clarke cannot help feeling is a rather optimistic amount of swimming paraphernalia. Madi takes the lead and takes, too, plenty of minor detours from the path whenever she sees anything of interest. The surprise of the day, though, is that Abby is by her side in this, and Clarke knows it does the whole family good to see her so carefree and utterly healthy. Less stunning, but still far from routine, is the way that Bellamy strikes up conversation with his sister as they are leaving the village and walks with her for the remainder of the trip. Clarke dawdles close by for the first few minutes, ready to mediate their stilted attempts to discuss Octavia's history teaching should she be required to do so, but when it becomes clear that a certain spirit of reconciliation is in the air she leaves them to it. And she misses Bellamy's hand in hers, of course she does, and she misses the safety that comes with sticking close to him. It is hard to leave him even for a few minutes, now that she has him back after so long apart. But he needs a little privacy to speak with his sister and, besides which, Clarke needs to talk to Kane.
"So Bellamy told me what you said after I left, yesterday." She shouldn't feel this nervous, she thinks, in conversation with the man who is essentially her stepfather.
"Yes? What do you think?"
"I think that – that I'm not ready to do anything too like leading, just yet. I've made so many mistakes, Marcus, and I'm still working them out. But I'd like to do something more useful than I'm doing right now."
"To be clear, what you're doing right now is very useful." His voice is calm, and measured, and she remembers why everyone feels quite so secure with this man as head of security, for all his past misjudgements. "But yes, I think it would do you good to be more involved in running the place. May I invite you next time I call a meeting?"
"Yes. Yes, I'll be there."
Silence falls, and she is content to let it. She is very content indeed, as it happens, now that she has told Kane her decision.
"Clarke – about working out your mistakes. I'm still working mine out, too. What I did, back on Earth – it was at least as bad as anything you did. But somehow I'm running things once again. Don't let your past count you out from doing the right thing now."
"Thanks. I'm getting there." She really is, she thinks, as she smiles at the sight of her family walking before her.
"I'm sorry I caused trouble between you and Bellamy, yesterday. I should have realised he'd find it a difficult suggestion to hear. I just want to remind you that you're still young, Clarke, cryosleep being what it is. You can concentrate on your family now, maybe, and get back to saving the world later."
"I think it's a bit late to save the world." She jokes without much humour.
"Yes." He agrees wryly. "An unfortunate turn of phrase. But my point stands."
"Yes. Yes, I think it does."
She thinks about his words quite seriously, really she does, and she suspects that she will continue to think about Kane's various suggestions often in the days to come. But for now, it is time to celebrate her daughter's father's birthday. And it is time for her to reclaim a little more of her lost youth.
"Can you see that, Marcus?" She points at the glimmer of light that peeps through the trees, evidence that the lake is just ahead. "Race you to the beach."
With that, she takes off running. She is pleasantly surprised to find that Kane follows, hot on her heels, and pleasantly unsurprised to find that Madi gets wind of what's happening and streaks ahead of the pair of them. Octavia, too, joins the fun, and Clarke sets about competing with her rather more zealously than the occasion perhaps merits.
She has just found sand beneath her feet, is just rejoicing at her arrival on the shore and her imminent victory, when she feels warm arms close about her waist.
"Wha -" She gives a strangled cry and rolls to the floor, a rather heavy and all too familiar body tumbling with her.
"I think you lose." Bellamy tells her through his laughter, as the two of them sprawl in the sand, limbs still somewhat tangled, smiles rather broad.
"That is definitely not fair." She pouts, and makes a great show of extricating her arm from his grasp. "I was winning."
"Yes. And I couldn't have that. No way were you beating my sister."
"Blake loyalty runs deep." Octavia commiserates cheerfully, looking down at the pair of them as they continue to sit where they fell.
"What she said." Bellamy agrees, and Clarke finds herself a little bemused. Sure, she was aware that the siblings were working on fixing things, but she didn't realise they'd got as far as Blake loyalty runs deep. That seems like a bit of a substantial development, and she's not sure how she missed it.
"I'm pleased to see you two on the same side." She offers tentatively, as the other members of their party begin to converge around them.
"We're trying a bit of a birthday truce." Bellamy tells her brightly. "And then – then maybe we'll see if it lasts, too."
"Yeah. Hopefully." Octavia agrees, looking happier than she has seen her in centuries. "But let's be honest, Clarke, he just wanted an excuse to roll around in the sand with you."
"I deny that." Bellamy argues ineffectually. "No such though crossed my mind."
"No one believes you." Madi pipes up, and Clarke feels her cheeks flame.
"It seems that way." He acknowledges without apparent distress. "So are we laying the blankets out here?"
"Well, you two don't seem to be moving any time soon." Abby sets down her bag, and gets to work on setting up their base for the day.
They do move, before long, to participate in a ball game that has no clear rules and no clear goalposts, and whose actual aim is even less evident. But it is not the kind of day for organised fun, this. No, this is a day for laughing at everything and nothing, for falling over in the sand really quite a lot, and for quietly encouraging one another to take small steps out of their respective comfort zones. Abby and Kane teach Madi how to jump rope, and are rather hampered by trying to do so on a beach, of all places. Octavia practises being warm and funny, and makes a generous quantity of jokes. Naturally, this confuses everyone except her brother, who assures Clarke under his breath that this is what his little sister was like, once upon a time.
Clarke's journey out of her comfort zone is an incongruously comfortable one. It consists simply of engaging in a great deal of rather couple-like behaviour with Bellamy, and noticing that doing so is very enjoyable, and does not appear to cause the world to end, nor even scare him away. They hold hands a lot and, of course, that is something they do these days. But she's not aware that they do it this persistently. Hand holding whilst trying to eat a picnic lunch is, it turns out, really quite impractical, but lovely all the same. There is kissing, too, more pecks on the cheek than she thinks can be strictly necessary, but every time she goes crazy and steels her courage and presses her lips against his skin, he looks so damn happy she thinks her heart might just burst. And then the afternoon begins to lengthen, and Madi insists on swimming, and of all people it is Kane and Abby who volunteer to accompany her. And so it is that the birthday boy sits – or birthday man, she supposes, for all that he is beginning to remind her so much of the rather younger Bellamy she first knew – and chats to his sister, and wraps his arms firmly around the mother of his child, and the three of them relax and look out over the lake, watching the joy of the girl who has brought them back together.
This is beginning to look like a happy ending lifted from one of those stories she remembers from her Old Earth Studies classes, Clarke muses. Yes, that's it. This is beginning to look like a fairy tale.
…...
Of course, every fairy tale needs a princess. That thought has her smiling slightly to herself as they walk back to Sanctum, her hand still holding fast to Bellamy's. She remembers, of course, how much she used to cringe at that word, on his lips, or on Finn's, but now she can look back on that with a certain detached nostalgia. Finn is gone, of course, but that Princess is gone too. And that particular brand of Bellamy, he is long gone with them.
It is the first time in centuries she has allowed herself to remember Finn at any length, and she notes with some surprise that doing so does not make her sad, exactly. She thinks likewise of Lexa, and looks back upon their relationship in her mind's eye. And it hurts, still, to have lost them, of course it does, but the wound is not so fresh now. With this new planet and this new start there is something of a sense of closure. And with this new family, she notes, as a couple of bittersweet tears ease their way down her cheeks, there is a sense of new hope, and of being able to move on. Her past will always be with her, of course, but for the first time in as long as she can remember, she is genuinely excited about the future.
"What's wrong?" Bellamy's gentle question breaks into her thoughts, and his gentle thumb wipes the tears from her cheeks.
"Nothing." She rushes to reassure him. "It's a good thing, really. I was just remembering some of the people we've lost."
He squeezes her hand. "That's a good thing to do."
"And – and I was thinking how grateful I am for some of the people I've found again, too."
"Like I said the other day, I was a bit lost."
She is about to follow up on that, to continue this risky attempt at discussing things that actually matter during the hours of actual daylight, when she realises that her mother has appeared at her shoulder and is trying to insert herself into the conversation.
"Mum?"
"Would you two both come by our place to drop Madi off, when we get back? We have something for you, Bellamy." Clarke finds that a distinctly odd way of phrasing the question. Surely, in that case, only Bellamy need accompany them? She is protective of her daughter, of course, but she doesn't think her entire extended family needs to be there just to walk across the village with her.
"Both of us?" She queries, but is ignored because Bellamy is protesting at the same time that he doesn't need a gift from them.
"We insist." Abby tells him firmly, continuing the trend of ignoring Clarke. "It's nothing big, and I promise you it's very boring and practical."
"Well, in that case, how can I say no?"
…...
It turns out that the boring and practical gift is a shirt, which very much wins Bellamy's approval. He's grateful for the thought, of course, and because it's a reasonably nice shirt, but Clarke knows that his gratitude is all the more keenly felt because Abby and Kane have paused and given careful consideration to what he would like, and chosen something that isn't frivolous, won't make him feel uncomfortable.
So that's lovely and all, but Clarke still has no idea why she's here.
"Shall we be off?" She asks, when she thinks they have enthused over a bit of burgundy fabric for quite long enough.
"Sure." Bellamy agrees easily. "We have a while before we need to be at the bar, but -"
"Hang on." Abby interrupts, looking a bit uncomfortable. "Clarke, could you – could you stay a moment?"
There is most definitely something afoot.
"Why? What's wrong, mum?"
"Nothing's wrong at all, sweetheart. I just wonder if you might stay a moment when Bellamy goes."
"Sure." She agrees, still rather suspicious, but seeing no real alternative.
So it is that Bellamy suggests that he will meet her at the bar, and says goodbye to Madi, and thanks everyone many times for a lovely birthday outing, and goes on his way.
"Now can you tell me what all this is about?" Clarke hisses to her mother as soon as he is out of the door. Presumably this must be something she is determined to keep from him, some sort of further birthday surprise, or similar.
"Just come this way." Abby starts leading Clarke towards her room, and does not object when Madi follows. "I just – I got you something, and I know you're going to object that today is supposed to be about Bellamy but – well – I think he'll appreciate it too, if you know what I mean."
Madi coughs loudly at that, in a futile attempt to disguise her laughter. So much for being subtle in front of their daughter, Clarke thinks wryly.
"What are you on about?" She asks, her mind flying in some rather disturbing directions. What can she mean, by something he'll appreciate too? "You didn't need to get me anything."
"That's what you said when it was actually your birthday." Abby responds, as they arrive at her room. "So I'm making up for lost time."
With a flourish, she indicates a hanger suspended from the door. And it takes Clarke a good few seconds to work out what's going on here, because, really, it's unthinkable. Why on Earth is there a dress hanging in her mother's room? Surely, this cannot be the gift her mother is talking about. It must have cost her a fortune in bartered supplies to get her hands on something like this. Admittedly, it's a far cry from the long formal dresses she remembers wearing in Polis – it's clearly not new, and is a sort of mid-length and rather utilitarian blue number that wouldn't look out of place in the village.
In fact, it is exactly the sort of thing one might wear to spend an evening in a makeshift bar.
"Do you like it?" Abby asks, looking distinctly nervous, even while Madi squeals with joy.
"It's beautiful." Clarke is quick to reassure her, because really, it is. Second-hand and everyday though it may be, she thinks it might just be the most beautiful gift she has ever received.
Her mother makes quick work of ushering her to go change, and of brushing out her pink-streaked hair. She attempts to lend her alternative shoes, and even encourages her to borrow a more civilian jacket, but that seems like a step too far. She still wishes to be Clarke.
And as she leaves the house, scarcely minutes later, with Abby and Madi waving her off and their enthusiastic shouts following her half way to her destination, she definitely does feel like Clarke.
But she also feels a tiny bit like a princess.
…...
She's not trying to make an entrance, on her arrival to the bar. It just happens. One moment she's walking in the door and Bellamy has his back to her, and the next thing she knows Murphy is elbowing him and gesturing in her direction and he's turning round and staring at her rather blatantly as she crosses the floor towards them. And then she's arriving at the table, and suddenly he's jumping to his feet and kissing her on the cheek and making, she thinks, a bit of a mess of indicating the empty seat by his side.
"Hey." She whispers, for his ears only. She can greet the rest of their friends later, she figures, but right now he's looking at her wearing a rather impressed sort of a facial expression that he's only ever worn in her dreams until this moment.
"You look good." He tells her, voice pitched low. She shouldn't be surprised to hear it, she thinks. The look on his face the moment she walked in here was obviously code for you look good, and besides which he's been making frequent use of the word hot during sex for weeks. But it feels so special, somehow, to hear it said out loud and out of bed like this.
"You too." She fights past her nerves to tell him. "Nice shirt. Is it new?"
He grins at that, and helps her to a chair. If this is what he's like now, she thinks, it seems she is destined to be truly fussed over once she tells him she's pregnant.
"Hey." She greets the rest of the table at last as she takes her seat. "How is everyone?"
"Pretty good." Emori raises her glass in some kind of cheerful salutation. "Bellamy was just telling us that the former Chancellor went swimming this afternoon."
"Which former Chancellor?" She asks brightly, by way of response, trying not to let her composure falter as Bellamy slings a careless arm around the back of her chair.
"No." Raven is shaking her head in disbelief. "Both of them? I can't believe Kane actually went for it."
"Abby's more surprising, surely?" Echo asks.
"No. She'd do anything for Madi, she adores her." Raven argues. "Kane's the surprising one."
"But he would do anything for Abby." Bellamy points out. "So really it's no surprise at all."
"Look at you, with your happy little family." Murphy teases him good-naturedly. "Best birthday of your life, I'm betting?"
Clarke expects Bellamy to be a bit embarrassed by that question, but it seems she is guilty of underestimating him yet again.
"Obviously." He scoffs. "It's been great."
"And it's only going to get even better from here." Raven decides on his behalf. "Can I get anyone another drink?"
Her question is greeted by a chorus of positive replies, but Clarke notes that Bellamy is not among them. In fact, as the evening lengthens, he drinks very little indeed, and she can't really understand why. Sure, he's not usually one for drinking to excess – at least, not since they ironed out their differences and stopped having loud confrontations at this very table – but he's normally one to get into the spirit of things when his friends are having fun. At this rate, she thinks, he will end the night no less sober than her, and for obvious reasons all she is ordering is water.
"You OK?" She whispers eventually, while the rest of the group are distracted by some anecdote of Murphy's. She's worried that he might not be feeling well, or something.
"Yeah, why?"
"You've barely drunk anything. I thought you wanted to teach me how to have fun?" She teases to mask her concern.
"I'll have my fun when we get home." He tells her with a smirk. "Really, I'm fine. It would be a bit weird for me to get wasted while you're sober, don't you think? I didn't think that would be much fun for you."
"Thanks." She says, trying to sound more grateful than confused. She really doesn't understand what goes on in this man's head, sometimes.
"Besides which," he adds, tone light, free hand playing absently with a coaster, "I think I might want to be able to remember tonight in quite a lot of detail. That dress is really something."
Well, then. Now that makes a bit more sense. She braves a kiss on his cheek, feels him smile beneath her lips.
"Shallow." She accuses him affectionately, trying to pretend that this isn't a dangerous topic of conversation. "All this, just for a dress."
"To be clear, I'm more interested in the woman inside the dress." He tells her, displaying no discomfort at admitting it. "But yes, I have definitely noticed the new outfit."
"Damn it. My mother's going to be so smug." She backs away from the precipice of exploring whether, perhaps, the mutual attraction might be beginning to outweigh the shared obligation, and hates herself a little for doing so.
He lets out a laugh, and, without missing a beat, joins Emori in taking the piss out of Murphy's anecdote. And she's disappointed in him, of course she is, for not pushing the subject, but she's even more disappointed in herself. Maybe she'll try again later, she muses. Maybe this is something she wants to persevere with.
She only means to persevere with exploring the mutual attraction, of course. As far as caring for each other goes, well – she intends to leave well enough alone. Mutual attraction is reasonably safe, as dangerous emotions go. That's just an acknowledgement that he looks good in his new shirt, and will look even better without it. But she refuses to contemplate whether this caring for each other goes beyond the extent to which it's normal for two close friends - who used to be a little in love, as it happens - to care for each other.
That way, she knows, lies madness.
…...
They walk home from the bar a little more briskly than normal, but Clarke doesn't mention it. She doesn't mention, either, the fact that Bellamy keeps turning towards her, smiling down at her as they walk with an expression that warms her through right to the tips of her toes.
When they end up pausing to make out a little, though – that she does feel the need to mention.
"We should probably take this home." She suggests against his lips, pulling away just far enough to form the words.
"You started it." He accuses. It might be the truth. That doesn't seem to matter right now.
"Come on." She pulls away, keeps hold only of his hand. "I have a surprise for you. And it's probably one you don't want Indra to see."
He laughs at that, raises his eyes to take in the fact that, yes, they have somehow ended up kissing right outside their fearsome friend's front door. "Sure."
Yes. Yes, they're definitely walking more briskly than usual. But somehow, still, Clarke's home is taking forever to come into view and it's the longest walk of her life and she can't -
There at last. They make it through the door, kick off their boots, shrug out of their jackets. And Bellamy makes a start on tugging her towards the bedroom, but she stops him abruptly with a pair of hands on his hips.
"No." She whispers, kissing him to soften the reprimand. "Not yet. Time for your surprise."
It's something she's always imagined doing, of course. Well, not quite always, but for several decades, which seems plenty long enough. It is something she allowed herself to dream of, all those years on Earth alone, allowed herself to imagine the look in his eyes and the moan in his throat. But it is something she has never done, not yet, not in the weeks they have been sleeping together which have seamlessly become months, not even in the last few hand-holding days.
She doesn't know what has possessed her, to make her brave enough to try this tonight. But she thinks that if she doesn't give it a go now, when she can pass it off as a silly birthday treat, she will probably never have the nerve to try again.
So it is that she kneels at his feet. She unbuckles his belt, slides trousers and underwear down over his hips. And then she takes his cock into her mouth.
Sure enough, he gives a moan, just as he did in her lonely fantasies. But this moan is better, somehow, even more maddening than those imagined moans, and it is rough and raw and sounds somewhat like he is being strangled whilst trying to choke out her name.
He tries again. Yes, definitely her name.
"Yes?" She releases his erection just long enough to ask the question, looks up at him with a grin in her eyes as she takes him back into her mouth.
"Wha – what are you doing?" He appears to be gritting his teeth a little, she thinks. "You know that's not going to -"
"I know." She pulls away, curls her hand around him while she speaks. It seems they will have to have a brief chat before she can finish the job. She swallows back her disappointment that he still thinks this is supposed to be about conception, urges herself not to dwell on what, exactly, the implications of his words might be for the future of their relationship.
"Then why are you...?" She resists the impulse to tell him she's already pregnant. After all, she hasn't actually taken the test, yet, so it's not quite deception to keep it from him.
"Because I want to." She tells him, running light fingertips over the length of him. "Think of it as a birthday present, or as enjoying it while we're here, or whatever. But I'd like to do this, if you want me to?"
"Yes." He groans, as she skims the pad of her thumb against his tip. "Yes, please, Clarke."
Without further ado, she gets back to work. And without further ado, he gets back to groaning, and sure enough, when she looks up he is looking back at her as if she is, to say the least, hot. And he's winding his fingers through her hair, and he's beginning to thrust against her a little, beginning to encourage her with his hand on the back of her head to go longer, deeper.
She's only too willing to oblige. There's something about this, about seeing and hearing him lose control at her actions, about the intensity with which he is calling her name. Something about it seems more real, somehow, more like an actual relationship than anything they have done before. And it's not all about him, either, not all about some kind of unhealthy unbalanced situation of debt and obligation like the place they started from. No, this is very much about them, she notes, as she observes that she's not that far from falling apart at the simple sound of her name on his lips.
"Clarke. I'm going to -"
She doesn't answer with words. Her mouth is otherwise engaged. She reaches up, takes his free hand. Squeezes his fingers so hard she thinks that she's probably in danger of breaking something.
And then he breaks, at last, shuddering against her mouth, spilling all over the back of her throat, and sighing so loud and long that the silence hurts, somehow, when he is done.
And then there is only the sound of her laboured breathing as she tries to pretend she is not ridiculously aroused by what they have just shared. Slowly, feeling suddenly shy, she gets back to her feet. And she's not sure what she's planning to do next, really, whether she's planning to kiss him a bit, or take him to the bedroom, or pretend that what just happened was nothing extraordinary.
She never gets the chance to work it out. Suddenly he has kicked his trousers away from where she left them pooled round his ankles, and has scooped her up, and is carrying her to her bed.
…...
If she wasn't pregnant before, Clarke thinks, surely she must be now. She knows, of course, in a logical and biological way, that this is not how conception works. That there is no correlation between feeling thoroughly satiated and being thoroughly fertilised. But all the same, she has never felt so totally screwed in her entire life.
In a good way. Screwed in a good way.
"So I've had a decent birthday." Bellamy tells her nonchalantly as he holds her tight against his chest.
"Decent? I'm hurt."
"Yeah, OK. It's been great. Second best day of my life, I'd say."
"Second best?" She asks, confused. It's been a pretty strong contender for the best day of her life, and it wasn't even her birthday. "What was the best?"
He cranes his neck to meet her eyes, and looks at her as if she's lost her mind. "The day I realised you hadn't died in Praimfaiya. Surely that's obvious?"
"Oh." Is that really true? "I didn't think of that. I guess – I guess I remembered more of the bad things about that time than the good."
"Yeah, sure, once we realised how much everything had changed it started to suck. But that first moment when Madi ran out of the trees and told me you were alive – nothing is ever going to beat that."
She doesn't have the words to do justice to that declaration of care. She kisses him soundly instead, then settles back against his chest, and begins to count out the seconds until he will say his goodbyes and take himself home. They have shared their sex and their significant conversation for the day, now, after all.
She has counted to three hundred and eighty four when she notices that he is snoring softly. And she knows that, at that point, she really ought to shake him gently by the shoulder, ought to prompt him to go on his way. Surely, she thinks, he will be embarrassed when he awakes and realises that he fell asleep here. But she's beginning to find counting more difficult herself, now, and it's quite comfortable here, his arms wrapped firmly around her even in sleep.
One moment she is counting four hundred and fourteen, and the next, it is morning.
She knows it must be morning, because there is a little sunlight sneaking in through the gap between the curtains, and because someone is having an ear-splitting row about their assignment for the day as they walk past outside. But it can't be morning, surely it can't, because Bellamy is still in her bed, is curled closely against her, her back against his front.
His morning wood pressed hard against her butt cheek.
She wiggles experimentally. Maybe if he wakes up and thinks she's still asleep, he can run away without this all being too embarrassing, or something. And they can pretend that this never happened, that they never took this terrifying step towards a real relationship.
That doesn't happen. When she wiggles, he wiggles back. And then somehow he starts kissing her bare shoulders, and then his hand finds its way to her breast and – well. One thing leads to another. And she's starting to believe that the only rational explanation for all this might be that they are becoming the kind of couple who sleep together even when they don't entirely need to.
Sanctum is well and truly awake outside by the time they decide they had better get on with their lives.
"That was a fun way to start the day." He comments with a smirk, as he starts to scour the house for his scattered clothing.
"Maybe you should stay over more often." She offers nonchalantly, avoiding eye contact as she rescues her preciously practical dress from the floor and hangs it with more care than the task strictly merits.
"Yeah. I think I should."
That decides it. She's taking a pregnancy test.
a/n Thanks for reading!