"Up in Flames"
Lucawindmover
Chapter Six
"Me and You"
For Bellamy, the waiting and inactivity were the hardest parts of their confinement. When he'd been on the Ark, he'd had a very rigorous exercise routine while he was training to be a cadet. He continued that, even after being kicked out and demoted to janitor. If for no other reason, it was a release for him. Running or lifting weights gave him a way to work off all his physical frustration at having to be subservient to the people who had killed his mother and locked up his sister. Once they'd gotten to the ground, he hadn't needed to exercise for the sake of physical activity. Just trying to survive had been exercise enough.
And now he was back to needing it as a release.
They'd left a message for Jasper, asking if they could get ahold of a spoon. Bellamy had been a little confused at first as to why they needed a spoon, of all things. But then Clarke had shown him that the air vent panel above the back of the toilet was attached with flat-head screws rather than bolts. If they could get ahold of a spoon, they could loosen the screws and possibly get the heck out of this mountain stronghold.
That was assuming Jasper and Anya weren't protesting the way they had been. There was no way of telling until they heard back.
Just in case, Clarke had kept one of the towels out of the dirty laundry, throwing it over the shower curtain rod to dry. They didn't want to have to wait to send the next message, should they get one before the end of the day.
With all their plans completed, they were stuck waiting again. Bellamy had really slept all he could sleep and talked all that he could talk. Clarke didn't seem particularly talkative after their weird shower anyway. Once they'd finished writing out the message, she'd retreated over to the couch and seemed entirely lost in thought.
He'd initially thought about just pacing but the space wasn't very large and he seemed to remember that she'd told him to stop doing that a few times before. It made her nervous.
So he fell to doing pushups. He lost count after fifty-something, focused on meticulously maintaining his form as his arms and chest started to burn. Once he was sure he'd done more than a hundred, he stopped to stretch and found himself glancing over at Clarke.
She had gotten off the couch and was sitting on the floor next to the bathroom door. She had her back to him so he wasn't really sure what she was up to.
He laid back and started doing sit-ups. But after only a few dozen, his curiosity started to get the best of him.
"What…are….you…doing?" he asked between sit-ups.
"I'm making paint," she replied. "I'm bored."
He sat up and stopped, his brow furrowed. "Making paint out of what?"
"Blood."
"What?"
She turned to look over her shoulder. "It's not much blood, sheesh. I picked a scab. I'm going to paint something on the wall over here," she paused and turned back to what she was doing. "I told you. I'm bored."
"Let me get this straight," he said, still not entirely believing what he was hearing. "You're bored so you're going to finger paint on the wall with your own blood."
She laughed. "You know, when you say it that way it makes me sound crazy."
He raised an eyebrow. "Well, if the shoe fits…"
Clarke turned to face him and he could see that she had indeed picked at a scab on her elbow. She was right that it wasn't much but he still didn't like the idea of her bleeding. For any reason.
"Drawing or painting is what I always did, back on the Ark," she said. "You know, when I needed to…I don't know. Get away, I guess."
Bellamy rested his arms on his knees. "I get that. But blood? Really?"
She shrugged. "I don't have anything else and I'm getting antsy. I didn't think you had an issue with blood."
"I mean, I don't," he replied. "Not usually. But it's your blood."
"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked, crossing her arms. "That my blood is somehow more important than someone else's?"
"Well, no. It's just that it's supposed to stay in you," he answered.
She smirked. "Go back to your exercise. My painting is going to be beautiful."
"I swear to God, if you try to cut yourself open to get more art supplies, we're gonna have problems," he said, laying back down.
Clarke laughed and went back to her work, despite how it made Bellamy's skin crawl a little.
But he was curious. He couldn't help it. Every time he sat up again, he checked her progress, watching as she used red, sticky fingers to paint a picture of their drop ship camp, back before it had become a graveyard.
She had been right about it being beautiful. In the moments when he could imagine it was paint rather than blood, he couldn't help but be impressed by her talent. A smudge here or a touch there and she'd managed to render their home in recognizable detail. The time it was taking for her to paint it was longer than the amount of sit-ups he could actually do so eventually he just stopped to watch her work.
He hadn't said anything when she'd resorted to picking at a different scab, getting more "paint" to work with. But when that scab started to dry up too, he made a decision.
Flexing his hand tightly, the cuts on the tops of his knuckles burst open. They wouldn't bleed for long so he crossed the floor and took a seat next to her, propping his hand up on her knee.
She looked like she was coming out of some kind of daze, like she'd forgotten he was even there. "What did you do?" she asked, looking at the fine trickle of crimson on the back of his hand.
He shrugged. "You were running out of art supplies," he said, gesturing to the scab on her knee. "And I didn't want you to resort to opening a vein."
She pursed her lips and looked at his hand doubtfully for a moment. With a long sigh and a rolling of her eyes, she dabbed at the blood on his hand and went back to work on her scene.
He found himself oddly relaxed while watching her work. Maybe it had been his previous workout, burning off unnecessary adrenaline. But as he watched her smudge and shape and shade, he fell into the same trance she was in. He couldn't help but think back to their days back at the drop ship. Most of them had been full of strife and danger but there had been a few that weren't as bad as the others. He hadn't seen her much on those off days and he wondered how much art she'd created back at the camp and how much of it had been destroyed when they'd fired the rockets.
Eventually, she sat back, rubbing the back of her hand across her forehead. A smear of red was left in its wake, his blood on her face, and he felt compelled to wipe it off himself. But then he checked his reaction, told himself that he wouldn't have done that back at the drop ship, and resolved to tell her about it instead.
"There," she said, admiring her handy work. "Let's see them try to get that off their precious white wall."
Bellamy couldn't help the surge of pride he felt when he looked at the painting. "You're really talented," he said. "I had no idea."
She smirked and stood, trying the bathroom door. It opened and they both held their breath as she tried the shower to see if their message had been received. But it hadn't, or so they could assume. The message hadn't been wiped and there were no new words in their place. So she went about washing the blood off her hands and, as she noticed it was on her face, washing there as well.
"You know," she said as she came out, shutting the door behind her. "You're a lot nicer to me when there's no one else around."
Bellamy crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall. "Am I?"
"Mmhmm," she said, sitting on their couch and scooting back toward the wall. "I noticed it back at camp, too. What's with that?"
He shrugged. "The others needed that."
"Needed what?" she asked with a raised eyebrow. "For you to mock my every word?"
He shook his head with a smirk. "No. They couldn't see us getting along all the time. It would mess with their perception of how this—" he said with a gesture between them. "How this all works."
Clarke mimicked his gesture between them. "You're gonna have to explain what 'this' is."
"We were able to lead them because we were opposite," he replied. "I was a man of action and you were the forethought. You were left and I was right. So they knew that if we actually agreed on something, it must be the right thing to do."
She seemed to think about this for a minute before she nodded.
"If they thought we got along, if they thought we were friends or that we were working together too closely…"
And that's when she got it. "Then they'd start wondering if we were making choices for us instead of choices for them."
"Exactly."
"And you had that all worked out on your own, huh?"
Bellamy shrugged. "Would it be so unbelievable if I had?"
She laughed. "I guess not. But then that means you can sometimes be the 'forethought.' Guess that means I need to be the 'action' occasionally?"
"Whatever floats your boat, Princess," he answered with a grin.
She smiled that genuine, rare smile and leaned her head back against the wall, staring at her painting again. After a while she turned her eyes back to his. "Thanks. You know, for the art supplies. For humoring me."
He just shrugged. He didn't know what to say to that. But he did know that if they didn't hold on to these little pieces of who they were, it wouldn't take long to lose everything else. They had to keep it together if they were going to get out of here. If a bloody finger-painting was what it took to keep her spirits up, to keep her from losing little parts of herself…well a set of bloody knuckles was a small price to pay.
Lunch and dinner had both come and gone with no food and no return messages from Jasper. By the time the lights went dim, they were both a little disheartened. They didn't speak much for most of the evening and settled down to sleep without a word.
She'd backed up against his side again and instead of tucking his arm behind his head which wasn't always comfortable, he slid his arm under her pillow. She'd stiffened a little at first but then relaxed again, adjusting her shoulder so she wouldn't cut off the circulation to his arm.
Bellamy had no way of knowing how long they'd been asleep. He was pulled from his sleep slowly to find himself with his arms wrapped around her, his face tucked into the space by her neck and her body nicely nestled back into his.
He placed a kiss there on her neck and she rewarded him with a soft sigh. She turned her head away a little, giving him more space to work. He took the opportunity to kiss his way across her shoulder, pushing the edge of her shirt out of the way with his nose as he sought that tender spot above her collarbone. She gasped and pushed her body back into him, making him aware of how turned on he was. His hand slipped under the edge of her shirt to cup her breast and she moaned, reaching back to sink her fingernails into his thigh.
And then they froze. It was as if they'd both come awake at the same moment, hearing the hissing sound of the gas coming out and flowing over them.
"Dammit," Bellamy said softly, resting his forehead on her shoulder and removing his hand from underneath her shirt. "I…uh…"
"It's okay," she said quickly. "It's the gas…and we weren't all the way awake…"
"Right. But still."
She shook her head slightly and he could feel her shaking.
He swallowed hard, breathing in her scent and making his body ache that much more. "Is…uh. Is this worse than usual?"
Clarke seemed to take a moment to think about this and he could tell, since he was still pressed against her, that she was clenching her legs together with trembling thighs.
"I don't know if the gas is stronger," she said breathily. "Or if it's just messing with us more because we aren't all the way awake. Inhibitions are lower."
"That makes sense."
"Mmhmm."
He took a moment to breath but it was no good. There was no freewill here tonight. "Okay, we're gonna have to…"
"Yeah. Yeah we are."
He reached down with his free hand to push his shorts out of the way and Clarke moved to do the same. But when she started to turn toward her he stopped her with a hand on her hip.
She sent him a questioning glance over his shoulder but he didn't say anything. He lifted her leg and propped it on his hip as he slid himself inside her.
Clarke groaned and began to move with him, rocking her hips and adjusting her leg so he could hit the right spots. He went back to her shoulder, nipping and sucking along her pulse point.
"Oh," she exclaimed as he bit down on her earlobe. "God. Bellamy."
And that was all it took to rock them both over the edge. He clenched his jaw and managed to pull out and finish himself on the inside of her thigh.
Neither of them had spoken before, during this. It was also the first time they hadn't maintained eye contact the whole time either. What had started as a reaction to the awful aphrodisiac gas had turned far more intimate than either of them had really intended.
"Sorry," Clarke said quietly, still shaking a little. "That…was probably inappropriate."
Bellamy laughed. "This whole damn situation is inappropriate. But it's not really something we can control so I guess we should both stop apologizing for things we can't help."
"I'll try to stop if you will."
He nodded against her shoulder. After a long sigh, he rolled himself on his back. Clarke took this as her opportunity to get cleaned up and she reached forward, grabbing her discarded shorts and underwear.
Normally this was the point where he would look away, focus on getting himself back together, finding clothes and cleaning up. But he couldn't seem to make his eyes move and he watched as she used her underwear to clean off her thighs before slipping her shorts back on without them. She glanced back over her shoulder and caught him but he couldn't even find it in him to be embarrassed about it.
"Aren't you going to get dressed?" she asked, eyebrow raised. She was purposefully keep eye contact with him so he would know where she was looking and where she wasn't.
He shrugged. "I'm really tired. I don't even feel like moving," he answered. It was the absolute truth and he realized that it might have even been the reason he hadn't looked away as she dressed. What was it she had said about lowered inhibitions?
Clarke rolled her eyes and reached across him to grab his shorts for him. As she did, her breasts brushed over his chest and he felt something low and primal roll through him. It hadn't been but moments ago, really, that he'd held one of those perfect breasts in his hand. He'd never forget that feeling, the soft flesh yielding to his fingers and her groan of approval. She dropped his shorts on his hands and he scrambled to put them back on before she happened to notice his current state of arousal. Again.
But the gas was off. Clarke didn't seem like she was being unduly affected. She'd resumed her usual sleeping position and although she was incredibly tense, it didn't seem like it was because she was having lingering side effects.
He couldn't just lay here like this. It was incredibly uncomfortable. He tried shifting a little but it did no good. He tried to think of the smell of frying Grounders, or Jasper's oozing chest wound, or Murphy's hemorrhagic fever. But nothing was dissuading his body.
After another few minutes, he relented and got out of bed, stalking over to the bathroom switch.
"You okay?" Clarke asked as he tried the switch. And then tried it again.
They'd never tried to get into the bathroom at night. Either their neighbors were currently using it or it wasn't available to them at night. He had no way of knowing which.
"Not really," he said, leaning his forehead against the wall. "I needed in the bathroom but it's locked."
"Oh, well that sucks," she responded, sitting up. "Can you hold it until morning?"
"That's not why I needed in there," he replied.
"Well then I'm confused," she said. "Why else would you need in there?"
He laughed shakily, his fists clenching by his sides. "I need in there because apparently I am an idiot."
"I could have told you that," she replied. "But why specifically this time?"
Bellamy took a deep breath and remembered his talk with her about leaders. "You remember that issue we were both having in the shower earlier?"
"Yeah," she answered. And then she got it. "Oh."
"…and you aren't having any issues right now?"
"No."
"So then it isn't a residual gas effect."
He looked over his shoulder to see her shaking her head.
"That's just great," he muttered to himself, knocking his forehead against the wall a couple of times.
Clarke cleared her throat. "So you needed the bathroom for…privacy then?"
"Yes, Princess," he replied. "You want me to explain the whole thing?"
"You could do that out here, if you needed to," she said without missing a beat.
He laughed and turned to face her, meeting her eyes for the first time since he'd gotten up. "And you don't think that would be a little awkward?"
She shrugged. "How much more awkward could it get in here?"
She made a good point. But he just didn't think he could, not when the object of his irrational desire was sitting a few feet away from him. He shook his head.
Clarke pushed herself up to standing and crossed the room toward him, causing his throat to go dry.
"Then let me help," she said.
"This is not the time for jokes," he replied.
She shook her head, closing the last few feet between them. "I'm not joking. Look. You're uncomfortable and clearly suffering. Let me help."
He scoffed. "A pity handjob? Yeah, I don't think so. No thanks."
She frowned and poked him in the chest. "That's not what this is. This is a friend helping a friend."
"It's obligatory."
"It's compassionate."
"It's inappropriate."
"I thought we were done worrying about and apologizing for things that are inappropriate."
Bellamy closed his eyes and knocked his head back against the wall. In any other situation, all of this arguing with a girl would have killed the mood for him. But this was not just some other girl. This was Clarke. And, if he were to be honest with himself, it wasn't the first time that their arguing had gotten under his skin.
He gulped, feeling his resolve slipping. "I can't ask you to do that."
"You aren't," she countered. "I'm offering. Insisting, really. I'm exercising my free will."
"Thought we weren't going to mess with that."
She laughed softly. "Yeah, that was always a long-shot and you knew it."
He smirked. He couldn't help it. But that smirk was quickly dropped at the feeling of her hand slipping within the waistband of his shorts. There were words of protest on the tip of her tongue, words that were completely dissolved by the feeling of her small, warm hand wrapping around him.
"Don't fight me on this," she said, leaning forward to brace her free hand on the wall next to him.
Bellamy just shook his head. He didn't even have words.
This couldn't have been the first time she'd done this, he realized. There was a certain skill to the rhythm she chose, the rotation, the changes in how she gripped him. He'd never really thought about her previous sexual experience. But in this moment, he was endlessly thankful that she seemed to have some because it wasn't taking her very long to turn him into a quivering mess.
"Clarke," he said, his voice trembling, trying to tell her that he was nearing the end. She acknowledged this by moving a half-step closer to him and speeding up her pace. He opened his eyes and looked down at her. It was the pride on her face, knowing that she was helping him and that she was good at it, that was more than he could stand. He gasped and finished on the inside of his shorts, drenching her hand since she hadn't moved it out of the way.
He bumped his head back against the wall again and she laughed lightly, pulling his hand from his shorts and wiping her hand on the edge of her shirt. "If you keep doing that you're going to end up with a concussion."
"What's a little more brain damage?" he asked with a shrug.
She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. "You feeling better?"
Bellamy sighed, his shoulders falling a little. "Yes," he said with more genuine feeling than he'd meant to let slip. But the resulting softening of her expression made him realize his admission had been worth it.
"Come on," she said, jerking her head toward their bed. "I don't know about you but I'm tired."
He did as she asked without protesting.
He'd kind of assumed she would reconstruct her walls now, like she usually did. But when he slid his arm under her pillow again, she relaxed into him as if nothing had changed.
Taking a chance, he rolled toward her, resting his free hand along his own hip so as to not trap her if she didn't like this turn of events. But she didn't even tense, just pulled the sheet up under her chin.
"Thank you," he murmured against her shoulder blade.
"We have to take care of each other," she said softly. She reached behind her and grabbed his hand, pulling it around her. "We are all we have. I'll be damned if they take that away. I need you, whole and sane and ready for whatever comes next."
He didn't deserve this loyalty. He knew it. But try as he might to rebel against it, the promise of having Clarke in his life, for better or worse, was something he couldn't walk away from. Regardless of what their official titles were, what they meant to each other transcended labels. He would never forget this moment.
He squeezed her hand once and fell asleep with his forehead pressed against her shoulder blade.
Living my life trying to do what's right in the hope of a better day. And all I want is that you extend your hand to me. I want show me where it hurts. We'll make it okay.
Active Child feat. Ellie Goulding "Silhouette"