Hi, love your fics! "kisses where one person is sitting in the other’s lap" for bellarke. (If you let me be specific....I'd like this in canon. I love Bellamy's scruff but I wouldn't be mad if there's a scene where clarke's sitting in his lap, shaving his beard off, and there's sexual tension)
gah thank you so much!! um, again, canon bellarke is my SHIT and writing this was truly an ethereal experience because like…bellamy blake and a beard has truly changed me. tbh i love it and think he looks amazing. but anyways, i hope this is everything you wanted and more, nonny!
P.S: I was listening to the song Dearly Departed by DeVotchka while writing this. the title came from it. You can listen to it here.
how i missed your heart (beating next to mine)
(ao3)
There is a strange sense of deja vu being back on Earth. You would think the second nuclear apocalypse would make everything different, but it stills seems eerily familiar. Perhaps it’s because six years later, Bellamy is standing in the same place he had been thousands of days ago. He’s standing on the balcony of the lab watching his friends drink and laugh together like nothing had changed. Like they didn’t carry the weight of the world on their shoulders. Maybe it’s because they didn’t. Maybe he carried it all. Maybe he still does.
“You think it’s time we finally have that drink?” a familiar voice pulls him from his reverie. He turns to find her, still unsure if everything that’s happening is real. Clarke. She’s alive. She survived.
Their reunion hadn’t been glorious. In fact, it was a simple lock of the eyes and a half-smile before they had to disappear into the woods to escape their newest enemy. Of course. They always have fucking enemies. But now he gets to look at her, really look at her for the first time in 2,205 days. She looks healthy, her curves softer than they’ve ever been and her skin glows in the bright light. She’s cut her hair into a shorter bob and somehow managed to add color to it. She smiles like she hadn’t been left behind to die. Left behind to die by him. It makes his heart feel like it’s going to shatter into a million pieces – he knows because he’s felt it before. He felt it the day they left.
“I’m not much of a drinker anymore,” he says as lightly as he can despite thinking of the months he spent drinking away pain and loathing on the Ark. He’s not proud of himself, after all, they had chosen him to lead them. He did. He was a leader during the day, but at night he would numb himself to the responsibility. He would numb his heart so he could better listen to his head.
He feels warmth seep into his sleeve and freezes, his body unraveling at the smallest touch. She’s real. She’s real. She’s here.
“Bellamy,” she whispers his name and it’s a godsend. He always loved the way it fell from her lips and he spent so long believing he’d never hear it again. When he looks at her, whatever she had been about to say dies on her lips. They stare at each other, all their unspoken words hanging in the air. I’m sorry. I forgive you. I’m happy you’re here. I missed you. So much.
“Clarke!” Raven’s voice interrupts the moment, “Get your ass down here and drink with us!”
She steps back from him with a sad smile, like she wishes more than anything they could just have one fucking moment to themselves. But it’s just like old times. Just when they have a second to breathe together, someone always takes it away. He can’t really blame them this time. After all, they too are trying to comprehend the fact that their friend is alive.
He follows her over to the group, if only because he’s not quite ready to be away from her again even if it’s only for a moment. Not to mention he’s done six years of brooding on his own, he can’t take much more. His cup remains filled with water as they all laugh and tell stories of their years apart. They’ve lost so much but in this moment it feels like they’ve gained so much more. It’s late into the night before people begin to drift off, one by one. Eventually, he and Clarke are the only two left awake.
“I didn’t even know you could grow a beard,” she muses and he can’t help the chuckle that slips from his throat.
“Me either,” he admits, “It just kind of happened.”
And it did. Shaving became a tedious task by the end of their stay on the Ark. He was spending long days working on the rocket and using the rest of the time to sleep. Shaving wasn’t exactly a priority.
“No razors on the ring?”
He shrugs his shoulders, “Didn’t really care to do it, honestly.”
She hums in response before standing and holding a hand out to him. He raises his eyebrow in question and she grins (fuck, when did her smile start lighting entire rooms?), “Let’s go take care of it.”
He feels that sense of deja vu again. Clarke Griffin is standing in front of him, hating on his beard, and acting like no time had ever passed between them. She’s forgiven him, he realizes. Of course she would. Only she would brush off being left to die and chalk it up to, ‘you did what you had to do.’
“You don’t like my beard, Princess?” it comes out before he can really think about it and she looks just as surprised as he feels but she plays it off.
“Eh.” and with that, he finds himself following her up the stairs and into the bedroom. She pushes him on the bed and demands that he sit and he’s trying not to let his mind go there but it all feels extremely intimate.
He hears her fumbling around in the attached bathroom and she emerges a few moments later with a bottle and old scalpel. He eyes the tool warily and she laughs softly.
“Trust me, it works a lot better than a knife,” she tells him. She places the items on the table and puts a hand on his cheek to examine the patches of hair that have grown along his chin and neck. His heart slams against his chest at the contact and suddenly the air feels thick.
Seemingly unaffected by the closeness, she grabs the bottle from the table and pours some into her palm before rubbing into the overgrown areas, “It’s conditioner. Surprisingly hard to make. “
He grunts, unable to form coherent words in this exact moment. 48 hours ago, they had been preparing to come back to Earth and have to start from scratch. As far as any of them knew, Clarke had been dead for six years. 24 hours ago, she had found them in a flurry of blonde, complete with an adopted child (which nearly makes him laugh, because of course she would find someone to take care of in their absence). Now, she’s in front of him helping him shave. It’s all so fucking surreal.
“Turn your head,” she murmurs and he does as she says, closing his eyes while her fingers massage into his cheek. Her hands are steady as they sweep the hair from his cheek, his chin. He can feel her breath brushing each newly bare area and it sends goosebumps up his arms. She’s here. She’s so close. He has to close his eyes for a moment to keep himself grounded. It can’t be happening. It shouldn’t be happening. But it is.
“Clarke,” it’s the first time he says her name and her movements still. When he opens his eyes, she is staring right back at him, her blue irises piercing into his soul. He swallows the small lump beginning to form in his throat.
“Tilt your head back,” she directs quietly and threads her empty hand through his curls, gently tugging him back. He has to close his eyes again because, fuck, the close proximity, the way she’s touching and caressing his skin. He feels like he’s on fire.
She makes quick work of his cheeks and chin, but getting the patches on his neck seem to providing a lot more trouble for her. She pauses for a moment before setting the the scalpel on the bed.
She clears her throat, “I’m having trouble with this part…do you…can I?”
Her nervousness is full frontal now, wringing her hands in front of him and looking anywhere but into his eyes. He isn’t sure what she’s trying to ask, but he knows he doesn’t want her to stop.
“Go ahead,” he tells her. She lets out a small breath before she pushes his shoulder to help him lean back. He does, leaning back onto his forearms so she has full access to his neck. He’s fine. He’s under control. Until she climbs onto his lap, with her legs on either side of him. In all the time they’ve known each other, even in their most intimate moments, it’s the closest contact they’ve ever had. His breath hitches in his throat and she looks like she may change her mind, so he grabs her wrist and nods for her to continue. He wants her to keep going.
He tilts his head back and she leans in, her breath hot on his neck as she concentrates on the more sensitive parts of his throat. She works the blade slowly and gently, rubbing her thumb over the newly smooth skin. Before he’s ready, she scrapes the last of the hair and wipes at him gently with the cloth she had slung over her shoulder. She brushes it along his neck, his cheeks, his lips. His hands of begun to idly slide up her thighs, gripping her through her pants and rubbing circles into the flesh.
It’s funny how he could only know her for such a short amount of time, most of which they spent at odds, and yet still feel an unmistakable pull to her. Everything about her intrigues him, challenges him, moves him. His hands are on her waist now, digging into her hip bones and her eyes close at the touch. It’s too much, he thinks, it’s too soon to feel this way again. But she’s consuming him just like she always had and now that he has her back, now that she’s really here, he can’t find it in himself to pull away.
He leans up, bringing them closer together and leans his forehead against hers and they’re breathing each other in. They should talk, but talking almost seems inadequate. Her hands fall to his shoulders, they trace each plane of his arm like she’s trying to retrace every piece of him she could have forgotten in their time apart. As her hands fall, his rise, moving across her waist, her back, tangle in her hair. IT’s then he realizes he’s smiling, truly and genuinely smiling, and she’s smiling too. When her eyes open they’re full and he brushes a thumb along her cheek to wipe away the stray tear having fallen.
“You’re alive,” he whispers and it feels like the reunion they deserve. Uninterrupted. Personal. Intense.
“So are you,” she responds and suddenly the tension is too much. They aren’t close enough. She has to understand what it all means. What she means to him.
He brushes his lips against hers and it’s quick and soft. She stills and suddenly he thinks he may have misread her, may have gotten it all wrong. But then she chokes out a sob, one full of overwhelming joy and before he can react, she crushes her lips against his and her hands immediately tangle into his hair again holding him to her.
He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t ever dreamt about this moment. He had a million times, a million lifetimes ago. And he thought it would always remain a dream, that it would always be something he’d regret not doing before their time was up. But time has been forgiving. IT’s been a blessing. It’s been given back to them and he decides, right then as they pour everything into each other’s lips, that he won’t ever take it for granted.
