#crowsfan

“Nate, what are you–” she hears Monty say, and then, “Shit, is that–”

“You want to get Clarke,” says Miller, shifting her off his back and onto one of the cots in the hospital. “And then probably leave. That’s what I’m doing.”

“Thanks, asshole,” she mutters, wincing and trying not to. Fuck, it hurts. Maybe Clarke will knock her out for the stitches. That would be something. “What if he needs another pair of hands? You’re going to let me bleed to death to avoid an awkward situation?”

“You told me not to tell Clarke, so you were going to bleed to death to avoid an awkward situation,” Miller retorts, not unreasonably. “Don’t die on me, Bellamy.”

“You wish,” she shoots back, and closes her eyes to wait for Clarke.

She feels his hands first, strong and firm, almost as familiar as her own. Bellamy’s hands are one huge callus, from a lifetime of sewing and working, but Clarke’s are different, mostly soft, with tough patches where he holds pencils or needles. Familiar hands. Bellamy would recognize them in the dark. She’d recognize them anywhere.

“If you just let me die, you don’t have to threaten to kill me,” she points out.

She hears Clarke’s sigh. “What happened?”

“Panther. Miller killed it.”

“Great. Does that mean we have to eat panther meat again?”

“Sorry, is panther meat not good enough for you, your highness?”

“Panther meat is disgusting, Bellamy,” he says, all patience, but there’s a waver in his voice. “I’m cutting your shirt off.”

“Buy a girl a drink first.”

“I’m going to sew your mouth shut too.”

“That’s why I get the drink first.”

She shivers a little as the cool air hits her bare skin, and then again as Clarke’s fingers trace the jagged edges of the wound. It’s a bad one, but it shouldn’t be fatal. “Fuck, Bellamy,” he says. “You can’t do shit like this.”

“Shit like what? Get food?”

“Panthers aren’t even good food,” he grumbles. “This is going to sting.”

“I know,” she says, but she still hisses. She always hisses. It’s tradition. “You don’t have to eat the panther,” she adds, magnanimous, when she’s recovered.

“Please tell me you weren’t actually hunting it.”

“I wasn’t actually hunting it. We were hunting the same deer it was and it decided to take a swipe at me.”

“Good.” There’s a pause, and then he says, “You’re just being dramatic, right? You don’t actually want me to let you bleed out.”

“Depends on how pissed you are.”

He sighs. “I don’t actually mind if you’re not being needlessly reckless.”

Garden-variety heroics, she thinks, and winces.

“Don’t do that,” he snaps. “I’m about to do stitches.”

“You’re not even going to knock me out?”

“We’ve survived worse,” says Clarke, and it’s not like she can argue with that.

He gives her something to bite down on, and she still passes out halfway through.

One of her better visits to medical, honestly.

*

Clarke’s still by her side when she wakes up, but he’s asleep now, head slumped onto his chest, shaggy hair tumbling into his eyes. It’s getting a little long, and Bellamy wonders if he’d let her cut it. His hair looks so silly when it gets to be this length; no one would ever take him seriously.

Her fingers still itch to weave into it.

Being in love with Clarke isn’t hard. She remembers him on the Ark, for all he’s younger than she is, him and Wells, princes of Alpha Station, making all the girls melt with their smiles. Bellamy’s never been like that, less because she’s immune to a handsome boy or pretty girl with a nice smile and more because she was always too busy with her sister to deal with that.

Besides, she knows implants can fail all too well. She couldn’t think of anything more terrifying than pregnancy.

Clarke’s left hand is laced into her right one, so she squeezes until he stirs up, enjoys the second of confusion, followed by realization and panic as he remembers what happened.

“How are you feeling?”

“Like a panther ripped my side open.”

He rolls his eyes. “A panther did rip your side open.”

He’s just wearing a thin white t-shirt, she realizes suddenly, and isn’t surprised when she looks down to see he’s draped his jacket over her.

“That explains it,” she says. “Can I go?”

“Can you stand?”

“Good question.”

Between the two of them, they get her vertical, but she’s leaning on him pretty hard. She’s pretty sure she lost a decent amount of blood on the way back.

“So, sleepover,” Clarke says, too casual. It’s nothing they haven’t done before–they both have nightmares–but every time she feels like she’s getting away with something, taking advantage somehow.

“Your hair’s almost long enough to braid,” she says.

“Seriously, I’m taking you back to the cabin and picking you up some food. You lost a lot of blood.”

“I noticed.”

She doesn’t protest further, though, leans on Clarke all the way back to their shared cabin. They have two separate rooms in there, but Clarke takes her directly into his, helps her get herself propped up on some pillows with a book.

“I could get used to this,” she teases, and Clarke rolls his eyes.

“You don’t have to get gutted for me to be nice to you,” he says. “I’d do it more if I thought you’d let me.”

She doesn’t have a good answer to that, so it’s just as well Clarke leaves without waiting for one. Bellamy doesn’t bother opening the book, just leans back, closes her eyes. They’ve had a rough first year down here, lost a lot of people. She doesn’t regret striking off on their own after they dealt with the nuclear fallout, but it made things harder again.

This is their own place, though. This is a home. And it doesn’t have everyone she loves, but–it has enough.

“I brought moonshine too,” Clarke says. He has two plates and a bottle, and he settles in next to her, close and warm all up her side. “In case you need to drink the pain away.”

“That’s you,” she says. “I was just going to ignore it and hope it went away.”

“Seriously, how are you feeling?”

“I’m going to survive.”

“Good.” They eat in silent for a few minutes, but apparently he can’t keep quiet. “You scared the shit out of me. When Monty said you were hurt–fuck, Bellamy.”

“It’s not like it’s the first time.”

He snorts. “You always know just what to say.”

“I wasn’t doing it on purpose.”

“I know.” He lets out a breath, leans his head on hers. “Every time you come back half dead, I hope it’s going to be the last time.”

“I could say the same thing about you.”

“I don’t go out hunting as much anymore. And I’m the doctor. It’s not your job to keep me alive.”

It’s one of the stupidest things he’s ever said in her memory. “Of course it is.”

“Yeah. But–” He sighs again. “Seriously. I just want us to be done with–”

“Every day being a fight?”

His pause is deliberate, but finally he says, “I want to stop worrying I’m going to lose you when I’ve never even had you.”

It doesn’t have to mean what she wants it to mean, but she’s honestly not sure what else he might be going for. Clarke Griffin is confessing his love, and all she had to do was get torn open by a panther.

“You have me, Clarke,” she says. “You’ve always had me.”

“Yeah?” he asks. “Then this is really stupid.”

He leans in and Bellamy scrambles to get the plates out of the way so they won’t spill the remains of dinner on themselves. Clarke doesn’t remember stuff like this; he’s big-picture. Bellamy’s better with the details.

Clarke’s smiling when the kiss lands, and Bellamy tugs him in, threading her fingers in his slightly shaggy hair, opening her mouth at the first hint of tongue, so Clarke won’t think shes not willing and eager. It’s hot and wet and perfect, everything she’s been wanting for months, everything she wasn’t sure she’d get either.

Then his hand slides up her slide, under his jacket, and she realizes a second before he hits her stitches what’s going to happen.

“Shit,” he mutters. “You’re hurt.”

“I bet we could be really careful,” she says, and Clarke’s smile is warm.

“I bet we could wait another day.”

“You were the one who said you were worried I’d die before we had sex.”

“That’s not what I was worried about.” He kisses her again. “I’m not clearing you to go back out for a couple of days, but if you don’t try to climb on top of my dick tonight, I’ll think about clearing you for sex tomorrow.”

“You’re the one who kissed me, you know,” she grumbles. “I’m getting some mixed signals, your highness.”

“I love you,” he says. “Don’t open up your stitches.”

*

She makes it to the mess hall for dinner the next day, feeling surprisingly warm and fuzzy and happy for someone who got attacked by a wild cat the previous day. Orgasms really do do wonders for morale.

Miller looks her up and down and snorts. “So, Clarke didn’t kill you for nearly dying on him?”

“Not yet,” she says, and steals a piece of–non-panther–meat off his plate. “I’ll keep you posted.”

Clarke joins them a minute later with his own tray, sitting even closer to Bellamy than he usually does and looking thoroughly pleased with himself. Bellamy’s hoping her own expression isn’t that goofy, but she’s not very optimistic.

Miller rolls his eyes. “I think you’re safe, Blake.”