#justvisiting80

I accidentally wrote this before Ep. 305.

~ Jo.

It was mean. Mean and maybe a little spiteful and Bellamy hated himself for saying it, but he could not take it back so he pulled back instead, watching Clarke try not to let him see how much it hurt. How much he had hurt her.

"Never. Call me that. Again."

He relented then, but only because of the tears. She was not supposed to cry.

Greetings from the other side of the world!

Josephine here.

I have been nominated for several Bellarke Fanfic awards on Tumblr (bellarkefanfictionawards) and I am SO honored. I know I can't possibly win (voting ends on 6/30 and I am in China where I have limited access to social media, including NO access to Twitter, so I cannot possibly campaign for myself) but I am very happy to have been nominated. As a GIANT THANK YOU, I am putting this little one-shot out into the universe.

I love you all, and I would really REALLY REALLY love you to take the time to vote for me so I can at least make a bit of a decent showing? It would mean the world to me, and might even prove to my husband that I am at least not a terrible writer.

Feel free to link through to the original FFN post and see what else I’ve written, but I’m posting the complete one-shot here as well. MATURE CONTENT.

xoxo,

~ Jo.

*****

She does it fairly regularly, without him knowing. A quick detour whenever she happens to be passing through the area, an hour or two (at most) spent lounging in a tree near the entrance of Camp Jaha. She tells herself she is checking on everyone. "Herself" knows that this is bullshit. "Herself" feels the sudden change in heart rate when Bellamy is visible, hears the whispered echo of their last words to each other, "herself" is too wise to let Clarke get away with the lie much longer.

Which is how Clarke ends up following him one day when he sets off from camp without a backward glance or an explanation for Miller. Not that Miller asks for one, and Clarke suspects this is a habit of Bellamy's. She follows, curious.

His first stop is Mount Weather; it is sunset by the time he arrives. Clarke almost reveals herself when she realizes Bellamy is collecting wildflowers to leave by the main door, but he is crying and she cannot bear to interrupt such a personal moment.

He leaves by a familiar route, and Clarke smiles to herself because, yes, the Dropship is a haunt of hers as well. They stop to rest at the midpoint, and in the morning there is a moment when Clarke forgets to be careful and Bellamy freezes, head cocked, alert for further evidence he is not alone in the woods. Clarke dares not breathe; for some reason she cannot explain, it is vital to her that Bellamy be allowed to fulfill this ritual of his uninterrupted.

It is a good plan, except that when they near the debris of the Dropship camp's outer wall Bellamy stops again. "It's okay, Clarke. I won't tell the others you're here."

She steps out from behind a tree and suddenly – inexplicably – she is nervous of him. Not of him, really: of what he'll see when he looks at her, of what she might say to him after all this time… and something in her face must give her away because his demeanor changes. He looks at her the way Grounders look at their untrained horses. It is cautious, hopeful, but free of any real expectation.

She can't even bring herself to speak. After so many glimpses of him from afar, Clarke is stunned to find that what she has truly ached for is the chance to touch him. She moves a bit closer. His eyes rake over her and maybe he is just taking a quick inventory but it does not feel like that, it feels like she might as well have been naked when he did that because her whole body hums with a need she's struggled to suppress for far too long.

A few steps closer, but it is Bellamy who moves this time. Close enough that she can smell him, smell the way the forest has wrapped itself around him and sunk into his pores. She closes her eyes because this is too real, she is too present, and after months of avoiding all contact with others he is too alive.

She can sense the desire on his part, too, and the uncertainty. What are the rules here? Are they allowed now, finally, to admit things are so much more complicated than either of them had ever anticipated?

"Your hair's longer." Bellamy's words are a kind of permission. Clarke opens her eyes once more and he is so close how could she not reach for him? How could she be expected not to touch his cheek, rest her hand on his shoulder, step forward those last few inches? He freezes under her fingertips. He wraps her hand in his, refuses to break eye contact, and Clarke swallows back dread at the thought of him turning away from this moment.

Because it is a Moment. The kind that has to change everything, no matter what, because it demands a decision from which neither will be able to return.

So when he sighs as if he's given up, and drags her hand forward to press a kiss against the palm, Clarke shudders with the weight of this confession. It would almost have been easier if he rejected her. More painful, but easier to move on. This, though… she must be honest. This is why she returned to watch, again and again. This is why she still has not spoken. Why she has not pulled her hand free of his… because like him, she has given up the fight.

Eventually they drift toward the Dropship, her hand still in his possession. Clarke knows there is a makeshift bed inside, against one wall – she has slept here a few times – but is surprised to see Bellamy is just as comfortable in the space as she. It occurs to her they may have missed each other by only a day or two in visits past.

Bellamy reaches up, tucks a strand of loose hair behind her ear, and Clarke cannot focus on the past any more because Bellamy is here now. Has made his choice. She takes her time – difficult, she trembles with the effort such self-control demands – but running her fingers up his torso as she frees him from his dark t-shirt is the kind of feeling she wants to savor. He is healing in odd ways, certain wounds completely gone while others have left deep scars. He is as silent as she now, standing before her defenseless, and Clarke bends to kiss each scar. She can guess at the origin of most. Like her, he carries their people's recent history on his body. He is beautiful and proud and does not react until she touches one spot in particular, a line at his shoulder she cannot place. He looks away from her: this one does not belong to her. It came after she left. Clarke shrinks back slightly, feeling chastised.

But it is his turn, and when her torso is likewise bare Clarke's reaction is not nearly so stoic. Her skin flinches, puckers, shivers beneath his calloused hands and soft lips. He actively seeks out those fresher scars, the ones that were acquired after she fled… as though through them, he can learn who she has become in their time apart.

He starts at her waist, works his way up to her chin, and his thumb glides softly along her cheek. Collecting her tears. He leans in, slow and careful. Clarke's head aches, her eyes burn, her throat is tight with all the times she has imagined his mouth over hers.

And yet he hesitates.

She looks into his face for some clue as to why he has paused. Bellamy stares back defiantly, but she sees the truth anyway. She knows those eyes too well not to see his fear in their inky depths. Clarke has hurt him, over and over again she has hurt him, and suddenly the world is flipped upside down and he is the wild horse, ready to bolt at the first sign of danger.

Clarke does not allow another minute for thought. She presses into him, chest to chest, nose against nose, mouth finding mouth. Her motive is simply this: to make him feel better. To make him feel whole, to make him aware of just how much of her world he inhabits.

Because for her, he is everywhere.

And so she pours it all into the kiss, trying with her body, her hands, her lips and tongue to draw for him a picture of a universe in which his eyes crowd out the stars, a dappled forest floor swims with his footsteps, clouds cannot compete with his hair, and the sun is bitter over the beauty of his smile.

…

She can feel him shift, relax, give back… Clarke moans with the discovery of all he has to offer. There ought to be a way to control the flood but none exists and she feels weak in the face of his reaction. Bellamy's mouth softens with desire one moment, is hard and angry and heavy the next. Clarke needs both sides of him, though. She wants this, including the brutal honesty because it is where they are best together.

There is no chance to recover – neither can bear the idea of breaking this contact – so they fall against the wall still tangled into one another, cold metal burning hot skin, and sink to the floor beside the bed. Clarke whimpers into Bellamy's mouth. It is next to terrifying, close to shocking the way he responds as if he had been waiting for just such a cue from her. He drags himself from the kiss and Clarke has barely enough time to wonder why the sudden absence of contact before a tug at the waist of her pants leaves her stripped, completely naked; she should hate this, this bare defenselessness, but it is Bellamy and he has already been a part of her for so long Clarke simply closes her eyes again. No human has ever trusted another the way she trusts this man.

It feels like he is painting the wind into her flesh, his hands traversing every dip and swell, and Clarke longs to feel his body beneath her fingertips the same way. She manages to free him from the last of his clothes and has to remind herself to breathe because the beauty of him hurts. The valley of his spine, the rise and fall and power of each muscle, Clarke is overwhelmed.

He moves to sit between her legs, knees pressing into the backs of her thighs as his fingers travel up, up, up. Her body is already on fire; when he parts her and his hands explore, test, tease her, it is hard not to cry out. When he buries his face in the V at the apex of her thighs, when his mouth opens to taste her and his fingers bite into the flesh at her hips, dragging her closer, Clarke gasps and her hips curl up to meet him of their own volition.

This should not be possible. He should not be able to possess her heart, kiss her with his whole soul, and make her come against his mouth so easily. But a wave of white heat courses through her, then another, and another, and Clarke shudders at the sorrow of such a sudden response. It is over far too quickly.

Bellamy shifts forward until his face hovers above one round breast. He runs the tip of his tongue lightly over her nipple; it sends electricity pouring over her skin. He kisses her, rough and fast, and enters her at the same time and she sees black punctuated by red bursts of pleasure at the friction of flesh against flesh, at every second of fullness.

With her hands clawing through his curls, scratching down the back of his neck, across his shoulders, Clarke tries desperately to wait for him. She needs his release now more than her own. In all this time she still has not spoken – but as it becomes impossible to control her reaction to him, Clarke opens her mouth and gasps a single word.

A name.

Her universe.

"Bellamy…" He sighs and growls and she can tell, instantly she can tell because he shudders within her and over her and because her own body can bear it no longer; the world shrinks down until it is smaller than her navel, and settles somewhere deep in the cradle of her hips before exploding back outward again and taking her soul with it.

In the warm silence that follows, Clarke relishes the weight of Bellamy on her chest. She knows she cannot, but entertains the fantasy nonetheless, of staying here with him. Or running away with him. Anything to extend this simple bliss.

"Took you long enough," Chick's drawling baritone seemed too close in the darkness, and Dylan froze with one foot on the wooden porch of the farmhouse. Fuck.

"Chick. You're here."

Chick appeared around the corner, scary and slow. "Of course I'm here, Dylan. You know what's not here though? My money. – Hey, no you don't…" Chick jumped onto the porch with surprising agility, cutting off Dylan's path to the door. "No need to rush in there and check on your little houseboy. Gunner's just fine, and he'll stay just fine long enough for you and me to enjoy a nice heart-to-heart."

Dylan glared. Adrenaline poured through his veins, setting his muscles on fire.

"Caleb owes me fifty thousand dollars, kid. I'd love to say my beef's with him, and him alone… but he's not here. So. Sins of the father, and all that." Chick shrugged. It was like watching a mountain shrug. A mountain with a shotgun.

"I can't help you, Chick." Dylan licked his lips quickly, thinking. "Caleb… Caleb took off without telling me anything. I don't know where he went, okay?"

Chick laughed and wandered proprietarily over to an Adirondack chair at the edge of the porch. It looked older than the house itself and when he sat down, the worn boards groaned in protest. Dylan cursed himself for leaving his handgun in the pickup truck; for the first time in days, he remembered how oddly comforting he'd found Caleb's presence. It had been a long time since he had felt this naked and alone. The vulnerability gnawed at him.

"Oh, Dylan. Dylan, don't fuck with me. I know you're smart, and I know you were the one looking for easy money. There's no way your father conned you out of all that cash. So give me what's mine, and we can get back to the business of being neighbors."

"I d– look, I don't have your money, okay?" Dylan spread his hands out, palms up. "I just... don't."

"That's bad news," Chick said, nodding. "And here's my current problem with that answer. See, I'm getting my fifty grand back no matter what. Now, I can't exactly threaten you, because I need you to make it happen. But I can threaten the people you care about. I hate to do it; it's fucking messy when things get to this point. But you've left me no choice, Dylan."

She shouldn't have been the first person he thought of. He should have thought of his mother, his brother, even Gunner, before Emma Decody's broad easy smile and soulful eyes… but there she was. Never mind that Chick had no idea who she was, or that she had crept into Dylan's world so quietly it scared him. Dylan choked slightly on the idea of his neighbor touching her, ever.

"I'm not trying to cheat you, Chick. How can I make you believe me? If I had your money, I'd sure as hell give it back to you."

Chick stroked his rough golden beard. He stared at Dylan, still, silent, and the younger man grew restless under the scrutiny. "You'll get it to me. I have faith in you. And you know what? I'll even give you time. Because I am nothing if not a generous neighbor." Chick stood and nodded cordially, then stepped down from the porch. "Don't be a disappointment, Dylan. I'll give you one month, but that's it. My generosity has a limit."

As soon as those broad shoulders and long hair had faded into the shadows of the woods, Dylan rushed inside the house to find Gunner. The teen was sprawled on his cot in one corner of the bare main room, already snoring, a half-melted bag of ice on the floor beside him. Besides a face full of colorful bruises and a healthy dose of blood staining the front of his shirt, he seemed fine. Dylan sighed, relieved and annoyed in equal measure. He cleaned up the ice before grabbing a beer and heading back outside. He skipped the chairs, grabbing a seat on the edge of the porch and leaning into a wooden post for support.

Tonight the bay was almost still, but not quite: the moon, a warm orb high in the sky, fractured into a million shards of cold light wherever it touched the water. It danced over the crest of each delicate ripple teased into being by a shy breeze. Despite a day that seemed to have lasted years, Dylan let his head fall back against the pillar and gave himself over to the scene. The smell of pine trees and saltwater and dirt. He sipped at his beer and thought about her.

"Emma?"

It wasn't the voice she had been hoping to hear, but she was glad to see Norman at the foot of her hospital bed anyway. She smiled and thanked him for the bouquet of artificial gerbera daisies – velvet oranges and yellows, a bright handful of sun – just as Dylan entered. He hung back, letting the friends have their space.

"I think they keep vases in that cupboard," Emma volunteered, pointing Norman in the right direction. "I saw somebody pull one out yesterday." She winked at Dylan conspiratorially, but he was staring in resentment at his brother's thoughtful gift.

"Emma, you look tired," Norman continued as he arranged the bouquet. "Are people wearing you out? Maybe we should ask them to limit her visiting hours," he suggested to Dylan.

"The hospital can make that decision."

"How? A hospital isn't a person, it's a building. Inanimate objects can't make decisions." Despite the chill between the brothers, Emma snorted at Norman's snarky response. "Besides, Emma needs more rest than most people."

"I think that's up to her doctors," Dylan assured him. "They're the experts, I'm sure they know what they're doing."

"But they don't know Emma," Norman insisted. "She always pushes the limits of what's safe. That's how she got so sick in the first place!"

Dylan paused at that, guilt darkening his eyes.

"Hey, boys?" Emma's quiet voice pulled the men's focus back to her. "I happen to think the only one who knows how I actually feel… is me. Thank you for the concern, but when I get tired, I'll tell you."

"I'm so sorry," Norman shifted to the chair at her bedside, contrition pouring from his skin. "We should know better than to argue like this while you're still recovering." He glared at Dylan. "It's only because we're worried about you. Because we care about you."

Emma swallowed and refused to look at either of her visitors. Even without the earlier warning from Dylan, this overly attentive reaction on Norman's part would have been enough to discourage any admission of her budding relationship with his older brother.

"So, uh… fewer tubes today," Dylan offered, desperate to change the subject. Emma bit back a laugh – under any other circumstances it would have been a terribly awkward transition, but at this point, she'd take it.

"Yeah, they've got me increasing my physical therapy. Apparently I'm a textbook case of a successful double transplant, so – " she broke off unexpectedly, tears robbing her of her voice, surprising her with their force.

Norman jumped up from the chair in search of tissues. Dylan crossed the room to her in three great strides, kneeling and grabbing her hand. They both looked so concerned, which made Emma feel worse.

"Can you – can – can you find my dad?" she asked through hot tears. Norman nodded and fled the room. Dylan wiped at her cheek, whispered nonsense at her, nonsense that made her feel better anyway.

Neither Dylan nor Emma had thought through what it meant to spend the day together like this, confined to a single room with little more than a television in the corner as potential distraction. They investigated the room's cupboards, Dylan pulling out angry-looking medical devices for which Emma invented horrific stories of torture. They napped. And they talked. It turned out there was a lot to be learned when the outside world was kept... well, outside.

Dylan, for example, learned he snored.

"Someone would have told me by now," he insisted when Emma accused him of it.

"Maybe they didn't want to hurt your feelings," she pointed out. "See, this is exactly why you should keep me around." He raised one eyebrow at her.

"You're right, my life is so much better with that brutal honesty of yours."

She blushed, and he cursed himself. She was in the fucking hospital for crying out loud. She didn't need to feel bad because of his shitty jokes.

"No, I – I didn't – that wasn't – it is better with you around, though."

"Shut up."

"Come on. You're the only one who gets my crazy family."

She grinned at that and he relaxed, but her good humor was short-lived. "I really hate being stuck here like this," she complained. "It's hard to be spontaneous when I have to ask you for help every time I want to kiss you."

"Oh… well, I guess I could, uh, spend the whole day hovering over you," Dylan teased softly, "You know, in case the mood strikes. Like this," and he leaned down until their faces were whisper-close. "Feeling more spontaneous now?" He searched her eyes, burning in his own skin when they closed and she rose to his mouth. He held back at first (their earlier kiss had been short, simple, and had still worn her out) but Emma's lips parted under his, and Dylan figured maybe he was an asshole after all – because she felt so good. Her tongue slipped over his temptingly, her hand drifted up to rest on his chest. Definitely-inappropriate ideas swam hazily through Dylan's brain as he traced the line of her arm up to her shoulder, as she opened to him more completely and he moved past her teeth into the dark warmth of her mouth, as he felt her fingers tighten and tangle into the fabric of his t-shirt.

"Emma…" He stopped not because he wanted to, but because her breathing had started to escalate. "I'm pretty sure this isn't what they mean by recovery."

"… Dammit."

Dylan moved from her side, taking a moment to calm down. "I really should get back to the motel at some point," he admitted from the doorway. Shifting the conversation toward his mother and brother worked better than any cold shower. He swallowed and said the words he'd been avoiding. "I know you and Norman are close. I'm sure he's worried about you."

Emma scratched at her collarbone where a strip of tape held her central line in place. "I don't know about that," she confessed. "He didn't seem very happy with the way we ended things."

It was such a simple sentence, and so quiet, but it ripped Dylan Massett's life in half.

There were unexpected visions of a future he hadn't really allowed before: of Emma, waking him up with a kiss in the little bed at the farm. Emma, holding his hand under the table at family dinners. Emma and her sunny goodness, beating back his nightmare past.

A chilling darkness swam under it all, though: Norman watching them from an inky black doorway, too still and calm. Norman, standing in a pool of dim light and soaked in deep red liquid, calmly assuring Dylan of his innocence. Norman and Norma and their toxic obsessions poisoning everything, even Emma, until she was lost forever.

"Hey, can I ask a favor?" He moved back to Emma's side and brushed his fingers along her chin. "Let's, uh, let's keep this between us for now. Okay? I know my brother. He cares about you, no matter what happened, and I – I just wouldn't want to hurt him," he lied. Well, a half-lie. He didn't want to hurt Norman… but right now he was far more worried about who Norman might hurt.

"Okay, sure. If that's what you want. But… my dad probably already knows. And that orderly who called you my boyfriend… and the nurse you kept glaring at for touching me…" Dylan laughed at her.

"Alright, I get it!" He stared at her in amused wonder. Bent, and kissed her as chastely as he could. "Just… not Norman. Please?"

"Not Norman."