June 4: Bellamy/Wells, Clarke, Homecoming II

[kinetic_elaboration]

More of this.

930 words, 23 minutes

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“Yeah,” she mumbles against his shoulder. “I’m back.” Her lips are pressed so hard against his shirt that her teeth are cutting into the soft, red skin on the inside of her mouth. The best injury she’s had in months. She grabs on to him tighter, like she’s trying to melt entirely into him.

When he starts to pull back, she won’t let him, so they stumble, still awkwardly entangled, to the little couch against the wall. Then she’s sitting down next to him and his hands are sliding away down her shoulders and he’s holding her hands. Bellamy, she notices out of the corner of her eye, is still standing adrift in the middle of the room. He’s watching her warily. But for now she ignores him.

 

“Tell me everything,” Wells is saying. And it’s the tone and the words of his younger self, echoing: tell me what happened on your test, tell me what happened when you got home last night, tell me about that guy you like—before that kind of thing became awkward. His best friend voice. God. She’s missed her best friend so much, it’s like she hasn’t breathed in a full breath since she’s been away from him.

Tell me everything.

Her lungs are shaky. When she tries to lift her hand to push back her hair, she finds it’s shaking too. 

Wells, as observant and as kind and as gentle as ever, notices too, tucks her hair behind her ear for her and then grabs her hands so tight that they finally still.

“I—don’t know what to tell.”

“Why are you back?” Bellamy snaps. A rough interrogation, not suited to the scene. Wells glares up at him. “You know there’s a bounty on your head.”

“Are you saying I should leave?” She looks up at him, eyes narrow and sharp. “Having a fugitive in your camp is too dangerous?”

His nostrils flare. He takes a step forward, like he wants to fight her. This, too, another aspect of what was never physical between them. Every time his hand was on her it was gentle, and meaningful, and felt half-forbidden and so charged it felt like electricity. So charged she understood what electricity meant in an entirely different way.

“We looked for you, you know. It was becoming pretty obvious that you didn’t want to be found.”

“It’s a big woods out there.”

As in: you didn’t look hard enough. Bellamy makes another short, abortive gesture to come closer and Wells says his name as a sharp, quick sort of threat. 

The silence after stretches long enough that she feels the taut energy of exploration, deception, homecoming, accusation, all leave her at once, so that she’s boneless and weak, and she knows they both see it. She tries to keep her shoulders up. “I never meant to stay away forever, really,” she admits. She had no plan at all. She didn’t mean anything. If she’s being quite honest with herself.

“Sure seemed like you did.” Less angry now, Bellamy’s voice a gruff, thrumming chord. Low with regret.

“I just—couldn’t. I know you don’t understand that.”

She looks up at him, catches his gaze, the soft brown of his eyes and the expression around them, also soft, becoming softer. Like he can’t prop himself up anymore either. It’s just too late.

“Hey, this is—maybe a bad time for this conversation,” Wells says, all diplomacy and tact. His hands are still in hers and he squeezes hard, just once. “We were just going to bed, anyway.”

Not entirely true and she knows it, knows they’re aware, too. But Bellamy just shrugs, a tight, short gesture. “Right. We were going to bed.”

Clarke starts to stand, makes a reference to going back to the infirmary, but Wells pulls her down again, seeing how she immediately sways on her feet. “You can stay here,” he says. Then, a little softer, “You should stay here.”

“My mom will wonder where I am in the morning.” A half-hearted argument.

“Then you shouldn’t have wandered off in the middle of the night,” Bellamy answers. He pulls one of the pillows off the bed and tosses it to her. “You can take the couch." 

Now he won’t look at her. And he won’t really look at Wells either. Clarke hugs the pillow against her chest. "Thanks.”

Wells rubs her back slowly. “I’m glad you’re back,” he says, low, maybe even too quiet for Bellamy to hear. He’s on the other side of the room by now, taking off his Guard jacket, getting ready for bed. 

“I missed you,” she answers. It’s the smallest, truest thing she can say. Words she could fit in her pocket, take with her from one end to the other of the Earth. He hugs her again and she almost can’t let go. Then he’s standing up. And she has to watch him walk over to the bed, which she understands all over again that they really do share, rub his hand up and down Bellamy’s arm like they don’t even need words between them anymore, and she doesn’t doubt he missed her deeply but there’s still a hollow carved out of their friendship now: all these things she doesn’t know about him.

She takes off her shoes and stores them under the couch. Then she lies down facing away from the door, inwards with her face pressed against the pillow that smells like Bellamy, so she doesn’t see them lie down next to each other or when Wells turns off the last of the lights.