Work Text:
Big.
Bellamy Blake is big.
Big. Not in that way, although yes, actually also that way, as she’d drunkenly confessed to Raven one night after too many cocktails. Poor Raven has never been able to look Bellamy in the eye since, seemingly unable to stop her gaze from steadily tracking downwards, cheeks flaring red as if she knows exactly what she’s doing but can’t stop herself. Bellamy plays into it, the bastard, standing there with cocked hips and a wicked glint in his eye, smile getting wider the more flustered Raven gets, until eventually Clarke has to drag him away.
Big. And not just in the way that people think, although yeah, Bellamy is the largest guy she’s ever dated. She’s surprised how much she likes it, the comforting bulk of his body and his strong arms, the soft curve of his tummy pressing against her back when he spoons her, the two of them snuggled tight together in the rickety wooden bed that he built himself, using wood that he cut himself, because of course he did. Bell’s just so solidly present, so undeniably there in a way that encourages her to be there too, settled into her own body in a way that she’s never been before, none of the creeping anxiety that used to curl around the edges of her stomach when she was with her previous partners.
Big. Clarke likes to wear his shirts, likes the comforting drape of flannel across her bare thighs, folding and double folding the sleeves up around her elbows so that she can paint without worrying about staining the fabric. Steals them right off his body when he gets back from work, still warm from his skin, smelling like him, that sweet wood-pine smell like he carries the forest with him wherever he goes. She pretends not to notice how hot it gets him, goes about her business like she can’t see the steadily growing desire in his eyes, brushing off his advances until Bellamy’s forced to hoist her over his shoulder and carry her off to bed. Or the couch. Or, on one memorable occasion, the kitchen counter.
Big. How he thinks, how he views the world, how he fills up the room with his loud laugh, his gentle presence. The way he feels things, enthusiastic and unashamed, open in a way that Clarke has never experienced before, didn’t realise was missing from her life until she saw it. He break up bar fights, smokes his own meat and builds his own furniture, writes shockingly bad rambling poetry and journals every day in a battered leather notebook that he keeps tucked under the couch. When they fostered their rescue pups, he got up every two hours to feed them milk with a dropper, carefully coaxing them through every meal, endlessly patient, never frustrated. Every time she thinks that she knows everything about him, there’s always something else to discover, a new side to him that she’s never experienced before but that somehow makes perfect sense, providing new context to the whole.
Big. The way Bellamy loves her, easy and unconditional, everything suddenly so simple after years of bad dates and unanswered phone calls, ‘avoiding labels’ and endlessly swiping left. The first time he kissed her, rough palm cautiously cupping her cheek, barely even touching her, the only time she’s ever seen him nervous, her heart growing three sizes bigger at the sight of him. They got together so easily that it almost felt like an accident, Clarke waking up one morning to realise that she hadn’t been home for weeks, all her stuff already hanging in his closet, two lives drawing together like opposing magnets.
Big. Clarke feels like she breathes easier since she met him, great big lungfuls of air instead of the little gasping breaths she didn’t even realise that she’d been taking before. The world is less scary now, less overwhelming now that she has a place in it, a fixed point that she can always return to, her internal compass set for life. She lets herself take up more space in the room, more time in the conversation. All the big stuff - love, happiness, commitment - seems smaller, easier to handle somehow, if she’s doing it with him.
Big. Maybe she can be big now, too.