Work Text:
If she had known she’d be this pressured to finish this project, she should not have put this off for so long. But here she is, feeling the ramifications of her procrastination as she sits cross-legged on her bed, scrolling through her contacts and trying to think of a person to call and convince to be her canvas. Nobody’s home – Octavia’s somewhere training with her Kendo class, Raven’s in… somewhere – you know what, Clarke thinks they’re only somewhere because they’re the reason she put this direly important project off and they don’t want to be her subject – which, rude.
She was about done scrolling through her phone contacts, ready to give up and just coax anybody from the school grounds when the door to her apartment opens abruptly (and all too forcefully, she knows only one person who does that).
She lifts her gaze, and her eyes must be too bright because he looks a mix of surprised and extremely surprised. She doesn’t care, really.
“Bellamy!” she exclaims, maybe too enthusiastically, and the jump of his shoulders must be because she has never in her entire existence ever addressed him with more than disdain and disgust.
“Clarke!” he exclaims just as loud, maybe a little mockingly but more astonishingly.
She wants to send him a glare, really, because that’s the natural response to his assholery, but she has a more pressing matter to solve and he has just come in time to be her saving grace. She has to be nice. So she gently (it is gentle) grabs at his muscled arm and pulls him to sit on her bed. He must have been really shocked because he isn’t doing anything to fight her, other than a really quiet grunt when she pushed him down on her bed.
“I was just here –
She shushes him, standing in front of him with her face scrunched up in concentration. She already has an idea as to what she would do if her subject were Octavia (a palette of the shades of red for her fair skin) or Raven (gold and yellow for her bronze tone), but since it’s Bellamy Blake, he of golden skin that reminds her so much of the contours of The Thinker, it’s another canvas.
She inhales and makes up her mind. “Take off your shirt.”
“Clarke, what –
She shakes her head, “I need this for my major. I have to abstract on somebody’s skin using a palette according to their skin tone – it’s just I’m in a rush and you’re – here.”
He shakes his head, too, his brows furrowing. “I don’t have time for this, Clarke. I only came here because Octavia told me there’s an emergency.”
He makes to get up but Clarke steps directly in front of him, making the only option to get out of the measly apartment to push her and he’s not that low to assault a tiny human being.
“I’m sorry,” she squeaks, her usual bravado diminishing the moment she realized that he can easily lift her up and away from his path and totally just be done with her and – oh God, she needs him. It, the grade, she needs the grade. “I’m sorry, Bellamy, I just – I really need this. I’m desperate, it’s an important major and the professor is a stuck-up old lady with an unhealthy favoritism to male students.”
His mouth downturns into a frown, his eyes narrowing and piercing into hers, and usually she would return the glare, but she needs to make this work so she shoots him her best pleading eyes. She watches with a vague curiosity the way his gaze softened for a moment before hardening back. “Why don’t you ask someone else?” he asks gruffly.
“I don’t have much time,” she replies. “… and here I thought you’d like me to owe you one.”
His lips twitch, as if he finds her begging amusing. But both of them can’t deny the allure of having one of them owe the other of something. She stares at him until his smirk comes full force, and then there she knows she got him.
That’s how Clarke Griffin got Bellamy Blake shirtless, sitting near the window of her apartment, smearing his back with her fingers full of vibrant acrylic. She’s thankful that he’s said nothing throughout most of this project, other than the occasional grunt when she accidentally pressed on one of his ticklish spots (and the one time she did it on purpose – but nobody needs to know about that).
It’s towards the end when she hears it.
The thing is she’s done her abstract, taken numerous photographs of it – his back – and is wiping the paint from his skin when she digs her fingers to his lower back to get an errant streak of white off when she caught it.
His moan.
A string of breath and a sharp intake of it, followed by an almost inaudible hiss.
She pauses, and then palms his face so that she can turn his head to look at her. “What’s the matter? Did it sting?”
It may be a little too late when she notices just how close they actually are, and that her hand is on his warm cheek, and that his eyes have dropped to her lips, but when she finally recognizes their proximity, he is already shaking his head.
“It’s nothing,” he says, his voice a little rougher than usual. A little lower. “Are you done?”
She blinks away the haze that has fogged her brain, and straightening up. “Not yet, there’s still a little of it left.”
He huffs and turns away once more from her. “Hurry up. You know I only came here because Octavia said there’s an emergency.”
“She’s not wrong,” Clarke mutters as she runs the cloth to his side. “She was the one who dragged me to that frat party yesterday.”
“You still went,” he says, his voice softer than she’s ever heard before.
She clears her throat. “I had to. You know how she is.”
“Yeah,” he replies quietly, and Clarke knows he’s thinking about what would have happened had she not been there to look out for her best friend. Sure, Octavia is a strong girl, maybe much stronger than she ever was, but she had just come from a nasty break up from a nasty guy and Clarke and Bellamy both know how she really is going to be when she refuses to show signs of emotions afterwards.
She finishes in silence, examining his back once more and making a quick note of how some places are red because some parts are harder to erase than the others.
“It’s done.”
He stands, but doesn’t turn to look at her. “Thank you,” he says, and it got her wondering.
“No, thank you,” she says, taking a step towards his bare back, now genuinely curious.
“Not for – this,” he replies, and there’s an odd tenderness to his voice that would have gone unnoticed had Clarke not been so attuned to his voice. “For Octavia… for everything.”
He turns then, snatches his shirt that has somehow landed on top of her bed and makes short, stuttering steps towards the door. He shuffles when he gets there, door on the handle and everything, and it will make Clarke laugh if it weren’t making her stupidly morbidly curious more.
“Bellamy, what – okay, I get it, I owe you one,” she blurts, because maybe, just maybe, he’s trying to remind her of her debt. “Anytime, anywhere, anything, okay?”
He faces her once more, his eyes conflicted. He’s biting his lip, as if he’s trying to restrain himself from saying… something. Well, she can focus on that maybe a little bit more if he puts on his shirt because if his bare back was distracting enough, his bare chest is something else.
She knows she’s been staring for more than long enough when she notices that he’s moved from his place near the door to the spot right in front of her, his skin emanating a kind of warmth that’s hard to ignore.
“Clarke,” he mutters, her name a whisper from his lips, and then he starts leaning in, freezing Clarke in place. A strong shudder wracks her body, swaying her towards his space as if they’re magnetic. His eyes drop to her mouth, his own lips parting ever so slightly. Invitingly.
She nods, but she doesn’t know if he caught it because he’s already closing the remaining distance between them, and kissing her. This kiss, though, makes her heart race for one very particular reason (excluding the mere reason that it’s Bellamy); this kiss is careful, and soft, and warm. Despite the flames coursing underneath her skin, what she feels in her chest is light and fluttery.
She finds that her hands have slid up his chest, the skin underneath her fingertips just as warm as her own. The other one has carded through his hair, the other one splayed across the side of his neck. He makes this soft groan at the back of his throat, and it makes her grip on his unbelievably wild hair tighten. His hands have found purchase on the dip of her waist, squeezing, making her squirm. She retaliates with dragging her hand around his lower back and pressing her fingertips against the ridge of his spine.
She hears it again.
This time, louder.
He moans into her mouth, loud and apparently unwarranted, because he pulls away abruptly and buries his face against her neck, breathing hard and harsh.
“I… hate you,” he murmurs against her skin, earning a quiet giggle from her.
“No, you don’t,” she replies, stroking his hair with the hand that’s still threaded through.
He grunts. “No, I don’t.”
“Then what was that for?” she asks, only now feeling the warmth on her cheeks and the wild pumping of her heart.
He lifts his head and looks her in the eye, his expression already serious. “Thank you.”
She furrows her brow at that. “You already said that.”
“Yeah well,” a big goofy smile breaks on his face, making her eyelids flutter at the change of demeanor. It’s not that she hasn’t been subjected to his mood swings before, but this one is decidedly very different. “I also… I want to ask you out.”
“Oh,” she voices out. “That.”
“If you want to, of course,” he breathes, all the cockiness and confidence suddenly gone. She takes a moment to relish in this very rare moment before making up her mind. After all, she’s not that cruel.
She gives him a smile and nods.
The way he kisses her again makes her want to skip that date and discover what else he can do.
Coda:
Later (much, much later) they both find out that the emergency Octavia called her brother for is exactly that.