Work Text:
Earth witches were not meant for space. They were too far from the air and earth and water that nourished their magic cores, too far away to let the magic flow freely down their fingers and paint the world in sparks. Their power was stagnant, quiet, barely a whisper beneath their skin, and what magic they could control was exploited by the Council.
For the better of the Ark, they said, for the benefit of the people, they smiled widely, as the witches dwindled under the strain, their cores shrinking until there was not even a wisp of magic left in their bodies.
Clarke’s grandmother had been a witch, the only air one the Ark had seen so far. Clarke never knew her but from the stories her dad shared with her; she had always listened with rapture, awed and humbled by every feast she could do, envious of the power she could wield.
The reality of it, however, was far less magical and splendid that she thought it would be.
Her dad was dead for treason, the Ark was dying and Clarke’s magic was crawling like fire ants along her veins.
It was wrong, it was all wrong, she couldn’t – didn’t want to – be a witch. But something in her was breathing in beat with her heart and she knew, she knew what it meant when her hands started itching and her head started aching for keeping it in. It wasn’t normal for a witch to have so much power, not when so far away from Earth – she checked when she accidentally fried her tablet, her hands leaving melted imprints behind – but it didn’t matter because Clarke felt so full, like she could set the Ark on fire and still have power in her core left to burn.
She couldn’t control it, didn’t know how, but the magic wanted out and it was hard to keep it under wraps.
That was why she was hiding in one of the dark, deserted corridors of Arrow station, huddled against the cold wall and letting the unforgiving metal pull out the heat surging through her blood.
How many hours had it been since she had left a bewildered Wells behind, having ran out of the door when he made her laugh so hard her stomach hurt and her hands had started glowing? It didn’t matter, she decided, as her body started losing heat faster than it could create, her hands shaking where they were clutching at her shirt.
It didn’t matter because soon somebody would notice and then all her efforts would have been in vain. But if nothing else, Clarke was stubborn, and she was adamant to keep her powers to herself as long as possible.
So the cold it was then, even as her teeth chattered.
“Hey.” A flashlight was shone her way and Clarke blinked against the sudden light. “What are you doing here?”
The steps were heavy in the deserted corridor as the guard came closer. Nobody was supposed to find her here, nobody, let alone a guard – and her breathing stuttered, coming out harshly on the next exhale.
Clarke couldn’t see his face clearly in the darkness even as he kneeled gingerly in front of her, his movements slow, careful. His voice was low and soft and she had the unusual urge to throw her hands around his shoulders and bury her face into his neck, to forget the danger that she was in if only for a moment.
“What’s wrong?” He extended his arm to brush the sweaty blond tresses away from her face but Clarke flinched back, afraid of the warmth he could bring with his skin.
He paused and let his hand fall back down, close enough that she could reach for it if she wanted to and far enough that she didn’t feel crowded. Then, he sat on the floor and leaned the flashlight against the wall, the artificial light gleaming eerily.
“I’m Bellamy. Can you tell me your name?”
Clarke bit the inside of her cheek and shook her head. It was bad that he was an Ark guard, but it was even worse because the triple spiral embroidered on his left shoulder meant that he was on the Witch Duty team, the one responsible for finding new witches and bringing them in front the Council.
“Yeah?” He smiled despite her lack of answer. “What about your station?”
“Alpha.” She said at last and Bellamy nodded encouragingly.
“Pretty far from home.”
Clarke shrugged and looked down at her palms that had, at last, lost their unnatural glow.
“Want to talk about it?”
The words were on the tip of her tongue, ready to spill down her lips, to unload her fears and helplessness, to admit to needing help. But she didn’t know him and he was her enemy in a way, so Clarke pushed them back and lied instead.
“Just an argument with a friend.”
Bellamy hummed and leaned back on his arms, stretching his legs and nearly dislodging the flashlight in the process.
Clarke sneaked few glances his way, curious but wary. “What’re you doing?”
“Keeping you company.”
She rolled her eyes and he chuckled – the light must have been enough for him to see her face.
Clarke fidgeted, her butt complaining about the cold, hard floor but her magic had gone quiet beneath her skin and she relaxed a fraction. Her control was shaky at best but at least low temperatures and dark corners seemed to help.
“There’s no need.” Mind made up, she stood up, swaying for a moment as the blood rushed into her legs, grimacing at the unpleasant feeling.
She took the moment to have a proper look at him – dark hair that was pushed back, strong jawline and a chin cleft, eyes that seemed to track her every movement and face littered with numerous freckles, as if somebody had dusted tiny stars along his cheeks and nose.
He was charming, handsome even. Maybe some other time she would have considered asked him out but now-
“Here.” She offered her hand and pulled him up, little sparks of electricity racing up her arm as his warm fingers enveloped her freezing ones.
“Fuck, you’re cold.”
And before she could object, he had shrugged off his jacket and had dropped it around her shoulders, pulling it tightly around her front. The sleeves were too long and the shoulders too wide but it smelled clean and the residential warmth was seeking through her skin, heating stiff muscles and getting her blood pumping again. Her magic stirred lazily as if to let her know it was still paying attention, before settling down again, making the tips of her fingers tingle.
She smiled at Bellamy in gratitude. “Thanks.”
He smiled back.
-
Over the next few weeks, as her magic was rapidly expanding and Clarke’s self-imposed exiles became more and more frequent, Bellamy sat down with her every time he stumbled upon her hiding place, sometimes in silence, sometimes not, but each and every time making her magic buzz and take notice of his presence.
-
“You have a crush.” Wells poked her in the ribs and Clarke squealed, momentarily taking her eyes off the screen and letting her car crash into a building.
“I do not!”
“That’s what you said about Raven too, and I remember walking in on you two four days later.”
Clarke huffed, willing her blush down and pushed Wells off the couch in retaliation, ignoring his outraged cry as she crossed the finish line first.
“Oh, don’t be a sore loser.”
“You cheated!”
“You cheated first.”
“Fair point.” He tossed his controller on the couch. “Just- just don’t do anything stupid, okay?” And his eyes landed on the loose metal compartment hidden underneath the couch, where Clarke kept all of her grandmother’s journals.
She had found them just days ago and already the meditation and focus techniques were helping her get a hold on her magic, just enough for her to figure out the rest. And by trial and error, she came to the conclusion that her magic was light based, so any direct source of light – be it sunlight, starlight or even the reflecting sun-rays off the surface of the moon – was what helped replenish her magic core. (Hell, even artificial light helped but if Clarke had to count only on the fluorescent lamps, it left her with a bitter taste in her mouth and cotton between her ears.)
And Wells – he had put two and two together and had come up with ‘witch’. Clarke felt strangely exposed but also free; it was nice to have somebody she could share with and, if nothing else, her best friend was a bottomless well of ideas and questions, and wonderful partner in crime when it came to testing her limits.
“I’m not going to.”
He scoffed and sprawled back onto the couch. “Did you forget that I’ve known you since you were in diapers?”
“I’m going to turn you into a toad.”
“I’m pretty sure that your magic has to be earth based for that.”
Clarke tried to smother him with the couch pillow. Unsuccessfully.
-
Okay, maybe having control was overrated.
Or at least it seemed so when she was around Bellamy because for all her good intentions and painstakingly crafted control, her magic still insisted on escaping through her fingers, leaving golden tendrils behind as she rested her hand on his shoulder, raining glitter on top of his head when she stared at him a bit too long.
It was nerve-wrecking but also exciting, letting her magic brush against his skin when he wasn’t looking, when she could get away with snuggling inside his jacket and letting her magic seep through the seams, strengthening the fabric.
Just little things at first until her magic demanded more and more of his attention, until the fleeting touches weren’t enough to quench the fight within.
“What is this?” Bellamy squinted suspiciously at the metal can, watching the liquid-like substance inside it swirl.
“Glow-in-the-dark paint. Or well, a variation of it. You mentioned you didn’t like sleeping with the lights off and I thought I might help.” She brandished her sad excuse of a brush with flourish and grinned widely when he frowned.
“How the hell did you even come up with this paint?”
“I made it.” Which was true, to an extent.
It had taken few tries for her to learn how to make her magic take on a liquid form, to make it drip from her fingers, to sever if from her core and will it to not disappear; to have it act as a real paint had been the real challenge but one she had met with fervor and excelled at.
“So what do you say? Trust me enough to paint you a few Greek columns? Maybe a pyramid or two?”
He sighed and leaned back against his chair, smiling crookedly at her.
“Add some butterflies and we have a deal.”
Clarke wet her brush with her magic and painted a star on his cheek.
-
The glow from her magic paint was soft and warm, splotched here and there with tiny dots of blue and purple, green and vibrant red. It had taken them most of the day despite the fact that the paint hadn’t been all that much, but under the guidance of Clarke’s steady hand, they painted three big butterflies on the ceiling. Bellamy’s lopsided drawing of Sekhment was hidden behind the door and with what paint they had left, Clarke had tried to recreate the Milky Way on the wall across from his bunk.
She tossed her hair up in a messy bun and turned around in a circle, admiring how her magic almost glimmered in the dark.
“I kinda get why you wanted Sekhment,” Clarke had been subjected to more than one history lesson on Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome - mythology included - in the weeks they had gotten to know one another, “but I’m still confused about the butterflies.”
Bellamy patted the empty space on the floor next to him and she joined him, laying down and tracing with her gaze the curvy sparkling lines of the butterflies. They did quite well considering the fact that Clarke had to climb on the table and Bellamy had nearly dropped the can of paint on top on her head, twice.
“They remind me of someone. I think she would have loved them.”
Clarke turned to face him and her heart skipped a beat at the naked longing on his face; she felt her magic pulse and she hoped he hadn’t noticed the subtle pulse the paint gave back.
“I miss her.”
“Did you love her?”
“I do, god, I do.” His voice broke at the end and she squeezed his fingers, her magic coiling inside of her, anxious to ease his anguish.
The present tense, however, left her confused.
“She’s alive?”
“Yeah, yeah, my sister is alive. For now.” Bellamy turned his head towards her and his nose brushed gently against hers. “She’s a witch.”
Clarke froze, eyes wide with disbelief and his next exhale raised goosebumps down her neck for more than one reason.
“But you’re in the Witch Duty squad.”
“It was the only way they allowed me to see her. It wasn’t enough that she was an illegal second child, but she had to go and inherit our mother’s meager gifts.” He closed his eyes and his laugh was wet, devoid of humor. “It’s what saved her in the end I guess.”
Witch bloodlines were a tricky thing and magic often jumped generations, waiting to build up again; for his sister to have been born with magic meant that she was a powerful one.
“I’m sorry.” It was barely a whisper in the dark and Clarke wove her hands behind his back, pulling him into her arms, offering him the only comfort she could give him.
His hands held on tightly back and neither said a word about the tears that wet her hair.
(And if she pushed all her love and affection she felt for him into the glowing paint, willing it to stick and be his solace in the darkest hours, well, she was a witch after all, why not act like it.)
-
It would have been easier if this thing between them was only physical, if Clarke didn’t feel like her magic would burst from her chest every time he as much as smiled her way, if her dreams weren’t plagued by his dry wit and terrible, terrible jokes.
It would have been easier but not enough, and maybe there lied the problem.
There was no other explanation for her sloppiness aside for being greedy for his touch. It shouldn’t have happened – not the way it did – but Clarke had waited and waited, had ignored her feelings at first and then pushed them aside, scared that they would ruin their friendship.
But Bellamy let her get close to him, let her carve a place inside his heart and she couldn’t help but fall in love.
Couldn’t help but kiss him, giddy, breathlessly, with feeling.
Couldn’t help but glow, couldn’t stop her magic from materializing and enveloping them in a bright cocoon of light.
“I’m a witch,” she said against his lips, smiling widely almost to the point where it hurt.
“I know.” And he took her lips in another kiss, hard and hungry, and she forgot the world.
But the world, the world didn’t forget about her – the world saw her.
-
“What is the meaning of this?” Wells yelled at the guards and tried to push them back, getting two punches in before he was subdued.
They had the triple spiral engraved onto shiny silver plates, stitched to their jackets – the Witch Guard.
“Clarke Griffin,” their leader said as he opened his metal case and took out the heavy shackles. “You’re arrested on the suspicion of having magical gifts, hiding said gifts and using them outside of the Council’s supervision.”
Clarke’s blood drained from her face and her magic screamed to be let out and wreak havoc. But the shackles were anti-magic and they were pulling her down.
“Get the fuck away from her!”
She shook her head at Wells, begging him not to make it worse; he may be the Chancellor’s son but even that wouldn’t keep him safe if he was suspected of knowingly harboring an individual capable of magic.
The shackles were ice cold around her wrists and she chocked back a sob.
Oh god, Bellamy.
And then the darkness came.
-
Somebody was brushing the hair away from her face and Clarke stirred.
“C’mon, Clarke, open your eyes for me.”
The voice was familiar and she blinked groggily, squinting against the sudden light-
nolightnolighthercellhadnolight
“Bell..my?”
His hands were warm, almost burning against her chilly fingers and she whimpered when he managed to get the shackles off.
Her magic responded sluggishly, but it was there, still inside her core, and she brought his face closer to hers, kissing him clumsily, almost frantic to convey all she didn’t have the strength to say.
“It’s okay, you’re okay, I’m getting you out of here.”
“Where?”
He lifted her in his arms, her legs too weak to hold her, and she saw Wells motioning them to hurry up.
“Earth, Clarke, we’re going to Earth.”
Her thoughts were jumbled but he was here, and Wells was here and she could feel her magic again so nothing else mattered. Except-
“Your sister-“
“She’s already on the ship. We just had to wait to break you out. I’m sorry.”
“S’okay.” She buried her face against his neck, like she had wanted to do since she met him. “You came.”
Bellamy squeezed her harder.
“Always, my dear star, always.”