command me to be well, amen / the monsters turn out to be just trees
COMMAND ME TO BE WELL, AMEN
967 words, bellamy/clarke
A/N: These haven't been beta-ed, sorry! :)
command me to be well, amen
Clarke is a vision in sheer yellow. The color consumes his eyes, drips out of her fingers like paint, covering his whole body with it, feeling heavy and warm. She’s Persephone, dressed in silks, yellow hair, yellow halo, maybe she’s a Holy Spirit, too. His body convulses under her touch, painfully soft, deadly, tender. She undresses him - he’s soaked in sweat. Clarke’s a solar deithy and her touch on his torso burns, he can’t avoid a whimper. “You’ll be fine, Bellamy,” she’s saying, and he’s blinking at her, like her brightness blinds him through the heavy night around them. She’s his Electyrone, all gold and light and sun and mornings. She’s glorious.
“You’re so beautiful-” the words come through his ragged breath. It’s a dying confession, he thinks. Clarke will hum his soul to sleep - like she did with Atom. Maybe she’s Charon, and he doesn’t have coins to offer her. “You’re-”
“Trying to get rid of your fever,” she cuts him, placing a wet cloth on his forehead, pushing his hair away from his face, leaning closer, pushing back. There’s no smile on her face, just worry, a frown, a pale pink blush on her cheeks against her yellowness. His fingers manage to linger on the skin of her wrists, so pale, so pale, tracing her thin purple veins. He wants to protect her hands, her body. “Bellamy-”
“Sleep here,” he pleads, it’s pleading, it’s a prayer.
Clarke stares at him for the longest time, and he stares back at her with worshipping eyes. His mind builds a church around her, elevated and vivid, his tent rebuilding itself to fit his shrine. He loves - he loves her. Then she sighs, removing her jacket and boots, letting herself lay down next to him in his improvised bed, over his sheets. Her weight is comforting, silent, warm.
“You should sleep now,” she whispers, hands still assuring the cloth on his forehead is proper cold, that his hair is out of the way, that his body is tucked in, that’s he’s safe. His ribcage fills up with her golden light, exhilarating, suffocatingly beautiful. He turns his body to face her. “I won’t go anywhere.”
“Get under the sheets, you’ll be cold,” he manages to say, avoiding a cough. Clarke shakes her head, mutters her usual “I’ll be fine”, a small smile lighting up her face. He wants to touch her, but he can’t. He won’t. He’ll ignite, he’ll catch on fire, he’ll die. She’s too powerful, she’s too overwhelming, and there’s so much heaviness inside his lungs, what’s it called, there’s so much love. “Hum for me, Clarke.”
There’s a hint of understanding in her eyes - hum like you did to Atom, hum until I’m gone - and her lips open the slightest probably to tell him she won’t let him die, it’s only a fever, he’ll be okay. But Clarke starts humming instead, some distant, long-lost lullaby, one hand on his hair, fingers nested in it, and she hums, hums, he starts drifting, it’s a holy choir, it’s a blessing.
-
He wakes up at some point of the night, feeling positively better, eyes heavy with the sands of sleep. Clarke’s still there, soundly asleep, now tucked under his sheets, body still in a safe distance from his own. She’s done it again - pulled him back from death. He brushes some strands of hair away from her face, she stirs awake, slowly at first, then bolting up, a hand on his forehead. Bellamy holds her hand there, protecting it, eyes closed, heart heavy. “Your fever is gone for now,” she finally says, voice lighter, flowing like a song. He lets her hand go free. “I should-”
“Stay,” he offers her a smile, one he hopes conveys all his gratefulness for her existence, he hopes she can see, really see. “Stay.”
Clarke looks towards the entry of his tent, how it’s still silent outside, how the world is resting around them, the weight of people’s souls, the woods inhaling the cold air, and it’s gotten so dark he can only she the contours of her face against the haggard lightning. Bellamy doesn’t see churches around her anymore - no shrines, no halos - there’s only her eyelashes and her teeth and her hair and her arms and her flesh. Everything he so fiercely wants to protect. She finally lets herself into bed again and he wants so bad to reach out and touch her, but he can’t. He won’t. You’ll ignite, you’ll catch on fire, you’ll die, he reminds himself. But Clarke isn’t afraid to burn. No - she reaches forward and touches his face, first removing the cloth from his forehead, then tracing the sides of his cheekbones, to the bruises on the left of his lips, to his jawline. Bellamy feels his bones start to bristle.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” she tells him, voice small, controlled, prying her fingers away.
“I’m glad you’re here to fix me,” he responds, voice so low he thinks she can’t hear him. She can, because she smiles, looking away, moving under his sheets. He feels the warmth coming from her body, but Bellamy barely moves. “You should sleep.”
“That’s my line, doctor,” Clarke snorts, but she agrees, nodding lightly. “We should sleep.”
Those you’s becoming we’s again, he notices.
“Night, Clarke.”
“Good-night, Bellamy.”
(They sleep, so close, but never touching. Clarke wakes up three more times to make sure his fever hasn’t come back, pulling the heavier blankets towards him, keeping him warm. Bellamy wakes up four more times to make sure she’s not uncomfortable, pulling the heavier blankets towards her side, keeping her warm.
When Bellamy wakes up again, Clarke’s gone. There’s only sun and heat coming through, like she left pieces of herself scattered all over his tent, pale yellow, faded gold. He smiles.)
THE MONSTERS TURN OUT TO BE JUST TREES
812 words, bellamy/clarke
the monsters turned out to be just trees
Clarke sees Wells sitting on the other side of the fireplace. Finn takes a seat nearby. There are others, all quiet, all looming. Fire flickers near her, casting shadows on their faces. They’re barely there. Her breath gets caught on her throat, overwhelming and poisonous. Panic starts crawling under her clothes, seething, burning her skin. Camp Jaha sleeps around her - a few guards patrolling in the distance, paying no attention to Clarke and her ghosts. She holds a gun fiercely against her body.
“Hey-”
It’s only Bellamy, she realizes after jumping on her seat, all those ghosts around her pushing the air out of her lungs. He touches her shoulder lightly, a reassuring gesture, and they’re gone - the faces, the ghosts. They’re gone. Clarke inhales sharply, like she’s been running a marathon. Bellamy sits next to her, pretending to ignore the gun, pretending to ignore her distressed expression.
“Can’t sleep?” He tries, clearing his throat, stealing a few glances at her. Shadows dance all over his face, dark and heavy. He’s real, she remembers, relieved. Bellamy’s there.
“No,” she manages to reply, shaking her head. “I can’t sleep here.”
“I know the feeling,” he gives her a bitter, knowing smile. “Nothing like the dropship, right?”
She nods, returning the smile, hers sadder, more empty. When everyone was alive and together, she thinks. Clarke wonders if Bellamy is thinking the same - she can’t read him. He’s staring into the fire, flames reflecting on his eyes, dancing in his pupils. Bellamy looks broken. She reaches out a hand and touches his shoulder the same he’s done a moment before, tugging on his clothes, her elbow leaning against his back, fingers not wanting to let go. He takes the gun from her, putting it down on their feet.
“I had a nightmare,” he tells her, then, same bitter smile on his lips. “You were there. And Octavia.” Bellamy’s tone is somber, and Clarke feels something tug at her heartstrings. She runs her hand on his back, absentmindedly. “I - I couldn’t save both of you. I had to make a choice. So I let you go.”
Clarke looks away, feeling a strange confusion cloud her thoughts. She’s been trying hard to find a place for Bellamy in her thoughts - what was he? A friend? A partner? Her guard? Her - what? She knows she can’t lose him. It’ll drive her mad, to see him sitting there with her ghosts, face pale, eyes devoid of light, acusing. And here he is, telling her she is in his mind, too, in a way. Clarke recoils her hand, resting next to his on the cold metal bench, their fingers grasping.
“It was just -” she starts, not really knowing what to say.
“It was horrible, Clarke,” Bellamy’s voice comes out so heavy it scares her. He’s staring at her, eyes overflowing with things he can’t really say, he won’t, and there’s so much. Clarke tries to read them all, as hard as she can, as fast as she can, but he blinks them away. “I can’t let Octavia go but - I can’t- you are -”
Bellamy doesn’t complete his stuttering sentence. Instead, Clarke finds his hand and holds it fiercely, trying her best to convey her own thoughts through the warmth of her palm. Their fingers are laced, and they’re quiet, both staring into fire, black holes instead of souls, consuming the light and heat around them, consuming the words they won’t say, not now, not like this. It’s too confusing, it’s too early. The trees seem to grow taller around them. The flames flicker and die.
“You’re shaking,” he sighs, the way he does when she’s doing something he doesn’t approve of (like sitting out in the cold at night) (like holding his hand when they both know in the ground there’s too much to lose and neither of them can stand that thought) (but he still won’t stop her from doing it, because that’s what Bellamy does) (he just holds her hand harder instead). “Let’s go inside.”
“No,” Clarke pulls him closer, just a bit, only a bit, until their arms are touching. “Let’s stay a bit longer.”
They stay, minutes, maybe an hour, until their awkward proximity turns into Clarke resting her head on his shoulder, Bellamy’s head resting on hers. The fire is nothing but smoke and vestige of heat, glowing orange under a pile of dirt. They’re both shaking, and Clarke can’t tell anymore if it’s only the cold. Everything’s rattling inside her body. Their breath is as visible as the remains of smoke.
“Bellamy?”
“Hm?”
“We’re going to be okay.” She doesn't know if it's a question or not. Bellamy doesn’t say anything at first. Clarke feels his body stir, restless, cold, worried, broken. She rubs her thumb over the skin of his hand, soothingly, suddenly worried at how many bruises he still has on his body. Finally, he nods, agreeing. “We’ll be okay, princess.”
967 words, bellamy/clarke
A/N: These haven't been beta-ed, sorry! :)
command me to be well, amen
Clarke is a vision in sheer yellow. The color consumes his eyes, drips out of her fingers like paint, covering his whole body with it, feeling heavy and warm. She’s Persephone, dressed in silks, yellow hair, yellow halo, maybe she’s a Holy Spirit, too. His body convulses under her touch, painfully soft, deadly, tender. She undresses him - he’s soaked in sweat. Clarke’s a solar deithy and her touch on his torso burns, he can’t avoid a whimper. “You’ll be fine, Bellamy,” she’s saying, and he’s blinking at her, like her brightness blinds him through the heavy night around them. She’s his Electyrone, all gold and light and sun and mornings. She’s glorious.
“You’re so beautiful-” the words come through his ragged breath. It’s a dying confession, he thinks. Clarke will hum his soul to sleep - like she did with Atom. Maybe she’s Charon, and he doesn’t have coins to offer her. “You’re-”
“Trying to get rid of your fever,” she cuts him, placing a wet cloth on his forehead, pushing his hair away from his face, leaning closer, pushing back. There’s no smile on her face, just worry, a frown, a pale pink blush on her cheeks against her yellowness. His fingers manage to linger on the skin of her wrists, so pale, so pale, tracing her thin purple veins. He wants to protect her hands, her body. “Bellamy-”
“Sleep here,” he pleads, it’s pleading, it’s a prayer.
Clarke stares at him for the longest time, and he stares back at her with worshipping eyes. His mind builds a church around her, elevated and vivid, his tent rebuilding itself to fit his shrine. He loves - he loves her. Then she sighs, removing her jacket and boots, letting herself lay down next to him in his improvised bed, over his sheets. Her weight is comforting, silent, warm.
“You should sleep now,” she whispers, hands still assuring the cloth on his forehead is proper cold, that his hair is out of the way, that his body is tucked in, that’s he’s safe. His ribcage fills up with her golden light, exhilarating, suffocatingly beautiful. He turns his body to face her. “I won’t go anywhere.”
“Get under the sheets, you’ll be cold,” he manages to say, avoiding a cough. Clarke shakes her head, mutters her usual “I’ll be fine”, a small smile lighting up her face. He wants to touch her, but he can’t. He won’t. He’ll ignite, he’ll catch on fire, he’ll die. She’s too powerful, she’s too overwhelming, and there’s so much heaviness inside his lungs, what’s it called, there’s so much love. “Hum for me, Clarke.”
There’s a hint of understanding in her eyes - hum like you did to Atom, hum until I’m gone - and her lips open the slightest probably to tell him she won’t let him die, it’s only a fever, he’ll be okay. But Clarke starts humming instead, some distant, long-lost lullaby, one hand on his hair, fingers nested in it, and she hums, hums, he starts drifting, it’s a holy choir, it’s a blessing.
-
He wakes up at some point of the night, feeling positively better, eyes heavy with the sands of sleep. Clarke’s still there, soundly asleep, now tucked under his sheets, body still in a safe distance from his own. She’s done it again - pulled him back from death. He brushes some strands of hair away from her face, she stirs awake, slowly at first, then bolting up, a hand on his forehead. Bellamy holds her hand there, protecting it, eyes closed, heart heavy. “Your fever is gone for now,” she finally says, voice lighter, flowing like a song. He lets her hand go free. “I should-”
“Stay,” he offers her a smile, one he hopes conveys all his gratefulness for her existence, he hopes she can see, really see. “Stay.”
Clarke looks towards the entry of his tent, how it’s still silent outside, how the world is resting around them, the weight of people’s souls, the woods inhaling the cold air, and it’s gotten so dark he can only she the contours of her face against the haggard lightning. Bellamy doesn’t see churches around her anymore - no shrines, no halos - there’s only her eyelashes and her teeth and her hair and her arms and her flesh. Everything he so fiercely wants to protect. She finally lets herself into bed again and he wants so bad to reach out and touch her, but he can’t. He won’t. You’ll ignite, you’ll catch on fire, you’ll die, he reminds himself. But Clarke isn’t afraid to burn. No - she reaches forward and touches his face, first removing the cloth from his forehead, then tracing the sides of his cheekbones, to the bruises on the left of his lips, to his jawline. Bellamy feels his bones start to bristle.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” she tells him, voice small, controlled, prying her fingers away.
“I’m glad you’re here to fix me,” he responds, voice so low he thinks she can’t hear him. She can, because she smiles, looking away, moving under his sheets. He feels the warmth coming from her body, but Bellamy barely moves. “You should sleep.”
“That’s my line, doctor,” Clarke snorts, but she agrees, nodding lightly. “We should sleep.”
Those you’s becoming we’s again, he notices.
“Night, Clarke.”
“Good-night, Bellamy.”
(They sleep, so close, but never touching. Clarke wakes up three more times to make sure his fever hasn’t come back, pulling the heavier blankets towards him, keeping him warm. Bellamy wakes up four more times to make sure she’s not uncomfortable, pulling the heavier blankets towards her side, keeping her warm.
When Bellamy wakes up again, Clarke’s gone. There’s only sun and heat coming through, like she left pieces of herself scattered all over his tent, pale yellow, faded gold. He smiles.)
THE MONSTERS TURN OUT TO BE JUST TREES
812 words, bellamy/clarke
the monsters turned out to be just trees
Clarke sees Wells sitting on the other side of the fireplace. Finn takes a seat nearby. There are others, all quiet, all looming. Fire flickers near her, casting shadows on their faces. They’re barely there. Her breath gets caught on her throat, overwhelming and poisonous. Panic starts crawling under her clothes, seething, burning her skin. Camp Jaha sleeps around her - a few guards patrolling in the distance, paying no attention to Clarke and her ghosts. She holds a gun fiercely against her body.
“Hey-”
It’s only Bellamy, she realizes after jumping on her seat, all those ghosts around her pushing the air out of her lungs. He touches her shoulder lightly, a reassuring gesture, and they’re gone - the faces, the ghosts. They’re gone. Clarke inhales sharply, like she’s been running a marathon. Bellamy sits next to her, pretending to ignore the gun, pretending to ignore her distressed expression.
“Can’t sleep?” He tries, clearing his throat, stealing a few glances at her. Shadows dance all over his face, dark and heavy. He’s real, she remembers, relieved. Bellamy’s there.
“No,” she manages to reply, shaking her head. “I can’t sleep here.”
“I know the feeling,” he gives her a bitter, knowing smile. “Nothing like the dropship, right?”
She nods, returning the smile, hers sadder, more empty. When everyone was alive and together, she thinks. Clarke wonders if Bellamy is thinking the same - she can’t read him. He’s staring into the fire, flames reflecting on his eyes, dancing in his pupils. Bellamy looks broken. She reaches out a hand and touches his shoulder the same he’s done a moment before, tugging on his clothes, her elbow leaning against his back, fingers not wanting to let go. He takes the gun from her, putting it down on their feet.
“I had a nightmare,” he tells her, then, same bitter smile on his lips. “You were there. And Octavia.” Bellamy’s tone is somber, and Clarke feels something tug at her heartstrings. She runs her hand on his back, absentmindedly. “I - I couldn’t save both of you. I had to make a choice. So I let you go.”
Clarke looks away, feeling a strange confusion cloud her thoughts. She’s been trying hard to find a place for Bellamy in her thoughts - what was he? A friend? A partner? Her guard? Her - what? She knows she can’t lose him. It’ll drive her mad, to see him sitting there with her ghosts, face pale, eyes devoid of light, acusing. And here he is, telling her she is in his mind, too, in a way. Clarke recoils her hand, resting next to his on the cold metal bench, their fingers grasping.
“It was just -” she starts, not really knowing what to say.
“It was horrible, Clarke,” Bellamy’s voice comes out so heavy it scares her. He’s staring at her, eyes overflowing with things he can’t really say, he won’t, and there’s so much. Clarke tries to read them all, as hard as she can, as fast as she can, but he blinks them away. “I can’t let Octavia go but - I can’t- you are -”
Bellamy doesn’t complete his stuttering sentence. Instead, Clarke finds his hand and holds it fiercely, trying her best to convey her own thoughts through the warmth of her palm. Their fingers are laced, and they’re quiet, both staring into fire, black holes instead of souls, consuming the light and heat around them, consuming the words they won’t say, not now, not like this. It’s too confusing, it’s too early. The trees seem to grow taller around them. The flames flicker and die.
“You’re shaking,” he sighs, the way he does when she’s doing something he doesn’t approve of (like sitting out in the cold at night) (like holding his hand when they both know in the ground there’s too much to lose and neither of them can stand that thought) (but he still won’t stop her from doing it, because that’s what Bellamy does) (he just holds her hand harder instead). “Let’s go inside.”
“No,” Clarke pulls him closer, just a bit, only a bit, until their arms are touching. “Let’s stay a bit longer.”
They stay, minutes, maybe an hour, until their awkward proximity turns into Clarke resting her head on his shoulder, Bellamy’s head resting on hers. The fire is nothing but smoke and vestige of heat, glowing orange under a pile of dirt. They’re both shaking, and Clarke can’t tell anymore if it’s only the cold. Everything’s rattling inside her body. Their breath is as visible as the remains of smoke.
“Bellamy?”
“Hm?”
“We’re going to be okay.” She doesn't know if it's a question or not. Bellamy doesn’t say anything at first. Clarke feels his body stir, restless, cold, worried, broken. She rubs her thumb over the skin of his hand, soothingly, suddenly worried at how many bruises he still has on his body. Finally, he nods, agreeing. “We’ll be okay, princess.”