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There were only so many hours a person could devote to wandering the forest in search of food to add to the collective storage, even fewer of them when it came down to having to do so with Jasper’s eyes constantly flickering towards the trees in search of any motion.
"There’s nothing there," Monty pointed out for the third time in the past twenty minutes, "Unless you’re worried about being attacked by a pine cone."
"They might want revenge for you eating their cousin," Jasper retorted, ducking under branches as he walked a few steps behind Monty.
He couldn’t help being uneasy, it was a slow recovery from that anxiety but maybe being there in the woods was helping. Monty claimed it was exposure therapy and since he wasn’t sure how to argue that Jasper figured he’d go along with it; he was tired of jumping at shadows anyway.
And it gave them an excuse to spend a few minutes less devoted to the seemingly endless task of keeping the camp in running order and more invested in the sort of unconcerned habits they both still missed from what now felt like a much simpler past.
Stretching a hand up in passing, Jasper’s fingertips brushed a low-hanging limb, curling in the leaves and giving it a tug before letting it go again. All in all it wasn’t a bad day; sunlight peeking from around lethargic clouds in the sky, a faint breeze rolling over the tall grass. It was the sort of day that by most accounts would be deemed nice in fact if there was time to enjoy it, and that afternoon time was all they had to spend.
They had stolen the moments away and it was too precious of a commodity anymore to waste, being idle didn’t count as wasted so long as they were idle together.
"Isn’t the river this direction?" Jasper voiced as he stretched his arms high above his head and laced his fingers together to pop all the stiff joints in his back. "You think it’s safe to go there?"
It was always a question of what was safe and what wasn’t, with so much of the area still unknown it was never clear exactly where the next danger might have come from, and at times it was exhausting trying to reason through where was off limits.
Maybe they were both feeling a bit reckless that afternoon; Monty shrugged and continued to wind his way through the trees with Jasper rather than turn back to change direction. Too much caution was enough to drag a person down, Monty exercised more of it than Jasper but even he was feeling the effects of the day sinking into his skin and making the world seem like a wonderful place rather than one filled with traps and uncertainty.
"You want to swim?"
"Nah, it’s just not as hot by the water." Jasper replied with a kick at a few stones that sent them rolling down the hill they were navigating.
That much was true; the midday sun was almost too warm above them and it was a heat that made a person feel lazy and restless at the same time. Monty still far preferred it to the cold but Earth was a place of extremes and a nice comfortable medium didn’t exist.
And there were interesting things to be found around the waters edge, Monty was certain; “We can see what’s growing down there too.”
"You and your plants, I think you spend more time with them than you do with anyone else but me." Jasper rolled his eyes in good natured humor, climbing across a fallen log in the path and waiting for Monty to clamber over it after him. He earned a snort for his words as they continued onward but not really a dismissal of them since there was some validity to the comment.
By the time they found the river the sun was burning bright and Jasper crashed into the grass with a groan of appreciation for the shade provided by the trees with branches dipped over the shore, sinking into the mossy spot and resting his tired muscles. Monty followed suit and joined him, sitting instead of sprawling, eyes lifted to the clouds.
"Told you it was a good idea."
"It is nice here," Monty agreed as he watched the swirls above them move in slow paths over the skyline of vivid blue; the colors made it easy to forget for a moment the looming weight of the last few days.
What made it even easier, however, was watching Jasper uncurl like a cat, comfortable and relaxed in a way that had been absent for far too long. Monty smiled and reached over to slide his fingertips under the band of the goggles that resided atop his friend’s messy hair, tugging them up and free.
Jasper allowed them to be taken, not sure why Monty wanted them though, at least not until he felt those nimble fingers slide back through his hair unhindered without the object to slow his efforts.
There was a moment of bemused expression and a glance around before Jasper decided they were probably safe enough for the moment, the open space along the water was wide enough to see for yards around and there was only the slosh of the waves on the bank reverberating nearby.
But their stolen moment wasn’t as private as the two assumed, not with a startled set of eyes catching them from the opposite bank. Neither the scrutiny of a Grounder nor the glazed vision of one of the mutated occupants of the woods; a twin set of blue eyes belonging to one of their own.
And Clarke had only paused in her trek over the makeshift rock bridge back across the water when she’s heard the sound of what must have been Jasper’s crash to the ground, the thud drawing her wary attention.
At first she thought she must have been seeing something out of context because in the short span of seconds her view went from Monty stealing Jasper’s goggles to him leaning closer and then they were kissing.
The idea of the two of them kissing didn’t register at first, but Clarke’s expression tipped from perplexed to amused as she stood there, eyebrows lifting when she heard the broken little humored sound that signaled Monty drawing back and sinking down to sit next to the still sprawled form he had been seconds before playfully accosting.
"Give it back," Jasper whined as he sat up and reached for the goggles that Monty kept ducking away just out of reach, until he finally uttered an exasperated sound and settled for grabbing the front of Monty’s shirt to haul the entirety of him close instead.
With one hand to Jasper’s chest Monty kept him at bay long enough to pull the goggles over his head and down to his neck, making it more difficult to steal them back.
A plan that didn’t work out so well, since Jasper gave up grabbing and went instead for Monty’s lips in another sudden kiss, distraction for long enough to slid his fingers under the band of the goggles and tug them up when he drew back to catch his breath.
Not quiet enough; Monty wrapped his hands around the band before it could be dislodged and only relented when Jasper let go, then pulled the goggles upward and free of his own hair before he leaned back in to situate them on Jasper’s head once again.
"They look bad on me anyway, too big, makes me look like a bug."
"Hey," Jasper protested at the assessment and crinkled his nose in that expressive way he sometimes did, "They do not. I don’t look like bug!"
"Praying mantis," Monty concluded with a nod, knowing the was doing an excellent job of making Jasper twitch with that conversation.
The snorting sound and the graceless flop back down in the grass was like a victory, oh yes, and Monty smirked when he caught sight of his best friend rolling eyes at him.
"Why are you complaining so much," Monty snickered and dropped his shoulders some, slinking forward to loom over the taller teen’s lazing form, "I like bugs."
"And you wonder why you have no luck with people," Jasper countered and pulled those goggles down over his eyes on sheer principle, "You have the worst pickup lines ever."
"Oh I don’t even wonder anymore, but I also don’t care." Monty pointed out with another dip of his head that ended with their lips meeting and a pleased sound from Jasper vibrating through that kiss.
It drew out longer that time while they both grew lazy in the sunlight and silence, hands snagged at Monty’s ribs and tangled in the fabric to drag him closer, then roamed while Monty searched for a spot to rest his palms and settled, finally, on the flat plains of Jasper’s chest.
They didn’t remain there long, it took a few short seconds for Monty to go hunting for the hem of that shirt and work his way under it to where skin and scars could be found. Jasper always shivered when his fingers slid over the rough marks left from that spear wound, he shifted and arched and managed a gasp between their lips that urged Monty to let him catch his breath.
"Still good?"
Good was hardly the word Jasper might have used at the moment, it didn’t come anywhere close to his opinion of the situation so he just nodded with one of those bright grins that made Monty’s stomach twist in the best ways.
It also led Monty into a straddling scramble forward, ducking down to push those goggles back up out of the way when they kept slipping at an angle over Jasper’s forehead, knowing he wouldn’t convince him to give them up but at least he could keep them from stalling the progress when he returned to his merciless teasing.
The rush had slowed a bit more, to where that kiss met in lingering pressure until the tempting flick of Monty’s tongue urged Jasper’s lips apart and in return Jasper’s hands made a sweeping path to curl over Monty’s hips and hold them flush to his lap; it was well past good and bordering amazing as far as Jasper was concerned.
"And you’re stopping," the words were marked by a sigh when Jasper uttered them and Monty drew back up sitting, but even that didn’t convince Jasper to give up the hold he had on him at the time.
"We are out in the open away from camp."
"I don’t want logic right now," Jasper pointed out with a look that could have been either pitiful or exasperated depending on how serous Monty would take it, "I want to be left alone for ten minutes without somebody giving me an order. And I want here, and now, and I want there to be less clothes involved."
The way he said it, like a kid whining that he wasn’t getting ice cream when he’d been promised it, made Monty laugh and after a defeated second Jasper joined in.
"I hate you; I hate your inhuman self-control and the way you get off on doing things like this to me and then making me wait."
Jasper huffed but they both knew it was only in jest, there had never been malice between them and there never would be; but there were moments when Jasper wasn’t sure Monty didn’t enjoy making him squirm.
"No you don’t," Monty countered and gave in enough to press another kiss to the frowning lips below him, until he finally coaxed a smile back out of his friend. "You wouldn’t even know how to hate me."
"I hate when you have a valid point."
The murmur of laughter returned, brief, and Monty reached up to fix those goggles yet again, smiling as he ran his fingers back through Jasper’s hair while he had the chance to.
"Better make this up to me when we’re back to the tent," Jasper mock-grumbled, dropping his eyes shut to soak up the pleasant sensation of Monty’s fingers sifting through those tangled locks. "You can start with that, later."
Because it felt so inexplicably good, that simple sensation; in part because it was one that was more affection than anything else and Jasper thrived on affection.
Monty knew if he kept it up Jasper would likely fall asleep right there in the grass, protests aside, and as nice as it would be to have that peaceful time alone they couldn’t be as certain it was safe as Monty wished; he wanted one outing with Jasper where the nagging voice in the back of his head didn’t keep reminding him that camp was the only safe place.
And the problem with that was camp wasn’t very private unless they hid away in their tent; so it was impossible to have everything.
"Monty?"
"Yeah? Sorry, I was thinking," before the obvious question could follow Monty supplied an answer that wasn’t true but was easier than the truth, "About what we’d be doing on the Ark right now."
"Other than being floated?" Jasper countered as his eyelids lifted halfway open to study him over the strange topic.
"If we weren’t floated we’d be getting close to starting training for jobs," Monty continued rather than allow the dark notion that they might have been dead to factor into the equation. "We might have ended up working in different stations and living in different areas."
"They probably wouldn’t have let us live together," Jasper agreed; the powers that be wanted people to live alone until they started families after all, but maybe they would have lucked out and caught a break that allowed them to stay together.
"Wouldn’t have mattered, you’re older, you’d have your place first so I’d get mine and just stay with you. They couldn’t keep us from doing that.
And we would have probably worked in the same station, it’s not like I would have gone into medical or whatever; we both would have stayed around Agro and the science labs.”
"But we wouldn’t have had a choice if it didn’t go that way," Monty let his fingers drift down Jasper’s neck to his shoulders instead, resting them there. "We’ve got more choice here."
Jasper nodded, choice had been part of the strain between him and Monty now and then since they had arrived on Earth, but it had also been a comfort knowing that now that they could decide what to do they didn’t have to worry about being forced apart by the rules.
If anyone even cared what they did when they were together nobody around camp ever mentioned it; Earth was too demanding otherwise for anyone to waste time passing judgment over things that didn’t deserved to be judged in the first place.
"Earth isn’t so bad," Jasper admitted. He had his reservations in some regards because of his anxieties but it was a matter of learning how to recover from them and not let it ruin that world for him. "You’re here so that makes it better."
"You’d be lost without me," Monty teased, "We’re so damn codependent."
"Shut up man, way to ruin the moment." Jasper’s laughter rang out as easy as the breeze and Monty joined him in that carefree moment; they both needed it to shake off the weight of the real world waiting back for them at camp.
That laughter pushed Clarke out of her thoughts and she realized how long she had been standing there, intruding on that personal moment. She couldn’t help wonder how many other moments like that played out every day between the people around camp; keeping the safe had always been her main focus but she hadn’t realized that they needed more than that.
They all needed more than only safety and food to keep them strong, water to keep them moving, and resolve to keep them steady; there was more to be found in the connections they had built in the past and the ones they were building now.
Clarke manged to smile, the expression resting light upon her lips.
"Isn’t nice to spy on people Princess."
The look Bellamy gave her in passing was one of vague amusement and a hint chiding as he made way across the stones to the shoreline. There was that usual edge of Bellamy smugness to the words but Clarke choose to ignore it for the sake of one more stolen glance towards her friends wrapped up in their own little world mere feet away and no more concerned about her being there than they might have been the breeze fluttering around them.
To be that lost with someone else even for such a fleeting time; Clarke envied them.
"Camp’s this way," Bellamy reminded her from a few steps ahead and Clarke moved to catch back up; envious or not it wasn’t her moment to steal.