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In many ways, Aventine is an anthill.
Raven doesn’t really mind – it’s what she’s used to, since growing up on Mecha meant knowing a lot more about your neighbors than anyone ever wanted to know, and at least in Aventine, she doesn’t have to listen to the really bad shit. No hungry kids crying behind closed doors, no people giving random guards blowjobs in exchange for help, no petty tragedies of cruelty and neglect. The worst things she has to witness are in the category of bad break-ups and really clumsy threesomes, so she counts herself lucky.
And then there is another difference between Aventine and Mecha: the oversharing.
While Mecha used to run mostly on ask no questions, hear no lies, in Aventine talking about sex is always somewhere in the background, what with most of the being of similar (and very horny) age. What really drives it home for Raven is that first winter when they have properly insulated, wooden cabins with fires. It’s some time in early December when they get snowed in, and to Raven’s utter delight, it keeps snowing through the morning. There is no way to stick your nose outside before lunch, and, well. All their tools are in the workshops, they’re stocked up on dried meat and nuts, and it’s not like they can watch TV. There is officially nothing to do, other than sleep in or have sex.
Bellamy has his head between Raven’s legs when they hear the first noise; a heady, guttural Yes! that makes him press his forehead against her thigh in a fit of laughter.
“What do you think? Monroe?”
Before Raven can roll her eyes and tell him to please focus on the clit right in front of him, not one three houses away, they hear an actual squeal clearly coming from a different cabin than the previous noise, and it makes them both crack up.
“Fuck, that was…”
“Nate,” Bellamy confirms with a grin. And then he does focus on the clit right in front of him, making Raven let out a keening sound that carries loudly in crisp winter air, not that she cares.
When it finally stops snowing, and they all emerge out of their cabins to clear paths in the village and prepare some food that’s warm, the first five minutes are massively awkward. Then Monroe shrugs, and tugs a loose strand of hair back into her braid.
“Well, happy snow day to all of us. Don’t you dare!” She points her finger at Monty, who freezes an inch away from a shovel. “Jesus, wash your hands before you touch that.”
Once Monty ostensibly grabs two handfuls of snow and scrubs his fingers with it while staring Monroe down, the dam breaks. Miller lets out a booming laugh, swiftly followed by Bellamy, who walks up to Raven, and kisses her temple in a rare show of public affection. Then Octavia whistles at him, he throws a snowball at her, and all is right in the world.
***
Monroe’s snow day hook-up turns out to be a Grounder girl from a nearby village who came in to trade and got stuck. Once she leaves, Monroe grows significantly more wistful. And more talkative.
“Fuck, I should’ve asked her to stay a few more days,” she tells Raven over breakfast the very next morning. “The itch? Still there.”
Raven gives her a sympathetic look; she might not be the softest person around, but she does have a healthy amount of compassion for dry spells. Monroe groans.
“So see her again when the weather is better?”
“I will. You should’ve seen her fingers, fuck.” She throws Raven a cautious look. “Is this too much information?”
Raven snorts and raises her eyebrows.
“Yeah,” she deadpans. “Never been so bothered.”
“Oh good.” Monroe’s cheeks are slightly flushed now, but she doesn’t lower her gaze. “Because I kind of wanted to ask you a favor.”
***
And that’s how Raven ends up in Bellamy’s sewing workshop, going through his stash of everything in search for soft leather.
“You’re making a what?”
“A strap-on. Look it up.”
He rolls his eyes, and doesn’t even bother with a Yeah, cute. It’s not like they exactly have a village library.
“I know what it is. But why the hell are you making it?”
There is something in his voice that makes Raven look up curiously, but she keeps her voice casual. Sometimes, oh, sometimes it really pays to wait Bellamy out.
“A favor for a friend. Why?”
“Nothing.”
Well then, if it’s nothing, she doesn’t press. But since she’s never heard such a throaty nothing from him before, it gets stuck in her memory for the next few days, as she gathers up materials and sketches the design. It just so happens that her first attempt ends up being a little too small for Monroe’s taste, and it just so happens that Raven forgets to scrap it.
Forgets that she left it right in the middle of her bed, too. Together with a small jar of lube she got from Monty.
***
Bellamy comes over with dinner after work, and at first, it’s clear he doesn’t notice. He has bowls of stew in both hands, and Raven watches him intently as he sets them on her table, gives her a quick peck on the lips, and sits in his usual spot, a crude stool he made himself last year. So far so good.
She tells herself to be patient, but truth is, she’s buzzing with anticipation, and her dinner small talk is less on point than it would normally be. The worst part is, she can’t stop glancing at the bed.
“Are you okay?” Bellamy asks eventually.
“Peachy.”
He sets his bowl on the table, looking like he’s about to ask a question. Then he follows her gaze. And inhales.
“Making it for a friend, huh?”
“I was. This is just the prototype. Why, you see something you like?”
It’s not really a gamble, she knows, because all said and done, Bellamy is pretty gracious when he refuses her. If she misread him, and he doesn’t like it after all, he’ll just give her a kiss, and ask to please do something else. But she’s still antsy as she studies his face, still nervous and tense. She wants him to like it, she realizes. There is something irresistibly hot about the idea of him liking it, and Raven worked herself up pretty well in the few days it took to make both strap-ons.
“It’s nice work,” he says quietly, examining her stitches. Then he looks up at her. “There is a harness. So I’m guessing we aren’t planning to use it on you.”
Raven swallows, but shakes her head bravely. No, it’s not for her. It’s definitely not for her. And then she watches, mesmerized, as Bellamy drops her handmade dildo on the bed, and walks back to her to tip her head up and give her a kiss.
“When? Tonight?”
Not even a yes, no why, no let me think about it. When. It makes her head spin, and she finds herself nodding frantically, yes, tonight, tonight. Please. She pulls him down for another hungry kiss, only to discover that his breath is suddenly heavy, his stance tense, his fingers curling into her hair.
“Tell me to fuck you,” she demands, her voice strangely croaky. She knows he wouldn’t usually word it like this; Bellamy doesn’t really swear in bed, and he doesn’t like to be too direct, but Raven, oh, Raven does, and tonight, she wants him to. She wants to claim him in this small way.
To her surprise, he does her one better. He goes down on his haunches in front of her chair, so that the light from the fireplace is directly in his face, and rests his forearms on her thighs to hold himself up as he focuses on looking her in the eye.
“I was going to ask you, you know. When I heard what you were making, I was going to ask you to make two. But I couldn’t work up the nerve.” His voice comes out a little breathy, but he still smiles when she doesn’t move, waiting for him to say the words. For some reason she needs him to say the words. “Please, fuck me.”
Once he’s done speaking, there is a moment of frenzy; of hungry mouths, and stubborn buttons, and slightly shaky fingers that Raven runs down his bare chest, curious but not shy at all. Bellamy, on the other hand, does seem a little shy, even though it’s abundantly clear that me must’ve done this before, that he knows the drill, and most importantly, he knows what he likes. Once they’re done fumbling with the harness, and with strapping Raven’s brace back on her bare leg, he gives her one last kiss, then turns around without hesitation, and kneels by the bed, low as it is. Even Raven’s ass perks up in the air a little when she rests like this, her knees on the floor and her chest pressed flat to the mattress, but Bellamy is tall enough to end up almost folded in two, even though he remembers to spread his legs slightly.
It is, Raven realizes as she runs her hand down his back, the closest she’ll ever come to taking a peek at his past. Oh, he’d tell her if she asked, she’s sure of that; offer it easily, and with an indulgent smile, I was eighteen, twenty, twenty two, it was an Alpha boy, or a Factory girl with a strap-on just like this one. But Raven doesn’t ask. She simply dips her fingers in her jar, and starts working him open.
He moans at the pressure of her fingers, and rocks against them encouragingly, but Raven barely pays attention to that, mesmerized, instead, with sudden tension of muscles under his skin, buttocks pushing up, then relaxing on an exhale. As if…
“How long have you been thinking about this? For real this time.” When I heard what you were making her ass.
He lets out a desperate little laugh.
“Long. Raven, please.” Please don’t ask. So she pushes her finger deeper.
She doesn’t usually get to watch him like this. Bellamy has a way of snaking from under her, of twisting and turning; he’ll steer her hand towards his dick, but only when he’s three strokes away from coming, and he’ll let her suck him into her mouth, but he’ll distract her with a kiss after no more than a few licks. Even now, he’s rocking against her as if he was trying to rush her, and she has to still his hip with her free hand.
“No, don’t. Let me look.” Her voice sounds like not her own, low but strangely pleading, and Bellamy twists his head to look at her. She gives him a nod, trying to say she doesn’t even know what, but apparently he reads words into her gesture, because he nods at her as well, and when he turns back, he finally stops bracing himself. His upper body slumps on the bed limply, but his fingers dig into the covers when she tries pumping her finger in and out of him, and he clenches around her desperately, as if in surrender.
It takes two fingers to get another sound out of him, but Raven almost misses it, focused, instead, on the sheen of sweat shining on his back, and on goosebumps breaking all over his skin.
“Raven, please.” A moan. “Please.”
She still moves and scissors her fingers a few more times, but the dildo she made, while long, is pretty slim, slim enough that he should be able to take it already. So she uses her free hand to lube it up, then positions it at his entrance.
“Ask me again,” she tells him sternly, and holds his hips still so that he can’t push back against her anyway.
(He could. They both know he could. But he stays still like he’s made of marble, panting quietly into her sheets, and that, she knows, is giving her a peek of another kind; into things they don’t talk about because neither has the words for it, things they’d rather touch, and kiss, and cry out.)
“Please, fuck me.”
She rewards him with a smooth thrusts of her hips, slow and careful, for his sake, and for her brace’s too. That’s another thing she gets to watch: dark leather disappearing slowly between his cheeks as he fights for a breath, keening and needy.
Once she’s buried inside him, it’s him who has to do most of the work; rock against her and find himself the right angle to compensate for her bum leg. Raven simply stays still and watches, one slick hand reaching around to stroke his cock as she whispers encouragement, yes, just like this, yes, faster. Give me more.
He won’t take, you see, unless she tells him he’s giving.