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"One, two, three, four, leave unicorns alone!"
A girl with frizzy blonde hair sits by the fountain in Arkadia's Ministry of Magic. There's a wand stuck behind her left ear and the soles of her red chucks are carved out with runes. Above it all, she wears a Rolling Stones t-shirt that’s seen better days.
An air of calm surrounds her, even as the protest rages on. The girl just stays cross legged on the marble floor, smoking her gillyweed spliff and puffing out the smoke at the Ministry officials who pass her by. By her feet, there's a 'WITCHES DOES NOT EQUAL BITCHES' sign.
Her name is Clarke Griffin.
"Five, six, seven, eight, stop the werewolf hate!"
On the other side of the hall overflowing with protestors, there’s a man with inky black curls above a scowl that seems to be permanently etched into his skin. The sign he is holding up proclaims that hoarding and spewing fire aren’t the only things dragons are good for.
When Clarke looks at him, he is gold and burgundy. There’s a dash of mystery and thick history coursing through his veins, and if that doesn’t alert her to the fact that this man really is a dragon – the tendrils of smoke coming out of his nostrils do.
His name is Bellamy Blake and she can’t look away.
“I think your sign is bullshit, Bell,” a girl next to him says, cheery as she shoves her hands in her pockets. There’s family resemblance, matching defiant jaws and straight posture. But she’s not a dragon, no.
“And why’s that?” he asks, a wry smile tugging on his face now that he looks at his sister. His gaze has immediately softened and that’s something Clarke finds endearing. Just like the people who swerve off the road a little just to avoid running over a turtle.
“Because you hoard books, so,” the girl grins in the face of his misery, nudging his shoulder when he groans. “People are right about that.”
“It’s about prejudice, Octavia. Just like you hate it when everyone says sirens use their singing to lure innocent men to their untimely deaths.”
Octavia’s grin is sharp like the knife’s edge and Clarke likes her. Her mom’s old colleague passes her by, Marcus Kane, and she waves at him before she flips him off.
No one expects Clarke Griffin to be a part of the protest but hell, she’s still there and she’s not leaving until this world changes for the better.
Octavia’s voice drifts over to where Clarke is sitting and she’s not eavesdropping. She’s absolutely not. “But I kinda do, Bell.”
At that, Bellamy Blake laughs, draping an arm over his sister’s shoulders. Their auras combine, Octavia’s forest green with a hint of yellow – like the sunlight coming through canopies of trees overhead, and Bellamy’s golden and red – like the bookshelves in an ancient library made out of marble and gold and wood. Their auras combine and in a moment, it is too blinding for Clarke not to squint.
That’s also when everything else goes to shit.
In a split second, there’s a loud boom to Clarke’s left and she sees the werewolves standing up and moving around to protect those who can’t protect themselves. The pack mentality she knows and respects.
“Clarke, let’s go!”
Lincoln is at her side, holding onto her elbow and pulling her to her feet, but Clarke shakes her head, reaching for her wand and nodding towards the Blakes.
“They need your help. I’ll be fine.”
But when she looks at them again, Bellamy is nowhere to be seen and Octavia has fallen to the floor, in danger of being trampled down any second now. The centaurs’ hooves are clicking against the marble floor and there are scorch marks where Clarke supposes the phoenixes burned up to save themselves.
Lincoln shoots Clarke a look and then he’s next to Octavia, picking her up and vanishing in a second. Clarke is alone in the chaos but it is alright because she knows it. She knows the swirling colors that exist in it and it’s almost easy, moving away from anyone who runs in her direction.
The Ministry officials are nowhere to be seen and the magic sending everyone into a tempest of panic tastes like Wells’ father.
“Where the hell is my sister?”
Bellamy Blake up close is different, more frightening, with smoke coming out of his nose again and turning into grey mist around his face. The grip he has on her arm is strong but not strong enough to bruise, unless she lets him.
He also has freckles, tiny constellations like the ones she uses when Raven slumps on her couch and asks whether things will get better. Clarke could divine the future from the ones on Bellamy Blake’s face, too. He is celestial.
“She’s safe with Lincoln,” Clarke shoots back, ripping her arm away from his grip. He searches her face but comes up empty with any signs of a lie. Clarke doesn’t lie, it just takes away precious time from her. “Do you want to know who was behind this or what?”
Bellamy nods, posture shifting so he’s standing up straighter next to her as they march down the hall, making their way through a throng of protesters.
It’s hours before they make it out, with very little information other than that the Ministry created a diversion, knowing that it wouldn’t be long before the protest turned from peaceful to a full-blown riot.
It sets blood boiling in Clarke’s veins, the same injustice that drove her to this protest even when her mother begged her not to go. It’s not her place, she said. Clarke doesn’t have to worry.
But she sure as hell won’t stand still while others don’t have the same basic rights she does.
“I know who you are,” Bellamy tells her when she’s storming outside, pacing back and forth in front of the Ministry building. The day is sunny, not a cloud in the sky, but Clarke would like a thunderstorm to match her mood.
He seems almost amused, although his brow is knitted in frustration. There’s a tiny crease she wants to smooth away with her thumb but she holds herself back. Now is not the time and the place.
“Clarke Griffin, Arkadia’s princess witch.”
She chuckles at that because there’s no heat to his words, no biting remark she’s gotten used to hearing. It’s just a dragon stating the facts.
Then he looks at her, full understanding dawning in his gold-rimmed eyes. His voice is deeper, almost a rumble when he speaks. “And so much more, aren’t you?”
There are deaths and there are lives. But today, she is twenty three and nothing more than a rebel, so she smiles ruefully at him, turns around and feels the first drop of rain come down on her face.
“We should get out of the rain,” she tells him, closing her eyes as the droplets turn thicker and wash her away.
Bellamy Blake doesn’t speak again.
*
Clarke’s apartment is small and in a bad neighborhood. She sees the questions in Bellamy’s eyes as they make their way over, through alleys with overflowing dumpsters and cats meowing underneath neon lights. The rain has the ability to wash away the city’s good graces or to enhance them, to make the living thing they walk on every day even more powerful.
Some witches like stars and the moon, draw energy from it.
Clarke, she prefers puddles full of neon and lights that chase the sky away.
“This is where you live?”
It’s almost incredible to see a dragon in her living quarters, filled with plants, books and other shit she feels a special draw to. Raven often laughs at her because no witch is supposed to feel inspired by collecting postcards but Clarke still has a wall full of them.
It might be a little messy, too, but she knows just where everything is so it’s alright.
“Yeah,” she says, dropping the keys in the bowl by the door with a clatter. Her T-shirt is soaked through and through, and even Bellamy is dripping on the hardwood floor. He doesn’t seem bothered by it as he looks around.
When he notices the bookshelf covering one whole wall, she sees something light up in his eyes and he looks at her like an enthusiastic toddler waiting for permission to go play. She nods at his question, motions towards the bookshelf, feeling her lips pull up in a smile.
For the next half an hour, he is lost for the world, trailing fingertips across the spines – leather, paper, intricate designs and completely plain ones. All books, some of which have been in her family for centuries, and some of which are just young adult books Monty recommended.
“Really?” Bellamy turns around, smirking. His curls are still wet and she wonders whether he can dry himself in a second, like some other dragons can. “The Lunar Chronicles?”
Clarke grins at that, folding her legs under herself on the couch. She’s been looking at him, fascinated by his childlike curiosity, every move of his hand, every crouch and every vertebrae cracking when he’s held the same position for too long.
“A real witch loves every good book.”
Bellamy nods, serious. “Those are good books.” A beat of silence and then, “So, how does it work?”
“Magic?”
Another nod.
“I don’t really know. It’s just – it’s there.”
It’s there, in Clarke, like a silent companion of her soul. It is very corporeal, almost tangible, somewhere between a dream and the full blown reality of concrete city buildings.
“It’s actually everywhere. That’s why I have old books and new ones, too. It’s behind every corner in the city, in every joyful laugh. Magic is wherever you think it might be.” She worries her lower lip, looks away. “I suppose it is different for everyone. Witches, we use it but it’s not a tool for us. It coexists with us. Phoenixes, they feel it as a life force. Ghosts feed off it. Werewolves, like Lincoln, they – “
“Wait, he is a werewolf?” A muscle in his jaw ticks as he locks it. “You told me my sister would be safe with a werewolf?”
Clarke scoffs. “Of course she would be safe with him. Do you really know so little about werewolves, being a dragon?”
The air between them vibrates with tension that’s bound to either explode or dissipate any moment now. From calm to calamity in just a second.
Bellamy is offended, of course. His muscles are pulled taut in a tight burgundy sweater and Clarke would be unnaturally turned on if every nerve in her body wasn’t lit on fire by knowing that you should never, ever piss off a dragon.
“Like you know any better, Princess.”
This time it hurts and she flinches, has to keep her arms at her sides instead of wrapping them around her body.
“So you don’t know that they’re fiercely loyal and protective of the people they choose as their own? Funny. I would’ve thought that’s one thing dragons and werewolves had in common.”
The water droplets in his hair vanish as his skin starts sizzling. It’s then that she notices scales around his elbows, on top of his collarbone, uneven – as if someone just decided to scatter them one day.
“You think you’re so smart, being a Griffin witch? Does your magical crystal ball tell you everything you need to know?”
“No,” she replies, trying hard for a calm voice. “The only thing my magical crystal ball tells me is that you’re full of shit.”
The scales, the rage and the fire burning in his fingertips would almost make for a lovely painting. But Bellamy Blake is a dragon and she’s just insulted his pride.
It’s no surprise that he shoots her a glare then, mouth twisted in a sneer, and storms out of her little apartment. Clarke tries very hard not to miss his presence after he leaves, but even his jacket on her couch reminds her that she might have gotten something so very good that it would sear her soul.
The jacket also reminds her that it was her pride that caused her to lose it.
*
“You hooked up with a dragon? Damn, Griffin!”
Raven is grinning at her like she hasn’t just burned up two days ago and Clarke rolls her eyes. There’s a leather-bound notebook in her lap, ink on her fingertips from writing new spells (it’s probably weird that she writes them in Starbucks, but – magic works in mysterious ways) and Raven is still the most interesting thing in the whole room.
Annoying, too.
“I did not hook up with a dragon, Raven. We just met, had a moment, and then he got pissed off because Lincoln saved his sister from getting killed. But yeah, call it a hook up if you’d like.”
Raven hums in agreement although there is still a glint of mischief in her eyes that alerts Clarke to this matter not yet being resolved. In her red bomber jacket, tips of her dark hair charred by the fire, Raven tastes like danger. Her aura has never been anything but explosion red.
“They’re good, you know. Dragons,” she adds when Clarke blinks at her. “And I don’t mean just in the sack.”
“Jesus Christ, Raven.”
The other girl grins at Clarke, crossing her arms at her chest and leaning back in the chair. Their coffees have gone cold in the meantime so Clarke flicks her wrist discreetly, gets the steam billowing again.
“If he was at the protest, I’m pretty sure he’ll be at the meeting tonight, over at Miller’s.”
She dangles it in front of Clarke, the offer, and Clarke knows she shouldn’t, but – he’s intriguing. Bellamy Blake was intriguing enough to draw her attention from across the room and she can’t let go of that.
So she sighs and closes the notebook, half-finished spell and intricate runes. “Fine.”
Raven’s new car is Pontiac Firebird and when Clarke sees it parked by the coffee shop, she bursts out laughing, barely holding onto her bag, crystals and coffee she’s carrying.
“Wow, obvious much?”
Raven smiles crookedly, throwing herself into the car. Her brace clinks against the metal and she starts the engine before Clarke can get in. “I’m a phoenix. How fucking awesome is that?”
Miller’s bar is overcrowded, as always. The booths are full of people, sometimes eight squeezed into the space for six, and every standing table has at least five around it. The familiar chatter soothes Clarke, even in a time like this – when all the spells come out wrong and the tips of her hair don’t turn green but red. Everything feels a little off.
But the bar is still standing and Miller still slaps the counter when he sees the two of them approaching.
“Nice to see you two joining us.”
“Yeah, Miller, because you really missed us,” Raven shoots back, pointing her finger at the bottle of Jack behind him. “I’ll have one of those. And Griffin needs something to cheer her up.”
No one is exactly sure what Miller is but Clarke knows he’s one hundred percent magic when he gets her an amaretto with a shot of charisma, winking as if he’s read her mind.
The relative calm lasts until Jasper Jordan and Monty Green, faes that supply Clarke with the best gillyweed, arrive in company of Lincoln, Octavia and –
“Bellamy.”
Today he looks bashful instead of brazen. He’s wearing a tweed jacket with leather patches on elbows, looking like an old history professor, and Clarke can’t help smiling. It’s oddly comforting and it suits him – right up to the glasses that keep sliding down his nose.
He acknowledges her with a very serious nod. “Clarke Griffin. I owe you an apology.”
Knowing that her friends have an appetite for gossip, she smiles at him again. “Get us a table, I’ll be right there.”
When he leaves, the first thing Raven does is elbow her in the ribs – hard.
“That’s the dragon?”
Clarke hums in confirmation, reaching for her glass.
“I fucked that dragon.”
“You – Bellamy?” Clarke sputters. “So I shouldn’t, right?”
Raven grins at that, tracing the rim of her glass with a finger. “No, I’m saying you totally should. It happened after Finn, it meant nothing. But you know, ten out of ten would recommend to a witch friend.”
To her credit, Raven doesn’t even flinch when Clarke punches her shoulder before walking away. Finn is another one of those things she and Raven never talk about. No one could save him when the general public found out what the vampire had done.
Because of Clarke. Who might be a witch, but she still kills everything she touches, and maybe it’s good that magic isn’t strong in her anymore, ebbing away until it’s probably reduced to nothing.
Maybe it’s good.
And then she sees Bellamy Blake, running his hands through his hair nervously, shifting in his seat until he catches sight of her and lets out a breath of relief, like he thought she wouldn’t come. Clarke sees Bellamy Blake and she likes him, that red and gold aura, reminding her of the woods she used to camp in with her dad, the crackling of the fire and the cracking of the book spines.
His shirt is worn, he looks tired, but he still reminds her of a much loved book that might have a rip or two in its cover, but it’s still important.
So of course she takes a seat, leans forward and asks, “How’s Octavia?”
“Great. Nothing happened. Well – something did happen,” he mutters, eyes flicking towards where his sister is standing intertwined with Lincoln. “But he’s – yeah, he’s great.”
“Told you so. And I didn’t even have to look at my crystal ball.”
At that, he raises his eyebrows, curious. “But do you have a crystal ball?”
Clarke laughs, leaning back in her seat and wrapping her hands around her glass. The condensation slides down her fingertips, drips onto her jeans. The people around them seem somehow quieter, she’s just aware of Bellamy’s even breathing – inhale, exhale, inhale –
“You’re so fascinated by all of this, aren’t you?”
“I am,” he confirms. “I’m actually studying the supernatural world. Arkadia is considered to be one of the safe havens for people like us. And the diversity is incredible.” With every word he says, his eyes get a little wider, his movements a little less restricted. It’s like a light has been turned on inside his soul and now it can’t help but to glow, glow, glow. “If you went to London, you’d see that there’s mostly vampires and witches there. But Arkadia – Arkadia has ghouls and ghosts, witches and phoenixes, faes and chimaeras. It’s incredible.”
“We still have our problems in the community.”
“Sure you do. But you can work with that. That’s why we’re protesting, right?”
Clarke nods. “That’s why I left home, too.”
He smiles at her sympathetically, a hint of green neon spilling across his right cheek and illuminating his freckles. It reminds her of what her grandmother used to tell her about sorcery; how ethereal it was, how hidden, how special. The childish delight of knowing you were doing something you weren’t supposed to.
“I’m sorry about what I said.”
“You couldn’t have known.”
“I should have.”
Of course he takes all of the blame on himself. What else could she have expected?
“It’s fine,” she assures him. “I am a Griffin witch, technically. And I do have some awesome books you could check out.”
The way his sorrowful expression gives way to open enthusiasm and surprise knocks her the fuck out and she laughs, adding, “Yeah, sure, whenever you’d like. Feel free to peruse my library.”
“I’ll take you up on that offer, you know?”
Oh, she knows. And there’s something about that dragon that makes her fingertips itch with excitement, like she’s just found a new spell she’s been dying to try.
“I’m counting on it.”
*
Clarke isn’t sure how exactly she becomes friends with Bellamy, but it happens somewhere between the first time he knocks on her door, almost shy, and the moment they sit stretched across the empty space between her plants and the balcony with her feet in his lap.
He’s a dragon who smokes, she realizes after her books stop making sense for him around 2am. The stars are nonexistent in this city, too much light pollution, but the neon still shines bright. He’s writing a thesis on supernatural, has been for the last year and a half, and his university experience has been vastly different than hers.
“I’d have thought you’d had enough of smoke, but,” she teases, wiggling her fluffy sock-clad feet in his lap. The sleeves of his shirt are rolled up, his glasses are crooked and it’s obvious that he’s a person who loves sunny mornings, not the deepest hour of the night, perfect for spell casting.
He’s blowing away the smoke, the intricate pattern of it curling around her potted plants. She flicks her wrist and the smoke returns into his face, making him cough and scowl at Clarke.
“That’s not funny.”
“It kind of is, Bellamy, you’ve got to admit.”
Sometimes they forget themselves, sometimes they feel young when she cracks open the window and they climb on the fire escape with a bottle of wine. He’s still got scales running down his arms and the crystals dangling from her neck still hit the metal with a clank, but.
But maybe they could be human.
It is during those moments that she leans on him, tells him about her father. “He believed we could live in peace. He believed we could be better than this.”
And Bellamy holds her hand, weaves imaginary patterns into her skin, so different from the runes she still has scars from. There’s a rune from when she tried to revive her father, only for her mother to find her in a puddle of blood on the kitchen floor, arms spread wide and chanting I couldn’t save him, I couldn’t save him.
There’s a rune for Finn, too, when Raven stopped her from even trying. Some things aren’t meant to be, Griffin. Let it go.
Those runes remind her of the darkest parts of her soul, the ones she tried very hard to hide, the ones that shined through when it really mattered. But her magic was weak.
And then there are Bellamy’s patterns when he presses a kiss to the top of her head, whispers, “Your father was right. If anyone is going to do it, we are. We can do this, you and I.”
She looks at him, finds the hope she needs. “Together?”
“Together.”
His smile is enough to chase the darkness away.
Sometimes they don’t pretend they’re regular humans. Sometimes Bellamy lies on her hardwood floor and breathes literal fire while she lights up a cigarette for him. Sometimes she levitates candles, sends them dancing around her small apartment, and sometimes it’s a kaleidoscope she can see in his aura.
“God, you’re wicked and talented,” he tells her, eyes wide when she creates what he calls a miracle, and she calls casting a spell that makes the tips of his hair stand up.
But it’s the wonder she sees in his eyes that makes her want to fall in love with him, despite all odds. It’s what she sees in there – that she, Clarke Griffin, could be better than just a failed witch, just a girl, just a –
In his eyes, she is anything but just.
Then there are rare nights when he is tired enough to talk about his family, head in her lap. She evens the crease between his brows, unclenches his muscles with a faint, caress-like touch. The room smells like chamomile and mint, good for stress, and he closes his eyes.
“My mom never gave two shits about us. It’s always been Octavia and I. I was her brother, but – “
“You were her parent, too.”
He nods, opens his eyes for just a second, too long, he lingers before closing them again and all Clarke sees is gold and freckles. She finds the magic she’s forgotten in his bones as he shifts to lie more comfortably on her legs.
“I was, yeah. And she’s my sister, my responsibility. Everything I did – I did for her. And now I just don’t know how to let her go, how not to worry.”
“You’ll always worry, Bellamy. That’s who you are.”
“I’ve done horrible things to keep us safe, Clarke.”
She presses a kiss to his forehead, smiling when he scrunches up his nose. “We all have. None of us are the good guys.”
It takes her a while but she realizes how selfless he is, and how it might be true that dragons hoard possessions, but Bellamy Blake hoards people, too. However, there is nothing possessive about him, no.
Clarke has never seen love be as free as it is with Bellamy.
Nights when he reads the books, her family heirloom, turn into morning coffee dates that are not dates – no matter what Raven or Lincoln say.
“You like him,” Lincoln accuses when he’s dropped by her place for his monthly dose of potion that helps him control the wolf inside during the full moon. This one is going to be the fullest one yet, even she can feel it.
Clarke shoots him a glare, messing with the kettle on the stove. City witches, always with their spell apps and boiling potions in kettles. She loves it. Not all of them do.
“He is a decent person. You like Octavia.”
Lincoln levels her with a severely unimpressed stare. “I’m not even trying to deny that.”
“Is it her siren magic?”
“No.” He beams at Clarke, almost proud. “She tried singing but it didn’t do shit.”
“It never does when someone is in love.”
“So it’s just you now, Clarke,” he says, softer than before, and wraps an arm around her shoulders. Clarke leans into his touch, finding comfort in it. “You can do it, if you want to.”
A flame flickers on the tip of her finger, ready to light the fire under the kettle. She toys around with it for a while before exhaling.
“What if I’m just not meant to be loved? Everything I love dies. I don’t want that, I don’t want to allow it if I’ve still got a say in it.”
Lexa died. Finn died. Wells didn’t, but – he’s a ghost, so is there really any difference when her magic isn’t strong enough to summon him these days?
“Is he worth trying?”
“He is. They’ve all been worth it.”
“But he’s different.”
It’s not even a question, it’s a statement. It’s an absolute truth Clarke feels as real, deep in her soul. He belongs, not because he is perfect. God, no, he isn’t – he paces back and forth when he’s angry, her armchair has scorch marks from when he heard that the opposition led by Cage Wallace is trying to keep werewolves in a cage during the week of full moon.
He belongs because they’re both cracked but their cracks align perfectly.
She sees stitches all over him, where he has fallen apart and has had to rebuild himself. She sees pain, too, because with people like him there is always pain – the blood on his hands he carries, the scars on his back because when you carry the world, you carry its people’s heavy hearts, too.
Clarke sees everything Bellamy Blake is made of and she can only smile at him because she knows the taste of his pain. She knows it because it has stuck to her throat for years now.
“Yeah,” she says at last, looking up at Lincoln. He’s always been her favorite. “Yeah, Bellamy is something else entirely.”
*
“Check your phoenix privilege is all I’m saying.”
Bellamy crashes into Clarke when Raven hits him. “Fuck you, Blake. You can breathe fire. I can set myself on fire.”
“If things go to shit, though, Raven, you can make it out alive. The rest of us can’t.”
It’s that sort of banter that makes Clarke feel at ease, even though she’s carrying three signs under her arm and is fully aware that this could go badly.
The Ministry isn’t particularly in favor of people voicing their opinions, especially when, apparently, all species have gotten equal rights. Bullshit, if you ask anyone who’s got even a drop of magical blood running through their body.
“Let’s just hope they don’t go to shit, huh?” Lincoln asks, an arm around Octavia’s waist. These days, they’re all feeling noticeably lighter. Clarke isn’t sure whether that’s spring’s fault or just the fact that their little ragtag bunch has two new members, but she’s happy about it.
It’s always good for a witch to surround herself with optimism. Even her magic is making a comeback, frayed at the edges and not quite as powerful, but always bursting when Bellamy is near.
Lincoln shoots her a pointed look when Bellamy stops to inspect the design of his own sign but now is not the time.
When another explosion happens at the protest Clarke gets a feeling like it will never be the right time. It’s chaos, again, Lincoln picking up Octavia and dragging her off to safety, scorch marks left after Raven burned up to save herself, Jasper hitching a ride with a unicorn called Maya, all of their friends vanishing into thin air.
It’s Bellamy and Clarke again, and she sees the moment he decides to stay. People need help and he urges her to go, his hand warm on the small of her back. “Go, I’ll meet you out front.”
She scoffs because it’s Bellamy. “Of course you won’t. Come on, I can help.”
Together, they bandage a wounded banshee’s arm, before Bellamy leaves off to meet with Miller and see what has been going on. Even Clarke’s mother makes an appearance, descending from the highest floors with her med kit and coming to crouch next to her.
“I see you still remember the trade,” Abby tells her, a weary smile on her face. Her neatly pressed business suit is creased and speckled with blood but she’s never looked as much as Clarke’s mother as she does now and Clarke leans into her for a second, before a centaur calls them over.
“What happened?”
“Cage,” Abby grits out through clenched teeth, careful not to injure the centaur even more. The crowd has started thinning out, people leaving for safety, but Clarke can still see Bellamy alongside Marcus Kane, helping out in any way he can.
That’s what the two of them are good for. That’s what the time is right for. Everything else feels selfish.
“I’m sorry, Clarke, you were absolutely right – we need changes. Thelonious is going to step down and we’ll,” her eyes flick towards Kane and Clarke lets a nervous chuckle roll off her lips. “We’ll take over. Try to do some good.”
In any other moment than in this one of absolute devastation and too much blood spilled on the once pristine marble floor Clarke remembers walking across for the very first time when she was seven, she would’ve worried that it’s too easy. They’re getting away with something else, nothing is as good as it seems.
But now, when all she does is feel tired of fighting against a much stronger enemy – Clarke decides to take it.
“I’ll help.”
Abby nods, brushes away a strand of hair coated in blood. “I know you will. Thank you.”
Hours later, Bellamy finds her in the crowd. There are reporters, doctors, there’s a lot of people that make Clarke feel dizzy. But then he gets a hold of her hand, helps her get out, and she’s never been more grateful for the stars’ ephemeral appearance on the sky above them.
He doesn’t let go of her hand and she’s grateful. The runes on the soles of her shoes are just simple spells, a good luck blessing to keep her safe, a prayer for meeting her loved ones again, a charm for being successful – they’re light and happy, but she doesn’t think of them.
Instead, she thinks of how blood clung to her hands when she couldn’t save anyone and how she couldn’t wash it away.
Looking at Bellamy, seeming bone-tired and weary as he slumps against the building in the alley painted red and blue with police sirens, she thinks he might understand. He’s done bad things. And all for good reasons.
“Are you okay?” she asks because she thinks someone should. He’s got a cut across his forehead, his wrist looks sprained, but it’s nothing he won’t recover from.
He looks at her like he hasn’t been expecting that question but nods. “Fine.” He slackens the grip on her hand to bring his fingers up to her cheek. “You’re hurt.”
“Nothing a little magic can’t fix.”
This time, it works. She can fix little cuts and bruises, sprained wrists and ankles. All that’s left are purple patches of skin and they look good on him. They look good on him because it looks like he didn’t get away scot-free but he’s still victorious.
She can’t help it when she brushes a hand across his collarbone, scales raspy under her fingertips, brings it up to the nape of his neck. Bellamy looks almost panicked, almost like the explosion wasn’t bad enough but this might be.
"I know too much," he tells her, as if he is talking to himself. But he is looking at her like he's going to uncover all the secrets of the universe in her skin.
Clarke smiles at him and takes his hand.
"What a coincidence." Her father's death, the one she saw just a second too late to do anything. Wells. Finn. Lexa. All the threads of time and space, crossed perfectly for her to be a victim and an assailant at the same time. Everything. And nothing. The power and the powerlessness. "So do I."
His gaze on her softens, like the way she saw him with Octavia that first, fateful day. He is a 2am, he is the stars bursting in the middle of the neon she calls her home, and he still feels like gold flowing underneath her fingertips.
“Bellamy Blake,” she whispers into the night, feels a soft curl brush against her fingers. He leans into her touch, a little catlike. “Knows too much, has seen too much.”
He kisses the inside of her wrist, sending shivers down her spine. “Clarke Griffin. I know all the horrible things you’ve done. And I still want you.”
She never said she wasn’t a monster, hidden underneath lilac scarves and flowy shirts. She never said she was any better than a wolf in sheep’s skin.
And Bellamy knows that, when he beams at her. He knows. But he still wants her.
She kisses him and every constellation falls into place. He moans into her mouth, lips scalding hot and tasting like blood and smoke. They trip into each other, hands maybe a little too fervent and lips chasing lips, but it makes sense.
Eons later, when his forehead is pressed against hers and she doesn’t know where her body ends and his begins, he whispers just one thing onto her lips. “Here’s how the story goes – a dragon falls in love with a witch.”
Her laugh suddenly sounds like the wind chimes on her balcony and it surprises her, how light she can feel with all that weight on her shoulders.
“They probably don’t get a happy ending, do they?”
Bellamy shakes his head, wipes away a stray happy tear from the corner of her eye. “No. But they get a happy life.”
And that’s enough.