sara-reading1

[sara-reading1]

live my life without [coming up for air] by orphan_account

The first time he meets Clarke, it's three in the morning and all he's wearing are his boxer shorts and a bad case of bed head.

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Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin

Octavia Blake/Raven Reyes

Jasper Jordan

Monty Green

Finn Collins

Bellamy Blake

Clarke Griffin

Raven Reyes

Octavia Blake

Alternate Universe

Alternate Universe - College/University

Alternate Universe - Modern Setting

mucho fluff

Emotional Hurt/Comfort

bellamy is a sap

students yo

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The first time he meets Clarke, it's three in the morning and all he's wearing are his boxer shorts and a bad case of bed head.

It's October, which means it's cold as fuck, and he's got goosebumps and half a mind to deck whoever's banging on the other side of his dorm room door by the time he undoes the latch.  He's not expecting her, though - a five-foot nothing blonde girl in yoga pants and an Ark City U sweatshirt, holding a stack of five-pound textbooks and wearing a frown that belongs on the face of a ninety year old porch-sitter.  

She looks him square in the eye, with a defiant look that he'll learn in time is her default setting.  "You're Bellamy, right?" she asks.  "Finn Collins' roommate?"  He nods slowly.  "I'm Clarke.  Clarke Griffin."  She sticks out her hand, and he shakes it.  "Your roommate stole my bed, so I need to steal his."

He tries to blink the sleep fog out of his eyes, but really all he wants to do is crawl back under the covers and conk out until his eight a.m. class, so he shrugs and steps aside to let her in.  He closes the door behind her, and falls back into his own bed, gesturing to Finn's as he goes, even though by the looks of her pre-med books, she can probably figure it out on her own.

Bellamy falls back asleep almost the instand his head hits the pillow, and in the pale moonlight oozing through the dorm's single window, he sees her settle into Finn's bed, her hair turned silver, her back to him.  

He wakes up at seven with his alarm, somehow manages to resist the strong urge to hit snooze, and rolls up into a sitting position.  Clarke's still bundled under Finn's covers, but she groans and surfaces at the sound of the alarm, her eyes squinted under long lashes in the white morning sunlight.  Her hair's mussed up around her head, and she ditched the sweatshirt some time overnight, leaving her in a tight tank top, and Bellamy just met this girl but he thinks she looks comfortable.  

"What time is it?" Clarke mumbles, a hand pressed to her forehead.

Bellamy kicks of his blankets and stands up, crosses to the desk to turn off the alarm.  "Seven."

Clarke groans again and pulls the covers back up over her head, as Bellamy starts rummaging in his dresser for clothes.  Bellamy feels a smile tug at the corner of his mouth, completely involuntarily, and he says, "What, too early for you, princess?"

The covers whip back off, and Clarke glares at him, and her eyes are really damn blue.  "I was on shift at the infirmary until one a.m. last night," she says, voice like an accusatory knife.  "I have a practice MCAT in three hours, and I cannot take it on four hours of sleep, Bellamy."

He raises an eyebrow.  "Hey, you're the one who marched in here last night demanding asylum - "

Clarke turns her face into the pillow, huffing out a breath.  "If you would just get your fucking roommate out of my room, that would be wonderful, but he's probably too busy screwing his on-again-off-again fiancée to be bothered to open the door - "

"Ah, so you're rooming with the astronaut," Bellamy grins.  "That must be a nightmare."

Clarke's eyes are closed, like she's carrying on the conversation while asleep.  "Raven's an aeronautical engineering major," she says, tiredly, "and she has a bum knee, so she's never getting into the astronaut program."

Bellamy pulls a henley over his head, and goes back rummaging for a pair of pants.  "Has anyone ever told you you're a delight in the mornings?"  

Clarke's talking into her pillow, but whatever she says sounds like, "Fucking unnatural to be a morning person - "

Bellamy steps into his jeans, doesn't bother with a belt, and grabs his backpack off the desk chair and stuffs a travel size mouthwash into it, steps into his sneakers.  "Well, princess, once you're done with whatever possessive girl claiming ritual you've got going on with Finn's bed, just go ahead and lock up behind you, will you?"

He's pretty sure Clarke flips him off under the covers, and he chuckles on his way out the door.  

&

"They pushed the beds together to make a queen size, so they can have sex diagonally," Clarke laments on his doorstep the next night.  She is, apparently, much more charming between the hours of one p.m. and midnight, and has even come bearing muffins.  She's better groomed than she was last time, too, her hair pulled up into a ponytail, wearing one of those long sweaters that girls are so into, a pair of leggings and leather boots.  "My only other friends cultivate their dorm room to look like a disaster zone."  

Bellamy takes a blueberry muffin and steps aside.  

"Damn," Clarke says, "I was hoping you were a bran kind of guy.  You know, with the abs and all."  Bellamy smiles at her around his mouthful of muffin.  "Don't tell me it's some sort of natural metabolism thing.  I would have to hate you on principle."

She sets the muffins down on Finn's desk and shrugs her backpack off onto the floor, where it lands with a resounding thunk.  She's got a pillow under her arm, and she throws it onto Finn's bed like she owns the place, which Bellamy has a strange feeling she will in a couple of days or so - it already feels like it's not just his territory anymore, like she's moved in on it.

She sits on the edge of Finn's bed and pulls one leg up to her chest, rests her chin on her knee, looks across at him with those big blue eyes and that golden halo about her head, and Bellamy doesn't think he minds the infringement all that much.  

"So, you moving in or what, princess?" he asks, sitting back in his desk chair.  The lamp on his desk is the only light on in the room, and it's casting a bright pool on his mess of papers, the makings of a marketing paper.  "I don't know if that's legal."

She gives him a sideways, skeptical look.  "Somehow you don't strike me as the kind of person who gives a flying fuck about legal, Bell.  Plus, I don't really want to report them to the housing authority and then have to live with half of them for the next six months, if I don't have to."

Bellamy stuffs a good half of the muffin in his mouth.  "Good point," he says around it.  "Finn's already enough of a bitch to deal with as it is, I don't need the added bonus of actual rational anger."

Clarke raises her eyebrows.  "So we have a deal?"

&

A month in, Bellamy has learned a number of important things about Clarke, like -

She's on a full ride for Ark City University pre-med, she works nights Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at the school infirmary, she has her eyes on a doctorate program at Santa Clara, her mom's a doctor but she doesn't talk about it, ever - She hates coffee but makes herself drink it to stay awake, her favorite Ben and Jerry's flavor was Vermonty Python until they discontinued it, and she's somehow still bitter about it, she prefers orange juice to apple, which is blasphemous - She owns more sweaters than any other article of clothing, owns more medical books and journals than she does sweaters,  owns two pairs of shoes, neither of which are appropriate for any sort of formal situation -

She slept with Finn, a few times, didn't know he had a girlfriend, let alone a fiancée, until she showed up out of the blue from MIT at the end of the last year and just happened to be assigned to room with Clarke at the beginning of the term, which really, a more unlucky coincidence does not exist on this campus -

She bites her lip when she's trying to memorize something, she has a song of the 206 bones in the human body memorized, and she sings it under her breath all the time, she sometimes cries while she watches the news - She picks up shifts waitressing Jaha's Diner on fourth when she has a spare minute, because she actually pays for everything she has, doesn't have anyone helping her out, she does her laundry two blocks over at the Vietnamese laundramat, because they only charge one quarter and the machines in the dorms take two -

She's stubborn as fuck, once she sets her mind to something, won't go back to the dorm for a coat even if she steps outside and realizes she has sorely misjudged the temperature, she will eat even the shadiest of Chinese food as long as it doesn't smell weird - She is not afraid to yell at him, even though he's a good foot taller than her, and somehow she always seems to be looking straight at him, never up - She only has a few friends, but from what he can tell she would give her life for them, which is intense but it's just how Clarke is, she operates all-or-nothing, the intensity is intoxicating - She approaches problems like there's a right answer all the time, which sometimes there isn't sometimes you can't win at all -

She makes him smile, infuriates him, keeps him up until two going over medical terms that she know by heart anyways, there's no reason he has to sit there and quiz her, she brings him home burgers from Jaha's Diner and says she was just passing by, thought he might like something, which is nice even though he knows it's a lie.

She's actually pretty pissed at Finn, pretty torn up about the whole thing even though it happened for real five months ago, and Bellamy thinks he could beat his ex-roommate up for being such a dick and waving it around in Clarke's face, fucking his fiancée in his ex-girlfriend's dorm.  She watches medical dramas, Bellamy thinks just to keep up a steady wave of discrediting commentary for a whole hour, actually pops a couple of the bones in his fingers squeezing his hand during the Grey's Anatomy season finale.  

She performed emergency CPR on a student, once, and he died, and sometimes she wakes up gasping and crying and leaves the room because she thinks he's still asleep, thinks he wouldn't get up and hold her if she asked, but he would.  

She laughs way too hard at dumb commercials and drags his ass out for froyo when it's late but it's not the morning yet, drags his ass out for Taco Bell when all the froyo places are closed, tells him he's a dumb ass for preferring pinto beans to black beans, for preferring more interesting flavors to your classic vanilla froyo - She barters like a menace at the farmers market, tries to barter with the cafeteria automated check out once when she's tired and maybe still a little bit high, and Bellamy laughs so hard his sides hurt and elbows her out of the way -

He hasn't had a friend like this.  He has his sister, and he used to have his mother, and he had Murphy until that went to shit, but, like - she barged her way into his life and sat down like she'd always belonged there, and she can yell and gripe at him all she wants, and maybe he'll yell and gripe back, but he listens to Clarke breathe and night, and he falls asleep peaceful.

&

"You can't major in 'whatever the hell I want,' Bell," Clarke's saying over her laptop, the remnants of a Starbucks lemon pound cake sitting in front of her.  "You have to pick something.  For fuck's sake, you're a junior, how'd you even get this far without declaring anything?"

Octavia throws her hands into the air beside him, exclaims, "Thank you very much, Clarke, I've been saying this for months, but does he listen to me? No, God forbid I be right for once - "

"Come on, O," Bellamy tries, but she just raises a well-sculpted, skeptical eyebrow at him, and he doesn't bother, not now that Clarke's on her side, too, because he can't stand up against the sheer disapproving power of all of their eyebrows.  

Jasper sets the second round of coffee down in the center of the table and reclaims his spot next to Clarke in the booth.  Monty drags over a chair and spins it around to straddle it like a total dork, kicks Jasper's foot deliberately under the table.  

"If you could major in 'whatever the hell I want,'" Jasper says, "that would be awesome and I would totally go for it.  Imagine bringing that degree home to mom and dad, all 'hey, look what you just spent two hundred thousand on.'  But no, what am I stuck with? Bio fucking chemical engineering, that's what."

Monty kicks him again, hard in the shin, "Hey, biochemistry's pretty cool, Jasper.  We get to blow shit up sometimes, and we're really good at cooking drugs now."

Octavia takes the tallest coffee from the carrier in front of her and takes a tiny sip from it.  "If you two are done playing footsie over there, can I get back to what I was saying?" she pauses like she actually expects someone to interject, which no one does.  "I think Bellamy should be a business major.  He's taken enough generic business 101 classes by now, at least."

Clarke shakes her head, and draws her eyes away from the paper she's typing.  "No, Bellamy was meant to help people," she remarks, casually, like she hasn't just rocked the entire Starbucks.  "He ought to major in criminal justice, or maybe polisci, but probably criminal justice, because he'd deck a politician bitch in the face."

Bellamy looks at her for a long minute, not saying anything, and he vaguely registers Octavia saying, "You're right.  I feel so dumb I didn't think of that, I've known him my whole life - "

But Clarke's already back to her paper, has forgone the coffee in favor of slumping sideways ever so slightly into Jasper's shoulder.  Jasper just holds her weight, doesn't so much as comment, just carries on his side conversation with Monty, and Clarke has that kind of effect on people, just inspires loyalty in anyone with half a brain to recognize that she's the sun.

"That's a good idea," Bellamy says.  Octavia seems somewhat surprised, wide-eyed.  "I think I'll do that."  

Clarke looks up at him and smiles gently.

&

He and Octavia always get an expensive hotel room for two days over Christmas break - Christmas eve and Christmas day - because their dorms are small and the kitchens don't really work for cooking chicken, but they don't have a house to go back to since their mom died, so.  For two days every year, ever since Octavia finished high school and they both enrolled as freshmen, it's just the two of them, and too much chocolate and eggnog and dumplings and A Christmas Story, Home Alone, Die Hard playing on repeat.

Bellamy goes back to his dorm on Christmas eve to get Octavia's gifts, which he has to leave hidden, because she can and will shake them to see what's inside, and the year he got her a lava lamp that practice ended very messily -

Only, what he's not expecting to find is Clarke, tucked into the bed that has become hers with a thick paperback book and a scented candle burning at her bedside, the Christmas music station on the radio turned on quietly on the shelf behind her.  She's bundled in a huge sweater that looks like it crawled out of the year 1983, and her eyes and nose are red as if she's been crying, and she looks so small curled up in her nest of pillows and blankets that Bellamy's heart twists tangibly.  

She looks up sharply when he enters, and her face screws up in confusion, lips parting and brow furrowed, and her voice is thick and groggy, "Bell? What?"

He closes the door behind him and starts to shrug out of his winter outerwear, because this isn't going to be as quick a visit as he was planning on.  "What are you still doing here, princess? I thought you'd have gone home by now."

The scarf comes off from around his neck, and he sits down on the edge of the bed.  She closes the book and sets it beside her, her fingers curled up on the edge of the too-long sleeves of the sweater.  "I haven't been home in a couple years."

He looks up at her eyes, and they're hooded, but he can usually tell instinctively when she'll fight him, and this isn't one of those times.  "How come?" he asks.

Her eyes flicker back up to his for a moment, and they're watery in the candlelight.  He catches her hand off the top of the book, curls her fingers with his, but makes no move to pull her in any further, because Clarke stands on her own two feet until she decides of her own free will that she doesn't want to anymore.  

She takes a thin breath, lets it out shaky.  "This is my dad's sweater," she says.  Her fingers tighten in his a little, then relax as he soothes his thumb over the side of her palm.  "He's in prison.  My mom turned him in."  

Clarke doesn't offer up any more information, and he knows better than to ask for it.  Instead, he catches her against his chest when she sways foward, and it's the slightest movement but it's enough, she's off balance, and it's not like he's about to let her fall back into an empty bed.  She's still holding one of his hands, but he wraps his other arm around her waist and does his damnedest to anchor her, feels her free hand feather light over his shoulder, then digging into his shirt, feels her eyelashes flutter closed against the skin of his neck.  

"You're having Christmas with me and O," he says, after a few minutes, "and that is non-negotiable."  

She puts on her winter jacket over her dad's sweater, puts on Bellamy's scarf without even registering that it's not hers, and Bellamy grabs the small wrapped gift he'd had stashed for Clarke along with the rest of Octavia's presents, puts them all in a large duffel.  Clarke grabs his hand on the way out the door, and doesn't let go of it all the way to the hotel.  

She tries to offer to sleep on the couch.  He doesn't let her.

&

Finn and Raven go through one of their off-again periods in mid-February, right after Valentine's day, which leaves a great number of people very confused about their sleeping arrangements.  Clarke ends up going back to her assigned dorm to live with the astronaut, the silver locket in the shape of an anatomically correct diagram of the human heart that he got her for Christmas around her neck, leaving Bellamy with an empty spot in his peace of mind.

He gets stuck - again - with Finn, who seems like even more of an idiot now that Bellamy is majoring in criminal justice and can point out every one of the miniscule laws Finn breaks on a daily basis before adopting a self-righteous attitude in defense of his wrongdoing, now that Bellamy knows Finn was dumb enough to let Clarke go, to hurt her.  He wants to break Finn's fucking self-righteous nose.  

Instead, he spends most of his time in their booth at the Starbucks, with Jasper or Monty or whoever happens to wander in at any given time of the day.  He goes to classes, and then he goes to Starbucks - except the one time he goes to Waffle House, at Clarke's behest - and then he goes back to the dorm and sleeps, rinse, repeat.  Clarke thinks the whole situation is a lot funnier than he does, but even as she laughs about his ridiculous avoidance tactics, he can tell she's frustrated.  

"It's fine," she says, over a stack of 'sub-par' blueberry banana waffles.  "These breakups between them usually only last a couple of weeks at most.  Usually as long as they can avoid making sexually-charged eye contact, which is only as long as they can avoid making any eye contact, which is only as long as they can avoid being in the same room."  

"If Raven's smart," Bellamy says, and takes a swig of truly awful coffee, "she marries him, and takes him for everything he has every time they get divorced, which should be two to three times a year."  

"Knowing Finn," Clarke says, and Bellamy's stomach twists into a knot, because Clarke really does know Finn, "he'd just keep coming back for more, too.  Plus, all the mistresses he'd probably keep, Raven would have grounds."

They move to the library, running through the pouring rain, Clarke with her books under her coat and Bellamy holding his above his head, bleeding highlighter be damned.  Clarke steps in a puddle that's a little too deep and splashes it all the way up her pant leg, freezing water and she makes such a shocked-frozen face that Bellamy can't help but laugh at her, which just leads to her shoving him sideways into a storm drain, which means that they go through the doors to the library fighting like kids.

"So, the MCATs are in a week," Clarke is saying, leading him deep into the science stacks, towards medical, as if he can't get there with his eyes closed by now, by sheer muscle memory, "and I really need to review the processes of the endocrine system, there's a stack of flashcards that some benevolent ancestor pre-med student left back here - "

She stops in her tracks, and Bellamy almost crashes into her back, trying to shake water out of his hair as he walks.  He looks down at Clarke's expression - open-mouthed, and a little thrilled, like she can't believe her eyes.  "What?" he asks.

Clarke just inclines her head towards the open study area in front of them.  Bellamy follows her gaze, and -

Holy fucking fuck, that is his sister - that is his sister on that couch currently making out with the astronaut, and there are tongues and there are hands under shirts and he has to look away but he can't, so he just screws his eyes shut.

He feels Clarke turn into him, hears her trying to repress her laughter, and she pushes him back into the cover of the stacks, her hands tight on his sides.  He stumbles back, feels her weight off balance against him, and when they're back a few steps and he finally can open his eyes, she's laughing, helpless and honest and bubbling, and he doesn't want to but he can't really help but to join her.  He grabs her by the waist and drops his head on her shoulder, which is a feat given the height difference, and just lets himself laugh, and Octavia and Raven can probably hear them, but who cares.

"Well," Clarke manages to say, "this break up may be slightly longer than anticipated.  Also, Raven may also be taking mistresses, so there go her grounds for divorce."

Bellamy tries to give her a hopeful look.  "Maybe she's going through an experimental period.  I've been told that all girls go through them."

"Is Octavia going through one of these so-called 'experimental phases,' then?" Clarke asks, a single eyebrow inclined.

Bellamy hopes to God that's a rhetorical question, because he hasn't got an answer.  Not that it matters either way, because it doesn't - actually, he'd probably prefer it if Octavia were into girls, less idiots for him to beat up, fewer pregnancy scares.  

Clarke snorts a laugh, tugs at his sleeve to get him moving again.  "Anyway, that was exhibit A, the endocrine system hard at work, you know, teenage hormones and all that - " Bellamy shoves her sideways into a shelf.

&

A week later, and neither of them are particularly eager to go back to their dorms, so three a.m. finds them on the top floor of the library, in a back corner by a stack of crap teen sci fi novels, spread out over two couches pushed together to make a sort of nest.  Clarke's swimming in flash cards, two textbooks open in her lap, a highlighter behind her ear, one skewered through her bun, one in her hand; Bellamy's laying on his side with his laptop in front of him, scrolling through and trying to read her encouraging statistics -

"No one gets a perfect score, princess," he says.  "No one last year got below a 5 out of 45, so that's good, probably.  Also, the verbal reasoning section looks like a bitch, not a single person got a perfect score - "

She reaches over and pushes his head back into the couch cushions.  "Not helping, Bell.  Actually the opposite of helping."

She's highlighting what looks like an entire page of text, alternating between colors, which can't be conducive to anything with the test in seven hours and counting down.  Bellamy takes the highlighter from her slowly, like he's trying not to spook an animal, watches her fingers loosen in defeat and let the highlighter go.  She drops the stack of flashcards she's holding, and they join the rest of the scattered ones across the couch between them.  

Clarke sighs, and unfolds herself out across the couch, laying next to him.  She stares at the ceiling, unblinking, which must mean she's reached a new level of exhaustion and stress never before achieved, or at least not observed by Bellamy.  He closes his laptop and looks up at the ceiling, too, tries to resist the urge to shift closer to her heat, bridge the small gap left between them.  

He feels Clarke's hand brush his, and he lets himself latch on, just their thumbs hooking.  

"What if I don't pass?" Clarke asks, for the billionth time in the last week.  "What if I don't get in to med school?"  He opens his mouth to respond with dutiful reassurances, but she cuts him off before he can, "I don't really have a plan B.  I've never had a plan B.  That was dumb of me, right? I should have a plan B."

Bellamy turns his head to look at her.  Her lip's swollen from so many hours of sheer memorization, and she has bags under her eyes, and her hair is coming out of its braid and spread out on the couch around her head, and she's just about the most fucking beautiful thing he's ever seen in his life.  

"I'll be your plan B," he says.  She turns to look at him, her gaze open and hopeful and bright.  "Whatever you need," he says, quieter.  "Whatever you need, Clarke."

He's lost in her eyes, doesn't realize she's moved until she's right in his space, her face mere inches from his, so they're breathing the same air so the ends of her hair feather against his neck.  He doesn't look away from her eyes, just tilts his head forward a fraction, and she surges forward to meet him, lips sealed over his, and her eyelids flutter closed and he follows her down, closes his eyes and pulls her in close against him, as close as he can.  

She twists her fingers in his hair, tilts for a better angle, and Bellamy's head is a wash of colors and light and Clarke, all he can hear is her heartbeat and his own blood rushing in his ears, all he can feel is points of contact, their mouths and her hands on him and his hands on her, everywhere at once because if he had a hundred lifetimes it wouldn't be enough to map all of her, her knees bumping his thighs and her hip pressed flush against his stomach.  

She feels like home, and home is something Bellamy's been meaning to find for himself.  

For now, though -

He pulls away, just a fraction, enough so that their lips still brush with every breath.  "If only we had a room," he murmurs, and feels Clarke's smile against his own.

[sara-reading1]

talk nerdy to me - avocadomoon

"I would’ve gone to bat for you," Bellamy says, "if it’d gone the other way." (bellamy's a professor. clarke digs it. nerdy sex verse.)

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The thing is, it’d seemed really cute last night. The whole “mysterious” schtick, like, three martinis in, Clarke had thought it was a brilliant idea to be all “no, you can’t have my number, if you really wanna see me again then you’re gonna have to work for it,” giggle, hair flip, et cetera. Now in the light of day, it’s just dumb.

"You didn’t give him your number?" Octavia sounds absolutely aghast. "Dude."

"I know." Clarke muffles her moan in a pillow. "Did I tell you about his hands? He had really, really nice hands.”

Octavia snaps her gum and looks disapproving. “Did you at least tell him your last name? Or get his?”

"No." Clarke groans again. "Oh my God, I’m the worst."

"This is why you haven’t gotten laid in six months." Octavia reaches over and pats Clarke’s shoulder, sort of awkwardly. She’s not the best at physical affection, Clarke thinks fondly. "Hey, look on the bright side! Maybe he secretly followed you home or something."

Clarke snorts. “Yeah. Hopefully.”

It’s possible, she guesses. Like, in a non-creepy way. Bellamy had mentioned he had family in town, so chances are he’ll be around campus—which isn’t a huge one, thankfully. Clarke bites her lip, trying not to fall headfirst into a romantic fantasy of running into him on the quad, preferably in front of all her friends, with Finn stewing in angry jealousy somewhere off to the side. Because for real, that was the only thing missing from last night.

(He has really nice hands, okay. There’d been a corner booth involved. Her underwear had been sacrificed to the cause. God, she really, really should have given him her number.)

"Or hey, maybe my brother could help!" Octavia says cheerfully. "He’s pretty good at computer stuff, he could probably find Mr. Handsy on facebook for you."

"What exactly can your brother do that the search bar can’t?" As if Clarke hasn’t already tried that. Twice. Whatever.

"I don’t know. He found our birth dad like that." Octavia shrugs. "You’re still coming to lunch, right? It’s on B and me."

"Sure," Clarke says gloomily.

Octavia pats her shoulder again. “Don’t worry,” she says sympathetically, “even if you don’t find him, it’s not like he’s the only hot guy in the world.”

Clarke sighs forlornly and climbs off her bed to get dressed. She’s not sure Octavia’s really grasping how phenomenal the hand thing was.

Octavia gets increasingly excited as lunch draws closer and closer; she and her brother are obviously the kinds of siblings that show affection through insults, and hers have been getting meaner and meaner for weeks.

"Ugh, I swear," Octavia says in disgust, looking up from her phone. "He’s even worse than you are. What a dweeb."

"What? Is that him?" Clarke asks curiously.

"Yeah. Apparently he met a girl. He’s being super dorky about it." Octavia rolls her eyes, but the grin on her face as she texts him back kind of ruins the effect. "He can’t find the dorm either."

"Tell him to look for the statue," Clarke says absently, turning her attention back to the mirror, determined to finish straightening her hair before the mysterious brother B gets there. "Hey—can I borrow that blue scarf? I’ve got all these damn hickeys on my neck."

"Yeah, sure," Octavia says casually, jumping up to squint out the window. She laughs. "Oh my God, he’s just wandering around like an idiot." She pounds on the glass. "Hey! Dumbbell!"

Clarke watches in amusement as Octavia waves at somebody outside, hurriedly tapping out another text, practically vibrating in excitement. “Is he out there?”

"Yeah, I’m gonna go let him in." Octavia grins. "You almost ready?"

Clarke waves her off. “I will be,” she says, “go on.” Octavia smiles again and scampers away.

She skips makeup and grabs Octavia’s scarf, winding it carefully around her neck, closing her eyes momentarily against the sense memory of Bellamy’s teeth on her throat. Honestly—she’d much rather spend the rest of her Sunday in bed, obsessively Googling and berating herself, but never let it be said that Clarke is a bad friend, so lunch with Octavia and her nerdy brother it is.

Doesn’t he write textbooks or something? She thinks O mentioned something about that. She knows he just finished grad school for history, “like Roman-y stuff, I dunno,” Octavia had said. Clarke’s not sure what “Roman-y stuff” is exactly, and she’s wondering if that means he studies the Roman empire or the Romani people as she struggles to tug her boots up over her calves, which is why she doesn’t look up right away when Octavia bursts back into the room.

"—can’t believe you did that," Octavia says, happy and loud, and Clarke looks up, and promptly loses her balance and falls right off the futon and into a heap on the floor. "Clarke! Whoa, dude—"

Clarke considers ignoring her, and making this floor her new home, because yup, that’s Bellamy. Her three-martini Mr. Handsy is Octavia’s big nerdy history textbook brother. She really is the worst.

"Are you okay?" Octavia asks worriedly, and Clarke tentatively looks up. He’s staring at her, looking like he’s about to either burst into laughter, or run away. She’s not sure which option she prefers.

"Uh," she says blankly.

"Clarke," Bellamy says, and moves past Octavia to bend down and offer her a hand up. "You okay there, Princess?"

"Uh," Clarke says again, and feels herself blush bright red. Then she takes his hand and blushes again, because oh my god, hands. “Yeah. I, uh, tripped. My heels. Uh.”

"Are you drunk or something?" Octavia asks suspiciously.

Bellamy’s eyes go to Clarke’s scarf, and he smiles knowingly, slow and wry. “Or something,” he says, and Clarke winces, turning just in time to see Octavia’s eyes widen in horror.

"Octav—"

“Oh my fucking God,” Octavia screeches, reaching out and hitting both of them. “Oh my God, seriously? Oh my God. You both told me—oh my God.”

"You always called him ‘B’, how was I supposed to know?" Clarke exclaims defensively. Octavia covers her face with her hands and moans.

"Okay, this is awkward," Bellamy says, "if I’d known she was your roommate I definitely wouldn’t have told you about the—"

Octavia moans again.

"Yeah, we are so the worst,” Clarke says.

Chapter 2

Summary:

the personal and the political

Chapter Text

If he were any other guy, Clarke'd be on that like white on rice--hot and good at orgasms and apparently he's smart too, like serious smart, hoo boy--but he's not just any other guy, he's Octavia's brother, and two weeks after the infamous bar hookup she looks up from her phone and says, "so they're offering Bell the visiting history professor position for next semester," with this kind of jeez, awkward face, and Clarke sighs and thinks, aaaand another one bites the dust.

They've been kind of existing in a weird limbo place between friends and more anyway, which mostly translates to discreet coffee dates at cafes too far away from campus to walk to. "I would've told you that I was here to interview," Bellamy says, "but I didn't know you were a student when we met, and then, well," and Clarke shakes her head quickly and says, "no, it's fine, I get it," and sips her mocha and tries not to look as disappointed as she feels.

It gets awkward for a second, but then Bellamy shakes his head, like he's irritated, and catches her eye. "We could still be--" then he winces and cuts himself off. "I can't believe I was about to say that," and Clarke laughs, "no but really, I don't want to--"

"Me neither," Clarke says, relieved, and then it's a little better. Maybe she can't have him the way she'd wanted at first, but she can still have him, and that's alright. She can live with that.

So with that new affirmation in mind, Clarke sets about on her new mission of making Bellamy Blake her actual friend, and not just a weird former hook up/"we almost dated" acquaintance, which actually, goes fairly well. He won't start teaching until the spring, of course, but he's started to attend the History department meetings, and he'll usually drop by and bring them food since he's got kind of a weird complex about feeding them ("mother hen," Octavia says sagely, "he's always been paranoid about my calorie intake, you should've seen him when I was little.") and he's also looking for an apartment in town, so she and O are helping him with that too, and it turns out that they have some stuff in common besides orgasms after all.

They bicker almost constantly at first, because he's got strong opinions about, like, everything, which just so happens to be one of those things they have in common, and how is Clarke supposed to just let it go when he's so wrong? It's against her nature. Octavia thinks they've started to hate each other and starts shooting them worried looks when she thinks they're not watching, until this one night when Bellamy drives them out to Northampton to shop for a new futon for their room, and they have a big blow out over brands in the middle of Wal-Mart while Octavia pretends she doesn't know them, and it only ends when Clarke stomps her foot on the ground and says, "damn it, it's just a futon Bellamy, why does this even matter," and he just goes, "I...have no idea," and then Clarke bursts into laughter at the baffled look on his face, and anyway, Octavia stops worrying after that.

The first time he actually gets angry with her is when he finds out that her mom's the dean, to Clarke's bafflement ("you didn't already know? We have the same last name," she says, and Bellamy rolls his eyes and says, "you've never actually told me your last name, Clarke," and--oh yeah) and he doesn't speak to her for a week. Octavia goes back and forth between sympathizing with him--because yeah, it's not ideal--and being irritated because what the fuck, how did you not know her last name Bell, God you're such a man sometimes.

It's then that Clarke starts to think she might be in over her head a little, because that week is actually kind of horrible, she can't concentrate on anything and there's a weird twinge in her chest every time she checks her phone for messages and finds none from Bellamy. He forgives her eventually, of course, after she leaves him this embarrassingly sincere voicemail, and texts her back a stubborn not-apology that says, okay, i might have been a little dumb about the last name thing, but the damage is still done, because now she knows she likes him, now she knows how invested she is. It's not good.

It can't happen though, and so Clarke does her best to ignore it, which is difficult considering that they've made a habit of long, extended text conversations most days, that he always remembers to get a separate thing of veggie fried rice for her when he orders Chinese food, that she'll lose her train of thought because she's too busy staring at the veins on the back of his hands or the freckles on the back of his neck. If this is what pining feels like, like a football player's doing push-ups on top of her chest, she's not into it at all.

It all comes to a head one night when he bribes Octavia into helping him move into his new place, and Clarke comes along because she's a weak, weak woman, and she's unpacking some boxes in the bedroom while he and O bicker about the TV placement in the living room, and comes across a bunch of his old essays from graduate school. She doesn't mean to read them really, she's just curious and intends to just look, but the top one is about Augustus and Clarke remembers Octavia's story about how Bellamy named her, and so before she knows it she's working her way through his thesis and Bellamy's wandering in because it's been like forty-five minutes and they've been wondering if she's dead.

"Oh," he says in surprise, and Clarke blushes because wow, invasion of privacy much, and says, "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to--" but he just shakes his head and waves it off.

"It's fine, it's not like you can't find it on JSTOR anyway," he says, and lets her take it home with her to finish reading it, in the interest of shared, educational knowledge or something, and Clarke almost wants to laugh because her motivations are not nearly that pure or noble. Like--if he only knew, right?

She doesn't have much experience reading academic papers in his field, let alone one as complex as a graduate thesis, that digs deep into the politics of Augustus' reign and, in particular, the influence Octavia wielded over his policies as his adviser, and her divorce and subsequent war against Marc Antony and Cleopatra and her shared grief with her brother over the death of her son and how all the lines between personal and political became so bloody and intense and blurred that even the biographers recording these histories couldn't tell them apart, and Clarke might not grasp some of the more complicated stuff, but she feels moved anyway, from the passion he obviously put into this, from the way he talks about these people like he knows them.

She stays up until two o'clock in the morning to finish reading it and then takes it with her to her classes the next day so she can go back over the parts she didn't understand, dog-earing the pages and underlining the parts that she finds particularly interesting. It becomes a fixture in her backpack, along with her day planner and the little bag of spare pencils and highlighters, and she finds herself taking it out and reading it when she's bored or needs a break from whatever she's actually supposed to be studying, scrawling little comments in the margins and a big list of questions, on the very back page, that she means to ask him when she gets the chance.

Octavia almost catches her with it once but Clarke flips it over before she can see the title, ashamed of herself for having such a weird secret but not wanting to really confront it anyway. Not like it matters either way, because a few days later, she's at his place using his kitchen to make some "sorry about the breakup" cookies for Jasper, and her phone goes off while she's washing butter off her hands and, without thinking, she asks him to grab it for her, forgetting that the thesis is in her bag, and--yeah.

"You actually read it?" he asks, sounding surprised, and Clarke nods, glad he's facing away from her so she can make mortified faces at the sink. "You--wow, you...really read it."

"Yeah, uh," Clarke says, trying to sound nonchalant, and shuts the water off with her elbow. "It was interesting. Whatever."

Bellamy doesn't reply, just keeps flipping through it with this sort of...unreadable look on his face. Clarke winces and looks at the wrinkled, well-read pages and finds a whole new thing to be embarrassed about.

"I had some questions, and," Clarke says slowly, and Bellamy looks up sharply, and she continues, "um, on the back," and he flips it over and grins like he does when he manages to beat Octavia at cards and says, "okay, questions I can handle," and pulls a chair up to the kitchen counter.

So Clarke finishes her cookies while Bellamy explains how the Roman Senate works and the significance of naming--and renaming--in the Roman imperial tradition, and why they still call that time period the Pax Romana despite it containing one of the most famous wars in popular culture, and how Augustus usually gets the short end of that stick anyway since Shakespeare decided to turn him into a villain and Octavia into a victim, respectively.

"She gets underestimated like that a lot, actually," he says, "the Cleopatra/Antony legend being what it is and all, most people either mischaracterize her or overlook her completely, which is ridiculous considering the influence and power she wielded in Roman society and politics, and not just through her relationship with her brother, for that matter--I mean, her role in the Battle of Actium alone--"

"Yeah, I mean, that's only your thesis statement and everything," Clarke teases, "but no, seriously, it's like--was this typical, back then? Because the way movies and books tell it it's like, if you were a woman you were either barefoot and pregnant or enslaved, and--"

"Oh man," Bellamy says, "you've got so far to go, grasshopper," and gets up to go pull some books down from his shelves for her.

She almost burns her cookies because she's too engrossed in his explanation of Octavia and Augustus' propaganda campaign against Antony and Cleopatra, and the complex effects it had on Octavia's contemporary reputation, and it's only when she runs into the kitchenette to take them out to cool that she realizes how shaky her legs are, how her stomach won't sit still and the flush on her cheeks isn't from the oven.

God, she thinks forlornly, and takes the opportunity to duck into the bathroom to splash water on her face, and when she comes out Bellamy shrugs a little sheepishly and says, "sorry, I got carried away, I guess," and something sort of--breaks, in Clarke's head, and before she can second-guess it she's marching over and kissing that rueful look right off his face.

Bellamy grabs her hips and doesn't even hesitate to kiss her back, and then it gets just, frantic, and they're grappling at each other's clothes and Clarke feels like she might die if she doesn't get her hands on his skin right now, and when she pulls away for air he's already got her jeans undone, because of course it's the same for him, of course she wasn't alone in this, she doesn't know why she thought that, even for a second.

"Okay, so, did she really adopt Cleopatra's kids?" Clarke asks, as a joke really, but Bellamy laughs as he's pushing her down onto back on the couch and says, "yeah, part of the propaganda thing, plus it neutralized Antony's heirs and helped solidify Julio-Claudian rule," and Clarke moans and grasps desperately at his shoulders, and thinks, oh.

They fuck twice in the living room and then Bellamy picks her up and carries her to bed, where they fall into a dead-sleep nap for four hours. Clarke wakes up from a dream about Augustus, the first Emperor, and wakes Bellamy up so he can fuck her again, and she muffles her cries in the pillow and thinks about the Battles of Philippi, about division of territory and how even the smallest, most inconsequential decision can define an empire, later on down the line.

"So, I guess we're doing this," Bellamy says later, as they're feeding each other Jasper's cookies, "I mean, it's not like--you're not my student, you've never been my student, and--"

"We'll figure it out," Clarke assures him, not wanting to think about it now, not when there's so many questions to ask, so much history left to cover. She takes a deep breath and wraps an arm around his waist and says, "Can you tell me more about the Constitution? Like was it actually written down, with protections, like ours, or was it just pretty much up to the emperor as far as what rules they followed?"

Bellamy smiles, like a promise, and lifts her up onto the kitchen counter so they're face to face, and says, "more the latter than the former, it's kind of complicated," and Clarke wiggles a little closer, ready for this, ready to listen.

Chapter 3

Summary:

primary texts

Chapter Text

Clarke goes to one of his lectures and sweats through her clothes, like she chose a seat in the back but she’s still pretty sure that a few people saw her squirming and now she’s gonna be the weird girl with the bladder infection on campus, but whatever. She hangs back after and they fuck on the floor behind the podium while he murmurs about Cicero’s five canons of rhetoric in her ear.

He grades papers in bed sometimes and she always starts out with this vague promise to herself that she’ll keep to her side and let him finish, but he’s one of those teachers that complains and talks back to the essays like every error personally offends him, so she always ends up wiggling under his arms and into his lap so she can rub off against his leg while he rambles about the Tribunate and the Licinio-Sextian Laws and Lex Hortensia. It’s better than any dirty talk that ever could exist, after all, Finn’s “baby”s and Wells’ “yeah like that”s are nothing compared to Bellamy muttering in Latin against her neck as he bends her down over the couch, or the cadence of his voice when he’s arguing with Carlos Armijo from the Classics department about his syllabus for his freshman level Roman Oratory class, stomping around the living room and complaining bitterly about howthese kids are never going to learn how to read primary texts if nobody assigns them primary texts, damn it.

He goes on a trip to a conference in Seattle for a week and a half, and two days in Clarke breaks down and borrows Octavia’s key so she can steal one of his books and spends most of the night curled up in bed reading Dionysius of Halicarnassus out loud to herself until she’s trembling and panting, and goes off the second she slides her hand down into her panties because she’s thinking about the time he took her to dinner at that really fancy place two towns over and then spent the entire meal talking about Atticistic literature.

It’s ridiculous, the weirdest kink ever, she has no fucking clue how she’s gonna get through the Marcus Aurelius lecture that’s coming up in her Philosophy class. Bellamy thinks it’s hilarious, and has no suggestions whatsoever, especially considering that he has a similar problem whenever she starts talking about science. On his sixth day in Seattle, they end up having the nerdiest phone sex ever because Clarke made the mistake of asking him to quiz her for her cellular biology test.

"Explain autophagy to me," he demands, and Clarke replies, "okay, but then you have to talk about the Third Punic War some more."

(“God,” Octavia tells her in disgust, “you two freaks really deserve each other.” Clarke really hopes so; she’s not sure she even could go back to normal sex after this.)

Chapter 4

Summary:

relationship form

Chapter Text

They manage to keep it quiet for a total of, like, three weeks, which is impressive to say the least, considering that the night they met they rounded third base at the local townie bar while half the football team did jaeger shots six feet away.

Octavia helps a little, but not much since she’s pretty disgusted by the whole thing, and so it’s mostly up to Clarke to explain why nobody ever sees her outside of class anymore, why she wore those jeans three days in a row, why Rachael Newman saw her walking home yesterday at 4 AM when she was out for an early morning jog.

"I mean," Raven says, "it’s not like you’re all that subtle, it’s pretty obvious. New boyfriend, right?"

Clarke shrugs. That’s not the part of the thing she wants to keep secret. “Yeah.”

Monty and Jas both look instantly bored and turn back to their 3DS game, but Finn frowns. “Who is it?”

"None of your beeswax," Clarke says, and watches in satisfaction as Raven reaches over and slaps Finn’s forehead. "Come on, Finn, seriously."

"I was just asking," Finn grumbles, and turns back to his macaroni and cheese. Raven makes eye contact with her over his shoulder and rolls her eyes pointedly.

"So, it’s a secret, right?" she asks later, jogging to catch up with Clarke outside the caf. She wiggles her eyebrows. "Hot."

"Yeah, we’re trying to keep the magic alive," Clarke jokes, and only feels a little bit bad about lying. But whatever, it’s not a real lie. Octavia’s the only person who really needs to know, anyway.

Things have been a little strained between them lately though, and Clarke’s chalked it up to the ultimate awkward of how she and Bellamy met, but this assumption is disproved fairly effectively when Octavia marches over and rips Clarke’s ear buds out and says, “okay, we need to talk,” and Clarke’s face must be a sight, because then she sighs and goes, “don’t worry, I’m not mad at you or anything, you know I have trouble with tone,” and tugs Clarke up out of her desk chair.

Octavia drives them to Starbucks in her shitty, rusty Lumina, and they sit parked in the lot with iced lattes while Octavia chain smokes her way through a pack of Camels and tells Clarke about her mother’s death, staring fixedly at the windshield, not once making eye contact. Clarke clutches her latte and tries not to breathe audibly until she’s finished.

"They never caught the guy," Octavia says, "can you believe that? Just runs somebody over, drives off, no consequences. Christ." She’s full of nervous movement, flicking her ash out the window, fiddling with the A/C knobs, picking at her nail polish. It freaks Clarke out because she’s usually so serene—energetic, yes, but in a smooth sort of way, like a fast-moving river, in contrast against Bellamy’s deep, thoughtful lake. "And I mean, I’m not telling you all this so you’ll feel sorry for us, just—so you’ll understand, you know, because you’re my friend and he’s my brother and I don’t want to lose either one of you. Like, it’s sort of in all our best interests that this work out, is what I’m saying."

Clarke clears her throat, because it’s only been three weeks and that sounded like it was headed to a real serious place, “I wouldn’t—even if it didn’t work out for whatever reason, you know we’d keep it away from you, O.”

Octavia just shrugs and takes another drag. “That’s sweet, but not exactly what I meant,” she says, and looks over at her pointedly, until Clarke gets it.

"Oh," she says, feeling profoundly dumb, "oh.”

"He used his inheritance to hire a lawyer to keep me out of foster care," Octavia says evenly, "he worked three jobs through undergrad to cover our bills. The whole world thought we were fucked, but he made something of himself anyway, and now he’s a professor and he’s dating the dean’s daughter and I swear to God Clarke, if this fucks up his career, I will end you.” Clarke swallows thickly. “I mean, I love you and all. But still.”

Clarke takes a deep breath and looks her friend in the eye and says, “I’m not going to let that happen,” and Octavia stares at her for a very long, frightening minute before nodding, seemingly satisfied.

"And seriously, don’t ever tell me about your sex life." She shudders, tossing her still-lit cigarette out the window. "I know way too much already."

"Deal," Clarke replies.

There are three sexts from Bellamy waiting for her on her phone when she gets back to campus and then a fourth one that says, shit wrong number sorry :/, and she laughs out loud and sends back, you asshole, to which he responds, this is rebecca, right? and Clarke replies, just for that ur buying dinner tonight, as if he doesn’t buy every night already. So she’s distracted by that, and by the fancy underwear she wore today on a whim (well—“fancy” is kind of subjective, it’s basically a push up bra and boyshorts with DNA strands on them; either way she thinks Bellamy will appreciate it) and by thinking about the look on Octavia’s face as she’d talked about Aurora, which is why she’s not really paying attention as she walks over to Bellamy’s place, and anyway, that’s how they get caught.

She doesn’t put the pieces together right away; at first she assumes people are looking at her funny because of the love bite on her neck, and so most of the morning is spent in a self-conscious tizzy, constantly fussing with her scarf and cursing Bellamy in her head. Then Raven hurries up to her in the library as she’s coming out of her lit class and grabs her arm and says, “okay come with me,” and practically drags her away, to an empty study room on the first floor.

"What, oh my God," Clarke exclaims, and Raven goes, "are you sleeping with the new history professor?!” and Clarke gasps. “Oh my God, you are! Clarke—”

"How—oh fuck, how do you know that," Clarke says frantically, and Raven’s face morphs from scandalized excitement to something more sympathetic.

"Finn saw you," Raven explains, "or that’s what he said anyway, I didn’t really believe him believe him, I thought he was just exaggerating—last night, in town? He saw you kissing him on the sidewalk?”

"Oh God," Clarke says faintly, and grips Raven’s arm, feeling sick. Raven tugs them both down onto a bench and instantly pulls her into a sideways hug, and Clarke leans her head against Raven’s shoulder and tries not to panic. "It’s pretty new, he’s my roommate’s older brother, and—"

"Oh, honey," Raven says, "you don’t have to explain."

"I like him a lot," Clarke says, and then, fiercely, "he’s a good guy, it’s not—he’s a good guy," and pulls out of Raven’s embrace. "Oh my God, I gotta go. I gotta—"

"Go, hurry, you can catch her before lunch," Raven says, and waves her off. Clarke’s gone before she’s even finished talking.

Her mother’s office is in the oldest and most intimidating building on campus, and Clarke’s appearances are rare enough that the receptionist doesn’t even recognize her. It takes him like five minutes to track Abby down and he stares suspiciously at her the whole time, as if she’s trying to infiltrate the place or something, and by the time Abby finally pops her head out of the back, Clarke’s about ready to explode.

"Clarke," she says, with a pleased smile, "honey, this is a surprise, did you—"

"Do you have a minute?" Clarke interrupts, and watches as Abby’s face falls back into its normal, serious mask.

"For you, of course," she says, and ushers Clarke inside.

She clearly doesn’t know yet, and for a second Clarke seriously considers chickening out, but—no. It’s just a rumor now, but if she lets it go it’ll be more than that, and—no. Time to be a big girl, Clarke thinks, and as soon as Abby’s closed the door, she says, “I need to tell you something and I need you not to freak out.”

"Well, that’s not a very reassuring sentence," Abby says, waving Clarke towards one of the chairs. Clarke shakes her head, and she sighs, moving to lean against her desk. "I’ll do my best. What’s up?"

"Bellamy Blake and I have been seeing each other for the past three weeks," Clarke says, blurting it all out at once. Abby sucks in a sharp, surprised breath, her face turning into the very picture of alarm. "Don’t! No freaking out. Just wait and listen first."

“Clarke,” Abby says severely, and Clarke barrels through, before she can get the chance.

"No. Here’s the deal. This isn’t going to be an issue. We’re not doing anything wrong, or illegal, or breaking any rules. I’m of age, I’m a senior, I graduate in six months, and he’s never been my teacher. We’ll sign whatever paperwork you need us to, and we’ll be discreet as possible, but Mom, this is not going to become a problem for him. Do you understand me?”

"Are you—seriously?" Abby asks incredulously, dangerously. "You’ve just told me that you’re dating a professor, you do not have the ground to stand on here, Clarke!”

"I think I do," Clarke says evenly, "because if you go after him then I am never going to speak to you again," and Abby goes pale. "I’m dead serious about that, Mom. You know I am."

"Clarke," Abby says, voice breaking, but Clarke just cuts her off again.

"No," she says, "no, Mom. I’m serious about this, and just—no.”

She waits, her arms crossed, letting Abby see every ounce of fire that’s licking up her spine, oddly calm despite everything that’s hanging on this one, vital conversation. She may not be in love with Bellamy, but the potential is there, she knows, and anyway none of that even matters because damn it, he’s a good man, and Octavia is her friend, and Clarke will tear the remnants of her family apart before she ever lets herself become the thing that ruins them.

"Fine," Abby says, defeated, just as her phone starts ringing. Clarke lets out a long, slow breath, almost lightheaded from a sudden onslaught of relief. "Shit. Clarke—we’re not done talking about this—Clarke!"

"Yeah, dinner this weekend, I got it," Clarke says, and hightails it the fuck out of there before anyone can see how hard her hands are shaking.

Octavia’s been blowing up her phone for the past hour, but Clarke sends her a text that says, took care of it and focuses on calling Bellamy, who obviously doesn’t pick up, because why would he, when she so urgently needs to talk to him? He’s so contrary, even when he’s not even trying to be, it’s absurd.

She finally gets ahold of him after a half hour or so of calling, and as soon as he picks up she knows he’s heard because he sounds so flat. “Clarke, I’m in the middle of something, can you—”

"I talked to my mom, you’re in the clear with her," Clarke says, and hears him exhaling loudly, "we need to fill out that form, or whatever, the relationship form. Can you get a meeting with Armijo?"

"I’m in his office right now," Bellamy says slowly, and Clarke blinks, readjusts, and changes direction in the middle of the sidewalk.

"Okay, I’m on my way," Clarke says.

They fill out paperwork in weird silence with Armijo, who looks like he’d rather be doing literally anything else in the world, but thankfully the form is just a basic “I am not being coerced” type thing so it’s relatively painless. He also gives them an awkward “good luck” as they leave, so there’s that, and Clarke watches Bellamy’s shoulders relax a little bit more with every foot they put between them and his office.

"So," Clarke begins, once they’re clear, well into the staff parking lot and away from the eyes of campus. "Yeah, um, Finn—"

"Put it on facebook," Bellamy says, grimacing. "I know."

Clarke sighs in frustration. “It was dumb. Careless. I should have—”

"Takes two to kiss, Princess," Bellamy says, and squeezes her shoulder. Clarke leans into it, grateful. "You—your mom wasn’t—"

"Happy? No. But she’s not—she won’t make trouble for you," Clarke says, then takes a deep breath and continues, "if it’s—I’d understand if you didn’t want to risk it, it’s not like I’m—"

He cuts her off with a kiss, squeezing her cheeks between his palms and crowding her up against the side of a blue pickup. Clarke’s breathless when he pulls away, squinting up at him, trying to see his face through the glare of the late afternoon sun, shining in her eyes and turning him into shadow.

"I would’ve gone to bat for you," Bellamy says, in that low voice he uses sometimes when they’re talking late at night on the phone, or when they’re in bed and he’s telling her how beautiful she is. "If it’d gone the other way."

Me too, Clarke thinks fiercely, a million times over, me too, and says, “good thing it went the right way then,” and kisses him again, not caring who might be watching, not caring at all.

Chapter 5

Summary:

expansion of authority

Chapter Text

Clarke’s already had a horrible day—midterms came out and she’s flirting with a D in Brit Lit, Finn’s still passive-aggressive commenting on her facebook photos, she ruined her favorite blouse in the dryer—but she can’t back out of lunch with her mom, even when she knows going into it that it’ll be a disaster. Six months ago they’d worked out this hokey compromise contract thing, and there’s a clause about these weekly summit meeting/endurance meals and if she breaks it now then Abby will hold it over her head for months.

It gets off to a bad start right away, since Abby always insists on Clarke coming up to the faculty lounge to eat, and of course Bellamy is there, eating with some people from the English department—including her Brit Lit professor, Clarke notices uncomfortably—and even though he doesn’t even see them at first, and just nods at Clarke as he leaves when he does, it still makes Abby tense up and grip her turkey on rye so hard that mayo oozes out the side.

"Mom," Clarke says, utterly exhausted with this argument already and it hasn’t even started yet. Abby squints a little, and sighs, and maybe she’s tired of it, too. Clarke hadn’t considered that possibility.

"So how are your classes going," Abby says, forcibly cheerful, and sets her sandwich down carefully, as if she hasn’t just squeezed its guts out all over her plate. Clarke takes a deep breath and decides to make the best of it.

It doesn’t come up again until the very end, when they’re on the sidewalk outside the faculty building, about to go their separate ways and Abby touches Clarke’s arm and goes, “honey, I’m just concerned for you, that’s all, I don’t mean to pass judgment,” and Clarke digs her fingernails into the meat of her palm and reminds herself that her mother is not actually trying to ruin her life.

"We’re being careful," Clarke says evenly, "it’s not against the rules, he has no authority over me whatsoever; we’re not even in the same department! He’s only six years older, Mom, for pete’s sake—"

"I know that, Clarke, but your reputation," Abby says, and Clarke has to physically bite her lip to keep from turning this into an argument. "Okay, fine—we don’t have to talk about this, it’s fine. You’re an adult."

"Thank you," Clarke says tightly, and pretends she doesn’t see Abby reaching out for a hug as she turns away.

She stews about it all through her afternoon chem lab, and stops by the dorm only to change her clothes and grab her overnight bag. She could go to his apartment and wait for him, but he’s got late office hours on Thursdays, and she’s not in the mood to bum around in his place for three hours until he gets there. So she sneaks into the Classics building through the basement door and thanks the gods of chance that there are no students waiting outside his office.

He’s on the phone when she walks in, and he gives her another one of those dude-nods as she tosses her bag down behind his chair. “I’m sorry to hear that Lisa, but I can’t make an exception for—no, I hear you. Listen—” Clarke frowns. “Okay look, you’ve had two months to write this paper, so you should have a fairly complete draft finished at this point. Email that to me and I’ll give you partial credit, alright, that’s the best I can do. That’s my offer.”

Clarke narrows her eyes at him all the way through the rest of the call, and when he hangs up, she says, “little harsh, don’t you think?”

Bellamy raises his eyebrows at her. “Excuse me?”

Clarke shrugs, irrationally annoyed. “You were just a little hard on her, that’s all.”

"Are you kidding me?" Bellamy huffs, irritated. "I’m not doing this with you."

"She was just asking for an extension, Bellamy, for your midterm assignment in your survey class, right? It’s not that big of a deal—"

"That student has asked for an extension on every assignment I’ve given her so far,” Bellamy replies, “not that it matters since it’s none of your business—but what I actually meant was I’m not doing this thing where we fight because you’re upset about whatever happened with your mom earlier today.”

"That’s not what I’m doing," Clarke snaps.

"Oh, really.”

Clarke feels tears threatening, humiliatingly, and presses her palm to her forehead to try and ward them off. “I’m not—it’s not—”

"Aw, jeez," Bellamy says, and stands up to kick his door shut. "Don’t do that, Princess—"

Clarke gulps back a sob and falls forward into his arms, shaking the nervous energy out against his chest. She’s just so angry, is the problem, and it’s not even about Abby’s disapproval of Bellamy, really, it’s just Abby in general, and how Clarke just doesn’t understand how she can walk around normally, expecting things to go back to normal now that Clarke knows what she did to Jake. Not just turning him in, but getting him fired, acting all sad and sympathetic at home while spearheading the campaign to blacklist him at work, and it’s been years now but her father still died alone, in an apartment on the other side of the country, with his career in disgrace, and Clarke doesn’t know how to forgive somebody for that, let alone the one person she was supposed to be able to trust, no matter what.

Bellamy makes comforting sounds against the top of her head as she fights off the tears, squeezing her shoulders and generally being unflappable in the face of Clarke’s weird family issues, as if she hasn’t just stomped into the middle of his work day and criticized his teaching methods and then had a bizarre crying fit like the huge freak that she is. If she didn’t already know how far gone she was for this guy, it’d be a losing battle now, for sure.

"It’s been a rough day," Clarke says pathetically, smearing tears against his neck, and Bellamy makes a low sound, deep in his chest, and squeezes her tighter.

"Yeah, obviously," he says, and pulls her back toward the desk. "Come on."

Clarke sniffs a little and wipes her face and lets him scootch her up on his desk top, watching him slide his laptop and the stack of books out of the way curiously. “Bellamy, what—”

"Where’d we leave off last time?" Bellamy asks, casually stepping between her legs, "Caligula? Agrippina’s feud with Tiberius, right?" and Clarke goes hot all over.

"Tiberius died and Caligula became emperor," Clarke says shakily, and lets him push her down on her back. There’s a pencil beneath her right shoulder blade and she digs it out and throws at him, smiling when he dodges it easily and squeezes her thighs beneath her skirt.

"Okay so, he was a fucking tyrant basically, you wanna hear about the recession he caused, or his feud with the Senate?" Bellamy asks, and squeezes her crotch through her underwear, reaching down and pulling at the collar of her shirt with his teeth, and Clarke moans and kicks the side of the desk and says, "senate, oh God, the senate,” and prays that the door is locked because she’s not about to move for anything.

Bellamy makes her come just by fingering her and explaining the history of resentment between Caligula and the Roman senators, and then talks some more about the controversial incorporation of religion into his rhetoric that coincided with his expansion of authority as emperor while she takes the rest of their clothes off, sitting up on the desk and trying to get his shirt off without ripping any buttons.

"Okay so he died, right, he got assassinated? Like this," Clarke says breathlessly, and slides to the ground so she can turn and bend down and grip the desk, pulling him against her back with one hand. "Tell me—oh God—"

"By a group led by a member of the Praetorian Guard," Bellamy says, roughly against her ear, and pushes her pelvis against the desk with his hips, "Cassius Chaerea." Clarke thumps her forehead against the wood and groans.

He fucks her like that, still muttering about political conspiracies and ancient criminal trials against the back of her neck, and Clarke’s going to have bruises on her thighs from where they’re pressing against the edge of his desk but she doesn’t care, not when it feels so good it almost hurts, a little. Her last orgasm is more of a halfhearted one, a sort of weak swell of pleasure compared to the dramatic wave of her first, but that’s how he always does it—draws it out to the end until she’s coasting on a steady pulse of sensation, until she’s limp, until she’s twitching beneath his hands and whimpering every time he moves. Endurance orgasms, she calls it. Nerdy, history lecture endurance orgasms.

"Okay," he says finally, as he helps her guide her shaking legs back into her skirt, "do you feel better?"

"Yes," Clarke says, and laughs, "oh my God, though, I can’t believe we just did that. During your office hours!"

"This is probably why your mother disapproves of me," Bellamy says, with exaggerated sadness, and starts buttoning up her shirt for her. Clarke leans weakly against the desk and grins hard up at the ceiling.

She checks the hallway for any waiting students for him while he puts his own clothes back on, and then sits on the floor behind his chair and does her math homework while he finishes his lesson plans for his Early Middle Ages II class next semester. Then he promises to buy her dinner if she proofreads his paper for the Journal of Interdisciplinary History on religious mobility and interfaith marriage in the Roman Empire, and she tells him, “only if you explain it to me later,” and he smirks and replies, “well yeah,” like it’s obvious.

Well, of course it is, Clarke thinks, and settles in. She doesn’t know why she felt the need to ask, honestly.

Chapter 6

Summary:

tell me how your heart works

Chapter Text

There’s party after party after party in the weeks leading up to graduation, and Abby takes Clarke to a surprisingly pleasant dinner at La Croix, but what she’s honestly looking forward to the most is Bellamy and Octavia’s private yeah, Clarke’s fucking awesome, look at how many med schools she got into celebration, which consists of a homemade jello shot cake and a House M.D. marathon at Bellamy’s apartment.

"Yeah, cuz we’re better than all your other friends," Octavia says through a scoff, "obviously."

Clarke glances over at Bellamy. “Well,” she says, and Octavia blows a loud raspberry in her face, rolling her eyes to heaven.

"I regret so many things about the two of you," she says, and shoves a neon green shot in her mouth.

Three episodes in, they get bored and start a drinking game, but since Octavia used all the booze for the cake, they end up just eating a shot each time, which gets them all way too wasted way too quickly. Clarke can’t really bring herself to complain though, especially since Bellamy and Octavia lose all the pretense when they’re drunk and turn into sappy idiots, complimenting each other and smiling all wide and warm. It’s like a little peek into an alternate universe where neither of them are assholes, Clarke thinks fondly.

Bellamy herds Octavia onto the pull-out once she starts talking to the lamp like it’s a person, and she goes out like a light the second her head hits the pillow. Then he and Clarke stumble drunkenly around the bedroom in the dark, trying to undress quietly and failing rather spectacularly at it, especially since they keep laughing at each other. Finally Clarke just gives up and flops down face first on the bed, still in her jeans, and lets Bellamy tug them off for her, muffling giggles into his sheets.

They sleep in late the next day, a Sunday, classes are long over and Bellamy doesn’t have any meetings on campus, and Clarke only rolls out of bed twice to pee and pull the blinds shut against the daylight, diving back into the blankets before Bellamy can get any funny ideas about waking up. Octavia’s gone when they finally climb their way back up to reality, but there’s a cold pot of coffee on the counter and a note that says, love u bitches, call me if u wanna do dinner xoxo, and then a doodle of a girl puking into a trashcan in the bottom corner of the paper.

"Thank God, she’s found a way to use that Art minor already," Bellamy says dryly, and pins it to the fridge.

Clarke warms the coffee up in the microwave and makes Toaster Strudels for breakfast-slash-lunch, and they watch a rerun of Wonders of the Universe on the couch in their underwear. Bellamy’s phone beeps a few times but he ignores it, pulling her into his lap so they can make out during the commercials.

"I’m very proud of you by the way," he says, "for graduating and getting into med school and all that, yeah, but also for pulling off that C-plus in Brit Lit. Miracles can happen.”

"I try," Clarke says humbly, and bites his earlobe. "You haven’t asked me where I’m going yet."

"Where are you going?" Bellamy asks obediently.

Clarke slides her feet to the floor, leaning hard on his shoulders so he reclines back against the couch. “Down on you,” she says slyly, and he laughs in surprise, reaching out and grabbing her hand loosely as she sinks to her knees.

"Oh, that’s very funny—fuck,” he says, and breaks off into a hiss when she gets right to business, pulling his boxers down and getting her mouth on his cock.

There’s something very surreal about giving a blowjob with Brian Cox talking about thermodynamics in the background, but Clarke rolls with it, tugging on Bellamy’s hand so he knows he can touch her head, leaning her arms on his thighs and scritching her nails against the coarse hair on his forearms. She honestly likes doing this, especially to Bellamy, who hates giving up control in any way and so rarely gives her the chance, always preferring to give rather than receive. It’s for that reason she supposes she enjoys it so much—the challenge is half the fun, after all.

Plus, he curses in Tagalog when she really gets him going, which is fucking hot. Like, hotter than the Latin even. Maybe.

She’s wet and aching by the time she makes him come, just from listening to his voice get hoarse, and—okay, so a little bit because of thermodynamics, too—and he pulls her up and kisses her stomach and murmurs, “tell me how your heart works,” and so she tells him about the chambers and the four valves, tricuspid, pulmonary, mitral, aortic, she tells him what they all do and tries to keep her voice steady through it all, while he’s licking her out and the television is still on, showing diagrams of the universe and explaining its secrets.

Afterwards they make more Toaster Strudels, and she tells him she’s staying in the city and accepting UMass’ offer, and he says, “oh good, I was worried you’d go for Georgetown, their program is kind of overrated,” and she thinks: the human heart beats a hundred thousand times a day, and fuck, fuck, I’m in love with you, fuck.

She’d tell him but she’s not as smart as she pretends she is—she’d tell him, but she’s a coward. So she just smiles and goes to grab a blanket from the bed so they can tuck in to watch more episodes of Wonders—there’s an all-day marathon, and neither of them have anywhere to be.

Chapter 7

Summary:

we contain multitudes

Chapter Text

They’re tentatively approaching the “so I’m gonna need a place to live when I start med school, and uh,” conversation when Bellamy takes her to a dinner party being thrown by this girl named Roma who apparently, he used to date, although it totally wasn’t serious and she’s got nothing to worry about at all, Octavia assures her.

"We had a fuck buddy thing in grad school, it didn’t last very long," Bellamy says, "we don’t have to go if you feel weird about it."

"No, it’s fine," Clarke tells him, and even if her stomach twinges a little bit when she sees tall, willowy Roma, kissing Bellamy’s cheek and grinning widely, whatever, she’s determined to be mature about this.

Roma’s nice, though, witty and personable, and her girlfriend Michelle is studying microbiology at UMass so Clarke doesn’t feel too alienated at a table populated mostly by Humanities professors, so it’s fine, not a big deal at all. They eat a pasta casserole that reminds Clarke of her dad’s cooking and Bellamy keeps his hand on her thigh beneath the table while he shoots the shit with Roma and Michelle and Miller, his roommate from Stanford, and it’s all totally fine.

"So, okay," Roma says, later in the kitchen, elbowing up next to Clarke where she’s helping with the dishes, "I don’t wanna make this weird or anything but I feel like there’s this giant Bellamy-shaped elephant in the room, and I just—"

"God, no, I know," Clarke says, "don’t worry about it, we don’t have to—"

"Thank God," Roma says, and they both laugh, relieved. "You seem so nice, I didn’t wanna—" she shrugs. "Anyway. You guys seem happy; that’s so great."

"We are," Clarke says, realizing with a simple clarity that it’s true, feeling secure in it. "Things are going really well."

"Good. He’s a good guy." Roma scrunches her mouth to the side, a little goofily, and slides her fingers through the soapy water. "Between you and me? He’s a little too good for my taste, if you know what I mean.”

"Uh, what," Clarke says.

"You know," Roma replies, "sort of…I don’t wanna say ‘prudish’ but I can’t think of a better word. Buttoned up maybe?" She shrugs and smiles. "We were just incompatible. We make better friends."

Twenty hours ago, they’d been drunk on homemade margaritas and Bellamy tried to give her a lap dance to a Lana del Rey song until Clarke was screaming with laughter on the couch. He also walks around naked. Like a lot. His neighbors complain. Clarke tries not to gape.

"Uh, yeah," she says, for lack of anything better.

She has to ask him about it, because that’s just weird, and that night she rolls over as he’s setting the alarm and goes, “so Roma told me you were sorta shy in bed, what’s up with that,” and watches in mild shock as he kind of freezes up and does his best deer-in-headlights impression.

"Um," he says.

"I don’t mean to," Clarke says, "I mean if you don’t wanna talk about it, it’s—"

"No, it’s not that," Bellamy says. "It’s just—" he huffs and runs one hand through his hair, mussing the careful style she’d gelled into it five hours before. "I don’t know, most girls I was with tended to be—it was different."

"Different how," Clarke pushes, because she’s told him about Finn, who lied to her, and Wells, who wanted more than she could give, and even about her mother, who broke her heart more than both of them combined. There’s something here in this that feels like that, those conversations late at night when they first started sleeping together, when they were both rambling their way into intimacy. There’s something behind this.

"I fucked around a lot in high school," he tells her, "my mom dying and all, you know. Then in college, I got serious about my grades and—I don’t know, shit changed, but the people around me, uh, didn’t. They didn’t—they kept treating me like I was the same, even when—"

"Oh," Clarke says, and touches his arm, and he shudders, leaning into it.

"It fucks you up after awhile," he says, like he’s confessing it, "feeling like two different people. That’s all. It’s different with you, though."

Clarke can see it, understand it, she gets whiplash herself sometimes, watching him talking to one of his students, explaining something so patiently one minute and then turning around to murmur about how he likes how her ass looks in that skirt the next. Bickering childishly with Octavia over cheeseburgers and then debating budget plans at the school-wide faculty/student meeting twenty minutes later. He’s not just one thing, he’s a variety, has the ability to inhabit six different roles at once and seem comfortable in all of them, it’s something she admires about him and she can see so clearly how Roma and whoever else, however many other women there were, might have seen him from one angle and made the mistake of thinking that that’s all there was to see.

We contain multitudes, Clarke thinks, and rolls closer to hitch her leg up around his waist, press her cheek to his shoulder.

"It’s different with you, for me too," she tells him, and he squeezes her waist in reply. Yeah maybe that living together talk won’t be as hard as she thought.

Chapter 8

Summary:

galaxy print

Chapter Text

In June, Clarke gets into lingerie, completely accidentally. It's Raven's fault really; she and Clarke go to New York City for a girls' weekend to celebrate Raven's new internship at E.C.H. Hill and at her insistence, spend most of the second day's afternoon in Agent Provocateur on the Upper East Side.

Clarke's approach to fashion up to now could be boiled down to "does it fit" and "is it clean," pretty much, so she's sort of uncomfortable at first, put off by the aggressive prettiness of it all, but Raven blithely refuses to just let her sit in the corner on her smartphone, so before she knows it she has her own sales attendant pulling her along, asking her about colors and styles and when was the last time you had a proper fitting? - which is never, of course, like, Clarke didn't even know you could do that for your boobs.

By the time she escapes she has a new bra size - small wonders never cease - and a new pair of sheer briefs that cost as much as her last iPod that she can't quite regret buying. Raven looks so proud Clarke is afraid she's going to spontaneously hug her in the middle of the street, or something.

"You should've bought the matching bra too," Raven says, "that green color is amazing on you."

"I guess I just don't see the point in spending so much money on something that you're just gonna take off right away anyway," Clarke says, "it's not like I don't look hot in my regular underwear, too."

Raven laughs. "That's not the only reason," she says, and when Clarke looks over, confused, she shrugs, "wear those panties tomorrow when we go to the show. You'll see what I mean."

It's practically a dare, so when Clarke's getting dressed the next night, she reaches for the powder pink shopping bag instead of her suitcase, and wears her very first pair of expensive, naughty underwear beneath her dress as she and Raven yawn their way through Phantom of the Opera. It's much more exciting than the musical, by far, and Clarke maybe sees what Raven meant every time she shifts in her seat and feels the silk rubbing against her hip, that little extra thrill she gets when she catches sight of herself in the reflection of a window. It's like having a secret, Clarke thinks, a secret that makes you feel sexy, and confident, and a little bit wild.

When she gets back home she tells Octavia about it, who gets a glint in her eye and shows her a website where Clarke can order an entire box of shit to try on at home and send back what she doesn't like or doesn't fit, and from that point onward it's just a lost cause. She discovers bralettes, an amazing invention she can't believe she never knew about before, and decides corsets aren't worth it at all, no matter how great they make her curves look. She falls in love with the whole bandeau look, and figures out pretty quickly that her breasts are too big to really pull it off, and spends like two weeks being super bummed out about that, before she moves onto long-lines and falls in love with those even harder. She decides most lingerie sets are pretty dumb, with the little, flimsy scraps of material and tiny little hooks that look great on the model but make Clarke want to pull her hair out, standing in front of her mirror and trying to figure out which snap connects where. Shapewear usually makes Clarke feel silly, but she finds a really pretty slip at Victoria's Secret that makes her feel beautiful, with lace at the bottom and a cut-out on the back that Bellamy will slip his hand through when she wears it to bed. Thongs and g-strings are very much not her thing (this she actually already knew, thanks to an ill-advised experiment on Spring Break sophomore year) but there's a whole world of boyshorts out there that are much fancier and prettier than the Hanes three-packs she picks up at Wal-Mart, and there's another type called a "tanga" that's sort of an underwear version of a bikini bottom that Clarke really likes, too.

She's not even doing it for Bellamy, or for sex with Bellamy really, because it's not like they need help spicing things up in that department; they've moved onto mythology now and Clarke's really enjoying the Aeneid stuff, and anyway neither of them are particularly into the show-offy, exhibition side of sex, so underwear doesn't really factor into what they do with each other. Plus, Clarke is fairly sure that he gets more worked up watching her yell at the Steelers on Monday Night Football while wearing sweatpants and dirty socks than he does when she saunters into the bedroom in a fancy lace bra, so whatever.

(Well - watching her yell at anything, really. The yelling is a thing, for him. One time she got really pissed off about something Jasper said about the recent abortion law passed in Connecticut and paced around the living room ranting about it for awhile until he practically tackled her into bed, right in the middle of a sentence, and well - she doesn't think it was the lecture on bodily autonomy that got him hot, is what she's saying.)

Nah, she just likes it, unexpectedly, likes the indulgence and the way it feels like pampering herself, but in a sort of practical way. It doesn't hurt that the fancier the bra is, the more comfortable it tends to be, especially since she's buying the proper size and actually paying attention to things like style when she picks it out. Knowing the difference between demi cup and plunge and balconette and how each of them will feel when they're on makes a world of difference, especially by like, five o'clock when she's been out and about all day and her back hurts and all she wants is to curl up in bed with hot chocolate and a fuzzy blanket - she really didn't realize how much uncomfortable underwear had been factoring into her bad days, but now that she does, she doesn't think she'll ever go back again.

Octavia and Raven both think it's amazing, mostly because Clarke won't beg off to the bookstore while they hit up Victoria's Secret at the mall, and for her birthday in July they go in together on an entire set of solar system print underwear they find on Etsy that Bellamy thinks is fucking hilarious.

"They glow in the dark, too," Clarke tells him, which sets him off laughing again, so she decides to wear them to the UMass' medical school's Black Tie Dinner fundraiser they attend in the first week of August, just as a joke for the end of the night, to apologize for dragging him along as her date.

"I don't mind," Bellamy says, as she fixes his bow tie, grimacing in a way that tells her he really does mind, and he's trying not to be too obvious about it, "it's not like you're not coming with me to Armijo's auction thing next month."

"I don't have to wear uncomfortable clothes to Armijo's charity auction," Clarke tells him, and brushes some lint off the lapel of his jacket. He's really just...uncomfortably attractive in a tux, even if he looks weird with his hair gelled back like that, sort of younger, and sleazier. "I just appreciate it, is all."

Bellamy tugs on a stray piece of her hair before she can stop him, pulling it loose from its clip, and laughs when she scowls and backs away. "We're gonna be late," he reminds her, as she runs back into the bathroom to check the damage.

"Jerk," Clarke mutters, and feels a little less bad about making him come - probably his intention, she realizes, but - still.

Bellamy's car is in the shop getting a new fan belt, so they have to take a taxi, pulling up to the convention center just as the last of the guests are trickling in and the drinks are starting to be served. Clarke gets sidetracked in the lobby by Tina Kwan, another incoming first year med student, and Bellamy makes small talk with her fiance Mike while Tina gabs for ten minutes about the married student housing on campus and how she's not sure if it'd even be worth it, or should they just bite the bullet and buy a condo? Important questions.

"I mean, I guess it just depends on what you want?" Clarke says helplessly, and wilts in relief when Bellamy seizes the opportunity to herd them into the dining room, because the speeches are about to start and they still have to find their seats. "Okay, see, this is why I brought you," she murmurs under her breath and Bellamy gives a long-suffering sigh.

"If you're gonna be a doctor, princess, you're gonna have to get better at this whole talking to over-sharing strangers thing," he says, and Clarke thinks forlornly, great, another thing to learn.

The entire night is boring as hell; the keynote speaker is the assistant dean of the medical college and her speech is a cookie cutter of the one she gave at graduation two years ago, but at least the food is good, and the bar is open. Bellamy endures all of it in stoic silence, and if she didn't know him so well she'd miss the way he twitches whenever the woman next to him laughs, and the way he keeps reaching up to loosen his tie and then stopping, remembering himself mid motion.

Clarke does a quick rotation around the room, hitting the people she most needed to say hello to and then skips them out early, as soon as the dessert plates have been cleared, making noises about an early morning the next day. Bellamy takes the tie off as soon as they hit the sidewalk and Clarke tugs it out of his hand and sticks it in her purse before he can get any ideas about throwing it into the gutter, or something.

"You can mess up my hair now if you want," Clarke offers, as they wait by the curb for their taxi, and laughs when he immediately does so, running his fingers through the chignon and turning the entire thing into a mess before she's barely even finished speaking.

"Yeah, that's better," he says, and Clarke's still laughing, trying to reach up and fighting with his hands to get the bobby pins out when he's still doing his best to tangle it, "you look much more like yourself now, the other thing was weird," and Clarke scoffs and gives up and reaches up to mess his hair up too, because he's one to talk, and so by the time the cab pulls up they look like the after panel in those Trojan ads, where the couple's sitting on their bed in mussed formal wear, looking like they've just been through a wind tunnel.

She trips over her skirt as she climbs in, still giggly and probably a little tipsy from the champagne from dinner, and he laughs and rubs her knee as he gives his address to the driver, and Clarke sighs and leans her head against the window, feeling content with the world and the little place she's carved into it for herself. When she opens her eyes again Bellamy's looking at her a little strangely though, and she frowns and says, "what," before she realizes that her skirt's hitched up around her thighs and her solar system underwear are glowing in the dim light, visible through the gauzy inner slip of the dress. "Oh," Clarke says, and laughs, tugging the hem down, "yeah, I forgot I was wearing those," and Bellamy blinks like somebody's just slapped him with something. "Bellamy?"

"What, yeah - what?" Bellamy says, kind of dazed, and Clarke gapes at him until he goes, "shut up," in a kind of disgruntled voice, and Clarke bites her lip against a laugh. "Clarke, come on."

"This - seriously? You really like - "

"Ugh, shut up," Bellamy says, and Clarke leans in and whispers, "my bra matches," and laughs in delight when he scowls and jerks away, glancing up at the driver to see if he'd overheard.

She's jumpy with gleeful excitement by the time they finally get home, and makes herself wait until they're in the elevator to reach up and kiss him, leaning her weight against his chest and making him stumble back into the felt-covered wall. He responds heatedly, apparently over being grumpy about the teasing, pulling her closer and pressing his thumbs into that little spot she likes, the dip where her waist curves.

"So glow in the dark, huh," she mumbles, and kisses the cleft in his chin, "I mean, I've got plenty of underwear with galaxy print on it, so I know it's not that - "

"You know what, you really don't want to get into the subject of weird turn ons with me," Bellamy says pointedly, and well, he's got a point there, so.

They leave the lights off of course, so they're stumbling around trying to get their clothes off in only the light from Clarke's laptop, still downloading updates on the desk. She's distracted by her buttons, reminding him to be careful because "that tux is a rental, Bellamy," and so his sudden, sharp inhale as she finally manages to get out of the dress takes her off guard.

She backs up until she feels the edge of the bed against her thighs and looks down at herself, the underwear glowing faintly, little neon green pinpricks of stars and planets against her skin. "You really like this?" she asks wonderingly, shivering at his body heat as he steps close and touches the spot on the bra where the cups hook together, between her breasts. Yes, he doesn't have to say, and Clarke reaches up to kiss him again, because God that is just so bizarre, that out of the hundreds of dollars' worth of high-end lingerie she's bought for herself over the past three months, it's the thirty dollar gag gift that takes his breath away, that's just so...like him.

"It looks like you're not wearing anything," he says, crowding her down on the bed and sliding her up towards the headboard with his hands on her waist, "like you're just wearing...the light itself."

Clarke thinks that might be the silliest and most romantic thing anyone's ever said to her in bed, and kisses him again, using her teeth a little just so she can hear that little grunt sound he makes every time she bites his bottom lip. Silly and romantic and bizarre is sort of their niche, after all, so why not. Greek mythology, glow in the dark underwear, yelling at football games on Monday evenings in dirty socks - it's just part of what makes them who they are, what makes them work. What will make them last, hopefully.

She keeps the underwear on for as long as possible, pushing him over onto his back and climbing on top so he can see better, reach up and touch her breasts through the bra while she rubs their hips together and pants, trying not to get too worked up too fast, to make it last like when he does it. She's not as good at it though, especially when she leans over to kiss her way down his chest, tracing the contours of his ab muscles with her tongue, the way he twitches whenever she hits a sensitive spot or when she gets far enough down his abdomen that her breasts brush over his cock and his hips jerk up, like he can't even control it.

"Oh, I have an idea," Clarke says breathlessly, inspiration striking suddenly, "shit, I can't believe we've never - sit up," and Bellamy grunts, shaking his head and trying to pull her back up his body, towards his face, "no seriously, trust me."

"What the hell," Bellamy grumps as she pulls him up, pushing his feet down to the floor, "what are you - "

"I said trust me," Clarke says crankily, and sinks down to her knees between his legs, pulling his hips close and pressing the top of her breasts against his cock. Bellamy chokes and slaps his palms against the bed so loud that Clarke laughs. "Oh, now you're with me - "

"Jesus fuck," Bellamy says, and Clarke leans over and kisses his navel, already feeling him leaking a little against her skin, "keep the bra on, princess," and Clarke nods frantically, sitting up straighter and pushing her breasts together with her hands so he can slide his cock between them, slow at first, then faster as they find their rhythm. Clarke looks up at his face and her stomach drops at the wild look he wears, the way he's fisting the sheets in his hands, his hair falling messily against his forehead.

"Hey, Bellamy," Clarke says breathlessly, as his pace starts to get erratic and her chest gets damp with sweat and precome, "the largest known star is VY Canis Majoris, first observed by a French astronomer in 1801," and he groans and grabs her shoulder and comes.

He mutters something in Tagalog as she stands up, rubbing his come into her skin and grinning triumphantly, then grabs her hand and says, in English, "okay, I officially forgive you for the bow tie," and so she's laughing as he pulls her underwear down and presses his fingers into her, pulling one of her feet up onto the bed and spreading her legs wide so he can press his mouth to her clit.

It's a precarious sort of position and they almost topple over twice, and Bellamy finally pulls away in defeat when her leg gets a cramp and she starts laughing again at the look on his face, grumbling about how her idea worked perfectly, of course, isn't that just typical, and so by the time he gets her down on her back, he starts going for it in a sort of grumpy, straightforward way, sliding two fingers inside her and rubbing up mercilessly against her g-spot, biting at her nipples through her bra and making her gasp. Her orgasm takes her by surprise almost with how quickly it creeps up, and he keeps fucking her with his hand all the way through, not letting up until she whines at him protest, squirming against his palm from overstimulation.

"That's what I thought," he says at the end, like making her come was winning an argument or something, and Clarke laughs again, and says, "you're ridiculous," and he shrugs and doesn't disagree.

As soon as she can feel her legs again, Clarke gets up and gets them some water, pulling her bra off with a grimace, already dreading what it'll look like in the morning light, and Bellamy snorts at her as she balls it up in a stray towel from the laundry hamper, because he's such a man and never understands the difference between getting dirty in bed and dealing with come stains on your favorite pair of Silver jeans. "Hush," Clarke tells him, and makes him drink his half of the water, and manhandles him down under the covers, curling up against his chest. "I hope they're not ruined," Clarke says, through a yawn, and feels him exhaling against the top of her head, ruffling her hair.

"I'll buy you more, if they are," he says, and Clarke huffs in sleepy amusement and thinks, yeah, I bet you will.

Chapter 9

Summary:

it's easy and then it's hard

Chapter Text

By the time September rolls around, they've been more or less living together all summer, which Clarke realizes one day when she stops by her mom's house to pack up the rest of the stuff she'll need for the school year and realizes how bare her bedroom is. She ends taking just a bunch of winter coats and her favorite pair of knee-high boots, and when she gets back to the apartment, she walks from one end of it to the other and actually sees all the signs of cohabitation that she just sort of...didn't notice, before. Her grocery list on the fridge, her shoes by the door, mixed in with his, their shared drawer of socks, her art pencils and watercolors stacked haphazardly on the windowsill, next to the chair they bought at Goodwill together.

It's the bookshelf that really cinches it though, because there's two entire shelves he's sacrificed for her medical textbooks and the literature anthologies she'd saved from her undergrad classes. Now that's commitment, Clarke thinks.

"Do you ever think about us getting a bigger place?" she asks him that night, as a test, maybe, just to see how he reacts.

He barely even looks up from his laptop. "I mean," he says, "if you keep buying underwear and shoes all the time then we'll need a bigger dresser, at the very least."

"I don't have that many shoes," Clarke says petulantly, because no, she can't really argue the underwear thing, "besides, you only wear like, three outfits. I could sell ninety percent of your clothes on eBay and I swear you wouldn't even notice."

Bellamy looks skeptical, probably because the idea of selling his bargain bin wardrobe on eBay is sort of ridiculous, Clarke will admit. "Do you want a bigger place?" he asks, "my lease will be up in November, we could start looking."

Clarke rolls it around in her head and then says, "you know what, yeah," because now that she thinks about it, it's a pretty good idea. The apartment is decent, and has good memories inside of it, but the oven is crappy and cooks everything unevenly, the carpet is ugly and the neighbors downstairs are coke dealers, they're pretty sure. Clarke thinks about a place designed for two instead of one, with a shower big enough to fit both of them, closet space to spare, a kitchen she can bake things in. Maybe a balcony, or windows that aren't nailed shut, at least. Yeah, it's a good idea.

"Okay," Bellamy says, and shrugs, and goes back to his work, and well, that's how that happens.

Clarke has all these grand, quaint ideas about house hunting that get dashed pretty quickly by the first month of med school, which of course is the ultimate lesson in humility, and it's well into the first week of October before she even gets a good grip on things enough to consider something like a move. Bellamy's fairly busy himself, and so for a while they only ever see each other at night, when she stumbles in zombie-style at nine o'clock, barely managing to stay awake to eat whatever food he's set aside for her before collapsing into bed. They get well-acquainted with quickies in the bathroom as they get ready in the morning, pretty much - it's not the same, but they deal with it. They'd known it'd be like this, after all.

Monty's actually the one who gets the ball rolling, of all people, when he up and quits his lucrative job at Wells Fargo and decides to move back home and start applying for graduate school for the spring semester, surprising the hell out of everyone but Jasper, who'd been lamenting for months about what a bummer Monty had been lately.

"I thought I could just jump straight in," he tells her, over one of their determined 'let's not lose touch' coffee dates. "But I just don't feel ready, and what's the use of working some job I don't like when I could keep going and get a degree in something I love? Yeah, it pays well, but if I have a shot at doing something I'm passionate about, then it feels stupid not to jump at it."

"I mean, if your parents are gonna help pay for it, why not, right," Clarke says, "not everybody's that lucky."

"I know, they're great, I feel like I shouldn't waste the opportunity since I have it, you know," Monty says emphatically, "I hate to leave you guys, but - "

"Hey, we got you for an extra five months longer than we thought," Clarke says, and Monty smiles and reaches out to squeeze her hand, "besides, you know you can't get rid of us that easily."

"It's gonna suck breaking my lease though," Monty says with a grimace, "I just signed a new one like a month ago," and Clarke thinks, oh yeah! Oh crap.

"Er," Clarke says, "yeah, about that," and tries to remember how big Monty's shower is.

Bellamy is fairly apathetic about the idea when she talks to him about it, but that might have to do with a conference in December that he was roped into, he's supposed to present a paper that he hated writing and so he's been edgy and stressed about it for weeks. "I mean, if you think it'll work, I trust you," he says carelessly, "and it'll help Monty out, so whatever, it's fine."

Clarke's trying hard not to be irritated with his lack of interest in the whole thing, constantly reminding herself that she doesn't exactly have room to talk, considering she'd forgotten about it completely for like, six weeks, but the closer they get to the move, the more dismissive he seems whenever she brings it up, and it's not exactly reassuring. Intellectually she knows it's an adjustment going from a summer-long honeymoon period to real life, with classes and grades and work and stress, that he's under a lot of pressure being the newest professor in the department, not to mention whatever gossip he's dealing with, openly dating the dean's daughter, like, she knows that's got to be happening, even if he never tells her about it. But it just - makes her sad, is the thing, because she'd wanted it to be...different, and maybe it was a silly, romantic kind of thing, but it's not too much to expect, is it? That they could get excited about something like this, together?

The fight, when it comes, is almost a relief in that sense, because it's been building for weeks, and Clarke doesn't understand how he expects her to just sit back and let him pay for everything, like it was one thing when they were first sleeping together and it was an inside joke, how Clarke would grin and slide the check over to him and he'd sigh and roll his eyes dramatically and ask if she'd really needed to order the most expensive cocktail on the menu, but now it just makes her uncomfortable, that he doesn't want to split the rent, or even for her to put her name on any of the bills. Like he doesn't trust her? Like he thinks she's not mature enough? Like he's a dumbass man with dumbass ideas about gender roles? Or is it just getting too real for him?

"That's bullshit and you know it," he says, and Clarke snaps back, "well it's not like I even know how you feel about me," before she can stop herself, and Bellamy jerks his head back in surprise and his face twists, and that's when it rolls over into serious fight territory, because yeah, the 'I love you' issue is a total sucker punch and they both know it. (She hadn't even realized it was bugging her, is the thing. She'll feel really bad about this later.)

They spend three days stewing about it, avoiding each other during the day and falling asleep in tense silence, and that Saturday Clarke wakes up to find him gone, even though he'd told her he wasn't going into campus, and there's no note or anything, and when Clarke finally finds a short text on her phone that just says went out, be back tonight, she bursts into tears in the middle of the living room.

It was so easy, and now it's so hard, and it's not like Clarke hadn't been expecting it, because she's not naive enough about relationships to think that it stays that consistently good forever, that there aren't rough patches and problems to solve and hills to climb. But it doesn't make the doubts go away, the creeping fear that maybe he hasn't said it because maybe he doesn't feel it, that he's got bigger reasons for not wanting her on the bills other than the fact that his credit is better and he doesn't want her mother's money. Everybody leaves eventually, is the thing, whether it's a physical leaving or something worse, something you can't take back, like what her mother did, like Finn, like Wells. What's the difference, after all, at the end of the day, if Clarke still ends up alone? You can be in the same room with a person and a billion miles away, all at the same time, and she's so terrified of that happening with Bellamy that she can hardly breathe.

His text had said "tonight," and so she doesn't expect him to come back until late, which is why she lets herself sink into her sadness, moping around the apartment and halfheartedly packing things into boxes, finally giving up around midday because she can't stop angry-crying every time she gets reminded of the fight, which is, you know, often. So of course he shows up right then, when she's curled up on the couch at the height of pathetic, pressing a wet washcloth beneath her eyes to try and get them to stop swelling and watching the most depressing episode of E.R. she could find on Netflix, because she's a masochist now, apparently.

"Fuck," he says, like he always does when he sees her cry, always cursing like he's frustrated with the world for being so shitty and making her upset. "Aw, princess, I didn't mean to do this," and he sounds so disgusted with himself that Clarke pretty much gives up on being angry right there, because what's the point.

"I was just," she says helplessly, "you were gone, and I - "

"I went to talk to O," he says, and tosses his keys on the table and sinks down onto the couch next to her, "don't cry, please, I hate it when you cry," and Clarke tosses the washcloth away and crawls into his lap because it's been three days since he's touched her and she's sad and she deserves a fucking hug, okay.

"What'd she tell you," Clarke mumbles, and Bellamy rubs her back with his big hands and says, "to apologize, of course, what else," and Clarke curls in a little closer and breathes in his cologne and allows herself to feel relieved, to let the ugliness of the past few days melt away with every firm, soothing stroke of his palms.

"I am sorry," he says, after a long minute, and Clarke nods and opens her mouth to say it back, but he talks over her before she has a chance. "It's not any of that shit you were saying, though, I can't believe you'd think that. If I've done something to make you think that you need to tell me," and Clarke pulls away and sits up, because she needs to see his face, for this.

"I love you," she tells him, and feels him startle beneath her body, "and I got freaked out because it's been a really long month, and we hadn't said it yet, and you seemed like you were - I know it wasn't because of me, but sometimes I just - "

"It wasn't because of you, it's never because of you," Bellamy says, and Clarke closes her eyes, ducks her head, "I mean - sometimes it's because of you, like when you go for days drinking nothing but instant coffee and Diet Pepsi, that stresses me out a lot, but - " and Clarke laughs in surprise, swiping weakly at his shoulder. "It's just, you know, work and shit. I didn't mean to make you think I wasn't in this, because I am. I am, Clarke."

Clarke slides back down against his chest, thinking about the bookshelves - two entire rungs, plus a corner of his desk, both the one here and at his office at school, where he keeps novels for her to read when she waits for him to be done with office hours, and she doesn't know how she forgot about that. "I know."

"And I - uh. You know that I - "

"Shh," Clarke says, because no, he doesn't have to say it. She doesn't need it until he's ready, it won't mean anything, until he's ready. "It's fine. Don't - that's not why I said it. I'm sorry too, it's okay," and Bellamy grips the back of her neck and breathes against her temple, deep and even, like he's trying to calm himself down. He was upset too, she realizes with sudden, belated clarity, and waits until he sounds normal again to stand up and take him by the hand. "Come on. Sleep. We're going to sleep now."

"It's like two in the afternoon," he says, but lets her lead him into the bedroom anyway, and Clarke squints up at him and notices how strained his movements are, the deep bags beneath his eyes.

"Well, who cares? I don't," Clarke replies, and pulls him down into the sheets, pulling the comforter up and over and around. "Call it a nap, if you're so worried."

"Sure," Bellamy replies, and pulls her closer, presses his face into her hair, and says, "we'll put your name on the lease, if you want. Your lease, my bills," and Clarke reaches out and grabs his hand, thinking, I made a good choice here, yeah, it'll be okay.

"Sounds like a plan to me," she says, and falls asleep, thinking about a breadmaker for the kitchen, maybe. They'd probably get a lot of use out of something like that.

Chapter 10

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for  notes.)

Chapter Text

Bellamy and Octavia have had this trip to the Philippines planned since last spring, a two week visit over Christmas to their grandmother’s place in Meycauayan. Clarke hadn’t thought twice about it when they’d told her; at the time she was still in the “I’m crazy about this guy but don’t you fucking dare tell him I said that” stage as far as their relationship went, and now that they’re full on, living together serious, well—she’s got school.

"You could still come," O says hopefully, "I mean, the last minute plane ticket would be expensive, yeah, but oh my God, it’d be worth it to meet our grandma. She’s the best, you have no idea—and she’d love you.”

Clarke looks over at Bellamy, who raises an eyebrow at her over his beer bottle. If he’s feeling any kind of weird commitment-related panic about Clarke possibly meeting his dearest living relative, it doesn’t show on his face—not that she’d expected it to, even if it exists. “I don’t have a passport, though. Doesn’t it take like six weeks to get one?”

"Oh yeah," Octavia says, disappointed. "Fuck."

"My mom wants to do Christmas together, anyway. And even if I did get a passport in time, by the time I finish finals and get down there I’d only have like, four days before we fly back." Clarke shrugs, unsure if she’s relieved or bummed about the convenient excuse. "Next time, maybe?"

Octavia pouts a little, leaning into Clarke’s side on the couch. “We’ll miss you, though. It’s gonna suck not having you there for Christmas.”

"We’ll Skype," Clarke replies, looking at Bellamy. His gaze in return is steady and frustratingly neutral. "And you better bring me back a cool Filipino gift."

"Does Bellamy count?"

Clarke snorts. “Definitely not,” and Bellamy sighs, a long suffering sound beneath Octavia’s peals of delighted laughter.

Bellamy’s pretty quiet for the rest of the night, which Clarke would normally chalk up to his normal, occasional bouts of moodiness, but after Octavia leaves he wanders into the bathroom while Clarke’s washing her face and says, “we should talk, yeah?” which is—not normal. By any means.

"You wanna talk? Like serious talk?" Clarke really, really resents the fact that he always springs this shit on her when she’s doing something awkward, like scrubbing the toilet or changing her underwear or shaving her armpits. She swears he does it on purpose.

"Yeah." Bellamy at least waits for her to dry her face, which is a small mercy. Her hands shake a little, which is stupid because he’s not going to break up with her or anything, there’s no way, but there’s still a little part of Clarke’s brain that hops straight into panic mode whenever he gets kind of somber like this, even though she knows it’s silly. "I don’t know how to say it so that it doesn’t come off—" he scratches the back of his neck, one of his biggest tells, and leans against the wall. Clarke watches him in the mirror nervously. "I dunno. Whiny."

"Just tell me," Clarke urges, "is it about—the trip? Octavia sort of just assumed but if you didn’t want me to—"

"No," Bellamy says, "I mean, yes, it’s about the trip, it’s just—did you not want to come, or is it something else going on here?"

"Uh." Clarke blinks at him, taken aback. "What?"

He huffs. “See? Whiny.” He rolls his eyes. “You were being weird about it. I don’t know if it’s because I wasn’t the one who officially invited you or whatever, I just sort of assumed you knew that I wanted you there, but if you didn’t—” Clarke just keeps blinking at him, incredulously silent, and Bellamy scowls, “you could help me out here, you know.”

"I wasn’t the weird one," Clarke blurts, and his scowl deepens. "You barely said anything the whole night! I thought you were being weird about it, which is why I was being weird about it.”

"Well, I was weird because I thought you were weird,” Bellamy replies, and Clarke bursts into laughter, “it was a whole Gift of the Magi weirdness thing, apparently—”

"Oh my God," Clarke says, snagging his hand and pulling him towards the bedroom, "I’m too tipsy right now to talk about this standing up."

"Holy shit, you only had two beers, you are such a lightweight,” Bellamy says, and dodges out of the way deftly when she tries to elbow him. “Nice try, princess.”

"I’m petite! Don’t make fun," Clarke orders, and collapses face first onto the bed, squawking and rolling over just in time to avoid being crushed when Bellamy does the same. "Why would I be weird? I want to meet your lola.”

Bellamy makes a face, tugging one of her legs up around his waist with one hand, and Clarke lets him, inching up his body and rubbing her cheek against the scruff on the bottom of his chin. “There’s a difference between saying that, and then actually flying to another country to meet my seventy-two year old Catholic grandmother.”

"She’s Catholic?"

"She is extremely Catholic,” Bellamy says forlornly. “There is so much mass in my future.”

Clarke hides her smile in his neck. “I could do mass. I wanna do mass.”

"No, you don’t," Bellamy says, "I don’t wanna do mass, O doesn’t wanna do mass, nobody wants to do mass except my grandmother, and even she gets bored halfway though, not that she’d ever admit it.”

"I’d do mass if your grandmother wanted me to," Clarke says, winding her hand in his shirt and pulling a little, to get his attention. A hey, seriously, pull. “I would—I’d learn to speak Filipino. I sort of want to. She doesn’t speak much English, right? I could learn, like—not for this trip, obviously, but for next time—”

Bellamy cuts off the rest of her sentence with a messy kiss, tugging her head back by her hair and holding her head still until she’s gasping, clenching her knees around his waist, tugging so hard at his shirt collar that it almost rips.

"Wow, okay," Clarke manages, when he finally lets her surface for air, "this tops the weird turn on list for sure, way stranger than my Roman history thing—"

"Clarke, shut up," Bellamy says, and rolls her over on her back, "you wanna learn Filipino?"

Oh, Clarke thinks. “Yeah.”

Bellamy frowns down at her for a second, but it’s one of his good frowns, a thoughtful frown. Clarke’s drawn that frown so many times she knows it better than she knows her own face, probably. “Okay.”

"Okay?"

"Yeah." His face transforms into a sudden grin. "But first I want to fuck you. I’ve been thinking about it all day."

"Really," Clarke says breathlessly, tilting her hips up so he can tug her sweatpants down and off. She feels a little lightheaded, going from 0 to 100 so quickly, not that she’s complaining, but— "All day?”

“Buong araw," Bellamy says, and settles down between her legs, smirking up at her, "that means ‘all day.’"

Clarke repeats the phrase and completely mangles it, judging by Bellamy’s snort, “okay, my first try and I’m half naked, very funny.”

"I’ll teach you," Bellamy says lowly, and kisses a long trail down her stomach, making sure to drag his five o’clock shadow chin down the sensitive skin of her pelvis to make her shiver. He says something else, but it’s lost to the crease of her thigh, a little, rumbling noise that she feels along with the exhale of his breath against her cunt.

"Don’t tease me," Clarke says firmly, "I’ve had two beers, I’m unpredictable."

"What are you gonna do," Bellamy says, "kick me?"

"I would absolutely kick you."

Bellamy pinches her ass and laughs, the dipshit, at her yelp of surprise. “Try it, princess.”

"Don’t think I, uh," Clarke says, trailing off sort of pathetically when he dips his head and just goes for it, spreading her lips with one hand and pressing the flat of his tongue against her clit. Clarke clenches her fist in his hair and spreads her legs a little wider, trying to grind against his face, but he follows the thrust of her hips, breaking her grip every time she gets leverage. He’s a lot stronger than she is; it’s not hard.

She tries one last time and her foot slips against the sheets awkwardly, and Bellamy backs off completely to laugh at her. She scowls up at him, frustrated in more than one sense of the word.

"You’re useless, get up here," Clarke grits out, stripping her shirt off grumpily, "and take your pants off."

"Bossy," Bellamy chastises, but obeys all the same, hopping off the bed to kick off his jeans and underwear. He pulls off his shirt too, in that weird boy-way, tugging it over his head by the collar, and Clarke has to smile at him when his face emerges again, red in his cheeks and his hair all mussed. What an idiot. God, she loves him.

"What’s the word for ‘slow son of a bitch’?" she asks, grinning with all her teeth.

"Don’t start," he grumbles, and plops back down on the bed so hard she nearly bounces right off. Clarke tries to kick him in retaliation and he grabs her leg before it can make contact, and from that point on it gets really juvenile.

These impromptu wrestling matches are pretty one-sided most of the time; it’s not like Clarke’s got any hope of winning when he’s not even a little willing to take it easy on her. It’s hard to play dirty when all he has to do is pin her to the bed and hold her there until she stops struggling, which is exactly what he does. Honestly, it’s unfair.

“Mabagal," he says breathlessly, and Clarke’s laughing too hard to reply, "that’s ‘slow.’ Putang ina mo. That’s—”

"Oh, I know that one," Clarke says darkly, rolling her hips vindictively, "Octavia already covered the dirty words the first time we studied for finals together."

"Please don’t talk about my sister when we’re in bed," Bellamy replies, pained, and lets her up briefly to grab a condom.

Thankfully he doesn’t tease her much more after that, other than some muttered curses when she clenches down a little too quick as he’s sliding inside of her, slapping her hands away when she tries to reach down to help. He goes in slow at first, then all at once, sinking all the way in and pinning their hips together, pressing his face to the side of her neck, still muttering under his breath, too muffled for her to make out the words.

Clarke sighs in contentment and runs one foot up the back of his leg, digging her heel into the side of his ass. “Giddy up,” she says, and he laughs loudly, right next to her ear, and bites her earlobe.

"Is that a hint? You wanna be on top?"

"I’m always on top," Clarke says smugly, and Bellamy slides his hands beneath her back and lifts her up, making her squawk out loud. "Oh shit, don’t drop me—"

"I’m not gonna drop you,” Bellamy replies irritably, holding her tight to his chest and rising up to his knees. Clarke clutches at his shoulders and grunts as he moves them back to the headboard, still hard inside of her. “Like this,” he says, bracing one hand on the wall, “giddy up, princess.”

Clarke spreads her legs a little, getting one foot on the bed, sinking down a little farther on him so that she’s straddling his lap. She hasn’t even taken her shirt off, and it feels even more obscene somehow, being partly clothed while she’s riding him, and against the wall, too—like Mr. & Mrs. Smith, she thinks, and she’s about to make a Brad Pitt joke but he kisses her before she can get it out, and the thought melts away.

It’s sloppy, and a little rough, but Clarke gets to control the show, settling into a steady, even grind. He keeps muttering things that she doesn’t understand—probably not even in English, but it doesn’t sound like Tagalog either—Latin, maybe, the nerd—and when she gets tired, he picks it up seamlessly, keeping the rhythm steady, driving into her over and over, the way she wants it, predictable and unrelenting. Her orgasm builds the same way—slowly but surely, starting in her abdomen and spreading up and out like pinpricks, and Bellamy keeps the pace all the way through it, until she’s shaking her way through the aftershocks, digging her head into the wall and clinging loosely to his shoulders.

She makes a face and he laughs, sliding out of her so she can lay back on the bed, pressing sloppy kisses to the side of her face as she catches her breath. “You still with me, cowgirl?”

"God, don’t call me that, I think I prefer ‘princess’," Clarke says, wrinkling her nose, and he laughs again, letting her pull him down so she can kiss his face right back, wet little smacks down the bridge of his nose. "C’mon, your turn." She flips over onto her stomach, tugging him in close with one hand.

Bellamy makes a pained noise, pressing up against her back and grinding his cock into the back of her leg. “Christ, Clarke—”

She grins smugly at the mattress and pushes back with her hips, urging him away so she has space to get on her hands and knees. “Tit for tat,” she says, and barely even gets the words out before he’s inside of her again, cradling her hips in his hands and thrusting inside so hard she cries out, clenching her fists in the blankets.

Bellamy rarely loses his shit in bed, being the extreme control freak that he is, but when he does it’s usually because of this position, Clarke bent over something or kneeling on the bed with her ass in the air, biting a pillow to keep from waking the neighbors. She has half a mind to ask him if he wants to make a video or something, because she always wishes she could see what he looks like when he fucks her like this—it’s got to look incredible. She feels incredible, because he can barely hold himself back, and Clarke never really saw the appeal of doing it this way before she was with him but God, she does now—how helpless it feels, but in a good way. She can’t do anything but take it, but she knows he’d never push too far, and that’s really what makes it so good. He’ll wrestle her to the ground and pin her down, bend her over the couch and fuck her brains out, but he never squeezes too hard, has never once left a single bruise or bite mark on her skin that she didn’t ask for, and that’s what makes it work, for Clarke.

She comes one more time before he does, like a lightning quick orgasm that takes her by surprise, and she clenches down hard on instinct. Bellamy makes a choked-off noise and squeezes her hip hard, and Clarke moans a little at the rush of warmth she feels between her legs.

"I can’t think of another cowgirl joke," Clarke mumbles into the bedspread, after they’ve caught their breath. Bellamy groans a little and pulls out of her carefully, and Clarke rolls over to her side gingerly, a pleasant, throbbing ache between her legs. "Yippie kai yay?"

"Weak," is Bellamy’s verdict, collapsing next to her with a sigh. Clarke leans her forehead against his forearm and he reaches up with his free hand, stroking her hair a little clumsily. "Okay?"

"Yeah." Clarke breathes deeply, the adrenaline ebbing away and leaving a soft lethargy in its place.

"I do want you to come with us next time," Bellamy murmurs. "She’s gonna love you."

Clarke smiles. “I hope so,” she says, and closes her eyes.

"We better work on your accent though, otherwise she’ll tear you to shreds."

"Pretty sure I can handle it," Clarke says confidently.

Notes:

please correct my translations if I got them wrong!! intense googling can only do so much /o\ eta: big thank you to ohkaaye for the help!!!!

Chapter 11

: Fic deletionChapter Text

Hello! This is a short warning that this story, as well as my other stories for this fandom, will be deleted soon. I no longer wish to be associated with this show or its cast in any way! If you wish to save a copy, please do so now. I'll be taking this down on Tuesday July 7. I will not be sending out copies of it to people who ask so please do save it if you want to reread it later. Thank you!

[sara-reading1]

Inconceivable - avocadomoon

Well," Bellamy says dryly, "this whole diplomacy thing sure is going great."

------------------------

On some level, Clarke doesn't know why she gets surprised by these sort of things anymore. Last month, the entire camp ate some bad not-strawberries and everybody's tongue turned blue for over a week. Two days ago Jorah saw something she insisted to anyone who would listen was an actual unicorn, and on the hike over here, they'd been serenaded by a flock of birds whose caws sounded eerily like a bunch of gravelly old men beatboxing. So - you know. Earth is weird.

Still, every once in awhile it manages to, well - let's go with 'take her off guard.'

"They want you to have sex," says Arden.

Clarke and Bellamy stare at her. Arden fidgets.

"Uh, with each other," she clarifies.

"What," Bellamy says flatly.

Arden flinches a little, which, Clarke doesn't exactly blame her. Bellamy's what the fuck voice is legitimately terrifying. "It's part of the ritual they perform for the spring solstice. All their trade partners do it; it's how they prove their worth to God that they're, er, rejoicing in the bounty of...something." Arden shrugs a little helplessly. "There were a few words I couldn't translate exactly but that's basically the jist - "

"But the sex part came through loud and clear?" Bellamy snaps.

Arden flinches again, and Clarke slaps his arm, an automatic instinct. A few feet away, she can see the grounder clan council - the Marach, she corrects in her head, if they're going to be trade partners the least they can do is use their actual name - standing stoically, watching them with easy, placid patience. They don't look like the type to demand weird sex favors in return for grain and access to hunting grounds, but well - Earth is weird.

"You asked me to come and translate, well that's what I did," Arden says defensively. "It's not normal French, okay, it's French after a hundred years of evolution and it's not like textbooks on the Ark got automatic updates or anything. I'm doing the best I can."

"You're doing fine," Clarke soothes. "You're sure - I mean - it wouldn't be like, a miscommunication of some kind?" she asks hopefully. "Like maybe the word for 'sex' actually means, like, 'gift' or - or 'communion' or something now - "

"They were...pretty explicit on the sex part." Arden shifts uncomfortably. "There were hand gestures." She frowns. "I don't wanna talk about it."

"Jesus fucking Christ," Bellamy says.

"Okay," Clarke says, trying to keep her calm, "okay. Can we, I don't know. Can we negotiate? Maybe explain to them that it's - it's not something we do, and we could...offer them something else, instead?"

"I can try," Arden says, looking skeptical. She glances at Bellamy one more time before turning back to the Marach. Even the way she walks away looks reluctant.

"Well," Bellamy says dryly, "this whole diplomacy thing sure is going great."

Clarke glares at him. "Yeah, because clearly the smarter option would be to kidnap their leader and hold them hostage in exchange for two barrels of grain a month, Bellamy."

Bellamy looks contemplative at that, and Clarke tries very, very hard not to be offended that he seems more willing to start a war than to have sex with her. She fails. "Don't tell me you're actually considering doing this."

"I'm not," Clarke says, feeling an embarrassing rush of blood flood her cheeks. "I definitely do not want to have sex with you."

"Good, because neither do I."

"Good."

"Good."

Clarke turns away from him at the same time as he does the same to her, and they stand in resentful silence for a few moments, watching Arden speak and gesture with the Marach. It...doesn't look like it's going particularly well.

"If we're going to have any long-term presence in this area, we need to have peace with these people," Clarke says after a moment, quite needlessly.

"I am aware of that," Bellamy says, enunciating each word in that precise way he has when he thinks she's treating him like an idiot.

"They might take our refusal to do this as an insult."

"I am aware of that, too."

Clarke glares at the side of his head. "You're being difficult."

"You're being sanctimonious."

Clarke huffs. It's not like she does it on purpose. "I'm just saying," she starts, and breaks off when it comes out much louder than she'd intended. Two of the Marach councilmen glance over warily, and Bellamy shoots her a severe look. "I'm just saying," she tries again, controlling her volume, "that we need this. Like, we really need this, Bellamy. We can't handle another fight right now and winter was tough this year; we're exhausted. We can't pick up and move again until we all get some rest."

It's been a very long, fraught week, these negotiations with the Marach, and Clarke can see every second of it on Bellamy's face in that moment. "Why don't you just come out and say what you're trying to say, Clarke?"

"Fine." Clarke sighs. "It's better than what the River Clan asked us to do."

Both of them wince in unison. Nobody likes to talk about the River Clan.

Bellamy glances back over at the Marach. Arden is still talking, holding her hands out in a placating gesture, but none of them look particularly moved. "It's a dangerous precedent," he says, voice carefully quiet. "For us, if not for them. To compromise on our principles so easily."

"Sex is a principle for you?" Clarke asks incredulously, unable to help herself. Bellamy shoots her another dirty look. "No, really, I mean - it's not like they're asking us to kill each other at the end of it, it's just - "

"Oh come on, you know what I meant," Bellamy interrupts, irritated. Clarke squares her shoulders. Fine, yes. "It's a slippery slope - today it's sex, tomorrow it's, I don't know, human sacrifice or something. Besides, we don't even know all the details yet."

"Details," Clarke says blankly, and Bellamy looks pointedly over at the ceremonial center of the Marach camp, a large, stone altar decorated with various bundles of food and flowers. "Oh my God - "

"Yeah," Bellamy says, with finality. "So. Don't go taking off your pants just yet, princess."

Clarke looks at the ground and concentrates on not blushing. She fails again. "We still may not have much of a choice," she mumbles. When she dares to raise her eyes again, Bellamy is focused on Arden, who's heading their way, two Marach in tow.

"There's always a choice," Bellamy says darkly, and Clarke groans internally. That's the kind of thing he says before he starts wars, generally. "Look, just back me up on this play, okay? I'm not going to let them force you into anything that makes you uncomfortable. We'll hear them out but we won't roll over."

"Fine," Clarke agrees, reluctantly charmed by his sneak attack gentlemanliness, as always. "I appreciate that."

"You're welcome."

"Still don't want to do you," she adds.

Bellamy nods knowingly. "Back atcha," he says, and grins a little bit as they fist bump.

Okay, so, Clarke is a twenty-four year old woman who has lived on Earth for the better part of a decade, and pardon her language, but, well - she's seen some shit. She's done some shit. She's lived some shit. And contextually speaking - it wouldn't really be that big of a deal.

The whole princess thing is more of an advantage than anything these days, but this part of it never fails to be irritating - how they underestimate her sometimes. It gives her authority, reverence, helps people look up to her and seek her guidance, but it also makes them think that she's...breakable. It makes people who hate her want to ruin her, and people who care for her want to protect her, and it's annoying as all hell in either incarnation, to be honest.

So while the idea of having weird possibly-public sex with her platonic political life partner in exchange for a measly trade agreement and a tentative non-aggression pact might not be Clarke's favorite way to ring in the growing season, but like she said, Clarke's seen some shit, and last winter she had to perform open-heart surgery on a fourteen-year-old boy with his mother's dagger at her neck the entire time, so like, let's try and keep some perspective here, people.

Clarke's a nice girl, and she does still believe in love. But sex is sex, love is love, you can have one without the other, and she's pretty sick of eating those crappy berries that taste like creek water every day, so whatever. She's not about to lose her head about it.

(Plus, it's not as if Bellamy isn't - that she hasn't - whatever. She's not thinking about this. Shut up.)

But like, even if she had thought about it - which she hasn't - it's not like it would mean anything, that it wouldn't be totally understandable. She and Bellamy have been living in each other's pockets for years, and it's not like there haven't been - it's natural, okay. Perfectly natural, especially considering that Clarke's love life hasn't exactly been all that lively, considering the blood, death and politics of survival on planet Earth. She's been busy, alright?

Sometimes she thinks she knows his body better than she knows her own, she's had her hands in it so many times. Every scar, every wound, every bruise, she knows, can place on the mental map in her head that pulls up every time her eyes close, and even beyond that, even beyond the intimacy that comes from stitching someone back up over and over, holding them together with your bare hands, there's everything else there too - late nights in tents and muddy ravines and muggy, moss-filled caves, early mornings at the edge of camp passed with cups of purloined coffee and seaweed tea. Every fight, every decision, every moment since she first stepped foot on the ground has happened right next to him, standing shoulder to shoulder, back to back, Bellamy Blake - her partner. A complicated man with simple desires, her perfect complement, in so many ways.

(Like - put like that, it's weirder that she hasn't thought about it. But she hasn't. Again, just clarifying.)

But thoughts are just thoughts and, just, it's not like that, with Bellamy, right? It couldn't be like that, not when it's so important for them to be in sync, not when they have an entire colony of people - almost four hundred now, Clarke thinks sometimes, faintly and with no small amount of shock - depending on them to be sane and solid and unwaveringly together. And sex and love and all that, that's just - that's a bad idea. It just - it just is.

Anyway. Not that Clarke would - anyway. She's done talking about this.

"I'm sorry about this," Arden says again, a little frantic as she tries to apologize, help Clarke into the dress and not meet her eye, all at the same time. "I know how you feel about skirts and I tried to talk them out of it but apparently it's important, like a roleplay thing and - "

"Roleplay?" Clarke repeats dumbly, pausing. The bodice on this thing is made from some kind of bone, and she can already feel the ache she'll have later, the old bullet wound in her side that never quite stops hurting. "What, do we have lines or something?"

"Oh - no," Arden says, flustered. Clarke is reminded kind of suddenly that she's barely nineteen years old. As fierce as she is, and as passionately as she fights for them, she still came down with the Ark, still was shielded from the worst of those first few years, tucked safely away in quarantine at Mount Weather. "No. From the way I understood it, it's like a ceremonial, uh, reenactment, I guess? They have this whole story about the seasons, how spring and summer reunite to defeat autumn and winter every year. Spring is female, summer is male, and they celebrate by, uh - "

"Right," Clarke says resignedly, grunting as Arden pulls the last latch together on the dress. It's too small for her, really, made for somebody with smaller breasts, but at least she can breathe in it somewhat comfortably. And it is pretty - the bodice is horrific but the skirt is made from well-made, white cotton - they must have traded with the Mountain for it - and it flows loose around Clarke's knees, brushing pleasantly against her bare skin. It is, honestly, the nicest thing she's worn in years. "That's an interesting way to look at it, I guess."

"Yeah, I thought so, too." Arden's face brightens a little, and she pulls at her braid a little nervously, smiling sweetly at Clarke. "You look very pretty in it, you know."

"Thanks." Clarke smiles back. It feels kind of awkward on her face. "And - you made sure to get them to agree to the lock on the door, right?"

"Yeah, yes," Arden says. "Bran - that's the main guy, the tall one I was talking to - he was really insistent about it, actually. Apparently when the leaders from other clans do it, they usually bring their own people to stand guard. He wanted to make up the difference, since all you guys have is - well. Me." She smiles sheepishly, then blushes and looks away.

"Right," Clarke says slowly. "Well, glad to know the ritualistic sex clan has such high standards of privacy. Admirable."

"It seems important to them," Arden says, maybe a little defensively. Clarke looks at her sharply, and some of her fire finally comes back, straightening her posture and turning her eyes flinty. "It's their religion. It really is important to them. And it's not meant to be an invasive thing, it's - a celebration, meant in good faith. That's why they seemed so insulted when we wanted to turn it down." She shrugs. "It's a great honor, to be allowed to perform this. Apparently."

Clarke exhales slowly, and tries very hard not to laugh at the reality that having sex with Bellamy Blake is, at the moment, a great, sacred honor.

"Okay," she says, "thank you for your help. I appreciate it."

Arden nods, stepping back at the dismissive tone. "You're welcome," she says, back to deference. Clarke is grateful for that, at least. "They'll send him in soon, I think."

"Alright."

"I'll leave you alone," Arden says quietly.

"Wait," Clarke says, halting her, "thank you. Honestly. And - " she clears her throat. "Thank you for agreeing to - I know it might be awkward for you to lie, when we get home, but - "

"It's nobody's business but yours and Bellamy's," Arden replies firmly, and Clarke remembers now why this girl is her second, why Bellamy chooses her to accompany them on these necessary, delicate trips. "Good luck," she adds, a bit wryly, and Clarke laughs sharply, surprising herself.

"Thanks," Clarke says again, and finds herself surprisingly comforted, watching her close the door softly behind her.

Finding herself alone, Clarke moves to sit down on the bed and then changes her mind, heading to the small, wooden table instead. The turf structures the Marach live in are small, and crude-looking, but they're impressive in their sturdiness, and this one is packed full of the highest luxury that exists in this part of the world: wolf pelt blankets on the bed, an array of hard-to-find fruit on the table, even a jug of what Clarke strongly suspects might be the spiced wine the southern clans produce sometimes, when the crops are good enough. Her mouth waters, just looking at it.

She nibbles a little at the food, confirms her hypothesis about the wine. Walks over and touches the elaborate, beautiful designs on the walls, carved into the hardened mud and painted meticulously in vibrant colors. It is amazing, she thinks, what humans are capable of, even in the most dire and stressful of circumstances. It never really fails to humble her.

(She's not nervous. She's not. She is not. She definitely, one hundred percent, absolutely is not even a little bit - )

"Hey," Bellamy says, suddenly appearing in the doorway, and Clarke nearly jumps out of her skin. When she whirls around, he's smirking at her. "Wow, okay, someone's jumpy. It's almost like we're about to - "

"Shut up." Clarke scowls at him, smoothing down the skirt nervously. "You startled me, is all."

Bellamy smirks again, but apparently is going to take the high road on this one, and doesn't reply as he steps inside, shutting the door firmly behind him. The deadbolt sliding into place is a comforting sound. "They treat you alright?"

"Yes." She picks at the dress again fastidiously. "They put me in a dress," she says a little dumbly. Bellamy raises an eyebrow at her, like, well, duh. "I mean, obviously." She picks at the bodice. "It's a little small."

"Still better than what I got away with," Bellamy says scornfully, stepping further into the room. For the first time, Clarke registers his clothing - the dark pants most of the Marach men wear, and his chest, bare and painted in the same swirling spirals of paint that adorn the walls. "I feel like I got attacked by a bunch of overexcited kids with fingerpaint." He grimaces, flexing his arms in apparent discomfort, causing the swirled designs painted on them to distort a little with the movement of his muscles.

"That's," Clarke says, throat sort of dry, "uh, it looks still wet. Won't it…"

Bellamy shoots her another one of those looks. "Yeah - I think that's the point, princess."

"Oh." Clarke looks down at her dress. Suddenly the bright white color and hard-to-unfasten bodice make a whole lot more sense. "Oh. Okay."

"Right. So." Bellamy sounds resigned, running one hand over his brow as he speaks. "I suppose we could try to fake it, but - "

"We can't," Clarke blurts, feeling an odd jump in her stomach when he turns to look at her curiously. "I mean, just - good faith. That's the golden rule, remember?"

"Right." Offer something to a grounder, you follow up. Period. The lesson they'd learned in many, varied, violent ways, that first year on Earth. It hasn't failed them yet. "The whole...principles thing again."

"Yeah, and - " Clarke shrugs. "It seems like a lot of effort to go to anyway, when we could just…"

Bellamy raises an eyebrow, waiting for her to finish, a mean grin spreading across his face when she trails off into silence. "Gonna be hard to do it if you can't even say it, princess," he says.

"Oh, shut up."

"No, I'm just saying, like - effort is kind of a big part of it. Are you sure you've been doing it right?"

"I said shut up," Clarke says, laughing a little. She's a little relieved, ludicrously, that he's being a jerk about it. It makes her feel a little bit more sure-footed. The laughter bubbles up again at the look on his face - that skeptical side eye he graces her with whenever she does something he doesn't understand. Or agree with. Or like. Or - you know, that's probably just how he looks at her, most of the time. "Nothing. Sorry. Just - this is weird, and - "

Bellamy's mouth quirks a little. "Right."

"Can we just…" Clarke shakes her head, taking a moment to close her eyes and breathe out, gathering some of her calm back around her, a comforting shroud. "We should eat."

"Okay." He's still smirking a little, but joins her at the table nonetheless. "Is that - "

"Mulled wine," Clarke finishes with a grin. "Yes."

"Christ." Bellamy snags it from her outstretched hand and takes a long swig straight from the cask, sighing in pleasure as he lowers it back to the table. "Fuck, I haven't had good booze in forever."

"Not that I don't love Monty's moonshine or anything," Clarke says, "but I know, right?"

Bellamy grins wolfishly and generously hands the wine back for her to take her turn. Clarke shivers a little when his hand brushes her forearm as he pulls back.

"Haven't had a spread like this in awhile," Bellamy comments after a second. He picks up a fruit Clarke doesn't recognize and taps it against the table, frowning and discarding it when the sound seems to displease him. "Might as well take advantage of it, I guess."

Clarke watches him pick up a strip of dried meat and rip it in half with his fingers, sort of transfixed by the movement of his hands in the dim light.

"Here," he says, handing the other half to her. Clarke takes it, bites into it mindlessly, eyebrows shooting to the top of her forehead when she realizes that this is bear meat - the rarest thing on the table, probably. Her surprise is mirrored on Bellamy's face when she looks over. "I'm still not crazy about this," he continues, "especially since we can't be a hundred percent that Arden's interpreting what they say right. But they're obviously trying to impress us. Which is a nice change of pace, if nothing else."

"Either that or this is part of their whole - celebration bounty spring whatever thing," Clarke says, popping the rest of it in her mouth and chewing greedily. God, it feels like it's been forever since she had food that actually tasted good.

"Well, princess," Bellamy says, grabbing the platter of meat and taking it over to the bed, the only piece of furniture in the room, other than the table. "Let's indulge. I'd say we deserve it."

Clarke bites back a smile, squares her shoulders, and grabs the wine.

"Now you're talking," she says.

Okay, so, just to clarify something else: she isn't stupid, or anything. She knows what it all looks like. It isn't like that, but it looks like it.

They usually share a room; it's just easier that way. They're not usually rolling in privacy, anyway, and after this thing with one of the Ark refugees who'd gotten maybe a little obsessed with Clarke (she hesitates to call it stalking, okay, it was mostly just...really sincere love notes and a lot of sad staring) Bellamy tends to get a little overprotective, so it's honestly easier just to sleep wherever he is rather than deal with his neuroticism about it the next morning.

The last time she remembers seeing him with a girl was about three years ago, before the cease fire with the Mountain and the trade accord and all that. She'd run into her coming out of his tent one night - an older woman, Clarke doesn't remember her name, something beginning with N, maybe? - and had caught a glimpse of the scattering of dark love bites down the back of her neck. But then came the drought, and the peace talks with Mount Weather, and since then they've been on the move almost constantly, so - it hasn't really been the first priority for either of them.

It's not like she thinks that he's in love with her or anything, that he's spent all these years pining away tragically, like some twisted post-apocalyptic Austen hero. She knows he loves her, of course, the same way she knows she loves him. The same way they love Octavia, and Jas and Monty and so on and so forth. Hard not to love somebody when you live like they do, honestly. Bonds forged in fire and blood and blah blah, whatever.

But - maybe it's still different. Maybe people keep thinking they're together because they are, in a way. Half the grounder clans they encounter just assume that they're married, and the Mountain certainly thinks the same - hell, even Clarke's mother probably does too, wherever the fuck she is now, with her own little group of Ark separatists, roaming around the world, trying to live life. And maybe, sometimes Clarke thinks - well, it's not a real marriage, is it, but does that really matter, at the end of the day?

But that's not - okay, fuck, this train of thought got away from her somewhere. She should...probably stop talking now.

It doesn't take long for them to get a little tipsy - drunk, she fears, is out of their reach, not with just one bottle and years of experience with Monty's booze, refined to battery acid perfection.

It is nice, though, to get a little floaty on wine and food that tastes good, on a comfortable bed with warm blankets, the sound of happy people creeping in from outside, the party that's since kicked into full swing. Clarke is, she dares to think, relaxed.

"This whole - spring and summer thing," Clarke says, reclining back on the pillows, shamelessly taking up most of the bed. "Why is spring a girl and summer a guy? Why not the other way around?"

"You think summer's more feminine?" Bellamy asks.

Clarke shrugs. "I don't think either of them have a particular...gender, honestly."

Bellamy downs the last of the wine, discarding the cask on the ground next to the bed. "The Greeks only had three seasons - spring, summer, and winter. There was a goddess of each - three daughters of Zeus called the Hours." He frowns. "I don't remember the names."

Nerd, Clarke thinks fondly. "I thought the Greek version was the whole Persephone and Hades thing."

"That too. The Greeks just liked stories." Bellamy shrugs. "There's usually one about the seasons along with an origin story, in most cultures. I don't remember them all. O's favorite was the Mesopotamian one, Ninhursag. She cursed her husband to the underworld for cheating on her with their own daughter, which made the earth barren and created winter." Clarke wrinkles her nose and Bellamy snorts. "Yeah. Octavia always liked the messed up ones the best."

"Sounds like her." Clarke sighs. "I guess the Marach's story is nice, in a way. Romantic. The whole idea of it being this grand battle that these two lovers keep winning, over and over, every year."

"Or losing," Bellamy points out, ever the cynic. "Just depends on where you start the story."

Clarke rolls her eyes as dramatically as she can manage. "Of course you would say that."

"Winter comes every year, princess," Bellamy teases.

"So does spring," Clarke points out, and something happens then, with his face, like it twists and darkens a little and he looks down at the bare skin of her knees, peeking out beneath her skirt, and she has to look away. "Uh - "

"You'd make a lousy spring goddess anyway," Bellamy says, a little too loud. Clarke looks back up at him abruptly, caught between outrage and surprise. "Well, you hate it, don't you? You're always sneezing on everything and grumping around for three months straight - "

Clarke laughs despite herself. "It's annoying! People go crazy after being cooped up all winter, they get reckless, hurt themselves more, get pregnant more - "

Bellamy's laughing at her, shaking his head. "You just never know how to have fun."

"Do too." She wrinkles her nose at him. "I'm fun."

"You're a downer," Bellamy tells her.

"I'm - ! You're the one who got all offended about this sex ritual thing, which seems like kind of a downer to me," Clarke says, forgetting to be embarrassed. Bellamy laughs again, a little incredulously, and she crosses her arms stubbornly in the face of it. "You know what I mean."

"I do," Bellamy says, sobering a little. He's sitting close to her feet, reclining sideways across the bottom of the bed, but he's so tall, his arms are long enough that he can reach up and touch her arm without even moving. Clarke feels a little claustrophobic, all of a sudden, even though he's as far away as he can get without leaving the bed entirely. "I just - I didn't want you to feel uncomfortable."

"I don't," Clarke says honestly.

"I mean that." He moves down to her hand, opening his palm up in invitation. Clarke takes it easily, used to that kind of touch from him. "Listen up, I'm gonna be real with you for a second."

"Listening," Clarke replies, smiling when he waits for her to meet his eye before he continues. So grave, she thinks. So formal.

"I know this is one of those things," he says, "that we're gonna do because it makes sense, and you were right before, it doesn't have to be a big deal. But Clarke, I'm not - you have to know I'm not going to do anything to you that you don't want me to do."

"I know that," Clarke replies, a little surprised.

"I want you to be okay with it." He purses his lips. "I need to know you're okay with it, alright? That's the only way I'm gonna be okay with it."

"Okay." Clarke feels a little overwhelmed by the intensity of his words, and the way he's looking at her, so serious and insistent. "I'll tell you if I get weirded out, if you do the same. Okay?"

He nods, and Clarke holds her breath as she watches him sit up, keeping his grip tight on her hand the entire time.

"Come here for a second," he says, tugging a little, and Clarke blinks, letting him pull her to her feet to stand at the edge of the bed in front of him. He really is that tall, she thinks a little dizzily. He doesn't have to reach up that far to touch her waist.

"Still okay?" he asks, a little dryly.

Clarke bares her teeth at him and he laughs. "Fine."

"Good," he says, and slides one hand down, experimentally, over the curve of her ass and further down to her thigh. She shivers.

"No kissing," she says suddenly, and he freezes, tilting his chin back and away from her. She feels a wave of something like shame fall over her. "I mean, just - "

"No, good idea," he interrupts, and pulls her abruptly closer, down onto his lap. Clarke squeaks a little, embarrassingly, and grabs his shoulders on instinct to steady herself. "Good idea."

"Keep it platonic," Clarke breathes, fascinated by the way the paint contrasts against his skin, a little paler than usual after the long months of winter, but still darker than her own. It's still tacky, and when she pulls her hand away from his bicep, there's a smear of color on her palm. Her dress has paint on it, too.

"Clinical," Bellamy says, voice a few steps deeper than usual. His palms are on the small of her back.

"Well, let's not go overboard," Clarke says bravely, and the smile she gets is worth the way the words make her insides tremble.

"Really, because I always thought you'd be a 'close your eyes and think of Earth' kind of girl," Bellamy says, settling his hands back on her waist.

Clarke smirks down at him and gets a little more comfortable, watches his reaction as she squirms closer. His eyes go half-mast and he actually shivers, which is kind of fascinating.

"No," she says triumphantly, "you really didn't."

They've kissed a few times, when they were drunk. One horrible night, around the time Finn and Raven had left, Clarke got so tired of being sad that she even went to his tent and asked him to fuck her, to which he responded with a droll, "not tonight honey, I've got a headache," and then kindly tucked her into his bed and glared at her until she went to sleep.

She woke up the next morning with a gigantic headache and cursed herself all the way through breakfast, ducking around corners to avoid him at every turn, thinking he was going to make fun of her. But all he did, when they finally came face to face, was give her one of those unimpressed looks, and said, "don't be such a drama queen Clarke, shit," and shoved the bag of seaweed he'd gone out to collect into her arms. She'd almost dropped it, and snapped at him to be careful, and he'd rolled his eyes and made a joke about doctors and clumsiness and brought up the time she'd tripped and hit her head in the lake and had to be pulled back to shore by Octavia, and then she'd forgotten why she was embarrassed about it in the first place.

Not a big deal. Whatever.

"I'm gonna - quit it, for real, I will walk away right now," Bellamy says, dodging her slap and rolling over onto her leg to keep it pinned down.

Clarke can't reply, too busy laughing at the look on his face. "Look at you! Oh my God, you look like you're about to march into battle or something - "

Considering how many times she's seen him actually march into battle, she'd think he'd take that seriously, but alas. "You know," he says imperiously, and leans a little harder on her leg. "Most girls enjoy this part. In fact, this is kind of the highlight for them, more often than not."

Clarke looks at his face and starts laughing again.

"That's it, I'm gone - "

"No, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, okay." Clarke takes a deep breath and pats his head consolingly. "You can go down on me now. I'm totally serious about it."

Bellamy peers up at her skeptically, which is how she knows he's not really angry. "Nah, you know, I don't think I'm in the mood anymore."

"Well, you better get in the mood, buddy, because we've got to work for our food tonight."

Bellamy manages a full two seconds before he cracks, burying his laugh into her thigh. Clarke laughs along with him, just at the pure absurdity of the situation. The absurdity of her life.

"Are we even awake right now," Bellamy rumbles, into her skin.

Clarke shivers. That feels good, she notes absently. "It's possible."

His breath is warm against her skin, and it's not like he's even done anything or even taken anything off yet, but just being touched, in places nobody has touched her in so long, is enough.

Bellamy lifts his head up after a minute, seeming to pick up on her shift. "When's the last time somebody did this to you, princess?"

"I don't know," Clarke says, a little shakily. She's suddenly very aware of their position, of the fact that it's Bellamy leaning down between her legs, with his hands up her dress and his mouth on the inside of her knee. She closes her eyes so she can think clearly, trying to remember. "Um, Rehka, probably."

"Rehka?" Bellamy looks up at her, incredulous. "That was like, three years ago."

Clarke shrugs helplessly. "It's not like I have a lot of time to date."

"Yeah, but…" Bellamy trails off, still looking gobsmacked at the mere concept of a human being going that long without oral sex.

"Oh, like you've been getting it on the regular," Clarke says dryly. "Your room is right next to mine, don't forget."

"Well, it definitely hasn't been three years," Bellamy mutters.

"Three years since...this, not three years since sex in general," Clarke protests.

Bellamy looks even more offended at that, if anything. "Now that's just sad."

"Well, it's not like you're my first choice to break the dry spell," she says resentfully, smirking when Bellamy rolls his eyes at her in exasperation. "Are you gonna get on with it or just hang out and judge my sex life all night?"

"So demanding," Bellamy replies, with faux disappointment. Right, Clarke thinks. Like 'pushover' is really a quality he looks for in bed partners.

Before she can formulate a reply, he slides his hands up and presses his thumbs into the dips of her hipbones, just hard enough for her to feel it.

"You're wet," Bellamy observes, almost casually, "does arguing turn you on, princess?"

"No," Clarke says through a gasp, wincing at the sound of her own voice. Man, that didn't sound even a little convincing.

Bellamy seems to agree, smirking a little and tugging at the waistband of her underwear. "Can I take these off?"

Clarke nods, lifting her hips up so he can slide them down and over her knees. She kicks at them awkwardly, trying to shake them off, biting her lip to keep the laugh in when Bellamy shoots her an exasperated, indulgent look.

"Are we more serious now," Bellamy says once they're finally gone, voice low, and bends down to kiss her navel. Clarke has to swallow a few times before she can reply, her throat is so dry.

"Please," she says, meaning it to be dismissive, but it comes out as a genuine plea, instead. Bellamy kisses her again, then bites gently at the stretch marks that line her abdomen, smoothing the skirt of the dress up and out of the way.

"Just tell me if it's too much, alright," he says, and then moves the rest of the way down. Clarke tips her head back and thinks, yeah, fat chance.

She doesn't feel much at first; it's almost like it's happening to someone else, in a way, and Clarke is just an observer, watching from the sidelines. But then Bellamy makes this sort of - sound, like a grunt almost but more nasal, and presses down harder with his tongue and Clarke gasps so loudly she almost coughs, and fuck, fuck that is good.

She doesn't know what to do with her hands; there's no wall behind the bed to brace against and the fur on the blankets is too slippery, so she grabs her own hair instead, gripping the strands at the back of her neck like she's trying to hold herself down. It's good, it feels so good it's a little overwhelming actually, and Clarke very suddenly remembers that she likes sex, likes being touched and held and kissed.

Bellamy has large hands, nice hands, with calluses that scrape pleasantly against her skin, and he holds her thighs apart, pushing them back and up, against her chest. His mouth is warm and pleasant against her, and he goes slow at first and then gradually gets faster, easing off every time she starts to twitch and tighten up. It's like teasing but also not, because all it does is just make it last longer, and the up and down of it isn't cruel, just - steady, a relentless ebb and flow. The wet sounds of it make it all seem that much more real, grounding the sensations firmly in the reality of Bellamy, leaning over her, his hands on her thighs, his mouth on her clit, rubbing paint off onto her skin and his face buried between her legs.

It's unreal in the way things tend to be when you never expected them to happen - how it just overwhelms you, makes you float along on this giddy little high and you just keep thinking, this is happening, this is actually happening.

She rides that giddy high all the way up and over, fisting her hands in her hair and letting it roll through her, sweep her head to toe like the shockwave from a dropship engine. It feels good, it feels clean, uncomplicated, and Bellamy eases her through it, only pulling away when she hisses at the sudden overstimulation.

"Okay?" he says after a moment, and pulls one of her legs down to rest over his shoulder, using it to brace himself over her. His mouth and chin are wet; Clarke stares, transfixed.

"Yeah."

"You sure? You're breathing hard."

Orgasms tend to do that, Clarke wants to say, but she can't quite seem to catch her breath to manage it, and realizes abruptly that he's right.

"Fuck, hold on," Bellamy says, wiping his mouth quickly and moving out of the vee of her legs, up next to her on the bed, "it's the dress, right?"

Clarke nods, letting him pull her upright so he can get to the laces. "Too small," she manages, gripping his waist as he messes with the bodice, tearing the ties apart and peeling it carefully free. "Oh my God," she breathes in relief when it's finally gone, wincing and raising her arms to let him pull the entire garment up over her head. "So much better."

"Should've told me," Bellamy mumbles, rubbing at the marks on her skin.

"The dress seemed important," Clarke replies wryly, leaning back into his embrace. Her legs are still tingling a little bit.

"I think breathing is actually a little more important," Bellamy replies, in that gently scolding way he has sometimes.

Clarke just shrugs, leaning more heavily against him. There's still paint all over his chest, and now it's on her, too, and some hidden, visceral part of her heart wriggles in satisfaction.

"Do you," and her voice cracks. Clarke swallows and tries again, "do you want to - "

"Yes," Bellamy says.

Clarke laughs and leans her forehead against his shoulder. There's paint in her hair, even. Now it'll be on her face. She doesn't care. "You didn't let me finish."

"Trust me, whatever you were about to say, the answer's yes."

"Careful," Clarke teases, "you shouldn't write blank checks like that."

"I feel pretty confident about you at the moment," Bellamy replies, and slides his free hand up her stomach to her breasts.

Clarke indulges him for a few moments, but it doesn't actually do much for her - never has - and the pressure to pretend is oddly absent. "Come on," she says, pulling away and flopping back down on her back. "Like this."

Bellamy grins at her, lacing their fingers together and letting her pull him down. He settles down on top of her like he's always been there, like he knows just how to balance so the weight is pleasant and not overwhelming. "Hell, princess, I should've known you'd be like this."

"Like what?" Clarke asks, placing her palm on his chest and smearing some paint that's gathered in the dip of his collarbone, pulling it up and drawing a muddy, colored line up his neck.

"Fun."

Clarke gapes at him. "You said I wasn't! Not even an hour ago, I heard you."

"Well normally you aren't," Bellamy says, "but it's the buttoned-up types like you that you have to watch out for."

"I'm not sure how to feel about that, Bellamy."

"Feel this," Bellamy tells her, and bends down to kiss her neck, "feel good."

Clarke takes the direction to heart, tilting her head back and closing her eyes. But, seriously though - "I'm telling you," she says, as he trails wet little kisses down her throat, "I can be fun. I am a fun person. And not just in bed - like, generally."

"Of course you are," he mutters, and bites her chin.

"I mean, maybe I get a little single-minded sometimes, but so do you, and since when are you the gatekeeper of what's considered fun or not, maybe I like studying Lincoln's herb journals - "

"Clarke," Bellamy says, "I'm going to fuck you now."

"Yeah okay," Clarke says, and hitches her thigh a little higher up on his waist. "I'm still fun though," she adds, which is why Bellamy's laughing as he slides inside her, why she's laughing too, gripping his shoulders and grinning wildly up at the ceiling.

The first thrust is always Clarke's favorite and Bellamy doesn't disappoint, pushing in as far as he can and pausing a little to let her get her breath back. Clarke's laugh turns into a moan, one of those really good ones that come out because you just can't hold them in, and Bellamy curses under his breath, his arms shaking a little where they're braced on either side of her head.

"That's it," he murmurs, pulling out and thrusting back in again, slow and steady. "Clarke - "

"I know, I know," she says, and laughs again. "Faster - you can go faster - "

Bellamy breathes out harshly and presses his face into her cheek for a second, a gesture so oddly sweet that she actually tears up a little. I'm so glad it's him, she thinks, and grips his neck with one hand, scratching at his scalp and getting paint in his hair. I lied before, I'm so glad it's him.

She doesn't know how long it lasts, because she loses herself in it the second he starts to move again, holding her knee in one hand and her hair in the other. Her whole body feels like one long, giant current, and every spot he touches is like a live spark, a jolt of electricity, and of course he was right. Of course she should've known it'd be like this.

At some point, he must kiss her, or maybe she kisses him, or maybe it doesn't matter because who cares who started it when it's so good, when she feels devoured in the best way possible, so small beneath him but so powerful, all at once. Clarke wants it to last forever. She wants to go back in time and yell at herself for not doing this sooner. She wants to do it again and it's not even over yet. She wants.

(Understandable that the concept is a little foreign. Clarke's forgotten what that felt like, too.)

Bellamy makes these noises as they kiss, like rough little grunts deep in his throat that make Clarke shiver, and he says her name over and over as she comes, whispering it into her ear like a secret - Clarke, Clarke, Clarke. Then he's right there behind her, as always, pressing in deep and burying his groan in her neck as she shakes and tries to keep her legs from falling back down to the bed in exhaustion.

Clarke whimpers a little, digging her fingernails into his bicep, the ache in her left thigh getting a little unbearable. Bellamy immediately pulls away, easing her legs back down to the bed and pressing his mouth to her sternum, like an apology.

"No kissing huh," he says, and licks some of the paint off the inside of her right arm. Clarke has the presence of mind to hope that it's digestible and not made of those freaky berries that make your hair grow really fast, because that would be awkward.

"Well, heat of the moment, it doesn't count," Clarke replies, waving her hand dismissively. "Besides, we don't like each other remember? That's what's important."

"Right." Bellamy sits up on his knees briefly, unintentionally presenting her with an impressive display of their handiwork. Whatever designs that paint had at the beginning is just a smeared mess of muddy yellowish-grey now, and Clarke bites her lip a little, looking down at her own torso and seeing the matching stains. "Would you look at this?" He's snagged her dress from where it fell, holding it up gingerly. The skirt has ripped from the bodice, and the whole thing is just a scraggly mess. "Think they'll frame it or something?"

"Oh my God," Clarke says, "I don't even wanna think about it."

Bellamy shakes his head and tosses it down on the floor. "Let 'em go wild," he mutters dryly, and grabs the blankets, pulling them up from where they've bunched together at the foot of the bed. "Over," he says, and jabs at her thigh gently.

Clarke grumbles a bit but moves obligingly to let him collapse back into bed next to her. "God, I'm tired." She opens one eye. "Don't say it."

"Say what," Bellamy says, but his face is smug.

"Ugh," Clarke replies, making a face. He laughs in reply - a genuine one, a rare thing for him that's been unusually frequent tonight - and Clarke maybe feels a bit of smugness of her own.

"C'mon princess," he says, manhandling her under the blankets, tucking her into his side with one long, powerful arm. "Let's get some rest. Long hike back home tomorrow."

It occurs to Clarke that she should maybe feel awkward about their nakedness, but -

"This isn't cuddling," she tells him. "Just co-sleeping."

"Of course," Bellamy replies easily.

"I wouldn't cuddle you if - " she pauses to yawn. "If you were the last man on Earth."

"Yeah, I don't like you either," Bellamy replies agreeably, and strokes her hair.

Clarke sighs in contentment and scoots a little closer. She feels much better now that they've made their positions clear.

Arden wakes them up the next morning with a polite knock and two grounders carrying an incredibly welcome basin of warm water, which Clarke indulges in for maybe a little too long, judging by the exasperated looks Bellamy starts shooting her after the first ten minutes.

"Don't even act like you're not checking me out right now," Clarke tells him, weirdly giddy and comfortable in the intimacies of waking up together, bathing in front of each other, being able to look over and watch him get dressed in the early morning light. "You know you like it."

"I check you out all the time," Bellamy tells her. "I didn't think I'm ever subtle about it."

"Oh, you're not," Clarke says, and cups some water in her hands, letting it splash down over her bare shoulders. "It's nice not to have to pretend not to notice, though."

Bellamy smirks at her, and keeps watching.

The Marach leader - Bran, Arden had said - greets them with a friendly smile once they finally emerge, bowing at them each in turn and chattering away in his rapid, almost-French.

"He says - he's thanking you," Arden says haltingly, trying to listen and translate at the same time. "He says it was a beautiful celebration and he's happy you honored them with your participation, and - something about air? Sky? Who knows - oh!" Arden pauses, listening intently when Bran turns to speak directly to her. "Merci beaucoup. Oui." She turns to smile at them both. "He's eager to be friends. That was the last thing."

Clarke's shoulders relax a little, and she feels Bellamy's do the same, next to her. "Tell him thank you," she says. "Tell him we're the ones who are honored, and…" she trails off, glancing up at Bellamy, a look of bland approval on his face. "And that it was our pleasure."

"And ask what they're gonna do with the dress," Bellamy murmurs, just for her ears, and Clarke bites her lip against the smile.

Arden's translation takes a little longer this time, but Bran's good cheer is palpable, and he seems to be patient with her in a way that he hasn't been yet, all week. Who knew, Clarke thinks wryly, that sex could have such an effect even on somebody who wasn't one of the people having it. Wonders truly never cease.

"They have food for us," Arden says finally, turning back with a grin. "Breakfast in their main greeting hall. Then they're going to send us back to camp with an escort, and the first supply of grain they promised us."

"Great," Clarke says, "I'm starving."

Bran touches Arden's arm politely, nodding encouragingly at all three of them and gesturing at a one of the larger turf buildings, towards the center of the encampment. Arden shoots Clarke one last triumphant grin and scuttles off to follow his lead, leaving Clarke and Bellamy to trail behind in their wake.

"So," Clarke says triumphantly, "this whole diplomacy thing sure is going great."

"Oh, shut up," Bellamy replies, raising his voice over her laugh. "It still could've been the altar. I maintain that was a legitimate concern."

"I don't know, that could've been fun," Clarke replies, just to see his reaction. He doesn't disappoint her there, either. "What, too much for ya? Not into it?"

"You are so annoying when you're in a good mood," Bellamy complains, and she laughs again, happier than she's been in months and not particularly caring if he knows it.

Who cares, anyway. They have grain, and new allies. She's clean, the sun is shining, she had two orgasms last night and there's a smear of paint beneath Bellamy's left ear he'd missed that she's going to really enjoy looking at for the rest of the day. Life is good, for the moment.

"Fine," Bellamy says, "you're fun. I'll admit it, if it means that much to you."

"It kind of does," she admits. Their hands tangle together as they walk, so naturally Clarke almost doesn't notice at first, until she does. She's not about to let go, though. It'd be like giving up. "You really don't know what you've been missing out on all this time, you know."

"Well, I do now," Bellamy says, and tugs her a little closer. "Don't I."

"Nothing you'd like, clearly," Clarke says cheerfully.

"Yeah," Bellamy replies. "You're kind of a turn off, frankly." Clarke grins hard at the side of his face until he smiles, rolling his eyes a little and shaking his head.

Not a big deal at all, she thinks, and squeezes his hand. He squeezes back. It's good to be on the same page.

[sara-reading1]

a heavy dose of atmosphere - BerryliciousCheerio

Literally, all Clarke wants to do is sleep. // It's five, when the mowing starts.

(or: bellamy blake is the neighbor from hell, and clarke is weirdly sort of attracted to him)

based off of the au prompt: so you're the douche that mows their lawn when i keep trying to sleep

-----------

Literally, all Clarke wants to do is sleep. She's spent twenty-two hours on her feet, running off caffeine, a catnap in the lounge, and desperation, and there is nothing more that she wants to do than collapse on her bed. It is actually her dream in life, at this point.

She stumbles through her door at three, body aching and calling out for rest, and just drops everything. She has tomorrow—

today off and she'll probably spend most of it sleeping.

Which is totally fine with her.

...

It's five, when the mowing starts.

...

She lives in a small neighborhood, okay? It was one of the main draws for her, when she was deciding to be a grown up and rent a house instead of an apartment. Small neighborhood, nice neighbors. She'd been greeted with casseroles and lasagnas and open invitations to barbeques when she moved in. Octavia, from across the street, quickly becomes one of her best friends, which is fantastic, because this is like every single TV show marketed to Clarke's age group. Small neighborhood—

she knows everyone that lives here and none of them are crazy and mow their lawns at the crack of dawn.

Groaning and cussing, she rolls out of bed and stumbles to the window. Throwing it open, she sees a figure across the street at—

Octavia's?

There's a flash of fear, because really, who is the shadowy male figure on her friend's lawn? It occurs to her then that a murderer would not take the time to mow the lawn, and O definitely mentioned having an older brother that was coming home from deployment. This must be him—

Bellamy.

Clarke wants to be nice. She does. But—

it's five. She's exhausted. So—

"What the hell are you doing?" she shouts. She's not even worried about the neighbors. Like, if they're getting woken up by something, it's going to be the lawn mower. The figure—

Bellamy looks up and squints, frowning. "Mowing my lawn, princess," he drawls lazily, gesturing to the mower. Clarke bristles. Princess? Did he just call me princess? Fuck that.

"I'm not sure if you noticed, dickface," she bites out—there aren't any kids on this street, right? "But it's five in the morning."

"The sun is up," he says, nodding his head towards the barely there streaks of pink in the sky, "and so am I."

"Some people are trying to sleep."

"And some people are trying to keep their house in order."

She sputters for a moment, entirely too exhausted to even string words together to form some sort of vaguely English sounding response. She hears another window slam open, and, from the right of her, someone shrieks, "For the love of god, shut the fuck up!"

She glances over, leaning further out her own window to see which of the college students is yelling at her. Oh. Great. It's Andrew, the cute one. Fucking hell, man.

"Better get back to bed, princess," Bellamy calls, grinning. "Wouldn't want to wake the neighbors."

His eyes cut away from hers for a moment, but return almost immediately, his expression flickering for an instant. Clarke glances down and notes the impressive show of cleavage she's been providing.

Strike me now, she pleads, retreating quickly and slamming her window closed. The mower starts back up, and Clarke groans, grabbing for a pillow to hold over her face. Maybe if she holds it in place long enough, she'll just pass out.

When that doesn't work, she waits.

The mowing ends in a half hour, and Clarke downs a dose of ZzzQuil and hides in a cocoon of blankets.

...

She wakes up at noon to someone knocking on her door.

"Clarke, I know you're sleeping and I'm super sorry about that, but could you pretty please answer the door?" Octavia calls, voice traveling through Clarke's home easily. She should start sleeping with her bedroom door closed. Probably would make it easier to actually fucking sleep. She groans—

well, really, she kind of screams, mostly into her pillow. Whatever.

"Octavia," she yells, stumbling out of her bed and into the hall, down the stairs, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. "I don't know if you know this, but I can hear colors right now."

She runs a hand through her hair, snagging on every tangle because of course, and throws her front door open. She stares at Octavia blearily, expectantly, before she realizes that there is another body there as well. She glances up.

Chest.

And up.

Jaw.

And up.

Oh, for fuck's sake.

She realizes, a beat late, that she says the last part aloud.

Octavia sighs, "Can't say I wasn't expecting that." She steps back, shoving her brother forward, and Clarke crosses her arms over her chest, cleavage be damned—she is not wearing a bra and she is not in the mood to talk to Douchey McDoucheface. "Bell, this is Clarke, my best friend. Clarke, this is Bellamy, my asshat brother that's terribly sorry about mowing the fucking lawn at five."

Bellamy's lips quirk up into a smirk and he greets, "Hey princess."

"Oh, fuck you."

Octavia reaches out and smacks her brother's arm. "Apologize," she commands, shifting back and crossing her arms, eyes narrowed.

"I'm very sorry," he begins, not sounding the least bit apologetic, "for disrupting your beauty sleep."

"Christ," Octavia mutters, rolling her eyes, and Clarke is really tempted to hit him. She's only kept from doing so because of Octavia and the fact that if she moves, she's about ninety percent sure she'll just pass out where she stands. Maybe even sleep standing up. Who knows? Not her.

Octavia manhandles Bellamy away from the doorway, towards the steps, and she says, "I'm so sorry about him—he's usually not this terrible. No, that's a lie. He's kind of a dick, but he's really not horrible when you get to know him."

"S'fine O," Clarke mumbles, scrubbing at her face with her hand. "I'm gonna go sleep some more."

"I'll text you for dinner?" Clarke hums in agreement, waving at her friend before closing the door and sagging against it heavily. She shuffles back up the stairs, almost crawling at one point, and makes it on top of her covers before she starts to snore.

...

When she finally wakes, it's four in the afternoon and Clarke thinks that everything may've just been a bad dream. But her phone buzzes and Octavia's name reads across the screen. Clarke swipes the screen, blindly typing what she hopes is her passcode in.

3:57pm

dinner?

3:57pm

ravens coming and im making pizza

Oh, shit, man.

Clarke has a ridiculous weakness for Octavia's homemade pizza, and that'll be enough to help her survive a night over at the Blake's, Douchey McDoucheface and all, right?

4:03pm

claaaarrrrkkkeeeee

4:04pm

clarke i know ur awake i can see u reading these texts

Clarke grins. Taps out a response with what is probably too many emojis. She spends a moment, after, contemplating if she could get away with sleeping for an hour more, but her phone goes off again, buzzing in her hand, and she peers down her nose at it.

4:06pm

come over at five xoxo

She needs to shower. And change. Become slightly less bear-like, slightly more like the twenty something that she is. She glances at her closet and groans. Sweats are fine for friends, right?

...

She ends up in something other than sweats, which, really, is a huge feat, considering her burning desire to be as comfortable as possible. Not that jersey maxi dresses aren't comfortable—they just imply that she is feeling more awake than Clarke would like people believing.

She can smell the pizza even before she leaves her front steps, and Raven pulls up just as she's crossing the street. "Outta the way," Raven yells, revving her engine. Clarke makes a face, sticking out her tongue for good measure. See—

she can be fun. She's not just the angry sleeper from across the street. She's not—

she's not sure why she feels the need to prove this, honestly, because Bellamy Blake is a terrible human being that just happens to be very, very attractive, but also very much the older brother of Clarke's best friend, and she really shouldn't be thinking about him, okay?

She waits for Raven at the curb, leaning against the Blake's mailbox. Her friend approaches, finally, slamming the door to her car behind her. Clarke frowns when she notices how stiffly Raven's walking, almost limping.

"Is your leg bothering you again?" she asks, worry tingeing her voice as she reaches out to take Raven's bag, at least, not expecting her to be receptive to any other help.

Raven brushes her off, snaps, "I'm fine," as she struggles up the few steps. Well—

okay. Clarke knows well enough not to try and push her help onto Raven, knows that she'll just be more stubborn, will probably hurt herself more than she already is hurting. Instead, she stays a careful step behind, watching her warily for signs of distress, for stumbles.

Octavia usually leaves the door unlocked when they've got dinner plans, so both Raven and Clarke are surprised when the handle doesn't give way under Raven's hand. "O?" Raven calls, knocking. There's some movement in the house, and then—

"Bell, I told you to leave the door unlocked!" There's a muffled response, from above their heads, and Octavia flings the door open in a rush of motion. "Sorry," she says with a grin, kicking the door open wider as she leaves for the kitchen again. "My ASSHOLE BROTHER," she shouts before lowering her voice again, "doesn't trust me when I say that the neighborhood is safe at five in the afternoon."

Clarke wants to say something, anything really, but then her mouth starts to water when the full impact of Octavia's cooking hits her. She takes a deep breath.

Steady. It's just a fucking pizza.

But Clarke's been living off of cereal and cheese sandwiches from the cafeteria at the hospital, so homemade food is, like, the epitome of luxury right now. Especially anything that Octavia's made. Clarke's not bad at cooking—it's just that being friends with O, who makes five course meals in her spare time because she's bored, has set the bar pretty fucking high.

So, now that her jaw is properly on the ground and now that she's definitely drooling over food, a shirtless Bellamy Blake comes down the stairs. Raven shoves past her, following Octavia, who's about halfway through a story about a fourteen year old that hit on her at work and normally Clarke would listen, but she's a bit busy trying to look busy, so that it's not glaringly obvious that she was just struck speechless by the sight of abs and pecks and all that skin, tanned and taut—

fucking hell.

Bellamy makes eye contact, his lips quirking up into a smirk. "Like what you see, princess?"

She's summoning the indignant response that she wants—which is really fucking hard, okay—when Octavia shouts from the kitchen, "Stop harassing my friends, you dick!"

Clarke squeaks out a pitiful, "Yeah!" before she marches herself into the kitchen and trains her eyes on her friends—

she considers it an accomplishment when she doesn't look at Douchey McDoucheface as he waltzes through the kitchen, the living room, and out the sliding door to the backyard.

"Your brother is back?" Raven asks, reaching for a slice of pizza.

Octavia slaps her hand away and warns, "Cooling." She takes a breath and gathers her hair up, twisting it into a bun as she answers, "Yeah—he got in last night and has already pissed off Clarke."

Raven rounds on her then, eyebrows raised higher than Clarke had ever thought possible before she'd met the woman. "I worked a double," she explains. "And got called in from the parking lot for an emergency with one of my patients." She yawns, mostly unintentionally, and Raven makes a sympathetic noise. "I passed out when I got home—."

Octavia cuts her off. "And my terrible brother woke her up two hours later. They screamed at each other from across the street."

"Exciting!" Raven claps happily, grinning.

"It really wasn't," Clarke grumbles, leaning on the bar, watching curiously as Octavia bustles around, grabbing bottles of this or that. She checks the oven and Clarke smells—

"Did you make garlic bread?" Octavia nods, crouching to inspect the tray in the oven. "O," Clarke says soberly. "I think I love you."

...

Bellamy stays away, really, once the bread is done—

he only stops in to steal two slices of pizza before disappearing down into the basement. Raven eyes him as he goes, eyes glued to his ass, which Clarke only really notices when she looks away from it.

Octavia is, thankfully, distracted by the cat at that time.

...

It's a small neighborhood, okay, so Clarke takes the opportunities provided by such a small community to their full advantage. If one of these opportunities involves timing picking up her mail with whenever Bellamy is around, just to glare and blush and hurl barbs at one another then—

it's a small neighborhood.

She spends a lot of time at Octavia's, and avoids making eye contact with the elder Blake, if at all possible.

It's fine.

She's fine.

Nothing's going on.

...

Same scene, four weeks later—

Clarke drags her sorry ass out of her car, hands shaking as she fumbles for her house key. It's noon, and she has been awake for twenty four hours. She thinks that she's mostly caffeine at this point? Is that medically possible?

She went to fucking med school, she should know this shit.

Her knees are weakening and she makes it to the couch before she collapses, not bothering to change out of her scrubs.

...

She's slept for forty seven minutes when she jerks awake, shaking and scared—

she dry heaves over the edge of the couch, bile rising. Her father's body is burned into her retinas, and every time she blinks the nausea begins anew. She wants to die. Wants him to not die. Fix this, she'd screamed at her mother. This is your fault.

Oh, but it wasn't.

Guilt sits in a hard knot in Clarke's chest, and she lays still, staring at the ceiling. She goes without blinking as long as she can, until her eyes are dry and irritated. Her body rebels. She blinks and her stomach roils.

Which is when the lawn mower fucking starts.

And Clarke thinks it's the combined lack of sleep and the nightmare—the night terror—but she is itching for a fight and Bellamy Blake is smug and calls her princess when she gets angry, so here she is, fucking angry. She launches to her feet—

she's strong until the door, where she doubles over to dry heave again.

Small, minor distraction.

Their street is deserted, so Clarke storms across without looking both ways, because she is a fucking adult, kay? She can make her own dumb decisions—this is looking to be her dumbest yet.

But Bellamy spots her, and flips the mower off, preparing, squaring his stance. "Blake!" she bellows, still teetering on the edge of being sick.

"Hey, princess," he greets, running a hand through his hair lazily, smirk permanently affixed.

"Don't call me princess, asshole."

"Did I wake you from your slumber?" he asks, hand brought to his chest in mock horror.

"You know what—," she starts, stopping abruptly to double over and heave. Nothing comes up, but she wipes her mouth out of instinct.

"Jesus, Clarke—."

When she rights herself, she launches back into it. "You are a terrible—."

"Clarke, hey." His voice is gentler than she's ever heard it—no, no, she heard him that quiet that one time that she dragged Octavia home from their favorite bar, and she'd puked all over her older brother's shoes. He hadn't—

from what she'd seen of Bellamy Blake, she'd expected him to be frustrated or angry or exasperated, but he'd just slid his arm around his little sister and guided her to the living room, voice low and smooth and comforting and—

and now is not the time for Clarke to think about that. She gasps, "You're such a fucking ass, okay?" Oh god. She can't breathe. She doubles over again, clutching her knees.

"Princess, you need to breathe, okay?" His arm slides over her back, hand on her waist. He places the other at her elbow. He thinks she's going to pass out.

She might pass out.

She's going to pass out.

Her head is so, so light, and Clarke sags against him without really meaning to. Bellamy's arm is strong around her waist, and he's basically supporting all of her weight. Clarke keeps dry heaving, and he has to stop every few moments to let her, since, apparently, gut wrenching heaves aren't conducive with walking/dragging your neighbor off your yard.

She thinks that if she weren't currently shaking, she'd be embarrassed. But—

um.

Shaking.

...

He brings her a glass of water and a bucket—

"One of my buddies used to get like this," he offers hesitantly, scratching at the back of his neck. "It was a coin toss to whether he'd puke up the water or not, so…" Bellamy trails off awkwardly, but Clarke accepts his offerings with a small smile. He's sweeter than she'd thought—

more in line with the way Octavia always talked about him while he was deployed. She sips the water carefully; he sits at the opposite end of the couch and doesn't look at her.

When Clarke trusts her body to not, like, freak out on her, she asks, "So, are you out?" Bellamy's brow furrows, and he glances at her for a moment. "Of the military," she clarifies abruptly.

His forehead smoothes. "Oh, uh," he tugs at the collar of his shirt—Clarke tries not to stare at his collarbone when it's exposed. It's a fucking collarbone and get your shit together, Griffin. "Yeah. Was my final tour."

"How many times were you deployed?"

"Four tours. Nine months each." Clarke lets out a stuttering breath. That's a—

"That's a long time," she says shakily, like an idiot. He nods and shoots her a tight lipped smile. "When'd you join up?"

Stop talking. Just. Stop. He probably doesn't want to talk about this.

"When O turned eighteen." They fall into silence—not uncomfortable, but not companionable. Clarke knows bits and pieces of their past, from Octavia—

knows that their dad died before she was born, that their mom died a few months before Bellamy's nineteenth birthday, when Octavia was still in elementary school. But it seems a lot more real, hearing it from him. Octavia regards her past with sort of an off handed air—

it was done and over with, and she felt no need to dwell on it. She'd told Clarke that her older brother had sacrificed a lot to make sure that she didn't go into the system, and that he was protective of her, and Clarke had pictured this gallant, young soldier—

not the hesitant, irritating man that was looking at her out of the corner of his eye. There was a thick scar that wound its way up his forearm.

"I—," Clarke starts, shutting her mouth as soon as she does. She's not sure what she was about to say, but it would probably have been weirdly emotional. They had a moment.

One. No need to ruin it.

Bellamy, thankfully, ignores her.

...

He walks her back to her door silently, hand hovering just near the small of her back, never quite touching. Clarke, as tired as she is, watches his retreating form until he disappears back into his home.

Distantly, semidetached, she feels an ache in her chest.

...

She gets home after the end of her ER rotation, on a Tuesday afternoon, the next week. Ever since that day, she's noticed that Bellamy avoids noisy yard work whenever she's home—she once saw him notice her car and carry the weed whacker back to the shed. But she's—

Clarke can't explain it. But she likes Bellamy Blake. Likes his warm, strong hands, likes his calm presence. And something hasn't sat right with her since he'd walked her home silently, and she thinks she's finally figured it out. She changes quickly when she's home, grabs the six pack from her fridge, and marches over.

After about a minute of insistent—but measured—knocking, Bellamy answers.

"Octavia isn't home," he says gruffly, hand at the back of his neck again. His hair is plastered to his forehead with sweat.

Clarke raises the beer. "I was—um. I was wondering if we could talk?" She feels incredibly exposed, waiting for him to either accept her or reject her. Whatever. She can drown her sorrows in the six beers. She's about to backtrack, apologize and walk away purposefully, when Bellamy steps back and widens the door.

"Come in, princess," he grumbles.

...

She waits until they're well into their first beers before she speaks.

"Thanks," she stutters. "For, um. For the other day."

He takes a swig. "S'nothing."

She chances a look. Bellamy's eyes are trained at the wall, and Clarke forges on. "But it was though. I don't usually—uh—."

"Clarke," he says seriously, finally looking at her. "You don't have to explain."

So she doesn't. They finish the pack in silence. Octavia comes home to find her brother and her best friend screaming at each other—

"What the fuck, princess, that was a fucking blue shell!"

"You started it, dickface!"

...

(It becomes a tradition. Every Tuesday, after her rotation is over, Clarke brings beer and whoops Bellamy's ass at Mario Kart—

"Lucky shot, Griffin—."

"Thanks, grandpa—."

Octavia sidles up to her on a night out, when Raven is buying a drink, and asks casually, slyly, "So you and my brother?"

Clarke blushes beet red and stammers. "What? Jesus, O, we're friends—if that. He's terrible and rude and inconsiderate and did I mention rude—!" Octavia rolls her eyes, and Clarke tries not to think about Bellamy that night, hands on her hips—

when she stumbles home that night, she drops her shades immediately, stiffening when she spies Bellamy's shape in the driveway. She can't—

he's terrible. Rude.

She spends most of the night staring at the ceiling.

She doesn't like Bellamy Blake, right?

Right?)

...

Bellamy is sort of the last person that Clarke expects to see in the ER waiting room, at two thirty in the morning.

He's sitting in the corner, cradling his hand against his chest, and Octavia is across the room, arguing with the admitting nurse in low tones, and Clarke glances around the room quickly before she marches over.

"What happened?" she demands, sitting next to Bellamy.

He looks up, startled, and hisses, "Jesus christ—!"

She gestures to his hand impatiently. She doesn't have all day. Night.

Whatever.

Very carefully, he pulls away the dish towel that's been wrapped around it. "Bell—," Clarke breathes, taking in the damage. There's cuts all over, blood dried on the palm and oozing out of scrapes, and she counts at least three pieces of glass embedded in the knuckles. Christ almighty—

"Dr. Griffin?" Mel, the admitting RN, calls her over. "Can you take him?" She starts to protest—she really shouldn't work on anyone that she knows, that she's friends with, that she—

um.

"We don't have anyone else, Clarke," Mel explains, looking tired. Clarke holds out a hand for his paperwork. Octavia mouths a thank you, and Clarke waits at the desk for her to collect her brother.

Bellamy looks distant—lost, even. Clarke glances down at his papers as she leads them down the hall. Octavia's—

shit.

Octavia's indicated PTSD, which, like, Clarke could've guessed because four tours, but she'd never really thought of it. Okay. Okay.

"So," she starts, tugging the curtain around to block off the bed. "What the hell happened to you?" She tries to play it off like a joke, but Bellamy suddenly looks very young, with his hand cradled to his body, and she is so, so invested in him. In his well-being. She wants him to be okay—healthy. Friendly, non-romantic investment in his well-being.

Octavia shifts her weight and says carefully, "He punched a mirror."

Shit. Okay.

Bellamy huffs, glaring at his sister over Clarke's shoulder, and she pulls up the chair to the bed side. She holds out her hands expectantly, and Bellamy offers her his. Clarke takes his wrist gently, rotating his arm to inspect his palm, to assess damage. He'll probably need a few stitches along the palm, butterfly bandages on the knuckles.

"How'd you get cut here?" she asks quietly, glancing at his palm.

"I, uh—I tried to clean up. Before O woke."

Octavia makes a disapproving sound, but Clarke nods. "You're going to need some stitches here," she says, fingertip hovering above the largest cut. "And I'll need to get out the glass. Are you up on immunizations?" He nods. Clarke lets go of his wrist gently and rolls away, making a few notes on his chart. "Do you want a numbing agent?"

Bellamy stares at her, stares at the chart—and then back to her. His eyes are dark and intense, and Clarke has to remind herself that his sister—her friend—is right behind her. He shakes his head.

"O—okay."

She steps out, then—takes a deep breath and preps a suture tray. The ER was busy about thirty minutes ago, leaving all the other attending physicians and nurses off with their patients—

she could probably call someone in to help her, but it's simple, yeah? No use in bringing in more people than needed.

She scrubs up and rolls the tray over. As she nears the curtain, she can hear hushed voices, can pick out bits and pieces of the conversation—

the argument.

"—Bell," Octavia whispers. "You need help."

Clarke halts, because—

this isn't anything she needs to hear. This is a private matter, something for them to discuss in private, in safety. She waits a few moments, and when she doesn't hear Bellamy respond, she draws back the curtain and says with a smile, "Your order, sir?"

The Blakes are glaring at each other, but Bellamy takes a break to offer her a smirk. "Don't think that's what I asked for, Clarke," he murmurs, eyeing the shot prepared on the tray.

Octavia softens slightly, and intervenes. "Bellamy," Octavia cautions. "It's procedure."

It's really not, but Clarke thought that she could at least give him the option of numbing, in case he changed his mind. He gulps. Looks from the shot to Clarke's face and nods shortly.

"You're sure?" she confirms, hand already reaching out for the disinfectant. Bellamy nods again, and Clarke sits, rolling over the tray with her. She finds a spot without any injury and wipes it down carefully, supporting his arm by the wrist.

"This'll hurt," she warns, glancing up at Bellamy, who keeps his eyes on her. He nods shortly, grunts out something like approval. "Do you want me to—?"

"Just stab me already, Dr. Griffin," he forces out, with a ghost of a smile on his lips and, okay, she knows that this isn't a great situation, but he's really, really pretty, okay? It's not her fault that her mouth goes a little dry.

Instead of contemplating the implications of being attracted to someone when they're injured, Clarke positions the needle and pushes it in quickly. Bellamy tenses, and his grip on the bed tightens. Clarke hears Octavia suck in a breath behind her, and Clarke focuses on keeping her hand steady. When she withdraws, he doesn't relax, which isn't entirely unexpected, really, considering the way he's eyeing the needle and thread.

"I'm going to clean it now," Clarke murmurs, leaning back to grab the tweezers and a bowl. She thinks that he'll benefit from knowing what's happening, so she continues. "I have to remove the glass and any other debris, okay?"

"Thanks, princess," Bellamy bites out, closing his eyes briefly when she brings the tweezers near his hand. She doesn't take it personally—

she's heard worse from patients, and this is Bellamy, so, really, what was she expecting? The lidocaine mix works fast, she knows, so Clarke gives it an extra minute—just in case—before she goes after the first piece, the biggest piece of glass. Cleaning takes only a little time—

Clarke is good at what she does, so she makes short work of it, pausing for a moment only when she's counted three winces and a grimace in under two minutes. Octavia keeps making little sounds of disgust when she peers over Clarke's shoulder at the bowl, slowly filling with bloody shards of glass.

Her stitches, when she makes them, are neat and precise, and Bellamy only groans once, choking it off within seconds. Clarke wraps his hand in gauze when she's done, and tries not to stare at him too long.

She leaves the Blakes to one another for a while, wandering back up to the front lobby to file discharge papers. Mel's sleeping at the desk, coffee untouched in front of her, and the waiting room, for once, is empty. Clarke takes that as a sign, and handles Bellamy's paperwork herself. Still feeling—

Clarke's not sure what she's feeling. But it's unsettling, and there's a black hole in her stomach, so she writes out care instructions by hand. On a whim, she draws a cartoon version of herself, wagging a finger and listing off options for letting it out, other than punching a mirror. Feeling cheeky, she scribbles down her schedule, with the note mow your lawn at these times.

There's movement at a bed off to the right, and Clarke covers the papers quickly, face burning for a reason she doesn't want to put a name on. Mel startles awake, and shoots Clarke a grateful look when she realizes what she's done. Clarke nods at the cup in front of her, and advises, "The coffee on the third floor lounge is better."

"Oh my god, really?"

"Mhm. Page Harper—it's her break and she'd probably be willing to run some down to you."

"Oh, god," Mel breathes. "Bless you." She picks up the phone and waits, asking, "How's your guy?" Clarke flushes at the title—

it means nothing.

It means nothing, dumbass.

"He's fine. He'll be fine. Can you enter this prescription for me?" She passes over the papers and Mel scans them—her eyebrows raise and Clarke knows—she fucking knows what's caught her eye and—

"Really?" Mel questions, flipping the paper to face Clarke. Clarke really wishes she wouldn't.

"Don't say anything," Clarke requests. "Just, don't. Please."

"O-okay Doc," Mel says, making a face. "Your life, your romance."

"It's not—," she sputters. "We're not—."

But she wants to be. She really, really wants to be. But she's so—

if she could, she'd wiggle her hand around in a questionable, non-committal gesture.

She shoves the thought out of her mind and spins on her heel, leaving Mel to her laughing and judging and typing. Halfway down the hall, she doubles back because, of fucking course, she left all the after-care info with Mel. The nurse hands over the papers with a raised eyebrow, to which Clarke responds with a well-timed rude gesture, because this is her business, okay?

Octavia's texting—probably Lincoln—when she gets back; Bellamy's staring at the trashcan sullenly.

"Hey, so," Clarke greets, dropping on the stool and rolling between the bed and Octavia. "I called in a prescription for some painkillers, 'cause your hand is going to hurt like a bitch in the morning." Bellamy nods towards Octavia, who slips her phone into her pocket to receive the packet. She flips through it as Clarke continues, facing her older brother.

"You're going to want to change the dressing at least once a day—more if you sweat or shower. Try not to get it wet, but if you do it's not the end of the world. Um—." She racks her brain for the rest of her instructions. "Put some Neosporin or some other antibiotic on the stitched wounds when you change the dressing. You can take the butterfly bandages off in a week; make an appointment with your regular doctor to get the stitches out in like a week and a half."

She realizes that she's grabbed his good hand, without meaning to.

Shit.

"I think that covers it," Clarke finishes abruptly, dropping his hand and spinning around to face Octavia. "Think you can keep this one out of trouble for a week?" Octavia nods, a tiny smile forming and Clarke glances down at the open folder in her hands and—

jesus fucking christ, tonight cannot get any more embarrassing.

She clears her throat and stands, ushers the Blake siblings out. It's nearly four am, and Clarke's shift is almost over. Okay. This has been—

uh.

It's been uh.

They walk out towards the lobby together, and Clarke wipes her palms on her pants. "I'll see you guys later," she says with a tired smile, leaning against a pillar.

Octavia glances at the clock on the back wall of the admissions desk and asks, "Do you get off at four?" Clarke hesitates, then nods. "Come over when you're done."

Oh.

Oh god.

Clarke starts to say no, to find an excuse, but Octavia sings, "I'll make pancakes…"

Well, that changes things. "I'll be there in a half hour," she sighs, finally. Octavia makes a happy noise, and Clarke thinks that Bellamy even smiles, so, like, yeah, okay, not bad, Griffin.

She waves as they walk out into the humid night—

morning. It's morning. Jesus christ. She sees Octavia pull out of the parking lot, onto the street, and no, no Clarke, don't turn around, because Mel is already—

oh, yes. She's already laughing at Clarke. She spends the last ten minutes of her shift watching the waiting room TV, because it gets more channels than the lounge one and Mel will page her if she's needed.

The clock strikes four.

Clarke ignores the implications when she shoots to her feet and says goodbye to Mel, already halfway towards the lockers.

...

(Breakfast is loud, thanks to Octavia, making idle conversation as she expertly flips the pancakes. Bellamy takes Clarke's hand in his good one, and she tries to hide her blush.

She also tries to hide her disappointment when he takes it back in order to eat—

because, you know, stitches and shit)

...

It was friendly hand holding.

Clarke's about two more repetitions away from completely convincing herself of this, and she hasn't seen Bellamy for almost a month. She's gone over to hang out with Octavia and Raven, and every time, she bites her tongue when she starts to wonder where the elder Blake is—

lucky for her, Raven doesn't.

"Oh, yeah," Octavia will respond, scanning the room. "He's got some stuff. Things." Or, some equally vague answer that both scares and worries Clarke, because those are two different emotions, no matter what Raven says.

So Clarke isn't really expecting him on her doorstep, one sunny morning.

She's very aware of her state of undress as she leans against the door frame, peering up at him, blinking sleep out of her eyes. This is, luckily, one of her normal days—

the kind where she goes to sleep at ten at night and wakes up at eight in the morning. She glances at his hand, checking it over—

he's had his stitches removed and it's all healed up well, small little scabs and scars the only sign of any damage to begin with. Bellamy rubs at the back of his neck and clears his throat. "Hey dickface," she greets, offering him a small, sleepy smile. And—

god. Clarke realizes she's a goner when he smiles, because when he grins—an honest to god grin—Bellamy's entire face lights up, makes him look about ten years younger.

"Hey princess," he responds. "I just wanted to thank you. For this." He raises his hand.

Clarke snorts. "S'my job."

"Still. Thank you." Clarke ducks under the intensity of his eyes, studies the floor. When she looks up again, Bellamy is looking at her yard, judgment written all over his face.

"Look," Clarke begins, immediately defensive. "I don't have a lot of time to keep my lawn at neat as some people." She punctuates the statement with a pointed look across the street. Bellamy opens his mouth; hesitates and—

there it is again. He rubs his neck when he's nervous, Clarke thinks. It's endearing.

"Do you want me to take care of it?" he finally offers. "When I clean up my own yard."

Clarke leans forward, and she thinks that maybe Bellamy will move back, but he stays where he is. When she peers out at her lawn, she is very aware of his chest, his heartbeat almost beneath her ear. Okay. Play it cool, Griffin. And, okay, yeah, her lawn is kind of trashed. There are weeds everywhere, and the last time it got mowed was when she and Finn were still—

well.

"Yeah," she murmurs, leaning back. "That'd be great." When she glances up again, Bellamy is staring at her. And she—

oh, god, she just.

Ugh.

"You haven't punched anymore mirrors, I hope?" She tries to make her voice light, joking, but the worry is evident, and he has to know that she saw the chart, yeah?

Bellamy blinks at her. "Uh—yeah. I've been. Um. I've been in a support group. Seeing a therapist." Clarke smiles, because good. "O's idea," he tacks on, which, yeah, she figured.

"That's great, Bell." Her hands shake a little and, really, why? Literally, why? Bellamy glances down, then back up to her face.

"You had—uh. You'd said you wanted to talk." His voice is gruff, but his words are tender. Clarke thinks she might die. "Do you—do you still need to?"

Oh.

Clarke worries her lip. This is—

she doesn't think that he needs to hear what she had wanted to tell him. He is struggling—

recovering, getting better, and he does not need her struggles added to his own. But Bellamy's rubbing his neck again, eyes so earnest that it hurts, and Clarke can't not open the door wider.

"I've only got hard cider," she tells him. "Also it's nine in the morning, and I'm not sure how into day drinking you are?"

"Very," he laughs, stepping past her, further into her home.

.. .

(And that's how Clarke has hot morning sex with her best friend's brother at nine am.

As if.)

...

She's two ciders in, admittedly a lightweight, and she is comfortably warm, inhibitions lowered.

"I have nightmares, sometimes," she begins, haltingly. This has to sound like nothing, compared to him. Jesus christ. Okay. "Mostly about my dad." Bellamy raises his eyebrows and Clarke realizes how that must sound.

"Oh, uh—," she searches for the right words. "Not like—he um. He died. Really, um—in a car wreck." Bellamy's face is blank, but his dark eyes are understanding. He nods at her to continue. "My mom and I made it, but I—it's just not something I can really forget about."

Clarke decides to omit the part when she almost died, too. The part where she hated her mother for distracting him—hated herself more for doing the same. The part where her hands still shake when she's driving and it begins to rain, how she has to pull over and breathe. The part where she's still a wreck over it, when it's been more than a decade.

But the cider shakes in her hand, now, when she thinks of it, and she thinks that Bellamy knows.

...

(She also thinks that he knows what she's about to do when she surges forward, an hour later.

He is warm and yielding beneath her lips, and when he pulls back, grinning, Clarke can't help but mirror him)

...

Clarke wakes at nine on her day off, to the sound of a mower starting up below her window. Fighting a grin, she kneels in her bed and throws her window open, leaning out to peer down at the man on her front yard.

"What the hell are you doing?" she asks, remembering that morning, years ago, trying to fake anger that she doesn't feel. Bellamy looks up, shielding his eyes from the sun with his hand.

"Mowing my lawn, princess," he calls back, grinning.

"Ass—."

"Daddy!" a little voice shouts, and Clarke tracks the blur that is their son running out from the porch. "You said Mommy needed to sleep." She bites back a laugh. Bellamy looks between her and Jake, pleading, but Clarke just gestures for him to answer.

"Well, bud, uh—Mommy and I have a tradition, yeah? I mow the lawn, and your mom yells at me." Jake nods solemnly, looking up at the window and grinning at his mother, and Clarke mood gets brighter—if that's possible. This is—

the baby cries from the nursery, and Clarke lets out a little sigh.

Yeah.

This is worth waking up for.