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chasholidays · 7 years ago

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Maybe something along the lines of bellarke working at stores on opposing sides of the street + warring holiday window displays?

The thing about the holiday window display is that Clarke is—kind of—a real artist. She certainly wants to be a real artist, and is getting her MFA in graphic design, and has even won some contests for her work. She has, not to put too fine a point on it, skills.

Which is why Roan asks her to do the window displays at the store in the first place.

Well, okay, that’s why he says he asks her to do the window displays, but Clarke’s pretty sure about ninety percent of his motivation is that he doesn’t want to do it himself, and he’s just using the art thing to butter her up. But she’d be pissed if he asked any of the other employees, so whatever his motivation, she’s not objecting. She likes doing the window display. It’s fun. Usually, she changes them once a month, with different themes, and everyone agrees she does a good job with that.

But the holiday season is on another level.

“I’m thinking one every week,” she tells Raven. Raven doesn’t actually work at the store, but is dating Roan and therefore hangs out a lot because she likes spending time with him and he gave her the employee wifi password. Clarke considers her a perk of the job.

“You want to do a new display every week?” Raven asks. “Starting when?”

“That’s the question. I’m against holiday creep, but I accept that it’s a thing, and if we don’t go with it, it might hurt business.”

Raven frowns. “Has anyone in the history of the world ever looked at a store, found they don’t have Christmas lights up, and decided not to shop there?”

“There are people who believe the war on Christmas is a real thing,” Clarke points out. “Honestly, anything is possible.”

“Yeah, okay. So, getting in early?”

“I was thinking I’d do weekly after Halloween,” she admits. “Just lean into it.”

“You’re part of the problem. But yeah, sure. Knock yourself out. No one cares, so it’s not like anyone’s going to stop you.”

“Wow, thanks for your resounding support,” she teases.

Raven shrugs. “Do I look like I care about holiday windows? I’m just nodding and smiling here.”

“And I appreciate it. It’ll be good, right?”

“Sure it will,” says Raven, and goes back to her laptop.

Clarke is outside on November 4, checking out her first window, a winter scene painted against with some of their taxidermy animals and some fake snow set up beyond it, when Bellamy stops next to her and asks, “Already?”

“Already what?”

He takes a sip of his coffee, eyes fixed on the display. “It’s not Christmas. It’s not even Thanksgiving.”

“What part of this says Christmas to you, exactly?”

He snorts. “Come on.”

“It’s the holiday season.”

“Every season is a holiday season,” he shoots back. “I didn’t see you starting to paint fireworks at the beginning of May to get everyone pumped for the Fourth of July.”

“You still haven’t told me how this is holiday-themed.”

“Evergreen and red berries,” he says, gesturing to the painting with his travel mug.

“Winter.”

“It’s November and it’s like sixty degrees. Climate change is real.”

She elbows him. “I’m modeling good behavior for the weather,” she says. “Showing it what it should be doing.”

“Uh huh,” says Bellamy. “Let me know how that works out for you.”

“Dick,” she says, and he smiles.

“Happy holidays to you too.”

Bellamy and his best friend Miller run a board game cafe across the street, but Clarke has never actually gone in there, mostly because she knows if she did, it would just be to talk to Bellamy. She isn’t actually interested in board games, and she’s sure that if she tried to show interest, it would become immediately and undeniably obvious why she was really there. So it’s safer to just see him around, or when he stops by the antique store every week to see if they have any new (to them) books he wants.

On November 5, though, someone has painted IT’S NOT EVEN THANKSGIVING YET in bright orange print, with an arrangement of apparently fall-themed games under it. The opposite window adds, YOUR WAR-ON-CHRISTMAS HEADQUARTERS, which Clarke would worry is bad for business, except that they also have a rainbow flag and a black lives matter sign prominently displayed above the door, so she’s pretty sure they are actively trying to alienate alt-right nerds. Which seems like the right call.

Regardless, the window seems like a very clearly an invitation for her to go in and yell at Bellamy, and she will happily take it.

Inside, the store is cute, mismatched chairs and tables with a bookshelf full of demo games and hourly rates for table space on the wall. They also have a regular retail area and the cafe area, and that’s where Bellamy is.

She nods to Miller at the game counter, but her focus is on Bellamy.

“Morning,” he says. “Coffee?”

“Are you really picking a fight with window displays?”

“Who said anything about a fight?”

“Your war-on-Christmas headquarters,” says Clarke, and Miller snorts.

“Shut up,” he tells Miller, reflexive, and then he turns his attention back to Clarke. “I’m picking a fight with Christmas, not with you.”

“The day after you told me it was too early for a holiday window display.”

He smirks. “I thought it wasn’t a holiday window.”

“So I don’t have a holiday window and you’re not picking a window fight,” she says.

“Sounds right, yeah.”

“Yeah, this is clearly a bunch of mature adults having a normal conversation here,” says Miller.

“Clearly.” Bellamy slides Clarke a mug of coffee. “On the house.”

She takes a sip; it’s perfect, which means she has a new excuse to come in here. “You know I have to go back to work, right? I’m taking this mug with me.”

He shrugs. “I’ll get it back later. I know where to find you.”

“You do. Thanks for the coffee. Happy holidays,” she adds, and he smirks.

“Happy holidays.”

Bellamy doesn’t change his display until the week of Thanksgiving. The war on Christmas remains in the right window, but the left switches to HAPPY PIE AND GENOCIDE DAY get a board game to avoid talking to your racist relatives about politics, with a new selection of games under it. Someone’s put star-shaped post-it notes onto the boxes, with notes like Cooperative, low risk of murder and Talking is against the rules.

“You need any?” Bellamy asks, and she jumps.

“What?”

“Thanksgiving board games. They’re great if you don’t know how to interact with your friends and family.”

“Do you not?”

“My only relative is my sister, and we do Thanksgiving with her dad and his family. It’s usually ten to fifteen white people and me, and we all know I’m not actually related to them.”

“Ouch.”

He shrugs. “I just bring a couple games and sit in the corner waiting for people to get curious, it works out pretty well. So, you need any?”

She considers for a second. “Something for me, my mom, and my stepdad, to fill awkward silences?”

He unlocks the store and holds the door open for her. “Yeah, I’ve got some ideas.”

Clarke spends her Thanksgiving break trying to figure out what to do for her next window. She’s definitely culturally Christian, in the sense that she grew up celebrating Christmas and Easter, but always in a pretty secular way. She got presents and candy, but they never went to church or said prayers or anything. So she’d like to actually capture something like the spirit of the season without going full Christmas.

Hanukkah starts on December 12, so that gives her two weeks right there. A couple of her classmates are Jewish, so she enlists their help in designing two theme windows, one to go up on the ninth and one on the sixteenth. The week before that and the week after, she can do more generic winter stuff, and then Christmas, the new year, and then she’s done. Holidays solved.

It’s going to be fun.

To her delight, Bellamy’s already at his store when she arrives on the second, working on his own display. He’d been doing them on Sunday, apparently so he could react to hers, but she’s much happier seeing him working across the street, trying to figure out what he’s doing. It’s definitely more than just text.

Once he’s got the games arranged, he brings her the usual mug of coffee.

“Finally time for Christmas?”

“Hanukkah first, and then solstice, then Christmas,” she says. “It’s the holiday season, remember.”

He snorts. “No Kwanzaa?”

“I have no background in Kwanzaa and don’t have anyone I can call in for a consult, so I figured I should just skip it.”

“Yeah, that sounds right.” He sips his own drink, waiting, and she tries to figure out how to ask without asking.

“You’re no longer fighting Christmas?” she finally says. He scrubbed the right window clean, and there’s nothing new there yet.

“Want the space for other stuff,” he says. “Need any heavy lifting done?”

“Nope, all set.”

“Cool, good luck.”

When she’s working, she’s oblivious to the outside world, so it’s not until she’s done that she sees his display, finished before hers. As usual, he’s got less art than she does, with more focus on text.

The text, though, is new. In the left window, he has WORLD AIDS DAY, DECEMBER 1, with an AIDs ribbon in the right, and, below it, the smaller text 25% of all sales through December 8 will go to AIDS research.

Roan’s in by now, so she says, “Can I go across the street for a second?”

“You know I’m not paying you to flirt.”

“Your girlfriend basically lives here,” she points out, and he inclines his head, granting her the point.

“Be back in fifteen minutes.”

Bellamy’s at the cafe, as usual, and he’s actually looking a little nervous.

“Like it?”

“It’s great, yeah. I feel like I should give you money.”

“Or you could just donate to a good cause. I like yours,” he adds. “All of them. I feel like I haven’t mentioned that yet.”

Her smile is probably a little much, but he doesn’t seem to mind. “You haven’t. But thanks.”

“I assume you don’t have class on Friday morning like I do,” Clarke tells Bellamy, the next Saturday. They’re both done with their displays, and Roan gave her another fifteen minutes to flirt, because he’s a good boss.

“Good assumption. Why?”

“Because you could just update your windows on the appropriate days, instead of doing it on Saturday.”

This week, his left window is celebrating “Pretend to Be a Time Traveler Day” (December 8) and his right “National Cupcake Day” (December 15). It is, admittedly, a good way to promote both games and food, and Clarke can’t help being a little charmed.

“It’s a week-long thing. Also, they’re time travelers. They can show up whenever they want.”

Clarke has to laugh. “How do you find these?”

“Google. It’s not hard. I’m just trying to give some attention to the lesser known holidays. There’s lots going on in December.”

“Looking forward to the next one,” she says, and he ducks his head, looking pleased.

“Cool, I’ll try not to let you down.”

December 21 is, apparently International Dalek Remembrance Day, which Clarke tells Bellamy she’ll take his word for, and then she wishes him a happy holiday, because she’s going out of town to spend Christmas with her father.

“Where’s he?”

“Washington state. He’s one of the Seattle hipsters.”

“In a good way?”

“I don’t know if I like the hipster thing, but it’ll be good to see him.”

He nods. “Cool, have fun. I’ll see you–”

“I’m back at work on the 29th,” she supplies, trying not to smile too much. He totally wants to know when she’ll be back. “Getting up a New Year’s Eve display on the 30th.’

“Then I’ll see you then.”

It feels oddly weighty, the last holiday display. She and Bellamy have definitely been seeing more of each other, since November, and Clarke doesn’t want that to stop. And, obviously, she can still go to get coffee and flirt with him when he comes in to look at books, but she’d like something more permanent.

Something like a date.

Bellamy comes by on December 29 and gives her a giant coffee mug covered in paint splotches, which is cute, and makes her feel better about having bought him a book on typography.

“I thought you could use it for your window lettering.”

He laughs. “Room for improvement, huh?”

“There’s always room for improvement, Bellamy,” she says, prim.

“Always,” he agrees. “Thanks.”

He shows up after she does the next morning, but, as always, he finishes his window before she finishes hers, and she emerges from her art haze to find that his right window says, December 31: Make Up Your Mind Day, while his right has a bunch of suggestions for things to make up your mind about.

The third one is, Ask out the cute blonde girl you like.

“I might take half an hour to flirt today,” she tells Roan.

“Fair enough,” he says. “Happy new year.”

Miller isn’t around when she gets to the store, which doesn’t feel like a coincidence, and Bellamy has his arms crossed over his chest, his expression vaguely homicidal.

He melts into nervousness within about half a second of seeing her. “Nice display.”

“You too. Some of the decisions seem a little specific.”

“I figure they might help someone. Like horoscopes.”

“Is asking someone out really making up your mind? Isn’t your mind already made up?” She bites her lip. “Mine is.”

“Yeah?”

“Definitely.”

He nods. “Cool. So, my sister’s having a party tomorrow. Trying to seduce her neighbor. I figured I could piggyback. If you don’t have plans.”

“Getting drunk with my roommate. As long as he can come–”

“Absolutely.”

“Good. He thinks Miller’s hot, he’ll owe me.” She swallows. “Were you going to wait to kiss me until midnight? Some grand gesture?”

“I was. Should I not?”

“Definitely not,” she says, and he grins, comes out from behind the counter and leans down.

“Does this mean I win the war on Christmas?” he murmurs, after kiss that makes her toe curl.

“I don’t know about the war on Christmas, but I think we’re winning something.”

He laughs. “Me too, yeah,” he agrees, and kisses her again.

In January, she starts coming early so she can do paintings for his windows too.

“Come on,” she says, smiling at his confused expression. “What are girlfriends for?”

#goldenheadfreckledheart

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bmorley · 8 years ago

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Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers (◠‿◠✿)

Aaah, thank you, Lexi ♥

the clockmaker (fixer of hearts)

He seemed at war with himself for a moment and then circled his warm fingers around her wrist and lifted her left arm closer to his eyes. Her compass sat right above her wrist, a glass sphere covering a light brown dial and a thin bronze needle. The needle seemed to be sitting slightly lower at the tip, nose not moving from the bronze embossed N letter. It didn’t move from there, no matter how much he turned her wrist around.

“Curious,” he muttered and tapped gently on the glass to try and get the needle moving. | bellarke modern solumate au

Red Skies, Black Waters

“You’re not in here.” He smiled toothily and tapped on the leather cover of the captain’s log. “Care to tell me what your name is?”

Her gaze stopped on his pistol and on the metal basket-shaped guard of his cutlass, before moving onto Monroe and giving her the same quick assessment. She drew her legs away from him, and took another sip of water before letting her hands rest in her lap, grimacing as the shackles rubbed against the raw skin of her wrists.

“Pirates.” Her voice was low and hoarse, husky from dehydration. “Of course it would be pirates.”

His smile took on a sharp edge. “What were you expecting, princess? A rescue mission?” | bellarke pirate au (that has only a prologue and 5 chapters awaiting to be published lol)

tell me, Atlas, do you want to hear a story?

The first time it happened it was a complete coincidence, a slip of the tongue really.

It was just that Bellamy had looked so confused at the prospect of why would somebody desire him after all the things he had done, so lost and so obviously still missing Clarke that Nathan blurted it out before he could think it through. At this point, anything was better than seeing Bellamy’s defeated slouch.

“I have a boyfriend.”

It became a habit after that, talking about Monty.

He didn’t know if it was of any help, but Nathan talked.

And Bellamy, Bellamy seemed less dead every time. | canon-ish, season 3 au, minty established relationship, pre-bellarke

caught in the act

Turning to the side, she peered through her open curtains – it was fairly dark outside, and the apartment across appeared empty judging by the lack of lights (and wasn’t that a shame; her neighbor was quite pleasing to look at).

But for the few minutes she spent gazing through the window – in her underwear, in clear view of anyone watching – nothing moved and Clarke wrote it off as a fragment of her imagination. Still, she kept her underwear on until she reached the bathroom and closed the door behind her with a final click. | bellarke modern au, voyeurism-exhibitionism-ish

saving the world wasn’t in the job description

Bellamy propped himself up on his elbow and drummed his fingers on the counter. “Clarke, are we seriously going to have a philosophical debate on why people rent swimsuits when they can’t be sure if we’ve properly cleaned them before that or not?”

Clarke went through a myriad of expressions before stopping on mollified. “You’re no fun.”

“Believe me, I can be fun.”

“Oh, really? Prove it.” | bellarke modern prophecy au, slightly based off the way way back

Also, don’t forget to check out Lexi’s writing, she’s great!

#I tried to rec some stuff aside from the ones I usually do #idk if I managed that lmao #bellarke fanfiction #self-rec post #thank you again Lexi #you're the best #mywriting #goldenheadfreckledheart #falling stardust

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