Work Text:
"Moving to your city fucking sucks, O," Bellamy remarks, jamming his phone against his shoulder so he can take a sip of coffee and refresh real estate listings again. "I can't find a studio and all of these people looking for roommates on Craigslist sound like serial killers."
"You think everyone on Craigslist is a serial killer. My roommate wasn't a serial killer."
"Which one? Indra?"
"Yeah."
"I guess not. But she's fucking terrifying. I still think she wants to murder me."
"She kind of does. But, you know, low key. And it's personal, not, like, general homicidal tendencies. Just you."
"Oh good." He rubs his face. "Seriously, you don't know anyone who needs a roommate? I'm getting desperate here."
There's a pause, a far too long pause. Finally she says, "No one that would work."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Another pause, and then, "Clarke's roommate just moved to Russia, and she hasn't found anyone new to share with yet. But there's no way you could live with Clarke."
If you'd asked Bellamy an hour ago if he could live with Clarke Griffin, he probably would have said he couldn't either. It's not like he hates her, but they've met like four times, and every time, it's ended with them in an actual shouting fight about some inane shit. He doesn't even know how, exactly. He knows he's not the easiest person to get along with, but it's still kind of boggling how quickly his interactions with Clarke go south. He didn't even think he cared that much about whether or not Dumbledore was an asshole, but then suddenly he was outside a bar at one a.m. yelling at a girl he'd never even met before about how Dumbledore did his fucking best, okay. He and Clarke have a gift for fighting with each other.
But when Octavia says he couldn't possibly live with her, it still feels unfair. They're adults. Clarke is pretty cool when they aren't ripping each other's heads off. The two of them are Facebook friends and she posts all sorts of really on-point links about police violence and white privilege and then gets in fights with her conservative relatives about them. Which is the best possible use of Facebook, if you have conservative relatives.
So he says, "Hey, I could live with Clarke!"
"The last time you were down here you guys started screaming at each other about muppets," says Octavia, after a long pause. "I think once you get over--whatever that is, you'll get along, but roommates is kind of jumping in the deep end. What happens if it doesn't work out?"
"I'll find another place. But seriously, it's not like I've loved all my roommates. Remember Murphy? I lived with Murphy for an entire year and I only punched him once."
"Ugh, fuck Murphy," says Octavia. The one time Bellamy had punched him, he'd been hitting on Octavia, and the next day even Murphy agreed he deserved it. "Not worse than living with Murphy is not a ringing endorsement."
Bellamy pulls up Facebook on his laptop. "I'm going to message her and ask," he decides. "Can't hurt, right?"
"I will bet you $100 that you don't last six months living with Clarke Griffin," Octavia says.
Hey Clarke, O said your roommate moved out? I'm looking for a place to live when I move down there next month. I know this sounds like a terrible idea, feel free to tell me to fuck off. He reads the message again and then adds, Octavia is betting me $100 I won't make it six months living with you. If I win, I'll give you half.
He sends it and turns his attention back to his sister. "Deal. I just asked her."
"I'm on the record as being against this."
"You are."
She sighs. "I'm not giving her up either. If you fuck it up with her, it's on you. I won't take sides."
"I know. But seriously, you don't want to room with someone you like too much anyway. It just ruins the friendship. We're not friends. Nothing to ruin."
"You think this is helping your case, but it's really not."
"Well, if I'm wrong, you get $100," says Bellamy. "So at least there's a bright side."
He finishes his coffee and packs up, stops by the store to get essentials, and by the time he gets back to his apartment (the fucking shittiest studio apartment of all time, which he will not miss at all, jesus), he's got a reply from Clarke: Are you trying to bribe me?
Bellamy: I was thinking of it more as an incentive, but, you know, whatever works for you.
Clarke: She seriously bet $100 we couldn't make it SIX MONTHS?
Bellamy: Right? That's nothing. We'd barely even see each other.
Clarke: She also texted me to be, like, Bellamy is going to ask you about something it is a HORRIBLE IDEA ignore him.
Bellamy: We're not that bad.
Clarke: Seriously! So we've had a couple arguments. I need rent money, you need a place to live. We'll be fine.
Bellamy: So, you're in?
Clarke: As long as the rent works for you, sure. I can afford a month without a roommate. Just let me know when you're coming.
They hash out the details, and less than an hour after Octavia tried not to suggest it, it's done. He's moving in with Clarke in a month.
Octavia texts, I am on the record: this is going to end in fucking disaster
Bellamy replies, we're going to use that $100 to buy something awesome for our apartment, just fyi
*
"This is a bad idea," Miller tells him.
"Wait, why do you think that?" Bellamy asks. He's glad to be moving back to Octavia, but he is going to miss Miller. They're dealing with their impending feelings by drinking beer and aggressively not talking about it. "You haven't even met her."
Miller frowns. "Wait, what? Why would it be a worse idea if I'd met her?"
"Nothing," he mutters. "Tell me your thing. Why do you think I'm ruining my life?"
"You are never going to hook up again," says Miller flatly, and Bellamy chokes on his beer.
"What?"
"Okay, look, when we lived together? Every time I was out with you, dudes assumed we were a couple. You're living with a girl. If it was Octavia you'd maybe get some people who noticed you looked alike, but, like, you take a girl home and she's definitely going to assume you're secretly in love with your roommate or something. Say goodbye to your sex life."
"Come on, that's just quitter talk. I'll hook up with them at their apartments. Problem solved."
"I'm just saying, you're going to regret it. Roommates are weird, man. It's going to screw up your game, you're going to get sexually frustrated in two months and lose your bet with Octavia. But at least you'll get laid again."
"I can't believe you guys," says Bellamy. "It's a fucking apartment. It's not going to ruin my life. I survived Murphy, remember?"
Miller snorts. "We're all impressed with your stamina, Blake."
"Fuck you too."
They drink in silence for a few minutes, and then Miller asks, "When do you leave again?"
"Two weeks."
"Started packing yet?"
Bellamy snorts. "What do you think?"
Miller clinks his bottle against Bellamy's. "You're a fucking mess, dude."
"Yeah, yeah. Shut up."
*
He rents a U-Haul for the move, and he and Miller load it up, give each other an awkward, back-slap hug, and then he's off, driving down the coast, back to his sister. He has a new job too, of course, a great opportunity. But that part just feels like a good excuse. He's spent too much of his life looking out for Octavia; he doesn't know how to be away from her.
Clarke's apartment is on the first floor of a small building in Virginia, outside of DC but still near a train station, close to a park and a small commercial district. It's by far the nicest neighborhood he's ever lived in. He's pretty sure she's giving him a discount on rent, unless there is something seriously shady happening, because--yeah. It's a nice place. He's going to be able to sit outside in his yard. He could probably grill things, if he got the urge.
Clarke's waiting for him outside, dressed in ratty overalls and a paint-stained t-shirt, with her hair up in a bandanna. She's an artist, he remembers. Apparently she was doing art.
"Hey," she says, putting one hand over her eyes to block the sun as she looks up at him. "Did you get taller? I don't remember you looking this much bigger than me."
"Second puberty. It's a thing."
She grins. "Sounds legit. I figured I'd offer to help with your stuff. Get this roommate thing off on the right foot."
"Show Octavia she's wrong?"
"Not just Octavia." He opens up the U-Haul and she grabs a box of books, apparently not struggling at all with the weight. He can't help being impressed. "Every single person I've talked to has told me this is a bad idea. It was getting to the point where I was expecting strangers on the street to come up and be like, You're going to live with Bellamy Blake? Really?"
He laughs and grabs a box of his own. "Glad it's not just me."
"It's like we're not adults or something."
Of course, ten minutes into him unpacking his stuff, she spots his Batman poster--which was a gag gift from Octavia, because "he's broody and angry and doesn't have parents, just like you!"--and they get into a heated argument about Marvel vs. DC, which, again, he doesn't even like DC better than Marvel, but she's actually apparently some kind of closet comics geek, and she whips out all this bizarre trivia, so he wants to keep her going. It's educational.
"Superboy Prime literally punched DC's continuity until dead characters came back to life, Bellamy!" she says. They're hauling his mattress in together, and also shouting at each other. It's sort of like how he imagines an out-of-body experience would be. "That's a thing that actually happened. Marvel might not be perfect, but I'm pretty sure none of their characters ever beat up the timeline."
"Yeah, okay, but Civil War was fucking bullshit."
They've never actually finished one of their arguments before; one of them historically storms off in a drunken rage, and that's the end of the night. But now they're both sober, and they live together, so the argument kind of peters off, and once Bellamy's finished getting his room set up and explored the apartment, he finds her in the room that must be her studio, working on a painting.
"Settled in?"
"As much as I feel like doing right now. I'm getting dinner with O, you want to come?"
She wrinkles her nose, looking down at herself. He'd sort of expected her to be a classical artist, landscapes, portraits, realism. As it turns out, she's got more of an abstract thing going, a kind of Jackson-Pollock vibe. No wonder she's so dirty. "I should shower. You sure you don't mind me crashing? I know you haven't seen her in a while."
"Her boyfriend's coming, at least if you come, I'll argue with you instead of him."
Clarke laughs at that and heads to shower, and Bellamy thinks, yeah, everyone was wrong. They're going to be fine.
*
She's not a perfect roommate by any means. She's kind of a nightmare in a lot of ways, mostly related to personal habits. She doesn't keep anything like a regular sleep schedule, because she doesn't have an actual job so much as a random collection of weird part-time things with bizarre hours. She's bad at remembering to do basic things like "throwing away empty bottles instead of leaving them in the fridge" and "putting her shoes and/or bag and/or jacket somewhere out of the way instead of just dropping them wherever they fall" and "sleeping in her actual bed instead of passing out on whatever flat surface she feels like."
In most ways, the weirdest part is how little all that shit really affects them. He has his own collection of habits that annoy her ("Can you not vacuum while I'm asleep on the couch? Also who vacuums this often?" "I vacuum when it's dirty and you have a bed, what the fuck."), and they bicker almost constantly, but it's like water on stone, almost. They squabble and fight and it just runs off them, never leaving any permanent mark. It's just how they talk to each other, fuck dropped into the conversation like punctuation, dickhead and goddamn hobo tossed around like nicknames.
"Is this actually working?" Octavia asks, a little over a month in. She's over for breakfast; Bellamy is cooking while Clarke sleeps, curled up in a fucking ugly green armchair that she apparently found by the side of the road. He knows she's rich, but you could never tell from her life. "You guys living together."
"We tried to tell you," says Bellamy. He goes over and prods Clarke with his spatula; she swats ineffectually at the air around her, but he's already back at the stove. "You want to eat or not?"
"I was sleeping," she grumbles. "You're a fucking asshole."
"If you want to sleep, you have a bed," he says. "Sleep in the communal space, deal with the consequences."
She drags herself over to the table, sitting next to Octavia. Her hair is a fucking disaster, and she's got a Spider-Man blanket wrapped around shoulders, even though it's not even cold.
"Marvel," he says, dismissive, and she gives him the finger.
Octavia's watching them like a particularly bizarre sporting event, one she doesn't know the rules to yet. "This is actually working," she says, with some amount of horror. Bellamy puts a plate of eggs in front of her, and one in front of Clarke.
"We're adults," he says. "Adults can have reasonable disagreements and still live together."
"I have heard you guys fight about Harry Potter, muppets, The Hunger Games--"
"Josh Hutchenson was a fucking terrible choice for Peeta," says Clarke.
"He did a good job," Bellamy shoots back, sitting down with his own plate, and they kick each under the table for a few seconds.
"These are not reasonable disagreements and neither of you is an adult."
"I'm older than you," says Bellamy. He's going to be thirty in February, which is terrifying. He's trying not to think about it.
"I am too."
"You're not a real adult," Bellamy tells her. "You're sleeping in a chair you picked up off the street. And wearing a Spider-Man blanket."
She looks down, hair falling into her face, and he feels bad about his sniping for the first time, because he thinks he actually hit something real. "My dad gave me the blanket," she says, soft. "We used to go to the comic store together every Saturday, to get the new releases."
He doesn't know that much about her, not the real stuff. He knows her mother is a big deal, the Lieutenant Governor of California, and that her father died at some point, although he doesn't know exactly when. Learning about her is difficult, because she knows Octavia so well that she already knows him, already knows when his mother died, when he and Octavia went to live with their grandmother, when she died, and he got custody of Octavia for that one, shitty year, trying to finish college and deal with a seventeen-year-old who was grieving and pissed about having to leave all her friends and move halfway across the country to live with her brother. Clarke already knows so much about him that he doesn't have an excuse to ask about her.
He nudges his foot against hers, like an apology for the kicking, and for everything else. "Well, Marvel still fucking sucks," he says. Octavia looks vaguely horrified, and he shoots her a look before she can yell at him.
Clarke grins and digs into her eggs. "Fucking asswipe," she says, affectionate.
"Screw you too."
Octavia's over in time for breakfast on a Saturday because she and her boyfriend are getting a puppy, which is both nauseating and terrifying. His sister is old enough, and in a serious enough relationship, that she is getting a pet of her own. She doesn't have a car, though, so Bellamy is giving her a ride over to look at some litter of puppies she found on Craigslist and help her select one. He's trying to pretend this is a hardship, but, honestly, he really wants to see all the puppies. And to protect her, in case the puppies are a serial killer's ruse.
"You're coming, right?" he asks Clarke. "You don't have work until six."
Octavia gives him a funny look. "You actually know her schedule?"
"Otherwise I think an actual homeless person has broken in and is sleeping on our couch." He throws his hoodie at Clarke. "Come on. Puppies."
"You make a compelling argument."
Clarke passes out in the back seat almost immediately, and Octavia gives him a calculating look. "What's even happening in your life?"
"What do you mean?"
"You're not--are you two friends or what?"
Bellamy glances at Clarke in the rear-view mirror, curled up in his hoodie, sleeping with a small smile on her face. "Definitely or what," he says. Octavia's still looking at him, and he shrugs. "She's my roommate, O. We get along fine. The arguing is just--how we express our amazing BFF-ness. It's the new friendship bracelets."
"I still think this is going to crash and burn," she says, but she sounds like she used to when they were kids and she knew she'd lost an argument but didn't want to tell him he was right.
"Keep telling yourself that."
The puppies are everything he hoped they would be, by which he means they're puppies, enthusiastic and slobbery and jumping all over the three of them.
"How many puppies do you think I can realistically get? Like, you've seen our place. We could probably take, like, three dogs. Maybe four. How many do I need for a sled?"
"You're getting one dog," Bellamy says. "Lincoln made me promise I would reign you in. They do get bigger."
"I want this one," Clarke says. She's holding a puppy that is squirming in her arms, trying to lick every part of her at once. "He ran into my leg like five times. We're naming him Sparky."
Bellamy raises her eyebrows. "Is the landlord going to murder us?"
"It's a condo, we don't have a landlord. And the condo rules say we can have one dog." She puts the puppy down and pushes him toward Bellamy. "Go win over Bellamy with your stupid puppy charms."
Sparky runs into Bellamy's legs a couple times for good measure, and then yips and pants at him until Bellamy picks him up. He's very squirmy and adorable. "We have a condo? You own our place?" he asks her, because he's not going to let her distract him from important information with a puppy.
She shrugs. "My dad left me some money when he died. I knew I wanted to live here, the price was good, so--yeah." She makes a face. "If I'd known my mom was going to disown me when I switched my major to art, I might have saved the money, but, eh. I like the place."
Bellamy blinks. "We need to get drunk so you can tell me your life story at some point soon," he tells her.
"But we can get the dog, right?"
Sparky is trying to ineffectually climb up Bellamy's chest so he can lick his face. "Yeah," he says, resigned. "We can get the dog."
*
As it turns out, Miller is the one who's closest to right about the whole Clarke thing. It's pretty much impossible to actually find someone to hook up with when he's out with Clarke, but that's more because the two of them inevitably end up in a heated, drunken argument than anything else. Still, even when she's not around, he realizes he talks about her a lot, and he can see the way the conversation changes when whoever he's talking to realizes his roommate Clarke is a girl. It's not a big deal most of the time; he's pretty sure some number of girls assume he's in love with her and decide he's not a good dating prospect because of it, but that's honestly fine, because he isn't really looking to date most of the girls he meets at bars anyway. He still manages to get laid pretty regularly, and if he misses out on some opportunities because of Clarke, well, it's worth it for a good living situation with someone he gets along with, despite all appearances.
The dog makes it weirder, though.
It shouldn't really, no more than living with her in the first place does, but suddenly they're not just getting groceries together and watching Netflix when they're both around; they're taking the dog for walks and coordinating who can get him to the vet and making sure he gets enough exercise and sitting in the park together, Clarke sketching, Bellamy tossing a tennis ball for Sparky, and it's fucking domestic in a way that nothing else was. And it's not bad, it's pretty much the exact opposite of bad, but Bellamy feels it, like a weight in his stomach. It's a change, and it feels important.
So when he meets Echo at a coworker's birthday thing a couple weeks after they get the puppy, he asks her out. She's exactly his type--tall, hot brunette who looks like she kills people for a living--and they spend the evening talking about the kinds of things he either likes (basketball, spy movies) or the kinds of things he'd like to like, if he was better at doing shit (rock-climbing, hiking). It just makes sense to ask for her number.
She gives him a contemplative look. "Are you in love with your roommate?"
"I don't think so," he says. Honesty is the best policy, right? "We've actually got a bet going with my sister. If I last six months living with her, we get a hundred bucks."
"Your sister bet you couldn't live with your roommate for six months?"
"We, uh. We kind of argue a lot. I probably wouldn't have tried it, except she said we couldn't."
Echo laughs. "You were one of the kids who did everything the teacher told you not to, just because she told you that, weren't you?"
He shrugs. "Guilty. I'm also really weak to reverse psychology." He gives her a grin. "So, are you busy tomorrow?"
"Not yet," she says, and gives him her number.
When he gets home, Clarke is passed out on the couch with Sparky asleep on her stomach. He's some kind of retriever mix, so Bellamy is pretty sure there will be a day when he's large enough they'll regret letting him on the furniture, but it's not like either of them was going to be bothered to try to teach him to stay off it. They've covered house-training, sit, stay, and heel, which is way better than he expected, honestly. It's almost like they're responsible caretakers.
He tries to be quiet coming in, but of course he wakes up the dog, who has to rush over, jump on him, and bark a little, just to make sure all his bases are covered. Bellamy kneels down to scratch behind his ears, and Clarke pads over a second later, sitting down on the floor with them and rubbing under Sparky's chin. If it was possible for a dog to die of happiness, Sparky would do it at least four times a day. He is incredibly easy to please.
"How was the party?" she asks.
"Fun. I've got a date tomorrow, I think."
"Nice."
He grins at her. "You know, if you slept in your bed, I wouldn't wake you up when I got home."
"I was actually waiting for you. I thought we could do that thing."
"You're going to have to be more specific."
"The thing where we drink and share our life stories."
He'd been feeling tired, but that perks him right up. "Yeah. Let's do that thing."
He lets Clarke go get booze, which he remembers is a terrible idea only when she returns with a giant bottle of sweet tea vodka and a smaller one of lemon juice. She doesn't get to the ABC store much, so she tends to buy whatever is on sale, in bulk, and then she actually drinks it. Their apartment is full of terrifying flavored alcohols he never wants to touch.
Clarke squirts what looks like half the bottle of lemon juice into the vodka, shakes it up, and takes a swig. "Okay, so, drink every time you ask a question, and if you don't want to answer, you have to chug."
"Do I really have to chug that?"
"Only if I ask something you don't want to tell me. What's your middle name?"
"That's your question?" She just raises her eyebrows, expectant, and he says, "Ian."
"So your initials are BIB?"
He shrugs and swipes the bottle from her, taking a sip. It tastes about as bad as he thought it would. "What about you?"
"Olivia. COG."
"Nice." He passes the vodka back, and they do a few rounds of casual questions before settling in to just chatting, passing her horrific drink back and forth between them, easy.
He learns she was always closer to her father than her mother, and that he died when she was nineteen and her mother didn't tell her for two days.
"It was finals, she thought it wouldn't--make any difference, I guess," she says, soft. She's rubbing Sparky's belly as he dozes in front of them. They're still sitting on the floor; he's not sure why. "He was already dead. I get why she thought it, even. It was a drunk driver, there was no warning, so--" She shrugs. "She thought I should at least have a chance to finish out the year without hurting my studies. She wasn't big into politics yet, so it didn't make the news. I barely spoke to her that whole summer, and when I told her I wanted to major in art in the fall, I think she thought it was just my way to keep punishing her."
Bellamy takes the bottle from her and drinks. "This is starting to taste good," he remarks. "Kind of pissed at you for that."
She flashes him a grin, like he knew she would, and her voice is strong when she goes on. "We got into this game of chicken, I guess. She was sure I'd back down if she pulled my funding, and I was sure she'd back down before she cut me off. Honestly, I probably should have just skipped the degree entirely. It's not like I needed a BA to do what I'm doing now. But my mom thought if she didn't pay for it, I'd never finish school, and I wanted to show her she wasn't going to stop me."
He laughs. "This girl I met tonight, she asked me if I didn't do what the teacher said just because the teacher said it."
"I was such a model student, god," Clarke says, flopping on her back. "I didn't start getting all stupidly defiant toward authority figures until after my dad died."
"Well, you're a natural," he tells her, and she laughs. He takes another drink, deliberate, and asks, "Why don't you sleep in your room?" He thought it might have to do with her dad, but it's been seven years since that happened, by his count. It seems like a long time to avoid beds.
She sits up, takes the bottle back, looks like she's thinking about chugging instead of answering him. But she just takes a sip and says, "My ex-roommate. Lexa. Did you meet her?" He shakes his head. "Yeah, I figured. We were--dating, but not really. Together, I guess."
"Huh," he says. "Octavia didn't mention that."
"She didn't know. No one really did. She didn't get along with my friends and I didn't get along with hers so it just seemed easier, you know? That's what I thought. We never really talked about it, but--I thought we were on the same page. We'd been together for a year and I thought it was getting serious, and then one day she just told me she was moving to Russia in a week, and we had--this giant fucking fight, because the whole time she'd thought I was embarrassed of her and just in it for sex and she wanted to fucking hurt me. And she did. And--we always slept together. The bed feels so fucking empty." She smiles a little. "I know that's stupid. People die and it's not like their loved ones start sleeping in arm chairs. I just--I do better out here."
He reclaims the vodka. "No one knew about the breakup?" he asks.
"No. No one knew we were together, so--how could I tell them we broke up?"
"Why'd you tell me?"
She smiles. "I want you to stop fucking vacuuming while I'm on the couch."
"Inspired use of the sob story," he says. "But no way."
She laughs and puts her head in his lap, and he cards his hand through her hair and tells her about himself, about watching his mother get frail and fragile, about living with his grandmother for three years, the way her hands felt, wrinkled and softer than anything else in the world, how sometimes he still thinks about them and gets choked up because he'll never feel them again. He tells her about Octavia, all skinned knees and missing teeth, a tiny fucking tomboy whirlwind, about how much they fought that year he took care of her, how they patched it up slow and careful, tentative. He talks until she falls asleep, and then he lies down on the hard floor and goes to sleep himself.
They drag themselves to the Mexican place down the street for lunch at around three the next day and eat a pile of nachos and some greasy burritos.
"When's your date?" she asks.
"Fuck," he groans. "I need to call her. At least she can't smell me over the phone."
He sets up the date for seven, takes a shower, shaves, and brushes his teeth twice. By the end, he looks like a human being, even if he still doesn't quite feel like one.
"You clean up okay, Blake," Clarke declares.
"Thanks," he says, ruffling her hair. "Don't wait up."
*
Echo is exactly as cool as she seemed; smart and badass, with a wicked sense of humor and great taste in beer. He should probably be offering animal sacrifices to some god to show his gratitude that she's willing to go out with him in the first place.
Instead, after one month, four dates, and some really awesome sex, he says, "Fuck, I'm in love with my roommate."
Echo raises her eyebrows at him. They're at a college volleyball game, and Clarke just texted him a video of Sparky chasing an ice cube across the floor. It's not really the kind of thing that screams sudden love realization, but it's not like Bellamy's ever had one before, so what does he know?
"Sorry," he says, more for having announced it like that than for the sentiment.
Echo sighs and slumps back as much as she can on the gym bench. "In your defense, you never said you weren't," she says finally.
"Yeah, I was pretty careful about that."
She slants him a sidelong look, and he shrugs, helpless. They maintain the eye contact for a second, and then she cracks and starts laughing. He does too, and they can't stop for a while. He feels fucking idiotic.
"How long before you win your bet?"
He does the math, quick. He moved in September 1, and it's December. "About three months."
Echo claps him on the shoulder. "Good luck with that."
"Yeah," he says. "Thanks."
When he gets back, Clarke is in her studio, working on a castle she's been making out of toothpaste. He's not sure if it's supposed to be art, or if this was just the only thing she could think to do with the free crate of expired toothpaste she scored from this guy she knows at Stop and Shop. Either way, everything smells minty and Sparky is hiding in Bellamy's room in protest.
"Echo and I broke up," he says.
"Sorry." Her hands are a gross, sticky mess, so she just presses against his shoulder, and he wonders if it should be weird, how uncomplicated it is to love her. He doesn't know how to tell her, but feeling it? Feeling it is easy. "Do I need to talk trash? I always liked her, but I can make up some shit."
Bellamy snorts. "I think you're supposed to trash talk her before you say you always liked her. It's more convincing. But no, you don't have to. It wasn't bad or anything. Just, you know. Not working out."
"Very mature."
"Yeah, I'm proud of myself too." They sit in silence for a minute, Clarke still leaning against him, and then he says, "You know this thing smells fucking disgusting, right? It's so much fucking mint."
"Mint never smells disgusting, it's mint! It's the refreshing smell."
"I am seriously going to vomit on your mint castle."
"I am seriously going to vomit on you."
She washes her hands and offers to go to the bar with him, or to call Octavia to take him somewhere, but they end up watching Netflix with Chinese takeout instead, and he thinks he probably should be feeling some kind of urgency, some desire to tell her how he feels, but she falls asleep on the couch, so he just covers her with the Spider-Man blanket and goes to sleep himself.
The next day, Octavia calls.
"Did Clarke call you?"
"No," she says, sounding confused. "Clarke never calls anyone. She hates the phone. Why would she be calling?"
"No reason," he says, and then immediately reconsiders. She is going to find out, there's no reason to lie. "I broke up with my girlfriend, she seemed to think she might need to call you in for backup."
"Wait, what? When? Why didn't you tell me?"
"We were barely dating, and it happened last night. I wasn't not telling you, I just hadn't told you yet." He investigates the fridge for drinks and finds a carton of orange juice, which is empty, of course. Clarke has also taken the cap, for reasons unclear. He washes it out and throws it at her on the couch; she makes a face, hugs it like a teddy bear, and rolls over to go back to sleep. "Anyway, it's not a big deal. I'm not heartbroken or in need of weird, sisterly comfort. Why were you actually calling?"
"Lincoln invited me for Christmas."
He freezes pulling milk (also uncapped, but not empty, what the fuck, Clarke) out of the fridge. "Where?"
"With his family, in Colorado." She's quiet and then says, "I want to go, but--"
But if she goes with Lincoln, he won't have anyone to spend the holiday with. It won't be him and Octavia, doing Christmas. It'll be him, all alone, doing--whatever.
"You should," he tells her. "Seriously, I'll be fine. The museum is only actually closed on Christmas day, so I'll hang out at work, we can celebrate later or something. I won't be lonely."
"None of this is making me feel better about leaving you," Octavia says, dubious
"I'll be here," says Clarke, muzzy, from the couch. "Christmas, right?"
"Yeah," says Bellamy. Given what he knows about her and her mom, it probably shouldn't surprise him. But he still feels worse about her being alone for the holiday than he does about himself. She spent Thanksgiving with her friend Wells and his girlfriend, he sort of figured she'd have something happening. "Clarke will be here. I'll be fine."
There's another long pause, and then Octavia says, "I shouldn't go."
"Why not?"
"It's just--you guys are going to murder each other, right? It's coming. I know it's coming."
"We're not going to murder each other," Bellamy says. "Go to Colorado. Meet Lincoln's entire extended family. It sounds awful, I feel bad for you."
"Are you sure?"
"Seriously. Go."
"Okay." She pauses. "I'm taking you out to dinner tonight. You can cry about your girlfriend."
"I don't think I can manage that much heartbreak," he says. "But sure, come over."
*
He calls Miller the week before Christmas. "So, let's say I hypothetically actually fell for my roommate. Not that I did. But if I had--"
"Oh my god, this is fucking torture," says Miller. "I got it. You definitely didn't fall for your roommate. But if you did, you would be an idiot, and everyone fucking told you not to do this."
"Not because you thought I'd fall for her."
"It was a possibility. We knew something would go wrong. Why are you calling me?"
"I don't actually have a lot of friends," Bellamy points out. "It's you, my sister, my ex-girlfriend, or my roommate. I think we can both do process of elimination on this one."
"So, my advice is to make more friends."
"Good call." He leans back on the couch. Clarke picked up a shift wrapping presents at a jewelry store, so it's just him and Sparky in the backyard, playing fetch. It's a little lonely. "In the meantime, I'm a fucking idiot."
"It's like I don't even need to be in this conversation."
Bellamy runs his hand through his hair. "I know. I mostly just wanted to tell someone. Other than my ex-girlfriend."
There's a pause, and then Miller says, "You told your ex-girlfriend?"
"Did we talk about how I'm an idiot?"
"Maybe not enough. Do I need to drive down there for an intervention?"
"Nah," he says. "I'm not--I dunno. I'm sort of fine with it?"
"Which is why you called me?"
Sparky puts his head on Bellamy's lap, and Bellamy scratches his ears. "I think it might actually turn out okay," he admits. It feels scarier to say aloud than anything else. "I think she might--I dunno. Maybe we could make it work. I'm not used to feeling cautiously optimistic. It's really weird."
Miller snorts. "So, you think your roommate might be in love with you too?"
He lets out his breath. "Not that cautiously optimistic. I just think she might not murder me if I tell her."
Miller snorts. "That sounds more like you."
*
Bellamy hadn't really consciously registered that Clarke doesn't date or hook up, but when she does get her flirt on with some guy at a bar a week before Christmas, he definitely notices. And then, when she says, "Hey, see you tomorrow?" and leaves with the dude, he realizes why he never tried cautious optimism before. Because it sucks.
"He's not coming for Christmas, is he?" he asks, a few days later, after the two of them go on a date.
Clarke gives him a dubious look. "Who?"
"The guy."
"Sterling? You're seriously asking if he's going to join me for a major family holiday after one date?"
"Just checking if I need to cook for three."
Clarke rolls her eyes. "You're a loser." She tucks her hair back behind her ear. "He's--fine. I think that was probably our last date, but--" She shrugs, almost embarrassed, and he feels like an asshole for even asking about it. "I thought it was time to get back to it, you know? Be slightly less of a weird hobo."
"Hey, if guys don't like you when you're a weird hobo, they're the wrong guys for you."
Clarke laughs. "Thanks for your support."
"So, not going out with him again?" he asks. He thinks he even sounds casual, curious. Friendly.
"Nah," she says. "He was not very good with his hands. I might have been spoiled by sleeping with a girl for a year. Not to stereotype, but girls are really good with their hands."
Bellamy snorts. "I'm glad all that lesbian porn I watched wasn't inaccurate."
"Yeah, those were definitely lesbian documentaries."
Bellamy ruffles her hair, and she shoots him a scowl. "So, you have any traditional Christmas foods I should be working on? Griffin family recipes you want to pass on?"
"What were you planning to make?"
"Honestly, the traditional Blake family Christmas food is Kraft macaroni and cheese. I was hoping you'd have some better suggestions."
She grins. "So, what you're saying is, I need to plan the menu."
"Or we could have macaroni and cheese, but yeah, those are the only two options."
He takes Christmas Eve off, and the day after too, mostly because when he tells his supervisor he's planning to come in, she gives him a look like she's deeply disappointed in him as a human being. Clarke has a shift tending bar on Christmas Eve, so Bellamy tries to wait up for her, but he falls asleep watching Planet Earth on Netflix with Sparky around ten and wakes up when the dog scratches his stomach launching himself at Clarke.
"This is kind of cool," she remarks. "I never get to walk in on you sleeping on the couch. It's like how the other half lives."
"I can't feel my neck," he says, irritable. "Merry Christmas."
"You too," she says. flopping down next to him. "Thanks for, um--I'm usually on my own at Christmas. So--thanks for waiting up."
"Trying to, anyway." He puts his arm around her and gives her a squeeze. "Thanks for being around."
They both pass out on the couch after that, still watching Planet Earth, and in the morning, it turns out they bought about fifteen presents each for the dog, and one for each other.
"At least we have our priorities straight," Clarke says, shoving a package at his chest. "Don't make fun of me."
"Uh, I won't?" he says, tugging off the wrapping paper. It's a painting, but not one of her usual ones. It's realistic, a portrait, and it's--Octavia, as a kid. It doesn't look like her, not exactly, because Clarke didn't know her then, but it feels like Octavia, just like he described her, that night they got drunk and talked about her. It's his baby sister, all fire and fight, perfect. "Jesus," he says. "Is it too late for me to get you something better?"
"Yup," she says, cheerful, already tearing her present open. It's a Spider-Man snuggie, which seemed funny and safe at the time, but now he's not sure funny and safe was really the right way to go with the whole thing. "It's, uh--I figured you could wear it when you're staggering around and passing out wherever you feel like. Never be without a blanket again." He rubs the back of his neck. "Sorry, it's--"
She throws her arms around him, sudden and tight, and he catches her, wraps his own arms around her too. He didn't really need to know how she felt pressed up close, cheek against his jaw. He gives her one firm squeeze and then lets her go, before he does anything stupid.
"It's awesome," she says. "Thanks, Bellamy."
He wets his lips. "Yeah, uh--I should go make that macaroni and cheese."
"I know we're not actually having macaroni and cheese."
"Well, not just macaroni and cheese."
*
And then, it goes back to normal, except that Bellamy knows he's in love, and Clarke goes on dates and gets laid sometimes. And that's fine, honestly. If she ever gets serious about someone, he will probably do something monumentally stupid, but in the meantime, he's the one she comes home to, and he's her best friend.
Which is why it fucks him up so much when her actual best friend comes back in January.
Raven Reyes is exactly his type, except that his type is Clarke now, so he's jealous of her instead, because he is a fucking idiot. She'd been in South America, doing some sort of badass shit like setting up solar power arrays for remote villages or something equally awesome, she drinks and swears like a sailor, and she and Clarke adore each other. He should be happy, but he's just worried that it's going to change stuff, that Clarke was just spending so much time with him because she didn't have anyone else. And now that she does, he wonders if she'll be passing out on Raven's couch and texting her weird stories about customers and just--well, yeah, he's an idiot. He got over her dating in like a week, but by his birthday in February, he's still feeling irritable about Raven, even though all that's really changed is that when they go out, she's there too. That, and they scream at each other less, which might be more Raven's fault that his. It shouldn't upset him, but it does.
"What the fuck!" Octavia yells at him. She and Clarke took him out for birthday drinking, and he is failing at it. "You're thirty, stop sulking."
"I think he hasn't had enough shots," says Clarke, clapping him on the back. "Birthday shots!"
"You guys aren't even arguing," Octavia says. Apparently even she realizes this is a problem. It's pathetic. "What happened?"
"I don't know," says Clarke, sighing. "He's been fucking weird. So, shots until he's better?"
"That's your answer to everything," he says, but he still matches her shot for shot, and lets her drag him home after.
"You are being weird," she tells him.
"How are you so much soberer than me?" he grumbles.
"I have incredible alcohol tolerance." She sits down on the couch and makes him put his head in her lap. Her hand tangles in his hair, stroking gently, and the dog licks his hand.
"This is pretty much the only thing I want for the rest of my life," he says.
She smiles a little. "Being drunk in my lap?"
"You," he says, feeling raw and honest and drunk. "You got me drunk, so--you have to listen to this. This is what you wanted. I'm being weird, yeah. I'm stupid jealous of your friend Raven and I was stupid jealous of that kid Sterling and I figured out I was in love with you on a date with my ex-girlfriend, like a lunatic. And now I'm fucking thirty, we have a dog, and I'm telling you all this shit on the couch where you live."
"I don't live on the couch," she says. She's still petting his hair. That's probably a good sign. "You going to remember this in the morning?"
"Yeah, unfortunately. Any chance you won't?"
She kisses his forehead. "Incredible alcohol tolerance," she says. "Can you get to bed?"
"Gonna take me to bed, huh?"
She snorts. "Yeah, it's gonna be a really sexy time."
He wakes up in his own bed, remembering everything, of course. He definitely told her he loved her. It's going to be bad. There's no way it won't be bad. But he doesn't appreciate just how bad it is until he goes into the living room and she's not there. He bedroom door is closed for once, and Sparky is whining outside, distressed.
Clarke Griffin is sleeping in her own bed.
He rubs his face. "I seriously fucked up," he tells the puppy.
He takes Sparky for a walk, and then grabs a bag of clothes and throws it in his car, makes a brief stop by an ATM, and then goes to Octavia's. Lincoln opens the door, looking confused.
"Bellamy," he says. "Did we--I didn't know you were coming over."
"No, uh, it's unplanned. Is Octavia home?"
"She's out back with the dog," he says. "Are you--" He seems to think better of the question, and settles on, "Happy birthday."
Right, he's also officially thirty. His life is under control. "Thanks. I'll, uh--just go see her."
Octavia and Lincoln's dog is named Artemis, and she's a lot smarter and more competent than Sparky. Octavia took a long time selecting the pick of the litter; Clarke went for the stupid one that kept running into her feet.
Maybe she'll feel sorry for him too.
"Hey," says Octavia, frowning. "Happy birthday. I thought you were gonna be hung over and not leave your apartment for, like, a week."
He hands her five twenties. "I can't live with Clarke," he says. "Can I stay here until I find a new place?"
She narrows her eyes at him. "Last time I saw you guys, she was petting you while you told her how much you loved her."
"Oh fuck, I told her that at the bar too?"
Octavia gives him a wholly unimpressed look. "What happened, Bell? Seriously. Did she kick you out?"
"I told her I was in love with her and she slept in her bed last night."
"And you think that means you have to throw all your stuff in your car and move in with me?" she asks. "Seriously, you're an idiot."
"She's sleeping in her bed. That's got to mean something."
She shoves the money back at him. "Look, I want to win this bet, obviously, but I'm not going to let you be this much of a failure. You have to talk to her before you run away." She cocks her head at him. "You're in love with her?"
He rubs the back of his neck. "Yeah. For a few months."
She sighs. "I told you this was a bad idea."
"I know. That's why I tried to give you the money."
Artemis brings her frisbee back, and Octavia throws it again. "Go home, Bell. Talk to your roommate. Maybe she just missed her bed."
Honestly, Bellamy doesn't really know what it means that she's in her room, but it's the only time she's ever tried to get away from him, and that feels significant. Maybe it's not that bad, but it can't possibly be good. Still, if Octavia won't let him stay with her, he doesn't really have anywhere else to go, unless he gets a hotel room, and even he can admit that's probably kind of an overreaction.
When he unlocks the door, Sparky rushes over to jump on him, and Clarke calls, "Did you get milk?" from the kitchen.
"Are we out of milk?"
"Yes!"
"Is the empty carton still in the fridge?"
There's a pause while she checks. "Yes."
"Then I didn't know we were out of milk. This is why we throw shit away."
"Shut up. If you weren't buying milk, where were you?"
He kneels down and scratches Sparky's ears. "I was begging Octavia to let me move in with her. She sent me back here."
Clarke comes out of the kitchen wearing her Spider-Man snuggie and holding a spatula. "You begged Octavia to let you move in with her?"
"Are you cooking?"
"I was going to make french toast, but no milk, so--grilled cheese. Come talk to me in the kitchen so it doesn't burn."
He follows her at a safe distance, still wary. "Did you forget what happened last night?"
"No. You begged Octavia to let you move in with her?" she asks again, pointed.
"Not quite begged." He sits on the counter next to her. "You slept in your bed. I figured that meant--I don't know. Something bad."
She snorts. "You would." She flips the sandwich out of the pan and onto a plate, surprisingly competently. He didn't really think she knew how to cook anything. She cuts it in half and hands it to him. "Eat that, I'll be right back."
She takes off, and Bellamy nibbles at the sandwich, feeling a lot less terrified than he thought he would. It's a pretty good sandwich, and she made it for him.
"My studio still smells too minty to work in," she admits. She has stubbornly not thrown away the stupid castle, and now she is paying for it. "But--I got inspired and I didn't want you to see, so I closed my door. I wasn't sleeping." She smiles at him, nervous, with just one corner of her mouth. "It's your birthday. I wanted to, um, make you something."
This painting isn't wrapped, and it's more her usual kind of thing, abstract, seemingly random colors, mostly blue and black, with some bright swatches of red across it. It feels--warm. Nice. He's not sure how to explain it.
"It probably doesn't make much sense huh?" she says, rueful. "I don't know. I just--I wanted to paint you. It was supposed to be a surprise." She huffs a laugh. "I can't believe you asked to move in with Octavia because you thought I slept in my bed."
"I told you I loved you," he points out. He's still looking at the picture, trying to figure it out. He's not sure he gets it, but it's perfect. He is going to keep it forever. "I thought that might be weird for you."
"You also said you were jealous of Raven. That was weird." She licks her lips, goes over to start cleaning up the grilled cheese stuff. "The other stuff was good. I wish you'd told me sooner."
Bellamy's breath catches, and he turns to her. The back of her neck is red. "Why are you embarrassed?" he teases. "I already said it." There's probably something better he could be doing, a better response to this situation, but mostly he can't stop smiling. "Twice, even. And you haven't. Don't leave me hanging."
"What did you tell Octavia?" she asks. She still looks tense, isn't looking at him.
"That I told you I loved you, and you slept in your room, so she won our bet and I couldn't live with you anymore. And then she sent me back here." He pauses. "Three times."
"It's not a competition, Bellamy." She lets out a breath, turns, finally meets his eyes. "Sure?"
"Sure." He licks his lips. "For months. Since I broke up with Echo."
Her smile breaks out at last, bright and happy. "I was so fucking jealous of her," she admits, and he crosses the kitchen in two long steps, cups her face in his hands, and kisses her. Fucking finally.
She slides her hands into the back pockets of his jeans, pulling him closer and groping his ass at the same time, and he laughs against her lips. "I like the painting," he tells her.
"It was supposed to be this big romantic gesture," she says. "Like, here's this work of art, it means I love you too. But I wasn't sure it got the message across."
"It did," he says. "I just wanted to hear you say it." He kisses her neck, her shoulder, noses under her jaw. He can't stop touching her. He's never going to stop touching her.
"I love you too. Twice. I'm catching up," she says, and pulls him back up for a much longer kiss.
"Okay," he says, once he's pulled away, and picks her up. "We're going to a bed," he adds, navigating to his room. "If we fuck on the couch, the dog is going to want to get involved."
She giggles into his neck. Giggling is a new thing for her, and she sounds giddy with it. Bellamy could really get used to that. "I'm good being in your bed," she tells him.
Bellamy deposits her there and then just looks for a minute; Clarke on his bed, hair fanned out around her, laughter in her eyes, is something that deserves a minute of appreciation. She's looking back at him too, which is the best part.
He pulls off his shirt. "Did you want to wait?" he asks belatedly. "I can wait."
She takes off the Spider-Man snuggie and tugs her own shirt. "I can't."
He laughs and slides back onto her. "I can't believe I'm about to have sex with someone who owns a Spider-Man snuggie," he teases.
Her hands run up his bare back, mapping his skin with her fingertips. "You have no one to blame but yourself."
"Yeah," he agrees. "Everyone in the world warned me about you. I just didn't listen."
"Nope." She smiles. "I love you. There, we're even. Suck it."
He snorts and kisses her. "Shut the fuck up, Clarke."
Afterward, she pokes him in the ribs and says, "We still need milk."
"Not much for the afterglow, are you?" he grumbles, amused.
"I really want french toast." She grins, propping herself up on his chest. "If you buy milk, I'll make you dinner too. It is your birthday."
"That's not really what I want for my birthday," he points out, and she laughs and kisses him.
"Milk," she says, once she's pulled away. "For energy. Healthy bones. Etc. I'll be here when you get back. I'm not going to run off and beg my little sister to let me move in with her because I'm a fucking moron."
He pecks her on the lips and pulls on his boxers and jeans. "You don't have a sister."
"Exactly. So you're safe."
When he gets back with the milk, she makes french toast, and they eat it on the couch while the dog tries to steal slices, and then they watch Netflix and make out until dinner, which is just more french toast, because Clarke's in a mood and insists that it's his birthday, so he's not cooking anything.
She follows him back to his room to sleep, and she's there when he wakes up to go to work in the morning, but when he gets up, she pads into the living room and collapses on the couch instead. He kisses her on the forehead on his way out, and she waves vaguely and rolls back over.
He's in such a good mood that his coworkers are actually alarmed, but he can't bring himself to care.
*
On March 1, Octavia gives him a $100 bill and says, "Take your girlfriend somewhere nice. Dinner or something."
Bellamy glances over his shoulder at Clarke, who's sleeping in the armchair again, with the dog on her stomach. The dog is already too big to really fit, but he's not going to let that stop him. "We're not really fancy restaurant people," he says. They have spent $100 on takeout before, but that was more of a quantity thing. It was a truly epic amount of sushi.
Octavia looks at him again, for a long minute. "Okay, just put it toward the wedding."
He snorts. "If we get married, it's probably going to be a justice of the peace deal," he says. "But we'll want booze, so sure. Pleasure doing business with you."
He grabs a jar, labels it Clarke and Bellamy's wedding booze fund, and puts the bill in it. Clarke doesn't notice it for three days, and when she does, she just raises her eyebrows. "How much booze do you think we're going to need?"
He shrugs. "I figure we'll do a cheap ceremony, and then we just have a huge drunken reception."
Clarke looks at him, like she's thinking it over. He thinks it should probably be weird to be discussing marriage with his girlfriend of less than a month, but it just sort of makes sense. And if they don't get married, they'll probably want to buy a bunch of alcohol when they break up. It's win-win.
Finally, she smiles. "Yeah, definitely giant, drunken reception."
"That's what I'm saying," Bellamy says, stretching. "I'm going to bed, you coming?"
"Sure," she says, and follows him into his bedroom. He's got the Spider-Man blanket on his bed now, which Clarke seems to think is a victory, probably because Bellamy still hasn't told her he doesn't actually have a horse in the Marvel/DC race. But even if he did, he thinks it would still be worth it, to get her sleeping with him every night.
"We're out of orange juice again," she tells him, burying her nose under his jaw.
"Empty carton in the fridge?"
"Empty carton in the fridge."
He cuffs her lightly on the shoulder. "You're a fucking disaster, Griffin," he tells her, affectionate, and goes to sleep.