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chasholidays · 5 years

Note

My local minor league baseball team has a community outreach deal with an area nursing home in which every season two of their rookie players will actually live in the nursing home. So, professional baseball player Bellamy living in the nursing home where Clarke works/volunteers.

When Clarke hears about the baseball-player-in-residence program at Eden Meadows, she’s not really sure what to make of it.

On the one hand, human interaction is human interaction, and seniors especially need it. The residents are always happy have visitors, and plenty of their families can’t or won’t make it in very often. As someone who didn’t make that much time for her own grandparents, Clarke can relate, and she doesn’t really hold it against anyone. So bringing in dedicated people to hang out makes some sense.

It’s just that she doesn’t quite see live-in baseball players as the ideal solution.

“Aren’t there people who actually need a place to stay?” she grumbles. “Couldn’t this be some kind of beneficial outreach program? I bet there are college kids who would love to get free room and board. I’d love to get free room and board.”

Lincoln shrugs. “I think the idea is that baseball players will be more exciting. They won’t know them by name, of course, but baseball is America’s pastime. It’s like having celebrities living with them.”

“But celebrities we can actually afford.”

“We’re not paying them,” he points out, but he’s smiling. “Trust me, I was a little skeptical myself when we started doing it, but the residents love it. And it makes them want to watch games, because they feel connected to the resident players. They donated tickets to a home game last year and everyone loved going.”

Clarke smiles too. “Okay, yeah, that sounds pretty great. How much do we generally see them? They don’t get in the way, do they?”

“It’s usually not a lot. They have breakfast with the residents when they can and at least one dinner a month. Obviously they have to travel for games, so they’re only here about half the time. I don’t think they’ll be getting in your way, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Just kind of curious, I guess. This is my first time dealing with this. And I don’t really know what to expect from a professional baseball players hanging out here.”

“I don’t think it’s likely to have a huge impact on your life. They probably won’t be around much when you are. Some evenings, but that’s about it. But if you’re hoping for an autograph, I’m sure that can be arranged.”

“I’m not much of a sports person,” she admits. “I prefer non-competitive, solo exercise.”

“You? Non-competitive?” Lincoln grins. “I don’t believe that.”

“If I’d been good at sports, I would have been competitive, but since I wasn’t, I do stuff where no on wins or loses. And baseball’s never really clicked for me anyway.”

“So, you weren’t fishing for details because you’re secretly very excited about this.”

“Just want to figure out how disrupted my life is going to be.”

“Barely at all,” says Lincoln. “I’m sure you’ll hardly notice them.”

He’s always such an optimist. “I’m sure.”

When Clarke’s adviser told her she should think about volunteering at a nursing home, she hadn’t really been particularly enthusiastic. She’s never been comfortable with older people–since, again, she didn’t see much of her own grandparents, or anyone else over the age of eighty–but she wants to go to med school, and volunteer positions look good on applications. Plus, she could just go for a few hours a week after class and get some good experience with a demographic she didn’t know well.

And, to her surprise, she’d actually liked it. After a few months, she added more hours, and she’s actually got a paid position lined up for the summer. She can see this being a career for her, elder care, and while her mother thinks that’s not ambitious enough, Clarke can live with being less ambitious than her mother wants her to be, if she likes her work.

But she’ll admit that she’s also used to being, well, the volunteer. She’s not the only one, but like Lincoln said, she’s competitive. She’s the bestvolunteer, everyone agrees, and she doesn’t really want some random jocks to show up and get to be cooler than she is just because they happen to be a little bit famous.

They’re not even in the major leagues yet, seriously. They can’t be that exciting. But it’s all the residents want to talk about.

“They moved in last night,” Mrs. Alexander tells her, while she’s giving out afternoon snacks. “Such nice boys.”

“One of them stayed up to watch Jeopardy! with us,” adds Mr. Thompson. “He was good at it!”

Clarke smiles, even though she watches Jeopardy! with them, and she’s good. “Better than me?” she can’t help asking.

He smirks; she does like Mr. Thompson. “I don’t know. I guess you’ll have to find out.”

“Do the players usually spend a lot of time with you?”

“Not very much. They’re so busy, you know? And they can’t just bring their homework to do while they sit with us like you can.”

“It’s easier to concentrate here,” she says with a smile. “Even better than the library.”

Usually, that’s true, but today she’s antsy, waiting for the baseball players to show up, not knowing if or when they will. It’s not a big deal, but she doesn’t like feeling unprepared, and until she meets the guys, she won’t feel like she can be prepared. And she has no idea when that meeting might happen; if it’s not tonight, she won’t be back until next week.

She’s prepared to feel annoyed about this for a while, but there’s an unfamiliar young man at one of the tables when she wheels Mrs. Hernandez into the dining room for dinner, and that has to be one of the baseball guys.

Clarke watches him out of the corner of her eye as she gets Mrs. Hernandez set up, studying him as best she can. He’s cute, if she’s honest, curly black hair and tan skin, wearing a pair of glasses with thick black frames and talking to Mr. Peters and Ms. Norris, telling them some story he’s illustrating with gestures from his large hands.

“Is that one of the new baseball players?” she asks Mrs. Hernandez.

“Oh, yes! I met him last night. I don’t remember his name, but he was very polite.”

“You like having them around?”

“They’re nice boys,” she says. “They’re good to spend time with us.”

“It’s not a burden to spend time with you,” Clarke reminds her. “But it is nice of them. I’m sure they’re busy with–training.” She did some cursory googling of what baseball schedules are like, but it was mostly about when games were, not what players do when games aren’t happening.

Other than living in a nursing home, obviously.

By the time she finishes getting everyone set up, all the chairs at the baseball player’s table are taken, and everyone is clamoring to ask him questions. Clarke doesn’t want to be bothered by his surge of popularity–it always happens, with new blood, everyone excited to get their story–but he’s just a baseball player. He’s not even in the major leagues yet.

She’s not going to be bitter.

Her shift is five hours, from three to eight, covering afternoon snacks and then dinner, with a couple hours after of just spending time with the residents. She usually sets up in one of the common spaces with some textbooks, reading and chatting with whoever wants to chat. From seven to eight, she joins in the nightly tradition of watching Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! and then she heads back to campus. It’s a nice routine, and she sees no reason to alter it for the new baseball player resident. If he wants to talk to her, he can.

And, apparently, he does. She’s been in her chair with her book for all of five minutes when he sits down next to her. Up close, she can see his skin is dotted with freckles and there’s a small scar over his lip.

And he’s very handsome.

“Hey,” he says, giving her half a smile. “I saw you helping out in the dining room, so I assume you’re not someone’s relative.”

“Volunteer, yeah.” She offers her hand. “Clarke Griffin.”

“Bellamy Blake. Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too. How do you get signed up for something like this?”

He looks a little amused at the question, although Clarke doesn’t know why. It’s a pretty normal thing to ask. And she’s curious. “They wanted volunteers, it sounded like a pretty good deal to me. I don’t pay for an apartment, and I get a free social life.”

It’s Clarke’s turn to smile. “Free social life?”

“What?”

“I guess I figured being in the minor leagues would give you a social life already. And this isn’t exactly–” She pauses, trying to figure out the best way to phrase it. “I like hanging out here, but it’s not for everyone.”

“So why is it for you?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s quiet and everyone’s easy to talk to. I just like it. But I didn’t think I would. I started coming here because my adviser said it would look good on med school applications, actually liking it was a total surprise.”

“I had a job at a nursing home when I was in high school, I worked in the dining room. I liked getting to know the residents, so when coach told us about this, I was the first volunteer.”

“That makes more sense.”

“Good enough reason for me to want to come here?” he asks, with a smirk that she wishes was a little less charming. “You like it, someone else should be able to too.”

“I just wasn’t expecting it, I guess. My friends can’t believe I hang out here as much as I do.”

“Well, you’re not the only one.” He pauses, but apparently his conscience takes over. “Murphy’s probably not going to be around as much.”

“Murphy?”

“The other rookie. He’s kind of a dick.” He looks around, adorably spooked, like he just realized he maybe should have said the word dick in a nursing home.

“The good news,” Clarke says, low and teasing, “is that a lot of the residents don’t hear very well, so they don’t know that you’re swearing.”

His laughs, a sheepish little chuckle. “Lucky me.”

“You get used to it. Not that some of the residents don’t swear up a storm,” she adds. “But they always act like we shouldn’t know those words.”

“I have some news for them about professional athletes and swearing.”

Clarke smiles, and he smiles back. He can’t be that much older than she is, probably recently out of college, assuming he actually graduated, and that makes her feel better. Somehow, she’d been imagining the resident baseball player as someone like Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own, an older, grumpy guy who wouldn’t really want to be here or talk to her. Which makes no sense with how old rookies actually are, but whatever. That’s her point of reference.

She wasn’t expecting someone like Bellamy.

The Wheel of Fortune music starts, and he perks up. “Sorry, I’m just–”

“Don’t apologize, I usually watch too.”

“Cool.” He gestures for her to go past him. “After you.”

Despite Lincoln’s assurances, Bellamy does have an impact on Clarke’s life. Admittedly, the other resident, Murphy, doesn’t show up much, almost never when Clarke is around, but Bellamy really does seem to see Eden Meadows as his home base, the place where he returns to as a default.

Not that he can always be around. With the season in full swing, Bellamy’s got games almost every day, which means he can’t spend all his time hanging out at a nursing home. He’s on the road a lot, or at games later in the day, or training. But according to the residents, Bellamy comes from breakfast as much as he can, and Clarke knows he comes for dinner as much as he can. The games aren’t broadcast on regular TV, but Lincoln has a cord to connect his laptop, so they watch the online stream, and Clarke joins them whenever she’s around.

After a couple weeks, she starts streaming in her dorm too, leaving the game on in the background while she does other things, listening for the announcer calling out that number six is up so she can watch him.

Clarke is not an expert on baseball. She understands the most basic of the basics, that one team tries to hit the ball and run around the bases while the other team tries to keep them from getting around the bases, that three strikes are an out and four balls are a walk, and that catching the ball is good. She knows that Bellamy is a catcher, which is the same thing Geena Davis was in A League of Their Own, and she definitely knows that most of her reference points for baseball are A League of Their Own. It’s weird only because Bellamy doesn’t talk about the game very much, or his career. He talks about college–which he did finish last year–and how much he likes history, about his little sister, who’s starting at NYU in the fall, because he can afford to send her to a better school than he went to. He talks about his teammates and his friends, but not much about the sport itself.

Not that Clarke has admitted to caring about the sport itself yet. She hasn’t told Bellamy that she watches the games at the nursing home, let alone on her own, and whenever anyone comes to her room while the games are on, she slams the laptop shut before anyone can see.

Or, rather, ideally she does. One morning, the weekend before finals, Clarke has the game on her laptop while she reviews flashcards in bed, away from the distractions of the internet, and Raven comes in without knocking, stops dead.

“Are you watching sports?”

“It’s just baseball.”

Raven frowns at the screen. “What the fuck team is that?”

A flush creeps up her neck. “Minor leagues.”

“You’re watching minor league baseball?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing against–” She frowns. “Does that say Rumble Ponies?”

The conversation will undoubtedly get worse before it gets better. And that’s assuming it ever gets better, which is a big assumption. She’s been caught and now she has to explain herself.

“Yeah, that’s our local team.”

“The Rumble Ponies.” Raven flops down in her chair. “Seriously, why are you watching this? I didn’t think you liked baseball.”

“It’s a long story,” she says, and immediately changes her mind. “Actually, it’s really short, I just don’t want to tell it.”

“Tough shit. What’s up?”

“The nursing home has this program set up with the–” She stumbles over the name. “The team. A couple of their rookies come and live in the home and hang out with the residents for a year. All the residents love it,” she adds. “They think it’s so cool that they’ve got real ball players living with them. And they watch all the games, so I watch all the games when I’m there. And then I started watching them here.”

“So, the rookies are hot?” Raven asks.

“I didn’t say that.”

“Yeah, but if they weren’t, you wouldn’t be embarrassed about telling me. It’s not actually a big deal.”

Clarke sighs, flops back on the bed. “Just one of them. One of them isn’t around much, but the other one–I think he really likes hanging out with the residents. As long as he’s in town and doesn’t have a game, it feels like he’s always around, doing puzzles or watching TV or just talking to people.”

“Wow. So you’ve got it really bad.”

Clarke shrugs. “He’s hot, he’s smart, he likes to yell at the TV during Jeopardy! I was hoping professional baseball player was something that didn’t do it for me, but it’s not a deal-breaker, apparently.”

Raven leans in close, squinting at the screen. The live stream is always a little pixelated, never great quality, but good enough to mostly tell what’s going on. “Which one is he? Your guy.”

“Number six on the Ponies,” says Clarke. “Bellamy Blake. They’re in the field, he’s the catcher.”

“Huh. He’s got a nice back.”

She smiles. “His face is pretty great too.”

“It must be, if you’re watching baseball.”

“I’m not really paying attention, if it makes you feel better.”

“I’ll feel better when I actually see the guy.”

It takes until he’s up at bat; it’s not a great closeup, and all Clarke can see is the pieces that are missing from this distance, on this scale. His freckles are missing, his hair is under a cap, he’s wearing his contacts instead of his glasses.

Still, it’s enough for Raven. “Yeah, I’d probably watch baseball for him.”

Clarke smiles. “Yeah. It’s so worth it.”

“None of the residents are going to remember all the details, so I’m just letting you know that I’m going home for a couple of weeks so you don’t have to figure out what happened from someone else,” she tells Bellamy, once finals are over and she’s about to be kicked out of the dorms.

He raises his eyebrows. “Just for a couple of weeks?”

“Yeah. I’ve actually got a job here for the rest of the summer, but my mom wanted to see me first.”

“How dare she,” he teases.

“I know, I know. I’m not complaining, it’s just kind of a pain. I wish they didn’t kick me out of the dorms, I’d just live there all summer if they let me and everything would be so much easier.”

“Where are you living when you get back? Here?”

“Nope, they just let famous athletes do that. I’m subletting from my professor who’s out of town for the summer. As long as I feed her cat, I’m good. And she’s letting me leave my stuff there so I don’t have to drag it back to DC.”

“So you’re still going to be on the east coast?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“You should give me your number so I can text you about Jeopardy!”

It’s not like it’s a huge deal, really. Asking for someone’s number is a really minimal commitment, now. She doesn’t even know if Bellamy is single, or into women, and he really might just want to text her about game shows.

Which, okay, sounds like total BS as soon as she thinks it, but it could be true.

Then again, Bellamy’s not an idiot. He’s a twenty-three-year-old guy who probably flirts and has been flirted with a lot, and he has to know how he’s coming across.

The overthinking is getting her nowhere; she gives Bellamy her number, they watch their nightly game shows, and when she leaves, she tells him she’ll see him in a few weeks. Like a normal person.

The texts start the next morning, when Bellamy’s on the bus to an away game. He asks her when her flight is, which she tells him, and then he has Murphy’s bus singing to complain about, and Clarke gets patted down at airline security because her shirt is bunching and it looks like a bomb or something. Obviously she doesn’t text him while she’s on the plane, but she does let him know that she landed safely, and he lets her know that he’s got his game in about an hour.

“Who are you texting?” Abby asks.

“A friend.”

“A boyfriend?” she asks. “Or a girlfriend?”

“Or a friend,” says Clarke, smiling. “Another volunteer at the nursing home.”

“Oh, that’s nice. What’s their name?”

“Bellamy.”

Abby pauses. “And what are their preferred pronouns?”

She’s trying so hard with all the queer stuff; Clarke has to smile. “He’s a cis-guy, he uses regular masculine pronouns. He’s just got a weird, androgynous name. Not that I can relate to that or anything.”

“Clarke is a lovely name and you should be grateful that your father and I were already fighting against gender norms.”

“So grateful,” she agrees.

“So, is Bellamy a potential boyfriend?”

“Everyone’s a potential boyfriend, I guess,” she says, and tries to ignore her mother’s smile as she returns to her phone.

She watches Jeopardy! on her parents’ TV and Bellamy’s game on her iPad, texts him updates on how both are going. The Jeopardy! updates are more coherent, but she figures he’ll enjoy her completely uninformed baseball commentary too.

Sure enough, when he gets back, he texts, Yeah, this is exactly what I was hoping for when I got your number, and Clarke grins.

Maybe regular flirting is overrated. This is working great for her.

The two of them keep in touch regularly through Clarke’s visit at home. She almost feels bad for not knowing more about baseball, considering all the cool insider pictures and stories she’s getting, but Bellamy doesn’t seem to mind that she’s completely ignorant of his chosen profession. If anything, he seems to find it kind of refreshing. She’s the opposite of a groupie; maybe that’s nice for him.

When she gets back, he’s just left for another week of away games, and she spends the next few days in a state of itchy anticipation, wondering how things are going to be when she gets back, if things will be different or if all of the flirting was just in her head, if he’s just been killing time.

The residents, at least, are happy to see her. “It’s been so quiet without you,” Mrs. Hernandez tells her. “Especially when the boys are away at games. And I know Bellamy missed having you around, too.”

Her smile is sly, and Clarke has to smile. Trust the residents to be worried about their love lives.

But she doesn’t want to talk about that. “Have you been keeping up the with the games? It seems like they’re having a pretty good season.”

The job itself is pretty good, especially when people aren’t trying to set her up with Bellamy. She’s working a full forty hours a week as four ten-hour days, which is going to be tiring, but the three-day weekend is nice. And she doesn’t find it as difficult to be a real staff member as she expected to, even when there are gross issues. It really does feel like it could be a career, something she could keep doing. That’s gratifying too.

And every day she works, Bellamy is one day closer to being back, which is pretty great. She’s going to see him soon.

Except that he’s getting back on her day off, because of course he is. That’s the only way it could work out. It’s not even that bad, objectively speaking; it’s the end of her weekend, and she’ll see him the day after he gets back. It’s not like she has to wait that long.

But she’ll be at work, and he’ll be living at her workplace, which is pretty generally awkward vibe for romance. Not that she necessarily thinks she’s going to get laid immediately, but she thinks there are good odds of her getting laid at some point, and if it could happen immediately, she’d be down.

Mostly, though, she just wants to see him. As soon as possible. But it doesn’t feel like she can say that, like she can just ask. It feels like too big a step for her to take just yet.

Flirting sucks.

Luckily, Bellamy takes the issue out of her hands; about an hour out of town, he texts, I just realized I can never ask you to come over to my place.

Me: I’m at your place all the time

Bellamy: You’re in building where I currently liveWorking and caring for the elderlyYou can’t really just come chill with me

Me: Yeah that’s trueThe residents are already gossiping about usIn case you hadn’t heard

Bellamy: Yeah, I got thatThe whole time you were gone, they were asking me how much I missed you

Me: What did you say?

Bellamy: You know I missed you

Me: You could always come over here insteadNo audience except my prof’s cat

Bellamy: Which isn’t awkward at all

Me: Depends on why you want to come see meIf all the cat’s going to do is watch us watch Jeopardy…

Bellamy: I figured we could watch Jeopardy and go from there

Clarke flops onto her back, grinning up at the ceiling. It’s not really like hooking up with a celebrity, not even close. Even if Bellamy does end up in the majors, she doesn’t really care about him as a status symbol. But it is finding out that the boy she likes likes her too, and wants to come see her as soon as possible.That’s always going to be exciting.

Me: I’ll order pizza or somethingSee you soon :)

“This must be very exciting for you,” Mrs. Alexander tells Clarke. “Seeing your beau in action.”

It’s August and the complimentary tickets to the Rumble Ponies game finally came, and Clarke really is excited, although she’s trying to keep it in check. She’s not here as Bellamy’s girlfriend, she’s here as a chaperone for the residents of Eden Meadows, which is actually a real responsibility. It feels weird, doing attendance for actual adults, but the residents can’t walk for that long and can’t really be left to their own devices. Her job is to make sure they have a good time.

“I don’t think anyone’s ever called him my beau before,” she tells Mrs. Alexander. “That one’s kind of old-fashioned.”

“I think it’s a nice word,” she says. “It sounds so much more romantic than boyfriend. And a little more serious. The two of you do seem serious.”

“You know this is none of your business, right?” Clarke asks, but she can’t keep the amusement out of her voice. “Whether or not Bellamy is my beau is no one’s business but ours.”

“Of course it’s not,” she says. “But he is.”

“But he is,” Clarke admits. It’s definitely a little awkward, but she cleared it with Lincoln–which was even more awkward–and it’s going well. She’ll mostly be happy when he moves out of the nursing home and into his own place, but she’s also glad he’ll probably still come visit. He wasn’t just being nice to the residents to get on her good side; he really likes them. He’s a really good guy.

“And it’s very exciting, isn’t it?”

She lets herself smile as they find their seats. “Yeah, it really is.”

let the record show the binghampton rumble ponies are a real minor league baseball team and I love them based only on their name

#justadaybehind

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chasholidays · 5 years

Note

Hello and Happy Holidays! Would love to see an Alternate POV from Monty or Miller for "though it's always pricking me."

Original fic here!

When Monty heard that Dropship was going to be in town over the summer, he was not expecting that he, personally, would have much interaction with them. Everyone knows why they’re coming back, knows how Aurora Blake is doing (not well) and how much Bellamy cares about his family (a lot). The whole town is abuzz with the news in the way only small towns can be, and people who know that Bellamy was in school with Monty are definitely eager to hear all about him, but Monty knows he’s not going to be at the top of Bellamy’s list of people to see, nor should he be. If not for the band, Monty probably would have largely forgotten Bellamy existed. Bellamy might not have ever known Monty existed. Monty wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t.

Still, the whole thing is kind of exciting, in a silly way. Everyone at school who knows where he lives now also knows that he’s going to be in the same geographic location as Dropship, and odds aren’t bad that he’ll run into at least one of them. If it’s Bellamy, he’ll maybe have a conversation, and then he can ride that wave of coolness for at least a week and possibly longer.

It would be a pretty great way to start off senior year, and he sees no reason to set his expectations higher than that. Even that’s pretty optimistic.

Jasper, of course, is more optimistic.

“He’s going to be bored! You know he wants to hang out with us. We’re very lovable.”

“Speak for yourself,” Monroe says, and Monty frowns.

“Sorry, are you saying you’re not lovable? Are you negging yourself?”

She pauses, frowns at her beer. “Yeah, that didn’t really work. I’m just saying, the odds of Bellamy Blake even getting a Facebook invite, let alone responding to one, seem really low. Does he even have his own Facebook? Isn’t it just one of those celebrity profiles?”

“It probably couldn’t hurt,” Wells says, the voice of reason as always. “But if you send it and he doesn’t respond and doesn’t show up, you’ll never know if he saw it and decided not to come or never saw it or saw it and hates you and–”

Jasper holds up his hand. “Okay, okay. I get it. I will not invite Bellamy Blake to our weekly drinks, and none of us will ever be discovered as secret rock geniuses–”

“You definitely wouldn’t be,” Monty puts in.

“Just let the record show that I tried to make us rich and famous, and you guys were like, fuck that.”

“That’s exactly what happened,” says Harper, dry.

“It’s on the record,” Clarke adds. She’s been quiet, but she definitely had a crush on Bellamy back in high school, so she’s probably stressing more than the rest of them. If Monty’s high-school crush had disappeared off the face of the earth and then reemerged as the lead singer of a hit band, he’d also probably feel kind of weird about it. “This is the only bar in town, if they want to drink, this is it.”

Jasper raises his own glass. “Here’s hoping.”

Clarke smiles a small, private smile. “Yeah, here’s hoping.”

“Wouldn’t it make more sense if I didn’t come to this?” Nate asks. He’s not actually that opposed to going to the bar–Arcadia is not an exciting place, and anything that breaks up the monotony is good by him–but if he doesn’t put in at least a token protest, they’ll just assume he always wants to be sociable, and he’s got a reputation to maintain. If people start thinking he just enjoys doing things, he’s going to be on the hook to do things all the time.

“Why, because you suddenly don’t like drinking?” Bellamy asks. He’s been doing minute adjustments to his hairstyle for what feels like an hour, and Nate can admit he is curious about that one. Bellamy with an actual crush is new and different.

Or old and different, really. Apparently Bellamy’s been nursing this one for a long time.

“I can drink here, I don’t have to go to your shitty hometown bar.”

“You get to go to his shitty hometown bar,” Raven says. “How do you not see this for the opportunity it is? All of Bellamy’s high-school friends telling m us all the dirt they can remember? You know you want in on that.”

Nate sighs theatrically. “Fine. But if it sucks, I’m taking a taxi back and leaving you assholes.”

“You say that every time we go anywhere,” Bellamy says, finally finishing with his hair. “And you’ve never actually left us.”

“So far. There’s a first time for everything.”

The bar itself is nothing special, larger than their usual hangout in the city but otherwise unremarkable. Standard bar stuff, as far as Nate is concerned. It’s decently busy for a Friday night, but not packed, and it feels a little like a scene in a Western, when the outlaw walks into the saloon and and everyone stops talking and the piano stops playing. He doesn’t think everyone looks at them, but he feels conspicuous even before some scrawny white kid in goggles starts to call Bellamy.

Another kid, Asian and cute with short black hair and a stoner vibe, shuts him up before he gets it out, and Bellamy snorts, shakes his head.

“More friends?” Raven murmurs.

“Monty and Jasper. They’re probably about your speed, Miller.”

“Where’s your girl?”

“She’s not my–” Bellamy protests, but Raven takes over. “Cute blonde at the bar,” she says. “The one pretending not to look at us.”

“Cool.” He gives Bellamy a thump on the shoulder. “Good luck with that.”

The goggles kid–either Jasper or Monty–has calmed down by the time Nate makes it over to his table, and he manages a friendly, pretty normal smile. “Hi! We have a pitcher, want beer?”

The other kid, the cute stoner, adds, “It’s very shitty beer.”

“How old are you guys?” he asks, frowning. “There’s no way you get away with a fake ID in a town this small.”

“Oh ye of little faith,” says the goggles kid. “We’ve been successfully buying illegal booze since high school.”

“We’re twenty-one,” the other one supplies. He seems to be the straight man to his friend’s goofball, a dynamic Nate is used to. He doesn’t know a lot of goofballs, but for a gay guy he makes a pretty great straight man. “Two grades lower than Bellamy in high school. I’m Monty, and this is Jasper.”

“Nice to meet you guys. I’m Nate.”

Jasper frowns. “Everyone always calls you Miller.”

“Yeah, but it’s weird introducing yourself by last name.”

“Fair enough. You want our cheap beer or not?”

“Love some, thanks.” Monty pours and slides him one, and Nate takes a drink, making a face. “You weren’t kidding.”

“Of course we weren’t. Who lies about buying cheap beer?” Monty asks. “It’s Bud Lite, there’s a special for pitchers, and not all of us are famous rock stars. But if you want to get something better for the next round, we won’t say no.”

“How generous of you.” He takes a chug of the beer; the faster he drinks it, the less he has to taste. “So you’re in college, right?”

They are, rising seniors–Jasper at Oberlin and Monty at Cornell, which actually throws him a little. He knows most people don’t go to college with their high school friends, but something about how the two of them are together made him think they were always this joined at the hip.

“We’re planning to go to the same place once we graduate,” Jasper says, so at least there’s that. “Maybe move in together.”

“Jasper is hoping he’s going to have a serious girlfriend by then and he can move in with her instead of me.”

“The power of positive thinking, Monty! If I believe, it will happen. You should try it, you could get a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend!”

The addition comes in a hurried way that makes Nate assume it’s new and still not totally natural, but without any kind of judgement. Monty is newly out as queer and Jasper is still updating his perceptions, but he’s trying. That’s always nice.

And, well, interesting. Monty started off cute and keeps getting cuter.

“I think I’d have to do more than just believe to find a significant other,” Monty says, dry. “I’ve heard that it requires some bare minimum of effort.”

“Yeah, but believing is easy and it can’t hurt to try.” He turns his attention back to Nate, his gaze surprisingly sharp for how drunk he seems. “How’s dating as a celebrity? Weird?”

“I dont date much, but it probably would be weird. It’s always kind of–” He pauses, trying to figure out the right words. “I had a boyfriend when the band got big, and we tried to stay together, but it was just too complicated, you know? He was always kind of worried I was cheating on him when I was out of town.”

“That sucks,” says Monty.

“Were you cheating on him?” Jasper asks, and Monty elbows him. “What, I’m curious! He can tell us, we don’t know his ex.”

“If you cheated on your ex would you want to tell two random strangers in a bar?”

“It sounds better than telling friends or family.”

Nate has to smile. “I didn’t cheat on him. Bellamy’s really paranoid about this stuff, it rubs off. Not that I was ever tempted, but even after we broke up, he got in my head about people I slept with bragging to the Internet or something.”

“So you’re a rock star who doesn’t get laid?” Jasper asks, in the tones of a kid who just learned Santa isn’t real.

“I don’t usually hook up with civilians. Industry people, the ones who are more used to the lifestyle, that’s usually easier.” He shrugs. “I don’t worry they’re just doing it for a story to tell.”

“So you aren’t interested in sleeping with Jasper,” Monty supplies.

Nate snorts into his beer. “I didn’t think I was the uninterested party there.”

“I wouldn’t say I’m interested, but I’d definitely do it just so I could say I fucked a famous person. Honestly, I’d probably be over there trying to flirt with your drummer except that Wells already is and I’d feel like a terrible person.”

“You could go for Bellamy.”

“I don’t ever want to get on Clarke’s bad side. Wells I’d feel guilty, but Clarke would actually destroy my life.”

No wonder Bellamy likes her so much. “So I’m at the bottom of your Dropship hookup chart?” he asks Jasper. “Dude, come on.”

“Just practically speaking. I’m pretty straight, so Raven’s first, and I figure Bellamy and I have history, so–”

Monty snorts. “You barely talked to him in high school. Also I remember you in high school, I don’t think that’s really working in your favor. Jasper didn’t start developing muscle mass until college,” he adds, to Nate.

“This is Jasper with muscle mass?”

For a second, he’s worried he went too far, that the thoughtless quip actually hurt Jasper’s feelings and there will be a “Nathan Miller was super mean to me in a small-town dive bar” post doing the rounds on social media tomorrow, but then they both crack up.

“I’m secretly ripped!”

“You’re secretly less scrawny than you look,” says Monty. “Which is definitely an accomplishment, but less of one.”

“Screw you both,” he says, cheerful. His phone buzzes, and he checks it. “Literally screw you both, I’m leaving.”

“Did that girl text you back?”

“The power of positive thinking!”

“You’re going to miss out on the fancy beer Miller’s buying us,” says Monty.

“You can drink mine and tell me about it later.” He flashes Nate a smile. “Nice to meet you, hope we see you again, sorry not sorry I’m going on a date.”

Nate can’t argue with that. “Fair enough, have fun.”

“Thanks, you too!” He salutes, and then he’s gone, and Nate and Monty look at each other for an awkward second.

Nate breaks it. “So, next round. Is there an expensive beer you like?”

Monty’s face relaxes into a smile. “I think I can come up with something.”

I can’t believe you left me ALONE with NATHAN MILLER.

Monty sends the text while Miller–Nate, he can call Nathan Miller Nate–is in the bathroom, about an hour after Jasper leaves. Clarke is still talking to Bellamy and Wells is still talking to Raven, and it makes Monty feel weirdly paired off, even though he wasn’t trying and was definitely not prepared. He didn’t even do shots with Wells to get ready. He’s a little stoned and a little buzzed, but not enough of either and paranoid about getting worse. If he was drunk, he wouldn’t be thinking about it at all, but since he’s not drunk enough yet, he’s self-conscious about getting sloppy. It’s the actual worst.

yes it is amazing how good a friend I am, Jasper texts back. have fun!!!

If Monty had thought it was unlikely he’d see Bellamy, he had been unable to even comprehend seeing Nathan Miller. It was so outside of the realm of possibility that it wasn’t even worth thinking about, beyond unrealistic. If he had seen Miller, he’d thought that was all it would be, just admiring him from afar. He wasn’t supposed to be talking to him, getting a drink with him, hanging out with him like a normal person. Like those pictures of him in a mesh vest from some weird photoshoot last year hadn’t been the final straw that tipped Monty into identifying as bisexual.

The good news is that it’s not going that badly, but that’s bad news, at the same time. If he was an asshole who wasn’t giving Monty the time of day, it would be easy, one of those never-meet-your-heroes moments. Even if he’d just been friendly, it might not have been that bad. He could have been a perfectly nice guy with whom Monty had nothing in common, and they would have spent the evening making slightly stilted conversation before parting ways.

Instead, they’d gotten another round of drinks and Miller had asked if he was into video games and that was it. Monty had hesitantly offered that he was really into Fire Emblem right now, and Miller had apparently been playing it on the tour bus, and from there they branched out into favorite games, first gaming systems, upcoming releases they’re excited about. If Miller was just a guy he’d met here by chance–deeply unrealistic, as Monty is not the kind of person who meets new people at bars–he’d say they were hitting it off. He might be trying to flirt.

But Miller is Nate is Nathan Miller. He’s been profiled in Rolling Stone. He’s not quite a household name–that’s Bellamy, as the band’s front man–but if he said “I had drinks with the bass player for Dropship,” everyone would know what he was talking about, even his coding professor, who brags about not having learned anything about pop culture since 1989. People hear about Dropship just by being alive, and Monty doesn’t care that much about prestige, but this is going to be one hell of a what I did over the summer.

Assuming he tells anyone. Does bragging about getting drinks and talking about video games count as scuzzy? He doesn’t want to be one of those guys who takes advantage, who makes Miller feel like he can’t talk to civilians.

So when he gets back, Monty just asks. “So, can I tell my friends about this?”

“About what, exactly?”

“How Nathan Miller likes video games and drinks pretentious local IPAs.”

He snorts. “I talk about video games in like all my interviews, it’s not exactly a scoop.”

“You know what I mean.” But he raises his eyebrows like he doesn’t, forcing Monty to clarify, “I don’t want to be one of those people who just brags about–talking to you.”

It’s slightly awkward, both because it feels like he’s using “talking” as a euphemism and because he feels like he’s always slightly awkward, especially without Jasper, who tends to give him easy things to play off of. It had worried him, when he went off to college, that he’d never survive on his own, and he’s fine, has made plenty of friends, but then he’ll be back with Jasper and remember how much easier it feels, to be social with him.

Miller doesn’t seem to notice; he just smirks. “Nah, I love when people brag about talking to me. We can take some selfies if you want.”

“So when does it cross the line into bothering you?”

He drums his fingers on the table. “Good question. I think it’s more–just a vibe. It’s not hard to figure out the people who are just sucking up. Most people–even most super fans–are fine. Kind of nervous at first, but they just want to talk. I never mind people saying they met me. Except that it’s fucking surreal.”

Monty has to laugh. “Yeah, I bet.”

“You didn’t really seem that excited,” he observes, casual.

“I never seem like I’m showing that much emotion compared to Jasper. It’s kind of nice. Takes the pressure off.”

“You always get to be the cool one.”

“Or at least the calm one. It is pretty exciting,” he adds. “Meeting a celebrity.”

“You know Bellamy.”

“Not that well, like I said. And it’s not–” He glances towards the bar, Bellamy leaning into Clarke, the two of them in a world of their own, just like the old days. “I didn’t get to vote on his senior superlatives, but I would have said he was most likely to make it in show business. He’s got charisma. So it’s cool, but not much of a surprise.”

Nate nods. “Yeah, I remember when I first met him. I knew he was going to take me places.”

“You’re twenty-three, right?” he asks. “His age?”

“Yeah.”

He shakes his head. “I feel like you’re too young to be famous. I’m still worried about having a real job, and you’ve been making a living for years.”

“We got lucky,” says Nate. “Shit, so fucking lucky. We only had a few months of shitty gigs before someone decided we were the real deal. And it still took time for us to be able to quit our day jobs.”

“So your life is weird.”

“So weird.”

“Is it better or worse being way out here?”

He shrugs. “It’s different. Our profile is a lot higher. In New York, if someone sees me, they’re not sure it’s me. But everyone knows we’re here, everyone knows Bellamy, so there’s no question. But you’re also really paranoid about coming off weirdly, so–”

“So everyone’s like me.”

That makes him think. “Nah, not everyone is as cool as you are.”

The bar’s lighting is low enough that Monty doesn’t think the flush will be obvious. At least his voice is steady. “I didn’t think cool for rock stars involved playing a ton of video games.”

“You play good video games, so yeah. You’re cool.” He considers. “You said you didn’t have a PS4 yet, right?”

“Yeah.”

“You should stop by sometime and play,” he says. “Bellamy’s too bad at video games and Raven’s too good.”

Monty’s jaw doesn’t drop, but it’s close. “You want to play video games with me?”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. Because you must have better people to play video games with?”

“What’s wrong with you?” He clucks his tongue. “Full disclosure? You’re cute and chill and I want to hang out with you more. You want to tell all your friends that you spent part of your summer vacation playing games and flirting with a guy in a band, I’m cool with that.”

The words come out easily, somehow. It doesn’t even make sense, he’s never smooth, but talking to Miller–to Nate, to this guy, who’s chill and down-to-earth and nice–is natural. They get along. “I don’t kiss and tell,” he says. “So if you ever want me to keep quiet, all you have to do is kiss me.”

Nate laughs. “Yeah? That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“I hope it’s not.”

“I hope so too. So, what are you doing tomorrow?”

Jasper is going to be the worst possible combination of smug and jealous, but he’ll live. He’s flirting with a cute boy who likes video games; it’s awesome. “Nothing so far.”

“Cool. I’ll figure out when my asshole bandmates aren’t around and give you a call.”

“You don’t have my number.”

“Not yet. But we’re not even done with our drinks. I’m not going anywhere yet.”

They have two more rounds and take the same taxi back. Nate gets dropped off first, takes a minute to study Monty’s face, lingering on his lips, before he says, “I’m not kissing you tonight.”

“No?”

“I want you to have a couple stories you can share.” But he does peck him on the cheek. “Night, Monty.”

He texts Jasper immediately. You’re never going to believe what happened.

The response takes a little longer; hopefully his night was good too. I’m the best friend in the entire universe?????

Honestly, Monty replies, smiling in the dark of the backseat, you just might be.

“So, it sounds like both your bandmates did pretty well for themselves in Arcadia,” the interviewer tells Nate, like he doesn’t know Bellamy and Raven have significant others now. He found out way before the media did. “Are you jealous?”

“Jealous of what, exactly?” he asks, with a shrug. “Wells isn’t my type. Clarke is even less my type. And don’t even start with Bellamy being my type.”

She laughs, apparently genuinely amused, which makes Nate like her more. Most of the questions reporters ask aren’t really their own fault, especially for shit like this. They’re doing rapid-fire press for a new single and everyone only has a few minutes. This website likes gossip, so the interviewer wants gossip. Nate doesn’t blame her.

“Trust me, even I’m getting tired of asking if you and Bellamy are secretly sleeping together. I was relieved I could stop asking about Bellamy and Raven. But is it tough? Being the last single member of the band? Does it get lonely?”

On the surface, the question is absurd. Bellamy and Raven are dating people, not off to war. He’s not alone. He’s not even single, although he hasn’t told anyone about Monty yet, not even his bandmates. They were fairly casual over the summer in Arcadia, didn’t even hook up very much. It was like having a friend with benefits, except the benefit rarely went farther than kissing. Nate didn’t mind, he liked the closeness of it, the intimacy, like getting close to Monty, but the last few months have been a weird sort of limbo, Monty at school, applying for jobs, figuring things out.

He is lonely, but not because he’s single and his friends aren’t. And Monty’s graduating next month, already has an apartment lined up in the city. Him and Jasper together, despite Monty having a boyfriend–they agreed they can work on cohabitation once they’ve been in the same place a little longer.

“I guess that’s not how it is for me. I don’t feel worse about being single when my friends aren’t? Maybe I will, I get why people do. But I like Clarke and Wells, so mostly I’ve got more friends. And they help out keeping an eye on Bellamy’s sister when we’re busy. Not to get too sappy, but mostly being in Arcadia means my family grew. Hard to be lonely when that happens.”

She looks dubious, for which Nate can’t blame her. If he didn’t have Monty, he doesn’t know what he’d say, but as it is, it’s pretty easy. Arcadia was good to him too, and his life is about to get better. Maybe he’ll do another interview with her, when everything is said and done and he and Monty have decided to go public. Let her know how he was really feeling.

For now, though, it’s just for him. Him and Monty, Jasper, the rest of the band. All the people who really matter.

“So, nothing big to report? No one special in your life?”

“Everyone in my life is special,” he says, with a shit-eating grin, and she laughs again.

“Of course, sorry. Anything else you’d like our readers to know?”

“I’m good,” he says, meaning it. “Great, even. No one has to worry about me.”

Once he’s out, he texts Monty: Ngl, I’m looking forward to telling people I’m kissing you.

I’m ready to brag whenever, Monty shoots back. Can’t wait to get all those dating a rockstar points. Finally, I’ll be cool.

Nate smiles. You’re the coolest, he says, and puts his phone in his pocket as he waits for Bellamy and Raven to finish up so they can leave. It’s not exactly the life he was expecting, not this time last year, not when he was in high school, not when he was a kid, deciding what he wanted to be when he grew up.

He never thought it could be this good, and in another month, it will be even better.

He’s got no complaints.

#camillegshotts

48 notes · View notes

chasholidays · 5 years

Note

hi, a bellarke timestamp for the butt crazy in love verse would be awesome!

Series here!

Not to be that guy, but Bellamy doesn’t really get marriage proposals.

On a practical level, obviously, they make sense. Marriage is a mixed institution, overall, but he understands why people want to get married and that they need to ask their significant others if they feel the same. But proposals as this big, romantic surprise don’t make a lot of sense to him. It’s not as if he should unilaterally be deciding that he and Clarke should get married.

Not that he’s ever thought he and Clarke wouldn’t get married; she started making references to it pretty early, almost as soon as they were dating, and it always felt inevitable to him too, in the best way. That’s how it’s always been with Clarke: by the time they got together, he hadn’t had any doubt that she was it for him. It’s nice, obviously, wonderful, but that makes it awkward too.

The early steps of their relationship were easy, uncomplicated, thoughtless. The first couple years they were dating, Clarke was still in college and he was still in law school, and once they were done, they moved in together. Clarke started working at the MFA and he got a job with the law firm where he’d interned, where they liked him a lot more than he liked them. The hours were too long and the jobs are shitty, but after two years, he’d made enough to clear up most of his debt, and by four, he was getting savings, like a real adult.

Clarke was the one who told him to quit, but not in the way it happens on TV, when there’s some shitty ultimatum about how he loved his job more than he loved her, which he obviously never did. It was Christmas and he got a call from his boss that he had to take, which turned out to just be forwarding a client who wanted to spend an hour yelling at him. Once he was done, he went back to the living room, and Clarke leaned into his side.

“I love you,” she said, “and you can do whatever you want. But if I were you, I’d be thinking about whether or not what I wanted was another job. You could find something that pays you more than enough and doesn’t make you miserable.”

“I’m not miserable,” he said, which wasn’t really the point.

Clarke didn’t miss a beat. “You could find something that contributes to not being miserable. Something that improves your life instead of making it worse.”

“What a concept.”

Her lips pressed against his shoulder. “It’s your decision, I’m not going to tell you what to do. But–at some point, you have enough money to realize that it isn’t worth it to do whatever you can to get more money. I hope you get there soon.”

Jobs like this one had been why he went into pre-law, why he went to law school. He saw Jake Griffin with his big house and his perfect family, and it made so much sense. Lawyers are rich; if he was a lawyer, and he’d have a good life too.

And he did have it, of course. He was dating Jake’s perfect daughter, and they didn’t have a house of their own yet, but they did own their condo. They had a mortgage. This was what success looked like.

But it wasn’t what he wanted.

Two months from the next Christmas, and Bellamy’s got a new job, a worse one, by most objective standards. He makes less money and has less prestige, but he’s not expected to work every hour of the day and he’s no longer worrying that he’s actually making the world a worse place. He has more time to spend with his girlfriend and his friends, to feel like a person.

He has a good life, and it feels like the next step is marriage, but for some reason, it’s tripping him up.

“How did you decide to propose to Monty?” he asks Miller. The two of them have been married for two years now, and Bellamy remembers having the conversation again with Clarke at their wedding: this will be us someday. It hadn’t seemed pressing, particularly.

“I wanted to,” Miller says, with a shrug. “And I got a good idea for it.”

Bellamy has to smile. Miller had gone into Monty’s Stardew Valley game in the middle of the night and changed the names of all his livestock to Monty will you marry me? I hope you’re seeing these in order, which of course he hadn’t. He’d spent ten minutes writing down all the words until he got to marry, at which point he’d figured it out and said yes.

“Don’t tell me you’re worried about proposing to Clarke,” Miller adds, giving Bellamy a look. “You guys have been married since before you started dating.”

“I think that’s my problem,” he admits, with a sigh. “I don’t know how to–it’s a big deal, but not a big deal, you know? It feels like what I should be doing, but why do it now? Why not last month or next year?”

“Why not next year?” Miller asks, as placid as ever. “Why are you thinking about it now?”

“I think it feels like the next step. Like–everything else is set, time to get married. But that’s–shitty.”

“You know she wants to marry you. You know she’s going to. It doesn’t matter when you ask. If you want to marry her, you should marry her. If you’re thinking about asking, maybe it means you’re ready. But I think you’re going to know when it’s right. You’ll think about doing it, and it’ll just click. Everything will come together.”

“You’re so wise,” he teases.

“You asked me for advice, you don’t get to make fun of me for giving it to you. Look, you’re in great shape, okay? You found the woman you’re going to marry, all you have to do is figure out when you’re going to marry her. If you don’t do it soon enough for her, she’ll ask you. I’m not saying it’s impossible for you to fuck this up, but you’d probably actually have to be trying. You know how to make Clarke happy.”

“Yeah, I know.” He gives Miller half a smile. “And I know this isn’t a real problem.”

He shrugs. “It’s an opportunity. You’re get to do something romantic for your girlfriend, and there’s no rush. Come up with something good and figure out how to do it. You’ll know it when you know it.”

“That’s true.” He smiles. “Thanks for the advice. I knew I could count on you.”

“I’ve been waiting to be your best man for like ten years,” he says, with a shrug. “Just say the word.”

“Yeah,” says Bellamy. “You’ll be the second to know.”

With most problems in his life, Clarke is the first person he talks to. Sometimes, like with his old job, she talks to him about his problems before he’s even aware of them, before he’s willing to admit they are problems. It’s one of the amazing things about having someone like Clarke, someone who knows him as well as he knows himself, and part of him expects her to figure out the engagement thing, to have realized he’s worrying about it.

But the thing about proposing to her is that it’s not really bad worrying. It isn’t grinding him into slow misery like his job was, isn’t a problem for her to help fix. It reminds him of nothing so much as those months between the Halloween party when he realized he was almost ready to tell her how he felt and her parents’ party where he actually did, a strange, pending state between relationship upgrades. There’s the same anxiety, the same persistent doubt that something will go wrong, despite every rational part of his brain telling him that it won’t.

So it’s mostly a nice kind of worry, nothing Clarke would notice, nothing she has to fret over.

Which actually complicates things a little.

“Is that a new ring?” he asks, tapping the band on her right hand. It’s not, and he knows it, but she doesn’t wear it that often, and for whatever reason, society has decided that people don’t just say I’m thinking of proposing and I want to get you a ring. It’s a surprise. And he needs information.

Clarke blinks, frowns. “No, my mom got it for me last Christmas, remember?”

“Oh, yeah. You don’t wear it that much, I forgot what it looked like.”

She shrugs. “It’s not really me, I guess. Not my style.”

If she’s deliberately giving him clues, there’s no indication of it. She’s so casual. “Yeah, you’re not much of a jewelry person.”

“I don’t dislike jewelry,” she protests. “But my mom thinks giving cash is tacky, so she gives me jewelry, and she doesn’t know what I like.”

“Your mom doesn’t know what to get you for holidays? Wow, I can’t relate at all.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she says, laughing. “I know. She’s doing her best. And it’s a really nice ring! Plenty of people would love to get it. And maybe I could get comfortable with it. Besides, if I’m not wearing it at Thanksgiving, Mom will think I didn’t like it–”

“Which you don’t,” he teases, and she elbows him, grinning.

“It was a nice gesture. I can be nice back.”

His fingers trace the band. It’s gold, which he knows isn’t her favorite, with small, bright red gemstones, probably rubies. It’s a pretty piece, and he understands what she means. It would suit another person; it would suit Abby. But Clarke isn’t her mother.

“Could you try to drop some hints about what you actually like? Do you want me to help? If she’s going to buy you this stuff, we might as well try to make her get you something you like.”

“Maybe I’ll add some jewelry to my wish list. She’d never buy it for me, but maybe she’d get the general idea.”

“Can’t hurt.”

She snuggles closer. “Is it bad that I already can’t wait for the holidays to be over? We’re still a few weeks away from Thanksgiving and I just want it to be, like, Martin Luther King Day. I get the day off work and I’m not expected to do anything.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s why people have kids, so they’ll get excited about holidays again.”

She groans. “God, don’t remind me. You know we’re going to get a ton of questions about when we’re getting married and reproducing.”

His breath catches, but she doesn’t seem to notice. “Yeah, that’s how it usually goes.” Once his heart rate is under control, he kisses her hair. “Seriously, we’ve still got a few more weeks to Thanksgiving, why are you already worrying about it?”

“Not to be an asshole, but because your sister got married.”

He has to laugh. “Okay, yeah. That makes total sense. I’m happy for her, but there’s definitely going to be more pressure on us.”

“You’ve been dating for so much longer than Octavia and Lincoln, I don’t see what you’re waiting for.”

“So you’re going to wear the ring your mom gave you and hope she doesn’t notice you don’t have one from me?” It feels a little risky, bringing it up so directly, but apparently he’s hitting a deep vein of stress he hadn’t picked up on. It’s so much more important to check in with Clarke and make sure she’s feeling okay than it is to keep his proposal plans secret. If he needs to offer now to reduce the amount of stress in her life, he can do that.

“The perfect crime.”

“Do you want to be engaged?” he asks, gentle.

She twists around to kiss him, firm. “I’m not fishing for anything. I don’t really care, I guess? Obviously I’m going to marry you, we all know that, but I don’t really need to marry you, you know? I don’t get why everyone acts like it’s such a huge deal. We’re going to do it, and it’ll be good when we do. But for all I know we’re already common-law married.”

“There’s no common law marriage in Massachusetts,” he says, absent. “But yeah, I get what you mean. I still want to marry you, obviously. But I get tired of people thinking it’s a red flag that it hasn’t happened yet.”

“Thanksgiving won’t be so bad. A few passive aggressive comments from my mom about how much she loved Octavia and Lincoln’s wedding, probably a lot of questions for them about when kids are coming, but mostly fine. It’s just one day.”

Thanksgiving generally is the better of their holidays; he and Clarke and Octavia all go over to the Griffins’s along with any of Abby’s residents who aren’t going home, and it’s always pretty small and lowkey. Plus, they’re still in Boston, so they don’t have to travel anywhere or be away from home. It’s basically an intense family dinner, a prelude to going to Virginia to spend Christmas and New Year’s with Clarke’s extended family.

The first time Bellamy went, he was convinced they’d hate him, and he remembers clearly telling Clarke how surprised he was that Christmas Eve wasn’t a disaster. She’d given him a look full of fond exasperation and reminded him that what they were seeing wasn’t a poor boy on a scholarship, but a smart, handsome young man studying law at Harvard. He’s still getting used to the idea that he’s seen as a good match for Clarke, someone who deserves her.

They’re not upset that he’s marrying her, just that he hasn’t done it yet. It’s a staggering thought. The Christmas visits are always intense, but it’s love that’s smothering them. That helps.

“We could do something else for Christmas this year. I could say I have to work.”

“I like seeing most of them. It’s not–” She huffs. “I’m just tired of having an awesome life and hearing how it’s not good enough because I don’t have–” She smiles at her hand. “A ring.”

“I’m going to get you one,” he says. It feels safe enough. “Someday. If you want one sooner–”

She kisses him again. “Whenever you’re ready,” she says. “I’m not in a rush.”

“I want to propose before Thanksgiving,” Bellamy explains to the cheerful woman at the ring showroom. He set up an appointment during his lunch break, let Charles know where he’d be and why he might be late coming back. His boss had been thrilled, of course, almost comically supportive, and he thinks everyone else will feel the same. This is going to be good news. “But I’m not sure–” He huffs. “I feel weird picking out a ring.”

“Well, that’s why you come here,” she says, smiling. “We help you figure out what you’d like.”

“It’s not what I’d like, it’s what she would want. She’s not big on jewelry, and she’s the one who’s going to have to wear it.”

“Okay, well, we can work with that.”

He cocks his head. “Really?”

“You’re not the only person to have this problem. You’ve got two options.”

“Only two?”

“Two general options,” she says, with a wave of her hand. “We’ll start with the first and if it doesn’t work go to the second.”

“Which is?”

“First, we’ll talk about what you know about what your girlfriend likes and what might be a good fit for her. If you come up with a design you like, we can go with it. If you don’t, we have placeholder rings you can use for the proposal, and then you can come back with her to have her pick.”

“I’m pretty sure I’m going to do that.”

“Still, you can look,” the girl says, with a grin. “You can always show her what you came up with, even if you don’t go with it.”

Once she’s made that suggestion, there’s no way Bellamy’s going with anything else. But the woman is good at her job, and she draws out answers he didn’t even know he had in him. No, Clarke doesn’t like yellow gold, she prefers silver or platinum. Diamonds are fine, but she doesn’t get the big deal about them. Her favorite color is blue, and she’s said she likes blue and silver. Harper shows him some of the sapphires they have in stock, some settings it could go in, and he ends up getting talked into putting a 30-day hold on his favorite gem. She prints off a picture of the ring he designed, a preview image from the website, and sends him home with a placeholder ring on deposit.

The whole thing doesn’t even take an hour, and it leaves him dizzy and a little confused, reeling that there is an actual ring in his actual pocket, and he has a deadline for when he needs to tell Clarke about it if he doesn’t want to lose the gemstone he reserved.

He’s proposing to her, in the next few days, ideally. So they’ll have time to get all their ducks in a row for Thanksgiving. He just has to figure out what to say.

Charles gives him a big grin when he gets back to the office. “How did it go? You find one?”

“Yeah,” he says, hoping his smile isn’t too dazed. “I’m all set.”

He spends the rest of the afternoon failing to work and googling romantic proposal ideas, getting increasingly fed up with them. It’s not that any of them are bad, but he liked what Miller said about proposing. He has an opportunity here to do something nice for his favorite person in the world, and while he never needs an excuse for that, he wants this to be special, a good memory that will stay with her. He wants to look back at this and think he did it right.

But a lot of the romantic things he finds don’t really feel like they’d be the right gesture for Clarke. He doesn’t want to take her out to a fancy dinner and put the ring in a flute of champagne or get down on one knee in the park. He sinks another full day on How They Asked, and while the stories are all great, they just reinforce that none of those work for him and Clarke.

He tries to think of good memories he could use as inspiration, but so much of their early courtship wasn’t, and it’s not like he wants to recreate the time that asshole tried to grope her in his car or the time he took her to the ER and his then-girlfriend dumped him as romantic proposal memories.

But then Clarke comes back from work on Friday a week before Thanksgiving in utter exhaustion and says, “I don’t want to do a single thing this weekend.”

“Not even one?”

“As little as possible.”

“Bad week?”

“So much to do before Thanksgiving. I’m probably doing overtime next week, so I just want to have a good time this weekend.”

The thing Bellamy has learned about romance is that it’s relative. He couldn’t propose to Clarke like Miller did to Monty and have it mean as much. He buys Clarke a day planner every year for Christmas because she likes having a physical one in addition to her phone and her iPad, and she loves the gift, but plenty of other people wouldn’t. And there are also people who would want a big, bombastic proposal, but he doesn’t think that’s Clarke.

Clarke is tired and wants a relaxing weekend, and he can give her that.

He goes shopping by himself on Saturday morning, assuring her he doesn’t mind and she can sleep in. She’s awake and on the couch in pajamas by the time he gets home, so she helps him put everything away, smiles as she sees all the special things he bought.

“Wow, you’re going to spoil me, huh?”

“It sounds like you need it.”

She leans up and kisses him. “You’re the best, thank you.”

“If you could cook, you’d do the same for me.”

“I’d pay for your takeout.”

“I know you would. But you’re the one who needs a break this weekend, so sit down while I make you pancakes.”

It’s not an answer all by itself, not a sufficient plan for proposing. But he can spend the weekend pampering her and wait for the right moment. He has the ring box in his bag, almost always close enough if the urge to propose strikes with no risk of her finding it. He can have it on very short notice.

They watch Netflix for most of Saturday, and on Sunday, she decides she wants to get a pet.

“A pet?” he asks, surprised. “You want a pet?”

“Yeah. I’ve been thinking about it for a while. I was going to do it as a Christmas present, but that seemed shitty. Pets shouldn’t be a surprise.”

“No, probably not. Is this really the best time?”

“You’re off after Tuesday, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And then I have something nice to come back to. Other than you,” she adds quickly, and he laughs.

“Yeah, you’re used to me. Have you already researched shelters? Where are we going? What kind of pet do we want?”

“I might have some ideas.”

By “ideas,” she of course means spreadsheets, because that’s how Clarke is, and he adores her beyond all reason. She checked yesterday while they were watching TV, came up with a list of options. She wants either one large-ish dog or two cats, and when Bellamy votes for the cats so they’ll each have one and don’t have to take them on walks, Clarke pulls up a few options.

“I think my first choice is these two, they’re siblings. But that’s if they like us, and if they’re still available when we get there, so they’ll probably be pretty in demand, so–”

He grins. “So we should go as soon as possible, right?”

“This doesn’t derail your weekend plans, does it?” she asks, sounding sheepish. “You still haven’t cooked all your fancy groceries.”

“They’ll keep. The weekend plan is to make you happy, so if cats will do that–”

“You want them, right? We aren’t going to adopt two cats just because I had a bad week. But I thought you liked pets.”

“I do like pets. And now if anyone asks us when we’re having kids at Christmas, we can just say we’re busy with our new cats.”

“As a bonus.”

It’s not too far to the shelter Clarke found, and there’s little enough traffic that it’s not quite open when they get there. There’s a Starbucks near by and they pick up drinks and split a slice of coffee cake, eat it quickly enough they’re still the first people to be looking at pets. The two cats Clarke selected are a boy and a girl, siblings, one gray and the other white, just under a year old. They’re bright and eager for attention, and when Bellamy picks up the girl for the first time, he knows there’s no way they’re going home without these cats.

It doesn’t take any longer than the ring appointment did, all these things that feel like they should be huge, monumental things, and instead it’s done in a matter of minutes. Just like that, he and Clarke are cat owners, and she keeps the two of them in her lap as they drive first to the pet store for supplies and then back home. The ring is in his pocket now, the weight pressing against his leg.

It’s going to be so soon.

They set up food and litter boxes and toys, let the cats start to explore. Their names, at least at the shelter, were Shadow and Milkie, but they were abandoned, and don’t seem to have any attachments to the names. Clarke let Bellamy name them, and he goes with Artemis and Apollo, obvious, maybe, but on-brand for him.

“Sorry I couldn’t wait for Christmas,” says Clarke, as they watch Apollo pounce on a catnip mouse. “But I kind of–I thought about it as a Christmas present, but it didn’t feel like that, I guess. It felt like just something we should do.”

“I know exactly what you mean. I’ve actually got a present like that for you.”

She looks up at him, surprised. “Yeah?”

It’s so much easier than he was expecting, one fluid motion of kneeling down and pulling the box out of his pocket, opening it up for her.

There will be more to talk about after this moment, the picture of the ring he designed (which she’ll love), discussion of when to tell people (after Thanksgiving, at Clarke’s request) and what they want the wedding to be like (small and lowkey), but those things will come later.

What he wanted to give her most was this single, shining moment, the happy surprise that engagement is supposed to be. And as the joy spreads over her face, the laugh bubbles out of her throat, the tear springs into her eye, he finally gets it. This is how it’s supposed to be. This is what people want to achieve with all their complicated surprises.

And he’s pretty sure he nailed it.

#getoveryourselfmate

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chasholidays · 5 years

Note

First of all, I'm weirdly proud of you for thinking of your mental health and changing the setup for holiday prompts! Anyway, I always love how you write Clarke and Miller's relationship and I would love to read a modern day Bellarke fic that focuses on Clarke and Miller being supportive friends who love each other but don't like to talk about it, but maybe they end up talking about it anyway? Besides it being modern day and focused on their friendship you have really free hands!

Like most friendly agreements, the dibs system wasn’t something Clarke and Nate ever sat down and ironed out, not really a formal thing. There is no list of rules and guidelines, no contract signed in blood.

All that happens is that a cute boy comes into auditions for the play in seventh grade, and Nate says, “Dibs.”

Clarke frowns. “On him?”

“Yup. He’s all mine.”

The confidence is just a little bit absurd. Not only is Nate twelve years old, skinny, and awkward, but they don’t even know if the guy likes guys. The idea that he’s going to, without a doubt, get this guy is pretty much ridiculous.

All of which Clarke could point out, but she doesn’t want to. Nate only just told her a few weeks ago that the thought he liked guys, and this part feels like a test, like Nate wants to see if Clarke believes him and accepts him.

“All yours,” Clarke agrees, and when, five weeks later, the boy tries to kiss her, Clarke says, “Sorry, you’re not my type.”

She doesn’t mention it to Nate for a long time, not until they’re at a party sophomore year and she sees a cute boy and says, “Hey, dibs.”

“What?”

“Dibs.”

“Who calls dibs? Are you twelve?”

“You called dibs. When we were twelve,” she has to admit. “You called dibs on Mark Talbot when we were doing the play and he kissed me and I didn’t kiss him back.”

“Huh,” says Nate. “Really?”

“Yup.”

“So really, you owe me. Mark Talbot’s a dick.”

This is true, but somewhat beside the point. “You still made dibs a thing, not me.”

“So what, now I’m supposed to not hit on that guy? Because you didn’t make out with a douchebag in seventh grade?”

“Well, not that douchebag.”

Nate snorts. “I forgot your taste in guys sucks. Fine, I won’t try to hit on him. He’s not even that cute.”

Up close, he’s definitely not that cute, and he’s not interested in Clarke, but the principle of the thing remains: Clarke called dibs, and Nate respected it, and now it’s a thing they’re both aware of.

It doesn’t always mean that they’re worried the other person will make a move; Clarke calls it on girls sometimes, and Nate calls it on guys he knows to be gay. It’s a declaration of interest, a request for backup, a silly tradition that grows over the years into a ritual. It doesn’t mean everything, but it means something, and something important.

And then, Nate calls dibs on Bellamy.

Which isn’t a big deal, all things considered. There’s definitely nothing wrong with it. Bellamy teaches Latin at the school where Clarke teaches art, and they’re friendly, verging on actually being friends. He and his roommates were having a party and he invited Clarke, who invited Nate. Nate hasn’t met Bellamy, so this is the first time calling dibs is an option, and now he has.

Clarke didn’t, so there’s no violation or anything. She’s had plenty of chances to call dibs on Bellamy and it never even occurred to her. She’s had two years of potential dibs and never took them.

“On Bellamy?”

“The one with the curly hair and the glasses, yeah.” Nate looks at her askance. “You said he’s bi, right?”

“He is, yeah.” Her brain finally gets with the program, and she smiles. “Honestly, you guys would probably be pretty great together.”

“You think?”

“You’re an asshole, he’s an asshole–”

“Wow, we already have so much in common.”

“And I’m pretty sure he’s single. Yeah, this one’s actually a good call.”

“Unlike my usual shitty taste?”

“Your exes have been a pretty mixed bag.”

“Oh, you’re one to talk.”

She grins. “Here’s hoping I develop good taste one day too.”

“I can’t wait.”

“Are you going to go talk to him?”

Nate takes a deliberate sip of his drink. “That’s not really in the spirit of dibs. It’s a long game. If I was going to hook up with him tonight, I wouldn’t need to call dibs. But I figure I’ll see him again sometime.”

“Oh good, I can’t wait to watch the train wreck of you seducing my coworker in real time.”

“You’re trying for sarcastic, but I know you’re actually looking forward to it. I can give you some tips.”

“I don’t need tips.”

“You’re just saying that because you haven’t seen me work yet.”

“I’ve seen you work enough to last me a lifetime.”

“Not since high school. I’ve gotten a lot better.”

That’s the other thing about the Bellamy dib, the thing that makes it feel more important than maybe it should. Clarke and Nate went to different colleges, in different time zones. They stayed in touch, of course, through Facebook and text messages, but this is their first time living in the same place full time for seven years, and the first time ever as adults. This is part of their new status quo, and Clarke doesn’t want to mess it up.

“Looking forward to it,” she says, with a smile.

She thinks she sounds pretty convincing.

Clarke and Bellamy weren’t instant friends when Clarke started teaching at Arcadia. The first time they met, Bellamy was disciplining some kids too harshly (in Clarke’s new and only semi-professional opinion) and while she hadn’t undermined him in front of the kids, she did take him aside after to gently point out that he was wrong.

Which he hadn’t been. Clarke can admit she was the asshole there, and Bellamy maybe knew his business better than she did.

Still, it was a hurdle that proved difficult to overcome on both sides. Clarke has never been good at admitting she’s wrong, and while Bellamy has since admitted that he got where she was coming from, he wasn’t particularly inclined to be the first to try to make amends. Given how stubborn both of them are, it probably could have gone on forever, but at the start of Clarke’s second year of teaching, they hired a new principal, who was and still is awful, and suddenly she and Bellamy had a common enemy. They found themselves on the same side of conversations in the staff room, working together to push back against shitty policies, and once that started, they realized how good they were at it and how much they actually did agree on a lot of things.

By the time Nate calls dibs on him, Bellamy is without doubt Clarke’s favorite coworker, which means the whole thing should, in theory, be a slam dunk. Nate and Bellamy seem like a good match, two of her favorite people in the world, and if they want to date, Clarke should be all for it. Clarke wants to be all for it. On paper, it makes so much sense.

Something about it bugs her, though, and she can’t figure out what. She’s probably being territorial toward one or both of them, worried that they won’t need her if they have each other, and that’s beyond shitty.

But she can get past it.

“You’re still single, right?”

It’s a week after the party, and if Nate has done anything to try to actually make a move on Bellamy, Clarke missed it. And, of course, he doesn’t have to do anything, there have been countless dibs that went nowhere, but it would really be a shame if nothing happened with him and Bellamy. A complete waste of dibs.

Bellamy looks up from the papers he’s grading with a small frown. “What?”

“You. Your dating status. Still single?”

“Still single. Why?”

As sad as it is, Clarke hadn’t really had a plan for this conversation past this point. She’s not really much of a matchmaker, and telling Bellamy that Nate likes him goes against the entire spirit of dibs. Her job here is to support Nate in his crush, not go out and make things happen herself.

Bellamy is still watching her, eyebrows raised, waiting for an explanation. “I saw you talking to that brunette at the party, I thought she might be a new girlfriend.”

“Oh, no. Ex-girlfriend, actually. But we broke up on good terms, so people make that mistake a lot.”

“I don’t understand how you’re on such good terms with all your exes,” she grumbles. “You broke up, it’s supposed to be bad!”

“No, breaking up is good. Staying together when you should break up is bad. Maybe this is your problem,” he teases.

“Shut up.”

He considers her. “What about the guy you brought? New boyfriend?”

At least he’s considerate enough to give her the perfect opening. “Him? No, that’s Nate.”

“He said his name was Miller.”

“He started going by his last name in high school because our class had like five Nates. But we’ve been friends since–I can’t even remember. Basically since birth.”

Bellamy snorts. “You would have a friend like that.”

“What does that even mean?”

“I picture your childhood as very idyllic, I guess. I moved around too much to keep any of the kids I knew growing up.”

“That happened with our other friend, Wells. We were all in the same carpool to pre-school–shut up,” she adds, before he can say anything, and he grins and holds his hands up. It is a cute story, he’s not wrong. “We were pretty much inseparable through elementary school, but then in sixth grade Wells’ dad got a job in Seattle and they moved, so it was just me and Nate. Not that we didn’t still talk to Wells, but it wasn’t the same.” She shrugs. “We went to different colleges, but he got a new job here, so here we are.”

“That’s awesome. It must be nice to have him around again.” He smirks. “You know, none of that is convincing me that he’s not going to be your new boyfriend. That sounds like some rom-com shit.”

“He’s gay.”

“Okay, never mind, yeah.”

“I’m going to try to bring him to stuff, though,” she says. “Maybe even organize stuff myself.”

Bellamy snorts. “Wow, drastic measures.”

“I could have parties, right? Or, like, game nights. Nate likes games, I have a pretty big apartment.”

“Is this you asking me if I’ll come to game nights at your apartment, the answer is yes. I’ll even give you some tips on how to act like you’re actually comfortable having people over.”

“It just gets messy,” she says, making a face. “I hate cleaning.”

“But you’re worried he won’t make any friends without your semi-competent help, so you’re willing to do it anyway?”

It’s a much safer explanation than the truth. “I know he didn’t just move here for me, but I was part of the reason. I don’t want him to regret it.”

Bellamy’s expression softens, the smile warming his whole face. “I get that, yeah. It looked like he was having fun at my party, so that’s a good start.”

“Yeah, I think he had a good time.” She tucks her hair back. “So, game nights?”

“Until you come up with something to do that doesn’t mess up your apartment, sure. Whatever it is, I’m in.”

Clarke smiles. “Cool, I’ll keep you posted.”

Despite the whole thing being for his benefit, Nate is less enthused about the game night idea.

“You need a good group dynamic for game night,” he explains. “I don’t know anyone well enough to be sure what kind of games would even be good. You’re over-competitive, that’s already a bad start.”

“I am not!”

“You hate losing.”

“Who likes losing?” she grumbles, and Nate smirks.

“This is what I’m saying.”

“I’m trying to help, you know.”

“Help with what, exactly?”

“Making friends? Hitting on my coworker? Settling into the city?”

Nate snorts. “Thanks, Mom. I can manage my own social life.” But his expression softens. “We should have auditions.”

“Auditions?”

“Don’t call it a game night until we know who we want to come. You don’t want to commit to a group. These are the kinds of things you’d know if you were a true gamer,” he adds.

“This is the kind of thing I don’t know because I got laid in college.”

“I got laid in college and I played board games. Which one of us is winning here?”

“Honestly, neither.”

He grins. “Yeah, that sounds right.”

“So, any of your new coworkers you think would be good for a board game night?”

“I think we can figure something out.”

Clarke invites Bellamy, Sinclair from the physics department, and Jasper from English. Bellamy brings (yet another) ex-girlfriend, Raven, who’s apparently a shark, and Jasper brings his friend Monty. Nate invites his coworkers Harper and Monroe, and they have what, in Clarke’s amateur opinion, is a pretty successful game night. Everyone seems to enjoy themselves, and no one gets too competitive, not even Clarke.

And, as a bonus, she manages to get Bellamy and Nate in the same pod for most of the games, and they seem to get along just as well as she thought they would.

Honestly, it’s one of her more successful plans, thus far. She could maybe be good at this.

“That was a good crew, right?” she asks Nate, once everyone else has cleared out. “Good attitudes.”

“Yeah, that actually worked out really well.” He leans against the counter, watching her. “You know you don’t have to do all this, right? Like, I’m an adult, I can make friends on my own. You’re not even that good at making friends. Blind leading the blind.”

“So I’m trying to help both of us. And it’s working so far, right?”

“One good game night,” he says. “Don’t get cocky.”

Clarke grins. “So, same time next week?”

“Yeah, can’t wait.”

The exact make-up of game night varies, depending on how busy everyone is. Clarke is the default host, but after a few weeks, it’s evolved beyond her. She has too much going on with grading and helping out with the junior fundraiser one week, so Bellamy agrees to have it at his place so Clarke won’t have as much on her place. Even Jasper’s friend Monty, who barely knows them, hosts one week, just because he loves games so much and is excited to finally have a group to play them with.

It takes about two months for things to go wrong, and when they do, it’s in the stupidest possible way. Nate’s usually the one to help Clarke with cleanup, but he has an early morning, so Bellamy volunteers to stick around instead.

“You know,” he observes, “I didn’t think this was going to work.”

“Which part?”

“The game night thing. I figured it would fall apart after a week or two, that’s how this always works. But I should have known you’re too stubborn to just give up. Is it working?”

“You just said it was working,” Clarke says, frowning at him.

“No, not that. You were trying to make friends for Miller. How’s that going?”

Clarke feels a flush race through her body, although she can’t figure out why. “You like him, right?”

“Yeah, he’s cool. Does he like sports?”

“Sports? Like, as a general concept?”

“I have some tickets to a baseball game,” he says, not looking at Clarke. “My sister got them and she can’t go, so she gave them to me. I thought maybe Miller might be interested. I assume you’re not,” he adds, an afterthought, and Clarke pastes on a smile.

“Yeah, definitely not. I don’t know anything about baseball. But Nate might be interested, yeah. You should ask him.”

“Cool, thanks. It seems like he’s getting along with everybody pretty well, so–seriously, I’m impressed.”

“I’m impressive.”

She makes it through the rest of the cleaning up without incident, sends Bellamy home, and then drops back against the door with a shaky exhale of breath. This was what she wanted; this was the whole point. Helping Nate make friends generally and with Bellamy specifically, and now Bellamy is asking him out. This is going better than Clarke could have imagined.

She takes a few deep breaths and calls Wells. He’s still on the west coast, so it’s not as late there, and he picks up right away.

“Hey, Clarke, what’s up?”

“I’m having a weird crisis.”

“Oh good, that sounds fun.” But she can hear the smile in his voice. “What’s the weird crisis?”

She exhales. “It’s complicated.”

“Will you quit stalling and just tell me already? It’s complicated and stupid and you’re embarrassed, I get it. I won’t judge you.”

“I just realized I have a thing for my coworker.”

“Bellamy?”

Her heart drops. “How did you know?”

“You talk about him a lot. I didn’t think you knew, if it helps. You’re kind of slow with this stuff.”

“That’s supposed to help?”

“So, you figured out you like him and now you’re panicking? That’s not that bad.”

“Nate likes him and I’ve been trying to set them up. And I just figured out I like Bellamy because he’s going to ask Nate out.”

“Huh,” says Wells, slow. “Okay, yeah, that’s worse than I was expecting.”

Clarke closes her eyes, sighing deeply. “I thought I was happy for him. I was happy for him. Nate said he had dibs and I thought–” She pauses, reconsiders. “I told myself I was good with it and I should make it happen, and now I did.”

“How much does Nate like him?”

It’s a good question to which Clarke doesn’t have a good answer. Nate called dibs, obviously, but it doesn’t feel as if he’s put a ton of effort into hanging out with Bellamy, not more than anyone else. They seem friendly, but Clarke wouldn’t know he had a crush if he hadn’t told her. He hasn’t mentioned it since that first night, and he hasn’t seemed to put together that the game nights were entirely for his benefit, with Bellamy.

“I don’t know. He just said–” She’s never explained the whole dibs thing to Wells, and saying it now feels juvenile. She’s twenty-five; she shouldn’t be having a meltdown like this over something that ambiguous. “He just said he liked him. It’s been a couple months now, he hasn’t mentioned it again.”

“So talk to him,” Wells says, logical as ever. “Tell him what’s going on. I’m not saying he’s going to just tell you to go for it, but you know the two of you need to have a conversation. And you knew I was going to tell you this too, so you knew what you were getting into calling me. Get it together, Griffin, and ovary up.”

“Thanks.”

“Seriously, he’s your best friend. Aside from yours truly. You can talk to him.”

“Yeah,” she says, with a sigh. “I can.”

The next day, she frets off and on about when to talk to Nate, but doing it after the baseball date just feels shitty, if she’s honest. If their positions were reversed, and she was going out with a guy Nate had realized he liked, she’d want to know about it as soon as possible, and definitely before the actual first date. Like Wells said, it wouldn’t necessarily change her plans, but she’d at least want to weigh Nate’s feelings against everything else. That’s what friends do, and it’s definitely what Nate is going to do.

So she asks if he wants to hang out the next night, and when he shows up, she just blurts it out: “I need to talk to you about Bellamy.”

Nate frowns. “What about Bellamy?”

“You know–” She exhales. It’s easy to talk to Wells about feelings stuff; Wells loves feelings. But she and Nate have never been good at that. “Okay, I know you like him. And I really wanted to support you, but–”

Nate holds up his hand. “Wait, what?”

“I was trying to help!”

For a second, his face is all confusion, but then his expression clears and he starts to laugh. “Jesus, you’ve been trying to set me up with Bellamy.”

“Of course I have! You said you liked him.”

“I did?”

“You called dibs! The first party, you saw him, and you said–”

“I wanted to hook up with him, I didn’t want to marry him. It’s not like I was real attached to the idea.”

Clarke opens and closes her mouth a few times, finally says, “Did you hook up with him?”

“No. He’s still hot, don’t get me wrong, but Monty’s more my type.”

“Monty?”

He scowls. “What’s wrong with Monty. He’s hot, he’s geeky, he’s not as fucking intense as you and Bellamy–”

“I didn’t mean it like–” She shakes her head. “Nothing against Monty, he’s great. I’ve just spend the last two months stressing about you and Bellamy.”

“You know I’m an adult, right? I can take care of myself. I don’t need you managing my social life or my love life.”

“I know.” She rubs her face, gives him a sheepish smile. “Bellamy’s going to ask you to go to a baseball game. He told me that and I had kind of a breakdown because I thought you guys were going to be–this whole happily ever after love story. And I might have just realized a thing for him.”

“Jesus Christ, Griffin.” He puts his arm around her and squeezes. “You never thought about just asking me?”

“I was telling myself I was happy for you!”

“Just saying, five minutes’ conversation and this would have been all set. Even if I liked him, I wouldn’t have–”

“You would have told me to go for it, just like I was telling you to go for it. I thought–you called dibs! It wasn’t ambiguous.”

“Yeah, but it’s not a blood pact.” He pauses, studying her for a long moment. “If you ever called dibs on a guy I really liked, I would have just told you.”

“You’re a lot more in touch with your feelings than I am. I was still in denial.”

“Yeah, you’re a disaster. So, he’s going to ask me out?”

“To a baseball game. I don’t even know if it’s a date, he was being pretty casual about it. Fuck,” she says. “If he’s into you–”

“I’ll let him down easy. But I haven’t really gotten that vibe from him. Honestly, if you asked me? I’d say he’s into you. He’s always looking for an excuse to hang out with you more, and half the time when I’m talking to him, we’re talking about you.” He grins. “If he still wants to take me to the baseball game as friends, I can feel him out for you.”

She sighs. “I don’t know, I was thinking I could just talk to him.”

“Really?”

“It really does clear things up fast.” She smiles. “If you liked him, I’d step aside. Really. I wasn’t going to ask you to give him up or anything. That’s not why–”

“I know you’ve got my back. And I’ve got yours. Let me know if you need anything.”

“And if you need help with Monty–”

He smirks. “You know, I think you’ve done enough. I’ve got it from here.”

“Good. I’m rooting for you.”

He presses a kiss to the top of her head. “Right back at you.”

She waits until all the students have cleared out the next afternoon and then goes to find him in his room. He likes to grade until dinner time, a tradition Clarke finds baffling, but he claims it helps with work/life balance, and it does make him easy to find. She’d like to say she’s only a little nervous, but that’s a lie. She’s had a very intense week of feelings, and she’s looking forward to just having it done with, but she’s also kind of dying.

So it’s time to clear everything up.

“Hey,” she says, knocking on his door jamb. “Got a second?”

“Yeah, what’s up? You’re here late.”

She closes the door behind her as she enters the classroom, props herself up on the table across from his desk. It’s her first time alone with him since she realized how she felt and she’s hyper aware of everything about him. She can’t believe it took her this long to realize how she felt. It feels so stupidly obvious.

“Yeah, I was waiting for everyone to clear out.”

He frowns. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. It’s–honestly, it’s kind of ridiculous. Are you asking Nate to go to that game?”

“One of my students might want to buy the tickets, I’m waiting to see if he actually comes up with the money. Why?”

“Was it going to be a date?”

The blood drains from his face. “What? Fuck, no, I–did he think that? I didn’t think–”

She starts to laugh. “No, I’m pretty sure I had this whole weird narrative built up in my head and no one but me knew about it.”

“The narrative where I want to date your best friend?”

“And he wants to date you.”

“Does he want to date me?”

“No, he doesn’t. No one thought that but me. And I’ve been kind of–” She shrugs. “It’s been a weird couple months.”

“I still feel like I’m missing something,” he says, almost reluctantly. Like he’s disappointed with himself for not getting it.

It’s not his fault, of course. She exhales, makes herself look at him. “I was kind of freaking out about it. Because–I’m interested in you. Which doesn’t have to be a thing, but after this week I feel like direct communication is my friend. So–do you want to get dinner sometime?”

He blinks a few times, processing the information. It’s clearly nothing he was expecting, probably nothing that ever occurred to him, and now he’s trying to figure out how to let her down easy, how to–

“Fuck, I didn’t think I had a chance,” he says, face breaking out into a huge grin. He crosses the room and cups her face, kissing her so she can taste the smile too. “No wonder I was getting such weird signals,” he teases.

Clarke grins too. “I’m not very good with feelings.”

“Not so much.” He leans down for another kiss. “So, dinner?”

“It’s a date.”

Two weeks later, they end up on a double date with Nate, who’s up to date on Clarke’s incompetence, and Monty, who wants to hear the whole story.

“I don’t know if we should really be talking about how I wanted to fuck Bellamy,” Nate teases.

Monty waves his hand. “It’s fine, Bellamy’s hot, everyone wants to fuck him. We just accept that.”

“Thanks,” says Bellamy. “I think.”

Clarke smiles. “It was really a simple misunderstanding. Nate and I didn’t formalize the dibs system, so I thought he was saying I want that guy and you can never go for him–”

“And I was a little drunk and thought Bellamy was hot. I forgot about it by the next day.”

“I probably would have too,” Clarke protests. “Except that I was trying really hard to be supportive.”

“Heavily in denial,” Nate says, winking at her, and Clarke kicks him under the table. Just a little.

“Hey, I’m not complaining. I got a girlfriend and I found out everyone wants to fuck me. This worked out great for me.”

“Yeah,” Nate agrees. “Good job with the matchmaking, Clarke. You nailed it.”

He waits until Bellamy and Monty have gone for another round of drinks to add, “I think we should retire the dibs thing.”

“You think?”

“It was confusing. And I’m hoping we don’t need it anymore.”

Clarke smiles, raises the dregs of her drink for him to clink his glass. “Yeah,” she agrees. “I think we’re all set.”

#stayalivelou

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chasholidays · 5 years

Note

Holiday prompt: Bellamy POV of Somebody's Only Light would be amazing!

Original fic here!

“I can’t believe this is actually the best way for you to find out your soulmate’s name,” Miller says, pixelated and slightly delayed over the shitty Skype connection. He’s examining the photo Bellamy sent of his back in the mirror, and Bellamy owes him a lot of beer when they get back to campus. “I feel like I’m on CSI or some shit. You literally sent me a picture to enhance.”

“This is how I know you’re an only child. I don’t want my sister to find out first. She’d probably say some weird name just to–”

“Clarke Griffin,” says Miller, and Bellamy’s jaw drops.

“What?”

“I’m pretty sure. It would be easier if you just got someone there to double-check. Maybe Clarke is wrong? I don’t know, it’s your back.”

Right on cue, Octavia bangs on his door. “Hey Bell, how’s your–”

“I don’t have a soulmark! I’ll call you back,” he adds to Miller, and closes the laptop, tugging his shirt back on before opening the door for his sister.

She looks supremely put out. “You don’t have one?”

“Nope. I’m going to die alone. It’s not a big deal,” he adds, before she can say anything. “I told you I don’t care about soulmates.”

“Yeah, but–you really don’t have one? Did you check everywhere?”

“I did and I don’t want you double-checking.” He rolls his eyes, deliberately melodramatic. “Yesterday you were telling me you didn’t want one and all your friends were being weird about it.” His mouth goes a little dry on the word friends, but he thinks she doesn’t notice. She doesn’t really have any reason to be suspicious of him. “I’m fine with it, seriously. Soulmates aren’t everything. Plenty of people don’t have one and have perfectly good lives.”

“Uh huh.”

“I promise, I’m fine.”

“Still, you wanted one, right?”

“I was cool either way,” he says, and wishes he meant it.

Not having a soulmate sounds great right now.

The number-one thing Bellamy knows about Clarke Griffin is that she’s fifteen.

It’s obviously not her only personality trait, or even her most important one, but it’s the only one that can matter to Bellamy right now. Because fifteen is really, really young, and the more he thinks about it, the younger it seems. He doesn’t think he was even a complete person at fifteen, and Clarke probably isn’t either.

Not that he doesn’t like her, so far. She’s smart and sharp and interesting, not exactly fun, but enjoyable. Plus she’s always good for a random argument, which he likes, and she’s started experimenting with low-cut tops, which he’s trying very hard not to pay any attention to, even if it doesn’t always work. She is pretty, but, again, in the way where he’s very aware that she’s going to be in high school for several more years. By the time she graduates, he’ll be out of college himself and off in the world.

Even if she is his soulmate–and he got one of his own high-school friends to confirm that she is, after swearing her to secrecy–she’s not his soulmate now. And if, when she’s twenty, his name shows up on her, she’ll at least know who he is. She can try to find him, if she wants to. There’s definitely no way for him to tell her now that she’s his soulmate without feeling like he’s taking advantage of her, so he just doesn’t. He goes back to school without having said a single word to his new soulmate the entire summer.

Miller isn’t impressed. “You let your sister tell her you don’t have a soulmate?”

“What else was I supposed to say? Hey, call me in five years if we’re soulmates but otherwise have a nice life? Fuck, I’m not ready to be someone’s soulmate now, she shouldn’t have to do it at fifteen. And I wasn’t just going to make up a name.” He sighs. “If you have a better idea for what I should do, you can tell me, but anything I can come up with feels like–grooming, or some shit.”

It doesn’t take Miller long to think through that one. “Yeah, fuck, I don’t know. You’re right, that sucks, there’s no good way to tell a high-school sophomore she’s your soulmate. Sucks to be you.”

“Thanks for the support.”

“Can you at least stay in touch? Like Facebook friend her or something?”

“I’m not going to sign up for Facebook just to friend an underage girl.”

“So then what’s the plan? Wait five years and google her?”

“Wait five years and see how I feel. I’ll still be twenty-five and she’ll be twenty, that doesn’t sound much better. Maybe give it ten years, that’s enough to not be creepy, right?”

“I think once she’s legal, you’re set. But what do I know, I’m still waiting to meet Monty the normal way.”

“I met her a normal way! She’s my sister’s friend, it’s totally normal. The timing just sucks. If O had met her in college, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. It would still be weird,” he admits. “Depending on how old she was. But at least I wouldn’t have to be overthinking it alone.”

Miller pats his shoulder. “Yeah, this is basically the worst possible soulmate scenario for you. So–happy belated birthday.”

“Thanks.”

“At least you like her.”

He sighs. “Yeah, at least there’s that.”

As a rule, Bellamy doesn’t like lying. He does it, of course, about big and small things, but he doesn’t enjoy it, and having Clarke for a soulmate means he’s doing it a lot. For the most part, he can tell his friends the truth, but he feels weird telling people he hooks up with–it always ends up being such a long story, and people always want more details. It turns a quick, no-strings-attached fling into a long discussion about soulmates and the right way to deal with them and how age gaps change as people get older. Which isn’t always bad, but is rarely what he’s looking for at a party.

So he mostly says he hasn’t met her yet, which is what everyone expects him to say anyway, and if he ever wants to actually seriously date someone, he’ll tell them the whole truth. It’s not as if it reflects poorly on him; he hasn’t done anything wrong. He’s trying so hard to do everything right.

On his breaks, he’s constantly aware of Clarke being nearby, of the possibility of seeing her, like a malfunctioning spidey sense that doesn’t actually tell him anything and just makes him non-stop paranoid. Since he still hasn’t told his sister about the soulmate situation, he can’t just ask her, and it seems as if she and Clarke are growing apart anyway, in the natural way that kids in high school do. And while there are definitely some advantages to that, it makes him feel antsy, too, unsure of what’s happening to Clarke in the months and years of his not seeing her.

When he does, finally, he’s not ready for it, of course. He’s home for spring break, not quite a year after he gets his soulmark, at the grocery store, and he literally runs into Clarke in the produce aisle, the stupidest meet-cute in the world.

Her smile is warm as she recognizes him. “Hey, Bellamy.”

“Hey, Clarke.”

“Spring break?”

“Yeah.” He wets his lips, trying to figure out something to say that isn’t an unhelpful mono-syllable. It hasn’t been that long, but it feels like years since he saw her, and he can’t help studying her for non-existent changes. She’s just Clarke, the same as he remembered: blonde hair, blue eyes, the mole over her lip adding a lopsided charm to her smile.

His soulmate.

“How are classes going?” he finally asks.

“Fine. Pretty uneventful.” She holds up an apple. “Just stocking up for a road trip. Mom and I are doing a college tour over break.”

“Anywhere you’re particularly excited about seeing?”

“Brown,” she says, with a slightly embarrassed smile. “I’m a legacy, so it doesn’t feel completely unrealistic.”

“Definitely not. I hope you get in.”

“Thanks. You’re a junior too, right? Any idea what you want to do after graduation? Or is it too soon for me to even ask?”

“If everything goes well, I’m going to be teaching. But that’s assuming everything goes well, I’ve got certification and prep stuff to do first, and that’s not set up yet.”

“I figured it might be a little early, yeah. What do you want to teach?”

“History.”

“That sounds like a good fit for you.”

“I’m hoping so, yeah. What about you, any career aspirations yet?”

“Something art-related, still not sure what. My mom thinks art history will make me more employable, I’m not totally convinced.”

“I think a degree from somewhere like Brown will probably make you pretty employable all by itself.”

“That’s what I’m hoping.”

“Well, uh–” He rubs the back of his neck, but he can’t come up with anything else to say to her. This might be the last time he ever sees his soulmate, and he’s done. “Good luck with–everything.”

Her mouth quirks. “Everything?”

“End of high school, college, college applications. All that stuff.”

“The rest of my life?”

“I’m not going to wish you bad luck for the rest of your life.”

That one actually gets a laugh out of her, and his stomach flips. Would he feel the same, if her name wasn’t on his back? He wouldn’t have been thinking about her off and on for all these years, but he thinks–she’s pretty, he likes her. There would have been something there.

“Yeah, I guess that would be pretty shitty of you. Good luck with the rest of your life, too.”

“Thanks,” he says.

If she wasn’t his soulmate, he probably wouldn’t watch her go. But he thinks he’d still want to.

Gina Martin feels like someone he might marry, in another universe. They meet his first spring teaching AP World History, when he starts going to a bar regularly because it feels like a healthier way to consume alcohol than alone (or even with Miller) in his apartment while he grades. It’s still probably not the healthiest thing in the world, but that’s fine. He was never going to be the healthiest person in the world, he was only ever going to do his best.

Gina is cute and flirty right from the start, but he does his best not to read into that. It’s her job, as a bartender, to be cute and flirty, after all. She does it to everyone, and he doesn’t want to get carried away thinking it’s anything personal.

It’s not like he has time to date, anyway.

It’s been about three months when some drunk guy spills a drink on her and she tugs off her flannel to reveal a gray tanktop underneath, low cut enough that he can see the curling edge of soulmate letters on her left breast. He can’t read the name, but its existence interests him in the way soulmate names always do.

Once she’s dried off, he says, “Do you like talking about soulmates?”

She thinks it over. “I do it a lot. Does that count?”

“Not really. If you don’t want to, we can skip it.”

“Having problems with yours?”

He’s pretty sure Clarke is older than twenty, by this point, but if she’s tried to get in touch with him, it hasn’t worked. Most of the time, he’s too busy to worry about it much, but every now and then, he’ll wonder if the lack of contact means she got another name, or if she doesn’t know how to get in touch, or if she’s disappointed, or any of a thousand other things that occur to him in his stupidest, most irrational moments.

He knows it means she hasn’t decided to talk to him, and that’s all he needs to know. Which is a good reason to try to flirt with a cute girl.

“I was actually curious about yours,” he says. “But I’m always ready to vent about mine.”

It’s not entirely true, but it does make her smile. She raises her eyebrows at his empty beer glass and he nods, so she refills it and slides it back to him. “Haven’t met mine. Your turn.”

“It’s complicated.”

“You two don’t get along?”

“No, that would be easy.” He drums his fingers on the bar. “I’m, uh–twenty-five now?”

She smiles. “You don’t even know?”

“It’s been a busy year. So, yeah, I got my soulmark five years ago, when I was home from college for the summer. And I knew the name when it showed up.”

“Lucky.”

“Not really. She was one of my sister’s friends, just finished with her sophomore year of high school. I panicked and told everyone I just didn’t get a name because it didn’t–” He sighs. “I didn’t know how to tell her. She wasn’t going to know anyway, it didn’t matter.”

“But she must be old enough now, right? To have her soulmark.”

“Yeah. But I haven’t heard from her.”

“Does she have any way to get in touch with you?”

“Google.”

“And you haven’t gotten in touch with her?”

“No. Sometimes I think about it, but–” He shrugs. “I don’t know what I’d say.”

“It makes a lot of sense to me. You lied because she was a kid, and now you want to come clean. What else would you need to say?”

“I don’t know.” He huffs. “I figure if I’m her soulmate, she’ll let me know. And if I’m not, I don’t want to make her life more awkward by bringing it up.”

“That seems misguided at best and actually stupid at worst, but I also probably wouldn’t want to call her if I were you either, so–what are you doing after this?”

He frowns. “After what?”

“Well, I get off in an hour, so–after I get off.”

The frown deepens. “Did that story count as a pickup line?”

“You’re cute,” she says. “That’s not new. You’ve been trying to not be a dick about flirting with me, we both have soulmates, you’re clearly a good guy. So if you want to go on a date sometime, I’ll take it on credit.”

“Credit?”

“Buy me dinner later and you can get laid tonight.”

He opens and then closes his mouth. “Sounds like a good deal,” he settles on, and Gina grins.

“I thought so.”

Bellamy’s pretty sure they both know it’s not going to last, but it’s nice for as long as it does, through their first Thanksgiving together. Octavia comes back from college to crash on his couch, and they have this awkwardly intimate dinner with just the three of them. Holidays have been weird since Aurora died, but Bellamy wasn’t prepared for just how much weirder it would be with his (fairly casual) girlfriend there. She’s so convinced that Gina’s going to abandon her own soulmate and marry Bellamy, and even if that was never on the table and Gina didn’t want it, it’s an awkward situation.

“This maybe isn’t the best idea,” Gina says.

“Yeah, I know.”

She bites the corner of her mouth. “I know that saying I still want to be friends is a total cliche, but I do still want to be friends.”

“Me too. I definitely don’t want to have to find a new bar,” he teases.

“Yeah, we can’t have that.”

He puts his arm around her, giving her a quick squeeze. “I still love you. Just not–”

“The same way you always have,” she supplies.

“Yeah.”

“We both knew what we were getting into. We’ve got soulmates who are going to show up.”

Sometimes, Bellamy can believe that. Sometimes, he does think that Clarke will just stroll back into his life someday, that they’ll run into each other at the grocery store or something equally cliched, and things will just work out like magic, like they’re supposed to, without this years long headache he’s been nursing.

Mostly, though, he thinks he missed his chance. That he was supposed to go for it back when he first got Clarke’s name, because whatever great celestial force it is that governs soulmates doesn’t understand age of consent laws.

But that’s never going to be the right thing to say to his girlfriend during a breakup, so he just smiles. “Yeah, we do,” he says, and tries to mean it.

Gina: Are you coming to the bar tonight?

It’s not a particularly surprising message for a Saturday night–the more surprising thing is that Bellamy was chaperoning a dance and hasn’t been checking his phone–but he still can’t help feeling a little suspicious. He doesn’t like Rocket Fuel as much as he liked her last employer, and it’s early enough in the year he doesn’t feel the need to go full alcoholic. Probably there’s some guy there hitting on her and she wants him to scare him off. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Me: I wasn’t planning toI had a school thingbut we’re done so I can be on my way overeverything okay?

Gina: Everything’s fineClarke Griffin is hereWe’re talking about you

Bellamy nearly drops his phone, and the effort it takes to not drop it makes him nearly makes him trip over his own feet. It’s about the least graceful he’s ever been, but–Clarke. Clarke is at the bar. Clarke is so fucking close.

He tugs on his jacket and starts walking before he’s even responded to the text, in a hurry to get there as soon as physically possible. It’s not that long a walk, which is the best thing about Rocket Fuel, as far as he’s concerned, but he still can’t get there fast enough.

Me: holy shit I’m going to kill youyou’re joking, right?

It doesn’t feel like the kind of thing she’d joke about, but it doesn’t feel possible either. There’s no way Clarke just wandered into the bar and started talking to Gina about him. Did she just tell Gina her name, or did Gina bring him up?

He’s trying to figure out a good way to ask if he’s Clarke’s soulmate too when the picture comes through, Gina with Clarke and an unfamiliar woman with dark hair in a tight ponytail. She’s lovely, but all Bellamy can focus on is Clarke, her hair shorter, her smile nervous, but still familiar. She must be twenty-two or twenty-three by now, out of college and in the world, in his world. Talking to Gina. Taking selfies.

Gina: That’s MY soulmate with her btwRaven ReyesAnd you are Clarke’s soulmate, don’t worry

Me: holy shitI’m on my waybe there in ten minutes

He actually runs part of the way, which feels excessive and a little pathetic, except that Clarke is right here, and his soulmate, and all he has to do is get to her. He’d run the whole way, except that he doesn’t want to be weirdly sweaty when he shows up.

She may be his soulmate, but he still wants to make a good impression.

To his surprise, she’s leaning on the fence outside of the bar, although it takes him a little while before he’s sure it’s her, and not some other blonde girl. The odds of that seem low, but the odds of Clarke showing up at Rocket Fuel with Gina’s soulmate seem even lower, so he’s not ruling anything out.

Once he’s close enough, he waves, and she smiles, pushes off the wall and comes to see him. He knew what he was expecting to see, knew what she looked like now from the picture Gina sent, but the reality of her is still a shock.

He clears his throat. “Hey, Clarke.”

“Hey.”

Ideally, this would be the point where he said something smooth and cool, some line worth waiting for, but his brain is still stuck on her face. “You didn’t want to be inside?” is all he comes up with.

But she laughs. “Honestly? No. We had an audience.”

“Gina said you brought her soulmate too, yeah.”

“My best friend.”

“Jesus. I can’t believe it.”

Her smile is impish. “Which part?”

“Everything about soulmates, pretty much. I’m, uh–” He pauses, reconsiders. There are thousands of things he wants to say, but one’s more pressing than the rest. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. When it happened.”

Her response is immediate. “Don’t be.” She smiles. “You want to take a walk and tell me about it? That must have sucked.”

He inclines his head in the vague direction of the park, away from the school. All the students cleared out, but they could still be in the area. He really doesn’t need to be dealing with anyone else. Just dealing with Clarke is overwhelming enough. “It was–fucking surreal, honestly. I wasn’t expecting to get anyone I knew. Most people don’t. And I didn’t–” He shoots her half a smile. “Don’t get me wrong, you were cute, but you were fifteen, and you weren’t going to get your mark for five years. If some guy had come along and told O that, even if he was her soulmate, I would have kicked his ass. And now, teaching teenagers? Jesus. There’s a reason you don’t get it until you’re twenty. I still wasn’t ready then.” They walk in silence for a second, but he can’t help it. The question has been pressing at his mouth since he first saw her. “You really got me too?”

She laughs. “You thought I wouldn’t?”

“I didn’t know. I didn’t know much about you. I tried to figure it out. Why we were–why you were my soulmate.”

“And?”

“No comment,” he says, automatic.

“Oh, come on.”

She sounds so disappointed he has to laugh. “I liked you fine, okay? You were smart and intense and I felt bad for noticing you were hot.”

“I don’t feel bad about that at all,” she says, grinning. “You’re my soulmate, you’re allowed.”

It’s surreal, hearing the words. He was so sure he wasn’t going to be anyone’s soulmate. That this couldn’t possibly work out for him. “I still can’t believe it. I thought you might have my name, but–I figured if you did, you would have gotten in touch.”

She shrugs. “I thought you would already have someone else. Since you didn’t have a soulmate. I didn’t want to barge into your life and mess stuff up for you.” She laughs a soft, sheepish little laugh; he can’t stop looking at her. “You were mine, but I thought I wasn’t yours.”

It makes total sense, of course, but it’s also just the most absurd situation. And mostly because of him. “I would have liked to know, even if I had someone else. But I get it. I didn’t want to do that to you either.”

“I think you did the best you could. I don’t know—" She shakes her head. “I have no idea what I would have done if you told me back then.”

He grins. “Been smug as shit, I assume. I know all you guys had a thing for me.”

“Not a big one. Just, you know—normal teenager stuff.”

“Yeah.”

“Did your sister know?”

“About you? No, I just told my best friend. He’s the one who found your name for me. I sent him a picture because I didn’t want O to know first. Which was a good call, I don’t think she would have been able to keep her mouth shut.”

She’s going to murder him when he does tell her, but that’s a problem for tomorrow. Tonight, he’s catching up with his soulmate.

“Where is it?” she asks, and he frowns. “Your soulmark.”

“On my back, just under my shoulder blade. Where’s yours?”

“Stomach.”

“So you couldn’t really hide it.”

“No. Are you—" She pauses, reconsiders. “I guess you date. You dated Gina.”

“Yeah. But I’m not seeing anyone right now. You?”

“Single.”

His stomach flips, like it always has. “It, uh. This doesn’t have to be anything, if you don’t want it to be. We can just be—“

She shakes her head. “I want it to be something. We should at least try.”

It feels like such a small word, like nothing new. He feels like trying his best sums up his whole life.

Then again, it’s turned out pretty well for him. He’s got a job he likes, friends, and a soulmate who’s smiling up at him, eyes bright with happiness.

He smiles back. “I’m good with trying.”

In the morning, he calls his sister.

Clarke is on the couch, dressed in his clothes, which isn’t a new kink for him, but feels new because he is completely gone for her and his previous scale of things he was into no longer applies. She’s been texting Raven for updates about her and Gina, and Bellamy texted Miller with the update that Clarke was in the apartment, but he doesn’t think he can get away with texting Octavia. Even if he tried, she’d call back immediately, and somehow put herself on speaker phone so she could yell at him most effectively.

She picks up on the second ring. "Why are you calling so early? Did you and Miller have a fight?”

“That’s your guess?”

“Wait, am I supposed to guess? I was just annoyed. You woke me up. Did something bad actually happen?”

“Nothing bad.”

She groans. “Please just tell me, it’s too early for this shit.”

“I lied to you,” he says, in a rush. “About my soulmate.”

There’s a long pause. “What?”

“I told you I didn’t have one, but I do.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Her voice is small, and he closes his eyes against the guilt.

“It had nothing to do with you, O. My soulmate–it’s Clarke Griffin.”

“Clarke?” she demands. At least she’s too surprised to sound hurt.

“She was fifteen, I didn’t want to tell her. Fuck, I didn’t want to deal with it at all. And I wasn’t going to make you lie to your friends for me.”

“You kind of did, though. You had me tell them all that you didn’t have a soulmate.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t know it was a lie.” He rubs his face, and Clarke gets off the couch to wrap her arms around him, an unexpected burst of warmth. He leans into it. “I’m sorry, seriously. I kept wanting to tell you, but I didn’t know how.”

She pauses. “So why are you telling me now?”

“Because she found me,” he admits. “And I’m her soulmate too.”

“Of course you are.” She doesn’t sound sarcastic, or even surprised, just matter-of-fact. Like there was no doubt. “You thought you weren’t?”

“Assume I’ve been on a downward spiral about this whole thing for the last seven years. I figured I was going to die alone.”

“That’s why you should have told me, dumbass. Or she should have! I can’t believe you two. You’re both ridiculous.”

“We are,” Bellamy agrees, twisting to kiss Clarke’s temple. “We must be soulmates.”

Octavia, at least, just laughs. “Yeah. No question.”

#beaked

71 notes · View notes

chasholidays · 5 years

Note

Bellamy as the last anvil priest at gretna green

the last anvil priest, for reference

“I know this isn’t your area of expertise, but I need you to not marry me.”

Bellamy looks up from his book to see a pretty girl with long blonde hair and bright blue eyes watching him, her expression shrewd and calculating. She’s dressed in what he thinks of as the standard wedding ensemble, at least here: a serviceable dress, probably one of her nicest. She looks a little older than his usual runaway bride, but she could still be under the age of majority.

He has no idea what she wants.

“That doesn’t sound hard,” he says, with an easy smile. “I’m not marrying you right now, I think I can keep doing it.”

Her mouth twitches like she wants to return the expression, but knows she shouldn’t when things are so serious. “It’s going to get harder.”

“Is it?”

“I had a young man bring me here thinking he would marry me, but he’s not going to. I think he’ll try to insist. Will you not perform the marriage?”

He has a number of questions, but only one answer. “If you don’t want to be married, I won’t marry you.”

She exhales her relief in a great sigh. “Perfect, thank you. I’ll be back later this afternoon.”

It’s far from the first strange encounter Bellamy has had since taking up employment the “blacksmith” at the Hammer and Rings six months ago. He’d been reluctant at first, having no formal training with metalworking, but Charles had assured him that no one had expected real smithing from the shop in years, and if anyone did need that kind of work done, he could always direct them elsewhere.

And that, at least, has been true. All anyone has wanted Bellamy to do is marry them, and that, at least, he’s good at. His favorites are the older couples who come to Gretna Green to be married quickly and without any fuss, the ones who have done this before and now just want it to be done with. It’s a settled in, comfortable kind of romance that always makes him smile.

The young people worry him more, mostly because he sees his sister in every willful young bride who’s decided she knows her heart and her parents could never understand. It’s not even that he disagrees with their decision so much as it reminds him that he doesn’t, and he thinks they probably know enough to make those choices, which means that he should, perhaps, give his sister more credit than he does. Which isn’t a thought he likes to sit with.

Not that everyone who comes to him is making the right choice in getting married, of course, but the bright-haired young woman is the first one to actually come and tell him not to marry her. That’s a new one.

It’s a busy morning–a local couple in their thirties comes in with a large group of family for a more raucous ceremony than usual, and then and older couple who just want theirs done as quickly as possible–and by the time the woman comes back, he’s almost convinced himself he won’t see her again.

But there she is, wearing the same dress, hair swept up, blue eyes nervous now as she looks around the shop. The young man next to her rubs Bellamy the wrong way as soon as he looks at him, although it’s hard to be sure he’d feel that way if he hadn’t heard the woman wasn’t interested in marrying.

Then again, she never said the man forced her–she had him bring her, under false pretenses. She wasn’t kidnapped.

Still, he doesn’t like the man’s looks, or trust him to take the news that he isn’t getting married well. But even if Bellamy isn’t much of a smith, he spends plenty of his days lifting heavy things and banging anvils. He can make sure the man doesn’t take his feelings out on his unwilling bride.

“We’d like to get married, as quickly as possible,” the man tells Bellamy. “It’s a pound fee?”

“It is,” he says. His eyes flick to the woman. “You want to get married?”

She wets her lips, but her focus is on her betrothed, not on Bellamy. “I’m so sorry, Finn, but–I didn’t come here to marry you.”

If he looked heartbroken, Bellamy would feel bad for the man. But he just seems confused and a little offended, as if the thought of a woman not marrying him is incomprehensible. As if anyone in the world would want to marry him.

“What?” he asks.

“I appreciate your escorting me, but I don’t think I’m ready for marriage. I’ll pay your fare for wherever you want to go. But I won’t marry you.”

“What will you do?”

She shrugs. “Whatever I want.”

Bellamy offers up a silent prayer to any gods who might be positively inclined toward a man with a few things in common with a priest, asking whoever is listening to make Finn just walk away.

But his jaw works. “You can still marry us, can’t you?” he asks Bellamy.

“I marry people who consent to be married. She doesn’t. I can’t do anything for you.”

“Clarke,” says Finn, turning his attention to the woman, voice pleading.

At least Bellamy knows her name now.

“We don’t have anything to talk about. I’m sorry I had to lie to you, but I needed to get out. I appreciate what you did for me.”

“And that’s it,” he says. “Just like that.”

She shrugs. “Just like that.”

“At least let me walk you back to the inn. We can talk. I can make you–” He seems to realize that’s a bad road to go down. “You have to see reason. If you go home unmarried–think of your reputation, Clarke! Be reasonable.”

“I can care for my own reputation, thank you. And walk myself home. But I’d like to–” She must be casting about for an excuse to not leave with this man, so Bellamy steps in. He did promise to not marry her; he might as well make sure he finishes the job.

“See the anvil?” he supplies. “A lot of people do. Mine’s an antique.”

“Yes, please.”

Finn looks like he might still protest, but Bellamy carries himself so he doesn’t look as big as he is, for the most part, and he can make himself look bigger when he wants to.

“For your train fare,” Clarke tells Finn, handing him a small bag. “I really can’t thank you enough.”

Judging by the way his hand dips when he takes the money, it’s more than he was expecting, and apparently enough to mollify him. “What should I tell your family if I see them?”

“That we didn’t marry after all. And that I’m not coming back.”

With that, he’s finally convinced to take his leave, and once he’s gone, Clarke slumps against the wall in relief. “Thank you,” she tells him, eyes flicking up to meet his.

Bellamy shrugs. “It’s not much harder than marrying someone.”

“Still, I robbed you of a fee.” She finds a pound in her purse and gives it to him. “The same rate, yes?”

“People don’t usually pay me for not marrying them. I’d be rich.”

She smiles. “Just this once. Can I see the anvil?”

He shows her around the shop, which doesn’t take long, and calls Octavia in to watch it after so he can walk Clarke back to her inn, in case her former fiance is waiting to make his case again. She gathers her things and asks him if he knows the location of a good boarding house.

“I can’t thank you enough,” she says, once he’s brought her to one.

“It was my pleasure,” he says. “I don’t get to not marry people very often.”

She laughs. “You’re very good at it.”

“Thank you. I hope–” He still doesn’t know what happened to her, why she hatched this scheme or what she plans to do, so it’s hard to know what well wishes she might appreciate. “You enjoy the rest of your time here,” he settles on, at last.

She smiles. “I hope so too.”

Three days later, she’s waiting by the shop door when he arrives to open up, her arms full of flowers.

“Good morning,” he says, frowning. “Do you need to not be married again?”

She smiles, a bright, sudden thing, gone as quickly as it came. “I think I’m sufficiently unmarried.”

“I’m glad it took.” He unlocks the door. “How can I help you?”

“That was my question to you.”

“Was it?”

She shrugs. “You perform marriages.”

“Usually.”

“And you’re paid a pound.”

“Depending. Some people pay more, some less. It depends on how much they have and how generous they’re feeling.”

Clarke nods. “The law is that two people have to agree to be married in front of witnesses, yes?”

“It is.”

“So you need another witness sometimes. I can do that.”

“So can my sister. I manage fine.”

“I need an occupation. I have flowers,” she adds, showing off her armful. “Which people might like. It doesn’t have to be much, but flowers are traditional.”

“You understand that people come to be married here because they don’t want to bother with a real wedding,” he points out. “If they wanted flowers–”

“You can want flowers without wanting a real wedding. Can I try it?”

“Try what, exactly?”

“Being a witness and offering flowers.”

Bellamy considers her, taking in the changes of the last few days. She’s dressed more plainly now, or at least less ostentatiously. As the son of a seamstress, he’s always had a good sense for clothing, and while the dress isn’t flashy, it’s well made, with some detailing that would cost money. She gave Finn a bag of coin to get him to leave, and gave him a pound too, and now she’s obtained a good number of flowers. It’s possible she’s reckless with her money, but she doesn’t feel reckless to him. She has enough money she can use it to solve her problems: to rid herself of a troublesome suitor, to buy flowers for weddings.

To make a good impression on the man who performs those weddings.

“If you’d like,” he says. “We weren’t ever introduced.”

“Clarke,” she says. No surname, no title. Just Clarke.

“Bellamy,” he says. “Come in.”

He’s not expecting Clarke’s gambit to pay off, but the first couple of the day smiles when she offers them flowers, and they pay her two shillings for the flowers and another two to be their witness. It’s not going to make her rich, but she’s making more than it cost her to buy the flowers, and the couple seems to appreciate it.

“Can I come back tomorrow?” she asks, and Bellamy shrugs.

“If you’d like. Are you planning to say here?” he can’t help asking. “I thought you’d give your fiance a few days to leave and then go yourself.”

“Why would I go? It’s nice here.”

He’d need a great deal more context about her life than he has to offer a good reason for her to not settle in Gretna Green, but at least if she keeps on working for him, he might someday get that information. And he’ll know how she’s doing, too. He likes keeping up with people.

“Then you can come back whenever you like,” he says, and is rewarded with another one of her smiles.

“Thank you.”

He may come to regret it, but he hasn’t yet, so all he says is, “You’re welcome. I’m looking forward to having some help.”

Bellamy’s too stubborn to just ask for Clarke’s story, so he puts things together slowly, picking up the pieces she scatters and trying to assemble them into a picture that makes sense. She mentions her family rarely, but both of her parents are alive, and they seem well off; she’ll mention a gown her mother bought for her or some business her father is involved in, things that speak of having money to spare. She has a few friends she’ll reference in passing, but he gets the impression that she’d grown apart from them for one reason or another even before she left her whole life behind.

Mostly, it doesn’t bother him, not knowing the particulars of her life, because he knows the broad strokes of her. She’s smart and interesting, good company when things aren’t too busy. Octavia had been getting tired of having to be on site to be a witness if he required one, and she’s glad to have someone else take over her position. Bellamy isn’t rich, but he has enough that he can give Clarke a cut, and it seems to be enough for her to get by. She seems to like being here, and he likes having her.

Every now and then, Octavia will ask if he’s going to marry her, and he always says no, less because he doesn’t want to marry her and more because he doesn’t think he will. He certainly doesn’t know how to ask.

It’s a recurring theme with Clarke: he never knows how to just say what he wants.

Almost a year after they first met, though, she gives him at least some of the answers he’s been looking for, showing up late with a newspaper instead of flowers in her shaking hands.

“What happened?” he asks.

“My father passed away.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, the words coming out before he’s even consciously thought them, the expected response, but he has no idea if it’s appropriate. “I assume.”

That makes her smile. “I am sorry. But it’s complicated.”

“You know you can always talk to me, if you want.”

She sighs. “He wanted me to marry. Someone he picked out.”

“I thought as much.”

“I thought it was greed. He and my mother had plenty, I thought they just wanted more. But if he was ill–” She sighs. “He probably wanted to make sure I would be taken care of once he was gone.”

“Will your mother be all right?”

“Without me to worry about, she should be.” She sighs, rubs her face. “I wasn’t planning to go back, so why do I feel guilty now that he’s dead for not seeing him? I wouldn’t if he was alive.”

“I’m not sure. My father died when I was three, and my mother died when I was there. But maybe you thought the two of you would make it up, someday.”

“Maybe.” She sighs. “And I blame myself. When I left, it probably broke his heart.”

“Did you ever get in touch with them again? After your elopement.”

“I wrote them a letter and sent it through my friend Wells, so they wouldn’t know where I was.”

He frowns. “Didn’t you tell them you were running away to Gretna Green?”

“Yes, but no one stays here. They just come here to get married and leave.”

It’s exactly what he thought she’d do when he first met her, so he can’t really argue the point. People do move here–he moved here himself, after his mother died–but it’s not exactly a destination for well-born young ladies.

“Were they looking for you?”

“I honestly don’t know. I burned my bridges very thoroughly when I left. Not marrying the man you elope with does much more harm to your reputation than marrying him would. They couldn’t have taken me back. But–I did love them.”

“So why did you leave?”

Her mouth twitches. “How long have you been wanting to ask that?”

“I figured you’d tell me.”

“If you ever asked.” She wets her lips. “As I said, he must have known of the illness,but he didn’t tell me. All he told me was that I needed to marry as soon as possible. He picked a groom, but his taste was very poor.”

“So you found someone to run away with.”

“I know it seems–” She sighs. “I said I wouldn’t marry Mr. Wallace, and he said I would. If I stayed, he would have made me.”

“You were old enough to say no.”

“And then there would be another, and another. I couldn’t stay knowing he didn’t care what I wanted. So I gave him a story about what I wanted that he could believe.”

“What do you want?” he asks.

She opens her mouth and then closes it, rethinking whatever she was going to say. “When I left, I didn’t know. I just knew that marrying some rich stranger wasn’t it.”

“But you know now?”

“I want what I have,” she says, as if she’s making her mind up about it slowly. “Just this.”

“Good.”

“And I want to go to London.”

“Oh?”

“Not to stay. Just for the funeral, to pay my respects. He was still my father,” she adds, her tone tinged with steel. “I loved him.”

He nods. “Of course. Do you want company?”

When she really smiles, Clarke doesn’t like to be seen, like she’s embarrassed by the expression. She ducks her head, but he can still spot the edges of it, warm and soft, making his heart skip. “Would you mind?”

“Of course not. I can always find something to do in London.”

She shows her amusement this time. “Have you ever been to London?”

“No,” he admits. “But I’m sure I could find something to do if I went.”

“I have some ideas.”

“Such as?”

“You’d probably like the British Museum.”

“I probably would. When are we leaving?”

Bellamy isn’t famous, really, but he is somewhat notorious. The anvil priest is a dying breed, a casualty of modernity, and Bellamy is likely the last there will ever be. There’s been talk of changing the law, to move away from the old rites, but people like what he does. And he is, if he does say so himself, charming and engaging, a perfect symbol of the entire institution of irregular marriage. He has a reputation, and there are people now who come to have him marry them, specifically.

Which he encourages as much as possible; he can use all the business he can get. And all the publicity.

So he brings his anvil to London with them.

“It can’t be that expensive,” Clarke observes as he hauls it to the train. “If someone stole it–”

“It’s an antique, Clarke. It’s irreplaceable. If I’m losing a few days of work, then I should at least get some attention out of it.”

He regrets the words as soon as they’re out of his mouth; Clarke’s expression clouds. “You don’t have to–”

“I didn’t mean it like that. I haven’t had a holiday in years. But if I can get some publicity for the shop while I’m at it, I might as well.”

“You can’t bring the anvil to the funeral. Or the British Museum.”

She’s smiling now, so he lets himself smile too. “It would take some of the focus off you.”

“And remove the mystery of where I’m living.”

“I’ll leave it in the hotel,” he promises. “Don’t worry.”

There’s a crowd to see them off at the train station, the whole town laughing and jeering as Bellamy hefts his anvil up before him. Clarke’s right, it would be easier to just replace it if someone did steal it, which he can’t imagine they would. But everyone will be talking about this, and they’ll talk about it in London too. He doesn’t have to cart it with him everywhere he goes, just to and from the train, and then, once he’s not holding it, he’ll disappear.

It’s quite a trick.

Once they’re in London, he realizes there was some part of him that worried Clarke missed it, that she would change as soon as she stepped off the train. Maybe she missed this, being a part of society, being somewhere exciting. Maybe she’s not meant to stay with him.

“The air’s so dirty here,” she says, making a face, and Bellamy lets out a breath.

“It is. Good thing we aren’t staying too long.”

Clarke is quiet for a second, and then she says, “I was thinking.”

His heart lodges in his throat. “Thinking?”

“I’m going to need to tell my mother who you are. I don’t know what I should say.”

“You can’t just say I’m a friend?” he asks. “Coming to support you?”

“I doubt she’ll believe me.”

“So you’d rather tell her a lie she will believe? It’s up to you,” he adds, before she can respond. “I’m here to support you, and I’ll do that however you think would be best. If you want to tell her you did get married in Gretna Green after all, that’s fine. Or we could be living in sin, if you want to scandalize her.”

That makes her laugh, and some of the tension drains from her frame. “You’re right, it doesn’t really matter what I say. She’s going to believe the worst no matter what.”

“What’s the worst?”

“That we’re not married but I’ve already had one of your children and more are on the way.”

“I can think of worse things.”

“My mother can’t.”

“As I said, whatever you want to tell her. I’m here to make your life easier.”

“Thank you.”

He shrugs, not sure what to say. It’s no great sacrifice for him. Not even a small one. He wouldn’t be anywhere else. “Well, you are taking me to the museum.”

They spend a day being tourists, which is nice, and the second day, they go to the funeral. Bellamy knew Clarke came from money, but it’s different experiencing it in person, all the well-dressed mourners and the large casket. He doesn’t think of death as an opulent affair, but he’s never known anyone rich who died before. Apparently, they go all out.

Clarke introduces him as her husband, mostly so she doesn’t have to have a long conversation with any friends or relatives about who he actually is. Plenty of them heard she’d run off to get married, so it’s what they expected, the rebellious daughter and her low-born husband, here to disgrace the family. The bigger surprise is that she came at all.

They make it through fifteen minutes of introductions and small talk before Clarke’s mother appears, not that Bellamy actually recognizes her as Abigail Griffin. She’s just another woman dressed in black, her grief no more apparent than anyone else’s, but she yanks Clarke’s arm, eyes roving over her, cataloging every difference.

“You came,” is what she finally says to Clarke.

“I saw in the paper.”

Her gaze moves from Clarke to Bellamy, taking him in too. He thinks he knows some of what she’ll focus on–the shade of his skin, the quality of his clothing–but he holds his head high and meets her eyes when she gets to his face. He’s here because Clarke wants him to be here; that’s the only thing that matters.

“Is this your husband?”

“Bellamy, yes. Bellamy, my mother, Abigail Griffin.”

Abigail’s mouth works, the expression reminding him of Clarke. “So, you went to Gretna Green with one husband and came back with a different one?”

“I went with a fiance,” Clarke shoots back. “I traded him for someone I liked better.”

Another long pause, and then she finally says, “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Which of us?”

“Either. Your father was trying to help you, and you–”

“If I don’t want to be helped, it’s not helpful!” she snaps, clearly louder than she meant to. She recovers, takes a few deep breaths. “I know I could have reacted better, but you weren’t listening to me. I didn’t know what to do.”

“You weren’t listening to us either.”

“You weren’t going to convince me to marry Mr. Wallace. We were at an impasse.”

Clarke’s mother slumps all at once, looking older than her years. “Why did you come back, Clarke?”

“I don’t know. I thought I should. If you want me to leave–”

“No, no. Of course I don’t–how long are you in town?”

“Only until the day after tomorrow.” She glances at Bellamy. “We could have dinner? Catch up?”

Bellamy doesn’t join them. Clarke clings to his hand through the ceremony, so hard it feels like she might break it, but she says she can handle dinner on her own, and he lies in their room in the inn, wondering if he’ll ever see her again. If she’ll be spirited away or, worse, convinced to stay here, to return to the life she was supposed to have.

But she comes back as planned, collapses onto the bed with a sigh of relief.

“It went well?” he asks.

“As well as it could have. I told her I’m not married, but I’m happy. She said I could come home and she wouldn’t make me marry anyone. That I could do what I wanted.”

“Tempting.”

She turns her head to smile at him. “Not really. I’m already doing what I want.”

He smiles back. “Good.”

It’s a year and a half before he sees Clarke’s mother again, which sounds like a long time, but it’s much shorter than he was expecting, given he thought he’d never see her again. Clarke, maybe, would visit home, but he hadn’t thought he’d be invited, even if Clarke wanted him to come.

His relationship with Clarke complicated and straightforward all at once. She’s his best friend, his constant companion. Once Octavia married and left the house, Clarke moved into her old room. The town gossips are convinced they’re fucking or married or all of the above, and if Bellamy’s honest, he thinks they should be. But he hasn’t figured out how to ask, when he already has so much. He already feels greedy just for wanting.

He’s happy, and he doesn’t need more.

“I thought you must be the anvil priest,” is Abigail Griffin’s greeting, when she arrives. “I didn’t think there could be many Bellamys.”

“Mom,” Clarke says, startling as Bellamy shoots to his feet. “What are you doing here?”

She looks better than the last time they saw her, no longer dressed for mourning and smiling in apparently genuine amusement.

“Don’t stand on my account. I came for the same reason everyone does: I’m getting married.”

There’s a little color in her cheeks, a pleased flush that Bellamy’s familiar with from years of performing marriage ceremonies. Whoever she’s marrying, she’s happy.

Clarke’s jaw is hanging open, so he does the talking. “Congratulations. What kind of ceremony are you looking for? We have flowers if you’d like, and Clarke takes pictures for a fee.”

The camera had been expensive, but it will pay for itself in no time. And Clarke loves it.

“I heard the priest’s wife performs ceremonies too,” says Abigail, still watching Clarke. “Is that you? Did you finally get married?”

“Not yet, but I’m not a real priest either,” Bellamy says. “People like to simplify things.”

“Who are you marrying?” Clarke finally manages. There’s no sign of a groom, so it’s a good question.

“Marcus Kane. You remember Marcus. He was asking about a horse he liked, but he’ll be along shortly.

"You’re marrying Marcus Kane in Gretna Green,” Clarke says, voice blank.

“I thought it would be better to not make a big deal about it. We don’t need anything elaborate.” She smiles. “A picture would be nice.”

“Of course.”

“And if you can perform the ceremony–”

“I’ll be the witness,” Bellamy says. “No problem.”

It’s not as strange for him as it is for Clarke, but it’s still plenty strange. Still, Marcus Kane seems nice and Abigail seems happy, and after they all go out to dinner together, like a family.

“So, the two of you aren’t married?” Marcus asks, with apparently genuine interest.

“We just haven’t had time,” Clarke says, straight-faced, and Bellamy chokes on his wine.

“Of course,” her mother says, sounding amused. “It would be so difficult to organize.”

“We’re very busy.”

“Well, when you do marry, I hope you’ll let us know,” says Abigail. “I know that this place isn’t exactly known for long engagements, but I’d like to be here, and it wouldn’t take us long to come up. I’d like to see more of you,” she adds, to Clarke. “I know it’s been–difficult. In the last few years. But I’d like it to be better.”

“Me too.” Clarke glances at him, her expression unreadable. “If we get married, we’ll be sure to let you know so you can join us. We’re not in any rush.”

They finish the meal, but Bellamy’s mind never completely leaves that conversation, doesn’t move on from Clarke’s mother’s certainty that a marriage is coming, the easy way Clarke talks about it.

He doesn’t have to say anything, of course. Clarke doesn’t see to be planning to. They can go on as they have been, and he’ll be happy.But he doesn’t know when he’ll get another excuse to bring it up, and if he doesn’t take this one, he’ll be thinking about it for days, weeks, maybe the rest of his life.

They’re on their way home when he gets his courage up. “If you want to marry me while your mother is here, now’s probably easiest.”

She glances at him, expression impossible to make out in the dark. “It’s a little late tonight.”

“Well, tomorrow.”

“Can you marry yourself? Or would we need to get someone else to do it?”

“Almost anyone could, that’s the point. But I’d probably ask someone else to do it. If you–” He clears his throat. “I love you and I’ve wanted to marry you almost since I met you. So we’re clear. I just didn’t know how to ask.”

She laughs, a sound like tension breaking. Or maybe just a sound that breaks tension. “This might be the least romantic proposal in history.”

“People don’t usually come to me for romance. But I can get down on one knee, if it will make a difference. Come up with a whole speech. Whatever you’d–”

She tugs his arm, and once he’s stopped, she pulls him down by the front of his shirt, leaning up so she can catch his mouth as quickly as possible. Her lips are a little cool in the night air, but the kiss is warm and perfect, everything he’s been wanting for all these years, and he tugs her closer, reveling in the feeling of having her at last.

“Just find someone who can marry us tomorrow and I’ll be happy,” she says.

“I think that can be arranged.”

The ceremony takes all of a minute, Miller asking both of them if they want to be married, with Clarke’s mother and her new husband as witnesses. They kiss again and that’s it, no fuss, no great declarations. Not a great romance that will echo through the ages, by anyone’s standards.

But he wouldn’t have it any other way.

#bgonemydear

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chasholidays · 5 years

Note

How about a time stamp for the Home Improvement/HGTV verse: (new) addition. Thanks so much for doing this again!!

Series here!

“Honestly, I’m impressed it took them this long to ask us about kids,” says Clarke, which is the most positive spin she can put on the email they just got from the network.

Bellamy snorts. “Which isn’t creepy at all.”

“I never said it wasn’t creepy, I said it could be creepier. Big difference.”

“I guess it has been an entire season since we got married. They showed a lot of restraint not asking sooner.”

Clarke smiles. “That’s what I’m saying, yeah. They were probably just hoping we’d bring it up first, but whatever.”

“They’re definitely growing.” He flops down next to her on the couch. “Do you want kids?”

It’s not their first time having the conversation, but it’s also not a conversation they’ve ever really resolved. They’ve established that Bellamy wants kids and Clarke isn’t opposed, but it’s not as simple as that for them. He’s reluctant about having a kid on TV, but not completely against it, depending on how it’s handled, which Clarke does get. And she can’t imagine the email made either of them feel better on that front.

But they’re getting older, and while Clarke wouldn’t exactly say her biological clock is ticking, she knows that if they want to have children the old-fashioned way, they should start thinking about it sooner rather than later.

“I’m not sure,” she says, leaning into him. “And I feel like we should be?”

“At least seventy-five percent sure, probably.”

“I might be that sure.”

That seems to surprise him. “Really?”

“You’re not?”

“I still don’t really want to raise a child on camera.”

“Yeah, there is that. We could just start trying to get pregnant and end the show once it works.”

“The babies-ever-after ending?”

“I hear it’s a classic.”

He takes a second. “Do you want to be pregnant? I sort of thought you were leaning towards fostering.”

Clarke considers that herself. “I’m still not sure. But some of that is also–fame stuff.”

“Yeah?”

“You know how the network is. We’re not the only leading couple they’ve got, and most of the shows follow the same formula, just at different stages. You get together, you get married, you have babies. It’s what most of our viewers want. And it’s not like that’s the worst thing ever, but–”

“But you’re still mad about all those people who said that the network was trying to get woke points by casting bisexuals and then having them end up in a heteronormative relationship?”

“Like you’re not. They kept putting bisexual in scare quotes!”

“I know, they’re all assholes. But unless you’re going to divorce me and marry a woman, there’s nothing you can do to stop them from being assholes. You’re allowed to want to have kids, and fuck anyone who says you’re lying about who you are because you fell for me.”

“Obviously they’ve never seen you,” she says, with a small smile.

“Obviously. So, ignoring people on twitter who are wrong anyway, what do you want to do?”

“I’m still not sure.”

He kisses her hair. “Okay, well, the good news is that you don’t have to know. The network can wait.”

“But we should still think about it. For us, not for them. If that’s something we want.”

“And you think you do.”

“Yeah. You haven’t said much about what you want,” she observes. “That matters too. Is it just the TV thing?”

“Kind of.” He sighs. “I feel like I should be happier just giving it up, I guess.”

“What else is new? You hate admitting you like being a weird, HGTV celebrity.”

“I know. So maybe it wouldn’t be bad for a kid. Or not worse, I guess. But if we had a baby and quit the show, by the time it was old enough to know about the show, everyone would have mostly forgotten. It wouldn’t be a big thing at school or whatever. That sounds better to me.”

“It probably wouldn’t be even if the show was on,” Clarke says. “Kids aren’t really our demographic.”

“Their loss.”

“I grew up in Hollywood,” she points out, gentle. “It’s weird, but it doesn’t ruin everyone. Especially not this level of fame. It’s not like we’re going to star in blockbusters with a baby.”

“And we don’t live in California, let alone LA.”

“I’m not saying we have to have a kid on the show, or involved in the show. Just–it might not be as bad as you think.”

“Yeah, that’s how pessimism usually works. Stuff isn’t as bad as I think it will be.”

Clarke smiles, leans up to kiss him. “All I’m saying is maybe you don’t have to give up your career to be a father.”

“A father.” He sounds a little awestruck. “Jesus.”

“Whenever you’re ready.”

“Yeah. Let’s see how that goes.”

In Diyoza’s defense, the email really isn’t that bad. The network seems to be aware that they need her and Bellamy more than she and Bellamy need the network; after all, they like doing the show, but if it ended tomorrow, they’d be fine. They have as much work as they can handle and if they stopped filming, they’d keep getting work. And obviously the network would be okay too, but they’re happier keeping a hit show around than trying to find something new for their time slot. They’ve got a good thing going and there’s definitely no reason to rock the boat.

But Moving On Up has always had broad seasonal story arcs, starting with her and Bellamy’s second courtship, and they’ll need a new one for the fifth season if they want to keep the trend going. And she and Bellamy have actually had a break from that this season, since Miller got together with one of the camera men back in season two, and he and Monty are now secure enough in their relationship to allow it to be dramatized. It was nice, taking the back seat for a little while, but it was a risk for the network too, and the ratings for the season have been down. Diyoza probably wants to bounce back from that with an affirmation that the show is still about Clarke and Bellamy.

Which is another reason Clarke is bristling against babies as a solution. Like Bellamy said, she’s not going to change her entire life because some assholes on twitter think her marrying a guy (and Bellamy marrying a woman) makes her straight, but there are people making good points in there too. Her life is less and less of a lie, as the show catches up with reality, but she could have had a female love interest or something. She could be doing more to be a visible bisexual woman on a network that skews very cishet.

On the other hand, she doesn’t owe anyone her life or her happiness. Just because she’s bisexual and in the public eye, she’s not required to be the perfect representation.

But making it about babies still feels like a lot.

“What about foster kids?” she asks Bellamy.

“Is it weird that I feel worse about those?”

“From a fame perspective?”

“Yeah. If we had a baby, a lot could change by the time the kid has grown up, like you said. But if we got a foster kid, I’d want someone older, and then we’d be having them sign onto–” He waves his hand. “All this.”

“Which they could do.”

“And then what?” Clarke cocks her head, confused, and he clarifies, “We’re not going to be on this show forever, right?”

They probably could be on the show forever, or on another one, if they got tired of this gimmick. But at the same time, their lives without the cameras are good too. Clarke couldn’t imagine keeping going with what she did in Should I Stay Or Should I Go after the show wrapped in part because what they did was so tied to the show itself. She could have kept on doing renovations–and she did–but the traveling around, the competition with Murphy, those things she’d lose.

And Bellamy, of course. If she and Bellamy hadn’t been together when the show wrapped, she would have let them recast Murphy, would have kept going just to stay with him. But now, she has a life. She and Bellamy are married and settled, with a shop that does well enough and jobs lined up all around the tri-state area. They’ve settled in as part of the community, the town’s best-known citizens, and they don’t need the show to keep that status. At some point, she’ll get tired of having cameras around. The logistics of cameras and reshoots and everything else will stop being worth it, and she’ll settle in to just being a person.

It could be soon.

“What if we just let them give us a kid?” she asks, the words coming out at the same time the idea is forming. “If we cast someone in the role of our foster kid. It doesn’t have to be real, it just has to be a good story. We spend a season talking about it, making up our minds, signing up for foster programs, and then we see one season of us as a family, and then–that can be it.”

“It?” he asks. “Done after five seasons?”

“I think maybe.” She taps her knee. “I don’t think–we’re never going to feel like we’re living our lives, as long as we’ve got the show. It’s always going to be about how it works on camera, what that means, you know?”

“Yeah, I know. That’s part of why I didn’t mind taking a bigger role, I think. For this show.”

“Really?”

He shrugs. “Not that I thought of it in those terms, but yeah. Even on Should I Stay Or Should I Go, I always knew the cameras were there, so taking on a bigger role wasn’t that different. It was fun. It’s still fun.”

“But it’s always a little fake.”

“Pretty much.”

“Whatever happens with kids, with family–I want that to be real.”

“Me too,” he says. “So–two more years, and we’re done? At least with this one.”

Clarke has to smile. “This one?”

“If we miss it, we could figure out something else. Something that isn’t about us. More business, less personal. Just if we want.”

“You’re going to miss being on TV.”

“I might,” he admits. “But I’m not sure. I want to find out.”

“So, two more seasons, one fake foster kid, and then we decide what we actually want to do with the rest of our lives.”

He smiles. “This, but with kids.”

“Something like that. I’ll ask Diyoza if casting a kid for us is actually a thing. If it’s not, we can just be–working on it, I guess. See how it goes.”

“It’ll be nice to not worry about that,” he admits. “Not having to think about whether or not we want something to be a part of the show.”

“Or feeling bad if we don’t put it in the show.”

“Or that.” He puts his arm around her and squeezes. “It’s still our life, Clarke. We don’t have to feel bad for wanting to keep some of it to ourselves, or all of it.”

“I know. But I’m looking forward to not having to pick and choose.”

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Can’t wait.”

The weird thing about getting older is that time starts to mean something different. Two years still sounds like a long time, but Clarke knows it’s going to fly by, especially once filming starts. The cameras eat up time in great gulps, and it’s not bad, but it means that a decision like “we’ll get a kid in one year and be done with the show in two” sounds like it won’t happen any time soon, but once the choice is made, everything goes very quickly.

They start filming a couple months after that conversation, and the first few renovations they do are all for families with small children. Bellamy’s a natural with kids, so he’s the one who does more interacting, asking them what they want for their rooms, how they want the yards remodeled. It makes something flip in Clarke’s chest every time she sees it, how natural he is, how much he clearly loves kids. Even if they hadn’t planned this, it would probably inspire her to start talking about next steps.

As it is, they’re about halfway through the season when she says, “Did we ever come to a conclusion about babies?”

“I thought we did. Did you not?”

“We agreed to do fake fostering and then figure it out. I think I figured it out: I want to have a baby.”

“Huh.”

“And probably foster too,” she adds. “We have plenty of room, and I know there are kids who need families, especially older ones, and I think we could be good at that. But we could do that and still have a baby.”

“We could, if you want. Do you want to start working on that soon?”

“Maybe once this season is over. Then if it works, we still don’t have to deal with having a newborn on the show.”

“And we have some time to get used to the idea.”

“You need time?”

“A little, yeah. Just to wrap my mind around it.”

“If you don’t want–”

He kisses her. “I want. I just thought you didn’t, so–I didn’t want to get my hopes up.”

“You could have just told me, too.”

“You’re the one who has to have a human grow inside you, your vote counts more.”

“Cool. My vote is that we talk to a doctor and start planning.”

“I like that plan.” He smirked. “It was me giving that girl a piggyback ride yesterday, right?”

“No,” she lies.

As usual, he sees right through her. “Of course it wasn’t. You were pretty cute not knowing how to hold the baby last week.”

“I can learn!”

“You can. It’ll be fun.”

“Fun,” she agrees, trying for dubious, but ruining it with an irrepressible smile. “Sure.”

There’s a part of Clarke that wants to cancel the foster-kid auditions once they’ve decided to actually start trying for a baby sooner or later, but a larger part of her is kind of morbidly curious. Diyoza’s looking for kids between nine and twelve, old enough to know what’s going on but young enough to still be cute, who are in the foster system for shorter stints with no real need of a forever home. It feels vaguely surreal, but probably fine, assuming everyone is on the same page and no one thinks they’re being taken advantage of.

So, of course, the first kid fixes them with a calculating stare and asks, “Are you getting a sponsorship or something for this?”

According to the profile Diyoza gave them, her name is Madison Templeton and she’s eleven years old. Her parents died when she was seven, so she’s been in the system for a while, living with various relatives. Her aunt is her current caretaker, but she’s been declared unfit and has to complete a course before regaining her rights. It’s a good position for the show, because the woman was able to grant the network rights to show her niece as a foster kid, but they won’t need to keep her for long.

It makes Clarke feel like she needs a shower.

“A sponsorship?” Bellamy asks.

“Or is it like a ratings stunt? You want to test drive adding a kid to the show before you commit.”

“This is the last season of the show,” says Clarke. “Ratings aren’t really a big deal anymore.”

“So you just want to get good PR before you go out?”

“We’re really thinking about fostering,” Clarke says. “Why not get started now?”

“But you’re just looking for kids you can’t actually keep. What’s up with that?”

“It seemed like the best solution when we were trying to figure stuff out,” Bellamy says. He cocks his head at her. “You don’t think so?”

“It seems kind of shitty. You give a kid a few months of the good life and then throw them away.”

“Don’t you just need a couple months?” Clarke asks. “And then you go back to your aunt?”

The girl considers for a moment, face twisting like she’s trying to find a way around it. “Yeah, but still.”

Bellamy is watching her with interest. “We don’t have to foster anyone. If you think it’s a bad idea.”

“If I do?”

“We wanted an older kid because we figured we could talk about what was happening with them and make sure everyone was on the same page. So, yeah, we want to know what you think. You’re the expert.”

Madison chews her lip, thinking it over. “I’ve been a lot of places,” she offers. “And every time I tell myself I’m not going to stay there, but I get my hopes up anyway. Like, even if my aunt takes the class and gets me back, I don’t think I’m going to be with her for that long. So you can tell some kid that this is just for a few months, but they’ll probably still be hoping you’ll keep them. You’re rich, right?”

“Pretty rich, yeah,” Clarke says. “The house isn’t that big, but we have plenty of money in savings. And more than enough room.” She wets her lips. “You don’t think your aunt is going to get custody back?”

“She will eventually, probably. But it’s not really a priority for her.”

“So what do you want?”

Madison looks surprised. “What do you mean?”

“You showed up,” says Bellamy, figuring out Clarke’s train of thought as easily as ever. “Did you just want to see what was going on? Or do you want a couple good months while your aunt gets her shit together?”

“I’d take the months if I could get them,” says Madison. “It sounds kind of interesting. Would I have to do anything?”

“Appear on camera occasionally, go along with reality TV stuff. Other than that, probably pretty standard foster-kid stuff. Go to school, do your homework, talk to us if you have problems.”

“If you pick me,” she says, careful. “You’ve got a bunch of kids to audition, right?”

“Talk to,” says Clarke, feeling uncomfortable. “They’re not auditions, just–getting a feel for people.”

She tries to convince herself it’s not a lie, but she and Bellamy make it through exactly one more interview before the guilt gnaws through her.

“We liked Madison, right?” she asks Bellamy.

“Yeah, we did.”

“And we’re going to pick her, right?”

He smiles. “We are?”

“Aren’t we?”

“Probably, yeah,” he admits. “You don’t want to keep going?”

“I feel like an asshole, making these kids line up for us.”

“Yeah, I feel that. It seemed normal, but I was picturing, like–actors. Not real foster kids.”

“Diyoza said it would be easy for people to figure out if it was just actors,” Clarke says, with a sigh. “But we know people don’t check, so I should have told her no.”

“But you didn’t, and you want to take Madison.”

“Like you don’t.”

He smiles with half his mouth. “It’s going to be a disaster.”

“You think?”

“We’re going to get attached and want to keep her.”

“But you still want to.”

“I still want to.”

He nods. “Me too. I’ll tell them we’re done with the meetings. We made up our minds.”

She still feels like a little bit of an asshole, but in the unavoidable way that comes from feeling like doing something is worse than doing nothing, because she can’t do everything. They could maybe take another foster kid, maybe even two, but they can’t take everyone who needs a place. And they might not even be a good place, after all. Starting with one kid and going from there is a better plan, and Madison will probably give them honest feedback about whether or not this is a good fit for them.

Despite everything, Clarke has a good feeling about this.

They go to pick her up the next day, find her outside the social services office with two duffel bags, apparently all the possessions she has. She watches as they drive up, eyes narrowed, loads up her stuff without comment. They drive most of the way back to the farm before she asks, “Why me?”

“We liked you,” says Clarke.

“That’s it?”

Bellamy shrugs. “It seemed like the best reason.”

She sits with the words for a long moment. “Yeah,” she finally says. “I guess so.”

They have a month to settle in before filming of the last season starts, and it’s definitely necessary. One of the nice things about Moving On Up, at least from Clarke’s perspective, is that the reality is always in the past tense. They went back and recreated the start of their relationship; Bellamy proposed off-screen months before the second season, which followed his attempts to come up with a sufficiently romantic gesture. The two of them were married a week before the big ceremony that happened on TV. If they’d had to deal with meeting Madison–who prefers Madi–and getting used to her in real time, on camera, it would have been incredibly stressful.

Not that getting to know her without cameras isn’t a lot. She’s a good kid and Clarke likes her, but she’s prickly, distrustful, and it takes time for them to get used to each other. She refuses to unpack her stuff because she could be gone any day, and Clarke wants to tell her she’s not going anywhere, even though she knows as well as Madi does that it’s true. Her aunt is still her guardian, and she’s a temporary part of the family.

By the time the cameras show up, they’re not perfect, but they’re at least mostly settled. Madi likes the dog and the farm, is coming to like Clarke and Bellamy despite her better instincts.

Bellamy’s the one who suggests they sit her down the day before filming starts to check in, but Clarke agrees it’s the best choice. At this point, they pretty much understand her, and it’s worth addressing their concerns now, before the cameras are around making everyone self-conscious.

“How are you feeling about filming?” Bellamy asks, to start them off.

Madi shrugs. “Fine. I don’t have to do much, right? Just be around?”

“Yeah. We’ll probably see you once or twice an episode, and the producers want you hanging around the store, but we’ll be doing most of the talking.”

“Saying how great it is?”

Her voice has an edge to it, and Clarke and Bellamy exchange a look before Clarke picks up the conversation. “It’s not bad, right?”

“No.”

“We’re not going to kick you out when the season ends. You have a place here for as long as you need one.”

She jerks up, eyes flashing. “What if my aunt never wants me back? What if she doesn’t care enough to get custody back?”

“Then you can stay,” says Bellamy. His voice is calm. “And if she does take you back, we’re not going anywhere. If you need us, we’ll be here for you.”

As is her way, Madi takes her time considering it. “You really mean that, don’t you,” she finally says, less a question than a revelation.

“We haven’t done the best job with this whole thing,” he admits, slow. “TV really does destroy your brain. We don’t know how to be people anymore, we’re paranoid and careful, even with–you’re a kid. Don’t argue,” he adds, smiling a little. “We’re older than you, we still get to call you a kid. You’re old enough to understand what’s going on, but that’s not enough.”

“It’s not?”

“We were never just planning to throw you away. If you need someone–you’ll always be family, Madi. Even if you don’t live with us for very long, that doesn’t change anything.”

“What if I never want to leave?” she asks, voice so soft Clarke can barely hear it.

“You’d have to talk to your aunt.” She puts her arm around Madi’s shoulders. “We can’t just take you, it’s still–she’d have to give you up.”

“She would,” Madi says. “She doesn’t want me.”

“We can talk to her,” Bellamy says. “If you want. It might take time, though.”

“Just like that?” Madi asks.

“If you want,” he says again.

“But you didn’t want to keep anyone.”

“You’re not anyone,” Clarke says, smiling. “You’re Madi. We want to keep you.”

The last episode of the show is Bellamy adding an extension to their own house, the first renovations they’ve ever done for themselves.

“You know we already have enough bedrooms, right?” Madi asks Bellamy. She took to reality TV like a fish to water, but Clarke doesn’t think she’ll miss it. She’ll find something else to be good at.

“It’s symbolic.”

“What does is symbolize?”

He glances up at Clarke, and she smiles. The pregnancy is small and new, enough that it hasn’t been confirmed in the show. They just had a conversation about wanting to try, leaving their fictional lives on a more uncertain note. The truth can just be theirs.

“Our family getting bigger. You don’t want more room?”

“I like room outside.”

“There’s still plenty of that. It’s not going anywhere.”

“And this way you’ll be farther away from any babies we have,” Clarke adds. “They won’t wake you up.”

“They still could. Babies are loud.”

“It’s good TV, that’s it,” Bellamy says. “Happy now?”

“Kind of. I figured we were good TV already.”

“People have spent a lot of time with us,” Clarke says. “They want closure. To feel like we’re happy and doing well. They want to know that we’re going to be okay.”

“And we are, right?” Madi asks, sounding only a little insecure. She mostly believes, these days. That they’ll be keeping her.

Clarke gives her a hug around the shoulders, her favorite kind of low-pressure affection. “Yeah. We’re going to be great.”

#lackingstealth

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chasholidays · 5 years

Note

Hi! Whenever I hear the song 'Christmas Wrapping' by The Waitresses I think of a Bellarke modern AU based on it, with the two of them meeting and almost getting together all through a busy year, and it never working out, and then all sorting itself out at Christmas, and would love to read your take on it. Here's the link to a youtube vid with the lyrics in case you don't know the song: youtube. com/ watch?v=ARq6uYSsUq0 Good luck with all the writing, you're awesome!

hey y’all, due to the realities of “having shit to do over the hoildays,” I’ll be taking a few days off of posting after this! we’ll be back for the last seven fills starting Saturday, 12/29. however you are spending the rest of the week, I hope you enjoy it!

December

“You look miserable.”

Bellamy was zoning out, plotting out the rest of his (fairly grim) evening in his head and ignoring the sounds of the lodge party around him, but the unfamiliar voice startles him out of it and looks down to see a cute blonde wearing a truly hideous sweater and smiling up at him from under a reindeer-ear headband.

“You look shockingly upbeat,” he says without thinking, and she laughs.

“Haven’t you ever heard of Christmas cheer?”

He glances between her mug and her face. “So just a bunch of alcohol?”

“95% Bailey’s, 5% hot chocolate,” she agrees. “With whipped cream on the top.”

He has to smile. “So you’re saying I should be drunker.”

“I don’t know you or your life, but you are at a Christmas party. So, yes, you should be drunker and less sad. Unless you’re a mopey drunk, in which case you should be drunker and more sad.”

He laughs. “One, I’m not really at this party.”

The woman pointedly looks around, then back at him. “Are you astral projecting?”

“My sister works here, so she got me a deal on the room, but I’m not really doing any of the guest stuff. I just wanted coffee. Non-Irish.”

“Why aren’t you doing guest stuff? Just because you got a deal doesn’t make you not a guest. And feel free to tell me to leave you alone any time, I won’t be offended.”

“I’ll just leave once I’ve got my coffee,” he says, with a smile he hopes comes across as friendly and teasing, not smug. The woman is cute and also right: in theory, he really should be taking advantage of all the facilities at the lodge. Not that he’s ever much for parties, especially ugly-sweater parties, but he could at least be learning to ski or something. “I’m in grad school,” he explains. “I’m done for the semester, but I’m trying to get ahead for next semester. And I teach too, so–free time doesn’t really exist right now.”

“What are you studying?”

“Education. It’s a licensing thing, I can teach, but I need a masters’ for–” He waves his hand. “You don’t care.”

“Professional license?” she asks, to his surprise. “Or something like that. It’s a professional license in Massachusetts.”

“That’s where I’m getting mine, yeah.”

“What do you teach?”

“History.”

The woman nods, takes another sip of her drink. “I’m in Boston. I’m not a teacher, but I’m a social worker, so I talk to a lot of teachers about how the kids are doing. Are you done with grading?”

“Mostly,” he says, absent. The crowd clears enough he can get to the drinks table, and he’s glad when she follows him as he finds a mug and fills it up. “You’re in Boston?”

“Yeah.”

He laughs. “Wow, me too. What are the odds?”

“Probably not that bad. I think it’s mostly people from New England here. It’s a pain to get to Vermont.”

“I guess you’re right. What area of the city are you in?”

She’s not that close to him, but it’s not like it’s a huge city. He knows some of the schools she works with, and they have some acquaintances in common. He’s also competent enough to learn that her name is Clarke Griffin, she’s twenty-five, single, and bisexual, and she just keeps getting cuter and drunker. Which is actually kind of a problem, because in order to not feel scuzzy flirting with her, he’d have to get a lot drunker himself, and he still has stuff he really has to get done tonight.

“Are you here through the holiday?” he asks, once he’s stayed for as long as he possibly can without breaking out in anxiety hives.

“No, this is actually my last day. Our office doesn’t close except for Christmas day, so we always need coverage. My friend Raven said time is a construct, so we always go on vacation the week before Christmas to celebrate.”

He nods. “That sucks.”

“I don’t mind. The office is dead and I’m the only one around, it’s kind of nice. I catch up on paperwork and play my music really loud.”

He smiles. “I meant that you’re leaving here and I really can’t stick around tonight. Grading to finish up and papers to submit.”

“So you’re going to start having fun after I leave.”

“Probably not, but I’ll at least have maybe two hours of free time.”

“And I’m guessing it’s not any better once you get home.”

“I’m used to it.”

“Yeah, but I want to ask for your number. But if you never have free time–”

“If I get your number, I can get in touch when I do have free time.”

“Works for me.” They trade phones for the number exchange. “Good luck with the grading.”

“Good luck with not being too hungover tomorrow.”

“I’m good at not getting hungover.” She bites the corner of her mouth. “Do you think there’s any mistletoe around?”

“No idea.”

She leans up and kisses the corner of his mouth, light. “Well,just pretend. Merry Christmas, Bellamy Blake.”

He smiles. “Merry Christmas.”

February

Bellamy has three spring breaks, which is both better and worse than it sounds.

New England has this regional quirk where the K-12 schools have two spring breaks, one in February and one in April, which Bellamy would be fine with, except that colleges don’t do that, so he has a total of three weeks off over the course of the spring, but it’s never actually being totally off. When he’s not teaching, he’s still got grad school, and when grad school is off, he still has to teach.

Still, with teaching off his plate, he has a little more flex time, enough that he thinks he could, potentially, actually get a drink with Clarke.

There’s a part of him that thinks even asking is stupid. He liked Clarke, enjoyed talking to her and would like to do it more, but this year feels like the wrong time to attempt a new friendship, let alone a new romance. But pending getting in touch with her until after the summer semester seems risky, at best. He doesn’t want to miss out on something good just because he regularly realizes weeks have passed without his noticing.

And it’s not as if they’ve been completely out of touch. He was competent enough to text her the day after their first meeting, to make sure she’d made it home okay, and she in turn asked if he’d finished his grading. It hadn’t been a long conversation, but she’d texted him a few weeks later with a history question, and he’d checked in for advice about a student who was acting up. They’re both doing their best to keep the connection alive, tending to that small spark, and that means Bellamy can put in the effort to actually see her, now that he has some time.

Me: I sort of have a break coming up

Clarke: Sort of good for youWhat break?

Me: February break for high schoolI still have grad school stuff, but no teachingSo I probably have some amount of free time

Clarke: Shit

Me: Yeah, I hate some amount of free time too

Clarke: Not thatI’m chaperoning a trip for some of the kids at a group home over spring breakIt’s a great programReally coolI love doing itBut I’m going to be in California all week

Me: That does sound like a great programWhere in California?

Clarke explains the itinerary, where she’s most excited to go, what challenges she’s anticipating, and it’s sort of the whole Clarke problem in a nutshell. Part of him feels like he should take this as a sign it’s not meant to be, that he and Clarke will only ever be ships passing in the night and it’s pointless to fight it. But every time he talks to her, it reminds him of why he does like her, why he wants to figure out how this could work.

And, a week later, she’s texting him pictures of herself on a California vacation, so she wants to figure it out too.

It’s just a matter of time.

April

Me: Do you want to come to my birthday party?

Clarke: Yes, obviouslyBut I’m not going to get carried away and say I’m actually comingI think we might be cursed

Me: That would be a weird curse

Clarke: It would, but I’m not taking any chancesWhen’s your birthday?

Me: April 25

Clarke: Happy early birthdayTurning 30, right?

Me: Somehow, yeah

Clarke: I assume the party isn’t on the 25th

Me: No, on Friday

Clarke: This Friday?

Me: Yeah, I know it’s short noticeI wasn’t planning to do anything but then my friend talked me into it

Clarke: I think I can actually make it!Where and when?

Obviously, Bellamy doesn’t actually think they’re cursed, but he does have some trouble believing that Clarke will actually make it, or ]that it will actually be good if she does. Maybe she’ll show up and he’ll realize he doesn’t like her as much as he thought he did, that he’s too invested in a person he barely knows.

“Maybe you’re just scared because you haven’t had a crush in like five years,” Miller says, dry.

“It hasn’t been that long.”

“You sure?”

Bellamy frowns, trying to remember. “Gina and I dated three years ago, so–”

“Yeah, but she picked you up at a bar. It’s not like you had time to get in your head about it.”

“Clarke picked me up at a ski lodge.”

“And then left and you haven’t seen her for four months. And you’ve been in your head about it the whole time.”

This is probably both true and a large part of his problem. Bellamy’s pretty good at relationships, if he does say so himself, but actually getting intoa relationship is always rocky. Especially when he has a crush. Clarke is the worst of all worlds because it should be a slam dunk, but the universe is conspiring against them.

Right on cue, his phone buzzes with a text from her: So we might actually be cursed.

He groans. “Fuck, I think she’s canceling.”

Miller’s eyebrows shoot up. “Seriously?”

Clarke: I think I’m still going to make itBut one of my clients has a problem with her foster homeAnd I need to get her out and find somewhere else for her to goSo I’m going to be late to very lateI’ll text when I’m done to make sure you’re still thereSorry

Me: You really don’t have to apologizeGo help the kid I hope everything’s okay

Miller’s watching him. “So?”

“Work emergency. She’s delayed.” He sighs. “Honestly, if I didn’t know better, I’d say she just didn’t want to hang out, but she started it, and she keeps saying she wants to make this work.”

“Does she ever invite you to do stuff?”

“Yeah, every couple weeks, but she’s busy too. She works Tuesday to Saturday, so Fridays are usually out, and a lot of weird overtime. Or emergencies, like this.” He smiles with half his mouth, caught between amusement and weariness. “Last time she asked if I wanted to hang out, I was chaperoning a dance. The time before that, I was out of town.”

“So you two really do have the world’s shittiest luck.”

“From what I can tell, yeah. Even if she comes tonight, I have no idea when our schedules are going to work out again.”

“But you’re going to keep trying?”

He takes a drink of his beer, shoots Miller a sidelong glance. “What, you think I shouldn’t?”

“Nah, just surprised. I sort of figured you’d just give up on the whole thing. Decide this was the universe’s way of telling you that it wasn’t meant to be. I probably couldn’t even make fun of you for giving up at this point.”

“I want it to work,” he says. “Or at least give it a fair shot.”

“Huh.” Miller raises his glass. “Then I hope she shows.”

“Yeah, me too.”

She texts at 10:30 to ask if he’ll still be there in fifteen minutes, and he probably wouldn’t be staying much longer left to his own devices, but she’s worth waiting for.

It doesn’t occur to him until she sits down next to him that this is his first time seeing her in person since December. It’s a little disorienting, how rarely they’ve actually been together, relative to how much he likes her.

“Hey, happy birthday,” she says.

“Thanks. Everything okay? With the kid.”

“It’s not great. Her foster dad was making her really uncomfortable. We got her out for the night, but she’ll need a new placement, and we probably have to do an investigation into the family.”

“That sucks.”

“It does, but I’m done with it for the night, so–I’m all yours. Is anyone else still around?”

“I made them leave so they wouldn’t make fun of me.”

“For waiting around for me?”

“For being shitty at flirting.”

She grins, the brightness of it lighting up her whole face. “You don’t really need to do a lot of flirting. I’m pre-picked up.”

“I like flirting.”

“But you’re shitty at it.”

“I’m practicing.”

She laughs. “Well, at least you know it’s going to work.”

“That helps.” He leans in, his own smile huge. “So, do you come here often?”

“First time. But I’m hoping to come back.”

They stay for another two hours and make out in their Lyft, but when Clarke asks if he wants to come up to her place, he shakes his head.

“I’ve got stuff to do tomorrow, and I don’t–” He smiles, a little sheepish. “I don’t know when I’m going to see you again, and I don’t want it to be, like–”

“We sleep together and don’t see each other for another four months?”

“Pretty much.”

“Yeah, that makes sense.” She leans over for one more kiss. “Happy birthday, Bellamy.”

“Thanks.”

June

Clarke: So, is summer less busy for you?

Me: Usually yes

Clarke: But we’re cursed?

Me: Twelve-month masters. I have one more summer term to goPlus I’m going on vacation with my sisterBut in theory next fall is going to be better

Clarke: In theory?

Me: I’ll be done with school but we might still be cursedI don’t want to jinx it

Clarke: TrueFingers crossedKeep me posted

August

Me: Good news/bad news

Clarke: Your vacation got canceled so you can hang out with me next week?

Me: Close The AP history teacher just quitAnd they want me to replace herWhich is awesome, I really want to be teaching that classBut she took all her materials and left with no noticeSo I’m going to be scrambling to come up with an entire APUSH curriculum

Clarke: So you’re going to be really busy next semester

Me: I’m going to be really busy next semester

Clarke: I got a promotion so Kind of similar boat thereI was going to tell you whenever or I saw youOr whenever it kept me from seeing youWhichever came first

Me: Definitely the second oneWith our luck

Clarke: Yeah, sounds rightCongrats though, that’s awesome

Me: You tooGlad everything else in our lives is going well

Clarke: It could be worseNothing could be going well

Me: YeahStill, we should at least get drinks to celebrate

Clarke: Probably sometime in October

Me: That sounds rightSee you then

Clarke: It’s a tentative date

October

Clarke: Am I allowed to booty call you?

Bellamy’s buried under a pile of grading, but the sound of the phone pulls his attention back, and he finds it and stares at the message for a long second, trying to do the math in his head. Clarke is at a Halloween party that he was theoretically invited to, but he was just too slammed.

No is an acceptable answer pops up and he smiles.

Me: No, you should definitely come overBooty calls are very welcomeDo you have my address?

Clarke: I actually don’tAre you easily accessible via public transportation

Me: Yeah but on the green lineSo

Clarke: That’s fineI’m in Cambridge, I’ll take the train over and sober upSee you soon

Amazingly, the knowledge that Clarke is coming over doesn’t completely break his concentration. If anything, it actually motivates him more, because he wants to be done and have his full focus on his–whatever Clarke is. His pending girlfriend, maybe. The person he’s definitely going to date when they can just get their acts together.

The person he’s spending tonight with, for sure.

Things go wrong five minutes after she gets on the red line.

Clarke: We’re standing by between Central and Harvard

Me: Did they say why?

Clarke: I assume signal problemIt’s always signal problemAnyway, I might be a while

Me: That’s fineJust let me know when you get here

In theory, it’s about forty minutes on the red line to the green line, but Clarke stands by at every station between Harvard and Park Street, and then her next train goes out of service and Symphony, so it ends up being a full two hours before she arrives, exhausted and still dressed in Hogwarts robes.

“I don’t even want to get laid anymore, I just want to pass out.”

Bellamy smiles, pulling her into his arms. “Yeah, I don’t blame you. Do you want to sleep here?”

“If you don’t mind.”

He kisses her hair. “I wanted to see you, or course I don’t want you to just leave. You want the tour?”

“I assume it’s short.”

“It is. And it ends at the bed.”

It’s nice, having Clarke in his space. He loans her a t-shirt to sleep in and she gets settled while he brushes his teeth and gets ready himself. He hasn’t had anyone sleep over since he and Gina broke up, and it’s nice, the way she curls around him and exhales like there’s nowhere else she’d rather be.

“This girl was hitting on me at the party,” she murmurs.

“Yeah? Was she cute?”

“She was. But it was like–I have someone. Or I want to have someone, I guess. I don’t know why I’d hook up with someone else when I just want to be with you.”

He pulls her closer, rubs his thumb against her shoulder. “Yeah, I’m glad you came here. I know it’s been–rough.”

“It’s not just you. I’ve been busy and held up and–” She presses her lips against his chest. “It feels like maybe this wasn’t supposed to happen, but I still want it to.”

“Me too. But I have somewhere to be early tomorrow so–”

“So we’ll catch up later.”

He smiles. “Yeah, we always do.”

December

The thing about Christmas is that it is, by mutual communal agreement, a big deal. It’s not one of those holidays where you just sort of celebrate it with whoever you’re with; spending Christmas with someone means something.

So Bellamy figures he’ll ask Clarke if she wants to hang out after the holiday. He knows she’s doing her usual trip with Raven and working the holiday, so he figures he can check in once the dust has settled, maybe make some plans with her for New Year’s.

He never lies about what he’s doing, but he feels weird telling her. It feels so dramatic and stupid, opting out of the holiday, and he doesn’t want her to feel like she has to hang out with him.

Which is also stupid. It’s stupid all the way down.

But somehow, it feels like next year is going to be better. After a year of playing phone tag and trying to make things work, they’re still trying. And he’s getting into the groove of teaching AP and Clarke isn’t going to work on weekends anymore and they might be able to make time to see each other more than once every few months.

It doesn’t feel like he needs to rush it now. They’re already taking their time, so they might as well do it right.

So New Year’s with Clarke. That seems doable. And he’ll relax until then.

She sends a bunch of pictures from her vacation in Florida, which means selfies in a bathing suit and sunglasses, pretty much the best Christmas present ever, and when she gets back and asks what he’s up to, he admits that he’s around and free.

His phone rings immediately. “You’re in Boston doing nothing right now?” she demands.

“I’m playing video games, it’s not nothing.”

There’s a pause. “You don’t want to see me?”

He scrambles up, even though she can’t see him. “Fuck, of course I do.”

“But you weren’t going to tell me you were here?”

“It’s Christmas Eve.”

“And?”

“I thought it might be weird. I’m not even doing anything, just sitting at home alone. It’s not like–” He sighs. “I didn’t want it to be a big deal.”

“It’s not. Can I come over?”

“Yeah, of course.”

Half of him expects the train to fuck her over again, or for something else to go wrong, but he tidies up a little anyway, just in case she really does show up. He wishes he had a tree, or at least a few lights, but it’s too late for that.

It’s not like Clarke’s coming to see his (lack of) decorations anyway. He’s the big draw.

“I can’t believe it’s only been two months since I saw you,” he teases, when she arrives, but Clarke isn’t fooling around. She yanks him down by the front of his shirt, mouth crashing into his, and Bellamy laughs into the kiss. “Hi.”

“Hi. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas.” He tucks her hair behind her ear. “I figured we’d just hang out after the holiday.”

“Which is a total waste of two days we could be hanging out. I thought you were hanging out with your sister again.”

“I was going to, but then I realized I don’t have anything to do for vacation.”

“And you didn’t tell me.”

“I didn’t want to ask you to come spend Christmas with me. It seemed weird. We’re not even–are we dating?”

“Not very often.”

“I think this is going to be our year. I’m finally going to have enough time to be a real person. Or at least to be your boyfriend.”

“New Year’s resolution?”

“If there’s one thing I learned this year it’s that you’re worth prioritizing.”

“Yeah?”

“I spent a whole year wishing I was seeing you. I don’t want to do that again.”

“But you wanted to wait until December 26th to see me,” she teases.

“Sorry. Do you want to spend Christmas watching Netflix on my couch and making out? I didn’t get you anything and I’m planning to have mac and cheese for dinner. It’s not going to be glamorous.”

“Am I going to see you again in the next week?”

“As much as you want, yeah. School’s out until after New Year’s, so I’ve got plenty of time.”

“Perfect. I want to get laid.”

He laughs. “I can’t believe you waited a whole year for this. Most people who have just given up by now.”

“It’s like you don’t even know how hot you are.” Her expression softens, and she leans in, giving him a soft kiss. “You’re worth waiting for, Bellamy.”

“And you’re worth making time for.” He tugs her toward the couch, and they settle in, close and warm.

Somehow, it feels like Christmas. No tree, no presents, not even any snow, but warm and happiness and–love, probably. The start of it, at least. Something growing.

“This is going to be our year,” he says, and she smiles.

“Yeah, I think so too.”

#rubycaspar

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chasholidays · 5 years

Note

Pursuant of the previously discussed post regarding Batman's age: Jake and Amy find out that Batman is essentially a teenage dad, panic, and adopt Batman.

the post in question; I didn’t get the teenage dad part in there it’s just the 99 adopting batman for no reason except that they can

Jake opens his presentation on Monday morning with, “Guess who just got a new superhero!”

“Is it us or is it Manhattan?” asks Terry. “Because it’s usually Manhattan.”

“He serves all five boroughs, Terry! Don’t try to take this away from me.”

“So he’s in Manhattan,” Rosa surmises.

“Moving on,” Jake says, hitting the button on his powerpoint to show a grainy image of a form dressed in all black with a cape. “He’s been spotted every night for the past week all over all five boroughs, including Brooklyn. So far he seems to be on our side.” He hits the next slide, a group of people in an alley, tied together somehow. “Catching perps and calling in tips to let police know where they are.”

“But still a criminal,” says Captain Holt.

“Come on, Captain, we need all the help we can get. And he’s so cool! I haven’t told you his name yet.”

“I assume something juvenile and non-descriptive.”

“Batman!” Jake exclaims.

“Is he a furry?” Rosa asks.

“No, Rosa, he’s not a furry.”

“How do you know he’s not a furry?”

“Actually, that’s a good question,” Amy puts in. “Maybe not specifically the furry thing, but how much do you know about this guy?”

He hits the button for the next slide. “This is the best shot we have of his costume. Does that look like a fursuit to you?”

“Why do you know what a fursuit looks like?” Terry asks.

“Because I did my research! Look, we’re getting away from the point. The point is: Batman is now a presence in the city. So far he is non-hostile to law enforcement and helping us!”

“But he is still a vigilante and if you encounter him, you should bring him in,” says Captain Holt.

“Counterpoint: he has cool stuff and we should ask him if he wants to share it.”

“Peralta, do you believe that the NYPD is a good thing?”

Jake pauses. “I believe the 99 is. Other than that, I’d say it’s a pretty mixed bag.”

“Yeah, NYPD’s had some issues,” Rosa puts in. “Can’t trust cops.”

“Fair enough,” says Holt. “Peralta, do you believe that the NYPD is a theoretically good thing that we should be improving?”

“Definitely.”

“If this–Batman character believes the same, he should be working within the system. If you want to fight crime, put on a police uniform, not a fursuit.”

“I disagree with you on a fundamental level but also can you say fursuit again?”

“No.”

“Damn it.” He sobers. “Look, the system doesn’t work for everyone, Captain. As long as Batman is on our side, we shouldn’t be trying to stop him.”

“I don’t believe we know enough about his so-called side to be saying he’s an ally. Regardless, unless you encounter the Batman, I don’t see any reason to pay any attention to him. However, it is useful to know about local vigilantes, so I appreciate the presentation, Peralta. Is that all?”

Jake clicks rapidly through a few more slides. “Bat fursuit for comparison, picture of his symbol, a few more cell phone pics, yup, that’s it.”

“Good. Dismissed.”

“You’re going to go look for Batman, huh,” Rosa murmurs, as they leave.

“Obviously,” says Jake. “He’s a hero.”

“He’s gonna be a furry.”

“He’s not a furry!” Jake calls at her, and she just waves over her shoulder, dismissive. “Not a furry.”

Amy manages a weak smile. “Sure he’s not.”

Charles is the first to actually encounter Batman.

“I was terrified!” he reports.

Jake makes a face. “You shouldn’t sound so happy when you say that.”

“Think about it Jake, if he scares me, he’ll scare criminals.”

“Wrong,” says Rosa. “You’re afraid of way more things than criminals are.”

“Yeah, Charles,” Amy adds. “You were scared of the My Little Pony movie.”

“Hey, that got dark.”

“So, what was he like, tell me everything,” says Jake.

“Well, he spoke in a deep, raspy voice. He told me to stay out of his way, and I asked him if he was a furry. Apparently he gets that a lot!”

“Well, that sounds like about what I would expect,” says Jake. “Did he at least give you some perps to round up?”

“Nope! He shot a grappling hook into the air and swung away.”

“Still cool! Counting that as a win.” He rubs his hands together. “Who’s next?”

It’s Rosa, three days later.

“I told him his car was dope. He told me my bike was dope. End of interaction.”

“How dope was his car?” Jake asks.

“So dope.”

“I knew it.”

Amy doesn’t mean to find Batman; it just happens.

“Tell me everything,” Jake says, when she gets home.

“There’s really not much to tell. Honestly, he was kind of a letdown.”

“Letdown? How could he be a letdown?”

“Well, I was walking home–”

“Uh huh, uh huh.”

“This is going to take forever if you react to everything.”

“Good feedback, continue.”

“I was walking home and I heard a fight. I went to investigate and I found him fighting with one guy, two already down. I put down my bags, got out my gun, and told them to freeze. Batman punched the last guy while he was distracted, and then he said, They’re all yours.”

“How is that a letdown?”

“I feel like he could have had a cooler line. Also, his voice was almost too gravely? He was trying way too hard.”

“He’s still new, he’ll grow into it. Maybe we could help him out.”

“You want to help Batman?”

“You’ve seen my diary full of quippy one-liners, you know I could give him suggestions.” The noise she makes is non-committal, and he protests, “Lots of those are good!”

“Some of them are.”

“They’re better than they’re all yours.”

“True. I just don’t think you should get too attached to this guy. I’m not sure he has what it takes to make it as a superhero.”

“Agree to disagree! I will be putting all my hopes and dreams onto him and will be crushed if he ever lets me down.”

Amy sighs. “That’s what I thought.”

Terry starts the care packages, albeit accidentally.

“I don’t think he’s eating right, and he definitely needs a better workout routine. Terry would make a much better vigilante.”

“Terry would,” Jake agrees. “We could make that happen.”

“I don’t want to be a vigilante, Jake.”

“But if you did, you would be an amazing one.”

“I would.”

“You really think Batman needs workout tips?” Amy asks, putting the conversation back on track.

“Everyone needs workout tips. Even Terry is still learning!”

“Then it’s settled,” says Jake. “Terry will prepare a care package, which we will deliver to Batman!”

“That’s not what I said,” Terry protests.

“Don’t you want to help him become his best self?”

Terry shifts, uncomfortable. “You know I do.”

“Perfect! You get the baskets done and we’ll do the rest.”

“How are you possibly going to give Batman a care package,” Rosa says, so dubious it doesn’t really qualify as a question.

“That’s for me to know and you to find out.”

“You don’t know, do you.”

“No, so I guess it’s for everyone to find out! Get me that basket, Sarge.”

“Oh my god oh my god oh my god it’s really him.”

“Stay calm, Jake.” Amy waves. “Excuse me, Batman?” The man turns. He’s definitely not as big as Terry, in any dimension. “Santiago and Peralta, NYPD. We have something for you.”

“What?” he says. His voice might be even deeper than the last time Amy heard it.

Jake thrusts the basket out. “We’re big fans and we just want you to be your best self, so–here! It’s a lot of yogurt and some exercises you can use to build your core.”

“Whose core doesn’t need a little work, right?” Amy asks.

Batman looks between their faces and the basket for a second, and then reaches out and accepts it, fast, like a wild animal.

“Thank you,” he says.

“And thank you for helping protect our city,” Jake says, too fast. “Do you have your grappling hook? Can you take me for an amazing ride through the city in your big strong arms?”

“Dial it back, babe,” Amy murmurs.

“Good call. If you ever need help in Brooklyn, come to the 99!”

“Understood,” he says, and then has to try to grappling hook away from the scene while juggling the basket, which is a little awkward.

“We’re going to work on that!” Jake calls. “And your one-liners!” He turns to Amy with a smile. “I think that went well.”

Amy pats his arm. “The best.”

“Attention, squad,” says Captain Holt, after a few weeks of covert Batman-helping. “It has come to my attention that you have been aiding and abetting the Batman in his vigilante activities.”

“No and no,” says Jake. “Why would you think that?”

“For one thing, the sergeant told me.”

“Damn it, Terry!”

“I had to! Terry’s conscience got the better of him!”

“Look, Captain, we’re not doing that much. Giving him some snacks, some workout tips, maybe a few ideas for witty banter. It’s not like we’re teaming up with him or anything, although I think that would be great PR and we should do it if at all possible.”

“Ah, yes, the excellent public-relations strategy of law enforcement working with someone who is actively breaking the law.”

“Jake’s right, Captain,” Gina pipes up. “People like the Batman way more than they like us. If we could find some way to leech some of his popularity it would deffo be great for the precinct. Like if he endorsed us? It would be amazing.”

“See, Captain? The people love Batman!” Jake pauses. “Is it Batman or the Batman? Ames?”

“Honestly, it’s very inconsistent across publications and social media. I wrote a letter to the New York Times editorial board to see why they’d elected to use the definite article but I haven’t heard back yet. They’re probably really busy.”

“Excellent, keep us posted. See, Captain? He’s so popular!”

“Stop giving the Batman care packages,” says the Captain. “Dismissed.”

“He never said we had to stop giving him stuff.”

“Jake!”

“Come on, it’s getting cold! I don’t think he’s adequately insulated for winter. And, let’s be real, he’s probably some broke college kid who put all this stuff together in his garage. If we don’t help him, he’ll starve and/or freeze.”

Amy gasps, about half genuinely. “Are you trying to be a caretaker?”

“Maybe I’m finally becoming responsible!”

“Hey, let’s not carried away.”

“Yeah, okay, giving stuff to an adult man dressed as a bat is definitely a baby step. Still, baby step!”

“Baby step!”

“Do you think I could knit him a scarf?”

Amy smiles. “I think you could definitely try.”

“Attention, squad,” Gina announces, one morning in December. “I am thrilled to inform you that our campaign to gain public support through our support of the Batman has worked.”

“Do not say that,” says Captain Holt. “We have no way of knowing if that this has anything to do with the Batman.”

“What is it?” asks Terry.

“We received a large anonymous donation, for our service to the city. I’m sure it’s unrelated.”

“And I’m sure it’s not!” says Jake. “We’re the cops who knitted Batman a sweater and the people support us. How much money is it? Did we get it in bags? Is there a pool we could fill with the money and then we go swimming?”

“There is not and the money is going to the precinct, not to us personally. There will be no swimming in it. And I will once again ask you to stop giving the Batman sweaters.”

“Request denied, this is the best thing that’s ever happened to us. Merry Christmas to all!”

In the Wayne manor, twenty-three-year-old Bruce Wayne is sitting in front of the fire, wearing a very poorly made black sweater with a yellow circle on the front, when Alfred comes in a letter. “A thank-you note. From Brooklyn’s 99th precinct, for your generous contribution.”

Bruce smiles. “Thank you, Alfred. That will be all.”

#jugularimugi

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chasholidays · 5 years

Text

this is our one and only joint promt! @ringmybellarke asked for a bodyswap AU and @la-la-lara asked for a Kimi no Na Wa AU, which, if you aren’t familiar, is also bodyswapping, so we’re filling those together.

I'm calling this canon divergence with grounder Bellamy, but I didn't want to actually deal with grounders or much that happened in canon, so it's the basic premise but there's nothing wrong with the air in the Ark and Bellamy isn't part of any of the grounder groups we know.

Clarke wakes up with an erection, which is exactly as alarming as it sounds, but somehow becomes a secondary concern as everything else about her situation starts to register. Her bed is firmer than it's supposed to be, the air warmer. The sun feels brighter, and there are sounds of people close by, sounds of--something else, too. Sounds she's never heard before in real life, sounds she doesn't have words for.

She opens her eyes to see an expanse of unidentified ground in front of her, much closer than the floor of her bedroom should be. When she pushes herself up, her arm is all wrong too, broad and tan and freckled, and that reminds her of the erection, which is still there, and she looks down at herself, finding a broad, bare chest, obviously male, and a bed made of coarse fabric and something like animal fur.

When she scrambles back, she finds the unfamiliar body is at least wearing shorts, but that's all, and the ground--ground, soil packed hard, or maybe clay, but either way--is cold and hard and a little more forgiving than the metal floor of the Ark.

"What the fuck," she says, her own voice rumbling through her throat, deep and unfamiliar.

"Bell, are you finally up?" someone calls. "It was your day to make breakfast, dick."

In books, people always think things like this are dreams, but the thought barely even registers as a real possibility to Clarke. Everything is too real, too immediate. If this is a dream, it's the most real dream she's ever had.

She pinches herself, once, just to get it out of the way, but when that doesn't work, she calls back, "Sorry, yeah! I'll be out in a minute!"

Even if it is somehow a dream, she can't wake herself up. All she can do is wait, investigate, and try to figure out what's going on and how to fix it.

From what Wells has said, morning erections are annoying but go away on their own, so Clarke ignores that whole issue and goes looking for clothing instead. She finds a wardrobe, an antique made of old, smooth wood, and in it clothing made of the same kind of materials as her bedding is. Some of it's thick and fairly complicated, but she finds the simplest shirt and trousers she can and pulls those on. There's no mirror, so she just inspects her outfit--probably fine--and runs her hands through her hair. It's thick and curly, a bit out of order, but she pats it down and hopes that's good enough.

The door goes straight outside into bright morning sunlight, and Clarke just stares for a minute, overwhelmed with the freshness of the air and the warmth of the sun and the trees stretching towards the sky. She's dreamed of the ground before but never like this, never so vividly, never with the smells and the tastes and--

"Took you long enough."

She looks down to see a girl sitting by a fire. She offers a bowl of something and Clarke accepts it, sitting down next to her cross-legged, only a little awkward with the unusual genitalia.

The girl is cute, maybe twelve or thirteen, with sharp eyes and long, brown hair in a complicated braid. She looks annoyed and expectant, and Clarke doesn't know what her line is, so she goes with, "Sorry I'm late. Overslept."

It's apparently the right thing to say. "I told you not to stay out so late."

"Sorry."

"You can stop apologizing, it's getting old. Just eat your breakfast and you're cooking tomorrow. I'll come wake you up, I don't care if you have someone in there."

"I didn't. Just tired."

"Whatever." She starts shoveling food into her mouth; Clarke follows suit, a little slower at first, but while the food isn't familiar, it is delicious, probably the best thing she's ever eaten, fresh and flavorful, tastes bursting on her tongue. Before she knows it, she's wolfing it down like she has't eaten in weeks.

"This is so good," she says. "What is it?"

It's a stupid thing to say, of course, and the girl gives her an odd look. "You made it."

"Oh, right."

"Are you okay?"

Clarke pastes on a smile. "Feeling kind of off. Didn't sleep well. Do I need to do anything important today?"

"How am I supposed to know?" she grumbles, but Clarke must be selling the off feeling, because she repents. "You told Tyr that you'd help with the garden, remember?"

"Right. Thanks."

She shakes her head. "Try drinking less." She drinks the remaining liquid in her bowl and sets it aside. "I cooked, you wash. See you tonight?"

"Have a good day," says Clarke, and the girl just waves over her shoulder as she goes.

Alone now, Clarke has the chance to really look around. She--or Bell, rather--seems to live in a small hut, one of several surrounding the fire pit where the girl was cooking. It seems to be the standard configuration for dwellings in the village. It seems to just be Bell and the girl in this group, which is odd too. She doesn't have a strong sense of how old Bell might be, but they seem young to be living alone. Could the girl be her daughter? Is Bell maybe a word for father? Or are they just friends? Orphans, maybe?

Fuck, what a mess.

There doesn't seem to be any plumbing, which means she has no idea where she's supposed to wash the breakfast dishes. But she sees some other people with what look like things to wash and follows them, at a fairly safe distance. If they're not going to the well or whatever else they use to clean things here, she can always say she was going somewhere else.

She's not sure where; she'll come up with something.

But the women leave the woods and make their way to a river, the water shining in the morning sunlight, so beautiful it nearly takes her breath away. She never dreamed it could look like this, that it could be like this.

She finds a spot on the shore, not too close to the women, and she's about to dip the bowl in when she suddenly catches sight of her own reflection in the water.

It's not like looking in a mirror, not really enough to get the whole picture, but she can make out a few features. Whoever she is, her hair is black and in some sort of order, and her eyes are dark.

She thinks she looks nice.

"There you are, Bellamy." An older woman sits down next to him, dipping her feet in the water. "Octavia said you were slacking on your cooking duties."

Bellamy. Bell for short. And the girl is Octavia.

"I overslept," she explains. "Out too late last night."

"You need more balance," she says, stretching down to dip her fingers in the water. "I know I said you work too hard, but you can't fix that by working just as hard as ever and throwing yourself into--" She makes a face like she's smelling something rotten. "Whatever it is you young people get up to."

Clarke smiles. "I was thinking about taking the day off, but I'm supposed to help with--" The words falter. For all she knows, this woman is Tyr, and Bellamy agreed to help with her garden.

Which must be the case, because the woman's expression softens. "It's not pressing to help with the garden, you know. If it wasn't for my back--"

"You know I'm happy to help."

"I know you are. And you know you don't owe me anything. You're family, it's my job to take care of you."

"It's my job to take care of you too," Clarke shoots back. She's got an idea of what Bellamy is like, one of those boys who treats his mother well but still likes fingering girls in dark corners at parties. She's hooked up with guys like that.

"Well, you can take care of me tomorrow. Today, you should take it easy."

On the Ark, she wouldn't manage it. She wouldn't be able to just take a day off from her responsibilities, and even if she'd been relieved, she would have found something productive to do.

On the ground, though, she doesn't know what her responsibilities are, and even if she did, she probably wouldn't know how to do them. The last thing she wants to do is screw up Bellamy's life. So she spends the day exploring, seeing all she can of the ground, trying to figure out if this is somehow, against all the odds, real. It doesn't make any sense, isn't even possible, but she can't convince herself it's just a dream. She can feel the chill of the running water, taste the food. There's bark under her fingers and clean air in her lungs.

It has to be real.

She eats dinner back in her own fire pit with Octavia. Her dinner is not up to Bellamy's usual standards, but apparently "I'm not feeling well today" is still an acceptable excuse for fucking up. Some of the other kids in town seem to expect her to come hang out with them, but she doesn't know if she can really pass for Bellamy , so she goes back to her own hut, jerks off mostly to see what it's like, and passes out.

The next morning, she wakes up in her own body and her own room, and through all the weirdness, only one thought emerges: they can live on the ground.

Over breakfast, she discovers Bellamy was in her body too, and she asks lightly probing questions to figure out if he did or said anything that she might need to know about, but he mostly seems to have made excuses as good as hers were. Her father covered for her some, and there's a part of her that wants to tell him, to see if he could help somehow, but it sounds so absurd. She wouldn't believe it herself, except that she can still feel the dirt under her fingers.

"Do you think anyone could have survived on Earth?" she asks Jake.

He frowns. "Through the apocalypse, you mean?"

"Yeah."

"If they did, they'd be in bad shape. Maybe not even--" He taps his jaw, thinking about the best way to explain. "It's possible, but if they're down there, they haven't gotten in touch. They're having no visible impact on the environment. Probably no technology. We'd have no way of knowing they existed."

That checks out with what Clarke experienced in the village. They didn't even seem aware of the tech Clarke takes for granted, the stuff they would have had on the ground before the nukes hit. There were repurposed parts around, antiques like Bellamy's closet, but no power at all.

"But they could be down there. The Earth could be survivable."

"In theory, for some people. Mutations exist," he explains. "You know that. The impact would have killed some people instantly, and the radiation would have gotten most of the survivors. But the ones who didn't die would have higher resistance, and they'd pass that on. Assuming the community was large and diverse enough, they could have had a few generations by now. But it's not that simple."

Clarke smiles. "That's simple?"

Jake waves her off; he's on a roll now. "The Earth hasn't exactly been stable all this time; it wasn't just one cataclysmic event. Even if there were survivor of the first blast, they might not have made it through the subsequent upheaval. That's part of why we don't want to go down."

"Like what?"

He rubs his jaw. "Why all the sudden interest in Earth?"

The temptation to tell him flares again. She could ask what she did yesterday, what else she said about the ground, explain where the her mind had been. But it's just so unbelievable. Even if he said he didn't argue with her, she wouldn't be surprised to be taken in for a psych evaluation. "I had a weird dream," she says. "It made me wonder if maybe--I guess I always just assumed there was nothing down there. That there couldn't be."

"Anything is possible," says Jake, and that does make her smile. He doesn't know the half of it.

"So, what else is wrong down there? What kinds of upheavals?"

"Nuclear reactors are still melting down. Our ancestors didn't know what to do with all the toxic waste they produced, and they were hoping we'd figure out how to deal with it. We monitor them, I remember a bad one in North America a few years back on the west coast that would have killed anyone living nearby."

"Except for people with particularly strong resistance."

"Depending on how close they were to the reactor."

"Do you think we'll ever make it down there?" she asks.

"Someday. Maybe not us."

"Maybe not," Clarke agrees, and the next morning, she's back on the ground.

The second day on Earth is easier. Clarke wakes up on time and figures out how to make breakfast for herself and Octavia. She finds the older woman, Tyr, and helps her with her garden. Clarke's not good at it, of course, but Tyr is unbothered, apparently just happy to have company, even when Clarke screws up. She manages to get some more information out of Tyr, too, putting together some of Bellamy's family tree. Octavia is his sister, of course, such a simple answer that Clarke never would have guessed in a thousand years. People have sisters here--Tyr, too, is Bellamy's grandfather's sister, who hasn't been taking care of Bellamy and Octavia after their mother died so much as just being around, present if they need her.

Once the gardening is done, Clarke jumps in the lake to clean off, and it's like nothing she's ever felt before, the full-body submersion, like she imagines zero-g, but with the press of water all around her, cool and refreshing and primal. Maybe she'll come back enough that she could feel rain. That would be something.

After dinner, she looks around Bellamy's room until she finds some thick parchment and a piece of charcoal. It's still possible on that second day that this will never happen again, but even if it doesn't, it can't hurt to send Bellamy a message. Just in case.

Bellamy,

I assume by now you know I'm Clarke Griffin. When I get back home, I'm going to write a list of things you should know about my life, in case this happens again. I hope you'll do the same for me. It can't hurt to be prepared.

Thanks in advance, Clarke

When she sits down to write the information out for Bellamy the next day, though, she finds herself struggling to sum up what he needs to know. In the end, she tries to think of every question she has about his life and answer it for her own. She explains what she knows of the apocalypse, how each of the stations was populated, how they joined together to form the Ark. She tells him about the formation and structure of the council, distribution of resources, how much she'd like him to avoid being arrested for anything. She outlines her daily schedule, makes lists of people she knows and how she relates to them, and lets him know he can ask any other questions he wants.

It feels a little silly, writing a note to a boy who may or may not be switching bodies with her, but it just makes sense. She's sure he's as confused as she is, and if it's happened twice, there's no reason to think it won't happen again. Maybe this will just be her life now, being half Clarke, half Bellamy.

Once she's done all that work, she does expect that nothing will happen, that putting everything down on paper will somehow have fixed it, but when she opens her eyes she sees the now-familiar roof of Bellamy's hut and sighs.

This is her life.

Bellamy is eighteen years old, and his mother died six months ago after a long illness. His sister is twelve and a handful, especially since their mother passed. His village is one of several in a loose alliance, which is in turn part of a larger coalition, but they're far away from other people and don't tend to socialize much. His father died when he was very young, and his sister's father died when she was very young, so he had to grow up fast, even with the support of the rest of the community. He likes history and has been taking advantage of the resources on the Ark to learn more about how it came to be, so a lot of her information will be redundant, but he probably won't mind. She'll have a different perspective.

Since his days are less structured than hers, he's given her a list of things things she can do without raising suspicions or injuring herself, as well as as breakdown of people he knows and what they might want to talk about. He's noted things he has to get done, would like to get done, and would like to avoid, and it makes Clarke smile, thinking of him putting all this together. She's never had a penpal, but she's heard the term before, and it feels a little like that. Albeit much, much stranger.

If you have time, you should also write a run-down of the highlights of your day, he adds, at the end of his letter. Anything I should know that you did, so it doesn't look like I forgot about it. I'll do the same for you. If this is going to keep happening, we should have each other's backs.

And that's what they do. It's an odd kind of relationship, by necessity, but being Bellamy somehow slots into Clarke's routine. She gets used to never waking up where she went to sleep, to cooking the recipes Bellamy leaves for her in the morning, going out to look for herbs he needs or helping with construction or whatever else. More than that, she's getting used to the feel of sunlight on her skin, the taste of fresh air in her lungs, to having the whole world at her fingertips.

She wants that to be her life so much she can taste it.

Do you know where you are on Earth? she writes him one night, and the next time she's in his body, he's responded, North America, west coast. Near the former US/Canada border. Why?

That afternoon, she consults the latest images they have of that part of the Earth, trying to figure out if their satellites have picked up any trace of civilization. They're not close to the ocean, so it would be inland a little, in the forest, maybe, but--

The whole area is brown and faded, dead in a way that makes Clarke's stomach turn. She's seen places like that on the map before, places that were hit by bombs, places that were destroyed beyond recognition, and that can't be right. She's been there, in that village, in that vibrant forest. She's drunk the clear water and breathed the clean air.

It can't be like that.

Did you ever look for the village on the Ark's satellites? she asks Bellamy that night.

I have now, he writes back. I asked your dad what happened to it, and he says a reactor melted down a few years back. The one "we" talked about, so I assume that means you. If you've got any ideas about what it means, I'm open to suggestions.

It's a lot to take in, early in the morning. Because there are really only a couple options, if she does believe that she and Bellamy are switching places, that all of this is real and true. Either Bellamy is wrong about where he lives, or he's right but he somehow doesn't live there anymore, or doesn't live there now. And that one honestly seems more likely, which is fucked up, but she's already switching bodies with someone. How much weirder is it if she's also traveling through time?

How many generations has it been for you since the bombs? she asks Bellamy, and he does a little drawing, tracing his mother's family back to the first one born after the bombs, his great-grandmother, five years after. It tracks roughly with Clarke's own timeline, but not so close he couldn't be a few years earlier.

What if you're about to be destroyed? she asks him.

How would we know? he writes back.

Clarke thinks about asking Jake, but it feels dangerous. He's an adult, and she still can't help thinking he won't believe her. She loves him, and she trusts him, but not with this.

"What are the stages of nuclear meltdown?" she asks Raven.

Raven's eyebrows go up. "How so?"

"If someone was living close to a nuclear reactor that was going to meltdown, how would they know? What are the warning signs?"

"I swear, you're just getting weirder."

Clarke and Raven aren't exactly close, not like she and Wells are, but Clarke kind of wants them to be. She'd had a crush for a while, but it passed, like crushes do when you don't do anything about them. But Raven is the smartest person she knows, with the broadest knowledge base. The best resource.

"I know. It's been a weird few weeks. Would there be illness? What?"

"Illness, plants and animals dying off, acid rain, probably. Seriously, why?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Yeah? Try me."

She shouldn't, she really shouldn't. But she wants to. She's so tired of hiding a fucking miracle.

"I think I'm traveling through time and living half my life as a grounder boy who's about to die, and I want to save him."

Raven blinks a few times, fast, like she's rebooting. "What?"

"I told you you wouldn't believe me."

"Yeah, that's pretty unbelievable." She wets her lips, studies Clarke. "I need more information."

"Every other day, I'm someone else. Just in the last month or so. I don't know how it happened, but--I feel like I've been to the ground, Raven. Like I know what it's like. And he and I--we talk. We leave each other notes. I asked him where he lives, and it was destroyed when a reactor melted down a few years ago. So if it's real and I'm doing it--I have to know how to save him. Where he can go that's safe."

Raven just looks at her for a long moment. "Can I see the notes?" she finally asks.

It feels a little like betrayal, leading Raven back to her room and pulling the notepad out of its hiding place. But she's helping, isn't she? It's not as if Bellamy ever asked her to keep the notes safe. That was always her decision. If he wanted to tell his sister about her, that would be his call.

Raven scans through the journal, pages and pages of--conversation, really. Clarke and Bellamy discussing their days, their lives, their relationships. She's talked more to him than she has anyone else, this last much. She knows so much about him, without ever having seen his face completely.

"Either this is real or you're legitimately nuts," says Raven.

"Those are the two options, yeah."

"Okay, so--assuming you're not, I'm going to see this Bellamy guy tomorrow?"

"Talk to him, anyway. He'll still look like me."

She nods. "So, which reactor is it? Let's see if we can figure out how long he's got."

It's the oddest kind of collaboration, the three of them working together across time and space to try to save Bellamy's life, which might not even need saving. Maybe she's totally wrong about this, maybe he's in a parallel universe too, maybe he's farther in the past that she thinks, maybe the whole thing is just a big waste of time.

But if this is some kind of magic--and Clarke doesn't know what else it could be besides magic--then there must be a reason. And maybe the reason is that Bellamy and his village need saving, and Clarke can help them. Maybe that's why all this is happening.

"What's he like?" she asks Raven, late one night as they're mapping a route from the village to a fallout shelter that might be in good enough shape to keep everyone safe through the meltdown.

"Who, Bellamy?"

"Yeah."

"You talk to him more than I do."

"But I've never actually talked to him."

"Neither have I, I've just talked to you with someone else's brain." She shrugs. "What do you want me to tell you? He's smart and interesting and I don't want him to die either."

"Do you think it's safe for us to go to the ground?"

"Not yet. Not there, anyway. I'd give it another few years before the radiation has cleared out enough for the land to be safe again. Probably not arable, but they can get out of wherever they're hiding and move south in--" She clucks her tongue. "Three years. For us. I'd say five years total underground for Bellamy and his crew. Assuming they find somewhere they can stay."

"What if I never know?" Clarke asks, fingers tracing the trail on the map. It'll be a two-day trip, Clarke going out and Bellamy returning, so both of them can take a look at the shelter and decide whether or not it's going to work. "What if we stop switching and I just--never find out what happened to him?"

"We'll get you down there," Raven says. "Even if it's just you, I'll get you down there. If you still want to chase your brain pal down in three years."

"It would be pretty sad if we went to all this trouble and never even knew if it worked."

"You don't think you'll just spend every other day as him for the rest of your life?"

"I hope not," she says, a kneejerk response that doesn't even quite make sense. "I want to meet him," she admits, when Raven raises her eyebrows.

Raven nods. "Yeah. Let's make that happen."

They end up spending four days in the fallout shelter, filling Raven in on all the details, Clarke doing sketches, Bellamy testing the hydroponics, Raven nearly murdering both of them as she tries to describe how to fix things she can't get her hands on.

But by the end of the four days, they've turned the place into a viable living option. It's not pretty, and it won't be a fun five years, but the Ark isn't fun either. They'll survive, Clarke is pretty sure, and that's the most important thing.

Black rain this afternoon, Bellamy writes, two days after he gets back to the village. I'm going to ask Raven what that means, how long we have. I guess we should maybe just get in there, before it gets worse.

You're going to have to be in there for five years, I wouldn't be in a hurry.

You just don't want to be stuck in a bunker, he teases. I don't blame you, you're already stuck in a space bunker. It must have been nice for you to get out. But I'm not taking any chances.

Good, don't. She worries her lip, staring at the blank expanse of paper in front of her. She's never been as good at words as she is at drawing, doesn't know how to put together what she wants to say. I'm afraid that when you go in the bunker, this is going to stop and we're not going to switch anymore. So if this is the end, I'm glad I met you. Or whatever I did.

And then, she does what she does best: she draws. She draws Raven for him, Wells, her parents, her room. She draws the Earth from the window of the Ark, Octavia and Tyr, Bellamy's hut and the woods and, finally, herself, the best self-portrait she can manage. It's far from her best work, quick and sketchy, and her hand aches by the time she's done, but at least it's something.

The sun is almost coming up. What happens if she doesn't go to sleep? Would she be trapped in Bellamy's body? In his life?

It's not worth the risk. She doesn't want to be Bellamy, she wants to be with him.

So she goes to sleep and wakes up in her own bed, as exhausted as she'd expect after pulling an all-nighter. It's tempting to just roll over and catch a few more hours, but she drags herself up to find Bellamy's letter, just to see if there's anything pressing she should know and any reason she has to get out of bed today. Maybe she can just mope around feeling sorry for herself. She's been a different person part-time for months now. She's earned a break.

He has the usual updates, logistics, a breakdown of what Raven told him about the shelter and what his plans are. And then, at the end, squeezed in like he was trying to make every inch of paper count, there it is: Maybe this is just me, but I think this might be the last time we do this. I've got a feeling I'm not going to see you again. Or be you again, I guess. So if this is it, I just want to say thanks. Not just for the shelter stuff. I think I needed a break from my life, and I got one. Whatever else happens, I'm so grateful this happened, that I got to meet you.

I guess if this isn't the last time, this is going to be weird, so if we're back day after tomorrow, just don't mention this, okay? Thanks.

Clarke clutches the letter to her chest, curling around it as she closes her eyes.

That night, she goes to sleep in her bed and, for the first time in three months, she wakes up there too.

It's a good thing. It has to be.

It's probably a good thing they have to wait three years for the radiation to clear up, because it takes that long for her to convince anyone that they can go down. Even saying she did it a bit of a stretch, because Raven did most of the work. Clarke could have used Bellamy as an argument, but the two of them decided that trying to use her notebook full of messages from Bellamy as evidence would be questionable, at best. It worked with Raven, but she can't go in front of Chancellor Jaha and Marcus Kane and Diana Syndey and her mother with a story about how she spent every other day of her life in someone else's body.

So instead, they go for facts. Raven looks at data like plant growth, oxygen levels, radiation levels on the Ark. None of it is evidence, not enough to be sure, but it's enough for the council to finally approve a dropship, a test mission.

"I don't want you on it," Abby tells Clarke, as she packs.

"It was my idea. If I don't go down, why would anyone else?"

"Clarke--"

"What?"

"How are you so sure?"

She thinks of Bellamy's final letter under her pillow, the same place it's been for all these years. It's stupid, maybe, ridiculous, to hold on for this long, but he's like a loose tooth she can't pull out, her unfinished business.

She has to know. She has to see if it was real.

"I don't know," she says, and it's mostly true. "I just am. I have to be."

"I hope you're right."

Clarke hugs her tight. It's not goodbye, but it might be one of the last times. Even if everything goes right and she can survive, the rest of the Ark may not come down. They may decide that it's not worth the trouble or the risk.

"I do too."

She and Raven take a hundred volunteers, mostly people around her age, a few dumbass kids in the Skybox who like their odds on the ground better than they like their odds of living past their eighteenth birthdays. It's not exactly a dream team, but it's good enough. Their plan is to land by the shelter, open it up for whatever resources they can find in there. If everything that happened was real and Clarke's experience with Bellamy wasn't some fucked up dream, then they'll find people in there, alive or dead, around two hundred, if everything went right. They'll move south, to the green they can see on the coast of California, and tell the Ark that it's safe, that they can make it here. There are no reactors nearby, and the land should be fertile.

"What if they didn't make it?" Clarke asks.

"Then they didn't make it," says Raven. "We'll still be on the ground, right? It's got to be better than being stuck up here."

"I thought you liked space."

"I like spacewalks," she says. "As long as they've got cool stuff on Earth too, I'll be fine.

"What if he doesn't remember me?"

"Then you remind him how awesome you are."

Clarke grins. "I'm glad you're coming with me."

Raven slings her arm around Clarke's shoulders, gives her a quick squeeze. "I wouldn't miss it."

When she opens up the doors, it's like stepping back in time, the smell of the air so familiar, the way the sun feels on her face. She's been here before, she knows. It's not the same place she was when she was Bellamy, but it's the same planet. Home.

"This is it," she tells Raven, and Raven smiles.

"Yeah, we made it."

They don't take everyone to check on the shelter. She leaves Wells and Miller in charge, and she and Raven take a small group through the forest--the familiar forest--to the same bunker she remembers examining for two days.

And then, she has to open the door.

"Remember, there might not be anyone in there, but that doesn't mean they're not real," Raven says. "Maybe they already came out."

"Maybe. I told him to wait, to be careful. No second chances."

"If it's safe for us, it's safe for him."

"I know."

She knocks, which feels ridiculous at best and actively harmful at worst, like anyone in there will be absolutely terrified that something is outside trying to get in, so she doesn't wait for a response before starting to turn the wheel on the airlock door. Intellectually, she knows it's not any heavier than it was, just harder to turn because she's not as strong as Bellamy, but it feels like it takes so much longer. But she manages, and then it's opening up, a musty smell hitting her face, dark and dust and--

"Clarke," Bellamy breathes, and she sees him in full for the first time.

She's tried to draw him off and on, this boy whose face she only saw in choppy water or warped surfaces, whose features she couldn't get all at once. She knows him through a haze, but she recognizes him instantly, dark eyes and messy hair, scruffy chin.

"Bellamy," she says.

He pulls her in just as she wraps her arms around his neck. He's solid and warm, his scent familiar, every inch of him something she knows intimately.

"You sound different," he says. She can hear his smile.

"You're not as tall as I thought you were."

"How did you get here?"

"I told my mom we could come down. Once the radiation cleared up enough."

"And you came here?"

"I wanted to meet you."

His lips press against her hair, soft, and then he's pulling back, looking her up and down, grinning. "So, it's safe to come out?"

She slides her hand into his, squeezes once. There's some part of her brain aware of her people and his, watching in complete confusion, but she can't bring herself to care. It was all real and now here he is, her prize for believing in magic. This impossible boy.

"There's a whole world out here, yeah."

"I had no idea," he teases. "Let's see what we can do with it."

70 notes · View notes

chasholidays · 5 years

Note

bellarke but clarke and murphy have a weird understanding slash ride or die friendship that they don’t admit to

according to my notes, this also coincidentally fulfills @pepperf’s prompt for Bellamy in makeup, so although tumblr will not let me tag you I hope you see this anyway

Before Clarke and Murphy became friends, Clarke didn’t really think Murphy had friends. He was the kid who sat in the back of every class and made sarcastic comments and never seemed to really interact with anyone else. If someone had told Clarke that he just ceased to exist when he exited her line of sight, she would have believed them. He certainly never seemed to do anything with a lasting impact.

And then, he shows up at the first GSA meeting of tenth grade.

As someone who joined thinking she was on the “straight” side of the alliance, Clarke does get that not everyone who joins the GSA is gay, but she has trouble imagining Murphy just showing up to be a supportive ally. Even if he is somewhere on the LGBT+ spectrum, Clarke is still kind of shocked he’s showing up. She didn’t think Murphy participated in groups of any kind.

Not that he really participates in GSA either. He introduces himself only as “Murphy” every time they go around the circle for names/orientations, and then he sits in the back and cracks quiet jokes when the opportunity arises. It’s like having another class with him, except that no one is forcing him to be there. This is what he chooses to do with his time.

“It’s weird, right?” she asks Finn. He doesn’t belong to the GSA, but she gives him the updates.

Finn shrugs. “I guess. Why do you care what Murphy does?”

“I just don’t get it.”

“You don’t have to understand everything, princess,” he teases, and Clarke just rolls her eyes. Obviously she doesn’t have to understand, but she still wants to.

Sign-ups for the group trip to Pride happen in May, and Murphy is behind her in line, so he’s there when Taylor asks, “You’re coming, Clarke?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Pride is for LGBT members, not allies.”

“I’m bi, remember?” It’s still new, saying it out loud, a word that tastes clunky in her mouth, but it feels right. After she and Finn break up, she’d like to date a girl. That’s an experience she wants to have.

“Oh, well, still,” says Taylor, like that’s somehow all he needs to say.

Clarke’s eyebrows shoot up. “Still what?”

“Well, you’re with Finn. I feel like it doesn’t look good for straight-passing people to be in the group.”

Clarke’s jaw drops, and she’s glad it’s anger that floods her veins and not humiliation. Taylor’s never been her favorite person, but even from him, this is a lot.

Defenses crowd her mind, but so do the inevitable counterarguments. She’s had this debate with herself so many times, if she can really be bi if she’s never kissed a girl, how she can know, how she can consider herself a part of the community when she’s dating a guy. She got through all of those things for herself, but if Taylor doesn’t think she’s bi enough for Pride, she doesn’t have any better argument than “I think I am.”

Unexpectedly, Murphy pipes up. “Hey, dipshit, she’s bi, that means she can go to Pride. What’s the holdup?”

“And whybare you going, Murphy?” Taylor shoots back. “I still don’t know why you’re here in the first place.”

“You don’t get to vet people’s sexual orientations,” Clarke says. “We all heard Pride isn’t for allies, so anyone signing up is queer. Like me.”

“I’m asexual,” Murphy says. “Is that good enough for you? I’m genuinely curious,” he adds. “If you think bi girls with boyfriends don’t belong, I’m guessing you’re not real big on letters that don’t even make the main acronym.”

Taylor’s jaw works. “Obviously, if you think you should come, I can’t stop you, I just think you should consider that it’s not entirely appropriate for–”

“You know what? Fine. I’m not coming with you.” Clarke grabs a sharpie from the bucket on the desk, crossing her name out so hard it’s probably going to bleed through to the table. “But I’ll see you there. Because I belong there.”

She’s out of the classroom before she realizes Murphy followed her.

“If I stayed there I was just going to have to talk to Taylor,” he says, with a small shrug. “Didn’t seem worth it.”

Clarke smiles with half her mouth. “Yeah, I guess not. You want a ride to Pride?”

“If you’re driving, yeah.”

And just like that, they’re friends.

Junior year, motivated primarily by spite and a mutual dislike of Taylor, Clarke and Murphy start a Queer Student Union, open to everyone who identifies as queer. To Clarke’s surprise, Murphy not only cares about LGBT issues, he’s actually shockingly informed about them. He identifies as biromantic asexual, although he admits the biromantic part feels a lot more theoretical than the asexual part, mostly because he has yet to meet anyone he likes enough he wants to be romantic with them. But he’s theoretically open to it. He’s done a lot of reading on not only sexuality stuff, but feminism and general activism, mostly because he seems interested in it. Academically, he’s not the greatest, but he’s intellectually curious, likes learning when he’s engaged.

When Finn cheats on her a few months later, he eggs Finn’s car, which is one of those things that Clarke would never approve of and would have told him not to do if he asked, but since he didn’t and she had no idea until several days after it happened, she doesn’t have to even pretend to not be happy.

It feels like the kind of relationship that might not survive college, but they both end up in Boston. Clarke’s at Harvard because she’s that over-achieving legacy kid, and Murphy goes to UMass because Clarke pointed out he could actually get a BA in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies while still avoiding the classes he hates, which is his ideal learning environment.

It turns out he’s a good litmus test for her pretentious Harvard friends, less because he’s a good judge of character and more because it’s useful to see how other people react to him. Clarke doesn’t really care if they like Murphy–Murphy doesn’t care about being liked much–but how and why they dislike him and how they deal with it tends to give her some good insight into whether or not they’re worth befriending. She and Lexa break up in part because Murphy and Lexa never figure out how to coexist, while Murphy and Niylah’s weird friendship is part of why Clarke starts hooking up with her.

“He’s like all the parts of you that you want to pretend you don’t have,” Niylah observes one night, and Clarke frowns.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re supposed to be–The perfect princess. Rich, straight A’s, top of your class at Harvard. And then there’s Murphy, your excuse for not liking people. The scapegoat for all your worst instincts.”

“You have a very weird idea of what makes good pillow talk,” Clarke teases.

“I just think it’s interesting. Have you ever heard the term morality pet?”

“No, psych major.”

Niylah doesn’t bother responding to that. “It’s a concept in fiction. You’ve got a bad character you need to humanize, so they have a morality pet, the sympathetic character that they actually treat well, the one who’s there to make you think the villain isn’t all bad. Murphy’s your immorality pet. He’s the asshole you like because part of you is an asshole too.”

“I can’t believe this is what you think about right after sex.”

Niylah grins, rolls over for a kiss. “I just think it’s an interesting dynamic. The two of you simultaneously make each other better and worse people.”

“That sounds about right,” Clarke agrees, and tugs her closer, ending the talking for a while.

She and Niylah never get quite to being in a relationship, so when they graduate, they don’t break up so much as move apart. Niylah goes back to California, and Clarke stays in Boston in a cheap two-bedroom apartment with Murphy.

Sometimes, she thinks about what her ninth-grade self would think about her life: openly and comfortably bisexual, working in a museum instead of going to med school, living with John Murphy. Even her post-college self has trouble believing it’s real. But it’s good.

After six months of largely successful cohabitation when Murphy comes home late on a Saturday night with a giant bottle of flavored vodka and says, “We need to get drunk.”

Clarke never needs to be asked to drink shitty liquor twice. “Okay.”

Murphy roots around the fridge, frowning when all he finds is Coke and green powerade. “I thought we had lemonade.”

“Nope.”

“Well, this is going to taste shitty with the mixers we’ve got,” he says, frowning at the vodka, which is apparently raspberry flavored.

Clarke grabs the Coke. “If we drink the first one fast enough we won’t taste the second one.”

“Cheers to that,” says Murphy, and pours one generous slosh of booze into his world’s okayest sister mug and another into Clarke’s novelty Pikachu glass.

They’re adults.

After a glass and a half of raspberry-Coke vodka, Clarke asks, “Why are we getting drunk?”

“You need a reason?”

“I don’t, but it was your idea. What happened?”

Murphy makes a face, then drains his drink. “I think I’ve got a crush on a girl.”

It shouldn’t be unthinkable; romantic interest has always been a theoretical possibility for Murphy. He’s always said he could like someone, but Clarke sort of assumed he wouldn’t. It was just hard to imagine what Murphy with a crush would look like, and even harder to imagine Murphy’s type. What does he even like, in a person?

She wants to ask about a thousand questions, but she knows better. Murphy would just shut down. So instead she grabs the vodka, pours him more, and tops it off with what’s left of the Coke. “What girl?”

“She works at the pawn shop.”

John Murphy is probably the only person she knows who, in 2018, not only goes to a pawn shop, but goes to a pawn shop regularly enough to have developed feelings for someone who works there. It’s just so painfully Murphy.

“Is she just being polite to you because you’re a customer?”

He snorts. “She’s not polite to me. She’s an asshole. I keep trying to bring in stuff to sell and she tells me to get better shit.”

“That sounds about right, yeah.”

“So what do I do?”

“Can you just ask her if she wants to get a drink sometime?”

He pulls a face. “Pass.”

“Can you figure out a way to see her outside of the pawn shop without actually asking her?”

“I think she’s in a band.”

“So you got me drunk to agree to go to your crush’s concert with you? I’d do that anyway.”

“Isn’t that weird? Like–going to her concert?”

“How do you know she has a band?”

“She told me.”

“And the concert?”

“There’s a flyer by the register.”

“Did she ever mention it?”

“I asked her what it was and she said it was her band and they were decent.”

“So that seems like a pretty normal way to express interest in someone. You can just say you were curious or bored or whatever.”

“And you’re coming?”

“I’m coming.”

“Cool.” He groans and flops onto his back. “This already sucks.”

Clarke pats his shoulder. “You get used to it.”

Murphy’s crush’s name is Emori and she plays drums in a band called “Jose Chung’s ‘From Outer Space,’” which seems like a lot of name for one band, but Murphy tells her it’s an X-Files reference, so at least it makes some sense. There are four of them, two other women on bass and guitar, and the lead singer, a guy with messy black hair and sharp black eyeliner who looks too pretty to be a real person. He’s got a decent voice too, deep and kind of rough, an unvarnished kind of sound that Clarke feels down to her toes.

“Do you know any of the other ones?” she asks Murphy.

“Nope,” he says. “She was right, though, they’re not bad.”

“They aren’t.” She pulls her attention away from the lead singer to focus on Emori, taking her in. She’s cute, with a big face tattoo that must have hurt like hell to get, and long brown hair pulled away from her face by a red bandanna. She’s wearing a black tank top that leaves her shoulders bare, showing off more ink that clearly continues under the fabric.

She’s not who she would have pictured for Murphy, but she also doesn’t know who she would have pictured. She’s always thought Murphy’s type was more about personality than appearance.

Jose Chung’s “From Outer Space” are the first of three no-name local bands in the set, and Murphy, being the disaster that he is, wants to just leaveas soon they’re off the stage. But Clarke sees the lead singer making his way to the bar, so she makes a quick decision.

“I’m going to go make friends with the rest of the band,” she says. “If you want to run away, you can go, but you’re own your own.”

She doesn’t give him a chance to respond, but she hears some spluttered protests that let her know he is following her, and bites back on her smile. It’s definitely a little bit selfish, but only a little; Murphy did ask for her help. Sort of.

There’s just enough free space next to the singer for Clarke to wedge herself in, and the guy glances over, mildly curious, but doesn’t say anything. She checks around for Murphy, finds he’s hanging back, and leans in to murmur, “Sorry, I’m trying to force my friend to flirt with your drummer.”

The guy’s eyebrows go up. This close, he’s even prettier, tan skin dotted with freckles, a small scar placed perfectly to bring attention to his lips, the eyeliner the icing on the cake. “I’m not sure how this is helping your friend flirt with my drummer,” he replies, just as low.

“If I’m here, he can’t talk to me.”

“My drummer eats guys alive.”

“I think he’s into that. That seems to be his type.”

“Huh.”

Clarke flags down the bartender and orders a beer. “You guys are really good,” she offers.

“Thanks.”

Okay, so, he’s hot, but aloof, and a little too full of himself, if Clarke is honest. The band is really good, but they’re playing a small venue in Cambridge. They’re not big enough that he should be above talking to people, so it’s probably just a personality trait.

“What’s your friend’s name?” he asks, not looking at her.

“Murphy.”

“He probably doesn’t have a chance.”

Clarke shrugs. “I’ll be proud of him if he just gives it a try.”

“Low standards, huh?” says the guy.

“He doesn’t get out much.”

“So, how long do I have to stay here for this?”

Clarke blinks. “Sorry?”

“You’re hitting on me. How long do I have to stay?”

“I didn’t know you were in a big hurry to be gone. I assumed you were at the bar because you wanted a drink. But I can go hit on someone else. Is your bass player into women?”

That perks him up, because he’s apparently the kind of asshole who thinks girl-on-girl is hot. “Possibly, but she’s got a boyfriend right now. Sorry.”

Clarke cracks her neck as an excuse to look around. Murphy is talking to Emori and she’s smiling, which means Clarke’s work here is done and she can leave the surly asshole alone. It’s always a shame when a hot boy in eyeliner lets her down, but she’ll live. “Oh well. Murphy’s set, so you should have a good rest of the night.”

He looks a little surprised. “Oh, uh, yeah. You too.”

Clarke raises her glass in salute and slides away from him, moving down the bar to a less crowded spot. She doesn’t let herself look back to see if he’s watching her, but she does let herself hope.

It would serve him right.

Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, Murphy doesn’t come up with a better way to flirt with Emori than going to her shows, which means that Clarke is also going to her shows, to be a supportive friend, and getting to know Emori and by extension the rest of the band.

Emori, at least, she likes. She’s quick and funny and takes no shit, which is perfect for Murphy, and despite what the surly singer said, she does seem kind of fond of him. It’s hard to get a great read on her, but she keeps coming to talk to Murphy, and Clarke doesn’t think she’s the type to talk to people unless she actually wants to. Their whole relationship seems to be based on talking shit, but that’s got to be Murphy’s type.

Raven and Echo–the bass and guitar players, respectively–are cool too, easy for Clarke to hang out with while Murphy’s busy with Emori. She likes them all, really. It’s not a hardship.

Except that there’s Bellamy, too.

She does want to like Bellamy, but she can’t get over thinking he’s just kind of an asshole. He’s never really as aloof as he was that first night again, seems to warm up once he’s realized that Emori doesn’t seem to be planning to kick Murphy’s ass, but he’s still kind of cold. And part of her can’t help feeling like she should get over it, that it’s unfair of her to hold a grudge for one night, but she just can’t figure out how to get along with Bellamy.

She does try, but from what she can tell, he doesn’t. She asks him about the band and he deflects, talking about how they’re not really that good, it’s just a hobby. She asks what his real job is and he makes a face, says it’s boring. It’s not as if every conversation is like that, but she always feels like he’s not that interested in the conversation, like he’s waiting for her to just stop talking to him.

“So stop talking to him,” Murphy says, with a shrug. “Who cares?”

“Do you like him?”

“I guess. It’s not like I’m making him a friendship bracelet or anything. Does it matter?”

“You’re my barometer, remember?”

His eyebrows shoot up. “You want to date Bellamy?”

“No!” she says, but it’s too late. Murphy’s running with it.

“I guess he’s probably kind of hot? Not my type, but makes sense for you. And you’re pissed because he’s not interested.”

“I don’t know why you’re acting like this is news.” It seems like a safer tactic than arguing. “I told you I tried to flirt with him the first day, it obviously didn’t work.”

“Yeah, but you’re still pissed,” he says. “So you’re still into him.”

“I want him to be into me.” If she can’t tell Murphy these things, what good is he? “I don’t get why he’s not.”

“Okay, but if you’re not into him, who cares? He doesn’t like you, you don’t like him, no harm, no foul, right? Way better than the alternative.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong. He should like me. At least as a person.”

“I think he’d be good for you.”

That actually does surprise her; she’s not sure he’s ever offered an unsolicited opinion on whether or not she should date someone.

“You do?”

“Yeah, probably. He’s a pretty decent guy and we have fun hanging out. Doesn’t take my shit and gives as good as he gets.”

“But he’s not into me, so I don’t know why we’re having this conversation.”

“Because you wanted to talk about him. You started it.”

“I was complaining.”

“You complain about him a lot.” Murphy groans. “Look, like him, don’t like him, I don’t give a shit. But if you don’t like him, stop caring what he thinks, stop talking to him, and let it go.”

It’s exactly what she should be doing; she flops onto his stomach with a groan of her own. “I hate you she says.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“So, I owe you an apology.”

It’s a week after her conversation with Murphy and Clarke has admitted, at least privately, that she still wants to make out with Bellamy and still might kind of like Bellamy, despite all logic and reason.

And now he’s smiling at her, nervous and casual in a t-shirt and glasses at Raven’s game night, and she has no idea what’s happening.

“You do?”

“It’s stupid.”

“Why don’t you just tell me what you’re talking about and we can go from there? Because I’m kind of lost.”

He clears his throat. “So, uh–I didn’t know Murphy’s name was John.”

“And you’re apologizing to me for that?”

“The first night we met you said your friend was flirting with Emori, and I knew she liked this customer of hers named John, so I thought you were distracting me so some asshole she didn’t like could slobber all over her. So I was annoyed.”

“And you only just realized Murphy was her customer crush?” she asks, stuck between amusement and disbelief. “It’s been months!”

“I know! I thought he just got lucky and she liked him, but then she said John was coming tonight and I said I hadn’t met him and the rest of the band made fun of me for like an hour.”

“It kind of sounds like you deserved it.”

He ducks his head, smiling sheepishly, and Clarke smiles too. “Anyway, I feel like–I never knew how to explain without telling you I thought Emori was into someone else. And I still kind of thought you were a dick for trying to distract me with your feminine wiles.”

“I was joking!”

He laughs. “Yeah, uh–anyway. Sorry?”

“You don’t really have to apologize for that,” she says. “It’s not like you were–you’re pretty polite mostly. I thought you had a bad night. And didn’t like me much.”

“Yeah. But I want us to do better, so–can we start over?”

It’s strange, because part of Clarke feels like they never actually started. Like this is actually going to be their first try.

Which makes it easy. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

It should fix all her problems, or at least all the problems she’s admitting she has, but less than two weeks later she slams a bag into the island and says, “I bought vanilla vodka and orange juice and I want it to taste like a creamsicle.”

“Won’t work but okay,” says Murphy. “What did Bellamy do?”

“Who says it’s about Bellamy?”

“Can we skip the bullshit and you just tell me?”

Clarke considers. “Drink first.”

They make it through the first round and then Clarke says, “He likes me now.”

“And you hate him?”

“No, I still want to make out with him.” She sighs. “You were right, I’m totally into him, and now we’re getting along, and everything sucks. He’s really cute.”

Murphy takes another drink of his vanilla screwdriver. “So ask him to make out. At least you’re not trying to tell him you’re into him but not into sex and you’ve never actually dated anyone before. Why are you complaining?”

“Have you figured out a way to mention you’re ace yet?” she asks.

“Nope. It doesn’t really come up in conversation. No one’s like, how much does everyone love sex? They just assume the answer is a lot and don’t bother asking.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine. Keep complaining about your thing, that helps.”

She flops onto her back. “He’s just so pretty.”

Murphy pats her leg. “Yeah, that sucks.”

Murphy’s problem seems easier to solve than hers, especially in early May. Clarke gives it a week and then, when they’re out drinking with the whole band, asks, “Oh, is anyone going to Pride? Do you guys need a ride?”

“You’re going to Pride?” Echo asks.

“She’s bi,” Bellamy says, even though Clarke’s never told him that. “Or pan?” he adds, glancing at her for approval.

“I usually go with bi, but as long as it covers no gender preference I’m good.”

“I’m biromantic asexual,” says Murphy. Clarke didn’t warn him, but he’s pretty quick with this stuff.

“We always go to Pride because that’s how we got to be friends. Some asshole in our high-school GSA told us neither of us belonged there because we weren’t queer enough.”

“Jesus Christ,” says Bellamy. “Well, I could use a ride.”

Clarke will admit to startling, just a little. She didn’t really think anyone in the band was queer, had just wanted to give Murphy an excuse to share his sexuality. It was always possible she’d get a taker, but it hasn’t seemed likely.

But Bellamy wants to join them. If he’s gay, that kind of sucks, at least for her. But he’s bi or trans–into women at all and queer, basically–he might be her dream guy.

“I know it’s shitty to ask why people want to go to Pride, but I still want to know,” Murphy says.

“Also bi,” says Bellamy, so, yeah. Clarke wants to marry him. “I’ve never actually been to Boston Pride, though. I don’t like going alone.”

“Then you should definitely come with us,” says Clarke, and he gives her one of his melting smiles.

“Thanks.”

“Can I come along as a supportive outsider who would happily make out with a girl if the opportunity presented itself?” Emori asks.

“Definitely,” says Murphy. “Just don’t talk about ally pride or whatever and we’re good. And kiss a girl if you can, I hear it’s cool.”

Echo’s interested to learn that he’s never kissed a girl, and she and Emori and Raven get drawn into that conversation, leaving Clarke and Bellamy off on their own.

“So, that first day we met,” she says.

Bellamy cocks his head. “What about it?”

“I asked if anyone else in the band liked girls and you kind of–” She shrugs. “I thought you were one of those guys who thinks girls kissing is hot and for your benefit. But you were excited I was queer.”

He laughs. “Shit, I didn’t know you noticed. But yeah, I always like meeting more bisexuals. I was rethinking you.”

“Where did you end up?”

“What do you mean?”

She smiles. “You rethought me, so–what did you end up thinking of me?”

He bites the corner of his mouth, glances over at his band mates. They’re not paying attention that Clarke can tell, but she knows Murphy still has part of his focus on the two of them. The rest of the band probably does too. That’s the kind of group dynamic they have going.

Bellamy must be thinking the same thing. “You want to get another round?” he asks.

“Maybe at another bar.”

He laughs again, this bright, pleased laugh, at odds with his rock-star makeup. “Yeah, that sounds right.”

Outside, he says, “I thought I should have picked you up when I had the chance. I was kicking myself for–I’m still kicking myself for not flirting back.”

Her own smile creeps up, starting small but never stopping growing. “You still could.”

“We could just get a drink at my place.”

“I’d love to.”

“How much do you think Taylor Macdonald would hate us going on a double date to Pride with our straight-passing partners?” Clarke asks.

Bellamy pauses in his application of glitter to Murphy. Apparently he’s as good as makeup as he is because he taught his sister how to do hers, which works out really well. Clarke sucks at makeup; it’s nice that they have complementary skill sets.

“Straight passing?” he asks, dubious.

“His words.”

“Dick.”

Murphy grins. “I figure if I’m pissing off Taylor Macdonald, I’m doing something right. I hope every time I’m happy, he feels like someone walked over his grave.”

Clarke offers her hand and he high-fives her; Emori smiles. “I’m starting to see why the two of you are such good friends. It didn’t quite add up before.”

“Spite and stubbornness,” says Clarke.

“Our main motivations in life.”

“Exactly,” says Emori. “It makes perfect sense.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Bellamy teases, but Clarke just smiles.

“Whatever. We’ve got it all figured out.”

#idleafterthoughts

132 notes · View notes

chasholidays · 5 years

Note

Could you please do a Bellamy POV of Bromans episode 8? Specifically including Clarke’s fight with Ontari because I’ve always wondered what the his and the cast’s reactions were!

Original fic here!

By the last episode of Bromans, Bellamy is generally prepared for the worst. Or, if not the worst, at least the most absurd and least good for him, personally. That’s the general Broman vibe.

Well, okay, the Clarke thing was good. Bromans is the best thing that’s happened to his relationship with her in years, but it’s unclear how much credit the show itself deserves for that. It’s not like the producers were trying to get him and Clarke together, and while the forced proximity was definitely a factor, that was entirely his and Clarke’s decision. The challenges haven’t made a huge difference, give or take the one where he had to ID Clarke’s breasts. But, again, they weren’t trying to destroy his sanity or upgrade his relationship, and it’s not like it helped with his general mental state.

So he feels pretty comfortable saying that Bromans is trying to kill him and never gives him anything good. Anything good he gets from it is incidental and unintentional. At best, the show is ridiculous.

Which means that when Murphy takes them away after breakfast on the second-to-last day, he’s expecting something especially terrible. Any deviation from the routine is usually a red flag, especially this late in the game.

“Seriously, no hints?” he asks Murphy.

Murphy glances over his shoulder. “What part of our whole vibe makes you think I’m going to give you hints? That’s not the dynamic we’ve got going. I don’t actually like you.”

“Bullshit,” says Dax. “He’s totally your favorite.”

“That doesn’t mean I like him,” Murphy shoots back, without missing a beat. “It just means I hate all you other assholes more. No offense.”

“Ah yes, the elusive inoffensive I hate all you assholes,” says Roan, dry as sand. “Very hard to pull off.”

“Whatever, I’m not telling anyone shit, so who cares what my personal ranking of favorites is? Legatus will tell you when he tells you.”

“He’ll be taking each of you aside individually,” Anya puts in. At least it’s someone’s job to be helpful. “Order will be Dax, Roan, Ilian, Bellamy. Once you’re done with Legatus, you’ll have individual interviews, and then you’ll go back to your girlfriends together. All clear?”

They chorus their agreement, used to this kind of thing by now, and speculate on what might be coming as they walk. The most convincing theory to Bellamy is that they’re doing some sort of individual physical trial, although everyone has their own idea of what he specifics will be. Roan is sure they’ll have to fight Lincoln in single combat, but Bellamy has to believe that’s not true. Lincoln would wipe the floor with him and Octavia would mock him for the rest of their lives. And, honestly, none of them are up to beating Lincoln in a fight, so there’s no way that can be it. They already have enough footage of everyone getting their asses kicked in training, they don’t need more.

But having to complete some weird strength test to prove their worthiness feels completely on brand for the show, and Bellamy can probably do that. He was in good shape before the show started, and the daily workouts and challenges definitely have him even better off. He’s not the best physical specimen on the show, but he still likes his odds to win, depending on the challenges.

Going last in any event is always a little stressful, especially when he doesn’t see the people doing it before him, but the good news is that no one’s paying any attention to what he’s up to, so he and Miller can just play Words With Friends while they wait.

It’s weird, the knowledge that he’s going to miss this. This ridiculous show and these ridiculous people. This whole ridiculous experience.

“Bellamy,” says Anya, pulling his attention from Miller. “Your turn.”

“If I die, tell Clarke to never let my sister live it down,” he says.

“Not that you love her?”

“She knows that. She might not know she killed me.” He wipes his hands on his tunic and stands, goes into the tent where Lincoln is waiting.

He and Lincoln haven’t been one-on-one very often, which is nice, if he’s honest. When they’re out in the open with all the other contestants, it’s a lot easier to remember that this is Legatus, their training master, not Lincoln, his almost brother-in-law.

“Legatus,” he says, with a nod.

The smile is all Lincoln. “Bellamy. Congratulations on making it this far, I knew you could. And I didn’t even have to cheat for you.”

“Would you tell me if you had?”

“Probably. I’d feel bad sooner or later.” He clears his throat. “Okay, real take?”

“Real take.”

It’s like flipping a switch; Lincoln’s face smooths out, going hard and serious, and suddenly he’s Legatus. “Bellamy. You have fought hard and overcome much, and now we have come to the end of the road. Tomorrow, we’ll find out if you have what it takes to earn your place among the Bromans. But no matter the outcome, you have proved yourself as a warrior.”

“Thank you.”

“In recognition of your accomplishments, I have prepared something for you. A gift.”

“A gift?” he blurts out, too surprised to remember to stay in some kind of character. “You’re giving gifts now?”

“You have done well, you deserve to be rewarded.” He claps his hands and a couple extras come in with–

Armor. Actual, real-life armor. It’s so fucking badass.

“Seriously?”

“You’ve earned it,” says Lincoln, letting probably a little too much sincerity bleed through into his voice. But he recovers fast. “Now, don’t let me down. Fight bravely tomorrow and show me what you’re made of!”

“I will.” He can’t help flashing a grin; they can cut it. “Thanks.”

Lincoln smiles back. “You’re welcome.”

After the unexpected gift of his own set of armor, Bellamy really isn’t sure what to expect next from the producers. It really could go anywhere at this point, so going back to the cesspit for the girls’ last challenge is actually a little disappointing. Clarke, at least, is excited, but she has a good history there. If he’d figured out how to (lowkey) cheat in as many challenges in the cesspit as she had, he’d like it too.

And it was kind of where they had their first kiss. That part was cool too. But he was hoping for something a little more dramatic.

“This should be straightforward,” Anya announces, once everyone is gathered and the shit-talking Clarke has died down. “You all know the drill by now. There are three bags, and you have to get two of them back to your pedestal. Only one bag at a time, and no one is allowed to help you. If you want to get the bag away from your competitor, you have to earn it. The winners of the first round will go on to compete against each other for the prize.”

“What is the prize?” Ontari asks.

Anya smiles her usual tight smile, like she realizes that there is no “prize” in Bromans that’s actually good. “You’ll get to pick your boyfriend’s first opponent in the emperor’s games.”

Even by their admittedly low standards, it’s pretty uninspired, but that doesn’t matter to Clarke. Clarke doesn’t need a reason to be competitive, she goes cut-throat competitive at the drop of a hat.

He really does love her.

“The first round will be Clarke versus Ontari and Gaia versus Raven,” Anya adds. “Raven, we need to check your leg in the water first.”

Bellamy leans in close to Clarke as Raven tests her brace in the water. “You know this doesn’t matter, right?”

“I know.”

“I don’t care who I fight.”

“Yeah, it doesn’t really matter.”

“Ontari is kind of scary.”

She makes a face. “A little, I guess? Not that scary.”

“All I’m saying is that the stakes could not be lower here. So you should just have fun.”

“Winning is fun,” she says, and he puts his arm around her, kisses her hair.

“I guess it is.”

On the one hand, he’s not really expecting Clarke to throw the match or anything. He knows better than to think she won’t try. But he’s hoping she won’t do anything extreme, or come up with some weird new trick that finally gets her banished from the show. It would be a real anticlimax to lose like that.

And, in Clarke’s defense, she does absolutely nothing to bend the rules. She picks up only one bag, takes it to her pedestal, glances at Ontari, then back at the bags. In theory, she’s got this–most people who win the sprint win the whole game, but Ontari’s more athletic than than Clarke and definitely fights more.

“I really hope Ontari doesn’t try to drown her,” Raven murmurs.

“I wish she was up against you or Gaia,” Bellamy admits. “I’m pretty sure she and Ontari both take this way too seriously.”

“Are you kidding? I’m going to win this. If I go up against Clarke, I’m going to crush her.”

“Yeah, but not, like, murder her.”

“Not if I don’t have to.”

“You don’t think Clarke can outrun her?” Roan asks.

“I think we’re going to find out.”

Really, the big issue is that Bellamy doesn’t actually have to watch Clarke do this very often. She did challenges when he was in “jail,” but everything else has been assisting him or ridiculous. He never had to worry the way she did about injuries, even ridiculous, historically inaccurate Broman injuries.

All he wants is for it to be over soon, so, of course, it lasts forever.

Bellamy realizes almost immediately how bad it’s going to be. He catches Clarke’s expression when Ontari jumps her, the hard, stubborn set of her jaw, a clear sign that she will stay there forever if that’s what she has to do to win.

“Someone should start a timer,” he mutters.

“A timer?” asks Gaia.

“This is going to take a while.”

“How long can you fight over a sand bag?” Raven asks, and it’s not as if she’s going to jinx it, but she’s definitely underestimating how stubborn Clarke is. But understanding starts to dawn on her (and everybody else) after about five minutes, when they’ve barely moved and Bellamy has already settled in.

“You weren’t kidding,” Ilian says, slumping down next to him.

“Honestly, we should have brought a deck of cards. Unless Dax thinks Ontari’s going to give up on this.”

“They’re going to die in that pool,” Dax says. From anyone else, Bellamy would take it as deadpan humor, but he can’t tell that Dax has a sense of humor, so they really might die in there.

“Legally we have to step in before anyone dies,” says Anya. “So let me know if you think it’s getting close.”

“None of you are making me feel better,” Bellamy grumbles.

“She’s definitely not going to drown,” Raven says, patting him on the shoulder. “And she’s probably going to win. But she’ll wear herself out and then I’ll beat her with, like, zero effort. So this is perfect for me.”

“I might beat you,” Gaia puts in. “I mean, I probably won’t. But there’s always a chance.”

Raven smiles like a shark. “Yeah, anything’s possible.”

Bellamy stops asking for updates on how long it’s been at the twenty-minute mark, mostly because he thinks hearing it is worse than not hearing it. There’s a part of him that just wants to yell to Clarke it doesn’t matter, but Ontari could end this at any time too, and she’s not, so it’s not like it’s Clarke’s responsibility to do it either. He’s not going to tell her to quit when she could win.

Still, this is getting ridiculous.

“Honestly, I’m not going to just throw it in, but she probably deserves the win just for doing this,” Raven says, after what has been at minimum forty minutes and could be as long as five hours, at this point. Time has lost all meaning. If the sun sets, he won’t be surprised.

“Is there any way you can edit it to make this look like the finals?” Bellamy asks Anya.

She seems as hypnotized as all of them, for once, but her reflexes are as sharp as ever. “Raven would kill me, so, no.”

“I’m glad we’re all just assuming I’m going to win,” says Raven. “Not that I’m not, but glad I’ve got your support.” She starts. “Wait, head’s up, Clarke is doing something.”

Bellamy’s attention snaps back to the cesspit, but it’s already almost over. Clarke must have surged forward, taking advantage of how exhausted Ontari was, and she smacks the sandbag onto the pedestal with a resounding thunk.

“Clarke wins,” says Anya, and Bellamy jumps into the water without thinking, dragging himself over to where Clarke has collapsed on top of her hard-won prize.

“Jesus, you could have just lost,” he tells her when he reaches her, laughing a little in disbelief. He saw it coming, but somehow she still surprised him.

She raises her head for a tired smile, and he pulls her arm over his shoulders, half-dragging her out of the water.

“Have you met me?” she asks.

He gives her a quick kiss. “I have, yeah. That was amazing.”

“How long was it?”

“No idea.” He kisses her hair, relieved beyond words that this happened now, when he’s allowed to kiss her as much as he wants. Ridiculous, yes, but this is the girl he fell in love with. “You know you have to do another round, right?”

“Yeah. Raven’s going to kick my ass, I’m so done.”

Raven and Roan are at the edge of the cesspit to help her up, Raven grinning ear to ear. “Fuck, I didn’t know you wanted it that much,” she teases.

“Like you don’t,” Clarke shoots back. She still looks exhausted, but Bellamy feels better with her out of the water, and even better when one of the crew has a towel he can use to try to warm her up. “Are you okay?” he murmurs, hopefully quietly enough that no one can hear it. He doesn’t need this to make it on TV.

“Tired.”

“Yeah.” He wraps her up in his arms, reveling in the fact that he can, that she wants him to. He hopes he never gets used to itl he wants to always feel this lucky to be holding her. “That was really fucking cool.”

“All I did was stay still.”

“Trust me, it was cool.”

Raven and Gaia don’t take nearly as long, of course, which means Clarke has to go again almost immediately. Anya actually steps in and makes them wait, gives Clarke some gatorade and has one of the medics clear her before she goes in again.

“I’m still going to lose,” Clarke tells him.

“You already won.” He kisses her. “Give her hell.”

Roan flashes him a smile as Clarke and Raven get set up. “We’ve done very well for ourselves, haven’t we?”

It’s not the kind of sentiment Bellamy would have expected to be feeling on the set of Bromans, but here he is. His life is, against all odds, awesome.

“Yeah,” he tells Roan. “We really did.”

The feeling dies the next day, at the exact second Murphy says “fascinum.”

The morning had been going pretty well up until then. They’d had an early night because Clarke was still worn out from the match with Ontari, and while her reminder that they’ll be home again soon with a real life to figure out was a little stressful, he’s pretty sure they’ll be fine.

Mostly he’s ready to be done, and he figured the games would take most of the day. He wasn’t anticipating the dick-shaped bump in the road, but he probably should have been. Dick statues are too good for Bromans to pass on. If he hadn’t had so much going on, he probably would have been realized it was happening. He would have been disappointed if they didn’t do this.

As it is, though, he kind of wants to die.

“Huh,” says Murphy, looking Bellamy up and down like this is the Roman trivia he finally cares about. Which, to be fair, it probably is. Assuming he’s like every other guy Bellamy knows who’s ever studied Latin. “I wasn’t sure you were gonna have that one off the top of your head.”

Bellamy shrugs. “I took Latin in high school, that one was a big hit with everyone. Big reactions.”

“Cool. You can share with the rest of the class.”

“Seriously?” It feels like they shouldn’t be able to do this on TV. Bromans cannot possibly be airing on HBO. It would explain where they got their budget, but it’s not an HBO show.

His dick is not going to be on TV. There’s no way.

“It’s an important part of Roman culture,” Murphy says, straight-faced.

Clarke is frowning at him. “Spill.”

His sigh will probably be cut like a dramatic pause, but mostly he’s very tired. He would rather fight Roan in single combat again. “We’re making penis charms.”

Roan’s dick is out almost before he’s even finished, before Bellamy’s even sure everyone else knows what’s happening. “My time has come!”

That sounds about right.

The problem, of course, is that it’s only Roan’s time. Roan is ready for this and excited, while the rest of them are just stripping down in front of a the entire cast and crew so they can stick their dicks into some cold plaster.

“Should we be, like–into this?” Dax asks, sounding dubious.

“If this is a kink for you, don’t tell me,” says Murphy. “I already know way more about all your dicks than I want to. Especially Roan. If you just found out this does it for you, keep it to yourself.”

“No, I mean–”

“He’s a grower,” Ontari supplies. “Not a shower.”

“Is it too late to quit this show?” Bellamy murmurs to Clarke. “We could leave, right? Hitchhike back?”

“Think about the kind of person who would pick up a hitchhiker with a flower pot on his dick,” she says. “That’s the last person you want to get a ride from.”

“I was thinking I’d beat up Miller and take his clothes first.”

“Wow, you’ve really got this figured out,” says Miller, dry. “After everything I’ve done for you?”

“Which one of us has our dick in a flower pot?” Bellamy shoots back. “I don’t have friends anymore. Just a list of people I hate. And Clarke.”

“I should probably be on the people you hate this, I’m really enjoying this.”

He glares at her. “How?”

“It’s hilarious and I get to look at your dick. What’s not to like?”

It’s hard to maintain complete annoyance when Clarke is saying nice things about his dick, which she has touched and wants to continue touching in the future. That’s an upside.

“I’m with Murphy, if this is a kink for you I don’t want to know,” he tells her, and she kisses his shoulder.

“Cool, I won’t tell you.”

Raven wants more information about fascinum because of course she does, and that conversation carries them through the end of actual molding process. Which, of course, leaves the awkward removal part, and then the cleaning up which, in a porno, would definitely involve Clarke blowing him, or possibly him, Roan, Ilian and Dax having an orgy, depending on the porno and its genre.

In real life, though, everyone is paying too much to removing their own dick pots to pay much attention to what he’s doing, and they’ve all showered together enough that the nudity isn’t even really that novel anymore. Sometimes it feels like he’s more familiar with Roan’s dick than he is his own at this point, but it’s probably just because he doesn’t have nightmares about his own dick.

“What were you expecting when you came here?” he asks the man in question.

“Hm?”

“Did you think you were going to be washing plaster off your balls?”

Roan seems to be really thinking it over, which means he might have, at some point in his life, thought about washing plaster off his dick.

Well, it’s Bellamy’s own fault for asking.

“Not this exactly, but the broad experience is what I was looking for. But I don’t see why you decided to do it, honestly,” is what he finally says.

“The Roman stuff isn’t enough of a reason?”

“This is a far more accurate experience than I was expecting, and it’s still not particularly realistic,” Roan says, not unreasonably. “I don’t think you were really expecting an authentic Roman getaway.”

“No.”

“So, what were you expecting?”

The truth, of course, was that he was expecting to spend a few weeks hanging out with his best friend and favorite person, and he’d be going slowly insane from fake PDA. It hadn’t been related to Bromans, specifically, which he had figured would be–

Kind of exactly what he got. Absurd and historically inaccurate and full of challenges he didn’t want to do and weird shit he and Clarke could laugh about later. If anything, it’s been better than he expected, even leaving aside the fact that Clarke’s actually in love with him too. He’s made friends and had fun and he may never live this down, but he could actually win, which is the best possible way to never live something down. He’s within spitting distance of being the best Broman, and if he’s not, there won’t be any shame in losing to Roan.

“Not sure,” he says, and smiles. “Nothing nearly this good.”

Roan grins and claps him on the shoulder. “That’s what I thought. Now, shall we go get our penis statues?”

Bellamy rolls his eyes. “We better, yeah.”

Only in Brome.

#todayisthesortofday

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chasholidays · 5 years

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OKAY. I drove past a roadside fruit stand at the beach labeled "Bellamy Farms" last month and immediately thought of you. Would love a beach romance with hot farmer Bellamy and hippie artist Clarke (could be holiday themed, or not!) 5-10,000 words, obviously with a meet cute & falling in love over veg. Perhaps with some Kabby and Linctavia on the side if it pleases you. TY for this gift!

oops there’s not really a meet cute here sometimes that is how the cookie crumbles etc

When Clarke Griffin is nineteen, her father dies and she drops out of college to move to the beach and become an artist.

It’s not, admittedly, the best reaction, but it’s not as if most people have a good reaction to parental death. Clarke has always done everything right, had been so sure that if she was a good kid who followed rules her life would be good. And then her dad died anyway and college is just moreschool, except that she can’t fit art classes in with her premed course load, which she doesn’t even want, and her father is dead and her mother was somehow involved in his death.

So she packs all her stuff into her car and drives down the east coast with the windows rolled down and music blaring and squats in her dad’s empty beach house for a couple of weeks, drinking cheap booze and generally feeling sorry for herself.

And then, finally, she looks around.

The beach house had been a staple of childhood summers, but it’s late fall now, the off-season, and that’s a new experience for her. It has the feel of being in a mall after closing time, or at a big event doing set up. It’s a secret place, a dress rehearsal, and being a part of that sends a thrill through her.

This is where she wants to be. This is where she belongs.

Abby is frantic when she picks up the phone. “Clarke? Where are you? Where have you been?”

“I’m in South Carolina,” she says. “And I’m going to stay here.”

“What do you mean?”

Clarke leans back. “I want the beach house, and I want however much money Dad left me, and then I won’t tell anyone what I think you had to do with him dying.”

There’s a long pause. “Clarke, you don’t have to blackmail me. And it’s not what you think. What happened to your father was–”

“A tragic accident,” she supplies. Abby said it enough. “I know. I don’t care. I’m not going back to school, I’m not coming back home. I just want the beach house and my inheritance and I’ll be set.”

“Set at what?”

It’s a good question. “I’ll let you know when I figure it out.”

It’s not true, exactly; Clarke can’t imagine casually checking in with her mother for a long time. But Abby will probably call her back, and Clarke won’t lie to her if she’s got a plan.

All she needs is to get a plan.

The town of Arcadia, South Carolina is cute, like something out of a picture book. It’s not the actual beach town, but instead the closest inland town that people come to for non-beach reasons, and therefore the place Clarke might be able to find a job that doesn’t involve working at a restaurant, hotel, or tourist trap.

Granted, it mostly adds antique store, clothing boutique, and art gallery to her options, but all of those seem more in line with her skill set. She likes antiques and art, and she wears clothes.

She ends up getting hired at an upscale shop that sells a variety of goods made by local artists, from pottery to clothing to salvaged beach sculptures. It’s the kind of place that makes people think “this doesn’t look that hard” when they see the prices, and Clarke is no exception. She can’t sew and she doesn’t have access to clay, but she lives on the beach. She could definitely make weird seashell art.

But to her surprise, not only can she make weird seashell art, she likes it and is good at it. Commercial pieces are easy: charms to string on jewelry, small mosaics of sea creatures, just little things to remind tourists of their trips. But there are so many more things she can do, driftwood and sea glass twisting together into broad, conceptual pieces, the kind of stuff galleries might actually want someday.

It’s not a fast process, of course, but the years bleed by easily. The art community around Arcadia isn’t exactly thriving like it would be in a city, but it’s active and passionate, and Clarke slots in like she’s always been there. She dates Lincoln, the sculptor who looks like a bodybuilder, for about half a second before they decide to be friends, then Finn, an artist with a metalworker girlfriend who didn’t know he was seeing someone else, and then Lexa, who has dreams of moving to the city and making it big.

“Which city?” Clarke asks, amused.

“Does it matter? As long as I get out of here.”

The two of them stay together for a while after that, but that’s the moment Clarke knows they’re ultimately doomed. She’s twenty-four, years removes from the complete meltdown that had brought her to South Carolina in the first place, but she’s never had any desire to return to the life her mother had wanted for her. It’s a privilege, she knows, that she can afford to be out here, living in a beach-house year round, working as an artist who doesn’t actually make quite enough to support herself, but she has that privilege. She can afford to have the life she wants, and this is it.

She and Lexa make it another year, and then Lexa goes to Raleigh and Clarke makes a driftwood statue called “September Departure” in her honor.

After that, she can’t help feeling like maybe romance isn’t in the cards, like she might be out of options.

Both Lincoln and Raven tell her she’s being ridiculous.

“That’s the breakup talking,” Raven says. “It always feels like love is dead or some dramatic shit, but that doesn’t last forever.”

“I just feel like I’ve exhausted the local options,” Clarke says, with a sigh. “I’m running out of people to date.”

“And new people do move in,” Lincoln points out. “I know it doesn’t feel like it, but the population here isn’t static. Good things could be coming.”

It feels like a prophesy, and Clarke is all primed and ready for it to come true, for Lincoln to have set her up for a meet cute with some new residents some unknown good thing.

Which means, of course, that she completely misses the good thing when she nearly walks right into it.

It’s the first farmer’s market of the summer season and Clarke is setting up. She and Lincoln have a booth together, selling their various works of art, and this is always the most stressful week. It’s the week Clarke is convinced that somehow the tourists won’t come, or won’t like beach trinkets anymore, that something will go wrong and she’ll have to admit this isn’t a real life and go back to her mother. It’s not rational that she puts so much emphasis on the opening week, especially since tourist migrations tend to vary from year-to-year, but if it was rational, it wouldn’t be a superstition.

The Blake Farm booth catches her eye because, despite what Lincoln said, new booths really aren’t that common, and a new farm is noteworthy. Especially the name, Blake Farm, which nags at her brain hard enough she actually walks into Bellamy in her distraction.

“Jesus, princess, can’t you watch where you’re going?” he grumbles. He’s carrying a large basket full of produce, so she can’t really blame him for being annoyed, but she and Bellamy also snipe at each other basically every time they come into contact, so she doubts he’d be any less short if he was empty-handed.

Her brain snaps the pieces together a second after she sees him: Bellamy Blake. Blake Farm.

“Holy shit, did you finally get your own place?”

He ducks his head, not enough to hide the pleased smile on his face. Clarke doesn’t actually hate Bellamy, not really, but it feels as if they’re perpetually on the wrong foot, as if they’re always about to get into a fight whether they want to or not. Getting into fights is just how the two of them communicate.

“Did you not hear about that?”

“I was wondering why you dropped off the face of the earth, but I thought maybe wishes really did come true.”

He snorts. “Dream on, you’re never getting rid of me.”

“Seriously, when did this happen? What happened?”

“Come to the booth if you want me to talk to you, I need to set up.”

Clarke follows him, taking in the produce already on display with a more curious eye, now that she knows it’s Bellamy’s. He’s been a regular face at the farmer’s market for as long as Clarke’s been here, but always selling for Pike’s Produce, the farm where he’s worked for since it was legal for him to work. Clarke knew he wanted a place of his own, but he also knew that it was, in his words, a stupid dream. He was better off not owning, so long as Charles paid him a good wage.

“You remember Miller?”

“Your ex Miller?” she asks, frowning. Bellamy is a couple years older than she is, but still roughly in her demographic, and while he runs with a different crowd than she does, there are only so many places to hang out. When she goes out on Saturday night, she goes to the bar where his little sister works, and he’s usually there too. He’s unavoidable.

“Yeah. He moved to Charleston to start a restaurant with his internet boyfriend.”

“I did hear about that.”

Bellamy hefts a basket up onto the table and Clarke tries not to notice the flex of his muscles. He’s in good shape. That’s just an objective fact. “I was always worried that if I started my own place, I wouldn’t have enough of a customer base to stay open. Most of the local places already have their suppliers, and I didn’t know if I could do enough business on my own. But farm-to-table is really big right now, so Miller and I went in together. He tells me what he needs, I grow it. Charles is doing his meat and dairy too, so he’s not even mad at me for leaving. He always wanted me to be able to make it on my own.”

“That’s amazing,” says Clarke, meaning it. “So you’re selling what Miller doesn’t need?”

“Yeah. It could still blow up in our faces,” he adds, shrugging. “Maybe we’ve got enough dudes selling over-priced produce here, but I figure I might as well try. If I crash and burn, I’m pretty sure Charles will take me back.”

She has to smile. “You can be a little excited. It’s exciting. Don’t jump straight to what could go wrong.”

“Thats rich, coming from you. You’re convinced if you don’t sell enough dolphin moasiacs by noon your entire business is in jeopardy.”

He’s not wrong. “So I’m speaking from experience. Don’t be like me, Bellamy.”

“Trying not to be.”

She smiles; the retort is automatic, and it’s kind of cute. Just a little. “So, any recommendations?”

“For what, exactly?”

“Something I can buy from you that will taste good that doesn’t require cooking.”

“The cherry tomatoes are pretty good. Sweet. I just eat them like candy.”

Clarke examines the cartons, arranged in neat lines on the table and overflowing with bright red fruit. Bellamy picks up a tomato and offers it to her, and when she pops it into her mouth and bites down, it feels like sunshine exploding into her mouth.

“That’s amazing.”

He looks smug, but she can see the pride lurking behind his eyes. “I know.”

“I’ll take two cartons.”

“My first customer,” he says. “Thanks.”

“Definitely not your last.”

She takes the tomatoes back to her own table and finds a piece of paper, writes Try a Blake Farm tomato!! on it and tapes it to the front of the tablecloth, next to the display of rings.

Lincoln does a double take when he sees it, then shakes his head. “So, that’s still happening.”

“They’re good tomatoes.”

“I’m sure they are.”

“So, you like wood, right?”

Clarke blinks at Bellamy, who’s come to lean against the bar next to her. His sister, who’s behind the bar working on Clarke’s drink, doesn’t look any more impressed with the statement than Clarke is.

“Your pickup lines need some serious work, Bell.”

“It’s not a pickup line, O,” he shoots back, and then returns his attention to Clarke. “Do you know where the farm is?”

“Not really.” It’s been about a month since she found out Bellamy’s farm existed and she’s gotten almost no new information about it since then. “I tried googling you, but your web presence needs work.”

“I know, Miller’s boyfriend is working on it. It’s not like there’s much to see yet.” He clears his throat. “Anyway, I got the old Sinclair place, and they had some trees I needed to clear out. I know it’s not driftwood, but I thought you might want to take a look and see if you could use anything.”

The offer is both completely logical and totally unexpected, one of those things that’s good for both of them but still, well, Bellamy helping her out. That’s not how it’s supposed to work.

“I could definitely come look,” she says. “Lincoln might want some too.”

“Yeah, you can bring him,” Bellamy says, with a shrug. “Maybe when O is around.”

To Clarke’s surprise, Octavia goes beet red, the most embarrassed Clarke has ever seen her. She’s probably a bit young for Lincoln, in an absolute sense, but she’s twenty-three and more than capable of making her own choices, and the two of them might actually be good together. Lincoln’s been single for a while.

“Shut up, Bell.”

“Are you helping out on the farm, Octavia?” Clarke asks, mostly in the hopes that ignoring the Lincoln thing will put Octavia at ease and let her get more information about it later, when her guard is down. Or from Bellamy.

“I’m living there since Bell sold our old place, and he says I can either help out or pay rent, so I’m helping out.”

“Which is a way better deal for you than it is for me.”

“You say that now, but someday I’m going to move out and you’re going to be so sad you have to actually hire people.”

“I’m definitely going to be sad when I have to deal with staff, yeah. You don’t have to come look at the wood,” he adds, to Clarke. “I can just get rid of it. But I figured I’d check in with you first.”

“No, that would be great. I like doing beach stuff but I’ve been thinking of branching out, and this might be a good way to start.”

“No pun intended?” he teases, and at her blank look, elaborates, “Branching out? Because it’s a tree.”

Octavia groans. “Jesus, Bell.”

“Definitely no pun intended,” she says, trying and failing to not be endeared. Bellamy is not only really attractive, but he’s also got this aura of coolness, so it took Clarke to realize that, under all that, he’s a hopeless dork.

She likes him a lot better now that she knows that.

Bellamy rubs the back of his neck, which doesn’t help her situation. “Well, uh, do you have my number? Since our web presence sucks.”

“I don’t think I do.”

“Give me your phone and I’ll put it in for you.”

“If this was you picking her up it would be pretty smooth,” Octavia observes, probably vengeance for the Lincoln comment. Clarke can never decide if stuff like that makes her happy or sad to be an only child, but it definitely makes her aware of being an only child.

Of course, as soon as she tells Lincoln about this, he’s definitely going to start dropping hints that it Means Something, so maybe this isn’t an experience she’s totally missed out on. Friends can be nosy assholes too.

Still, it’s a good offer, and one she’s interested in, so she hands over her phone and lets Bellamy give her his number, texts him back so he has hers too.

After almost six years of knowing each other, they can finally get in touch if the need to. There’s a milestone.

“Bellamy has some lumber he thinks we might want,” she tells Lincoln, when she gets back to their table.

“Huh,” says Raven, “I thought he was just hitting on you.”

“Nope, definitely not.” It’s safe to say that now, when he can’t hear. “He just wanted to give us first dibs on supplies.”

“Which is lumber?”

“Yeah, whatever he cut down on the farm to make room for–whatever else he wants on the farm. I said we’d go out there some afternoon soon to check it out.”

“Sorry, you’re going to Bellamy’s farm to check out his wood?” Raven asks. “Just to summarize.”

“With Lincoln.”

“You act like that helps, but Lincoln’s bi too. You’re both into Bellamy’s wood.”

“We’re not sure we’re into Bellamy’s wood,” Lincoln corrects. “That’s why we’re going to the farm. To examine the wood and see if we want it.”

“I can’t wait until he starts growing carrots and cucumbers, this will never get old,” Clarke remarks, dry, but Raven actually looks at her hard.

“Seriously, how come you’ve never gone for Bellamy?”

“I didn’t want hooking up with guys you’ve already slept with to be a thing of mine.” It’s only half a joke. “Come on, half of our conversations end in fights, how would we date?”

“You seem to be getting along pretty well these days,” Lincoln says.

“That’s because he’s been busy with the farm he didn’t even tell me he bought.”

“He didn’t tell me either,” says Raven. “I just knew because Mr. Sinclair mentioned it last time I saw him. I didn’t know you guys didn’t know, I figured it was common knowledge.”

“Octavia told me, but she swore me to secrecy,” Lincoln puts in. “I think he was trying to keep it quiet in case something went wrong. Luna said the sign wasn’t even up until after he went to the farmer’s market.”

It makes Clarke feel a little better, which in turn makes her feel worse, because she doesn’t want to have any feelings about Bellamy, or his farm, or his life in general. She has no interest in justifying why she’s never dated him because the whole premise is flawed. She couldn’t date Bellamy even if she did want to. It’s not a thing.

“I just don’t think he’s my type,” she finally says. “Obviously he’s hot, don’t get me wrong. But that’s not enough. I dated Lincoln because he was hot and look how that turned out.”

“We broke up amicably and now we’re best friends,” Lincoln says, dry. “How awful.”

She has to smile. “You know what I mean.”

Neither of them agrees, but they shut up about it. She’ll take it.

Lincoln texts an hour before they’re supposed to go out to the farm to say something came up, so he’ll just go out on his own later. Clarke wants to call it out as the bullshit it so clearly is, but that’s not actually a productive use of her time. She still has to go see Bellamy, unless she cancels too, and then it’s a whole thing.

She can just go check out Bellamy’s wood on her own. No big deal.

Before this, Clarke had known that Mr. Sinclair had died and left the farm to his son–also Mr. Sinclair–who taught physics and autoshop at the high school, which was why he was friends with Raven, who was definitely the star pupil in both classes. Mr. Sinclair the younger had a house of his own and no desire to keep up a property the size of the family farm, even if it hadn’t been a working farm for many years. It’s not the largest property in the area, but it’s well located and well maintained, probably perfect for a young farmer just starting out.

It’s also not on any of Clarke’s regular routes, so she hasn’t seen it in a while. If anyone had asked her, she would have said it was still on the market, but it’s not like she was paying much attention. And even though she came here at nineteen, she’s aware of not being a native. She doesn’t have the complicated network of contacts most people do, especially since the beach house is kind of isolated, away from where most of the actual residents live. She’s alone a lot, and she doesn’t mind, but driving past the new Blake Farm, this place she didn’t even know about, she can’t help regretting it.

She doesn’t know what she would have done if she knew about this sooner, but she wishes she’d had the option to try doing it.

There’s no one in sight when she parks, so she just gets to wander around, looking at the barn, the house, the rows of crops. She wouldn’t have been able to describe what it looked like before, but she knows it looks better now, the fields full and green, the house repainted, everything bright and clean and new.

“Hey,” says Bellamy, jolting her attention from the rows of tomatoes. “Sorry, I heard you come in but I was in the barn.”

She turns and it actually takes her a second to recover from just seeing him. Bellamy is always attractive, obviously and easily, a fact of life. Bellamy looks good; that’s how it is. But he’s usually a kind of buttoned-up guy, especially for someone who ostensibly lives on the beach. He rocks this kind of nerdy professor look, and it’s jarring to see him in jeans and a tank top, a bandanna pushing his hair off his forehead. The only thing missing is his glasses, which would definitely complete the look for her, but she assumes they’re not practical.

And, honestly, she probably couldn’t deal with all of that. It’s just as well he doesn’t have the glasses on top of his huge arms and broad chest and freckles popping off of his skin.

She shakes herself out of it. “No problem. I was just looking around. Lincoln had to cancel,” she adds. “He got a lead on some material he wanted up in North Carolina. So it’s just me.”

“Cool. You want the tour?”

“Sure.”

He shrugs on a light flannel shirt, which pretty much confirms that he’s not going to get less hot during this visit. His shoulders are covered, but he looks like the cover of a romance novel with the unbuttoned flannel and glistening skin. “Okay, so–the barn. I don’t actually need the barn.”

“No?”

“No animals yet.”

“Right, you said Pike was doing the animal produce.”

He nods, holding the barn door open for her. “This is my office for now, until I figure out if I can afford to keep livestock. I just want to grab keys and my glasses, and then I’ll take you around the fields and to the lumber.”

Clarke doesn’t jump him when he finds the glasses, but it’s a close thing. She wouldn’t have said she was avoiding Bellamy, but she’s seen more of him in the last couple weeks since he got the farm than she probably has in the last year before this, and the high concentration of interaction is a lot. Especially since they’ve been getting along.

She should pick a fight, just to remind herself why a literal roll in the hay isn’t an option.

Instead, she just lets him drive her around the farm, explaining what he’s doing now and what he’s still planning to do, pointing out crops that are coming in, doing well, doing poorly, rattling off names of weird hipster vegetables Clarke’s never even heard of.

“You really love this, huh,” she observes.

He glances over at her. “And?”

“It’s just nice. I know a lot of people feel kind of stuck here, like Lexa did. I’m glad this is where you want to be.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“I didn’t think you’d mind if I left town.”

“It wouldn’t be the same without you.”

“You too.” He clears his throat. “I honestly never thought you’d stick around. I remember when you showed up and it just felt like–”

“Rich girl burnout?”

“No offense.”

“None taken. If I wasn’t a spoiled rich girl, I probably wouldn’t be here. I couldn’t have afforded to throw everything away. But–” She huffs. “This is going to make me sound like an asshole.”

“I already think you’re an asshole, so go ahead.”

His voice is warm, and she smiles. “I think I needed to be away from pressure. School was just–I was the top of my class, always, because if I wasn’t then I thought I was losing. And I think I would have burned myself out and made myself miserable. It was already starting to happen in college, when I wasn’t the biggest fish in the pond anymore. If I wasn’t the best, I didn’t know what to be.”

“So you’re the biggest fish out here?” He doesn’t sound offended.

“No, I got out of the pond. I’m a total failure judged by any of the standards I used to have, but I’m happy.”

He laughs. “Okay, yeah. I can see how that would make you sound like an asshole. But it’s nice having you here. And it’s not as if you’re not successful. Your art actually sells. I’m pretty sure Lexa’s going to be back with her tail between her legs in a couple years, but if you wanted to leave–”

“I don’t think I could make stuff like this if I left,” she admits. “I think I need to be out here.”

“Yeah. I’ve never seen anyone capture the ocean like you do, it’s amazing.” Before Clarke quite has time to process that–Bellamy has seen her art, Bellamy has opinions on her art, Bellamy thinks her art is amazing–he coughs, this awkward clearing of his throat like he realizes it’s kind of a lot too. “This place is clearly good for you.”

He’s not the first person to say it, or something like it. But it means something else, coming from him.

“Yeah,” she says. “I like to think so.”

Clarke doesn’t set out to make the branches she took from Bellamy into any kind of gesture or statement. She picked the pieces she liked, these gnarled branches she thinks she can work with, leaves she could preserve in some way, maybe. Bellamy hauled them into his truck, drove her back to her car, and helped her load them, and Clarke left feeling only a little at loose ends.

But as soon as she’s home and really looking at the pieces, all she can see is him. These aren’t old, dried out logs, carried to her by the sea from god knows where. These are Bellamy’s trees from Bellamy’s farm, and when she looks at them, she can’t imagine turning them into anything but what they already are: Blake Farm and Bellamy, his dream finally come true.

So she runs with it. It’s not as abstract as some of her pieces, but Clarke’s past the point in her life where she thinks inscrutability is artistically superior in and of itself. She makes the pieces she wants to make, and it’s easy to just fall into making this one. Clarke goes into a kind of trance when she’s inspired, really inspired; she can make a big, impressive piece more quickly than a bunch of her tourist souvenirs, for all they’re easier, just because she wants the real piece so much more.

She finishes off the Blake Farm piece the morning of the farmer’s market, which is kind of a mixed blessing. Because it is for Bellamy, wholly and undeniably. She couldn’t give it to the boutique to sell or try to get it put on display anywhere, but it feels just as impossible to go up to him and tell him she made him a gift. He’d given her the wood without any expectation of getting it back, and she doesn’t know how to tell him he inspired her without it being a big deal. Because it is a big deal, at least to her.

She’s definitely kind of in love with him. It’s probably been a long time coming.

Lincoln texts her to ask where she is while she’s loading the thing into her car, and she says she’s on her way, but he can take as much of the table as he wants. It’s probably going to be a couple minutes, one way or another.

Clarke usually visits Bellamy’s stall before the market has opened. She picks up some berries or tomatoes to put on her table, since free stuff gets people’s attention, and then she doesn’t see him again until the end of the market. It’s easier than leaving her stuff unattended and fighting her way through crowds, and it feels more causal too. She’s not going out of her way.

Which means this is her first time actually seeing him in action, Octavia at his side, one of her own mosaics on display on the corner of his table with a sign directing fans to her table.

Apparently they’ve got a weird thing going, and she didn’t even realize.

“I didn’t know you were doing advertising for me,” she tells Bellamy. He’s looking at his phone, so he missed her coming in, the ideal scenario. She should be able to get out what she wanted to say.

He startles but recovers, smiling a little. “You’re advertising for me, I figured I should return the favor.” He clears his throat. “I was worried you weren’t going to make it. Thought you might be sick.”

“I don’t think I’m selling. But I could use your help with something, if your sister can watch your booth for a minute.”

“Yeah, of course. O, I’ll be back.”

He probably won’t think it’s weird. They’re his branches, it only makes sense that his farm would inspire her. He might try to pay her. He might not even like it. But I made a mosaic of your farm with your branches as a frame isn’t really an unambiguous gesture, and if she plays it cool, he might not even realize it’s a thing. This is what artists do, right? Totally normal.

“I figured you’d want to see what I did with the stuff I got from you.”

He blinks, clearly taken aback. “You already used it?”

“I was inspired.” She opens up the back of the car, not letting herself ask him to close his eyes or making it a big presentation, but she doesn’t have to. Bellamy stops dead, staring, and Clarke tries to see it through his eyes, the sea glass and shells, the leaves coated to keep them fresh, the branches surrounding a scene of blues and greens and golds.

His farm, rendered in whatever made her think of him.

“Holy shit,” he breathes.

“I wasn’t sure if you wanted it, I thought I should give you first dibs, but–”

He kisses her, this quick shock of contact that just lasts a second before he seems to realize what he’s done and he pulls back, eyes wide behind his glasses. He really is, well–Bellamy. A constant background presence in her life that she wants to make much more prominent.

Someone she’s, somehow, very fond of.

“Sorry,” he says, searching her face like he’s trying to figure out if he should be saying that. “It seemed like the right response.”

Clarke winds her arms around his neck. “It was,” she says, and kisses him again.

They don’t make it back to their stalls for a long time.

When Clarke Griffin is twenty-six, her boyfriend proposes and she leaves her beach house to move to his farm instead. They convert the barn into a studio and she spends her mornings helping on the farms, her afternoons working on her art, and her nights with Bellamy, always with Bellamy.

It’s not the life she imagined, when she was young, or even when she came to Arcadia for the first time. But somehow, it’s exactly what she wanted.

#wildcard47

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chasholidays · 5 years

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Mermaid/selkie Bellamy/Clarke! Also I appreciate that you’re doing this at all again — last year you wrote a crazy amount of fic, but I think we all just want you to write whatever and however much you want to write because fic should be fun and not terribly stressful or burnout inducing :)

The first day he doesn't see Clarke, Bellamy tries not to worry too much. After all, it's just one day, and there could be all sorts of reasons that she wasn't at their usual spot. It's not even an agreed upon thing, that they'll meet there every afternoon. They've never talked about it, really. Bellamy knows that he prioritizes it, but that doesn't mean Clarke does, and even if she does, she's allowed to miss a day.

The second day, he has more trouble convincing himself that nothing has happened, and the third, he gives up entirely. Three days with no sign of Clarke and no word from her is clearly and undeniably bad, not an overreaction on his part. She wouldn't just disappear without telling him, and if there was an emergency, he's sure she'd find a way to let him know.

And, after three days, she can't be mad at him for overreacting. If he was gone for three days, he'd expect her to come check in too.

Bellamy and Clarke maybe shouldn't be as close as they are, although there are no rules about merfolk and selkies not associating. There's no blood feud between them or anything, they just aren't species with a particularly deep bond. They tend to have different territories and diets, keep different schedules. They're friendly, but not friends, essentially, and that was how Bellamy and Clarke started out too. She was sunning herself on a rock, looking more like a merwoman than a selkie at the time, her sealskin wrapped around her waist while she let her pale human flesh soak in the sunlight. Bellamy did a double-take, thinking she was someone he knew, but then he realized his mistake.

He waited long enough for her to notice, though. "Can I help you?" she asked.

"I was going to sun myself there."

She moved incrementally, more as a gesture than anything else. There was plenty of room. "Don't let me stop you."

He'd started coming back at the same time, hoping to catch her, and she'd kept on being there, and before he knew it it was the highlight of his day, spending time with Clarke. He'd met selkies in passing before, but he'd never really sat down and talked to one. Clarke had more experience of the human world than he did, since it was so much easier for her to get legs than it was for him, and he listened to her stories greedily. She, in turn, was interested about the deeper ocean, where she couldn't go, with that pesky need to breathe air and air only, and he told her about the giant creatures he'd passed, the cold depths where he shouldn't have wandered.

If anything, he would have liked to see more of her, had been trying to figure out how he might do it when she suddenly stopped showing up.

Once the sun has begun to set and it's far too late for Clarke to show up, he leaves the rock and makes his way inland, to the shoal where the selkies tend to congregate, the place where Clarke returns after the two of them part ways. He's never been before, doesn't like the shallows much, feeling too exposed, and the way the selkies watch him as he approaches, black eyes unreadable in sealform, doesn't help.

Still, he waves. "I'm looking for Clarke!"

The selkies exchange a look and then one of them slides into the water, swimming out to him and then jerking his head to signal they should go farther out. Bellamy follows, and they go out to another rock, where the selkie shrugs off enough of its skin to expose the human face.

"You must be Bellamy," he says.

It's not what he was expecting, but it saves some time. "I must."

"I was going to come find you soon. Wells," he adds, an afterthought, and Bellamy nods.

"Clarke's mentioned you. Is she okay?"

"I don't think so."

His stomach drops. He'd been telling himself he was being paranoid, that nothing had really happened. He was being foolish and she just didn't take their meetings on the rock as seriously as he did.

He'd forced himself to be so sure.

"What happened?"

"The same thing that always happens to selkies, we think," says Wells. "She went on land and lost her skin."

He stares, a cold horror rushing through his veins. It's not the same for merfolk, but he's heard stories of what it's like for selkies. Like having their souls ripped away. "I didn't know that still happened."

"It doesn't, not very often."

"Are you going to help her?"

Wells' eyes cut away, awkward. "I'd like to say yes, but--there aren't any plans for that yet."

"Why the fuck not?"

"Because it's dangerous," he snaps. They just stare at each other for a second, and then Wells lets out a frustrated huff of breath. "You're not the only one who cares about her, but if someone on land knows what she is and took her skin, it's dangerous for one of her to go after her. We can't just charge in. We don't even know if that's really what happened." The anger burns itself out, and his expression turns thoughtful. "Some of the elders think she's with you. They thought she ran off with her merman."

"She didn't." He runs his hand through his hair, exhales. "I could go."

"Could you? I didn't think merfolk could go on land."

"It's more trouble for us than it is for selkies, but that doesn't mean we can't do it." Mostly, it's not expected, the way it is with selkies. Selkies take off their skins and walk on land, it's part of the package. A merfolk who walks on land is thought to be rejecting the sea. "I have to beach myself in moonlight and stay there until dawn," he says, the memory returning to him slowly, through a fog of time. It always felt more like a legend than instructions. He never thought he'd actually do it. "The dawn's light will strip away the scales."

Wells looks dubious. "Really?"

"As far as I know." He looks up at the sky, gauging the clouds. "I think there should be moonlight tonight. Can you show me where Clarke usually goes to shore?"

"You really want to do this."

"Apparently no one else will."

"I was going to," says Wells. "Once I made sure she wasn't with you."

It's hard to tell if the jealousy is fresh or faded, if the feelings Wells might have had for Clarke were gone before Bellamy showed up or if he had to give up his hopes of getting her because Bellamy came along.

Either way, it's heartening.

"You could come with me," he offers. "I've never been on the land before."

"I'll see what I can do." He smiles. "The last thing we want is you getting stuck having to rescue me too."

"Second to last thing." Wells cocks his head, and Bellamy clarifies, "The last thing I want is to not find Clarke."

"I'll come to the beach every night," Wells promises. "If you need me, I'll be there."

"Okay," says Bellamy. "I need to tell my sister where I'm going. But I'll meet you here tonight."

He nods. "Thank you. I know you're not doing it for me, but--I'm still thankful you're doing it."

All Bellamy can do is shrug. There's no choice here; it's not a sacrifice. Clarke is in trouble and there's nothing he could do besides help her. That's all there is.

"Thanks for helping out," he says. "See you tonight."

Octavia wants to come.

"No," he says, flat.

"Come on, Bell! It's stupid of you to go alone. What if she's somewhere only girls can go or something?"

It seems like a pretty remote possibility, and Octavia must realize that too, because she goes on before he can reply.

"It would be better if someone went with you, right? Safer for everyone."

"Not safer for you."

"Safer for Clarke," she shoots back, a direct hit. "If you want to save her--"

Bellamy rubs his face, wishing he had a good reason to veto her plan. But she's right; he'd be better off with an ally, and while he could suggest he bring Miller or Murphy, Octavia would just say there wasn't any reason she couldn't come.

And she'd honestly be right.

"You have to be careful," he says, firm. "And you have to listen to me. If something happens--"

"You're the boss," she says, too quick and eager. She must have realized she's winning this argument and all she has to do is not screw it up.

At least she's not going alone. It could be worse.

"Okay," he says. "But we're finding Clarke, and then we're coming home."

"Deal." She pauses. "So, how are we finding her?"

"Good question. I'm looking forward to finding out."

There's a human expression about finding "sea legs," for when they go on boats and have to get used to the way the deck shifts beneath their feet. It had made some sense to Bellamy before--he'd basked on pieces of driftwood and debris before, and even knowing the tides as well as he did, it had felt different--but now that he has his own land legs, it's painfully understandable. Standing is hard enough on dirt, he doesn't know how he'd do it on anything unstable.

"Okay, just do it like I do," says Wells. He's shed his skin and tied it around his waist like Clarke sometimes does so he can model proper human behavior. "Left foot, right foot."

"It's so slow," says Octavia. "And bulky."

Bellamy doesn't mind so much, but he's just as glad his sister doesn't seem enamored of her human body. He'd been a little worried she'd decide she wanted to leave the sea behind, and that would be a headache.

"You get used to it," says Wells. "Wait until you have to put on clothes."

The clothes are tough. The selkies keep some spares around, just in case someone wants to go ashore, and Wells borrowed some for them, but Bellamy can't help thinking they don't fit right. Wells assures him it's fine, though, and he's the expert.

It takes almost an hour for Wells to approve them as human-passing, and that's almost worse, because once he has, there's nothing left but to leave the shore and go into town. Wells tells them where to go, to follow the signs until they see houses, and it seems straightforward enough, but there are so many things that could go wrong.

But as long as they can get back to the sea, they'll be fine. They can't lose their skins or themselves, not like selkies could. Salt water will bring them back to themselves.

"Good luck," says Wells, and then he pulls his skin back on, slides into the water, and he's gone.

"Okay," O says, giving one leg a shake like she still doesn't trust it. "Let's go."

Bellamy knows a decent amount about the town of Eden, thanks to Clarke. He knows that she goes once or twice a week and has some people there she'd consider friends: a man named Lincoln who owns an art gallery, a girl named Madi whose mother is ill, the town's doctor. She's not a part of the community, but they think she's a normal human woman who lives somewhere out of town and comes in sometimes for supplies. They like her.

There's also, according to Wells, one other selkie there who gave up his skin to live among humans. Bellamy figures he's their best bet to start, but that Lincoln will be easier to find, and that turns out to be right. "Grounder's Gallery" is right on the Main Street when they walk into town, a quaint little storefront with bells over the door that jingle when Bellamy pushes it open.

The first thing he sees is a painting of Clarke's, which makes him feel better. She paints on the beach and he's watched her from time to time, always with her permission. It's a very human kind of artwork, canvas that wouldn't last well under water, but Clarke has captured the sea in this one, the sun viewed from under the waves, a sight Bellamy has seen a thousand times captured for humans to enjoy.

"That's one of my favorite pieces," a man says, and Bellamy jumps, spooked. It's his first time talking to a human.

But he knows his lines. "Yeah, mine too." The man frowns, and he says, "I know the artist."

"Oh, you're a friend of Clarke's?"

"Yeah." He offers his hand, like Wells taught him, and the man shakes it. "Bellamy."

"Lincoln. She's mentioned you."

He absolutely does not look at his sister, but he can feel her eyes on him, can still perfectly picture her smug expression. "I was actually looking for her," he tells Lincoln. "I haven't heard from her in a couple days, I thought you might have seen her."

To his surprise, Lincoln's face dissolved instantly into concern. "I'm not surprised. I don't think she's left the hospital." The panic must be all over Bellamy's face because he adds, "She's fine," so quickly he almost trips over the words. "It's Mrs. Gardner. Madi's mother."

The relief washes through him. "I remember Clarke said she was sick."

"She had a bad turn. The doctors say she won't last more than a week. We're all amazed she's made it this long. Madi hasn't left her side, and Clarke hasn't left Madi's."

"Of course not," he says. "I had no idea."

"I think she's having enough trouble remembering to eat and sleep, let alone check in."

"I bet." He wets his lips, which is a weird thing to need to do. "Can you tell me how to get there?"

The hospital is, unfortunately, not close. Clarke apparently got a ride in the ambulance, but it would take Bellamy the whole day to walk, at least, so he asks for directions to Monty's first, ostensibly because he has something to give him, but mostly because he needs someone who knows how humans get anywhere. Their legs just aren't quick enough.

Lincoln gives him a few picture books to bring to Madi and some food for her and Clarke and sends him on his way, which is the best possible outcome. He gets why the selkies immediately assumed the worst, probably would have done the same thing himself in their place, but it's nice to hear that Clarke was right about her town. They haven't betrayed her after all.

Bellamy's legs are aching a little by the time he and Octavia make it to Monty's. He doesn't have much sense of how far they've traveled, but they started early in the morning and now it's closing in on midday, the sun making his skin warm without any water nearby for relief.

"No wonder humans need vehicles," O mutters. "Walking sucks."

"You're the one who wanted to come."

"And now I know better."

Eden isn't coastal, but he can still see the sea on the horizon, and they're getting closer to it as they walk towards Monty's. Clarke shifts where she does because it's far enough away from settlements that she thinks no one will see her, but she could do it much closer.

"You could just go home," Bellamy points out, jerking his chin in the direction of the water.

"Not before I meet your selkie girlfriend," she teases, and he probably should have seen that one coming.

The houses out here are scattered enough that he has no doubt that they've found Monty's--pale green, as Lincoln said, with white trim--and it reminds him of a tropical wave, laced with sea foam. A selkie house.

If there was any lingering doubt that this was the place, it washes away when he sees the man in the front, tending to the flowers. As seals, selkies are identifiable by their size and the sharpness of their eyes, compared to regular animals. As humans, they have an aura about them, at least to Bellamy. This is no ordinary person, that much is obvious.

"Hey, are you Monty?"

The man looks up, eyes narrowing as he examines Bellamy and Octavia. They have a glow of their own, he imagines, but Monty's probably never seem it before.

"Clarke's merfolk," he finally decides.

"Bellamy." It seems as if Clarke's been talking about him. "And my sister, Octavia."

Monty nods. "I was wondering when someone would come looking. I was going to come check in if she was gone much longer."

"The selkies thought she lost her skin."

Monty rolls his eyes. "They always assume the worst."

"Her friend is in the hospital. That's pretty bad."

He sobers. "It is, and it might get worse."

"You think she won't make it."

He shakes his head. "And Mrs. Gardner wants Clarke to take Madi if anything happens to her. She doesn't have any family she's close to, and she doesn't want Madi to have to leave her home."

"Shit," Bellamy breathes. "She never said anything."

Monty shrugs. "I think we all thought she had more time."

It's not as if Bellamy didn't know Clarke had a life on land. But it's strange to be in it, to realize how much he didn't know. Even her own people thought she would have run off with him, but here she is stuck in a human hospital with a human girl, one who might be her girl someday.

"Can you get me there?" he asks. "To Clarke."

Monty nods. "Just let me grab my keys."

The car is, by far, the most interesting thing on land, at least as far as Octavia is concerned.

"How did you learn? How does it work? Why does it smell like this?"

"Maybe let him answer a question, O."

Monty smiles. He's driving with Bellamy in the passenger seat and Octavia leaning forward from the back, fascinated by everything. "I don't know much about how it works, but the smell is the fuel. And Lincoln taught me. I said I grew up in the city and never got a chance to learn."

"Why did you decide to move to land?"

He shrugs. "I like land. Sunlight and gardening and cooked food. I still put on my skin and go swimming sometimes," he adds, "but I prefer it here. Most selkies seem to think they can't go on land anymore because it's too dangerous, and it's just stupid. I didn't think merfolk could at all."

"It's just more of a pain. We can't do it any time we want like you can."

"Are you thinking of staying?" Monty asks, and that is the question. If Clarke moves here, what does he do?

He doesn't even know if she wants him here.

"Just curious," he says, and he sees Octavia roll her eyes in the mirror.

That seems about right.

Monty insists on helping them navigate the hospital, which is just as well. When the woman at the desk won't let them just go see Clarke for some reason, Monty asks if they can page her, and she does agree to that. "Clarke Griffin to reception" booms out of the walls, echoing with the woman's voice as she speaks into a device, and Bellamy glances around, trying to figure out where she'd even be coming from.

He doesn't, though, so she spots him before he sees her. "Bellamy!"

By the time he's turned she's there, throwing herself into his arms with a force that makes him stagger back a little. It's so much contact, close and hot and strange, this press of her body. He's never felt her like this before, but it's nice, amazing even. He buries his nose in her hair, breathing past the smell of humanity and hospitals to the familiar underlying scent of her, salty air and sunshine.

"Fuck, I was so worried," he murmurs.

She sniffles a little. "I know. I wanted to get away to tell you, but--"

"Madi needed you. I get it. How's her mom?"

"Getting better, actually. Not out of the woods, but--I think she's going to make it. At least for now."

"Thank goodness." He wets his lips, pulls back to look at her. She's dressed like any other human, a light shirt and the stiff blue trousers they all like so much, but she looks worn out. She must not be sleeping enough. "I heard you were taking Madi. If anything happened to her."

"Yeah." She looks away. "I think I might need to--I want to be around. If anything happens."

"Do you want to be alone?" She frowns, and he swallows. "You know, in the long term. I'm getting used to the legs," he offers. "If you need some help."

Her eyes widen, and then soften. She takes his hand in hers and squeezes once, gentle.

"I could definitely use some help. Do you want to come meet them?"

He glances back at Octavia and Monty, but O just waves her hand. "Go ahead, we'll be here."

"My sister," he explains to Clarke as they walk. "I thought it was a rescue mission, she talked me into letting her come."

She smiles. "Rushing bravely in to find my skin and get me away from whoever took it?"

"If you needed that."

"No one knows, I don't think. No one believes in that stuff much. Lincoln knows there's something strange about me, but--" She shrugs. "I think he likes me enough to not care."

"It's a nice town. I can see why you like it."

"Is that why you're offering to stay?"

"You know it's not."

"I know. I want to hear it anyway."

"I want to be with you," he says, the simple truth. It's been what he's wanted for so long, however he could get it.

"Good," she says. "You can be."

Clarke has been making a little bit of money, selling paintings through Lincoln, and they can get a place cheap, this little cabin not too far from Monty. Bellamy's not sure about it at first, dark and cramped, smelling like damp wood and shadows, but that's only what it's like to start. As it turns out, he's good with construction, and Lincoln is too, and they can fix it. They find the bad wood and replace it, open up the windows and let the clean air in. Clarke paints the walls in bright colors, and Octavia comes by every few days with shells and questions. Bellamy's not sure his sister will leave the water like he has, but she likes visiting, and she definitely likes Lincoln. Even Miller stops by to see what the big deal is, takes a shine to Monty that makes Bellamy think he might be coming by sometimes too.

Eden might have a lot more magic in it very soon.

They make a room for Madi without discussing it; her mother is better, but Nyko checks on her every day, and no one thinks she'll last past winter.

As it happens, she passes a few days after the house is done, as if she was just waiting for her daughter to have somewhere to go.

"Do you think we're ready for this?" he asks Clarke. "I still don't know that much about being a human. She's going to ask me how reproduction works and I'll tell her I don't know, but it's awesome."

Clarke smiles, as he hoped she would. She wasn't as close to Madi's mother as she is to Madi, but she's still losing a friend. "I think we'll be fine. She already knows how to walk, so she doesn't need tips on that."

"I'm awesome at walking," he grumbles.

"Sure you are."

"I just--we did all this. And I'm not upset about, but what if it doesn't work? What if we went to all this trouble and we're not even good parents?"

"I wanted to do this anyway."

"You did?"

"Yeah. I'd been spending more time here because I thought--you and me, we didn't have much future in the ocean. I couldn't live in the caves with you, you couldn't live on the shore with me. But here, we fit together. We've got a home together, even a child. I wasn't planning that, but--we've got a little life. That's what we were building here. A place for us bigger than just a rock."

"It was a nice rock."

She smiles, leans up to kiss him. They could have kissed before, of course, but it's a human thing. It wouldn't have felt very good if he wasn't one. Merfolk don't have mouths like this, and he would have been missing out.

"It was a great rock. But here's good too, right?"

"It is."

"And we're going to make it better," she says, so certain he can't help believing her. "For us and Madi. We're going to be happy, Bellamy."

And, somehow, she's right.

#surfinggrimreaper

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chasholidays · 5 years

Note

Hello! I would love to read a Bellarke "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" AU. There are extensive plot synopsis in Wikipedia for both the book (absolutely delightful and hilarious, but very obscure epistolary historical novel) and the film (it was released about a month ago, I haven't seen it yet, but it looks interesting). Regardless of whether my prompt gets picked, I look forward to reading your holiday fics, thank you for doing them.

also in space! I love space

new fic will be up when I wake up around 6 am EST

When Clarke’s data pad informs her she has a new message from an unfamiliar contact, she almost swipes it into her reader mail folder without looking. It’s usually the right choice; Clarke gets a lot of messages from fans who just want to tell her how much they enjoyed a piece she did or how much they appreciated her writing about wherever they live. Once a week, she’ll grab some alcohol and go through and respond to them or not, depending on the specific message and how long she has, but they aren’t a priority. Most of the time she doesn’t know what to say.

But before she can do the same thing to Bellamy Blake’s message, the subject catches her eye: Library inquiry.

It could be a speaking engagement, but even the word library is jarring; she’s not sure when she last saw it outside of historical texts. Archives are still common, of course, but even as a term for a personal collection of literature, library is archaic.

If it is from a reader, she can always move it back to the correct folder later; for now, she clicks to read it.

Dear M. Griffin,

My name is Bellamy Blake and I’m writing on behalf of the Geurnsey Society for the Preservation of Print. We recently acquired several books with your name on their nameplates, apparently from your collection (see attached). I was hoping you might be able to give me more information about how the books came to you. Also, if you have any other print books that you’re willing to part with for our library, we would be interested in those as well.

Thank you in advance for your assistance.

Bellamy BlakePresident, Guernsey Society for the Preservation of Print

Clarke reads the message over several times, trying to put together the pieces. M. Blake has books of hers, but not any of the books she’s written. Somehow, he’s gotten his hands on some of the print texts she had as a child, the ones that were sold off with the rest of the family estate after her father died. She’s held onto a few, her favorites, but print texts just aren’t practical. No one wants them, nowadays.

“Beca?” she says.

The computer lights flick to attention. “Yes?”

“What can you tell me about Guernsey?”

There’s a second of mechanical humming, and then she returns, “Guernsey is the second moon of Argonia V, diameter 3011 kilometers, population 532 at last census. Thirty-four percent of the planet is habitable by humans. Terraforming in progress for additional habitable land was halted in 347 SE due to the planet’s occupation during the Argon/Praxis War. Rebuilding is still in process. Guernsey is self-sufficient with no notable exports. Does that answer your question?”

It answers parts of her question, namely what it is and why she hasn’t heard of it. “Yes,” she says, absent. “Do you have any information about a Guernsey Society for the Preservation of Print?”

“You have an email from its president, but you’re aware of that.”

She smiles. “That’s why I’m asking.”

“I don’t find any information on a surface scan. Do you want me to do a deep dive?”

“Yeah, see if you can find anything. Thanks.”

She pulls the message back up, scanning it again. There’s no harm in sending M. Blake a message back, letting xem know about the books, maybe asking a couple questions. She’s not so famous as a writer that she really thinks this is a ploy to gain her favor, and even if it is, it’s a good ploy. Xe deserves to be rewarded for xyr efforts.

Dear M. Blake,

I’m amazed my books came to you. They’re from my family’s collection, which was sold in 340 after my father’s death. I’m attaching information about the broker who handled the sale, I hope she’s able to help you with where the others might have gotten to.

Which books did you get that were mine? The nameplate doesn’t include titles. Also, would you mind telling me more about your society? What print are you preserving and how? Why are you starting a library?

Let me know if there are any other questions I can help with.

Clarke Griffin(she/her/hers)

She proofs the message once before sending, and then she puts it out of her head. Beca confirms the society has no real presence in the greater galaxy, but that Guernsey is also fairly isolated with spotty connections to the informational hubs, so it’s not surprising. And it’s going to take a while for M. Blake to get her message, and once xe does, xe’ll either write back and tell her more or be done, and either way, it doesn’t matter much.

Clarke has more pressing things to worry about; it’s not a big deal.

M. Blake’s reply arrives six standard days later, when Clarke is on Ganymede, meeting with Nathan Miller about her next project.

“I’m your agent, not your boss,” he says. “I can’t tell you what to do. Hell, you don’t need to do anything. You want to be done, you can be done. But this thing where I give you ideas and you tell me no but don’t have any better ideas isn’t working for me.”

Clarke sighs. She made her name as a writer doing front-line reporting on the war, and once it was over, she turned her experience into a series about a battlefield medic who slowly became more and more involved with the actual combat. The series finished a few months ago to near-universal praise, and it’s time for her to find a new project.

Miller’s not wrong that, so far, all she’s doing is saying no.

“I don’t have to do anything,” she points out.

“You? Not doing anything? No way.”

“Maybe I just need to wait for inspiration.”

“So, you’re firing me and going off alone on your ship?” He sounds more resigned than surprised.

Her data band pings on her wrist, and she glances down to see the message received from Bellamy Blake. “I have some ideas I’m working on,” she says, even though it’s barely an idea yet. Just a curiosity. There are all sorts of things M. Blake could tell her about xyr society that would lose her interest, too. “Maybe going back to some of the places I went in the war, writing about how they’re doing a few years out. What recovery looks like. Checking back in.”

“Huh. That could work, actually. I could probably find you some speaking engagements while you’re out there. You’re pretty popular on the Argon front lines.”

Speaking still isn’t her favorite thing, but money and visibility are good, and it’ll make Miller feel better.

Thanks for the broker’s contact, she sees, scanning M. Blake’s message covertly, so Miller won’t notice. Communications are slow out of Guernsey, but I’ve sent her a message.

“Yeah, take full advantage. Give me a month or two to get ready? And I want to visit Guernsey.”

“Where now?”

“One of Argonia V’s moons. Small population, but it was one of the Praxis-occupied territories during the war, and they’re still not recovered enough to resume terraforming. I think it would be an interesting place to focus on.”

“Never heard of it,” says Miller. He holds his wrist up to his mouth, speaking into his data band. “Reminder, research Guernsey, schedule for Clarke’s front line tour.”

The data band beeps its agreement, and Clarke says, “So, we’re good?”

“You in a hurry?”

“Messages to read.”

He gestures with his mug. “Go ahead. I’ll still buy you lunch even if you ignore me.”

“This is why you’re the best agent.”

The society is relatively new, but we’re working on taking advantage of some of Guernsey’s climate features to preserve more texts. As you said, print books are difficult to store, especially older ones, and they’re going out of style. Your father’s collection isn’t the only one that’s been broken up in the last few decades, and there are fewer and fewer buyers. Our goal is to obtain, restore, and house as many texts as we can. We’ll be calling the collection the Guernsey Library.

The texts we got of yours are Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking-Glass, and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I also got a few other texts from the same seller, but they didn’t have nameplates so I don’t know if they’re from your collection. I’m attaching an image; if you want any of them back, let me know and we can try to work something out. I don’t know how involved you were in sales of the estate.

Thanks again for your help.

Bellamy BlakePresident, Guernsey Society for the Preservation of Print (he/him/his)

It’s not a message that requires Clarke’s response. Some of the books in M. Blake’s image are from the family collection, but it’s not as if she wants them back. She took five print books with her when she left home and made sure she had the rest in digital, but even that had felt like an indulgence. Like her father, she loves the feel of paper, the weight of texts in her hands, but it’s been hard finding room for even those five books over the years, with all the places she’s gone. With her own ship, she might be able to take more, but she doesn’t want to take them away from a library.

Mostly, she just wants to know more.

So she asks M. Blake what kind of climate Guernsey has that he’s taking advantage of, how he goes about finding books, if they take all books or there’s a requirement for a certain edition or quality level they require.

And M. Blake doesn’t seem to mind the questions. He explains the natural cave structures that lace the surface of the moon, how the humidity and heat levels are perfect for preserving paper. In addition to whatever other duties he has, he has a facility where he can print and bind his own books, as well as repair damaged ones, so if he finds something in poor condition on his weekly searches for new materials, he can always obtain it and fix it up himself.

She asks Miller to make Guernsey her first stop on the tour, but he points out that she’s passing two planets interested in having her speak on her way there, so she might as well stop, and it’s hard to argue with that, even if she really wants to.

She gets a message from M. Blake after the second event, which isn’t noteworthy in and of itself–he has to go to Argonia V to send and receive messages, which he does twice a week, and while the time it takes for the messages to get to her shortens as she gets closer to the planet, the schedule is still fairly predictable.

The content is disappointing, though: I saw that journalist and author Clarke Griffin is touring the planets that were the front lines of the war and has a speaking engagement on Argonia V in a few weeks. Any relation?

Obviously, she was going to tell him, but the fact that he hadn’t found out about her yet gave her hope that he might not find out about her until she actually got to him and could tell him in person.

Surprise, she writes back. I’m planning to spend a few weeks in Guernsey doing research. So I hope I’ll see you soon.

His reply comes in a few days later, and she tries not to let herself read into it: It’s a small town, I’m hard to miss.

Not exactly a red carpet. But she’ll take it.

There’s a shuttle port on Guernsey, but no dock, so Clarke has to leave her ship on Argonia V and take the single shuttle that goes out to Guernsey daily. It’s about a third of the way full, but Clarke gets the sense that she’s the odd one out, the only tourist on the whole shuttle. She definitely catches sidelong glances and soft conversations surrounding her, but none of the men there show any particular interest, so she has to assume M. Blake isn’t among their number. He probably found a picture of her; she would have found one of him, if she could.

“So, where are you going?” asks a woman who falls into step with her as they leave the ship. She’s pretty, dark hair, sharp eyes, with a slight limp from what Clarke assumes is a war wound on her leg. “We don’t get a lot of visitors here.”

“I’m a journalist,” she says, although it feels like a lie. She might write about Guernsey and she might not, but she’s not really coming as a journalist. She’s coming as a woman at loose ends who thinks this will make her feel less lost.

But that sounds silly.

“Oh,” says the other woman. “The one who’s been writing to Bellamy?”

Clarke can’t read her tone, but it makes something warm curl in her belly that this woman knows about her, that M. Blake has mentioned her. Given she’s never talked about him to Miller, she wouldn’t be offended if she was a secret, but he’s been telling people about her, and that’s nice.

Hopefully he’s been saying good things.

“Clarke,” she says, with a nod. “Is M. Blake happy I’m coming?”

The woman snorts. “Raven Reyes. He’s freaking out. But in a good way, so I think yeah. You think there’s something worth writing about here?”

“You don’t?”

“I guess it depends on what you’re trying to write about,” she says with a shrug. “And how popular you want it to be.”

“In theory, I’m looking at how frontline planets are doing after the war.”

Raven’s eyes flick to her. “What about not in theory?”

“I needed a break and I wanted to see M. Blake’s library.”

“Well, that’s one thing to write about. You staying at the hotel?”

“That’s the plan.”

“If you want to drop your stuff off, I can take you to meet Bellamy after.”

Her heart flip flops and then starts beating too fast, and she wishes she could blame the slight change in gravity, but she knows it’s not that.

Still, Raven is offering, so she smiles. “I’d like that.”

Clarke knew that M. Blake must do something besides restore old books, but she hadn’t really know what that something might be. She assumes most of the residents of Guernsey are former terraformers who are now at loose ends since the company that sent them has apparently decided it’s not worth restarting the project, but if M. Blake is among them, he’s never mentioned it.

The place Raven takes her is a small farm on the edge of the terraformed land, surrounded on all sides by bamboo groves. There are a few animals outside snacking on ground cover, and while she doesn’t know what they are, they look domesticated and mammalian, so she assumes they produce either meat or milk, possibly both.

The door opens and her heart skips, but it’s a girl, probably five or six, with long brown hair and a bright smile. “Aunt Raven!”

Raven sweeps her up in a hug. “Hey, Madi, where’s your dad?”

It’s as if someone dumped a bucket of cold water on her. Clarke and M. Blake have never discussed personal lives; she had no idea how old he was or what kind of a family he had, but there had been a flicker of interest in her stomach, this small, curious thing. She liked him, from his letters, and she thought that if he was–

But he’s not. He has a family, and he’s not for her.

“At the press,” says Madi. “Who are you?”

“Clarke.”

“From the books!” She beams. “I love Alice. Dad’s read it to me a thousand times.”

“I’m so glad,” says Clarke, a little surprised. “I liked it a lot too, when I was your age.”

“You don’t know how old I am,” Madi points out. She’s slid out of Raven’s arms now, but she’s still following as they make their way around the back of the farmhouse. There’s a steady, repetitive noise that’s getting louder as they get closer, and Clarke’s mood recovers some when she realizes it’s probably the printing press. She’s almost as excited for it as she is for M. Blake.

“How old are you?” she asks.

“Five.”

“I liked it when I was five too.”

“And you had more books? Paper ones?”

“I did.” She hesitates, feeling a little strange telling Madi before her father even knows, but she doubts M. Blake will be offended. “I brought some with me.”

Madi’s eyes go huge. “Really?”

“Just a couple. I couldn’t take many of them when I left home, just my favorites.”

“Donation for the library?” Raven asks.

“Depends on how much I like the library.”

That makes her laugh. She knocks twice on the door to what must be the press, calls, “Bellamy! Get out here!” when there’s no response.

The sound stops, and a second later the door opens and M. Blake’s head sticks out.

Clarke’s first thought is that his hair is a mess, but it’s not a bad thought. He has the kind of disheveled hair that makes her fingers itch to sink into it, all thick and black and curly.

The rest of his features fill in after that, dark eyes, freckles, broad shoulders, a confused expression that clears after a second, when he realizes, inevitably, who she must be. They clearly don’t get a lot of visitors out here.

“M. Griffin,” he says, eyes sweeping over her quickly. His voice is deep and a little rough, and it suits him. She’s going to read all his letters in his voice now. “I didn’t know you were coming today.”

“I didn’t tell you. Sorry to show up unannounced, but Raven offered to bring me over.”

“No problem,” he says, but there’s tension in his shoulders that suggests it is something of a problem.

Maybe she shouldn’t have come.

“She brought more books!” says Madi, which at least breaks the ice. M. Blake’s eyes cut to her.

“You did?”

“I saved a few from my personal collection, I thought you’d want to see them.” She pauses. “And I want to see your library too. I thought I might need to barter.”

He laughs, surprised, the smile lighting up his whole face. He’s partnered, she reminds herself. His daughter is right here. It doesn’t matter what you think of his looks.

“That’s not really how libraries work,” he teases. “Anyone can look around. But maybe not today, dark comes on pretty quickly here.” He glances around, clears his throat. “You’re at the hotel?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, you can stay for dinner. Raven, you staying too?”

“I never say no to your cooking. You need me to do anything?”

It feels like code, so it’s not a surprise when M. Blake says, “Can you and Madi go get some water?”

Raven nods and takes Madi, leaving Clarke to follow M. Blake inside. It’s a small, cozy space, warm and surprisingly lived in, given how short the history of habitation on Guernsey is. It’s a home.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks, back to her as he leads her in.

“Which part?”

“That you were coming.”

“I didn’t want you to tell me not to.”

He snorts. “I would have told you it’s not worth coming. It’s not much of a library yet.”

“But it’s growing, right?”

“Slowly but surely.” He glances at her sidelong. “Did you really bring more books?”

“I did. I might not give them to you, though.”

He lets out a soft huff of a laugh. “So you just brought them here to brag about them?”

“I don’t know anyone else who appreciates print books.” She bites the corner of her mouth, watching him as he starts to pull things down for dinner. “Tell me the truth: is there anyone else in your society but you?”

“A few, yeah. But no one else thought it would last.”

“Last?”

His hand pauses on the door of the preserver. “We formed during the occupation. You weren’t allowed to meet in groups of more than three unless it was an official organization. So we made an organization.”

“And you’re still going?”

“More or less. Can you grab the big bowl on your right?” She does, and he starts scooping stew from a pot into it. “I already had the printing press. We grow bamboo for oxygen, I was already making it into fabric. But I had more, so I make pulp too. And once I had that, I figured I might as well print books.”

“And buy them.”

“That’s new. But yeah, they’re junk to most people. Not worth the space they take up. But we have more space than we need here.”

“You don’t think they’ll come back to terraform it?”

“They say that Eligius shut down the project because of the occupation, but it’s not true.”

“No?”

“The way they operate is that they send a crew in, terraform a little, and then sell more land once buyers see what the area looks like. Guernsey wasn’t getting any buyers. Too remote, climate wasn’t right, and then an occupation before it was even a real settlement. Eligius cut their losses and left.”

“And abandoned you here?”

“They would have sent us to another site if we wanted, but most of us like it here.”

“And it would be hard to move with Madi,” she observes.

“Yeah, I grew up planet-hopping. I don’t want her to.”

“Is it just the two of you?” she asks. It’s a small place, without much sign of other occupants. There could be another adult in the picture, but it doesn’t feel like it.

“Yeah.”

It doesn’t make any difference, obviously. She’s here for a few weeks and the she’ll be gone, so M. Blake’s relationship status is of no interest to her, nor is the broadness of his shoulders or the warmth of his smile.

None of that matters at all.

The library is amazing.

It takes almost a week for Clarke to make it there, but she doesn’t mind. Despite M. Blake’s warnings (which are echoed, in one way or another, by almost everyone she meets, none of whom can believe she really wants to be there), she likes Guernsey. The lack of connection to the greater galaxy is frustrating, but the shuttle to Argonia V leaves in the morning and returns in the evening, making it an easy day trip, and Clarke doesn’t really want to see Miller’s polite-but-firm requests for the pieces she’s supposed to be writing more than once a week or so anyway.

M. Blake shows her how the printing press works on her second day, and he doesn’t mind it she comes by to see what he’s working on so long as she knocks. Madi is bright and enthusiastic and happy to show Clarke everything about her home too, so Clarke learns to take care of their animals–kungoats, apparently, native to Argonia V and brought to its moon when the terraforming started–and tend to the bamboo and other crops and also learns about Madi.

She’s never had anyone but M. Blake, apparently, no parent who died in the war or left for greener pastures, but Clarke can’t believe she’s a clone. Her skin is so much paler than her father’s, and M. Blake doesn’t seem like the type. Especially since she would have been made during the war, and Guernsey doesn’t have the facilities. No one would let him leave an occupied planet to go and make himself a child. And there does seem to be some unspoken secret lurking around the two of them, something no one in the settlement is saying, something everyone but Clarke knows. There’s more to M. Blake and his child, but it’s not a story, not the kind she would write up for Miller and sell to the newsfeeds.

She just wants to know.

“Do you want to see my favorite room?” the child in question asks Clarke, pulling her back to reality. She’s joined the library tour because she loves it here as much as he father does, and Clarke’s grateful for the company. She thinks she should probably try to avoid being alone with M. Blake as much as possible.

“I do,” she tells Madi.

As M. Blake said, the library is in the planet’s caves, which are cool, dark, and dry. Guernsey’s atmosphere has always contained oxygen, but not enough to sustain human life, so they have respirators, but the books are fine with the native conditions.

It’s something of a miracle.

“There’s bamboo growing outside, with no people around I’m hoping it’ll slowly raise the oxygen levels,” M. Blake explains as Madi leads them out of the main chamber and into a smaller cave. There aren’t many books yet, but the cave is ready for more, empty metal shelves waiting for something to fill them.

There might not be enough books left to fill this cave. But that’s probably why M. Blake is making more.

“And here’s Alice, see?” Madi says, skipping into the chamber. “And your other book.”

“The children’s section,” M. Blake explains, with a wry smile. “I’ve got some picture books coming for it too, from the Sol galaxy.”

“How do you afford them?”

“I sell clothes on Argonia V,” he says. “I get more wool and bamboo fiber than we need for the colony, and I’m a decent tailor.” He shrugs. “I’ll never get rich from it, but I don’t need to be rich yet.”

“Yet?” Clarke asks.

“I’m collecting books that no one wants,” he admits, running his hand up the spine of Through the Looking-Glass. “But someday we might want to start getting the valuable ones. We need money for that.”

“I’m going to write about this, you know,” she says. “It might not do much good, but–once you start getting publicity, you might start getting donations, too.”

“You think anyone wants to read about the library?”

“I’ll wrap it up in a story about a community recovering after the war,” she teases. “Trick them into it.”

He laughs. “That should do it, yeah.”

“Do you want to shelve your other books too?” Madi asks. “I like shelving.”

It doesn’t take long, but Madi is very firm about putting the books up herself, sounding out last names of authors, figuring out the correct alphabetical order while M. Blake watches, face warm with pride.

Clarke wants with a tug that’s almost painful, wants in a way she hasn’t in a long time, maybe not ever. She’s fallen in love before, but always with people, and while M. Blake–Bellamy–is the focal point here, it’s like falling in love with a life as well. She wants him, but she also wants to be a part of this place.

She wants to belong, and she wants to belong with him.

Madi insists on taking Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban–the only one in the series Clarke brought with her–out of the library, following a checkout protocol she apparently made up herself, and they take it back to the Blake farm with them. Bellamy cooks while Clarke reads to Madi, and after dinner, he joins them for a few more chapters before sending Madi up to bed.

It’s the natural time for Clarke to leave, but she lingers, the air feeling heavy. A conversation has been coming for a while about why she came and what she’s still doing here, and now feels like the time for it.

Bellamy pours two glasses of his friend Monty’s homebrewed alcohol, gives her one. “So, you’re really going to write about Guernsey?”

“Do you not want me to?”

“I’m not used to people being interested in us.”

“You’re interesting.” She takes a sip of her drink, letting the taste burn down her throat. “Can I ask you something that has nothing to do with my story?”

“Sure.”

“Where did Madi come from?”

He considers her. “Why?”

“Because I’m curious. You don’t feel like–I don’t think you would have asked for a daughter, and I want to know what happened so I don’t put my foot in my mouth. Did her parents–did something happen to them? In the war?”

“Yeah, something did.” He takes a much longer drink. “She’s my niece, not my daughter. I started working for Eligius to support me and my sister after our mom died. I was pretty young, nineteen, I think? We just hopped around planets until we got here. Octavia started working for them too once she was old enough, but she never liked it. And when the war hit–” He sighs. “She fell in love with a Praxian officer. She didn’t mean to get pregnant, and we didn’t have facilities to get rid of it. She kept it secret, had the baby, and we just figured we’d hide her until the war was over, say she was someone else’s if we had to.”

“So what happened to your sister?”

“Honestly? I have no idea. She disappeared a few months before the end of the war, I never got a straight answer what happened to her. Some people think she defected, went to join the Praxians, some people think she got taken, some people think she just managed to escape.”

“What do you think?”

He wets his lips. “I think if she escaped, she would have told me she was okay. Honestly, I hope she joined the Praxians. Argon never treated her that great, we had to leave Argonia II when she was born because she violated the one-child law. Praxis were assholes during the war, but everyone was. So if she defected and doesn’t want to tell me because she thinks I’ll be disappointed–I have to believe that’s what happened.”

“I’m sorry.”

He smiles a little. “She’s the one who came up with the preservation society. I’d been telling her about how I wanted to start printing books, so when we needed an excuse to be out in a group, she just blurted it out. So–at least she left me that. Without the society and Madi, I don’t know if I would have made it through losing her.”

Clarke reaches over, puts her hand on his. He startles, but his eyes soften, and he puts his other hand over hers, squeezes.

“I feel kind of bad now,” she says, careful.

“Yeah, it’s a downer of a story, sorry.”

“No, not that.” He cocks his head, and she smiles. It’s a downer of a story, but it’s not new for him. He seems–content. He can live with this. “I was asking because I wanted to know if you were single.”

He laughs, bright and surprised. “You could have just asked that.”

“I didn’t want to be obvious.”

“You weren’t, trust me. I had no idea. And I didn’t have any good way to ask you.”

“Well, I am. Single.”

“And you’re leaving soon.”

“I am. I promised Miller I’d finish my tour. But I don’t have anywhere I’m going home to. Not yet.”

“You have a ship.”

“I could keep it here. Besides, I want to see what happens with the library.”

He looks down, his smile small and warm and perfect. “Then I guess you had better stay.”

“Yeah,” she says. “I think I will.”

Recovering the Front comes out two years later, a collection of Clarke’s essays from her tour, including the one about Guernsey and the library. As soon as Miller sends her the text, Clarke passes it along to Bellamy, and he prints it off, binds it, and Madi brings it to the library, shelves it in the non-fiction room, one of only three texts there so far.

“It looks a little lonely there,” Clarke observes, and Bellamy puts his arm around her, kisses her hair.

“So we’d better get some more.”

She leans into him. “Yeah, I guess we better.”

#mostlyreacting

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