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Clarke had her feet hanging off the putrid green couch that Bellamy and Clarke got a tag sale, (“Ugly or not Bellamy, it is way the fuck comfier than that futon you have that is older than you are. There is no possible way we are leaving here without it.”) A book on Andy Warhol in her hands as she tried to stay focused. But Clarke had some animosity towards Warhol. Animosity towards the artist, not the art. Though her art history professor would argue that they are one in the same. Clarke thought Warhol was a dick.
“Ugh, must you be a dick all the time.” Clarke groaned as she tossed her book onto the coffee table.
“Rude. I’ll have you know I’m only a dick about 70 percent of the time. Thank you very much.” Bellamy commented as he walked in to living room with two fresh cups of coffee.
“Fuck off, Bell. I am on my third Warhol book and he treats people like disposable utensils. If I have to read one more time about the magical Factory and all the art and drugs and sex that went down there I am going to swallow a Campbell’s soup can whole.” Clarke griped as she frowned at her friend.
“You are the one who wanted to take a pop-ism art history course for your final art history requirement not the classical art one I recommended.” Bellamy scolded as he lifted her legs to sit on the couch, placing her legs back down on his lap.
“The only thing worse than hearing my professor go on about an overrated piece of art three days a week in class would be you going on about an overrated piece of art in my fucking free time.” Clarke smiled as she teased her best friend who had double majored in History and Classics.
“You would be so lucky.”
“Sure, sure. Whatever you say.” Clarke dismissively said and then sighed, waving her hand at the discarded book on table. Bellamy rolled his eyes and handed it to her.
He muttered under his breath, “You could use your words, Princess.” He reached into his bag and pulled out his own book. It probably wasn’t even for a class.
Bellamy and Clarke always studied together. It started in the beginning of her sophomore year, just when classes were starting to actually become involved. Clarke had gone to her favorite coffee shop to study only to find someone at her table. Normally, Clarke would have let it go and sat somewhere else, but after a disastrous first semester freshmen year, Clarke learned that she had very specific conditions needed to effectively study. Libraries were too quiet (“It’s unnerving.”), dorm rooms had too many distractions (“Like I’ll actually ever get work done with Raven around.”), and the on-campus café had too many people coming and going who insisted on catching up with her (“Like I really give a shit that Timmy slept with Grace last weekend, and now Emma needs a new roommate.). Which left Clarke to study in the off-campus coffee shop a few blocks away from her dorm.
She loved the place. It was old and always busy with locals. It was called the Ground. Apparently it referred to the coffee grounds. It had mismatched tables, grouchy baristas, and the best coffee in the city. Clarke’s table was in the corner, the right vantage point for people watching, because Clarke needed the right amount of distraction to study, a concept Raven never understood.
Well that one day, Clarke went in to study for her killer economics exam (“Stupid gen eds.”) and there was someone at her fucking table. Unwilling to regress to the poor study habits of her freshmen year, she sat down with the stranger. He looked at her in confusion, but she just raised her eyebrow and proceeded to study.
It became part of her habit, studying with this guy. They got each other coffee refills whenever they were out. They helped each on papers. They slowly but surely become friends, but only in the context of the Ground.
Until Clarke and her freshman friend Octavia went out drinking one night, and they happened to run into her older brother.
“Bellamy? You know Clarke?” Octavia was confused how her studio art TA knew her older brother.
“We study together at the Ground. You are O’s studio art TA? I thought you were studying theology?” Bellamy was now having his turn to be confused.
“I am technically a studio arts major, but I am also doing an independent major. So for that basically I am studying theology, philosophy and anthropology through the lens of understanding what defines health.” Clarke said somewhat shyly.
She didn’t like to talk about her major. Most people didn’t understand why she is bothering with an independent major, when she could just do a standard major. Instead, Clarke was putting up with all these unnecessary complications. She had to meet with the dean regularly and had some serious thesis writing in her future. Not to mention it was going to take her five years instead of four to complete all the requirements.
But let’s be honest, Bellamy is not most people. Clarke and Bellamy ended up spending the night talking in the back of the bar with their forgotten beers growing warm on the table. She told him how she started her freshmen as a biology and psychology major on the pre-med. But that only lasted one disastrous semester. She told him how much she feared telling her mom thinking she would be disappointed, but how her mom ended up surprising her. She told Clarke that she knew how miserable Clarke was and that it is goddamn dumb to pay for classes that were killing her daughter’s spirit. Clarke’s mom was still concerned about Clarke finding a job after graduation, but mostly that was sated by faith in her daughter’s abilities and intelligence.
Bellamy told Clarke about how he nearly dropped out after his freshmen year when his mom died and he got custody of Octavia, but he made it work with night classes and working weird shifts at bars. And Octavia was only three years shy of eighteen so they made it work. He would be in the current graduating class, had everything gone to the original plan. But now he was credit-wise a junior and planned on doing his Masters in teaching after graduation. He really liked to share the stories of history with people.
After that night, the two were best friends. They texted all the time, they got meals together and of course they continued to study at the Ground.
At the beginning of this year, Clarke’s fifth and final year of undergrad and Bellamy’s second year of grad school, the Ground caught on fire and burned to the ground (The irony was not lost on the owners who plan to open a new coffee shop, the sign out front of the remaining rubble said “From the ashes of the Ground, the Phoenix will rise! Opening next year”).
“BELLAMY! BELLAMY! BELLAMY BELLAMY!!!” Clarke was crying and banging on his apartment door.
He hurried over and let the blonde in, who immediately grasped onto him sobbing uncontrollably.
“It burned down, Bell, the Ground burned down.”
“Shit, Clarke, it’s okay. There are other coffee places.” Bellamy tried to console the girl in his arms as we moved them into his apartment.
“No! Bell. No. I have to study at the Ground. It is the only place I have ever been able to get work done. I mean like work work done. Not like paintings or whatever. WHAT THE FUCK AM I GOING TO DO?” Clarke was nearly hysterical. “Bell, Bell. Bellamy. I have to write my thesis this year. I have. I have to make everything worth it. I need the Ground. I need coffee. I need our table.”
Now Bellamy was sure that Clarke was on the verge of hyperventilating.
“Princess, look at me. Look at my eyes. We are going to be okay. You are going to be okay. You don’t need that place, you are so smart. You will be okay.”
“But I won’t be okay! And I am dumb. And I do need that place.” She flopped onto his ancient futon (this was still the age of the grandma futon).
Bellamy swallowed and he rubbed her back as she was still crying into a throw pillow. “Then we’ll make here your place.”
She turned to face him, face bright red because oh lord Clarke was not a pretty crier, splotchy and puffy she narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I have a coffee maker. I have a table. You can study here.”
“What if it doesn’t work?”
Clarke looked so lost and stressed that he just had to hug her as he said, “Well, then we will figure out something else, but let’s not worry about that yet okay?”
He felt Clarke nod her head against his chest, and he tried to slow his beating heart at having her so close lest she feels it racing. And that was that. So began a new era. Instead of meeting up all over the place, Clarke spent almost all her time in Bellamy’s apartment. To all of their friends it was basically Bellamy and Clarke’s apartment. Half the things in there were hers. She had insisted on the “new” couch. Sure, she still had her place with Raven, but Raven spent most of her time at her boyfriend Wick’s and Bellamy quickly learned that Clarke really didn’t like being home alone.
They watched Netflix late into the night. She crashed there more often than not. They made brownies for dinner. They went grocery shopping together (“Because we can only have dessert for so many meals Bellamy!”). They fought over the new shades. They were extremely domestic.
All of this was striking Clarke as she sat on that extremely unfortunately colored, but extraordinarily comfy couch with her feet on Bellamy’s lap as she tried to read about Andy Warhol’s friendship with Edie Sedgewick.
“Shit.” Clarke sputtered. She was so fucking in love with Bellamy. Who didn’t even look up from his book, probably expecting another story about a dancer friend of Warhol’s who danced out of a building to his death.
“What?” Bell said absentminded running his hand up and down her leg.
“Bellamy Blake, I am so fucking in love with you.” Clarke said straight forward. If she couldn’t talk to her best friend about this, then who else?
This time Bellamy looked up. His eyes wide and a smile popping quickly on his face. God, she loved those dimples.
“You are my best friend and I love you more than anything else in the world.” She was feeling more courageous seeing the response on his face.
“Clarke, I have loved you since you sat down across from me at the Ground. Though I probably didn’t realize it until you talked me into buying this couch. God, it is so tremendously bad, but I just couldn’t say no to you. You are my best friend and so much more.” Bellamy said as he pulled her into his arms.
Books were forgotten, and they made new memories on the couch that night (and in kitchen and in his bed).