Chapter Text
Clarke has never seen the benefit of a night out. The bars around campus are always crowded with underage underclassmen no matter what the bouncers at the door say and if she needs to pee after midnight, she inevitably has to wait for some coed to finish vomiting in a stall before she can go. And really, who even has the energy to be out that late anyway?
But Jasper had insisted and after four days of dodging phone calls and drop-in visits from Finn, getting drunk and forgetting about all of her responsibilities sounded pretty good. So that’s how she finds herself dodging through the sweaty dance floor at Feve, two drinks raised above her head as she searches for her friend.
She’s almost given up, debating the merits of just finding a quiet corner, downing both drinks by herself and then leaving, when she hears her name called through the crowd. She spins on her heels searching for the voice in the crowd. While she expects to find Jasper heading her way with that goofy grin on his face, it’s Finn that’s pushing through the masses of bodies and steadily progressing toward her.
Clarke panics, jumping and searching for something, anything to stop this impending situation. To her left, she finds what can only be described as an orgy with far too many hands in far too many places that are far too inappropriate for Feve on a Thursday night. To her right is just the back wall of the club, because she actually made it all the way across the dance floor without finding Jasper, and that’s just no use. Spinning behind her she sees him.
Bellamy Blake.
He was the TA in her Medical Terminology class last semester and, considering it was a fluff pre-med class, he took his position way too seriously. It took one self-important conversation wherein he criticized Clarke’s accentuation – really, in a class with absolutely no Latin pre-reqs – and she had had it. It started off small, mostly just wasting his time with comments that were just one tiny detail off so that he would feel compelled to launch into a giant rant to correct her and then it progressed to arguing with him over anything that almost had two sides to it.
But then one day Jasper overheard a conversation between Bellamy and Nathan, the other TA in the class. Nathan was showing Bellamy one of Clarke’s quizzes, complete with a stunningly accurately drawing of the male reproductive system, nearly in tears from laughter asking if Clarke had slept with him. Jasper claims that Nathan said, “It was so scarily accurate that I had to conjure up the image of you in the living room that day when your towel fell – you know how scarring that day was – just to double check. I had to think about your dick, man!” The questioning look of fear on Bellamy’s face as he handed the quiz back was the final nail in the coffin She spent the rest of the semester including anatomically correct male genitalia on every one of her assignments just to wig him out. Draw every bone in the foot? Sure but it’s going to be part of a bigger drawing from the waist down. It sort of became A Thing.
When faced with the choice between Finn and Bellamy, Clarke chooses the lesser of two evils. She dives straight for Bellamy, pushing one of the drinks into his open palm, breathing a sigh of relief when he closes his hand around it instinctually. “If there is any part of your cold, dead heart that still beats, you will kiss me right now.”
The face that he makes has Clarke thinking of one of her more favored drawings of last semester (technically of facial muscles, but if you’re thinking it didn’t go all the way down to the knees, you’re crazy), noting that he has impeccable control over his levator labii superioris alaeque nasi muscle. Another look over her shoulder shows that Finn has broken through the edge of the crowd and will be right next to her within ten seconds.
A fresh surge of panic has her literally throwing herself at Bellamy, tilting her head up and silently praying that he acquiesces her here, because otherwise she’s just going to make a fool out of herself. It’s not without an audible sigh, but Bellamy does lean down and seal his lips over hers. Clarke had been anticipating a quick peck, but of course Bellamy kisses the way that he argues. Before he pulls back, she feels the nip of his teeth against her bottom lip and a quick swipe of his tongue over the ache it leaves behind.
“Clarke?” Finn chokes from behind her, his voice pulling her back to the present situation.
Clarke rotates, keeping her back flush to Bellamy’s chest, and does her best to look surprised to see Finn. (Her best is still pretty pathetic. In the sixth grade she was the only person turned away from the casting of Oklahoma entirely, and frankly it was with good reason.) “Finn? What are you doing here?”
Finn’s eyes drag between Clarke and Bellamy, narrowing with each passing second. His chest heaves with deep breaths. “I was looking for you. We need to talk about the other day – it’s not what you were thinking.”
“I heard it the first time you said it, Finn, and another six times before I stopped listening to your voice mail.” Clarke sighs and has to actively stop herself from smacking a hand up against her forehead with just how dense Finn is. “Maybe you didn’t hear me when I said that you’re a fucking asshole and I’m done with you.”
There’s a pregnant pause, but Finn doesn’t move to leave. Instead, he jerks his chin toward Bellamy. “And this guy?”
She’s suddenly made re-aware of Bellamy’s presence at her back, feeling a tenseness in his posture that she doesn’t remember before. If Clarke weren’t the world’s worst actress, she might have come up with an adequate answer. Instead, she just sort of gaped at Finn, failing to come up with anything that sounded plausible. Some plan.
Bellamy saves her, extending a hand to Finn before dropping it when he doesn’t reach out to shake it. “Bellamy Blake, second year grad student and, you know, not a fucking asshole. Thanks for making these shoes so easy to fill.”
“I know who are you.” Finn seethes. “Everyone knows who you are.”
That makes Clarke pause, because why on earth would “everyone” know Bellamy Blake, nerd-tastic Classics buff and overly-serious TA extraordinaire?
“Finn, just take a hint and leave me alone. It’s over and I’m over you. I don’t want to ‘talk’ about it or hear any other excuses you have.” Clarke takes a gulp of the drink nearly forgotten in her hand, pleased with the finality of the conversation and relishing in the burn of whiskey as it slides down her throat. It feels like a victory drink.
Finn shakes his head and runs his hands through his hair. His hair looks greasy and unkempt under the neon lighting and Clarke cringes retro-actively at her poor taste. “I’m not done with you, princess, just remember that. I’m going to do whatever it takes to find my way back to you.” Mercifully, with the last word on his side, he disappears back through the crowd.
“Ex-boyfriend?” Bellamy asks, still so close that she can feel the rumble of his voice roll through his chest.
“Ex-boyfriend.” Clarke confirms, finally stepping away and turning back to face him. “Sorry about that, I’m not sure what I was thinking. If you ever need a diversion from a crazy, unwanted suitor, I’ve got your back.”
Bellamy nods thoughtfully, his eyes roaming Clarke’s face in a way that just unnerves her. “He does seem to be a few screws loose, doesn’t he?”
Clarke shrugs, playing their six-month relationship back in her head. “He’s always been the ‘burn down the world and pull you out of the ashes’ type. At the beginning, I thought it was romantic. Even after that honeymoon phase, it was still just a personality quirk. Of course, then I walked in on him with his head between another girl’s legs last weekend. Unless she lost a prized possession up there, I’m not sure how that could be anything other than what it looked like. Anyway, between the hundreds of post-break up phone calls and the dodging around him everywhere I go, the less than sane implications of that personality quirk have started to become a little clearer.”
There’s another long pause wherein Bellamy studies her some more. It goes on long enough that Clarke starts to squirm, shifting her weight between her feet and taking another long pull from the whiskey in her hand. When Bellamy breaks the silence, his voice is low and serious. “You worried he might do something to hurt you?”
Immediately, Clarke opens her mouth to ask what could hurt worse than walking in on your boyfriend cheating on your own birthday, but then she realizes that he means physically and her mouth snaps shut with an audible click. She’s never put too much thought into it. Two weeks ago she would’ve laughed at the possibility that Finn would lay a hand on her - on most anyone really, Finn was nothing if not a bit crunchy - but she would’ve laughed at the possibility of a few other things that she’s been proven wrong on, as well.
Instead, Clarke finds herself thinking back to the time that she got jostled a little at a concert over the summer. The look of pure rage on his face as he talked, low and menacing, to a guy who’d accidentally knocked into her hard enough that she fell to the ground. Finn was, on principle, a peaceful guy, but it didn’t feel unjustified to worry about what he would do if he were a little unhinged. And, well, as Bellamy aptly pointed out, he seemed to be a few screws loose right now.
Clarke shrugs, because what else can she do? If anything happens, she’ll handle it. “It’ll be fine.” Finally, she spots Jasper bobbing his way through the crowd, closer to flailing than dancing and horribly off-beat. “Thanks again for the save. Go ahead and keep the drink – think of it as payment for services rendered.”
With that, she knocks back the rest of the whiskey and leaves the empty glass on a high-top table before heading toward Jasper in the crowd.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Bellamy finds himself staring at the spot where Clarke disappeared after she’s long gone. Eventually, Miller has to wave a hand in front of his face to get his vision to re-focus. “Dude, you good?”
Bellamy blinks once, twice. “Clarke Griffin just kind of threw herself at my face to get her ex-boyfriend to back off.”
“The Dick Chick?” Miller asks, before bursting out into a fresh peel of laughter. And yeah, alright, that first drawing last semester had been a little scary – his dick just happens to have that exact same freckle under the head and it does lean just a little to the left – but the ensuing onslaught of unsolicited dick pics (that were sort of his own dick?) was just overboard.
He nods anyway.
“Was the dick thing an elaborate ruse to try to goad you into actually showing her yours? Is this her latest plan to get into your pants, or something?” Miller was insistent last semester that Clarke’s constant antagonizing was a sign of attraction, like they were in grade school still. It’s not like he even believed it in the spring, but her recent break up clearly proves that theory wrong, anyway. Apparently she was already with someone then.
Bellamy shoves at Miller, but his heart’s not in it. “Quit it. She was really freaked out and the ex was creepy as shit. Seemed like a real ‘if I can’t have you, no one can’ type. He might actually be carving out a hole in his closet for a shrine consisting of locks of her hair.”
Miller narrows his eyes before shaking his head vigorously. “Don’t do it, man. Just don’t.”
“Don’t do what?”
“I get it, really. O just left for college. It’s the first time in years that you haven’t had to hover over another human like some kind of mother hen. You should be taking advantage of your newfound freedom – get laid for once. Don’t go around adopting stray puppies and forcing your unwanted care and affection on them. Dick Chick’s not yours to protect.”
Bellamy brings one hand up to scratch at the back of his neck, only realizing now he’s still got Clarke’s drink in the other hand. “I wasn’t thinking about it like that.” He takes the drink to his lips and downs it in one swift gulp – bourbon. Not bad, actually.
“Yes you were.”
Yeah, he was. Thing is, he still is. If Clarke’s ex is about to go Kill Bill on her, he’s not just going to sit around and let it happen.