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“Everybody clear your schedules on Saturday,” Clarke announces, interrupting a Raven/Jasper bickering match as she breezes into the apartment and plunks down on the couch next to Bellamy, swinging her feet into his lap. “We’re celebrating.”
“What are we celebrating?” Miller asks, Monty is sitting on the floor in front of him, leaning up against Miller’s legs, and Clarke would smirk at how completely unsubtle they’re being except she knows she’s not exactly subtle about Bellamy either.
“Should I bring booze?” Monty adds.
“That’s the real question,” Jasper says, having been sucked back into the video game he and Raven are playing. Lincoln is quietly demolishing them but they haven’t seemed to notice yet.
“No, you should not bring booze–”
“What kind of celebration is this?” Miller grumbles.
“You should not bring booze because we’re going to the zoo. And I would definitely get fired from the residency program I just got accepted into if I brought my drunk friends.”
“What?” Raven says, pausing the game and whipping around to look at Clarke. “You weren’t supposed to find out for another week.”
“Is this for real?” Octavia chimes in. “You’re not leaving?”
“It’s for real,” Clarke grins. The zoo where she’s been interning only accepts a couple of veterinary residents each year, making it a competitive program to get into. Clarke had applied to several programs, some of them across the country, but this one had been her first choice. She knows the people, knows the animals, and won’t have to uproot herself and leave her entire life behind. She’s stoked. “They offered me the position this morning.”
A chorus of congratulatory whoops sounds and Raven nearly tackles her in a hug.
“Aw,” Clarke teases, gripping her tightly. “Were you gonna miss me, Reyes?”
“Of course not,” Raven says, dropping back to the floor. “I just didn’t want to have to screen new roommates. You know how I hate meeting new people.”
Clarke has had a smile etched on her face since she heard the news, but it widens impossibly at Raven’s feigned emotional distance. She looks up at Bellamy, who is grinning back at her with undisguised joy.
“Think you can put up with me for another few years?” Clarke asks, her breath hitching when he puts a hand on her knee.
“I’ll find a way to cope,” he responds, voice low, just for her.
They’ve always been like this, a little too tactile, a little too familiar. Clarke hesitates to classify her relationship with Bellamy as friends with benefits because the benefits came first. The friendship bloomed out of it, out of late-night laughs and morning-after trips to IHOP, out of bridges built between their friend groups: his roommate Monty smitten with her friend Miller, her roommate Lincoln dating his sister, her Raven and his Jasper becoming lab partners. Booty calls and hookups had turned into group trivia nights and actual study sessions in the library. But they ended the same way: with Clarke in Bellamy’s bed, or vice versa, happy, sated.
Over the years, they’ve each dated other people. When they’re both single, they tend to pick up where they’ve left off. It’s easy as breathing, being with Bellamy. At this point, Clarke knows his body as well as her own, knows his soul even better.
This most recent time, a few months ago now, after Lexa, after Gina, coming back to him had felt like coming home: comforting, familiar, but not in a way she’d ever experienced with him before. She hasn’t quite figured out what to do with that yet.
“So alcohol-fueled celebrations tonight,” Octavia says, crossing the room to inspect the contents of their liquor drawer. “And zoo Saturday?”
“You read my mind.”
Since it’s still a weeknight and everyone has work the next day, they all head out at a semi-reasonable hour, not half as drunk as they used to get in college. Raven rolls her eyes when she sees that Bellamy has stayed behind to help clean up but disappears into her room without further comment.
Clarke is gathering the last bottles for the trash when he comes up behind her and wraps his arms around her waist, nuzzling her neck.
“Are you staying the night?” She asks, her hand drifting up to thread her fingers in his curls. There’s a smile on her face that creeps up on her every time she’s alone with him lately. She doesn’t know what to do with that either.
“Can’t.” His lips brush the shell of her ear. She sets the bottles down on the counter and leans back into him, tilting her head to give him better access. “I have work tomorrow,” he says regretfully. “But I wanted to congratulate you again before I go.”
Fire burns in her veins and her eyes drift shut as his hand trails across her stomach to the button on her jeans. It’s quick and dirty and perfect, like it always is with him.
“Congratulations to me,” she says, feeling a puff of breath at her temple as he laughs against her skin. He’s supporting more of her weight than she realized, rubbing gentle circles against her hips as he waits for her to collect her bearings. “That almost makes up for the months of waiting to hear their decision.”
“Almost?”
“Staying in this city and getting to do a lot more of that makes up for the rest of it,” she says, twisting in his arms to kiss him properly.
“Oh, wait. You’re staying? That was supposed to be a last hurrah kind of thing.”
“Dick.”
“Next time,” he promises. He grabs the bottles she lost track of and takes the trash as he goes, leaving her with one last deep kiss.
That smile is still on her face as she falls asleep.
Saturday rolls around and everyone meets at Clarke and Raven’s apartment. They’re climbing into Jasper’s twelve-passenger van that he insists he needs for ‘reasons’ when Clarke notices someone is missing.
“Hey, where’s Bellamy?” She asks Miller, the unofficial third roommate in Bellamy and Monty’s apartment. He crashes on their couch whenever he doesn’t feel like putting up with his own roommate, Murphy, or whenever he wants to spend more time with Monty. So, often.
“I heard him leave this morning but I don’t know where he went.”
Clarke texts Bellamy, Are you riding with us to the zoo or meeting us there? Raven and Jasper are arguing about music when he texts back, Something came up at work and I can’t make the zoo today.
Hurt flashes through her, from her core to her fingertips, and she doesn’t even fully understand why. She'd been really excited to show him what she does, and now it feels like he's bailing on them. If he’d really had to work, he would’ve texted her before he didn’t show up. He would have sent her tons of complaints about having to get up early and how much he hates his boss, sent her pictures of however the barista near his office tried to spell his name today. But he didn’t do any of those things. And so it feels like avoidance.
Her phone buzzes again and he’s added, Sorry, Princess.
“Let’s go,” she calls, breaking up what’s slowly escalating to a shouting match. Jasper turns to look at her in confusion.
“But Bellamy isn’t here yet.”
“Bellamy isn’t coming,” she says, trying to make her voice do normal things. Raven twists around in the passenger seat to give Clarke a searching look and Clarke can feel Octavia’s eyes on her from behind. She shrugs it off and shoots her friends a smile. “The loser has to work. I guess textbooks won’t sell themselves. Let’s go.”
Jasper shrugs and starts the engine, Raven giving Clarke one last pointed look before swiping his phone to change the song.
She tries to put Bellamy’s brush-off out of her mind and just focus on having fun with her friends, and it works for the most part. It’s a nice day, not too hot, so the animals are all active and preening for the guests. Clarke gets them behind the scenes a couple of times, to feed the puffins and see the baby sloth she helped deliver who is still too young to be out in the exhibit. Jasper and Monty try to guess the names of each of the animals, Lincoln buys Octavia a stuffed otter to carry around with her, and Raven keeps breaking into different songs from The Lion King, mixing up the words on purpose to get on Miller’s nerves. It’s a fun day and by the end of it, they’re all exhausted and their sides hurt from laughing.
Even so, she can’t help thinking how much better a great day could have been with one simple addition. Can’t help wondering if maybe she wouldn’t be so disproportionately hurt if she weren’t sleeping with him. Can’t help wondering if maybe this is what everyone’s skeptical looks, their pointed comments, their drunken warnings had been trying to prepare her for: unavoidable entanglements when two parts of life, meant to stay separate, collide.
Jasper drops Clarke and Raven off first. They wave their friends off and make their way up three flights of stairs, tired to the bone.
“I’m really glad you’re staying,” Raven says, serious and fond.
“Me too,” Clarke says, looping her arm around Raven’s waist for a brief moment. “Don’t worry though. I was working on an argument to get you to move with me. I was going to be so persuasive. You weren’t even gonna realize what was happening until you were there.”
When they reach the landing, Raven stops, causing Clarke to nearly run into her.
“What–” Clarke begins, breaking off as she sees Bellamy clambering to his feet in front of their door.
“You missed a fun day,” Raven says, stepping around him and unlocking the door. He barely spares her a glance, shoving his hands in his pockets and waiting for Clarke to make a move. “Don’t get us any noise complaints. Arguing or anything else,” Raven calls over her shoulder, her words followed by the purposeful snap of her door shutting.
“Can we talk?” He asks, surprisingly vulnerable. She nods and gestures for him to follow her, not looking at him until they’ve made it to her bedroom. At some point in the past few months, the lines between friendship and casual sex have blurred, and it feels like he’s about to make them distinct again. Like he’s about to end it. Her heart crashes in her chest when he settles on her desk chair, far from her perch on the bed.
“I’m sorry I didn’t show up,” he says, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, eyes fixed on her carpet. “I didn’t know how to have this conversation with you, but– I couldn’t really get it out of my mind all day. So here I am.”
She braces herself for the impact but it doesn’t come. For once in his life, Bellamy Blake is having trouble finding the words he wants.
“You don’t owe me an explanation,” Clarke says, trying not to sound bitter. “That’s not how we are–”
“Bullshit,” he says, looking up at her for the first time. “We’re friends.”
“Friends,” Clarke echoes, hollow. “Okay, pal, will you just rip the band-aid off already? It’ll be easier for both of us that way.”
Bellamy takes a deep breath and she tries to ignore the movement of his shoulders, the clasping of his hands. It really was their last hurrah a few nights ago; she should have treasured it more then. Now it’s just painful.
“I’ve never been to the zoo before,” he says, all at once. Her brow furrows in confusion.
“And you thought the zoo police were gonna catch on and stop you from coming in?”
“No,” he says, face cracking into half a smile. It’s self-pitying and completely un-Bellamy-like. “It’s– Thinking about stuff like that– the zoo, theme parks, family vacations– just reminds me of all the ways my childhood was kind of screwed up. It’s not just that I didn't have the money to go; it’s also that neither of my parents was interested in spending that kind of time with us. My dad wasn't around, and my mom– she just didn't want any part of that.”
“You could have told me that,” Clarke says softly, wrapping her arms around herself. She’s not sure anymore where this conversation is headed. “Instead of making up some flimsy excuse. I wouldn’t have spent all day being hurt and annoyed.”
“You spent the better part of the day with our friends,” he says, the smile on his face turning teasing. “You would have been annoyed anyway.”
“Bellamy.”
His face falls when she says his name and after a moment of indecision he stands and crosses to sit beside her. She can feel warmth radiating off his skin, can smell the familiar scent of his cologne, can count the freckles on the backs of his hands.
“I couldn’t talk to you about it,” he says, and the pitch of his voice is the one she’s heard at three a.m. when they’re eating cereal out of the box, legs tangled together, baring the darkest, most hidden parts of themselves. “I get up every morning and go to my soul-sucking job I had to take because I couldn’t afford to go to college; I can’t even do normal things with my friends because I have all this baggage... I couldn’t talk to you about it because I was afraid you’d realize I’m not good enough for you. And end this,” he gestures between them, “once and for all.”
Clarke is stunned speechless for a beat and then her anger flares.
“Do you really think I’m that shallow?” She demands, shifting to face him. “That you’d tell me you’re struggling and that my response would be to break up with you?”
“You don’t need me dumping all my issues on you,” he says, his face darkening.
“Let’s not forget who’s been there for me through all my ‘issues.’ You were there for me through Wells, and Finn, and Lexa, through everything with my mom. I’ve got plenty of baggage of my own. Don’t put me on a pedestal.”
“It’s not casual if I'm bringing my demons into it."
“Yeah, well, it stopped being casual for me a long time ago,” Clarke almost shouts. He reels back like she’s slapped him. There’s no taking it back now, and as long as they’re having this conversation she figures she might as well lay all her cards on the table, so she closes her eyes, forges ahead, and adds, “I don’t care who you think I deserve. You’re the one I want. Issues and all.”
The room is eerily still. There’s enough adrenaline coursing through her veins that she nearly cracks, nearly can’t take it anymore and opens her eyes, but then she feels the bed dip as he shifts toward her, feels his forehead meet hers, feels his hand come up to cradle her face gently.
“Just to confirm,” he says, his tone light with cautious optimism, “You want to be with me?”
“You got a problem with that?”
Her eyes are still closed but she can nearly feel the force of his grin, real and complete across his face.
“None whatsoever.”
His nose brushes hers and she breaks. She closes the gap between them, but his thumb traces the sweep of her cheek, holds her back and controls the kiss, keeps it tender. Gentle. Unlike any they’ve shared before. When he pulls away, she shivers.
“I don’t want to hear anything else about being good enough,” she says, stern as she can be when her face feels like it’s going to rip apart with the width of her smile.
“Believe me, if you haven’t figured it out on your own, I’m not going to try to convince you.”
The next morning, Clarke is sitting on the counter in her bathrobe, watching Bellamy try to scrounge up breakfast for the two of them with whatever is in her refrigerator, when Raven stumbles in and heads straight for the leftover pizza.
“I see you two figured your shit out,” She mumbles, gratefully accepting the coffee Clarke offers. Bellamy scrunches his face up when she follows a bite of cold pepperoni with half a mug of the steaming liquid, but wisely doesn’t comment.
“More than just yesterday’s shit,” Clarke says. Raven turns to Bellamy, appraising, then shrugs.
“I honestly don’t know when I would have noticed if you hadn’t told me,” she admits. "Nothing has really changed."
“She’s got a point,” Bellamy says, poking whatever is in the pan.
“Don’t encourage her,” Clarke says, sticking her tongue out at her roommate when Raven swats her in the knee. “A lot has changed. I have a new job–”
“At the same old place,” Raven interjects.
“–a new boyfriend–”
“Same boyfriend, we’re just all in agreement about it now.”
“–a new roommate–”
“What?” Raven blanches and Clarke smiles wickedly.
“Gotcha. I’m just saying, I feel like a whole new person.”
“I hope not. I’m pretty partial to the old one,” Bellamy says, and Raven gags.
“I can’t be here for this,” she says, heading back to her room. “Keep everything in your pants until you get out of our kitchen, please and thank you.”
“I’m not wearing pants,” Clarke calls after her, smirking at Bellamy when he turns to raise his eyebrows at her. She smiles into a quick kiss and pushes him back toward the stove, already mentally preparing for what she’s going to order at IHOP.
It does, in a way, feel like many other mornings they’ve had together. Like they’ve done this a million times before. But if coming back to Bellamy feels like coming home, this feels like braving new territory together, side by side. And she wouldn't have it any other way.