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Roan doesn’t mean to start matchmaking his freshmen. He honestly doesn’t even notice that’s what’s going on at first, and by the time he figures things out, it’s too late.
It all starts with Lexa Woods.
Roan and Lexa aren’t really friends , and he’s not convinced they even like each other, but then he walks in on her crying in the dorm kitchenette and things get complicated. He considers just acting like he didn’t see anything, which he’s sure Lexa would actually appreciate, but this is his first year as RA and he thinks this might fall under his duties or something.
So, against his better judgment, he says “Did you need something?”
Lexa snorts, wiping at the trains of mascara on her cheeks. “That’s the best you’ve got?”
Of course she wouldn’t make this easy on him, and Roan can’t stop himself from rolling his eyes. “I’m sorry I don’t exactly have a repertoire for how to handle teenage girls crying in the kitchen.”
“I’m not crying ,” Lexa snaps, which is very clearly a lie. Her face is still all smudged with the black makeup she always wears, and watery, but Roan doesn’t call her on it. He’s not actively an asshole, or at least, not that kind of asshole.
“My mistake,” he says, mild. “I don’t have a repertoire for how to handle teenage girls not crying in the kitchen, either.”
She doesn’t laugh, but she does eye him a little, like she’s trying to figure him out. Roan waits, a little curious about what she’ll do. There’s every chance that she might just throw the roll of paper towels at his head, because Lexa is fairly combative.
Which wouldn’t be a problem, usually. All of Roan’s favorite people are combative (see: Echo and Anya). But Lexa is the kind of person who tries to pretend she isn’t combative, and it’s just the rest of the world that’s at fault, and Roan doesn’t like that. He might be a cocky asshole sometimes, but at least he owns it.
Finally, she says “I broke up with my girlfriend.”
Unfortunately he doesn’t have a repertoire for that either, so he speaks slowly, feeling his way through the conversation like he’s walking on ice. “I’m sorry. That must have been hard.”
“She’s still in high school,” Lexa says, like she’s trying to explain herself, even though it isn’t necessary. “We’re just at different places, in life. I’ll be fine.”
“I’m sure you will be,” he agrees. “But it can still be hard.”
She doesn’t say anything else, and he’s pretty sure that if he tried to hug her she would try to rip his throat out with her teeth, but things change between them after that. They still aren’t exactly friends , but they’ll greet each other in the hallway sometimes, and if all the other seats in the common room are taken, she’ll perch on the arm of whichever lounge chair he’s in.
Half a semester later, he’s studying for a midterm with his door open, because while he doesn’t think having an open-door policy automatically makes him a good RA, he likes to think it gives him a leg up. He wants his freshmen to know that he’s here for them, and shit. That’s how Lexa finds him, looking nervous and pointedly not nervous in equal measure, like she thinks he’ll make fun of her if, heaven forbid, she admits that she’s not made of stone.
Roan raises a single eyebrow in greeting because, as stated, he’s an asshole, and Lexa huffs at him. She holds up a silky black shirt with spaghetti straps down the back like laces.
“I don’t know which one to wear.”
Roan frowns. He might not know everything that falls under his duties as RA--he didn’t really spend a whole lot of time going over the school-issued bullet list. He learns best as he goes--but he’s confident that helping freshman girls figure out what to wear isn’t one of them.
Lexa huffs again at his silence. “I’m not very good with people,” she grounds out, like he’s physically wrangling the admittance out of her. “You’re the only one I can ask.”
If asked, Roan wouldn’t necessarily say he’s a people person. He has two close friends, and a handful of acquaintances that he trusts not to cut out his organs while he’s sleeping, but he doesn’t really like crowds, or clubbing. Which, in a college town like theirs, means he’s essentially a hermit, but he doesn’t really mind that. He spent his first couple of years at school going to frat parties every weekend, getting really good at beer pong, and getting blackout drunk so that there’s still a three-month period from his sophomore year he can’t really remember. Now he’s a junior, and would absolutely choose a night in over pretty much anything. He’s still hoping he hasn’t done any permanent damage to his liver.
Roan glances between the silky black top on the hanger, and the one Lexa’s wearing, which looks almost identical except for the beaded collar. She looks like she gets all of her clothes from some sort of Hot Topic sister company, that caters exclusively to classy rich goths.
“I like the beads,” he says finally, and she nods, all business.
“My best friend is transferring here,” she explains, and can’t bite back a small smile. It’s the happiest he’s ever seen her, and it’s a little unnerving. He’s so used to her looking like she’s just declared war on a small country. “I’m going to pick her up from the airport tonight.”
“Congratulations,” he offers, and he really does mean to let it go after that. He and Lexa Woods still aren’t friends , but they aren’t not friends. He thinks he can safely add her to the list of people who wouldn’t cut out his organs, unless she was in dire financial straits or something. Maybe.
But then he actually sees her with her best friend, a sweet-looking freshman named Costia, whom he vaguely recognizes from the horrible political parties that his mother hosted while he was growing up.
She must recognize him too, because her face immediately goes blank, like she doesn’t trust him enough to use facial expressions. “Roan Azgeda?”
She’s up on the counter, swinging her legs a little while Lexa cooks something at the stove, clearly burning it a little. Roan carefully takes a protein shake from his stash in the fridge--he has a mini fridge in his dorm, but he likes to keep a few out in the kitchenette so he can have an excuse to check up on the others. He cracks the seal, takes a healthy drink, and then looks at her.
“So what terrible thing did my nightmare of a mother do to you?”
She cracks a smile at that, showing off a pair of dimples. She’s very cute, which he wouldn’t have assumed was Lexa’s type, if he’d given any thought to that, but looking at them now he has to admit they make a nice couple. “She sacked my dad.”
Roan nods, because that sounds like her. Honestly, his mother could moonlight as a Disney movie villain, just by being herself. “Bitch.”
After that he finds out very quickly that while Costia is the kind of person who doesn’t shit talk habitually, she does like to talk shit with people she can trust, and apparently she trusts Roan. Lexa hates it of course, which only amuses him more. Her girlfriend likes him, and wants to be friends with him, and Lexa is feeling jealous.
He really does think they’re already dating, for the first couple of weeks, and in his defense it’s because they act like it. Honestly, short of holding hands or making out in the hallway, they are so obviously a Thing.
But then Costia finds him working on a paper for his poli sci class, and her voice is a little off when she asks “Can I study in here?”
Roan looks at her a little scrupulously. She tends to come find him whenever Lexa is busy, because Costia doesn’t like studying alone, and he suspects because she hasn’t found any better options yet. But she’s never asked permission before. She sort of just does what she wants.
“Where’s Lexa?” he tries, and her face goes funny.
“She’s on a date.”
Ah . He moves his books over, to make room for her on the futon, and she settles in.
He really, really does intend to just let them sort it out, themselves. Roan isn’t in the business of meddling, especially not in the love lives of his freshmen, but Lexa keeps going on dates and being oblivious to the fact that she is so clearly in love with her best friend, and Costia keeps looking miserable about it, and honestly Roan just can’t stand it anymore. They would be so good together, if they would just get together .
So finally he corners Lexa in the kitchen, because these things always seem to happen in the kitchen.
“How’s the dating life?” he asks, and she eyes him a little suspiciously, which is fair. These days they mostly just bicker back and forth good-naturedly over Costia’s head. They don’t talk about their feelings .
“Fine,” she makes a strangled, aggravated noise in her throat. “I’m not really--I’m not good at this. Dating. I’ve only ever had one relationship, and these girls are all nice but it always just feels--off.”
It’s more than he ever thought she might admit to him, which means it’s probably been building up for a while. Which is ridiculous; it would just save everyone so much time, if she knew what the problem was.
So he tells her.
“You know Costia?” he asks, and she looks like she isn’t sure if she should check him for a concussion, or if she should laugh at the joke.
“Quite well.”
He nods, and then decides to just bite the bullet, or whatever metaphor seems most applicable. “You’re in love with her.”
Lexa, for her part, does look like she just got shot, so there’s that. Roan waits for a moment, to see if she’ll respond, but mostly she just stares and gapes a little, like a fish. It’s the most surprised he has ever seen her, and he’d be lying if he said it wasn’t a little bit gratifying. Roan claps her once on the shoulder and walks back to his dorm, closing the door for once. If she gets herself together and finally works things out with Costia, he assumes he’ll know soon enough.
He’s right, of course.
Costia plops down beside him on the futon the next day, beaming bright and sunny, looking happier than he’s ever seen her. There’s a hickey on her shoulder, and Roan taps it with his pen, amused in spite of himself.
“Lexa said I should thank you, for telling her to make a move.”
It isn’t exactly what happened, but he lets it go. Of course Lexa wouldn’t want to admit that she didn’t realize when she was in love with her best friend . He shrugs. “I’m your Resident Advisor,” he says. “I’m supposed to advise.”
Costia rolls her eyes, but she’s still smiling hopelessly, so the effect is lost. “Sure, we’ll go with that.”
By Roan’s senior year, he really does think the whole matchmaking thing was a one-time thing. It isn’t like he even did much; Lexa and Costia already knew each other, and were already clearly in love. He just sort of expedited the process.
Then Clarke Griffin happens.
By Roan’s second year working as an RA in a freshmen dorm, he basically knows what to expect. He keeps a bowl of condoms outside his door, stocked at all times, and he’s narrowed his open-door policy down to the afternoons, because if he keeps it going any later than that, he ends up with a room full of very young impressionable teenagers unsubtly trying to get him to take his shirt off. Echo thinks it’s hilarious.
He also knows that pledge week is a nightmare, so he hangs around the common areas with emetic tablets, in case anyone gets alcohol poisoning, and some gatorade.
Sure enough, just after two am some blonde stumbles into the common room and promptly falls down on the floor, mostly without meaning to. Roan saves his game before setting the DS aside, and scoops her up.
“Do you know which room is yours?” he asks, and she grumbles something unintelligible. It’s only a few weeks into the first semester, so he doesn’t know all the kids by face yet, but he figures he’ll just tuck her into the futon and monitor her every half hour to make sure she doesn’t die. This isn’t his first rodeo.
It is the first time that some guy attacks him on his way down the hall, though.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” the guy demands, which doesn’t seem fair, since Roan’s pretty sure that’s his line, seeing as he’s the one who just got punched in the face for no reason. “She’s drunk , asshole!”
And now that Roan’s looking, he sees the guy is fretting over the blonde, checking her for injuries when he isn’t glaring at Roan like he wants to murder him. Okay, so he’s a good samaritan. He probably thought Roan was taking advantage, and tried to play the knight in shining armor. Whatever.
The punch didn’t actually hurt that much. Roan does kickboxing with Echo and Anya three days a week. But it was annoying . He was just doing his job.
“I’m the RA for this dorm,” Roan says, and if he sounds irritated, it’s because he is. “I was taking her to the bathroom, and then I was going to let her sleep it off on my couch, because she couldn’t tell me which room is hers, and if the staff finds a drunk freshman on the common room floor, we’d all get in trouble.”
The guy doesn’t look all that apologetic, but at least he doesn’t look like he’s calculating all the things within arm’s reach that he could hurt Roan with, anymore. “She can sleep it off in my room.”
Roan sizes him up for a moment. He could just let this guy take her. He seems like he actually knows and cares about her--or maybe he’s just an overprotective dick about everybody--but Roan doesn’t really feel comfortable leaving some guy he doesn’t know alone with this unconscious girl.
“No.”
The guy frowns at him. “No? You can’t stop me.”
Roan is, to put it lightly, a bit of a meathead. He got into crossfit when he stopped drinking, and started lifting weights and kickboxing soon after. And while the guy definitely isn’t scrawny, he looks like he probably just did a lot of sports in high school. “No offense, but I’m pretty sure I can take you.” Roan crosses his arms, for effect. Cocky asshole.
A muscle in the guy’s jaw ticks as he clenches his teeth. “Fine. But I’m not leaving her alone with you.”
“Fine,” Roan agrees. “My room’s down here. Can you lift her?”
He scowls. “ Yes .” He does, not even straining a little, and it’s moderately impressive. The girl curls into his chest and he flashes a look of fondness at her, before following Roan down the hall.
They manage to wake her up enough to drink half a bottle of gatorade before she passes out on the futon, leaving Roan and some stranger sitting awkwardly across the room. Roan’s started referring to him as Freckles in his head.
“I’m Bellamy, by the way,” Freckles says. He’s rubbing at the back of his neck, looking appropriately embarrassed, like he should.
“Roan.”
Bellamy nods his head towards the girl. “That’s Clarke. She’s not normally like this.”
Roan raises a brow at him. “Drunk and unconscious?”
“She doesn’t normally drink like this,” he corrects. “She’s just--really competitive.”
Roan shrugs. “They usually are, at first. She’ll probably calm down after a few months.”
Bellamy looks him over, mild. “So do you do this a lot? Just let random, drunk girls sleep it off on your futon?”
“Not as often as you’d think.”
The conversation hits a lull, which is fine. Roan isn’t a fan of smalltalk, and Bellamy doesn’t seem to be either. He grabs a collection of HP Lovecraft stories from Roan’s bookshelf, while Roan fucks around on his phone.
Clarke stirs around sunup, blinking muzzily out at them. Bellamy notices first, and he’s crossing over within seconds, crouching down until they’re face-level. He smooths the hair from her face and smiles. “Hey, princess.”
For a moment she looks confused to see him, and Roan wonders if maybe Bellamy made it all up, and doesn’t know her after all.
But then she says “Bellamy? What are you--?” She glances behind him at Roan, who gives half a wave.
“I thought he might try something,” Bellamy says, light, and she rolls her eyes.
“So you decided to babysit him?”
“He punched me first,” Roan offers, and Clarke bites back a smile.
“Dick,” she tells Bellamy, fond. He doesn’t look at all offended.
“Yeah, I’m an asshole. You ready to go?”
She yawns but nods her head, letting him help her stand, and then leaning heavily against him as they walk. Bellamy shoots Roan one last abashed smile.
“Uh, thanks for letting us crash. Sorry about your face.”
“I think I’ll live.”
“Yeah, you’ll be fine,” Bellamy agrees cheerfully, and half-carries Clarke back to her room.
They’re cute, Roan thinks, a little grudgingly. He’ll be surprised if they aren’t dating by the end of the month.
He expects to see them again, obviously. Clarke lives in his dorm, and he gets the feeling that she’ll be spending a lot of time with Bellamy.
He doesn’t expect her to seek him out that Friday, and invite him to a house party.
Roan stares back at her over the edge of his book. Costia tried to talk him into getting a kindle, but he prefers the feel and smell of the real thing, which she said makes him a hipster. “A what?”
Clarke rolls her eyes, because of course she’s combative. He just attracts aggressive people, he’s decided. “You know what a party is, right? Kegstands, music, dancing, excessive drinking?”
Roan makes a face at the thought. “Excessive vomiting and underage drinking, you mean.”
“Exactly,” she agrees, bright. “Come on, it’ll be fun and you won’t even be the only old one there.”
Roan doesn’t think twenty-two makes him old , but compared to kids straight out of high school, he might be. He flashes his copy of Beowulf at her. “I’m good.”
Clarke frowns, and he realizes she isn’t going to let this go. “You know, when someone doesn’t want to drink alcohol, you really shouldn’t pressure them.”
She does look a little chastened at that, but only for a moment. “Then don’t drink. No one’s going to force you. Maybe I just don’t want to walk back alone.”
“Then get Bellamy to walk you,” Roan says, because he might be a meddler. Just a little.
Clarke rolls her eyes again. She does that a lot when Bellamy is mentioned, like she thinks it might make up for the flush on her neck. “He probably won’t be going home alone, either.” She says it a little pointedly, and Roan thinks ah .
He could maybe try his hand at the matchmaking thing again, just once more. It worked last time, and Costia and Lexa are still together as far as he knows. He sees them sometimes, in the library or the mess hall, and they always chat with him for a little while, but they’re not new and unsure of themselves anymore, and they have friends their own age, now.
It makes him feel a little bit like one of those marine biologists that watch over sea turtle hatchlings until they’re ready to be released back to the water.
He realizes that there are a lot of differences between his freshmen and baby sea turtles, but the main thought is roughly the same.
In the end, he does end up going to the party, because he doesn’t actually have anything better to do, and he’s at the point now where the smell of vodka no longer makes him feel like death.
The house is at the edge of campus, within walking distance, and even though Clarke isn’t good at small talk either, she still tries , filling up the silence. He finds out that she’s pre-med, with a minor in art studio because why not, and that apparently Bellamy is a history major and a sophomore. They met in art history and didn’t get along at first, until the morning they left Roan’s room.
Clarke mostly talks about Bellamy, and he doesn’t think she’s noticed. It really is last year all over again.
“It’s Bellamy’s friend’s house,” Clarke is saying, when they turn down a familiar street.
Roan can’t help laughing when he sees where Clarke is leading him, because--he literally helped carry furniture up those front steps last summer. “This is my friend’s house too,” he says, when Clarke looks at him funny.
Echo had even invited him, earlier that morning; he just hadn’t realized it was the same party.
She’s right down the hall when they walk inside, and Clarke sees Bellamy off to the side at the beer pong table, and goes over to join his team so they can gang up on the other side.
Echo gives Roan a strange look when he slides up beside her and immediately steals a sip of her beer. He doesn’t mind beer, so long as he doesn’t get drunk , not when he’s surrounded by a bunch of freshmen. He wants them to think he’s responsible.
“I thought you said you weren’t coming?”
“One of my freshmen dragged me along,” he points Clarke out of the crowd, where she’s whooping and tipping back a solo cup, no doubt filled with Anya’s favorite cheap rum. “I think she wants me to wingman her.”
Echo snorts and takes her beer back. “Does she know you’re awful at that?”
Echo is Roan’s oldest friend, probably his favorite person, and definitely the closest thing to a girlfriend that he’ll ever get. They met on a chatroom for aromantics when they were both in high school, and while Echo is a fan of casual rough sex, for the exercise if nothing else, he knows he’s the only person she really likes talking to for any extended amount of time.
“Since when are you friends with Bellamy Blake?” he asks, wondering if they’ve hooked up, and if it might make his plans regarding Bellamy and Clarke awkward.
But Echo remains impassive. “We shared a shitty prof last year, you know how that is. It bonds you.”
Roan nods. He does know. “Did you sleep with him?” It’s best to be blunt with Echo. If he’s crossed any lines, she’ll kick his ass, and he’ll apologize.
“Not for lack of trying,” she says, but she doesn’t seem bitter. “He was dating some girl last year, and after that the timing wasn’t right.”
“Meaning you got to know him,” Roan teases, and Echo shrugs, noncommttal. She doesn’t believe in sleeping with people she actually likes .
Roan glances around. He recognizes most of the faces, from around school if nothing else. “Where’s Anya?”
Echo shrugs again. She and Anya share the house with Nyko and Luna, a senior and junior respectively, and as far as Roan knows none of them really know each other very well. They just wanted a break on rent. “Probably outside, lighting shit on fire.”
Anya tends to get a little fire-happy when she drinks. It’s kind of a problem. They’ve gone through two sofas in the last six months, and she successfully decimated the kitchen trash can.
That’s when Clarke finds him again, tugging him by the arm, insistent. “You have to meet everyone!”
“I wasn’t aware the whole human population could fit inside this house,” Roan says, mild, and Clarke makes a face at him, speaking louder than normal to be heard over the music.
“Everyone important , asshole!”
Roan looks at Echo for help, but she just raises her beer at him with a smirk, because she’s an asshole too.
Clarke takes him out through the back, where the singed remains of the second sofa is sitting in the yard, with a bunch of teenagers sprawled over the cushions like drunk, lazy cats.
“Roan, this is everyone,” she announces. “Everyone, this is Roan my RA. Bellamy punched him in the face once.”
At the sound of his name, Bellamy looks up from where he’s arguing with another guy, hunched over a phone screen. He’s wearing a pair of glasses that he wasn’t the last time Roan saw him, and he raises his cup with a smirk.
“Hey, man. Your face looks good.”
Roan raises a brow at him. “Is this your way of telling me I’m pretty?”
Clarke pats his arm, reassuringly. “You’re very pretty,” she agrees, and he doesn’t miss the look that flashes across Bellamy’s face, just for a second.
They’re so obvious, really. They probably won’t even need his help.
“That’s Wells,” Clarke says, pointing at the boy Bellamy was arguing with earlier, and then she moves to a pretty Latina on his other side. “And that’s Raven.”
If this was a coming-of-age film, Roan thinks Wells and Raven would probably be paired up by the end, if only for convenience.
But real life is hardly ever that tidy, and so he files it away when he catches Wells checking him out, surreptitiously.
Raven doesn’t check him out, that he notices, but that doesn’t mean much.
Roan lets himself get dragged into a debate with Bellamy and Wells, over the name of some actor that neither of them can remember, and he takes a beer when Raven offers one, and it’s nice. Companionable.
Echo wanders over to them eventually, draping herself over the top of the couch so she can pester Bellamy, and Roan doesn’t miss the look on Clarke’s face, either.
Everything is going well until Anya shows up with the grill lighter, and Raven turns out to be some sort of pyrotechnics expert, which means they’re in the middle of drunkenly constructing some sort of homemade firecracker by the time Echo fetches Luna from upstairs, because Luna is studying to be a children’s therapist and is the only one patient enough to calm them both down.
“If it was up to me, I’d just knock em both out and let em sleep it off outside. Be done with it,” Echo grumbles, watching as Luna soothes Raven, talking her into going inside.
Roan pats Echo’s knee. “We know.”
He ends up walking home arm-in-arm with Clarke, because he’s honestly afraid that she’ll fall down if he doesn’t, and she’ll just refuse to get up again.
“You have to hang out with us now,” she tells him, drunk and sleepy, as he maneuvers her inside her room. She has a roommate, a quiet girl named Fox, and Roan doesn’t know where she spends her time but he’s only actually seen her twice. “Your friends have a house . You’re our in.”
“I thought Bellamy was your in,” he teases, and Clarke’s expression goes dark because she’s too drunk to bother hiding her jealousy.
“Yeah, but you guys are closer,” she says, like it’s obvious. “So you have to hang out with us.”
Roan tries to make a point of not hanging out with his freshmen, in any sort of partying capacity, but it is his last year, and he’s pretty sure he can make an exception. Just until Clarke and Bellamy come to their senses.
Echo’s always pestering him to find a hobby.
“Okay, I’ll be your in,” he agrees. “Goodnight, Clarke.”
Clarke and her friends start going to the house regularly after that, and Roan finds himself tagging along. Usually it’s calm and casual--or, as calm and casual as Echo, Anya, Bellamy and Clarke can be--but sometimes they go a little overboard with the competition, and sometimes they play Kings.
Roan learns more than he’s ever wanted to know about all of them, but he also learns that Clarke and Raven are both bisexual, while Bellamy and Wells are both pan. He learns that Clarke’s father died when she was seventeen and she hasn’t spoken to her mother since, that Raven grew up in foster care, that Bellamy basically raised his little sister.
Roan files all of these facts away, little bullet points down the list of everything he knows about these people, all the reasons why it’ll be a little harder when he leaves.
It’s usually easy for him to not grow attached to others, but he also doesn’t usually spend so much time with them.
It doesn’t help that Bellamy and Clarke remain utterly and completely stupid about each other. They’re very clearly friends, best friends maybe, but it’s like every time they start moving towards more, one of them finds a reason to pick a fight, which means they’re angry for a few days and sulking until they patch things up, and the cycle continues.
Roan’s complaining about it in his room with the door closed, just in case, while Echo paints her nails on his bed. She has a special nail polish made out of rattlesnake venom that she orders off Amazon.
“I don’t know why you even care ,” she says, when he’s finished. “Since when are you a romantic?”
It’s an inside joke of sorts, and they share a grin.
“I’m not,” he says, and it’s true. He may be mildly interested in the love lives of his freshmen, but only insomuch that he would like to see them happy . And he thinks that Clarke and Bellamy would be happier together.
But they are proving to be a challenge, so he turns his sights on Wells and Raven. Raven is a sophomore, like Bellamy, but Wells lives in Roan’s dorm too, as it turns out, so he can at least pretend he has some stake in this.
Roan met Lincoln when he started going to the twenty-four hour gym downtown, and they got to talking. First it was mostly just sharing health tips, and comparing their different regimens, but then Roan let it slip that he was trying to quit drinking, or at least cut back, and Lincoln admitted that he had two years in AA.
Lincoln never went to college, and has never shown any sort of interest in going to college parties, but Roan brings it up anyway.
“Some of my friends are having a house party,” he says, mild, trying not to scare him off. “You should swing by.”
Lincoln still looks a little nervous. “I don’t know if that’s such a great idea.”
“There’ll be alcohol, but I know you said you can be around it without getting tempted. And there’ll be plenty of soda, and gatorade too. No one’s going to be checking what you drink.”
He says he’ll think about it, and Roan gives him the address, and that’s that.
If he doesn’t show up, Roan can just come up with some excuse to drag Wells by the coffee shop Lincoln works at, or something. They do art competitions there every Thursday, so maybe he can just let it slip to Clarke, and she’ll bring Wells along.
But in the end he doesn’t have to; Lincoln shows up, looking only a little bit nervous, and Roan slaps a hand on his shoulder, leading him over towards Wells immediately, before faking a reason to leave.
Raven, it must be said, does most of the work herself. Roan notices that every time she drinks, she breaks away from the group to find Luna, sitting with her on the sofa and petting her hair, talking into the night.
Roan swings by Clarke’s room one afternoon, ducking his head into the doorway. Clarke is on her bed, sketching, while Raven fiddles with a Rubik’s Cube on Fox’s.
“Luna’s looking for a model for her figure drawing project,” he says with no preamble. “If either of you are interested.” It’s technically true, even if Luna didn’t ask him to get involved. He can just claim he’s helping a friend.
And if Raven does end up modelling naked for her, and they’re both taken over by passion, it won’t be his fault.
Raven and Clarke share a silent conversation before Raven tosses the cube down on the mattress and stands. “Guess I’ll take one for the team.”
“I’m sure it’ll be a real hardship,” Clarke agrees, wry, and Raven flips her off before leaving.
Clarke studies Roan for a moment, biting her lip, and he lets her. Finally she says “Are you trying to set up my friends?”
Roan hesitates for a moment, thinks about denying it, but honestly what’s the point? “Not with each other.”
She snorts. “Wells is going on a date with Lincoln tonight. He really likes him.”
“I thought he might.”
She nods, considering, and maybe a little bit shy. “Should I read into why you haven’t tried to set me up with anyone, yet?”
“Maybe you just haven’t noticed,” Roan says, and knocks a fist against her wall before leaving.
Bellamy works nights at the campus library, which Roan doesn’t know until he wanders in after a workout, and sees him shelving books.
“I’m surprised Clarke isn’t here pestering you,” he says, making Bellamy jump a little, which he’s smug about.
Bellamy takes a headphone out of his right ear and gives a brittle laugh. “We’re not joined at the hip.” It’s probably true, but this is still the first time Roan has seen him without her. “Besides, she’s busy tonight.”
His voice is off enough that Roan can make an educated guess. “Hot date?”
“Something like that.”
Honestly, Roan always thought it would come down to him and Clarke, just like it came down to him and Lexa, last year. But he really should have known that it would be Bellamy.
“You should tell her,” he says, and he doesn’t even roll his eyes when Bellamy feigns ignorance.
“Tell her what?”
“That you want to kiss her and marry her and make very pretty babies.”
Bellamy chokes, and then scowls. “Aren’t you supposed to be mature and shit?”
“I’m very mature and shit,” Roan says. “I’m not the one refusing to tell the girl I’m in love with that I’m in love with her.”
“Right.” Bellamy sighs, leaning back against the bookshelf. “She isn’t interested.”
It’s the lie of the century, and Roan very admirably does not laugh at how wrong he is. Clarke Griffin is 100% interested. She couldn’t be more interested. Bellamy could ask her to marry him and she would immediately come up with a date and time. “How do you know?”
“She would have said something.”
“Maybe she thinks you would have said something, if you were interested,” Roan prompts, and Bellamy squints at him.
“You think we’re both idiots, don’t you.”
“Only about this particular thing,” Roan admits, because it’s been almost a year and honestly he’s getting sick of watching them pine after each other without ever doing something about it.
But Roan knows that Bellamy isn’t likely to actually say something unless he has to, so he swings by Clarke’s room on his way home.
She looks tired and grumpy, washing her face with a wet wipe when he opens her door.
“What if I was naked?” she glares.
“You aren’t.”
“But what if I was ?”
“Then I would apologize and wait for you to get dressed.” She huffs, but motions for him to come in anyway. “I just saw Bellamy at the library.”
“Congratulations. Would you like me to alert the press?”
“We talked about you,” Roan says, and Clarke immediately begins to pick at her fingernails, because she is the least subtle of all time. He knows she’s hooked up some, in the time since he’s known her, and Bellamy has too, but he hasn’t seen either of them go on a date before, not since they met. Which should have been a sign, really, but they both seem to be unmatched in the art of ignoring the feelings they have for each other.
“What did you say?” she asks, because ultimately, she’s impatient and she wants to know everything.
“I told him he should tell you that he’s in love with you.” Roan has never claimed that he’s good with subtlety. And besides, he’s been subtle for almost a year. Apparently he needs to hit them over the head with the truth, for them to see it.
Clarke looks like he’s just tased her. “Why would he do that?”
“Because he is, obviously.” He watches as she sucks in a breath and holds it. “He claims that you aren’t interested.”
“Why would he think I’m not interested?” Clarke frowns, and Roan bites back a grin. She really has been obvious; Bellamy’s an idiot.
“He thinks you would have said something, if you were.”
Clarke’s voice is small. “Oh.”
Okay, so they’re both idiots. Hopefully now they can be idiots together.
“I just thought you should know,” he says, standing, and she lurches towards the door.
“I--yeah, thanks for--I should--” She’s still wearing the dress from her date, though her hair is unstyled and piled messily up on her head, and her face is pink from the wipes.
But Roan’s pretty sure she could show up in a hospital gown, and Bellamy would still be besotted.
“Yes, you should.”
She nods and takes off, and Roan goes to bed with a job well done.
It takes him only two weeks, to realize that Clarke is trying to set him up, as some sort of thanks for hooking me and my boyfriend up finally, here’s a significant other for you! grand scheme.
Honestly it’s kind of endearing, and it’s definitely amusing, so Roan doesn’t actually say anything when he finds out. He kind of wants to see what she comes up with.
Her first attempt is Echo, probably because since he helped her realize she’s in love with her best friend, she just assumed he must be too.
That idea is short lived, obviously. He’s never seen Echo look so murderous.
Her second attempt is a freshman named Ilian, who’s nice enough, and Roan is supposed to be meeting up with him and Clarke to help them study for a final. Except Clarke doesn’t show, and Roan ends up spending thirty minutes trying to fend off his advances.
“He’s eighteen ,” he says, when Clarke demands to know why he wouldn’t give Ilian his number. “And I’m his RA. It’s unprofessional.”
She rolls her eyes, but at least her third attempt is a junior, whom Roan manages to set up on a blind date with Anya, so it’s not a total waste of time.
In the end, it’s Wells that figures it out first.
Roan and Echo have been going to AVEN meetings intermittently for the last four years. They meet up in the basement of the science building, after school hours, and he’s helping set up for the meeting when Wells walks in.
They lock eyes for one moment of surprise, before Wells crosses over, looking a little amused. “Did you know Clarke has been trying to get you laid for a month?”
“Yes,” Roan admits. “She isn’t good at being subtle.”
“So this is why you don’t date?” Wells asks, and then flushes a little, like he’s embarrassed. “I think I might be demisexual. I’m still figuring it out, but.”
“It can take a while,” Roan agrees. “I still have moments of self-doubt.”
“You’re asexual?”
“And aromantic.” Roan flashes the ring on his middle finger. He’s not ashamed of it, and he doesn’t keep it quiet for any particular reason, it just doesn’t come up much. People assume the ring is a fashion statement, and he’s just quiet about his sex life.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“No one ever asked.”
Echo chooses that moment to start the meeting, barking for everyone to take their seats, and Roan passes Wells a bottle of water before finding a table for themselves.
Wells must say something to Clarke, because she shows up in his room the next day, looking equal parts irritated and confused.
“You could have just said you weren’t interested,” she says, poking him hard in the shoulder.
“I know,” he grins. “Honestly I just wanted to see what you’d come up with.”
She huffs at him, but it’s mostly friendly, and then jostles him in the side. “Move over. I texted Bellamy to meet us here so you can quiz us on art history.”
“You could always quiz each other,” Roan points out. He has less than no interest in playing the third wheel.
“Yeah but then you miss out on making fun of us whenever we get stuff wrong.”
“Well when you put it like that,” he agrees, and makes room for her.