Chapter Text
Clarke knew something was wrong the moment Octavia got the text. She paused with her fork halfway to her mouth and frowned at her phone.
“Everything okay with Jesse?” Clarke asked.
“Yeah, it’s not about him,” Octavia said vaguely, still reading.
“Work stuff?” Raven asked.
“No, it’s— it’s Bellamy. You know his new place? There was a fire there today,” she said without looking up, thumbs flying across her phone. “I guess he’s staying with us for awhile.”
Clarke had heard the sirens when she ran errands earlier in the day, but hadn’t connected them to the brand-new townhome Bellamy rented last month. Her heart sank, remembering how excited he was to finally have a full-time job that could pay the rent on a place that didn’t involve roommates or dubiously constructed additions. And how happy they all were that he was finally, finally moving back after six years of grad school.
Raven scrunched up her face in sympathy. “At least he hadn’t moved in yet? But that really sucks.”
Octavia blew her hair out of her eyes and put her phone down, facing up this time in case Bellamy responded. “Yeah. He has to be out of his place in Pennsylvania by the end of this week, and the movers are already booked, so...I guess we can move Jesse’s crib into our bedroom, and Bellamy can sleep in the nursery. He’ll have to put the rest of his shit into storage while he wrestles with the management company and insurance.” She stopped to read another text and swore under her breath. “And yep, management is saying since his lease started this week, he can’t break it and get his money back even though he hadn’t moved in yet. Shit, this’ll really set him back.”
Frustration creased Octavia’s face. Clarke thought about the two-bedroom bungalow she and Lincoln had rehabbed three years ago, before Jesse was born. Between Octavia’s police salary and Lincoln’s social work job they hadn’t been able to afford anything bigger, and it was a tight squeeze now that Jesse was mobile. She thought about Raven’s spartan studio, and Monty and Miller’s more-comfortable-but-still-less-than-900-square-feet one bedroom near campus. And then she thought about her own three bedroom, two and a half bath house a fifteen minute drive from the university, and made a decision.
“He can just move in with me instead,” she announced, and whipped out her phone. She saw Octavia and Raven exchange a look and stopping typing. “What? I have two extra bedrooms, so unless he wants to move in with Jasper or Murphy and smell like pot for all of eternity, I’m the best choice.”
“He’ll probably want to pay rent,” Octavia said carefully.
“I figured,” Clarke replied. “We’ll work something out so I don’t feel like I’m bleeding him dry and he doesn’t feel like I’m giving him charity. But come on— it’s the easiest solution and you know it.”
There was that look again, the one Clarke couldn’t quite parse. “It does make sense,” Raven conceded, and Octavia’s jaw worked briefly until she nodded in agreement.
Clarke Griffin
Out to dinner with O and just heard about the fire.
You’re staying with me until you’ve got a place.
Bellamy Blake
Since when do you give me orders?
Clarke Griffin
Since I’m the only one of our friends with a spare bedroom
and bathroom and without a bong as a centerpiece of my living room.
Bellamy Blake
God I wish you weren’t right about that.
I’m paying rent, though.
Clarke Griffin
We can fight about that later.
Clarke hit send and turned back to her food. “It’s a plan,” she told the others, a little perturbed by the fact that they seemed skittish about it, for no reason she could discern. After all, she and Bellamy hadn’t actually fought in years. Bickered, sure, but no more than he bickered with Raven during his yearly visits home.
Clarke had met Octavia first, when Octavia brought in a drunk driver who’d hit a tree fleeing police to Clarke’s ER during her third ever shift of her residency. She approved of the way Clarke managed to distract the man from his repeated escape attempts and offered to buy her a drink after her shift as a thank you. Clarke had sort of wondered if it was going to be a date, but instead she found a packed table at Grounders with half a dozen strangers who immediately adopted her; save one. Octavia’s brother had been standoffish with her at first, and Clarke’s pride kicked in. But once it became clear they were both stuck with each other, that hostility had shifted into friendship at a frankly alarming pace.
Moving to Arkadia without knowing anyone had been terrifying, but through Octavia, Clarke discovered an ever-expanding circle of friends. She met Miller, gruff but loyal, and Monty, and one night, just over a year after she moved, she met Anya. And through Anya she met Lexa, and her whole world changed.
She still saw her friends after that, of course, but Lexa was intoxicating— and Lexa didn’t quite fit with them. Clarke straddled two worlds as best she could, her loyalty to those first few people who opened their hearts to her unshakable, but she couldn’t help but notice the distance.
When Bellamy got into his dream grad program, she’d been genuinely thrilled for him, even if she privately mourned the thought of him being so far away. They had only known each other a year and a half, Lexa pointed out, but while Clarke saw the logic in that, she knew she would miss him. And miss him she did, even though he came back every year at Christmas and for a few weeks during the summer. They emailed and texted— and Octavia even bullied him into signing up for snapchat— but a drifting was inevitable, she supposed.
But that drifting never quite lead to a complete break. She and Bellamy would have fallow periods, like when he was in Italy for research and their time zones were all messed up, or when she was studying for her boards and she stopped speaking to anyone who wasn’t a patient or coworker for two solid months, but they always managed to pick up where they left off. Through it all— Lexa leaving, his qualitative exams, her shift from resident to board-certified emergency physician— they kept in touch.
And now he was coming home. When Echo got the offer in France last winter Clarke assumed he’d go with her and resigned herself to a permanent long-distance friendship with Bellamy. But he turned Echo down and applied at Arkadia U instead, and last month Clarke had insisted on accompanying him to every single place he looked at, mostly out of pure joy that he was going to once again be within driving distance.
And now he’d be living just down the hall from her.
Emptying out her “gym” was pretty easy, considering it consisted of a yoga mat, a few sets of weights, and a bunch of shit that didn’t really have anywhere else to exist in her house. Clarke carried the latter to the basement and the former to her office— which would now be their office, which really meant Bellamy’s office, since she didn’t generally bring work home with her— and she was ready for Bellamy to move in.
That process was a little less easy, but by no means difficult. She was used to bickering with him, and their friends may have rolled their eyes every time they started another argument about how many books he owned but she saw the way his eyes danced and knew he enjoyed it every bit as much as she did. He moved his bed into her old gym, several bookcases and an impossible amount of books into the office, and that night they ate pizza standing at the island in the kitchen, toasting their beers to his new job.
If she had one concern when Bellamy moved in, it was that she would resent the loss of her private time. Clarke had gotten used to having absolute silence and freedom in her house, and her schedule at the hospital meant she frequently had days at a time where she stayed home, glorying in her solitude. Sometimes the only other person she saw was Madi, on their weekly Big and Little Sister dates.
But teaching three new courses plus committee duties and advising meant Bellamy was swamped, frequently staying on campus until eight or nine at night and then retreating to the office with a pile of grading. In fact, her new worry was soon that she didn’t see Bellamy enough , because between her long shifts and his workload, sometimes her only sign that she had a roommate was the extra dishes in the dishwasher.
It got so bad that six weeks into his semester she barged into the office with two beers and perched on the edge of his desk. “You’re taking a break,” she declared.
Bellamy pulled his glasses off and rubbed at his eyes. “I can’t,” he sighed. “I promised my intro class I’d have their papers back by Wednesday, and I still have to write the lecture for Mycenaean Greece on Monday. And then there’s the papers for that class, which I still haven’t finished, and—”
“No, you’re taking a break,” she repeated, and thrust a beer into his hand. “Will anyone die if they don’t get their paper back on Wednesday?”
“No, but—”
“No buts. Will they die? Or will they grumble about it a little and then be fine when they get it on Friday instead? Because you know, I have actual experience with your job meaning life and death situations, so if someone might die I can advise you on how to handle that stress.”
Bellamy narrowed his eyes at her. “It’s really not fair for you bring that into it,” he grumbled. “I promised them Wednesday.”
“Honestly, half will forget and the other half should learn to live with mild disappointment,” Clarke countered, and when he took a sip of beer she knew she’d won. “Come on, we’ve got a whole new season of Great British Bake Off on netflix, and I’ll be damned if I’m watching that by myself. You can go back to being a martyr tomorrow.” She held out her hand and Bellamy sat back in his desk chair, eyeing her carefully.
“Fine,” he sighed, and let her pull him up. Clarke grinned in triumph and he followed her down the stairs to settle on the couch. Clarke stretched out on the long sectional, beer balanced on her stomach, and Bellamy laid down perpendicular to her. The gentle intro music to GBBO began, and two hours later Bellamy had gotten them both more beer and Clarke was pleasantly buzzed and sleepy.
“If Nadiya doesn’t take this whole thing I’m going to write a strongly worded letter to the BBC,” Bellamy announced.
“How do you exist in the world and not know how this season ends?” Clarke asked.
“Because I was working on a dissertation until July and then had three new classes to create?”
“Fair enough. But I’m instituting a new rule for as long as you live here. Once a week, you take a minimum of two hours for roommate chill time and netflix. Blanket?”
Bellamy reached behind him and threw her the blanket. “Is that different from netflix and chill?”
“For the love of god please tell me you know what that really means,” she laughed, and he wiggled his eyebrows in response. “But yes, just to be clear, roommate chill time does not involve sex.”
“Noted,” he said, hiding his smile behind his beer.
Clarke settled back into the cushions, blanket tucked around her legs, but by the time the technical challenge rolled around her eyes were getting heavy. She let her eyelids droop, blinked them open, and then let them droop again. Eventually, she gave up.
A hand on her shoulder woke her, the TV dark. She was curled on her side, her cheek resting on something that was clearly not the couch. She looked up and realized Bellamy was looking down at her from an awkward angle-- she was lying with her cheek pressed to his thigh, completely opposite from the direction she thought she was leaning when she fell asleep. “I didn’t know what the roommate protocol was for you sleeping on my legs,” he said with a grin. “Do I just leave you here overnight, or am I supposed to carry you to bed?”
Clarke laughed and stretched as she sat up. “Sorry, you could have woken me the second I collapsed on you. But yes, you did the right thing, unless you want to carry me upstairs, in which case I have no objections.”
“Yeah, definitely not,” he said, gingerly flexing his legs before standing. “You’re on your own there.”
“Same time next week?” Clarke asked.
“I do live here, you know.”
“Funny, I wouldn’t know it by how often I see you.”
Bellamy shook his head with a smile, and mussed up her hair. “Fine. Same time next week, roomie.”
It became a routine with them. Saturday nights when she wasn’t working they split a six pack or a bottle of wine and hung out. Sometimes they watched GBBO and bickered over their favorite contestants, and sometimes they picked a movie and mocked it together. Their friends were always complaining about their sense of humor but Clarke personally thought they were hilarious, and it quickly became her favorite night of the week. Sometimes she found herself studying him, watching his reactions carefully, and measuring them against her memories. There was something different about him now, a lightness that hadn’t been there when he lived in Arkadia before. Maybe it was the time away, or maybe it was just simply having grown up some, but he seemed calmer somehow; more grounded.
She was different too, of course, and they hadn’t seen each other for more than a few days at a time scattered over six years. It made sense that he’d change, but she wondered about the root cause of it and wished she knew. But then Bellamy would throw his head back and laugh at one of her jokes and she’d forget all about comparing him to who he used to be.
Bellamy started working less in his office, too. When he had grading he’d move to the couch and spread out the papers, alternately moaning about the quality and proudly reading off sentences that didn’t mean much to Clarke, but she liked the way his eyes lit up with pride anyway. Sometimes she would sit in the armchair by the window and sketch, and once she caught Bellamy looking at her with a soft, contemplative gaze that made her heart curl.
She liked having a roommate, she decided.
Clarke shifted smoothly from downward dog to a low plank, and then rose up into upward facing dog. She was halfway through her practice, having worked up a good sweat, when she heard a noise at the door.
Bellamy leaned against the doorjamb, munching on an apple. “Can I help you?” she asked. A bead of sweat rolled down her neck to her collarbone and slipped into the valley between her breasts. She didn’t bother with a shirt when doing yoga, preferring leggings and a sports bra, and she hadn’t realized Bellamy was home.
He tilted his head to the side. “Nope, I’m good,” he smirked.
Clarke rolled her eyes and pushed back into downward dog, then raised her left leg for a down dog splits. “Enjoying the view?”
Bellamy took a noisy bite. “Something like that.”
“Pervert,” Clarke snorted.
“Did you want me to leave?”
Clarke slid into a low lunge and her heartbeat picked up a few paces. “It’s a free country. And you do live here.”
Bellamy grinned and sent her a tiny wink. She chuckled and he pushed off the door frame to wander down towards his bedroom, and it took more deep breathing than usual to bring her heart rate back down.
That moment changed things. They started flirting more; nothing line crossing, and nothing even terribly overt, but there was a charge to their interactions after that. It was in the brush of his hand across her back if they were in the kitchen together, and in the way she teased him about his glasses while he graded on the couch.
Being attracted to Bellamy wasn’t exactly new for her, but there was something different about it now. When the first met it was mostly fury and annoyance fueling their chemistry, and then after it was the simple fact that he was hot and she was a warm-blooded human capable of recognizing that. But now there was a possibility that lingered in the air and found her reaching for her vibrator with more frequency than usual.
Bellamy had been living with her for two months when their weekly roommate night was sponsored by a bottle of scotch none of their other friends would touch. It hit her faster than their nights with beer and soon her head was lolling back on the couch while she laughed at his annoyance with endless faculty meetings.
“There is no goddamn reason we need to debate including a required accessibility services disclaimer on the syllabus for two hours. It’s required, and it’s the right thing to do . But no, every goddamn person has to hear themselves talk for twenty minutes and bring up fifteen hypotheticals that don’t even apply, and— jesus, what? Why are you laughing so hard?” he asked.
Clarke shook her head, not quite able to get her laughter under control. “You’re just... so angry about this,” she managed.
“Yeah well, you’ve never had to sit through an academic meeting. Trust me, they’re torture.”
“I believe you, drama queen.”
“Drama queen? Me?” he said, his voice pitching higher with offense.
“Did you or did you not stand on a chair to argue a point during bar trivia? Because I seem to remember that happening.”
Bellamy’s eyes widened. “Fuck, I forgot about that,” he said, and this time they both doubled over with laughter.
Clarke wiped at a tear streaming down her face and poked at his thigh with her toe. “Hey, awkward question.”
“Then be prepared for an awkward answer.”
“Oh my god, first of all, I hate you. But second of all, uh...fuck, there’s no way I can ask this without sounding conceited.”
“This is gonna be good,” Bellamy grinned.
Clarke mock-glared at him and chewed her lower lip. “Back when we first met, did you...have a thing for me?”
“I’m sorry, did you forget that I called you a spoiled brat in front of all of our friends the second time we hung out? Because that’s definitely a thing that happened, princess,” Bellamy teased.
“I didn’t mean right away, ” she said with an eye roll. “I meant...later.” She’d been thinking a lot about that year, trying to figure out just what had changed about their friendship. And she hadn’t been completely oblivious back then, just— not quite sure if he did have feelings for her, or if she was imagining them. And then she’d met Lexa, and it seemed...well, irrelevant felt harsh and dismissive, but whether or not Bellamy had a crush on her just wasn’t at the forefront of her thoughts. Crushes on friends happened and people chose not to act on them for all sorts of reasons, and Bellamy had seemed to be doing just fine, so she put it out of her mind.
“I did, yeah,” he said, swirling his scotch.
“Thought so,” Clarke preened, and this time Bellamy was the one to roll his eyes.
“Did. Past tense, princess.”
“Whatever, you were checking me out when I did yoga the other day.”
“Like you don’t have to pick your jaw up off the floor whenever I leave the shower,” he retorted.
He had her there— an unexpected side effect of living with Bellamy was being keenly aware of just how ripped he was. And he was very, very ripped.
“So what I’m getting is that we’re both crazy hot,” Clarke laughed. “Maybe we should fuck.”
“Maybe we should,” he snorted, and then tilted his head to the side, thinking. Bellamy lowered his hand to her bare ankle, eyes suddenly dark. He traced the edge of her cuffed jeans with one finger, light and delicate. Sparks flared in her belly and his fingers slid up towards her calf, her skin burning in their wake.
“You’re not...seeing anyone, are you?” she asked, heart racing.
Bellamy licked his lips and shook his head. “You?”
Clarke and Niylah had never been exclusive, and anyway, that had sort of fallen off her radar a few months ago. “Not in awhile, no.” She curled her legs under her and rose up on her knees, slinging one over his hips.
Bellamy’s hands found her waist and she settled into his lap, her center directly above his groin. “Should we have, uh...terms and conditions? Like, rules?” he asked.
Clarke rolled her hips forward and felt him harden underneath her. “Yeah, probably,” she said, her voice low. “Um, maybe not too often?”
“Define too often,” he asked, eyes darting to the neckline of her flannel shirt. It didn’t quite fit and she’d left it open just one button too far. It left her breasts on display, something she was now acutely aware of as his gaze skated across her skin.
“Just like, only once a month, or something. So it doesn’t become a habit.” She had never felt the need to draw that line with Niylah, but for some reason, this felt more dangerous. Probably because they lived together— the temptation might be too much, and they needed to be careful.
“Once a month, sure.”
“And no sleeping over. Our beds are just down the hall, so no excuses that we’re just feeling lazy.” Clarke curved her hand along his jaw, feeling the stubble against her palm. “What about you? Any rules?”
Something unreadable flashed in his eyes. “Yeah, uh, I think we should have an escape clause. One of us wants out, we’re out, no hard feelings.”
“Easy in, easy out,” she agreed, and ran her fingers through his hair. His eyes fluttered shut at her touch and she scratched her nails against his scalp. His hair was longer than it had been six years ago, and he wore it straighter now. It made him look older, along with that dark shadow along his jaw. She liked it, she decided. “So we’re doing this?” she asked, and his eyes slowly opened.
“I’m in if you are,” he said, and she shivered at how low and rough his voice was now.
“You’re sure?” she repeated, tightening her fingers in his hair so his head pulled back towards the couch.
His eyes flashed again and he gripped her hips hard, pushing his now-hard cock against her through his jeans. “What do you think?” he challenged, and she sealed their lips together.
Clarke had always liked the smoky burn of scotch, but that was before she tasted it on Bellamy’s tongue. Now she chased it with everything she had, their lips and teeth clashing messily. Bellamy seemed just as undone as she was, his hands roaming her body roughly. He managed to undo a few more buttons on her shirt and buried his face between her breasts, licking and nipping as he went. She curved her back to urge him closer, her fingers still tugging on his hair, and he nudged aside a cup of her bra with his chin to draw her aching nipple into his mouth. His mouth was hot and wet, the suction firm and perfect.
She jerked his head back so she could kiss him again and ground down on him, needing more friction. Bellamy groaned into her mouth and peeled her shirt off her shoulders. He found the clasp of her bra and the material released, her breasts spilling into his hands. She let his lips rove her skin, rolling her hips against his so his cock hit her clit just right, but she quickly realized he had every intention of taking his time. He curled his tongue around one nipple and then slowly kissed his way to the other, his thumb flicking across the tight, wet skin he left behind. Clarke was making needy, mewling noises but Bellamy showed no signs of speeding up, just drew his mouth up to her collarbone to suck hard enough to leave a mark.
Exasperated and desperate she clawed at his t-shirt until he let her pull it off. Clarke threw it over the back of the couch and took her chance to taste his skin, from the rough, rasping line of his jaw to the burning-hot smoothness of his chest. Now it was his turn to gasp, and when her lips found his again he slipped his hands under her thighs. He scooted forward to get his weight over his legs and stood, hoisting her into the air. “Your room or mine?” he asked.
“Do you have condoms?” she replied. She thought she might have some, but it’d been awhile since she had a sexual partner with a dick and she wasn’t entirely sure she still had any; something that now felt like a massive, gaping oversight.
“Mine it is,” he declared and she wrapped her legs around his waist. At the bottom of the stairwell he stopped and pinned her against the wall. Her shoulder blades scraped against the drywall but she didn’t give a damn because Bellamy’s lips were slipping down the curve of her throat and it was maybe the best thing she’d ever felt. She could have stayed like that forever, but eventually she unwound her legs from his hips and stood. They raced up the stairs, laughing as they went, but when he caught her at his bedroom door his kiss left her breathless.
She stopped to peel down her leggings and Bellamy shucked his jeans, but then he scooped her back up in his arms and deposited her on top of his dresser. He knelt down between her legs, lips curving into a smirk, and she lifted her hips up so he could slide her panties down her legs. The height of the dresser put her even with his face, his gaze heavy on her thatch of damp, golden curls.
Clarke rested the arch of her foot on his shoulder and pushed him back, watching how his eyes were drawn to her. He licked his lips, letting her keep him at a distance, and waited for her nod. He kissed the bone in her ankle and she eased her foot down his back. He placed soft, delicate kisses up her calf and nuzzled at the thin skin on the inside of her knee. By the time her heel ran down the length of his spine his breath was hot on her center, his eyes burning into her, and she had to look away because it was almost too much.
And the moment his tongue gently traced her slit, it was too much. Clarke dropped her head back and let loose. With every breathy moan Bellamy licked into her harder, smearing her across his lips and chin, thrashing her clit with his tongue. Before she could even ask he pushed a finger inside of her, ratcheting her cries higher, and when he added a second she lost her voice entirely.
Her thighs were trembling and she could barely hold herself up, the need coiling tighter and tighter inside of her. She stopped seeing anything, stopped hearing, stopped being anything but a bundle of nerves being tortured by his mouth. “Come on, I wanna feel you,” he growled and then sucked on her clit, curling his fingers inside of her until she shattered.
A wave slammed into her all at once, her vision blacking out while pleasure rolled through her. Her walls clenched down on his fingers, tight and hard, and everything spiraled out from that point, rippling through her body over and over again until she couldn’t take it anymore, wrung out by her own climax.
When she came back to herself Bellamy was standing over her, nuzzling her cheek. “Jesus fucking christ you’re good at that,” she laughed.
He smoothed his hands down her arms. “So I’ve heard,” he chuckled, and she looped her arms around his neck. Bellamy carried her to the bed and pulled a condom from his bedside table. She went to help him roll it on but she was clumsy, muscles still addled from her orgasm.
Bellamy urged her on her side and slipped into bed behind her, his arm coming to pin her back against him. He nudged her knees apart and pushed into her from behind. His cock breaching her entrance had her gasping for air again, his slow advance filling her perfectly. She draped her leg over his and let him rock into her, the position making each of his thrusts shallow but deliberate, his cock hitting her front walls with each roll of his hips. His breath fanned her ear and Clarke craned her neck so she could meet him in a messy, awkward kiss. Even though she was still languid and wrecked from her first she felt another peak building, swirling through her like a current. Bellamy dropped his thumb to her clit and rubbed tight, hard circles on it until she was shaking again, helpless in his arms as she fell apart.
“Fuck,” he groaned as her walls tightened around his cock, and he snapped his hips into her harder and harder, the friction spurring her own orgasm on. She felt his cock swell and release inside of her, and his groan sent shivers down her body. And they were both panting, tangled together in a mix of sweat and sex.
Bellamy pulled out to throw away the condom and she buried her face in his pillow, breathing in the scent of his sheets. He walked back to the bed and she took in the strong lines of his legs, the curve of his ass, the faint outline of muscles cording as he moved. With a sigh she pushed herself up and swung her legs over the side. “Leaving so soon?” Bellamy asked, slipping back into bed.
“Rules, remember?” Clarke found her panties and shimmied them on. Her bra was still downstairs, along with half their clothes, but she’d deal with that tomorrow. “If I stay any longer, I’ll pass out.”
Bellamy put his hands behind his head and grinned proudly. “Wore you out, didn’t I?”
Clarke slapped lightly at his chest and he caught her hand, pulling her back for a kiss. “Don’t get cocky,” she warned.
“Too late, princess,” he smirked, and she rolled her eyes, shutting the door behind her as she left.