Archive of Our Own

Bellamy's first thought on entering Ground Pound is that he's going to take the bartender home. She's leaning over the bar in a white ribbed tanktop, showing off some truly impressive cleavage to the girls ordering shots. She straightens and he sees her in profile, streaks of blue in her blonde hair, the glint of a nose ring, a tattoo of a bright orange sun on her upper arm. Punk girls aren't usually his scene, but on her, it's really working for him.

He makes his way over to the bar, taking a seat and waiting for her to finish with her current customers and notice him. The music is loud, but not deafening, the dance floor is well populated, and the drinks aren't horribly overpriced; he briefly wonders if the girl is hot enough to make it worth giving up a potentially awesome bar if it ends up awkward with her. Especially considering his roommate likes this place.

But then she spots him, her eyes light up, and she says, "Oh my god, Bellamy?" and he has a new issue, which is that he apparently already hooked up with her and somehow forgot, which is really not like him.

He squints, trying to place her, and when she tucks a loose curl behind her ear, he gets there. "Holy shit, Clarke?"

She beams, all bright and happy, totally, adorably at odds with her new look. "What are you doing here? Visiting? Or--?"

"I just started grad school," he says, still agog. Clarke was friends with his fucking baby sister, a year older than Octavia, a total goodie two shoes. The last time he saw her, she was fourteen and had braces and giant glasses and much less incredible boobs. "What are you doing here?"

"Working," she says, amused. "And I'm a senior at the SMFA." At his blank look, she clarifies, "School of the Museum of Fine Arts."

"Oh," he says, dumbly. He's pretty sure Octavia has stayed broadly in touch with Clarke, in the Facebook friend/Twitter follower way, but Bellamy's never gotten into the whole social networking thing. He had no idea she was in Boston. Or, you know, fucking hot. He clears his throat. "That's cool," he says. "I remember you were a really good artist."

She looks amused. "Thanks. Did you want a drink?"

"Yeah, just a Sam Adams would be great."

She pours it expertly, which is also a turn on for him now, apparently, and slides it over. "Paying now or starting a tab?"

"Tab," he decides, and she looks pleased.

They chat on and off over the course of the night, when she's not helping other customers. He finds out her parents are paying for her college only because they'd be more embarrassed of having a daughter without a degree than they would of having one with a Fine Arts degree, and that she's tending bar because she's worried they're going to cut her off after she graduates.

"And, you know, it's fun," she says, grinning. "I get such awesome tips."

He can't help grinning back. It's actually impossible. "So when did the whole--" he gestures at her, not sure how to finish. "Last time I saw you, I think you thought nose rings were unsanitary."

"No, I thought they were awesome, but I couldn't pull them off. Around sophomore year of college, I decided I would start dressing like the girls I wanted to sleep with, instead of wishing I could dress like them."

He chokes, and she looks incredibly smug. "So you're, uh--"

"Bisexual," she says. "Unless you ask my mother, in which case I'm either rebelling or confused."

"You're about the least confused person I've ever met," he says, with a little awe. He's still having trouble dealing with open, confident, self-assured (fucking hot) Clarke Griffin.

"Thanks," she says, clearly proud. "It took me a while, but I figured it out eventually."

She goes over to serve a group of guys, and Bellamy tries and fails to not stare at her ass. She's wearing a jean skirt that is way too short for Boston in September, even if it is warm. And her legs are amazing too.

"So, grad school," she says, when she comes back to him. "Tell me more."

"I'm getting my Masters," he says. "Classics. At Tufts."

She lights up again. "Really? My degree's through Tufts, I have some of my classes there. We're kind of classmates. A little."

She looks more like the Clarke he remembers when she smiles like that, which should maybe be weird, but it mostly just means she's familiar and he feels fond of her, which is actually worse than just thinking she's hot.

"So does that mean you're in Davis?"

He's not great at Boston geography yet, but he does at least know the name of his own neighborhood. Mostly because it's also his train station. "Yeah."

"Even better. Give me your phone."

Which is how he ends up leaving Ground Pound at one-thirty with the hot bartender's number, in absolutely the last way he expected.

*

"Did you know Clarke Griffin lives here?"

Octavia is at college in Seattle, which makes Bellamy's hands itch every time he thinks about it. She wanted to strike out on her own, and he respects that, really, but--it's hard knowing how long it would take him to get to her if she needed him.

She makes a non-committal noise. "Kind of. I knew she was somewhere around there. Why?"

"I ran into her last night."

"Oh, yeah? Awesome. How's she doing? I haven't talked to her in forever."

"Good, I think. She was bartending at this place my roommate likes."

There's a pause, and then she groans. "Did you sleep with her?"

"No!" he says. Hopefully his horror that she guessed he wanted to sleep with her sounds like horror at the very idea of sleeping with her. He couldn't pull it off in person--his sister knows him too well--but maybe he'll be safe over the phone. "We just chatted." He pauses and feels compelled to add, "She texted, apparently her friend's band is playing tonight, if I want to be sociable. Should I go?"

"How else are you going to meet new people?" she asks, not unreasonably. He wouldn't mind having a life, and the farther he gets out of college, the harder it seems to get to manage one. The other people in his program are fine so far, and his roommate Miller is cool, but Miller works as a security guard and keeps bizarre hours, and half his program is married Latin teachers who want to get a degree so they get paid more. Clarke might be his best option.

"Yeah, okay," he says.

"Say hi to her for me! And don't sleep with her."

He wants to ask why not, but that would give away that he wants to, and then they would have a conversation about that, so he just says, "Bye, O," and goes to take a shower.

He texts Clarke that he'll come with, and she responds in seconds asking for his address. When he gives it, she says, Cool, I'll pick you up in twenty, we'll get dinner, and he just sort of stares at the text in bewilderment.

Are you adopting me? he asks.

Yup, hope you don't mind.

She shows up with another girl and a couple guys, for which he both is and is not grateful.

"Guys, this is Bellamy. I went to high school with his little sister. Bellamy, this is my roommate, Raven, her boyfriend, Wick, and our friends Jasper and Monty. It's Jasper's girlfriend's band."

She's wearing worn skinny jeans and a faded black t-shirt with what looks like Viking runes on it. Her hair is up in an elaborate braided pattern, the blue streaks looking like a crown on her head, and she's wearing glasses, a surprisingly plain pair. He would have pegged her for the chunky black hipster frames.

Her friend Raven is exactly his type, long brown hair, awesome body, gorgeous, but he somehow can't figure out how to be into her. He tells himself that it's because she has a boyfriend, and not because he can't really take his attention off Clarke.

"Nice to meet you," he says, with a somewhat dorky wave. "Thanks for inviting me."

"The more the merrier," says Raven. "Clarke said you were a nerd," she adds, as they start walking.

"I said he was getting his Masters in Classics," Clarke corrects, amused.

"Those two statements are synonymous," says Raven, flashing Bellamy a grin. "You don't look like a nerd."

He shrugs. "I don't have any friends, so I have plenty of time to hit the gym."

"Also you're a literal rocket scientist who has been to the last four Boston Comic-Cons," Clarke points out, like Bellamy hadn't spoken. "And Jasper plays competitive Magic: the Gathering. None of us are allowed to make fun of other people for being nerds."

"Don't tell him that!" Jasper protests. "I wanted him to think I was cool for like ten minutes."

"Dream big, Jasper," says Raven, patting him on the shoulder. She glances back at Clarke. "And I never said we weren't nerds."

"Takes one to know one," says Wick, and bumps Raven's fist when she offers it.

"So yeah, these are the people I choose to associate with," Clarke says, giving Bellamy a rueful smile.

He shrugs one shoulder, smiling back, and then turns his attention to Jasper. "So how competitive are you? I used to play a little Magic in college."

"Oh my god, I thought you were cool in high school," Clarke bursts out, somewhat horrified, and he laughs.

"I get less cool every year," he tells her, and can't help adding, "Maybe you're stealing it, Miss Tattoo and Nose Ring."

Her grin is infectious, and Bellamy doesn't try to hide his own smile.

"Oh, I see how it is," says Raven, and Clarke elbows her. "Anyway, Jasper, tell the new guy all about your stupid Jeskai deck. I can see you're about to explode."

"What was the last set you played? What format? Did you do constructed or limited?"

Jasper chatters at him about Magic until they get to the train, and by the time they make it to the restaurant, Bellamy's agreed to go to a sealed deck tournament the next day at some store in Central Square with him and Monty. He is never going to be able to discuss his social life with Octavia ever again.

Clarke snags the seat next to him at dinner without much effort. He's sitting to her left, and he can just see the edges of her tattoo under the sleeve of her t-shirt. He tries not to let it be distracting.

"Octavia says hi," he offers.

"Oh, cool! She's in--somewhere on the west coast?"

"Seattle, yeah. She's a junior at the University of Washington."

Clarke nods. "Yeah, this is all vaguely familiar from Facebook." She pokes him in the arm. "Speaking of which, why aren't we Facebook friends? Social media is supposed to tell me when people from high school move, get married, or reproduce and freak me the fuck out. You being here shouldn't have been a surprise."

He laughs. "Yeah, I don't do Facebook. Social media is not for me. I like to take pictures when I'm drunk, I don't want to be tempted to post them anywhere."

"Did someone mention embarrassing pictures?" asks Raven, looking up from a conversation with the rest of the table that seems to involve drawing diagrams of engines on her napkin. "You can't bring that up and not share with the class."

"I delete them in the morning and never speak of them again," says Bellamy solemnly. "Sorry."

"You are absolutely no fun," Raven tells him.

"Less fun every year," he confirms.

Clarke snags his attention again, not that she ever quite lost it. "What do you want to do with your classics degree?"

"Teach," he says. "It's a masters and teaching license. And then I'll probably get a PhD someday."

"Cool," she says, with a genuine smile, like she thinks becoming a high-school Latin teacher actually is a neat thing to do with his life.

"What about you? What are you doing after you graduate?"

She groans. "I still have nine months, I don't have to know yet," she says. "I work a couple shifts a week at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, hopefully they'll just hire me to do something full time after graduation and put me out of my misery."

"Or you can just bartend full time and give me free drinks for the rest of my life," says Raven, hooking her arm around Clarke's shoulder.

"Also a valid career choice," Clarke agrees, lifting her beer to Raven. "My mom would love that."

"Babe, don't try to pretend you still care what your mom thinks."

The concert itself is actually pretty fun; Jasper's girlfriend's band is opening for some other slightly more famous local group, and they're pretty decent. Clarke is the loudest person in the entire audience, screaming her lungs out after every one of their numbers, and her enthusiasm is contagious. Bellamy's never been much for public yelling, but even he gets into it. After their set finishes, he meets Jasper's girlfriend, Maya, and her bandmates Harper and Monroe, and they get shots and scream for the main act too.

Clarke is giggling and leaning into his side as they walk home. His phone is full of embarrassing selfies, but he probably won't delete them in the morning.

"It's cool that you came out with us," Clarke is saying. They're lagging behind the rest of the group, a little bubble of them. Bellamy's in no rush to get home. "It's cool hanging out with you. You're cool."

"You said cool like five times there," he teases.

"I said it three, I'm an excellent drunk counter."

He snorts. "I'm glad you invited me," he says. "You should do it more often. Octavia says I need more of a life."

"You have the sealed deck tomorrow!" Jasper yells. "Don't forget! We will come for you!"

Clarke giggles. "See? You're fine. You have so much of a life." They pause outside of his apartment building, and she smiles up at him. Her hair is starting to escape from her braids, blowing around her head. Bellamy wonders what happened in the last seven years, how she went from a cute, dorky kid to this fucking gorgeous woman. "I work at Ground Pound on Thursdays and Fridays," she says. "So, you know. You can always come see me then." She pecks him on the cheek. "If anything else comes up, I'll call you. Night, Bellamy."

"Night," he echoes, and watches her walk away. To make sure she catches up with the others, definitely. No other reason.

*

"Fancy meeting you here."

Bellamy looks up from his pile of books and smiles at Clarke automatically. He's seen her off-and-on for the last couple weeks, usually on Friday and Saturday nights, because as it turns out, grad school is pretty time-consuming. He has not slept with her, which he's counting as a success, mostly because it's depressing to think of it as a failure. He's not letting Octavia down, that has to be something.

"Hey," he says, giving her a tired smile. It's ten in the evening on a Wednesday, and he's stupidly happy to see her. He's been in the library since seven doing Greek, and it's pretty cool, but also, well. Three hours of staring at Greek until his eyes cross. "Working?"

She flops down in the seat next to him. "Drawing. Is it weird that I like to draw at the library?"

"Kind of."

"Thanks."

He grins. "Okay, it's not. I like working at the library because I do better concentrating if I leave the house. Makes studying into an event."

She giggles. "God, you really are a nerd. How did I not know this in high school? We all thought you were Octavia's hot, serious older brother, and instead you play Magic and love libraries and genuinely enjoy studying Greek."

"Greek is cool," Bellamy mutters, and then the rest of her sentence catches up with him. "You thought I was Octavia's hot older brother?"

She rolls her eyes. "Of course. Dude, you're all--" she waves her hand.

"No, I really don't," he says, smirking. "You're going to have to articulate it."

She bats her eyelids at him exaggeratedly. "You're, like, super dreamy, Bell."

He blushes, even though she is so clearly being sarcastic. "Well, I heard nerds are in, anyway. And I don't play Magic. I'm just not busy on Sundays and I can tell Octavia I'm doing something without it being a lie."

She pets his shoulder. "If you start playing that My Little Pony game with Monty, I am going to stage an intervention."

"Yeah, that sounds right."

They sit in easy silence, Clarke sketching and Bellamy working on his translation, until midnight, when Clarke's phone buzzes. "Okay, yeah, it's my bedtime."

Bellamy shakes his head, pulling himself out of his studying trance. "Oh, shit, yeah." He stretches. "I'll go with you. I didn't notice how late it had gotten."

"Time flies when you're--doing whatever you were doing?"

He laughs. "Yeah, exactly. How'd the sketching go?"

She hums and flips through her sketchbook, looking for something. Once she finds it, she hands the pad over and he sees him a drawing of himself, head bent over his notebook, pencil sticking out of his mouth, one hand on his neck, like he's rubbing a crick out of it. He doesn't know how long he was sitting like that, but it doesn't feel possible it was long enough for her to get all the details she has, the spotting of freckles on his face, the whorls and curls of his hair.

"Wow," he says, because--wow.

She shrugs, tears the page out and hands it to him. "If you had Facebook, it could be your profile picture," she says, when he just gapes at her.

"Don't you need it for class?"

"Nah, that was just for fun," she says, standing up and stretching herself. "Come on, are you walking me home, or what?"

He texts a picture of it to Octavia with the caption ???????

She just responds, That's a really nice picture of you, Bell, which is not helpful at all.

*

Clarke dyes her hair red in mid-October, both because she's apparently had the blue streaks for way too long and for the Halloween costume she's doing with Jasper and Raven. He's at this point so far gone that he doesn't think there's a color he could dye her hair that he wouldn't be into, but the red is pretty great, he has to say.

"What's the costume?" he asks.

"Come to Ground Pound on Saturday and find out," she says, grinning. "We're having a party."

Miller's actually not working for once, so the two of them spend Saturday scrambling for costumes at the Davis Goodwill, which mostly involves taking a lot of pictures of things and frantically texting Octavia for ideas. Bellamy ends up going as Clark Kent in a dress shirt and hipster glasses, and Miller finds some weird vest and a hat for a vague cowboy thing, so they pretend it's a cowboys and aliens theme costume.

Octavia tells them they're pathetic, which is definitely true.

They still don't have the laziest costumes at the party, so Bellamy counts it as a victory and goes to find Clarke behind the bar for drinks; the party is busy enough she's picking up an extra half-shift to help out. She's wearing a green flannel shirt and some weird furry hat, and he still has no idea what she's supposed to be.

"Did you dress up as a nerd?" she asks him.

"Clark Kent," he says. "So--maybe?"

She snorts. "Next year, dye your hair and get a nose ring. You can be Clarke Kent." She pauses. "With an e. In case that wasn't clear."

"I got it. What are you?"

"Wendy!" At his blank look, she sighs. "From Gravity Falls? It's a cartoon on the Disney Channel. Raven's Mabel and Jasper is Dipper."

"None of that means anything to me. I'm an adult, I don't watch the Disney Channel."

Clarke sticks her tongue out. "Your loss. Not being an adult is way better. Raven is wearing a light-up cat sweater."

"That's probably the scariest Halloween costume I've ever heard of. Just give me my beer, okay?"

It turns out Miller has been ineffectually flirting with Monty over the course of the last few months, and all of Clarke's friends think of it as their own personal soap opera, so the fact that he's Bellamy's mysterious roommate makes everyone's night, like the best twist ever. He dances for a while with the group, and then finds a girl who seems interested and focuses on her for a while, but loses her after he gets back from the bathroom. But that's okay, because Clarke's shift is over and she comes over to hang out, which is in all ways better.

"You're Monty's new guy?" she asks Miller, when Bellamy takes her over for an introduction, and Miller chokes on his beer.

"My roommate," Bellamy tells her, and she starts laughing so hard she has to bury her face in his shoulder. Miller looks like someone just hit him in the face, and Bellamy pets Clarke's head and smirks at him.

"I took a guess," Clarke tells Bellamy, after stealing and finishing his beer. "I had like a fifty-fifty shot."

"Uh huh."

"Does Miller like him?"

"I think so. It's not like we sit around our apartment talking about our crushes."

She grins and pokes him. "Oooh, do you have a crush, Bellamy?"

He doesn't blush. He works very hard, puts all his effort into it, and manages to keep his face completely straight. "Sorry, I only answer questions about my crushes during officially sanctioned games of truth or dare." He puts the empty glass down on a table and hooks his arm around her. "Come on, let's go dance."

Once they're home, Miller asks, "Do you ever actually hook up at Ground Pound?"

"Uh, I guess not," he says, frowning. "Why?"

"Just seems kind of weird," he says. "That girl was really into you, and then she just left."

Bellamy frowns, because it is kind of weird, in retrospect. It doesn't tend to bother him, because he doesn't really go there looking for hookups. He usually just hangs out with Clarke, and he'd rather do that than sleep with some random girl any day, but--he does have a really terrible track record at Ground Pound. Kind of insanely bad.

"Huh," he says. "Yeah." He shrugs. "She was probably just drunk."

"Yeah," says Miller, sounding unconvinced. "That's probably it."

*

"Blake, we need you."

Bellamy frowns at his phone. "Raven? What's happening?"

"Trivia night is happening. Monty is on a date with your roommate, which means we're down one for trivia and it's your fault. Come on. Clarke will be there. You can pretend it's a double-date." She pauses. "It might just be a double-date. Anyway. Mike's in Davis, seven-thirty. Don't pretend you don't want to."

Clarke's already there when Bellamy shows up; she's stripped out of her fall coat and is wearing a jean skirt with striped leggings and a black tanktop. He's not sure the entire restaurant is staring at her, but if they're not, he doesn't know why not, because she is the best thing to look at, ever.

She lights up when she sees him. "Are you here for trivia?"

"It sounded like Raven would actually disembowel me if I didn't show up," he says, shrugging out of his own jacket and sitting down next to her. "Aren't you cold?"

"It's warm in here," she says. "Besides, if I have sleeves, you can't see my tattoo."

"Thanks for not depriving me."

She beams. "I've got your back, Bell."

Raven and Wick show up at eight, claiming they ran late. Clarke kicks her, rolling her eyes, and Bellamy wonders exact consequences there would be, if he hypothetically slept with Clarke.

He asks Octavia the next day when they're on Skype, and her jaw drops for so long he thinks the video actually froze.

"You haven't slept with her?" she asks.

"No!"

"Why not?"

He rubs his face. "I don't know. You told me not to. And I'm--god, I haven't dated a girl since college. I don't remember how it works. I can't just sleep with her if it'll screw stuff up, I want--"

"Okay, god, Bell, come on." She flicks her computer screen, presumably where his forehead is. "I told you not to sleep with her because she had a humongous crush on you when we were kids, and I didn't want you to break her heart or something. But if you were waiting on my blessing like a giant weirdo, then, yes, you should go and ask her out, you are so into her, it's really sad. And she keeps posting selfies of you guys to Facebook and all her friends ask if you're her new boyfriend and she's just like haha no that's my favorite nerd Bellamy and it's like we never left middle school. Which is even sadder for you, just for the record. You are older than we are."

"Oh," he says, and then, "She had a crush on me?"

"Jesus christ, she clearly still has a crush on you. You have my blessing, stop being a fucking idiot, date Clarke Griffin. I have to hang up now. You're driving me to drink, FYI."

"You're twenty," he says.

"Yes, you're driving me to drink illegally. I love you. See you at Thanksgiving."

*

Bellamy doesn't usually go to the bar on Thursdays, because he has class, but he doesn't want to ask Clarke out via text, and she's not at the library on Wednesday, so it seems like his best bet. It's ladies' night, which mostly means that it's insanely busy and Clarke is running back and forth down the bar as her hair escapes from its tight bun. Bellamy can't even be frustrated, because it's just nice to watch her, and to catch her smiling at him as she rushes by.

A girl starts chatting with him at around ten, and they end up in a really intense conversation about the Marvel Cinematic Universe by accident. Bellamy knows that, in general, it's not a good idea to talk to other girls when he's trying to ask someone out, but he has a lot of feelings about the Thor movies that he needs to share.

As an experiment, he goes to the bathroom once they've finished outlining the pros and cons of Thor: The Dark World, and when he gets back the girl has disappeared. It's also thinned out enough that he and Clarke can chat a little.

"Is it usually busier on Thursday than Friday?" he asks.

"No, but I'm the only bartender on staff on Thursdays. There are two of us on Fridays." She grins. "Don't tell me you never noticed."

"Uh, no comment," he says. He tends to focus most of his attention on Clarke, and apparently the other bartender respects that. "Have you noticed if I turn my back for a second, the girls I'm flirting with disappear?"

She shrugs, way too casual. "It's a jungle out there. Gotta keep your eye on the prize."

"Uh huh. It happens every time."

"Maybe you don't have any game." She goes to check on a group of patrons at the other end of the bar who are definitely fine, and she doesn't come back to him for like ten minutes. As soon as she does, he reaches across the bar to take her hand. She freezes, eyes wide, but she looks surprised, not upset.

"Clarke," he says, gentle and a little teasing. "Have you been scaring off girls who are hitting on me?"

"No, I'm scaring off girls you're hitting on," she says breezily. "I don't care if you're not flirting back."

He laughs. "Okay, well, I promise, I was not hitting on that girl. I was waiting for the crowd to die down so I could hit on you."

She blinks at him. "Um. What?"

"I was hitting on the other girls because I thought it would be a bad idea to hit on you. I don't really know why anymore. Is it a cop-out if I blame my little sister? She's not here, she can't tell her side of the story."

"We're Facebook friends, I can communicate with her."

"Shit, please don't."

Clarke laughs. "Get back to hitting on me," she says, squeezing his hand.

He squeezes back. "The first day I came in here, I was weighing the pros and cons of sleeping with the incredibly hot bartender. Pros, sleeping with the hot bartender. Cons, it might be awkward coming back after sleeping with you."

"And the cons won?"

"No, I found out you were Clarke Griffin, and that kind of destroyed my brain." He grins. "I think it's better now."

"Only took you two months," she grumbles, but she can't keep the smile off her face.

He strokes his thumb against her knuckle; her hand is soft and much smaller than his and it's awesome. "O said you had a crush on me when we were kids."

"I was a kid. You were eighteen and ripped and nice to me. Of course I had a crush on you. You don't get to be smug about that."

"I'm gonna be smug about that. When are you done?"

"We close at two, and then I have to clean and lock up." She grins when he makes a face. "I know you're old. You don't have to wait with me."

"I'm not old, I have class tomorrow." He considers. "But it's not a very important class."

Clarke glances around, and he's not sure what she's looking for, but she must be satisfied, because she leans across the bar to press her lips against his, quick and firm and not nearly enough. She smells fresh, like shampoo and sunshine, and he tries to follow her mouth when she pulls away.

"Go to class, Bell," she says, laughing. "I'll still be here tomorrow."

He sighs, and pulls her in for one more kiss, just because he can. She laughs and shoves him off.

"Seriously, I'm working! Stay til close tomorrow and we can make out as much as you want."

"Promise?" he asks, grinning.

"Guaranteed."

*

When he gets to Ground Pound the next night, her hair is green like new leaves.

"Already?" he asks, sliding his hand into her hair briefly. "What happened to the red?"

She shrugs. "Felt like a change."

"Should I read into this? Should I be smug?"

She rolls her eyes. "Yes, dying my hair green is secret code for I'm excited about my new boyfriend."

"She's acting like that's sarcasm, but it totally, completely is," says Raven. Bellamy's kind of stuck on her casual use of the word boyfriend, which really does make him feel like he's in middle school again. He is going to severely edit this story when he tells it to Octavia. She won't believe him, but at least she won't know the full depths of his patheticness.

"Thanks, Raven," says Clarke. "I'll give you a free shot if you go away."

"I like this system," says Raven.

Clarke slides her a fireball and turns back to Bellamy. "Are you going to help me close up tonight?"

"Yeah, absolutely," he says, and is rewarded with a brilliant smile.

He nurses two beers as he hangs out, chatting with Clarke and whoever else comes to the bar about class and the upcoming holidays and whether or not they're optimistic about the upcoming Star Wars movie. Clarke kicks everyone but him out at two, and all their friends wolf-whistle and jeer when they see he's staying.

"Use protection!" Raven yells.

"Don't do anything I wouldn't do!" Wick adds.

Bellamy is blushing a little. "Did you tell everyone?"

"Everyone already knew. I'm not subtle."

"Sorry it took me so long," he says, leaning on a booth.

"It's okay, it was cute." She switches off the sign and locks the door.

"So, what do you need me to do to help? Wipe down tables, or--"

She's kissing him before he can finish the sentence, hard and desperate, so unexpected it takes him a second to respond. Then he slides his hand into her bright hair and kisses back, just as fierce.

"Christ, Bellamy," she remarks, sliding her hands up his chest. "I was like, oh, I was fourteen and lovestruck, there's no way he was as hot as I thought he was, and then you showed up and your arms are the size of fucking saplings and you're--"

"Don't even start," he says, turning them around and lifting her up onto the table. She's a little taller than he is like this, and he leans up to kiss her again. "Have you fucking seen yourself? If you dress like the girls you want to fuck, you have the best taste in girls of all time."

She laughs and wraps her legs around his waist, pulling him closer. "Thanks, I think."

"We should probably wait until we get to an apartment before we have sex," he says, reluctant. He's not sure why, except that having sex on a bar table sounds uncomfortable and kind of unsanitary. Her back will probably get sticky.

Clarke rolls her eyes, grabs his hand, and shoves it under her shirt so he can grope her. He's going to protest that her boobs aren't that distracting, but then he feels the silver barbell through her nipple, and his ability to wait to go somewhere else completely evaporates.

"Or not," he says, pulling off her tanktop, undoing her bra, and pushing her down on the table so he can play with the piercing with his fucking teeth.

Clarke's hand slides up into his hair, grasping it hard, and she leverages her hips up to grind against his. "That's what I'm saying."

*

He follows her home too, because quick, dirty sex on a bar table is awesome (really awesome), but he's also hoping for a lot more making out, and then maybe some slower sex, and then probably spending the rest of his life with her. For a start.

He doesn't mention that last part to her for another five months. Octavia is visiting for spring break and her twenty-first birthday; Clarke's hair is bubblegum pink and she's giving them a lot of discount shots.

"Hey," he tells her, grabbing her arm as she goes past them to help some other people. She's got a new tattoo on her right shoulder, an uppercase omega, and every time he sees it, it makes him feel like he's going to explode with happiness.

"Hey," she says, amused.

"Octavia gave us her blessing."

"Like five months ago," Octavia says, rolling her eyes. "Why is he drunker than I am?"

"Apparently you hold your liquor better." She smiles at Bellamy. "I need to go back to work."

"Okay, but--I'm keeping you, okay? Like, forever. I'm calling eternal dibs."

"That is the absolute least romantic thing I have ever heard in my life, Bell," Clarke says, but she kisses him anyway. "Next time you tell me you love me, do it better, okay?" She pets him on the arm and goes off to serve a group of frat guys.

"You are very, very lucky she loves you," Octavia tells him.

"Oh yeah," he agrees. "I know."