okay friends, I was hoping I would somehow be able to not make this post, but alas, here we are: I have no idea when I'll complete my holiday prompts
I want to complete them! that is still my goal. but I was struggling with my focus before the election and, not surprisingly, it hasn't gotten better. I do not currently have anything finished for December 1. I'd like to post at least some stuff in December, but right now I'm not really in a place to try to stick to deadlines. so we might be going into January; we might be going past that! maybe I will just give up, but I'm hoping I won't. we'll figure it out, and posts will happen when they happen! keep watching this space and love to all y'all
Hello friends! After a few years' hiatus, I'm going to once again take prompts for holiday fills. If you're new here, here's how it works.
You and some number of other people fill out THIS GOOGLE FORM
I receive all the responses and close the form on OCTOBER 4 2024 AT 8 AM EASTERN TIME
I use a variety of methods (personal bias, random number generator, chicken innards, etc) to pick from the submitted prompts and get a selection that I feel confident I can complete
On December 1, I will start posting! The fills we be posted by @chasholidays on tumblr and also uploaded to AO3
My planned posting schedule is that I will post TWO fics each weekend day (eighteen fics total) and ONE fic per weekday (twenty-two fics total) for a total of FORTY FICS over the month of December. Depending on how I'm feeling and how many prompts I get, I might decide to do more! But I'm going to commit to 40 minimum and go from there.
For many reasons, I'm not planning to tell people in advance if their fics have been selected or not. So in December, you will either see your fic posted or not, and it will be a surprise! If your prompt isn't selected, I hope another prompt will be something you're excited about
Because I am a human person with feelings, I will give some number of slots to my friends/mutuals without putting them through the RNG. Just FYI
The other thing I want to address is that this year, for the first time in a while, I'm letting fandoms be a free-for-all in terms of prompting! I'm going to have some specific information for my three biggest fandoms from my poll (The 100, 9-1-1, Tortall), but there's also going to be a free response form where you can shoot your shot on basically anything you want. Unlike the big three fandoms, I won't try to make promises about getting a representative sample from the other fandoms, and I'm also going to be more willing to just knock out prompts that don't catch my interest. I think of the other fandom option as high risk/high reward; I might bounce off the prompt completely, but if it tickles my fancy, you'll go directly into the fill pool without having to brave the RNG.
Okay god this is already so long but this is the LAST THING. As is tradition, I'm also offering alternate POV fics and continuations, which I used to call timestamps but that terminology has fallen out of favor and no one knew what I meant so I'm retiring it. Basically, this is an alternate perspective of or a sequel/prequel/some kind of continuation to a fic or series I've already written. You can pick from anything I have on AO3. These will be have their own forms, so if you want one of these, you won't pick a fandom, just provide a link to the story in question and provide some additional info.
Oh and this is one entry per person. If you submit multiple I'll take the first and delete the others, and if you submit too many I'll delete the first one too tbh.
tl;dr: here's the google form again
submit your prompt by 10/4/2024; send asks to @ponyregrets if you have them
Update: several people have covered "Bellarke/911" so if you're interested in that, I'll be doing at least one, so probably no need to prompt it again.
okay I am gonna go ahead and do a deadline extension to 10/10/24 at 8 AM EST! sorry to everyone who is tired of seeing this post on their dash, but I do want the people who are interested to have a chance to leave prompts. also you no longer have to be signed into google, you just have to provide your email address.
Hello friends! After a few years' hiatus, I'm going to once again take prompts for holiday fills. If you're new here, here's how it works.
You and some number of other people fill out THIS GOOGLE FORM
I receive all the responses and close the form on OCTOBER 4 2024 AT 8 AM EASTERN TIME
I use a variety of methods (personal bias, random number generator, chicken innards, etc) to pick from the submitted prompts and get a selection that I feel confident I can complete
On December 1, I will start posting! The fills we be posted by @chasholidays on tumblr and also uploaded to AO3
My planned posting schedule is that I will post TWO fics each weekend day (eighteen fics total) and ONE fic per weekday (twenty-two fics total) for a total of FORTY FICS over the month of December. Depending on how I'm feeling and how many prompts I get, I might decide to do more! But I'm going to commit to 40 minimum and go from there.
For many reasons, I'm not planning to tell people in advance if their fics have been selected or not. So in December, you will either see your fic posted or not, and it will be a surprise! If your prompt isn't selected, I hope another prompt will be something you're excited about
Because I am a human person with feelings, I will give some number of slots to my friends/mutuals without putting them through the RNG. Just FYI
The other thing I want to address is that this year, for the first time in a while, I'm letting fandoms be a free-for-all in terms of prompting! I'm going to have some specific information for my three biggest fandoms from my poll (The 100, 9-1-1, Tortall), but there's also going to be a free response form where you can shoot your shot on basically anything you want. Unlike the big three fandoms, I won't try to make promises about getting a representative sample from the other fandoms, and I'm also going to be more willing to just knock out prompts that don't catch my interest. I think of the other fandom option as high risk/high reward; I might bounce off the prompt completely, but if it tickles my fancy, you'll go directly into the fill pool without having to brave the RNG.
Okay god this is already so long but this is the LAST THING. As is tradition, I'm also offering alternate POV fics and continuations, which I used to call timestamps but that terminology has fallen out of favor and no one knew what I meant so I'm retiring it. Basically, this is an alternate perspective of or a sequel/prequel/some kind of continuation to a fic or series I've already written. You can pick from anything I have on AO3. These will be have their own forms, so if you want one of these, you won't pick a fandom, just provide a link to the story in question and provide some additional info.
Oh and this is one entry per person. If you submit multiple I'll take the first and delete the others, and if you submit too many I'll delete the first one too tbh.
tl;dr: here's the google form again
submit your prompt by 10/4/2024; send asks to @ponyregrets if you have them
Update: several people have covered "Bellarke/911" so if you're interested in that, I'll be doing at least one, so probably no need to prompt it again.
okay I am gonna go ahead and do a deadline extension to 10/10/24 at 8 AM EST! sorry to everyone who is tired of seeing this post on their dash, but I do want the people who are interested to have a chance to leave prompts. also you no longer have to be signed into google, you just have to provide your email address.
Hello friends! After a few years' hiatus, I'm going to once again take prompts for holiday fills. If you're new here, here's how it works.
You and some number of other people fill out THIS GOOGLE FORM
I receive all the responses and close the form on OCTOBER 4 2024 AT 8 AM EASTERN TIME
I use a variety of methods (personal bias, random number generator, chicken innards, etc) to pick from the submitted prompts and get a selection that I feel confident I can complete
On December 1, I will start posting! The fills we be posted by @chasholidays on tumblr and also uploaded to AO3
My planned posting schedule is that I will post TWO fics each weekend day (eighteen fics total) and ONE fic per weekday (twenty-two fics total) for a total of FORTY FICS over the month of December. Depending on how I'm feeling and how many prompts I get, I might decide to do more! But I'm going to commit to 40 minimum and go from there.
For many reasons, I'm not planning to tell people in advance if their fics have been selected or not. So in December, you will either see your fic posted or not, and it will be a surprise! If your prompt isn't selected, I hope another prompt will be something you're excited about
Because I am a human person with feelings, I will give some number of slots to my friends/mutuals without putting them through the RNG. Just FYI
The other thing I want to address is that this year, for the first time in a while, I'm letting fandoms be a free-for-all in terms of prompting! I'm going to have some specific information for my three biggest fandoms from my poll (The 100, 9-1-1, Tortall), but there's also going to be a free response form where you can shoot your shot on basically anything you want. Unlike the big three fandoms, I won't try to make promises about getting a representative sample from the other fandoms, and I'm also going to be more willing to just knock out prompts that don't catch my interest. I think of the other fandom option as high risk/high reward; I might bounce off the prompt completely, but if it tickles my fancy, you'll go directly into the fill pool without having to brave the RNG.
Okay god this is already so long but this is the LAST THING. As is tradition, I'm also offering alternate POV fics and continuations, which I used to call timestamps but that terminology has fallen out of favor and no one knew what I meant so I'm retiring it. Basically, this is an alternate perspective of or a sequel/prequel/some kind of continuation to a fic or series I've already written. You can pick from anything I have on AO3. These will be have their own forms, so if you want one of these, you won't pick a fandom, just provide a link to the story in question and provide some additional info.
Oh and this is one entry per person. If you submit multiple I'll take the first and delete the others, and if you submit too many I'll delete the first one too tbh.
tl;dr: here's the google form again
submit your prompt by 10/4/2024; send asks to @ponyregrets if you have them
Update: several people have covered "Bellarke/911" so if you're interested in that, I'll be doing at least one, so probably no need to prompt it again.
okay I am gonna go ahead and do a deadline extension to 10/10/24 at 8 AM EST! sorry to everyone who is tired of seeing this post on their dash, but I do want the people who are interested to have a chance to leave prompts. also you no longer have to be signed into google, you just have to provide your email address.
Hello friends! After a few years' hiatus, I'm going to once again take prompts for holiday fills. If you're new here, here's how it works.
You and some number of other people fill out THIS GOOGLE FORM
I receive all the responses and close the form on OCTOBER 4 2024 AT 8 AM EASTERN TIME
I use a variety of methods (personal bias, random number generator, chicken innards, etc) to pick from the submitted prompts and get a selection that I feel confident I can complete
On December 1, I will start posting! The fills we be posted by @chasholidays on tumblr and also uploaded to AO3
My planned posting schedule is that I will post TWO fics each weekend day (eighteen fics total) and ONE fic per weekday (twenty-two fics total) for a total of FORTY FICS over the month of December. Depending on how I'm feeling and how many prompts I get, I might decide to do more! But I'm going to commit to 40 minimum and go from there.
For many reasons, I'm not planning to tell people in advance if their fics have been selected or not. So in December, you will either see your fic posted or not, and it will be a surprise! If your prompt isn't selected, I hope another prompt will be something you're excited about
Because I am a human person with feelings, I will give some number of slots to my friends/mutuals without putting them through the RNG. Just FYI
The other thing I want to address is that this year, for the first time in a while, I'm letting fandoms be a free-for-all in terms of prompting! I'm going to have some specific information for my three biggest fandoms from my poll (The 100, 9-1-1, Tortall), but there's also going to be a free response form where you can shoot your shot on basically anything you want. Unlike the big three fandoms, I won't try to make promises about getting a representative sample from the other fandoms, and I'm also going to be more willing to just knock out prompts that don't catch my interest. I think of the other fandom option as high risk/high reward; I might bounce off the prompt completely, but if it tickles my fancy, you'll go directly into the fill pool without having to brave the RNG.
Okay god this is already so long but this is the LAST THING. As is tradition, I'm also offering alternate POV fics and continuations, which I used to call timestamps but that terminology has fallen out of favor and no one knew what I meant so I'm retiring it. Basically, this is an alternate perspective of or a sequel/prequel/some kind of continuation to a fic or series I've already written. You can pick from anything I have on AO3. These will be have their own forms, so if you want one of these, you won't pick a fandom, just provide a link to the story in question and provide some additional info.
Oh and this is one entry per person. If you submit multiple I'll take the first and delete the others, and if you submit too many I'll delete the first one too tbh.
tl;dr: here's the google form again
submit your prompt by 10/4/2024; send asks to @ponyregrets if you have them
Update: several people have covered "Bellarke/911" so if you're interested in that, I'll be doing at least one, so probably no need to prompt it again.
24 hours to go on this deadline and we're at under 20 responses. which is fine, I'll just do fewer than I said I would, but also y'all like 200 of you said you wanted something, so if you were just waiting for inspiration to strike, don't wait much longer. I like doing these! hit me!
Hello friends! After a few years' hiatus, I'm going to once again take prompts for holiday fills. If you're new here, here's how it works.
You and some number of other people fill out THIS GOOGLE FORM
I receive all the responses and close the form on OCTOBER 4 2024 AT 8 AM EASTERN TIME
I use a variety of methods (personal bias, random number generator, chicken innards, etc) to pick from the submitted prompts and get a selection that I feel confident I can complete
On December 1, I will start posting! The fills we be posted by @chasholidays on tumblr and also uploaded to AO3
My planned posting schedule is that I will post TWO fics each weekend day (eighteen fics total) and ONE fic per weekday (twenty-two fics total) for a total of FORTY FICS over the month of December. Depending on how I'm feeling and how many prompts I get, I might decide to do more! But I'm going to commit to 40 minimum and go from there.
For many reasons, I'm not planning to tell people in advance if their fics have been selected or not. So in December, you will either see your fic posted or not, and it will be a surprise! If your prompt isn't selected, I hope another prompt will be something you're excited about
Because I am a human person with feelings, I will give some number of slots to my friends/mutuals without putting them through the RNG. Just FYI
The other thing I want to address is that this year, for the first time in a while, I'm letting fandoms be a free-for-all in terms of prompting! I'm going to have some specific information for my three biggest fandoms from my poll (The 100, 9-1-1, Tortall), but there's also going to be a free response form where you can shoot your shot on basically anything you want. Unlike the big three fandoms, I won't try to make promises about getting a representative sample from the other fandoms, and I'm also going to be more willing to just knock out prompts that don't catch my interest. I think of the other fandom option as high risk/high reward; I might bounce off the prompt completely, but if it tickles my fancy, you'll go directly into the fill pool without having to brave the RNG.
Okay god this is already so long but this is the LAST THING. As is tradition, I'm also offering alternate POV fics and continuations, which I used to call timestamps but that terminology has fallen out of favor and no one knew what I meant so I'm retiring it. Basically, this is an alternate perspective of or a sequel/prequel/some kind of continuation to a fic or series I've already written. You can pick from anything I have on AO3. These will be have their own forms, so if you want one of these, you won't pick a fandom, just provide a link to the story in question and provide some additional info.
Oh and this is one entry per person. If you submit multiple I'll take the first and delete the others, and if you submit too many I'll delete the first one too tbh.
tl;dr: here's the google form again
submit your prompt by 10/4/2024; send asks to @ponyregrets if you have them
Hello friends! After a few years' hiatus, I'm going to once again take prompts for holiday fills. If you're new here, here's how it works.
You and some number of other people fill out THIS GOOGLE FORM
I receive all the responses and close the form on OCTOBER 4 2024 AT 8 AM EASTERN TIME
I use a variety of methods (personal bias, random number generator, chicken innards, etc) to pick from the submitted prompts and get a selection that I feel confident I can complete
On December 1, I will start posting! The fills we be posted by @chasholidays on tumblr and also uploaded to AO3
My planned posting schedule is that I will post TWO fics each weekend day (eighteen fics total) and ONE fic per weekday (twenty-two fics total) for a total of FORTY FICS over the month of December. Depending on how I'm feeling and how many prompts I get, I might decide to do more! But I'm going to commit to 40 minimum and go from there.
For many reasons, I'm not planning to tell people in advance if their fics have been selected or not. So in December, you will either see your fic posted or not, and it will be a surprise! If your prompt isn't selected, I hope another prompt will be something you're excited about
Because I am a human person with feelings, I will give some number of slots to my friends/mutuals without putting them through the RNG. Just FYI
The other thing I want to address is that this year, for the first time in a while, I'm letting fandoms be a free-for-all in terms of prompting! I'm going to have some specific information for my three biggest fandoms from my poll (The 100, 9-1-1, Tortall), but there's also going to be a free response form where you can shoot your shot on basically anything you want. Unlike the big three fandoms, I won't try to make promises about getting a representative sample from the other fandoms, and I'm also going to be more willing to just knock out prompts that don't catch my interest. I think of the other fandom option as high risk/high reward; I might bounce off the prompt completely, but if it tickles my fancy, you'll go directly into the fill pool without having to brave the RNG.
Okay god this is already so long but this is the LAST THING. As is tradition, I'm also offering alternate POV fics and continuations, which I used to call timestamps but that terminology has fallen out of favor and no one knew what I meant so I'm retiring it. Basically, this is an alternate perspective of or a sequel/prequel/some kind of continuation to a fic or series I've already written. You can pick from anything I have on AO3. These will be have their own forms, so if you want one of these, you won't pick a fandom, just provide a link to the story in question and provide some additional info.
Oh and this is one entry per person. If you submit multiple I'll take the first and delete the others, and if you submit too many I'll delete the first one too tbh.
tl;dr: here's the google form again
submit your prompt by 10/4/2024; send asks to @ponyregrets if you have them
Thinking about doing holiday fics again this year! If you're a newer follower of mine, I like to ask for prompts in fall so I can post a bunch of fills in December. I took too many a few years back and burned myself out very badly so I'm trying to not do that again, so! I'm thinking about offering a bigger variety of fandoms than I have in the past but limiting how many fills I actually take. I wanted to gauge interest and try to figure out what kind of numbers I might be looking at, so here's a poll!
Which of these fandoms/pairings would you request a fic for?
this brings us to the end of another year of holiday fills! and it also brings us to the end of my doing this for t100, I’m pretty sure. there is always the chance that s6 will suck me back in and I will eat my MS Paint santa hat, but right now, the chances seem slim
so thanks for reading the last four years of these! we’ve (hopefully) had a good time, and I’ll see some of you back here whenever I open it up for my next fandom
My local minor league baseball team has a community outreach deal with an area nursing home in which every season two of their rookie players will actually live in the nursing home. So, professional baseball player Bellamy living in the nursing home where Clarke works/volunteers.
When Clarke hears about the baseball-player-in-residence program at Eden Meadows, she’s not really sure what to make of it.
On the one hand, human interaction is human interaction, and seniors especially need it. The residents are always happy have visitors, and plenty of their families can’t or won’t make it in very often. As someone who didn’t make that much time for her own grandparents, Clarke can relate, and she doesn’t really hold it against anyone. So bringing in dedicated people to hang out makes some sense.
It’s just that she doesn’t quite see live-in baseball players as the ideal solution.
“Aren’t there people who actually need a place to stay?” she grumbles. “Couldn’t this be some kind of beneficial outreach program? I bet there are college kids who would love to get free room and board. I’d love to get free room and board.”
Lincoln shrugs. “I think the idea is that baseball players will be more exciting. They won’t know them by name, of course, but baseball is America’s pastime. It’s like having celebrities living with them.”
“But celebrities we can actually afford.”
“We’re not paying them,” he points out, but he’s smiling. “Trust me, I was a little skeptical myself when we started doing it, but the residents love it. And it makes them want to watch games, because they feel connected to the resident players. They donated tickets to a home game last year and everyone loved going.”
Clarke smiles too. “Okay, yeah, that sounds pretty great. How much do we generally see them? They don’t get in the way, do they?”
“It’s usually not a lot. They have breakfast with the residents when they can and at least one dinner a month. Obviously they have to travel for games, so they’re only here about half the time. I don’t think they’ll be getting in your way, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Just kind of curious, I guess. This is my first time dealing with this. And I don’t really know what to expect from a professional baseball players hanging out here.”
“I don’t think it’s likely to have a huge impact on your life. They probably won’t be around much when you are. Some evenings, but that’s about it. But if you’re hoping for an autograph, I’m sure that can be arranged.”
“I’m not much of a sports person,” she admits. “I prefer non-competitive, solo exercise.”
“You? Non-competitive?” Lincoln grins. “I don’t believe that.”
“If I’d been good at sports, I would have been competitive, but since I wasn’t, I do stuff where no on wins or loses. And baseball’s never really clicked for me anyway.”
“So, you weren’t fishing for details because you’re secretly very excited about this.”
“Just want to figure out how disrupted my life is going to be.”
When Clarke’s adviser told her she should think about volunteering at a nursing home, she hadn’t really been particularly enthusiastic. She’s never been comfortable with older people–since, again, she didn’t see much of her own grandparents, or anyone else over the age of eighty–but she wants to go to med school, and volunteer positions look good on applications. Plus, she could just go for a few hours a week after class and get some good experience with a demographic she didn’t know well.
And, to her surprise, she’d actually liked it. After a few months, she added more hours, and she’s actually got a paid position lined up for the summer. She can see this being a career for her, elder care, and while her mother thinks that’s not ambitious enough, Clarke can live with being less ambitious than her mother wants her to be, if she likes her work.
But she’ll admit that she’s also used to being, well, the volunteer. She’s not the only one, but like Lincoln said, she’s competitive. She’s the bestvolunteer, everyone agrees, and she doesn’t really want some random jocks to show up and get to be cooler than she is just because they happen to be a little bit famous.
They’re not even in the major leagues yet, seriously. They can’t be that exciting. But it’s all the residents want to talk about.
“They moved in last night,” Mrs. Alexander tells her, while she’s giving out afternoon snacks. “Such nice boys.”
“One of them stayed up to watch Jeopardy! with us,” adds Mr. Thompson. “He was good at it!”
Clarke smiles, even though she watches Jeopardy! with them, and she’s good. “Better than me?” she can’t help asking.
He smirks; she does like Mr. Thompson. “I don’t know. I guess you’ll have to find out.”
“Do the players usually spend a lot of time with you?”
“Not very much. They’re so busy, you know? And they can’t just bring their homework to do while they sit with us like you can.”
“It’s easier to concentrate here,” she says with a smile. “Even better than the library.”
Usually, that’s true, but today she’s antsy, waiting for the baseball players to show up, not knowing if or when they will. It’s not a big deal, but she doesn’t like feeling unprepared, and until she meets the guys, she won’t feel like she can be prepared. And she has no idea when that meeting might happen; if it’s not tonight, she won’t be back until next week.
She’s prepared to feel annoyed about this for a while, but there’s an unfamiliar young man at one of the tables when she wheels Mrs. Hernandez into the dining room for dinner, and that has to be one of the baseball guys.
Clarke watches him out of the corner of her eye as she gets Mrs. Hernandez set up, studying him as best she can. He’s cute, if she’s honest, curly black hair and tan skin, wearing a pair of glasses with thick black frames and talking to Mr. Peters and Ms. Norris, telling them some story he’s illustrating with gestures from his large hands.
“Is that one of the new baseball players?” she asks Mrs. Hernandez.
“Oh, yes! I met him last night. I don’t remember his name, but he was very polite.”
“You like having them around?”
“They’re nice boys,” she says. “They’re good to spend time with us.”
“It’s not a burden to spend time with you,” Clarke reminds her. “But it is nice of them. I’m sure they’re busy with–training.” She did some cursory googling of what baseball schedules are like, but it was mostly about when games were, not what players do when games aren’t happening.
Other than living in a nursing home, obviously.
By the time she finishes getting everyone set up, all the chairs at the baseball player’s table are taken, and everyone is clamoring to ask him questions. Clarke doesn’t want to be bothered by his surge of popularity–it always happens, with new blood, everyone excited to get their story–but he’s just a baseball player. He’s not even in the major leagues yet.
She’s not going to be bitter.
Her shift is five hours, from three to eight, covering afternoon snacks and then dinner, with a couple hours after of just spending time with the residents. She usually sets up in one of the common spaces with some textbooks, reading and chatting with whoever wants to chat. From seven to eight, she joins in the nightly tradition of watching Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! and then she heads back to campus. It’s a nice routine, and she sees no reason to alter it for the new baseball player resident. If he wants to talk to her, he can.
And, apparently, he does. She’s been in her chair with her book for all of five minutes when he sits down next to her. Up close, she can see his skin is dotted with freckles and there’s a small scar over his lip.
And he’s very handsome.
“Hey,” he says, giving her half a smile. “I saw you helping out in the dining room, so I assume you’re not someone’s relative.”
“Volunteer, yeah.” She offers her hand. “Clarke Griffin.”
“Bellamy Blake. Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too. How do you get signed up for something like this?”
He looks a little amused at the question, although Clarke doesn’t know why. It’s a pretty normal thing to ask. And she’s curious. “They wanted volunteers, it sounded like a pretty good deal to me. I don’t pay for an apartment, and I get a free social life.”
It’s Clarke’s turn to smile. “Free social life?”
“What?”
“I guess I figured being in the minor leagues would give you a social life already. And this isn’t exactly–” She pauses, trying to figure out the best way to phrase it. “I like hanging out here, but it’s not for everyone.”
“So why is it for you?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s quiet and everyone’s easy to talk to. I just like it. But I didn’t think I would. I started coming here because my adviser said it would look good on med school applications, actually liking it was a total surprise.”
“I had a job at a nursing home when I was in high school, I worked in the dining room. I liked getting to know the residents, so when coach told us about this, I was the first volunteer.”
“That makes more sense.”
“Good enough reason for me to want to come here?” he asks, with a smirk that she wishes was a little less charming. “You like it, someone else should be able to too.”
“I just wasn’t expecting it, I guess. My friends can’t believe I hang out here as much as I do.”
“Well, you’re not the only one.” He pauses, but apparently his conscience takes over. “Murphy’s probably not going to be around as much.”
“Murphy?”
“The other rookie. He’s kind of a dick.” He looks around, adorably spooked, like he just realized he maybe should have said the word dick in a nursing home.
“The good news,” Clarke says, low and teasing, “is that a lot of the residents don’t hear very well, so they don’t know that you’re swearing.”
His laughs, a sheepish little chuckle. “Lucky me.”
“You get used to it. Not that some of the residents don’t swear up a storm,” she adds. “But they always act like we shouldn’t know those words.”
“I have some news for them about professional athletes and swearing.”
Clarke smiles, and he smiles back. He can’t be that much older than she is, probably recently out of college, assuming he actually graduated, and that makes her feel better. Somehow, she’d been imagining the resident baseball player as someone like Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own, an older, grumpy guy who wouldn’t really want to be here or talk to her. Which makes no sense with how old rookies actually are, but whatever. That’s her point of reference.
She wasn’t expecting someone like Bellamy.
The Wheel of Fortune music starts, and he perks up. “Sorry, I’m just–”
“Don’t apologize, I usually watch too.”
“Cool.” He gestures for her to go past him. “After you.”
*
Despite Lincoln’s assurances, Bellamy does have an impact on Clarke’s life. Admittedly, the other resident, Murphy, doesn’t show up much, almost never when Clarke is around, but Bellamy really does seem to see Eden Meadows as his home base, the place where he returns to as a default.
Not that he can always be around. With the season in full swing, Bellamy’s got games almost every day, which means he can’t spend all his time hanging out at a nursing home. He’s on the road a lot, or at games later in the day, or training. But according to the residents, Bellamy comes from breakfast as much as he can, and Clarke knows he comes for dinner as much as he can. The games aren’t broadcast on regular TV, but Lincoln has a cord to connect his laptop, so they watch the online stream, and Clarke joins them whenever she’s around.
After a couple weeks, she starts streaming in her dorm too, leaving the game on in the background while she does other things, listening for the announcer calling out that number six is up so she can watch him.
Clarke is not an expert on baseball. She understands the most basic of the basics, that one team tries to hit the ball and run around the bases while the other team tries to keep them from getting around the bases, that three strikes are an out and four balls are a walk, and that catching the ball is good. She knows that Bellamy is a catcher, which is the same thing Geena Davis was in A League of Their Own, and she definitely knows that most of her reference points for baseball are A League of Their Own. It’s weird only because Bellamy doesn’t talk about the game very much, or his career. He talks about college–which he did finish last year–and how much he likes history, about his little sister, who’s starting at NYU in the fall, because he can afford to send her to a better school than he went to. He talks about his teammates and his friends, but not much about the sport itself.
Not that Clarke has admitted to caring about the sport itself yet. She hasn’t told Bellamy that she watches the games at the nursing home, let alone on her own, and whenever anyone comes to her room while the games are on, she slams the laptop shut before anyone can see.
Or, rather, ideally she does. One morning, the weekend before finals, Clarke has the game on her laptop while she reviews flashcards in bed, away from the distractions of the internet, and Raven comes in without knocking, stops dead.
“Are you watching sports?”
“It’s just baseball.”
Raven frowns at the screen. “What the fuck team is that?”
A flush creeps up her neck. “Minor leagues.”
“You’re watching minor league baseball?”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing against–” She frowns. “Does that say Rumble Ponies?”
The conversation will undoubtedly get worse before it gets better. And that’s assuming it ever gets better, which is a big assumption. She’s been caught and now she has to explain herself.
“Yeah, that’s our local team.”
“The Rumble Ponies.” Raven flops down in her chair. “Seriously, why are you watching this? I didn’t think you liked baseball.”
“It’s a long story,” she says, and immediately changes her mind. “Actually, it’s really short, I just don’t want to tell it.”
“Tough shit. What’s up?”
“The nursing home has this program set up with the–” She stumbles over the name. “The team. A couple of their rookies come and live in the home and hang out with the residents for a year. All the residents love it,” she adds. “They think it’s so cool that they’ve got real ball players living with them. And they watch all the games, so I watch all the games when I’m there. And then I started watching them here.”
“So, the rookies are hot?” Raven asks.
“I didn’t say that.”
“Yeah, but if they weren’t, you wouldn’t be embarrassed about telling me. It’s not actually a big deal.”
Clarke sighs, flops back on the bed. “Just one of them. One of them isn’t around much, but the other one–I think he really likes hanging out with the residents. As long as he’s in town and doesn’t have a game, it feels like he’s always around, doing puzzles or watching TV or just talking to people.”
“Wow. So you’ve got it really bad.”
Clarke shrugs. “He’s hot, he’s smart, he likes to yell at the TV during Jeopardy! I was hoping professional baseball player was something that didn’t do it for me, but it’s not a deal-breaker, apparently.”
Raven leans in close, squinting at the screen. The live stream is always a little pixelated, never great quality, but good enough to mostly tell what’s going on. “Which one is he? Your guy.”
“Number six on the Ponies,” says Clarke. “Bellamy Blake. They’re in the field, he’s the catcher.”
“Huh. He’s got a nice back.”
She smiles. “His face is pretty great too.”
“It must be, if you’re watching baseball.”
“I’m not really paying attention, if it makes you feel better.”
“I’ll feel better when I actually see the guy.”
It takes until he’s up at bat; it’s not a great closeup, and all Clarke can see is the pieces that are missing from this distance, on this scale. His freckles are missing, his hair is under a cap, he’s wearing his contacts instead of his glasses.
Still, it’s enough for Raven. “Yeah, I’d probably watch baseball for him.”
Clarke smiles. “Yeah. It’s so worth it.”
*
“None of the residents are going to remember all the details, so I’m just letting you know that I’m going home for a couple of weeks so you don’t have to figure out what happened from someone else,” she tells Bellamy, once finals are over and she’s about to be kicked out of the dorms.
He raises his eyebrows. “Just for a couple of weeks?”
“Yeah. I’ve actually got a job here for the rest of the summer, but my mom wanted to see me first.”
“How dare she,” he teases.
“I know, I know. I’m not complaining, it’s just kind of a pain. I wish they didn’t kick me out of the dorms, I’d just live there all summer if they let me and everything would be so much easier.”
“Where are you living when you get back? Here?”
“Nope, they just let famous athletes do that. I’m subletting from my professor who’s out of town for the summer. As long as I feed her cat, I’m good. And she’s letting me leave my stuff there so I don’t have to drag it back to DC.”
“So you’re still going to be on the east coast?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“You should give me your number so I can text you about Jeopardy!”
It’s not like it’s a huge deal, really. Asking for someone’s number is a really minimal commitment, now. She doesn’t even know if Bellamy is single, or into women, and he really might just want to text her about game shows.
Which, okay, sounds like total BS as soon as she thinks it, but it could be true.
Then again, Bellamy’s not an idiot. He’s a twenty-three-year-old guy who probably flirts and has been flirted with a lot, and he has to know how he’s coming across.
The overthinking is getting her nowhere; she gives Bellamy her number, they watch their nightly game shows, and when she leaves, she tells him she’ll see him in a few weeks. Like a normal person.
The texts start the next morning, when Bellamy’s on the bus to an away game. He asks her when her flight is, which she tells him, and then he has Murphy’s bus singing to complain about, and Clarke gets patted down at airline security because her shirt is bunching and it looks like a bomb or something. Obviously she doesn’t text him while she’s on the plane, but she does let him know that she landed safely, and he lets her know that he’s got his game in about an hour.
“Who are you texting?” Abby asks.
“A friend.”
“A boyfriend?” she asks. “Or a girlfriend?”
“Or a friend,” says Clarke, smiling. “Another volunteer at the nursing home.”
“Oh, that’s nice. What’s their name?”
“Bellamy.”
Abby pauses. “And what are their preferred pronouns?”
She’s trying so hard with all the queer stuff; Clarke has to smile. “He’s a cis-guy, he uses regular masculine pronouns. He’s just got a weird, androgynous name. Not that I can relate to that or anything.”
“Clarke is a lovely name and you should be grateful that your father and I were already fighting against gender norms.”
“So grateful,” she agrees.
“So, is Bellamy a potential boyfriend?”
“Everyone’s a potential boyfriend, I guess,” she says, and tries to ignore her mother’s smile as she returns to her phone.
She watches Jeopardy! on her parents’ TV and Bellamy’s game on her iPad, texts him updates on how both are going. The Jeopardy! updates are more coherent, but she figures he’ll enjoy her completely uninformed baseball commentary too.
Sure enough, when he gets back, he texts, Yeah, this is exactly what I was hoping for when I got your number, and Clarke grins.
Maybe regular flirting is overrated. This is working great for her.
*
The two of them keep in touch regularly through Clarke’s visit at home. She almost feels bad for not knowing more about baseball, considering all the cool insider pictures and stories she’s getting, but Bellamy doesn’t seem to mind that she’s completely ignorant of his chosen profession. If anything, he seems to find it kind of refreshing. She’s the opposite of a groupie; maybe that’s nice for him.
When she gets back, he’s just left for another week of away games, and she spends the next few days in a state of itchy anticipation, wondering how things are going to be when she gets back, if things will be different or if all of the flirting was just in her head, if he’s just been killing time.
The residents, at least, are happy to see her. “It’s been so quiet without you,” Mrs. Hernandez tells her. “Especially when the boys are away at games. And I know Bellamy missed having you around, too.”
Her smile is sly, and Clarke has to smile. Trust the residents to be worried about their love lives.
But she doesn’t want to talk about that. “Have you been keeping up the with the games? It seems like they’re having a pretty good season.”
The job itself is pretty good, especially when people aren’t trying to set her up with Bellamy. She’s working a full forty hours a week as four ten-hour days, which is going to be tiring, but the three-day weekend is nice. And she doesn’t find it as difficult to be a real staff member as she expected to, even when there are gross issues. It really does feel like it could be a career, something she could keep doing. That’s gratifying too.
And every day she works, Bellamy is one day closer to being back, which is pretty great. She’s going to see him soon.
Except that he’s getting back on her day off, because of course he is. That’s the only way it could work out. It’s not even that bad, objectively speaking; it’s the end of her weekend, and she’ll see him the day after he gets back. It’s not like she has to wait that long.
But she’ll be at work, and he’ll be living at her workplace, which is pretty generally awkward vibe for romance. Not that she necessarily thinks she’s going to get laid immediately, but she thinks there are good odds of her getting laid at some point, and if it could happen immediately, she’d be down.
Mostly, though, she just wants to see him. As soon as possible. But it doesn’t feel like she can say that, like she can just ask. It feels like too big a step for her to take just yet.
Flirting sucks.
Luckily, Bellamy takes the issue out of her hands; about an hour out of town, he texts, I just realized I can never ask you to come over to my place.
Me: I’m at your place all the time
Bellamy: You’re in building where I currently liveWorking and caring for the elderlyYou can’t really just come chill with me
Me: Yeah that’s trueThe residents are already gossiping about usIn case you hadn’t heard
Bellamy: Yeah, I got thatThe whole time you were gone, they were asking me how much I missed you
Me: What did you say?
Bellamy: You know I missed you
Me: You could always come over here insteadNo audience except my prof’s cat
Bellamy: Which isn’t awkward at all
Me: Depends on why you want to come see meIf all the cat’s going to do is watch us watch Jeopardy…
Bellamy: I figured we could watch Jeopardy and go from there
Clarke flops onto her back, grinning up at the ceiling. It’s not really like hooking up with a celebrity, not even close. Even if Bellamy does end up in the majors, she doesn’t really care about him as a status symbol. But it is finding out that the boy she likes likes her too, and wants to come see her as soon as possible.That’s always going to be exciting.
Me: I’ll order pizza or somethingSee you soon :)
*
“This must be very exciting for you,” Mrs. Alexander tells Clarke. “Seeing your beau in action.”
It’s August and the complimentary tickets to the Rumble Ponies game finally came, and Clarke really is excited, although she’s trying to keep it in check. She’s not here as Bellamy’s girlfriend, she’s here as a chaperone for the residents of Eden Meadows, which is actually a real responsibility. It feels weird, doing attendance for actual adults, but the residents can’t walk for that long and can’t really be left to their own devices. Her job is to make sure they have a good time.
“I don’t think anyone’s ever called him my beau before,” she tells Mrs. Alexander. “That one’s kind of old-fashioned.”
“I think it’s a nice word,” she says. “It sounds so much more romantic than boyfriend. And a little more serious. The two of you do seem serious.”
“You know this is none of your business, right?” Clarke asks, but she can’t keep the amusement out of her voice. “Whether or not Bellamy is my beau is no one’s business but ours.”
“Of course it’s not,” she says. “But he is.”
“But he is,” Clarke admits. It’s definitely a little awkward, but she cleared it with Lincoln–which was even more awkward–and it’s going well. She’ll mostly be happy when he moves out of the nursing home and into his own place, but she’s also glad he’ll probably still come visit. He wasn’t just being nice to the residents to get on her good side; he really likes them. He’s a really good guy.
“And it’s very exciting, isn’t it?”
She lets herself smile as they find their seats. “Yeah, it really is.”
let the record show the binghampton rumble ponies are a real minor league baseball team and I love them based only on their name
Hello and Happy Holidays! Would love to see an Alternate POV from Monty or Miller for "though it's always pricking me."
Original fic here!
When Monty heard that Dropship was going to be in town over the summer, he was not expecting that he, personally, would have much interaction with them. Everyone knows why they’re coming back, knows how Aurora Blake is doing (not well) and how much Bellamy cares about his family (a lot). The whole town is abuzz with the news in the way only small towns can be, and people who know that Bellamy was in school with Monty are definitely eager to hear all about him, but Monty knows he’s not going to be at the top of Bellamy’s list of people to see, nor should he be. If not for the band, Monty probably would have largely forgotten Bellamy existed. Bellamy might not have ever known Monty existed. Monty wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t.
Still, the whole thing is kind of exciting, in a silly way. Everyone at school who knows where he lives now also knows that he’s going to be in the same geographic location as Dropship, and odds aren’t bad that he’ll run into at least one of them. If it’s Bellamy, he’ll maybe have a conversation, and then he can ride that wave of coolness for at least a week and possibly longer.
It would be a pretty great way to start off senior year, and he sees no reason to set his expectations higher than that. Even that’s pretty optimistic.
Jasper, of course, is more optimistic.
“He’s going to be bored! You know he wants to hang out with us. We’re very lovable.”
“Speak for yourself,” Monroe says, and Monty frowns.
“Sorry, are you saying you’re not lovable? Are you negging yourself?”
She pauses, frowns at her beer. “Yeah, that didn’t really work. I’m just saying, the odds of Bellamy Blake even getting a Facebook invite, let alone responding to one, seem really low. Does he even have his own Facebook? Isn’t it just one of those celebrity profiles?”
“It probably couldn’t hurt,” Wells says, the voice of reason as always. “But if you send it and he doesn’t respond and doesn’t show up, you’ll never know if he saw it and decided not to come or never saw it or saw it and hates you and–”
Jasper holds up his hand. “Okay, okay. I get it. I will not invite Bellamy Blake to our weekly drinks, and none of us will ever be discovered as secret rock geniuses–”
“You definitely wouldn’t be,” Monty puts in.
“Just let the record show that I tried to make us rich and famous, and you guys were like, fuck that.”
“That’s exactly what happened,” says Harper, dry.
“It’s on the record,” Clarke adds. She’s been quiet, but she definitely had a crush on Bellamy back in high school, so she’s probably stressing more than the rest of them. If Monty’s high-school crush had disappeared off the face of the earth and then reemerged as the lead singer of a hit band, he’d also probably feel kind of weird about it. “This is the only bar in town, if they want to drink, this is it.”
Jasper raises his own glass. “Here’s hoping.”
Clarke smiles a small, private smile. “Yeah, here’s hoping.”
*
“Wouldn’t it make more sense if I didn’t come to this?” Nate asks. He’s not actually that opposed to going to the bar–Arcadia is not an exciting place, and anything that breaks up the monotony is good by him–but if he doesn’t put in at least a token protest, they’ll just assume he always wants to be sociable, and he’s got a reputation to maintain. If people start thinking he just enjoys doing things, he’s going to be on the hook to do things all the time.
“Why, because you suddenly don’t like drinking?” Bellamy asks. He’s been doing minute adjustments to his hairstyle for what feels like an hour, and Nate can admit he is curious about that one. Bellamy with an actual crush is new and different.
Or old and different, really. Apparently Bellamy’s been nursing this one for a long time.
“I can drink here, I don’t have to go to your shitty hometown bar.”
“You get to go to his shitty hometown bar,” Raven says. “How do you not see this for the opportunity it is? All of Bellamy’s high-school friends telling m us all the dirt they can remember? You know you want in on that.”
Nate sighs theatrically. “Fine. But if it sucks, I’m taking a taxi back and leaving you assholes.”
“You say that every time we go anywhere,” Bellamy says, finally finishing with his hair. “And you’ve never actually left us.”
“So far. There’s a first time for everything.”
The bar itself is nothing special, larger than their usual hangout in the city but otherwise unremarkable. Standard bar stuff, as far as Nate is concerned. It’s decently busy for a Friday night, but not packed, and it feels a little like a scene in a Western, when the outlaw walks into the saloon and and everyone stops talking and the piano stops playing. He doesn’t think everyone looks at them, but he feels conspicuous even before some scrawny white kid in goggles starts to call Bellamy.
Another kid, Asian and cute with short black hair and a stoner vibe, shuts him up before he gets it out, and Bellamy snorts, shakes his head.
“More friends?” Raven murmurs.
“Monty and Jasper. They’re probably about your speed, Miller.”
“Where’s your girl?”
“She’s not my–” Bellamy protests, but Raven takes over. “Cute blonde at the bar,” she says. “The one pretending not to look at us.”
“Cool.” He gives Bellamy a thump on the shoulder. “Good luck with that.”
The goggles kid–either Jasper or Monty–has calmed down by the time Nate makes it over to his table, and he manages a friendly, pretty normal smile. “Hi! We have a pitcher, want beer?”
The other kid, the cute stoner, adds, “It’s very shitty beer.”
“How old are you guys?” he asks, frowning. “There’s no way you get away with a fake ID in a town this small.”
“Oh ye of little faith,” says the goggles kid. “We’ve been successfully buying illegal booze since high school.”
“We’re twenty-one,” the other one supplies. He seems to be the straight man to his friend’s goofball, a dynamic Nate is used to. He doesn’t know a lot of goofballs, but for a gay guy he makes a pretty great straight man. “Two grades lower than Bellamy in high school. I’m Monty, and this is Jasper.”
“Nice to meet you guys. I’m Nate.”
Jasper frowns. “Everyone always calls you Miller.”
“Yeah, but it’s weird introducing yourself by last name.”
“Fair enough. You want our cheap beer or not?”
“Love some, thanks.” Monty pours and slides him one, and Nate takes a drink, making a face. “You weren’t kidding.”
“Of course we weren’t. Who lies about buying cheap beer?” Monty asks. “It’s Bud Lite, there’s a special for pitchers, and not all of us are famous rock stars. But if you want to get something better for the next round, we won’t say no.”
“How generous of you.” He takes a chug of the beer; the faster he drinks it, the less he has to taste. “So you’re in college, right?”
They are, rising seniors–Jasper at Oberlin and Monty at Cornell, which actually throws him a little. He knows most people don’t go to college with their high school friends, but something about how the two of them are together made him think they were always this joined at the hip.
“We’re planning to go to the same place once we graduate,” Jasper says, so at least there’s that. “Maybe move in together.”
“Jasper is hoping he’s going to have a serious girlfriend by then and he can move in with her instead of me.”
“The power of positive thinking, Monty! If I believe, it will happen. You should try it, you could get a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend!”
The addition comes in a hurried way that makes Nate assume it’s new and still not totally natural, but without any kind of judgement. Monty is newly out as queer and Jasper is still updating his perceptions, but he’s trying. That’s always nice.
And, well, interesting. Monty started off cute and keeps getting cuter.
“I think I’d have to do more than just believe to find a significant other,” Monty says, dry. “I’ve heard that it requires some bare minimum of effort.”
“Yeah, but believing is easy and it can’t hurt to try.” He turns his attention back to Nate, his gaze surprisingly sharp for how drunk he seems. “How’s dating as a celebrity? Weird?”
“I dont date much, but it probably would be weird. It’s always kind of–” He pauses, trying to figure out the right words. “I had a boyfriend when the band got big, and we tried to stay together, but it was just too complicated, you know? He was always kind of worried I was cheating on him when I was out of town.”
“That sucks,” says Monty.
“Were you cheating on him?” Jasper asks, and Monty elbows him. “What, I’m curious! He can tell us, we don’t know his ex.”
“If you cheated on your ex would you want to tell two random strangers in a bar?”
“It sounds better than telling friends or family.”
Nate has to smile. “I didn’t cheat on him. Bellamy’s really paranoid about this stuff, it rubs off. Not that I was ever tempted, but even after we broke up, he got in my head about people I slept with bragging to the Internet or something.”
“So you’re a rock star who doesn’t get laid?” Jasper asks, in the tones of a kid who just learned Santa isn’t real.
“I don’t usually hook up with civilians. Industry people, the ones who are more used to the lifestyle, that’s usually easier.” He shrugs. “I don’t worry they’re just doing it for a story to tell.”
“So you aren’t interested in sleeping with Jasper,” Monty supplies.
Nate snorts into his beer. “I didn’t think I was the uninterested party there.”
“I wouldn’t say I’m interested, but I’d definitely do it just so I could say I fucked a famous person. Honestly, I’d probably be over there trying to flirt with your drummer except that Wells already is and I’d feel like a terrible person.”
“You could go for Bellamy.”
“I don’t ever want to get on Clarke’s bad side. Wells I’d feel guilty, but Clarke would actually destroy my life.”
No wonder Bellamy likes her so much. “So I’m at the bottom of your Dropship hookup chart?” he asks Jasper. “Dude, come on.”
“Just practically speaking. I’m pretty straight, so Raven’s first, and I figure Bellamy and I have history, so–”
Monty snorts. “You barely talked to him in high school. Also I remember you in high school, I don’t think that’s really working in your favor. Jasper didn’t start developing muscle mass until college,” he adds, to Nate.
“This is Jasper with muscle mass?”
For a second, he’s worried he went too far, that the thoughtless quip actually hurt Jasper’s feelings and there will be a “Nathan Miller was super mean to me in a small-town dive bar” post doing the rounds on social media tomorrow, but then they both crack up.
“I’m secretly ripped!”
“You’re secretly less scrawny than you look,” says Monty. “Which is definitely an accomplishment, but less of one.”
“Screw you both,” he says, cheerful. His phone buzzes, and he checks it. “Literally screw you both, I’m leaving.”
“Did that girl text you back?”
“The power of positive thinking!”
“You’re going to miss out on the fancy beer Miller’s buying us,” says Monty.
“You can drink mine and tell me about it later.” He flashes Nate a smile. “Nice to meet you, hope we see you again, sorry not sorry I’m going on a date.”
Nate can’t argue with that. “Fair enough, have fun.”
“Thanks, you too!” He salutes, and then he’s gone, and Nate and Monty look at each other for an awkward second.
Nate breaks it. “So, next round. Is there an expensive beer you like?”
Monty’s face relaxes into a smile. “I think I can come up with something.”
*
I can’t believe you left me ALONE with NATHAN MILLER.
Monty sends the text while Miller–Nate, he can call Nathan Miller Nate–is in the bathroom, about an hour after Jasper leaves. Clarke is still talking to Bellamy and Wells is still talking to Raven, and it makes Monty feel weirdly paired off, even though he wasn’t trying and was definitely not prepared. He didn’t even do shots with Wells to get ready. He’s a little stoned and a little buzzed, but not enough of either and paranoid about getting worse. If he was drunk, he wouldn’t be thinking about it at all, but since he’s not drunk enough yet, he’s self-conscious about getting sloppy. It’s the actual worst.
yes it is amazing how good a friend I am, Jasper texts back. have fun!!!
If Monty had thought it was unlikely he’d see Bellamy, he had been unable to even comprehend seeing Nathan Miller. It was so outside of the realm of possibility that it wasn’t even worth thinking about, beyond unrealistic. If he had seen Miller, he’d thought that was all it would be, just admiring him from afar. He wasn’t supposed to be talking to him, getting a drink with him, hanging out with him like a normal person. Like those pictures of him in a mesh vest from some weird photoshoot last year hadn’t been the final straw that tipped Monty into identifying as bisexual.
The good news is that it’s not going that badly, but that’s bad news, at the same time. If he was an asshole who wasn’t giving Monty the time of day, it would be easy, one of those never-meet-your-heroes moments. Even if he’d just been friendly, it might not have been that bad. He could have been a perfectly nice guy with whom Monty had nothing in common, and they would have spent the evening making slightly stilted conversation before parting ways.
Instead, they’d gotten another round of drinks and Miller had asked if he was into video games and that was it. Monty had hesitantly offered that he was really into Fire Emblem right now, and Miller had apparently been playing it on the tour bus, and from there they branched out into favorite games, first gaming systems, upcoming releases they’re excited about. If Miller was just a guy he’d met here by chance–deeply unrealistic, as Monty is not the kind of person who meets new people at bars–he’d say they were hitting it off. He might be trying to flirt.
But Miller is Nate is Nathan Miller. He’s been profiled in Rolling Stone. He’s not quite a household name–that’s Bellamy, as the band’s front man–but if he said “I had drinks with the bass player for Dropship,” everyone would know what he was talking about, even his coding professor, who brags about not having learned anything about pop culture since 1989. People hear about Dropship just by being alive, and Monty doesn’t care that much about prestige, but this is going to be one hell of a what I did over the summer.
Assuming he tells anyone. Does bragging about getting drinks and talking about video games count as scuzzy? He doesn’t want to be one of those guys who takes advantage, who makes Miller feel like he can’t talk to civilians.
So when he gets back, Monty just asks. “So, can I tell my friends about this?”
“About what, exactly?”
“How Nathan Miller likes video games and drinks pretentious local IPAs.”
He snorts. “I talk about video games in like all my interviews, it’s not exactly a scoop.”
“You know what I mean.” But he raises his eyebrows like he doesn’t, forcing Monty to clarify, “I don’t want to be one of those people who just brags about–talking to you.”
It’s slightly awkward, both because it feels like he’s using “talking” as a euphemism and because he feels like he’s always slightly awkward, especially without Jasper, who tends to give him easy things to play off of. It had worried him, when he went off to college, that he’d never survive on his own, and he’s fine, has made plenty of friends, but then he’ll be back with Jasper and remember how much easier it feels, to be social with him.
Miller doesn’t seem to notice; he just smirks. “Nah, I love when people brag about talking to me. We can take some selfies if you want.”
“So when does it cross the line into bothering you?”
He drums his fingers on the table. “Good question. I think it’s more–just a vibe. It’s not hard to figure out the people who are just sucking up. Most people–even most super fans–are fine. Kind of nervous at first, but they just want to talk. I never mind people saying they met me. Except that it’s fucking surreal.”
Monty has to laugh. “Yeah, I bet.”
“You didn’t really seem that excited,” he observes, casual.
“I never seem like I’m showing that much emotion compared to Jasper. It’s kind of nice. Takes the pressure off.”
“You always get to be the cool one.”
“Or at least the calm one. It is pretty exciting,” he adds. “Meeting a celebrity.”
“You know Bellamy.”
“Not that well, like I said. And it’s not–” He glances towards the bar, Bellamy leaning into Clarke, the two of them in a world of their own, just like the old days. “I didn’t get to vote on his senior superlatives, but I would have said he was most likely to make it in show business. He’s got charisma. So it’s cool, but not much of a surprise.”
Nate nods. “Yeah, I remember when I first met him. I knew he was going to take me places.”
“You’re twenty-three, right?” he asks. “His age?”
“Yeah.”
He shakes his head. “I feel like you’re too young to be famous. I’m still worried about having a real job, and you’ve been making a living for years.”
“We got lucky,” says Nate. “Shit, so fucking lucky. We only had a few months of shitty gigs before someone decided we were the real deal. And it still took time for us to be able to quit our day jobs.”
“So your life is weird.”
“So weird.”
“Is it better or worse being way out here?”
He shrugs. “It’s different. Our profile is a lot higher. In New York, if someone sees me, they’re not sure it’s me. But everyone knows we’re here, everyone knows Bellamy, so there’s no question. But you’re also really paranoid about coming off weirdly, so–”
“So everyone’s like me.”
That makes him think. “Nah, not everyone is as cool as you are.”
The bar’s lighting is low enough that Monty doesn’t think the flush will be obvious. At least his voice is steady. “I didn’t think cool for rock stars involved playing a ton of video games.”
“You play good video games, so yeah. You’re cool.” He considers. “You said you didn’t have a PS4 yet, right?”
“Yeah.”
“You should stop by sometime and play,” he says. “Bellamy’s too bad at video games and Raven’s too good.”
Monty’s jaw doesn’t drop, but it’s close. “You want to play video games with me?”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. Because you must have better people to play video games with?”
“What’s wrong with you?” He clucks his tongue. “Full disclosure? You’re cute and chill and I want to hang out with you more. You want to tell all your friends that you spent part of your summer vacation playing games and flirting with a guy in a band, I’m cool with that.”
The words come out easily, somehow. It doesn’t even make sense, he’s never smooth, but talking to Miller–to Nate, to this guy, who’s chill and down-to-earth and nice–is natural. They get along. “I don’t kiss and tell,” he says. “So if you ever want me to keep quiet, all you have to do is kiss me.”
Nate laughs. “Yeah? That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“I hope it’s not.”
“I hope so too. So, what are you doing tomorrow?”
Jasper is going to be the worst possible combination of smug and jealous, but he’ll live. He’s flirting with a cute boy who likes video games; it’s awesome. “Nothing so far.”
“Cool. I’ll figure out when my asshole bandmates aren’t around and give you a call.”
“You don’t have my number.”
“Not yet. But we’re not even done with our drinks. I’m not going anywhere yet.”
They have two more rounds and take the same taxi back. Nate gets dropped off first, takes a minute to study Monty’s face, lingering on his lips, before he says, “I’m not kissing you tonight.”
“No?”
“I want you to have a couple stories you can share.” But he does peck him on the cheek. “Night, Monty.”
He texts Jasper immediately. You’re never going to believe what happened.
The response takes a little longer; hopefully his night was good too. I’m the best friend in the entire universe?????
Honestly, Monty replies, smiling in the dark of the backseat, you just might be.
*
“So, it sounds like both your bandmates did pretty well for themselves in Arcadia,” the interviewer tells Nate, like he doesn’t know Bellamy and Raven have significant others now. He found out way before the media did. “Are you jealous?”
“Jealous of what, exactly?” he asks, with a shrug. “Wells isn’t my type. Clarke is even less my type. And don’t even start with Bellamy being my type.”
She laughs, apparently genuinely amused, which makes Nate like her more. Most of the questions reporters ask aren’t really their own fault, especially for shit like this. They’re doing rapid-fire press for a new single and everyone only has a few minutes. This website likes gossip, so the interviewer wants gossip. Nate doesn’t blame her.
“Trust me, even I’m getting tired of asking if you and Bellamy are secretly sleeping together. I was relieved I could stop asking about Bellamy and Raven. But is it tough? Being the last single member of the band? Does it get lonely?”
On the surface, the question is absurd. Bellamy and Raven are dating people, not off to war. He’s not alone. He’s not even single, although he hasn’t told anyone about Monty yet, not even his bandmates. They were fairly casual over the summer in Arcadia, didn’t even hook up very much. It was like having a friend with benefits, except the benefit rarely went farther than kissing. Nate didn’t mind, he liked the closeness of it, the intimacy, like getting close to Monty, but the last few months have been a weird sort of limbo, Monty at school, applying for jobs, figuring things out.
He is lonely, but not because he’s single and his friends aren’t. And Monty’s graduating next month, already has an apartment lined up in the city. Him and Jasper together, despite Monty having a boyfriend–they agreed they can work on cohabitation once they’ve been in the same place a little longer.
“I guess that’s not how it is for me. I don’t feel worse about being single when my friends aren’t? Maybe I will, I get why people do. But I like Clarke and Wells, so mostly I’ve got more friends. And they help out keeping an eye on Bellamy’s sister when we’re busy. Not to get too sappy, but mostly being in Arcadia means my family grew. Hard to be lonely when that happens.”
She looks dubious, for which Nate can’t blame her. If he didn’t have Monty, he doesn’t know what he’d say, but as it is, it’s pretty easy. Arcadia was good to him too, and his life is about to get better. Maybe he’ll do another interview with her, when everything is said and done and he and Monty have decided to go public. Let her know how he was really feeling.
For now, though, it’s just for him. Him and Monty, Jasper, the rest of the band. All the people who really matter.
“So, nothing big to report? No one special in your life?”
“Everyone in my life is special,” he says, with a shit-eating grin, and she laughs again.
“Of course, sorry. Anything else you’d like our readers to know?”
“I’m good,” he says, meaning it. “Great, even. No one has to worry about me.”
Once he’s out, he texts Monty: Ngl, I’m looking forward to telling people I’m kissing you.
I’m ready to brag whenever, Monty shoots back. Can’t wait to get all those dating a rockstar points. Finally, I’ll be cool.
Nate smiles. You’re the coolest, he says, and puts his phone in his pocket as he waits for Bellamy and Raven to finish up so they can leave. It’s not exactly the life he was expecting, not this time last year, not when he was in high school, not when he was a kid, deciding what he wanted to be when he grew up.
He never thought it could be this good, and in another month, it will be even better.
hi, a bellarke timestamp for the butt crazy in love verse would be awesome!
Series here!
Not to be that guy, but Bellamy doesn’t really get marriage proposals.
On a practical level, obviously, they make sense. Marriage is a mixed institution, overall, but he understands why people want to get married and that they need to ask their significant others if they feel the same. But proposals as this big, romantic surprise don’t make a lot of sense to him. It’s not as if he should unilaterally be deciding that he and Clarke should get married.
Not that he’s ever thought he and Clarke wouldn’t get married; she started making references to it pretty early, almost as soon as they were dating, and it always felt inevitable to him too, in the best way. That’s how it’s always been with Clarke: by the time they got together, he hadn’t had any doubt that she was it for him. It’s nice, obviously, wonderful, but that makes it awkward too.
The early steps of their relationship were easy, uncomplicated, thoughtless. The first couple years they were dating, Clarke was still in college and he was still in law school, and once they were done, they moved in together. Clarke started working at the MFA and he got a job with the law firm where he’d interned, where they liked him a lot more than he liked them. The hours were too long and the jobs are shitty, but after two years, he’d made enough to clear up most of his debt, and by four, he was getting savings, like a real adult.
Clarke was the one who told him to quit, but not in the way it happens on TV, when there’s some shitty ultimatum about how he loved his job more than he loved her, which he obviously never did. It was Christmas and he got a call from his boss that he had to take, which turned out to just be forwarding a client who wanted to spend an hour yelling at him. Once he was done, he went back to the living room, and Clarke leaned into his side.
“I love you,” she said, “and you can do whatever you want. But if I were you, I’d be thinking about whether or not what I wanted was another job. You could find something that pays you more than enough and doesn’t make you miserable.”
“I’m not miserable,” he said, which wasn’t really the point.
Clarke didn’t miss a beat. “You could find something that contributes to not being miserable. Something that improves your life instead of making it worse.”
“What a concept.”
Her lips pressed against his shoulder. “It’s your decision, I’m not going to tell you what to do. But–at some point, you have enough money to realize that it isn’t worth it to do whatever you can to get more money. I hope you get there soon.”
Jobs like this one had been why he went into pre-law, why he went to law school. He saw Jake Griffin with his big house and his perfect family, and it made so much sense. Lawyers are rich; if he was a lawyer, and he’d have a good life too.
And he did have it, of course. He was dating Jake’s perfect daughter, and they didn’t have a house of their own yet, but they did own their condo. They had a mortgage. This was what success looked like.
But it wasn’t what he wanted.
Two months from the next Christmas, and Bellamy’s got a new job, a worse one, by most objective standards. He makes less money and has less prestige, but he’s not expected to work every hour of the day and he’s no longer worrying that he’s actually making the world a worse place. He has more time to spend with his girlfriend and his friends, to feel like a person.
He has a good life, and it feels like the next step is marriage, but for some reason, it’s tripping him up.
“How did you decide to propose to Monty?” he asks Miller. The two of them have been married for two years now, and Bellamy remembers having the conversation again with Clarke at their wedding: this will be us someday. It hadn’t seemed pressing, particularly.
“I wanted to,” Miller says, with a shrug. “And I got a good idea for it.”
Bellamy has to smile. Miller had gone into Monty’s Stardew Valley game in the middle of the night and changed the names of all his livestock to Monty will you marry me? I hope you’re seeing these in order, which of course he hadn’t. He’d spent ten minutes writing down all the words until he got to marry, at which point he’d figured it out and said yes.
“Don’t tell me you’re worried about proposing to Clarke,” Miller adds, giving Bellamy a look. “You guys have been married since before you started dating.”
“I think that’s my problem,” he admits, with a sigh. “I don’t know how to–it’s a big deal, but not a big deal, you know? It feels like what I should be doing, but why do it now? Why not last month or next year?”
“Why not next year?” Miller asks, as placid as ever. “Why are you thinking about it now?”
“I think it feels like the next step. Like–everything else is set, time to get married. But that’s–shitty.”
“You know she wants to marry you. You know she’s going to. It doesn’t matter when you ask. If you want to marry her, you should marry her. If you’re thinking about asking, maybe it means you’re ready. But I think you’re going to know when it’s right. You’ll think about doing it, and it’ll just click. Everything will come together.”
“You’re so wise,” he teases.
“You asked me for advice, you don’t get to make fun of me for giving it to you. Look, you’re in great shape, okay? You found the woman you’re going to marry, all you have to do is figure out when you’re going to marry her. If you don’t do it soon enough for her, she’ll ask you. I’m not saying it’s impossible for you to fuck this up, but you’d probably actually have to be trying. You know how to make Clarke happy.”
“Yeah, I know.” He gives Miller half a smile. “And I know this isn’t a real problem.”
He shrugs. “It’s an opportunity. You’re get to do something romantic for your girlfriend, and there’s no rush. Come up with something good and figure out how to do it. You’ll know it when you know it.”
“That’s true.” He smiles. “Thanks for the advice. I knew I could count on you.”
“I’ve been waiting to be your best man for like ten years,” he says, with a shrug. “Just say the word.”
“Yeah,” says Bellamy. “You’ll be the second to know.”
*
With most problems in his life, Clarke is the first person he talks to. Sometimes, like with his old job, she talks to him about his problems before he’s even aware of them, before he’s willing to admit they are problems. It’s one of the amazing things about having someone like Clarke, someone who knows him as well as he knows himself, and part of him expects her to figure out the engagement thing, to have realized he’s worrying about it.
But the thing about proposing to her is that it’s not really bad worrying. It isn’t grinding him into slow misery like his job was, isn’t a problem for her to help fix. It reminds him of nothing so much as those months between the Halloween party when he realized he was almost ready to tell her how he felt and her parents’ party where he actually did, a strange, pending state between relationship upgrades. There’s the same anxiety, the same persistent doubt that something will go wrong, despite every rational part of his brain telling him that it won’t.
So it’s mostly a nice kind of worry, nothing Clarke would notice, nothing she has to fret over.
Which actually complicates things a little.
“Is that a new ring?” he asks, tapping the band on her right hand. It’s not, and he knows it, but she doesn’t wear it that often, and for whatever reason, society has decided that people don’t just say I’m thinking of proposing and I want to get you a ring. It’s a surprise. And he needs information.
Clarke blinks, frowns. “No, my mom got it for me last Christmas, remember?”
“Oh, yeah. You don’t wear it that much, I forgot what it looked like.”
She shrugs. “It’s not really me, I guess. Not my style.”
If she’s deliberately giving him clues, there’s no indication of it. She’s so casual. “Yeah, you’re not much of a jewelry person.”
“I don’t dislike jewelry,” she protests. “But my mom thinks giving cash is tacky, so she gives me jewelry, and she doesn’t know what I like.”
“Your mom doesn’t know what to get you for holidays? Wow, I can’t relate at all.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she says, laughing. “I know. She’s doing her best. And it’s a really nice ring! Plenty of people would love to get it. And maybe I could get comfortable with it. Besides, if I’m not wearing it at Thanksgiving, Mom will think I didn’t like it–”
“Which you don’t,” he teases, and she elbows him, grinning.
“It was a nice gesture. I can be nice back.”
His fingers trace the band. It’s gold, which he knows isn’t her favorite, with small, bright red gemstones, probably rubies. It’s a pretty piece, and he understands what she means. It would suit another person; it would suit Abby. But Clarke isn’t her mother.
“Could you try to drop some hints about what you actually like? Do you want me to help? If she’s going to buy you this stuff, we might as well try to make her get you something you like.”
“Maybe I’ll add some jewelry to my wish list. She’d never buy it for me, but maybe she’d get the general idea.”
“Can’t hurt.”
She snuggles closer. “Is it bad that I already can’t wait for the holidays to be over? We’re still a few weeks away from Thanksgiving and I just want it to be, like, Martin Luther King Day. I get the day off work and I’m not expected to do anything.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s why people have kids, so they’ll get excited about holidays again.”
She groans. “God, don’t remind me. You know we’re going to get a ton of questions about when we’re getting married and reproducing.”
His breath catches, but she doesn’t seem to notice. “Yeah, that’s how it usually goes.” Once his heart rate is under control, he kisses her hair. “Seriously, we’ve still got a few more weeks to Thanksgiving, why are you already worrying about it?”
“Not to be an asshole, but because your sister got married.”
He has to laugh. “Okay, yeah. That makes total sense. I’m happy for her, but there’s definitely going to be more pressure on us.”
“You’ve been dating for so much longer than Octavia and Lincoln, I don’t see what you’re waiting for.”
“So you’re going to wear the ring your mom gave you and hope she doesn’t notice you don’t have one from me?” It feels a little risky, bringing it up so directly, but apparently he’s hitting a deep vein of stress he hadn’t picked up on. It’s so much more important to check in with Clarke and make sure she’s feeling okay than it is to keep his proposal plans secret. If he needs to offer now to reduce the amount of stress in her life, he can do that.
“The perfect crime.”
“Do you want to be engaged?” he asks, gentle.
She twists around to kiss him, firm. “I’m not fishing for anything. I don’t really care, I guess? Obviously I’m going to marry you, we all know that, but I don’t really need to marry you, you know? I don’t get why everyone acts like it’s such a huge deal. We’re going to do it, and it’ll be good when we do. But for all I know we’re already common-law married.”
“There’s no common law marriage in Massachusetts,” he says, absent. “But yeah, I get what you mean. I still want to marry you, obviously. But I get tired of people thinking it’s a red flag that it hasn’t happened yet.”
“Thanksgiving won’t be so bad. A few passive aggressive comments from my mom about how much she loved Octavia and Lincoln’s wedding, probably a lot of questions for them about when kids are coming, but mostly fine. It’s just one day.”
Thanksgiving generally is the better of their holidays; he and Clarke and Octavia all go over to the Griffins’s along with any of Abby’s residents who aren’t going home, and it’s always pretty small and lowkey. Plus, they’re still in Boston, so they don’t have to travel anywhere or be away from home. It’s basically an intense family dinner, a prelude to going to Virginia to spend Christmas and New Year’s with Clarke’s extended family.
The first time Bellamy went, he was convinced they’d hate him, and he remembers clearly telling Clarke how surprised he was that Christmas Eve wasn’t a disaster. She’d given him a look full of fond exasperation and reminded him that what they were seeing wasn’t a poor boy on a scholarship, but a smart, handsome young man studying law at Harvard. He’s still getting used to the idea that he’s seen as a good match for Clarke, someone who deserves her.
They’re not upset that he’s marrying her, just that he hasn’t done it yet. It’s a staggering thought. The Christmas visits are always intense, but it’s love that’s smothering them. That helps.
“We could do something else for Christmas this year. I could say I have to work.”
“I like seeing most of them. It’s not–” She huffs. “I’m just tired of having an awesome life and hearing how it’s not good enough because I don’t have–” She smiles at her hand. “A ring.”
“I’m going to get you one,” he says. It feels safe enough. “Someday. If you want one sooner–”
She kisses him again. “Whenever you’re ready,” she says. “I’m not in a rush.”
*
“I want to propose before Thanksgiving,” Bellamy explains to the cheerful woman at the ring showroom. He set up an appointment during his lunch break, let Charles know where he’d be and why he might be late coming back. His boss had been thrilled, of course, almost comically supportive, and he thinks everyone else will feel the same. This is going to be good news. “But I’m not sure–” He huffs. “I feel weird picking out a ring.”
“Well, that’s why you come here,” she says, smiling. “We help you figure out what you’d like.”
“It’s not what I’d like, it’s what she would want. She’s not big on jewelry, and she’s the one who’s going to have to wear it.”
“Okay, well, we can work with that.”
He cocks his head. “Really?”
“You’re not the only person to have this problem. You’ve got two options.”
“Only two?”
“Two general options,” she says, with a wave of her hand. “We’ll start with the first and if it doesn’t work go to the second.”
“Which is?”
“First, we’ll talk about what you know about what your girlfriend likes and what might be a good fit for her. If you come up with a design you like, we can go with it. If you don’t, we have placeholder rings you can use for the proposal, and then you can come back with her to have her pick.”
“I’m pretty sure I’m going to do that.”
“Still, you can look,” the girl says, with a grin. “You can always show her what you came up with, even if you don’t go with it.”
Once she’s made that suggestion, there’s no way Bellamy’s going with anything else. But the woman is good at her job, and she draws out answers he didn’t even know he had in him. No, Clarke doesn’t like yellow gold, she prefers silver or platinum. Diamonds are fine, but she doesn’t get the big deal about them. Her favorite color is blue, and she’s said she likes blue and silver. Harper shows him some of the sapphires they have in stock, some settings it could go in, and he ends up getting talked into putting a 30-day hold on his favorite gem. She prints off a picture of the ring he designed, a preview image from the website, and sends him home with a placeholder ring on deposit.
The whole thing doesn’t even take an hour, and it leaves him dizzy and a little confused, reeling that there is an actual ring in his actual pocket, and he has a deadline for when he needs to tell Clarke about it if he doesn’t want to lose the gemstone he reserved.
He’s proposing to her, in the next few days, ideally. So they’ll have time to get all their ducks in a row for Thanksgiving. He just has to figure out what to say.
Charles gives him a big grin when he gets back to the office. “How did it go? You find one?”
“Yeah,” he says, hoping his smile isn’t too dazed. “I’m all set.”
*
He spends the rest of the afternoon failing to work and googling romantic proposal ideas, getting increasingly fed up with them. It’s not that any of them are bad, but he liked what Miller said about proposing. He has an opportunity here to do something nice for his favorite person in the world, and while he never needs an excuse for that, he wants this to be special, a good memory that will stay with her. He wants to look back at this and think he did it right.
But a lot of the romantic things he finds don’t really feel like they’d be the right gesture for Clarke. He doesn’t want to take her out to a fancy dinner and put the ring in a flute of champagne or get down on one knee in the park. He sinks another full day on How They Asked, and while the stories are all great, they just reinforce that none of those work for him and Clarke.
He tries to think of good memories he could use as inspiration, but so much of their early courtship wasn’t, and it’s not like he wants to recreate the time that asshole tried to grope her in his car or the time he took her to the ER and his then-girlfriend dumped him as romantic proposal memories.
But then Clarke comes back from work on Friday a week before Thanksgiving in utter exhaustion and says, “I don’t want to do a single thing this weekend.”
“Not even one?”
“As little as possible.”
“Bad week?”
“So much to do before Thanksgiving. I’m probably doing overtime next week, so I just want to have a good time this weekend.”
The thing Bellamy has learned about romance is that it’s relative. He couldn’t propose to Clarke like Miller did to Monty and have it mean as much. He buys Clarke a day planner every year for Christmas because she likes having a physical one in addition to her phone and her iPad, and she loves the gift, but plenty of other people wouldn’t. And there are also people who would want a big, bombastic proposal, but he doesn’t think that’s Clarke.
Clarke is tired and wants a relaxing weekend, and he can give her that.
He goes shopping by himself on Saturday morning, assuring her he doesn’t mind and she can sleep in. She’s awake and on the couch in pajamas by the time he gets home, so she helps him put everything away, smiles as she sees all the special things he bought.
“Wow, you’re going to spoil me, huh?”
“It sounds like you need it.”
She leans up and kisses him. “You’re the best, thank you.”
“If you could cook, you’d do the same for me.”
“I’d pay for your takeout.”
“I know you would. But you’re the one who needs a break this weekend, so sit down while I make you pancakes.”
It’s not an answer all by itself, not a sufficient plan for proposing. But he can spend the weekend pampering her and wait for the right moment. He has the ring box in his bag, almost always close enough if the urge to propose strikes with no risk of her finding it. He can have it on very short notice.
They watch Netflix for most of Saturday, and on Sunday, she decides she wants to get a pet.
“A pet?” he asks, surprised. “You want a pet?”
“Yeah. I’ve been thinking about it for a while. I was going to do it as a Christmas present, but that seemed shitty. Pets shouldn’t be a surprise.”
“No, probably not. Is this really the best time?”
“You’re off after Tuesday, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And then I have something nice to come back to. Other than you,” she adds quickly, and he laughs.
“Yeah, you’re used to me. Have you already researched shelters? Where are we going? What kind of pet do we want?”
“I might have some ideas.”
By “ideas,” she of course means spreadsheets, because that’s how Clarke is, and he adores her beyond all reason. She checked yesterday while they were watching TV, came up with a list of options. She wants either one large-ish dog or two cats, and when Bellamy votes for the cats so they’ll each have one and don’t have to take them on walks, Clarke pulls up a few options.
“I think my first choice is these two, they’re siblings. But that’s if they like us, and if they’re still available when we get there, so they’ll probably be pretty in demand, so–”
He grins. “So we should go as soon as possible, right?”
“This doesn’t derail your weekend plans, does it?” she asks, sounding sheepish. “You still haven’t cooked all your fancy groceries.”
“They’ll keep. The weekend plan is to make you happy, so if cats will do that–”
“You want them, right? We aren’t going to adopt two cats just because I had a bad week. But I thought you liked pets.”
“I do like pets. And now if anyone asks us when we’re having kids at Christmas, we can just say we’re busy with our new cats.”
“As a bonus.”
It’s not too far to the shelter Clarke found, and there’s little enough traffic that it’s not quite open when they get there. There’s a Starbucks near by and they pick up drinks and split a slice of coffee cake, eat it quickly enough they’re still the first people to be looking at pets. The two cats Clarke selected are a boy and a girl, siblings, one gray and the other white, just under a year old. They’re bright and eager for attention, and when Bellamy picks up the girl for the first time, he knows there’s no way they’re going home without these cats.
It doesn’t take any longer than the ring appointment did, all these things that feel like they should be huge, monumental things, and instead it’s done in a matter of minutes. Just like that, he and Clarke are cat owners, and she keeps the two of them in her lap as they drive first to the pet store for supplies and then back home. The ring is in his pocket now, the weight pressing against his leg.
It’s going to be so soon.
They set up food and litter boxes and toys, let the cats start to explore. Their names, at least at the shelter, were Shadow and Milkie, but they were abandoned, and don’t seem to have any attachments to the names. Clarke let Bellamy name them, and he goes with Artemis and Apollo, obvious, maybe, but on-brand for him.
“Sorry I couldn’t wait for Christmas,” says Clarke, as they watch Apollo pounce on a catnip mouse. “But I kind of–I thought about it as a Christmas present, but it didn’t feel like that, I guess. It felt like just something we should do.”
“I know exactly what you mean. I’ve actually got a present like that for you.”
She looks up at him, surprised. “Yeah?”
It’s so much easier than he was expecting, one fluid motion of kneeling down and pulling the box out of his pocket, opening it up for her.
There will be more to talk about after this moment, the picture of the ring he designed (which she’ll love), discussion of when to tell people (after Thanksgiving, at Clarke’s request) and what they want the wedding to be like (small and lowkey), but those things will come later.
What he wanted to give her most was this single, shining moment, the happy surprise that engagement is supposed to be. And as the joy spreads over her face, the laugh bubbles out of her throat, the tear springs into her eye, he finally gets it. This is how it’s supposed to be. This is what people want to achieve with all their complicated surprises.
First of all, I'm weirdly proud of you for thinking of your mental health and changing the setup for holiday prompts! Anyway, I always love how you write Clarke and Miller's relationship and I would love to read a modern day Bellarke fic that focuses on Clarke and Miller being supportive friends who love each other but don't like to talk about it, but maybe they end up talking about it anyway? Besides it being modern day and focused on their friendship you have really free hands!
Like most friendly agreements, the dibs system wasn’t something Clarke and Nate ever sat down and ironed out, not really a formal thing. There is no list of rules and guidelines, no contract signed in blood.
All that happens is that a cute boy comes into auditions for the play in seventh grade, and Nate says, “Dibs.”
Clarke frowns. “On him?”
“Yup. He’s all mine.”
The confidence is just a little bit absurd. Not only is Nate twelve years old, skinny, and awkward, but they don’t even know if the guy likes guys. The idea that he’s going to, without a doubt, get this guy is pretty much ridiculous.
All of which Clarke could point out, but she doesn’t want to. Nate only just told her a few weeks ago that the thought he liked guys, and this part feels like a test, like Nate wants to see if Clarke believes him and accepts him.
“All yours,” Clarke agrees, and when, five weeks later, the boy tries to kiss her, Clarke says, “Sorry, you’re not my type.”
She doesn’t mention it to Nate for a long time, not until they’re at a party sophomore year and she sees a cute boy and says, “Hey, dibs.”
“What?”
“Dibs.”
“Who calls dibs? Are you twelve?”
“You called dibs. When we were twelve,” she has to admit. “You called dibs on Mark Talbot when we were doing the play and he kissed me and I didn’t kiss him back.”
“Huh,” says Nate. “Really?”
“Yup.”
“So really, you owe me. Mark Talbot’s a dick.”
This is true, but somewhat beside the point. “You still made dibs a thing, not me.”
“So what, now I’m supposed to not hit on that guy? Because you didn’t make out with a douchebag in seventh grade?”
“Well, not that douchebag.”
Nate snorts. “I forgot your taste in guys sucks. Fine, I won’t try to hit on him. He’s not even that cute.”
Up close, he’s definitely not that cute, and he’s not interested in Clarke, but the principle of the thing remains: Clarke called dibs, and Nate respected it, and now it’s a thing they’re both aware of.
It doesn’t always mean that they’re worried the other person will make a move; Clarke calls it on girls sometimes, and Nate calls it on guys he knows to be gay. It’s a declaration of interest, a request for backup, a silly tradition that grows over the years into a ritual. It doesn’t mean everything, but it means something, and something important.
And then, Nate calls dibs on Bellamy.
Which isn’t a big deal, all things considered. There’s definitely nothing wrong with it. Bellamy teaches Latin at the school where Clarke teaches art, and they’re friendly, verging on actually being friends. He and his roommates were having a party and he invited Clarke, who invited Nate. Nate hasn’t met Bellamy, so this is the first time calling dibs is an option, and now he has.
Clarke didn’t, so there’s no violation or anything. She’s had plenty of chances to call dibs on Bellamy and it never even occurred to her. She’s had two years of potential dibs and never took them.
“On Bellamy?”
“The one with the curly hair and the glasses, yeah.” Nate looks at her askance. “You said he’s bi, right?”
“He is, yeah.” Her brain finally gets with the program, and she smiles. “Honestly, you guys would probably be pretty great together.”
“You think?”
“You’re an asshole, he’s an asshole–”
“Wow, we already have so much in common.”
“And I’m pretty sure he’s single. Yeah, this one’s actually a good call.”
“Unlike my usual shitty taste?”
“Your exes have been a pretty mixed bag.”
“Oh, you’re one to talk.”
She grins. “Here’s hoping I develop good taste one day too.”
“I can’t wait.”
“Are you going to go talk to him?”
Nate takes a deliberate sip of his drink. “That’s not really in the spirit of dibs. It’s a long game. If I was going to hook up with him tonight, I wouldn’t need to call dibs. But I figure I’ll see him again sometime.”
“Oh good, I can’t wait to watch the train wreck of you seducing my coworker in real time.”
“You’re trying for sarcastic, but I know you’re actually looking forward to it. I can give you some tips.”
“I don’t need tips.”
“You’re just saying that because you haven’t seen me work yet.”
“I’ve seen you work enough to last me a lifetime.”
“Not since high school. I’ve gotten a lot better.”
That’s the other thing about the Bellamy dib, the thing that makes it feel more important than maybe it should. Clarke and Nate went to different colleges, in different time zones. They stayed in touch, of course, through Facebook and text messages, but this is their first time living in the same place full time for seven years, and the first time ever as adults. This is part of their new status quo, and Clarke doesn’t want to mess it up.
“Looking forward to it,” she says, with a smile.
She thinks she sounds pretty convincing.
*
Clarke and Bellamy weren’t instant friends when Clarke started teaching at Arcadia. The first time they met, Bellamy was disciplining some kids too harshly (in Clarke’s new and only semi-professional opinion) and while she hadn’t undermined him in front of the kids, she did take him aside after to gently point out that he was wrong.
Which he hadn’t been. Clarke can admit she was the asshole there, and Bellamy maybe knew his business better than she did.
Still, it was a hurdle that proved difficult to overcome on both sides. Clarke has never been good at admitting she’s wrong, and while Bellamy has since admitted that he got where she was coming from, he wasn’t particularly inclined to be the first to try to make amends. Given how stubborn both of them are, it probably could have gone on forever, but at the start of Clarke’s second year of teaching, they hired a new principal, who was and still is awful, and suddenly she and Bellamy had a common enemy. They found themselves on the same side of conversations in the staff room, working together to push back against shitty policies, and once that started, they realized how good they were at it and how much they actually did agree on a lot of things.
By the time Nate calls dibs on him, Bellamy is without doubt Clarke’s favorite coworker, which means the whole thing should, in theory, be a slam dunk. Nate and Bellamy seem like a good match, two of her favorite people in the world, and if they want to date, Clarke should be all for it. Clarke wants to be all for it. On paper, it makes so much sense.
Something about it bugs her, though, and she can’t figure out what. She’s probably being territorial toward one or both of them, worried that they won’t need her if they have each other, and that’s beyond shitty.
But she can get past it.
“You’re still single, right?”
It’s a week after the party, and if Nate has done anything to try to actually make a move on Bellamy, Clarke missed it. And, of course, he doesn’t have to do anything, there have been countless dibs that went nowhere, but it would really be a shame if nothing happened with him and Bellamy. A complete waste of dibs.
Bellamy looks up from the papers he’s grading with a small frown. “What?”
“You. Your dating status. Still single?”
“Still single. Why?”
As sad as it is, Clarke hadn’t really had a plan for this conversation past this point. She’s not really much of a matchmaker, and telling Bellamy that Nate likes him goes against the entire spirit of dibs. Her job here is to support Nate in his crush, not go out and make things happen herself.
Bellamy is still watching her, eyebrows raised, waiting for an explanation. “I saw you talking to that brunette at the party, I thought she might be a new girlfriend.”
“Oh, no. Ex-girlfriend, actually. But we broke up on good terms, so people make that mistake a lot.”
“I don’t understand how you’re on such good terms with all your exes,” she grumbles. “You broke up, it’s supposed to be bad!”
“No, breaking up is good. Staying together when you should break up is bad. Maybe this is your problem,” he teases.
“Shut up.”
He considers her. “What about the guy you brought? New boyfriend?”
At least he’s considerate enough to give her the perfect opening. “Him? No, that’s Nate.”
“He said his name was Miller.”
“He started going by his last name in high school because our class had like five Nates. But we’ve been friends since–I can’t even remember. Basically since birth.”
Bellamy snorts. “You would have a friend like that.”
“What does that even mean?”
“I picture your childhood as very idyllic, I guess. I moved around too much to keep any of the kids I knew growing up.”
“That happened with our other friend, Wells. We were all in the same carpool to pre-school–shut up,” she adds, before he can say anything, and he grins and holds his hands up. It is a cute story, he’s not wrong. “We were pretty much inseparable through elementary school, but then in sixth grade Wells’ dad got a job in Seattle and they moved, so it was just me and Nate. Not that we didn’t still talk to Wells, but it wasn’t the same.” She shrugs. “We went to different colleges, but he got a new job here, so here we are.”
“That’s awesome. It must be nice to have him around again.” He smirks. “You know, none of that is convincing me that he’s not going to be your new boyfriend. That sounds like some rom-com shit.”
“He’s gay.”
“Okay, never mind, yeah.”
“I’m going to try to bring him to stuff, though,” she says. “Maybe even organize stuff myself.”
Bellamy snorts. “Wow, drastic measures.”
“I could have parties, right? Or, like, game nights. Nate likes games, I have a pretty big apartment.”
“Is this you asking me if I’ll come to game nights at your apartment, the answer is yes. I’ll even give you some tips on how to act like you’re actually comfortable having people over.”
“It just gets messy,” she says, making a face. “I hate cleaning.”
“But you’re worried he won’t make any friends without your semi-competent help, so you’re willing to do it anyway?”
It’s a much safer explanation than the truth. “I know he didn’t just move here for me, but I was part of the reason. I don’t want him to regret it.”
Bellamy’s expression softens, the smile warming his whole face. “I get that, yeah. It looked like he was having fun at my party, so that’s a good start.”
“Yeah, I think he had a good time.” She tucks her hair back. “So, game nights?”
“Until you come up with something to do that doesn’t mess up your apartment, sure. Whatever it is, I’m in.”
Clarke smiles. “Cool, I’ll keep you posted.”
*
Despite the whole thing being for his benefit, Nate is less enthused about the game night idea.
“You need a good group dynamic for game night,” he explains. “I don’t know anyone well enough to be sure what kind of games would even be good. You’re over-competitive, that’s already a bad start.”
“I am not!”
“You hate losing.”
“Who likes losing?” she grumbles, and Nate smirks.
“This is what I’m saying.”
“I’m trying to help, you know.”
“Help with what, exactly?”
“Making friends? Hitting on my coworker? Settling into the city?”
Nate snorts. “Thanks, Mom. I can manage my own social life.” But his expression softens. “We should have auditions.”
“Auditions?”
“Don’t call it a game night until we know who we want to come. You don’t want to commit to a group. These are the kinds of things you’d know if you were a true gamer,” he adds.
“This is the kind of thing I don’t know because I got laid in college.”
“I got laid in college and I played board games. Which one of us is winning here?”
“Honestly, neither.”
He grins. “Yeah, that sounds right.”
“So, any of your new coworkers you think would be good for a board game night?”
“I think we can figure something out.”
Clarke invites Bellamy, Sinclair from the physics department, and Jasper from English. Bellamy brings (yet another) ex-girlfriend, Raven, who’s apparently a shark, and Jasper brings his friend Monty. Nate invites his coworkers Harper and Monroe, and they have what, in Clarke’s amateur opinion, is a pretty successful game night. Everyone seems to enjoy themselves, and no one gets too competitive, not even Clarke.
And, as a bonus, she manages to get Bellamy and Nate in the same pod for most of the games, and they seem to get along just as well as she thought they would.
Honestly, it’s one of her more successful plans, thus far. She could maybe be good at this.
“That was a good crew, right?” she asks Nate, once everyone else has cleared out. “Good attitudes.”
“Yeah, that actually worked out really well.” He leans against the counter, watching her. “You know you don’t have to do all this, right? Like, I’m an adult, I can make friends on my own. You’re not even that good at making friends. Blind leading the blind.”
“So I’m trying to help both of us. And it’s working so far, right?”
“One good game night,” he says. “Don’t get cocky.”
Clarke grins. “So, same time next week?”
“Yeah, can’t wait.”
*
The exact make-up of game night varies, depending on how busy everyone is. Clarke is the default host, but after a few weeks, it’s evolved beyond her. She has too much going on with grading and helping out with the junior fundraiser one week, so Bellamy agrees to have it at his place so Clarke won’t have as much on her place. Even Jasper’s friend Monty, who barely knows them, hosts one week, just because he loves games so much and is excited to finally have a group to play them with.
It takes about two months for things to go wrong, and when they do, it’s in the stupidest possible way. Nate’s usually the one to help Clarke with cleanup, but he has an early morning, so Bellamy volunteers to stick around instead.
“You know,” he observes, “I didn’t think this was going to work.”
“Which part?”
“The game night thing. I figured it would fall apart after a week or two, that’s how this always works. But I should have known you’re too stubborn to just give up. Is it working?”
“You just said it was working,” Clarke says, frowning at him.
“No, not that. You were trying to make friends for Miller. How’s that going?”
Clarke feels a flush race through her body, although she can’t figure out why. “You like him, right?”
“Yeah, he’s cool. Does he like sports?”
“Sports? Like, as a general concept?”
“I have some tickets to a baseball game,” he says, not looking at Clarke. “My sister got them and she can’t go, so she gave them to me. I thought maybe Miller might be interested. I assume you’re not,” he adds, an afterthought, and Clarke pastes on a smile.
“Yeah, definitely not. I don’t know anything about baseball. But Nate might be interested, yeah. You should ask him.”
“Cool, thanks. It seems like he’s getting along with everybody pretty well, so–seriously, I’m impressed.”
“I’m impressive.”
She makes it through the rest of the cleaning up without incident, sends Bellamy home, and then drops back against the door with a shaky exhale of breath. This was what she wanted; this was the whole point. Helping Nate make friends generally and with Bellamy specifically, and now Bellamy is asking him out. This is going better than Clarke could have imagined.
She takes a few deep breaths and calls Wells. He’s still on the west coast, so it’s not as late there, and he picks up right away.
“Hey, Clarke, what’s up?”
“I’m having a weird crisis.”
“Oh good, that sounds fun.” But she can hear the smile in his voice. “What’s the weird crisis?”
She exhales. “It’s complicated.”
“Will you quit stalling and just tell me already? It’s complicated and stupid and you’re embarrassed, I get it. I won’t judge you.”
“I just realized I have a thing for my coworker.”
“Bellamy?”
Her heart drops. “How did you know?”
“You talk about him a lot. I didn’t think you knew, if it helps. You’re kind of slow with this stuff.”
“That’s supposed to help?”
“So, you figured out you like him and now you’re panicking? That’s not that bad.”
“Nate likes him and I’ve been trying to set them up. And I just figured out I like Bellamy because he’s going to ask Nate out.”
“Huh,” says Wells, slow. “Okay, yeah, that’s worse than I was expecting.”
Clarke closes her eyes, sighing deeply. “I thought I was happy for him. I was happy for him. Nate said he had dibs and I thought–” She pauses, reconsiders. “I told myself I was good with it and I should make it happen, and now I did.”
“How much does Nate like him?”
It’s a good question to which Clarke doesn’t have a good answer. Nate called dibs, obviously, but it doesn’t feel as if he’s put a ton of effort into hanging out with Bellamy, not more than anyone else. They seem friendly, but Clarke wouldn’t know he had a crush if he hadn’t told her. He hasn’t mentioned it since that first night, and he hasn’t seemed to put together that the game nights were entirely for his benefit, with Bellamy.
“I don’t know. He just said–” She’s never explained the whole dibs thing to Wells, and saying it now feels juvenile. She’s twenty-five; she shouldn’t be having a meltdown like this over something that ambiguous. “He just said he liked him. It’s been a couple months now, he hasn’t mentioned it again.”
“So talk to him,” Wells says, logical as ever. “Tell him what’s going on. I’m not saying he’s going to just tell you to go for it, but you know the two of you need to have a conversation. And you knew I was going to tell you this too, so you knew what you were getting into calling me. Get it together, Griffin, and ovary up.”
“Thanks.”
“Seriously, he’s your best friend. Aside from yours truly. You can talk to him.”
“Yeah,” she says, with a sigh. “I can.”
*
The next day, she frets off and on about when to talk to Nate, but doing it after the baseball date just feels shitty, if she’s honest. If their positions were reversed, and she was going out with a guy Nate had realized he liked, she’d want to know about it as soon as possible, and definitely before the actual first date. Like Wells said, it wouldn’t necessarily change her plans, but she’d at least want to weigh Nate’s feelings against everything else. That’s what friends do, and it’s definitely what Nate is going to do.
So she asks if he wants to hang out the next night, and when he shows up, she just blurts it out: “I need to talk to you about Bellamy.”
Nate frowns. “What about Bellamy?”
“You know–” She exhales. It’s easy to talk to Wells about feelings stuff; Wells loves feelings. But she and Nate have never been good at that. “Okay, I know you like him. And I really wanted to support you, but–”
Nate holds up his hand. “Wait, what?”
“I was trying to help!”
For a second, his face is all confusion, but then his expression clears and he starts to laugh. “Jesus, you’ve been trying to set me up with Bellamy.”
“Of course I have! You said you liked him.”
“I did?”
“You called dibs! The first party, you saw him, and you said–”
“I wanted to hook up with him, I didn’t want to marry him. It’s not like I was real attached to the idea.”
Clarke opens and closes her mouth a few times, finally says, “Did you hook up with him?”
“No. He’s still hot, don’t get me wrong, but Monty’s more my type.”
“Monty?”
He scowls. “What’s wrong with Monty. He’s hot, he’s geeky, he’s not as fucking intense as you and Bellamy–”
“I didn’t mean it like–” She shakes her head. “Nothing against Monty, he’s great. I’ve just spend the last two months stressing about you and Bellamy.”
“You know I’m an adult, right? I can take care of myself. I don’t need you managing my social life or my love life.”
“I know.” She rubs her face, gives him a sheepish smile. “Bellamy’s going to ask you to go to a baseball game. He told me that and I had kind of a breakdown because I thought you guys were going to be–this whole happily ever after love story. And I might have just realized a thing for him.”
“Jesus Christ, Griffin.” He puts his arm around her and squeezes. “You never thought about just asking me?”
“I was telling myself I was happy for you!”
“Just saying, five minutes’ conversation and this would have been all set. Even if I liked him, I wouldn’t have–”
“You would have told me to go for it, just like I was telling you to go for it. I thought–you called dibs! It wasn’t ambiguous.”
“Yeah, but it’s not a blood pact.” He pauses, studying her for a long moment. “If you ever called dibs on a guy I really liked, I would have just told you.”
“You’re a lot more in touch with your feelings than I am. I was still in denial.”
“Yeah, you’re a disaster. So, he’s going to ask me out?”
“To a baseball game. I don’t even know if it’s a date, he was being pretty casual about it. Fuck,” she says. “If he’s into you–”
“I’ll let him down easy. But I haven’t really gotten that vibe from him. Honestly, if you asked me? I’d say he’s into you. He’s always looking for an excuse to hang out with you more, and half the time when I’m talking to him, we’re talking about you.” He grins. “If he still wants to take me to the baseball game as friends, I can feel him out for you.”
She sighs. “I don’t know, I was thinking I could just talk to him.”
“Really?”
“It really does clear things up fast.” She smiles. “If you liked him, I’d step aside. Really. I wasn’t going to ask you to give him up or anything. That’s not why–”
“I know you’ve got my back. And I’ve got yours. Let me know if you need anything.”
“And if you need help with Monty–”
He smirks. “You know, I think you’ve done enough. I’ve got it from here.”
“Good. I’m rooting for you.”
He presses a kiss to the top of her head. “Right back at you.”
*
She waits until all the students have cleared out the next afternoon and then goes to find him in his room. He likes to grade until dinner time, a tradition Clarke finds baffling, but he claims it helps with work/life balance, and it does make him easy to find. She’d like to say she’s only a little nervous, but that’s a lie. She’s had a very intense week of feelings, and she’s looking forward to just having it done with, but she’s also kind of dying.
So it’s time to clear everything up.
“Hey,” she says, knocking on his door jamb. “Got a second?”
“Yeah, what’s up? You’re here late.”
She closes the door behind her as she enters the classroom, props herself up on the table across from his desk. It’s her first time alone with him since she realized how she felt and she’s hyper aware of everything about him. She can’t believe it took her this long to realize how she felt. It feels so stupidly obvious.
“Yeah, I was waiting for everyone to clear out.”
He frowns. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah. It’s–honestly, it’s kind of ridiculous. Are you asking Nate to go to that game?”
“One of my students might want to buy the tickets, I’m waiting to see if he actually comes up with the money. Why?”
“Was it going to be a date?”
The blood drains from his face. “What? Fuck, no, I–did he think that? I didn’t think–”
She starts to laugh. “No, I’m pretty sure I had this whole weird narrative built up in my head and no one but me knew about it.”
“The narrative where I want to date your best friend?”
“And he wants to date you.”
“Does he want to date me?”
“No, he doesn’t. No one thought that but me. And I’ve been kind of–” She shrugs. “It’s been a weird couple months.”
“I still feel like I’m missing something,” he says, almost reluctantly. Like he’s disappointed with himself for not getting it.
It’s not his fault, of course. She exhales, makes herself look at him. “I was kind of freaking out about it. Because–I’m interested in you. Which doesn’t have to be a thing, but after this week I feel like direct communication is my friend. So–do you want to get dinner sometime?”
He blinks a few times, processing the information. It’s clearly nothing he was expecting, probably nothing that ever occurred to him, and now he’s trying to figure out how to let her down easy, how to–
“Fuck, I didn’t think I had a chance,” he says, face breaking out into a huge grin. He crosses the room and cups her face, kissing her so she can taste the smile too. “No wonder I was getting such weird signals,” he teases.
Clarke grins too. “I’m not very good with feelings.”
“Not so much.” He leans down for another kiss. “So, dinner?”
“It’s a date.”
*
Two weeks later, they end up on a double date with Nate, who’s up to date on Clarke’s incompetence, and Monty, who wants to hear the whole story.
“I don’t know if we should really be talking about how I wanted to fuck Bellamy,” Nate teases.
Monty waves his hand. “It’s fine, Bellamy’s hot, everyone wants to fuck him. We just accept that.”
“Thanks,” says Bellamy. “I think.”
Clarke smiles. “It was really a simple misunderstanding. Nate and I didn’t formalize the dibs system, so I thought he was saying I want that guy and you can never go for him–”
“And I was a little drunk and thought Bellamy was hot. I forgot about it by the next day.”
“I probably would have too,” Clarke protests. “Except that I was trying really hard to be supportive.”
“Heavily in denial,” Nate says, winking at her, and Clarke kicks him under the table. Just a little.
“Hey, I’m not complaining. I got a girlfriend and I found out everyone wants to fuck me. This worked out great for me.”
“Yeah,” Nate agrees. “Good job with the matchmaking, Clarke. You nailed it.”
He waits until Bellamy and Monty have gone for another round of drinks to add, “I think we should retire the dibs thing.”
“You think?”
“It was confusing. And I’m hoping we don’t need it anymore.”
Clarke smiles, raises the dregs of her drink for him to clink his glass. “Yeah,” she agrees. “I think we’re all set.”
Holiday prompt: Bellamy POV of Somebody's Only Light would be amazing!
Original fic here!
“I can’t believe this is actually the best way for you to find out your soulmate’s name,” Miller says, pixelated and slightly delayed over the shitty Skype connection. He’s examining the photo Bellamy sent of his back in the mirror, and Bellamy owes him a lot of beer when they get back to campus. “I feel like I’m on CSI or some shit. You literally sent me a picture to enhance.”
“This is how I know you’re an only child. I don’t want my sister to find out first. She’d probably say some weird name just to–”
“Clarke Griffin,” says Miller, and Bellamy’s jaw drops.
“What?”
“I’m pretty sure. It would be easier if you just got someone there to double-check. Maybe Clarke is wrong? I don’t know, it’s your back.”
Right on cue, Octavia bangs on his door. “Hey Bell, how’s your–”
“I don’t have a soulmark! I’ll call you back,” he adds to Miller, and closes the laptop, tugging his shirt back on before opening the door for his sister.
She looks supremely put out. “You don’t have one?”
“Nope. I’m going to die alone. It’s not a big deal,” he adds, before she can say anything. “I told you I don’t care about soulmates.”
“Yeah, but–you really don’t have one? Did you check everywhere?”
“I did and I don’t want you double-checking.” He rolls his eyes, deliberately melodramatic. “Yesterday you were telling me you didn’t want one and all your friends were being weird about it.” His mouth goes a little dry on the word friends, but he thinks she doesn’t notice. She doesn’t really have any reason to be suspicious of him. “I’m fine with it, seriously. Soulmates aren’t everything. Plenty of people don’t have one and have perfectly good lives.”
“Uh huh.”
“I promise, I’m fine.”
“Still, you wanted one, right?”
“I was cool either way,” he says, and wishes he meant it.
Not having a soulmate sounds great right now.
*
The number-one thing Bellamy knows about Clarke Griffin is that she’s fifteen.
It’s obviously not her only personality trait, or even her most important one, but it’s the only one that can matter to Bellamy right now. Because fifteen is really, really young, and the more he thinks about it, the younger it seems. He doesn’t think he was even a complete person at fifteen, and Clarke probably isn’t either.
Not that he doesn’t like her, so far. She’s smart and sharp and interesting, not exactly fun, but enjoyable. Plus she’s always good for a random argument, which he likes, and she’s started experimenting with low-cut tops, which he’s trying very hard not to pay any attention to, even if it doesn’t always work. She is pretty, but, again, in the way where he’s very aware that she’s going to be in high school for several more years. By the time she graduates, he’ll be out of college himself and off in the world.
Even if she is his soulmate–and he got one of his own high-school friends to confirm that she is, after swearing her to secrecy–she’s not his soulmate now. And if, when she’s twenty, his name shows up on her, she’ll at least know who he is. She can try to find him, if she wants to. There’s definitely no way for him to tell her now that she’s his soulmate without feeling like he’s taking advantage of her, so he just doesn’t. He goes back to school without having said a single word to his new soulmate the entire summer.
Miller isn’t impressed. “You let your sister tell her you don’t have a soulmate?”
“What else was I supposed to say? Hey, call me in five years if we’re soulmates but otherwise have a nice life? Fuck, I’m not ready to be someone’s soulmate now, she shouldn’t have to do it at fifteen. And I wasn’t just going to make up a name.” He sighs. “If you have a better idea for what I should do, you can tell me, but anything I can come up with feels like–grooming, or some shit.”
It doesn’t take Miller long to think through that one. “Yeah, fuck, I don’t know. You’re right, that sucks, there’s no good way to tell a high-school sophomore she’s your soulmate. Sucks to be you.”
“Thanks for the support.”
“Can you at least stay in touch? Like Facebook friend her or something?”
“I’m not going to sign up for Facebook just to friend an underage girl.”
“So then what’s the plan? Wait five years and google her?”
“Wait five years and see how I feel. I’ll still be twenty-five and she’ll be twenty, that doesn’t sound much better. Maybe give it ten years, that’s enough to not be creepy, right?”
“I think once she’s legal, you’re set. But what do I know, I’m still waiting to meet Monty the normal way.”
“I met her a normal way! She’s my sister’s friend, it’s totally normal. The timing just sucks. If O had met her in college, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. It would still be weird,” he admits. “Depending on how old she was. But at least I wouldn’t have to be overthinking it alone.”
Miller pats his shoulder. “Yeah, this is basically the worst possible soulmate scenario for you. So–happy belated birthday.”
“Thanks.”
“At least you like her.”
He sighs. “Yeah, at least there’s that.”
*
As a rule, Bellamy doesn’t like lying. He does it, of course, about big and small things, but he doesn’t enjoy it, and having Clarke for a soulmate means he’s doing it a lot. For the most part, he can tell his friends the truth, but he feels weird telling people he hooks up with–it always ends up being such a long story, and people always want more details. It turns a quick, no-strings-attached fling into a long discussion about soulmates and the right way to deal with them and how age gaps change as people get older. Which isn’t always bad, but is rarely what he’s looking for at a party.
So he mostly says he hasn’t met her yet, which is what everyone expects him to say anyway, and if he ever wants to actually seriously date someone, he’ll tell them the whole truth. It’s not as if it reflects poorly on him; he hasn’t done anything wrong. He’s trying so hard to do everything right.
On his breaks, he’s constantly aware of Clarke being nearby, of the possibility of seeing her, like a malfunctioning spidey sense that doesn’t actually tell him anything and just makes him non-stop paranoid. Since he still hasn’t told his sister about the soulmate situation, he can’t just ask her, and it seems as if she and Clarke are growing apart anyway, in the natural way that kids in high school do. And while there are definitely some advantages to that, it makes him feel antsy, too, unsure of what’s happening to Clarke in the months and years of his not seeing her.
When he does, finally, he’s not ready for it, of course. He’s home for spring break, not quite a year after he gets his soulmark, at the grocery store, and he literally runs into Clarke in the produce aisle, the stupidest meet-cute in the world.
Her smile is warm as she recognizes him. “Hey, Bellamy.”
“Hey, Clarke.”
“Spring break?”
“Yeah.” He wets his lips, trying to figure out something to say that isn’t an unhelpful mono-syllable. It hasn’t been that long, but it feels like years since he saw her, and he can’t help studying her for non-existent changes. She’s just Clarke, the same as he remembered: blonde hair, blue eyes, the mole over her lip adding a lopsided charm to her smile.
His soulmate.
“How are classes going?” he finally asks.
“Fine. Pretty uneventful.” She holds up an apple. “Just stocking up for a road trip. Mom and I are doing a college tour over break.”
“Anywhere you’re particularly excited about seeing?”
“Brown,” she says, with a slightly embarrassed smile. “I’m a legacy, so it doesn’t feel completely unrealistic.”
“Definitely not. I hope you get in.”
“Thanks. You’re a junior too, right? Any idea what you want to do after graduation? Or is it too soon for me to even ask?”
“If everything goes well, I’m going to be teaching. But that’s assuming everything goes well, I’ve got certification and prep stuff to do first, and that’s not set up yet.”
“I figured it might be a little early, yeah. What do you want to teach?”
“History.”
“That sounds like a good fit for you.”
“I’m hoping so, yeah. What about you, any career aspirations yet?”
“Something art-related, still not sure what. My mom thinks art history will make me more employable, I’m not totally convinced.”
“I think a degree from somewhere like Brown will probably make you pretty employable all by itself.”
“That’s what I’m hoping.”
“Well, uh–” He rubs the back of his neck, but he can’t come up with anything else to say to her. This might be the last time he ever sees his soulmate, and he’s done. “Good luck with–everything.”
Her mouth quirks. “Everything?”
“End of high school, college, college applications. All that stuff.”
“The rest of my life?”
“I’m not going to wish you bad luck for the rest of your life.”
That one actually gets a laugh out of her, and his stomach flips. Would he feel the same, if her name wasn’t on his back? He wouldn’t have been thinking about her off and on for all these years, but he thinks–she’s pretty, he likes her. There would have been something there.
“Yeah, I guess that would be pretty shitty of you. Good luck with the rest of your life, too.”
“Thanks,” he says.
If she wasn’t his soulmate, he probably wouldn’t watch her go. But he thinks he’d still want to.
*
Gina Martin feels like someone he might marry, in another universe. They meet his first spring teaching AP World History, when he starts going to a bar regularly because it feels like a healthier way to consume alcohol than alone (or even with Miller) in his apartment while he grades. It’s still probably not the healthiest thing in the world, but that’s fine. He was never going to be the healthiest person in the world, he was only ever going to do his best.
Gina is cute and flirty right from the start, but he does his best not to read into that. It’s her job, as a bartender, to be cute and flirty, after all. She does it to everyone, and he doesn’t want to get carried away thinking it’s anything personal.
It’s not like he has time to date, anyway.
It’s been about three months when some drunk guy spills a drink on her and she tugs off her flannel to reveal a gray tanktop underneath, low cut enough that he can see the curling edge of soulmate letters on her left breast. He can’t read the name, but its existence interests him in the way soulmate names always do.
Once she’s dried off, he says, “Do you like talking about soulmates?”
She thinks it over. “I do it a lot. Does that count?”
“Not really. If you don’t want to, we can skip it.”
“Having problems with yours?”
He’s pretty sure Clarke is older than twenty, by this point, but if she’s tried to get in touch with him, it hasn’t worked. Most of the time, he’s too busy to worry about it much, but every now and then, he’ll wonder if the lack of contact means she got another name, or if she doesn’t know how to get in touch, or if she’s disappointed, or any of a thousand other things that occur to him in his stupidest, most irrational moments.
He knows it means she hasn’t decided to talk to him, and that’s all he needs to know. Which is a good reason to try to flirt with a cute girl.
“I was actually curious about yours,” he says. “But I’m always ready to vent about mine.”
It’s not entirely true, but it does make her smile. She raises her eyebrows at his empty beer glass and he nods, so she refills it and slides it back to him. “Haven’t met mine. Your turn.”
“It’s complicated.”
“You two don’t get along?”
“No, that would be easy.” He drums his fingers on the bar. “I’m, uh–twenty-five now?”
She smiles. “You don’t even know?”
“It’s been a busy year. So, yeah, I got my soulmark five years ago, when I was home from college for the summer. And I knew the name when it showed up.”
“Lucky.”
“Not really. She was one of my sister’s friends, just finished with her sophomore year of high school. I panicked and told everyone I just didn’t get a name because it didn’t–” He sighs. “I didn’t know how to tell her. She wasn’t going to know anyway, it didn’t matter.”
“But she must be old enough now, right? To have her soulmark.”
“Yeah. But I haven’t heard from her.”
“Does she have any way to get in touch with you?”
“Google.”
“And you haven’t gotten in touch with her?”
“No. Sometimes I think about it, but–” He shrugs. “I don’t know what I’d say.”
“It makes a lot of sense to me. You lied because she was a kid, and now you want to come clean. What else would you need to say?”
“I don’t know.” He huffs. “I figure if I’m her soulmate, she’ll let me know. And if I’m not, I don’t want to make her life more awkward by bringing it up.”
“That seems misguided at best and actually stupid at worst, but I also probably wouldn’t want to call her if I were you either, so–what are you doing after this?”
He frowns. “After what?”
“Well, I get off in an hour, so–after I get off.”
The frown deepens. “Did that story count as a pickup line?”
“You’re cute,” she says. “That’s not new. You’ve been trying to not be a dick about flirting with me, we both have soulmates, you’re clearly a good guy. So if you want to go on a date sometime, I’ll take it on credit.”
“Credit?”
“Buy me dinner later and you can get laid tonight.”
He opens and then closes his mouth. “Sounds like a good deal,” he settles on, and Gina grins.
“I thought so.”
Bellamy’s pretty sure they both know it’s not going to last, but it’s nice for as long as it does, through their first Thanksgiving together. Octavia comes back from college to crash on his couch, and they have this awkwardly intimate dinner with just the three of them. Holidays have been weird since Aurora died, but Bellamy wasn’t prepared for just how much weirder it would be with his (fairly casual) girlfriend there. She’s so convinced that Gina’s going to abandon her own soulmate and marry Bellamy, and even if that was never on the table and Gina didn’t want it, it’s an awkward situation.
“This maybe isn’t the best idea,” Gina says.
“Yeah, I know.”
She bites the corner of her mouth. “I know that saying I still want to be friends is a total cliche, but I do still want to be friends.”
“Me too. I definitely don’t want to have to find a new bar,” he teases.
“Yeah, we can’t have that.”
He puts his arm around her, giving her a quick squeeze. “I still love you. Just not–”
“The same way you always have,” she supplies.
“Yeah.”
“We both knew what we were getting into. We’ve got soulmates who are going to show up.”
Sometimes, Bellamy can believe that. Sometimes, he does think that Clarke will just stroll back into his life someday, that they’ll run into each other at the grocery store or something equally cliched, and things will just work out like magic, like they’re supposed to, without this years long headache he’s been nursing.
Mostly, though, he thinks he missed his chance. That he was supposed to go for it back when he first got Clarke’s name, because whatever great celestial force it is that governs soulmates doesn’t understand age of consent laws.
But that’s never going to be the right thing to say to his girlfriend during a breakup, so he just smiles. “Yeah, we do,” he says, and tries to mean it.
*
Gina: Are you coming to the bar tonight?
It’s not a particularly surprising message for a Saturday night–the more surprising thing is that Bellamy was chaperoning a dance and hasn’t been checking his phone–but he still can’t help feeling a little suspicious. He doesn’t like Rocket Fuel as much as he liked her last employer, and it’s early enough in the year he doesn’t feel the need to go full alcoholic. Probably there’s some guy there hitting on her and she wants him to scare him off. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Me: I wasn’t planning toI had a school thingbut we’re done so I can be on my way overeverything okay?
Gina: Everything’s fineClarke Griffin is hereWe’re talking about you
Bellamy nearly drops his phone, and the effort it takes to not drop it makes him nearly makes him trip over his own feet. It’s about the least graceful he’s ever been, but–Clarke. Clarke is at the bar. Clarke is so fucking close.
He tugs on his jacket and starts walking before he’s even responded to the text, in a hurry to get there as soon as physically possible. It’s not that long a walk, which is the best thing about Rocket Fuel, as far as he’s concerned, but he still can’t get there fast enough.
Me: holy shit I’m going to kill youyou’re joking, right?
It doesn’t feel like the kind of thing she’d joke about, but it doesn’t feel possible either. There’s no way Clarke just wandered into the bar and started talking to Gina about him. Did she just tell Gina her name, or did Gina bring him up?
He’s trying to figure out a good way to ask if he’s Clarke’s soulmate too when the picture comes through, Gina with Clarke and an unfamiliar woman with dark hair in a tight ponytail. She’s lovely, but all Bellamy can focus on is Clarke, her hair shorter, her smile nervous, but still familiar. She must be twenty-two or twenty-three by now, out of college and in the world, in his world. Talking to Gina. Taking selfies.
Gina: That’s MY soulmate with her btwRaven ReyesAnd you are Clarke’s soulmate, don’t worry
Me: holy shitI’m on my waybe there in ten minutes
He actually runs part of the way, which feels excessive and a little pathetic, except that Clarke is right here, and his soulmate, and all he has to do is get to her. He’d run the whole way, except that he doesn’t want to be weirdly sweaty when he shows up.
She may be his soulmate, but he still wants to make a good impression.
To his surprise, she’s leaning on the fence outside of the bar, although it takes him a little while before he’s sure it’s her, and not some other blonde girl. The odds of that seem low, but the odds of Clarke showing up at Rocket Fuel with Gina’s soulmate seem even lower, so he’s not ruling anything out.
Once he’s close enough, he waves, and she smiles, pushes off the wall and comes to see him. He knew what he was expecting to see, knew what she looked like now from the picture Gina sent, but the reality of her is still a shock.
He clears his throat. “Hey, Clarke.”
“Hey.”
Ideally, this would be the point where he said something smooth and cool, some line worth waiting for, but his brain is still stuck on her face. “You didn’t want to be inside?” is all he comes up with.
But she laughs. “Honestly? No. We had an audience.”
“Gina said you brought her soulmate too, yeah.”
“My best friend.”
“Jesus. I can’t believe it.”
Her smile is impish. “Which part?”
“Everything about soulmates, pretty much. I’m, uh–” He pauses, reconsiders. There are thousands of things he wants to say, but one’s more pressing than the rest. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. When it happened.”
Her response is immediate. “Don’t be.” She smiles. “You want to take a walk and tell me about it? That must have sucked.”
He inclines his head in the vague direction of the park, away from the school. All the students cleared out, but they could still be in the area. He really doesn’t need to be dealing with anyone else. Just dealing with Clarke is overwhelming enough. “It was–fucking surreal, honestly. I wasn’t expecting to get anyone I knew. Most people don’t. And I didn’t–” He shoots her half a smile. “Don’t get me wrong, you were cute, but you were fifteen, and you weren’t going to get your mark for five years. If some guy had come along and told O that, even if he was her soulmate, I would have kicked his ass. And now, teaching teenagers? Jesus. There’s a reason you don’t get it until you’re twenty. I still wasn’t ready then.” They walk in silence for a second, but he can’t help it. The question has been pressing at his mouth since he first saw her. “You really got me too?”
She laughs. “You thought I wouldn’t?”
“I didn’t know. I didn’t know much about you. I tried to figure it out. Why we were–why you were my soulmate.”
“And?”
“No comment,” he says, automatic.
“Oh, come on.”
She sounds so disappointed he has to laugh. “I liked you fine, okay? You were smart and intense and I felt bad for noticing you were hot.”
“I don’t feel bad about that at all,” she says, grinning. “You’re my soulmate, you’re allowed.”
It’s surreal, hearing the words. He was so sure he wasn’t going to be anyone’s soulmate. That this couldn’t possibly work out for him. “I still can’t believe it. I thought you might have my name, but–I figured if you did, you would have gotten in touch.”
She shrugs. “I thought you would already have someone else. Since you didn’t have a soulmate. I didn’t want to barge into your life and mess stuff up for you.” She laughs a soft, sheepish little laugh; he can’t stop looking at her. “You were mine, but I thought I wasn’t yours.”
It makes total sense, of course, but it’s also just the most absurd situation. And mostly because of him. “I would have liked to know, even if I had someone else. But I get it. I didn’t want to do that to you either.”
“I think you did the best you could. I don’t know—" She shakes her head. “I have no idea what I would have done if you told me back then.”
He grins. “Been smug as shit, I assume. I know all you guys had a thing for me.”
“Not a big one. Just, you know—normal teenager stuff.”
“Yeah.”
“Did your sister know?”
“About you? No, I just told my best friend. He’s the one who found your name for me. I sent him a picture because I didn’t want O to know first. Which was a good call, I don’t think she would have been able to keep her mouth shut.”
She’s going to murder him when he does tell her, but that’s a problem for tomorrow. Tonight, he’s catching up with his soulmate.
“Where is it?” she asks, and he frowns. “Your soulmark.”
“On my back, just under my shoulder blade. Where’s yours?”
“Stomach.”
“So you couldn’t really hide it.”
“No. Are you—" She pauses, reconsiders. “I guess you date. You dated Gina.”
“Yeah. But I’m not seeing anyone right now. You?”
“Single.”
His stomach flips, like it always has. “It, uh. This doesn’t have to be anything, if you don’t want it to be. We can just be—“
She shakes her head. “I want it to be something. We should at least try.”
It feels like such a small word, like nothing new. He feels like trying his best sums up his whole life.
Then again, it’s turned out pretty well for him. He’s got a job he likes, friends, and a soulmate who’s smiling up at him, eyes bright with happiness.
He smiles back. “I’m good with trying.”
*
In the morning, he calls his sister.
Clarke is on the couch, dressed in his clothes, which isn’t a new kink for him, but feels new because he is completely gone for her and his previous scale of things he was into no longer applies. She’s been texting Raven for updates about her and Gina, and Bellamy texted Miller with the update that Clarke was in the apartment, but he doesn’t think he can get away with texting Octavia. Even if he tried, she’d call back immediately, and somehow put herself on speaker phone so she could yell at him most effectively.
She picks up on the second ring. "Why are you calling so early? Did you and Miller have a fight?”
“That’s your guess?”
“Wait, am I supposed to guess? I was just annoyed. You woke me up. Did something bad actually happen?”
“Nothing bad.”
She groans. “Please just tell me, it’s too early for this shit.”
“I lied to you,” he says, in a rush. “About my soulmate.”
There’s a long pause. “What?”
“I told you I didn’t have one, but I do.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Her voice is small, and he closes his eyes against the guilt.
“It had nothing to do with you, O. My soulmate–it’s Clarke Griffin.”
“Clarke?” she demands. At least she’s too surprised to sound hurt.
“She was fifteen, I didn’t want to tell her. Fuck, I didn’t want to deal with it at all. And I wasn’t going to make you lie to your friends for me.”
“You kind of did, though. You had me tell them all that you didn’t have a soulmate.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t know it was a lie.” He rubs his face, and Clarke gets off the couch to wrap her arms around him, an unexpected burst of warmth. He leans into it. “I’m sorry, seriously. I kept wanting to tell you, but I didn’t know how.”
She pauses. “So why are you telling me now?”
“Because she found me,” he admits. “And I’m her soulmate too.”
“Of course you are.” She doesn’t sound sarcastic, or even surprised, just matter-of-fact. Like there was no doubt. “You thought you weren’t?”
“Assume I’ve been on a downward spiral about this whole thing for the last seven years. I figured I was going to die alone.”
“That’s why you should have told me, dumbass. Or she should have! I can’t believe you two. You’re both ridiculous.”
“We are,” Bellamy agrees, twisting to kiss Clarke’s temple. “We must be soulmates.”
Octavia, at least, just laughs. “Yeah. No question.”
“I know this isn’t your area of expertise, but I need you to not marry me.”
Bellamy looks up from his book to see a pretty girl with long blonde hair and bright blue eyes watching him, her expression shrewd and calculating. She’s dressed in what he thinks of as the standard wedding ensemble, at least here: a serviceable dress, probably one of her nicest. She looks a little older than his usual runaway bride, but she could still be under the age of majority.
He has no idea what she wants.
“That doesn’t sound hard,” he says, with an easy smile. “I’m not marrying you right now, I think I can keep doing it.”
Her mouth twitches like she wants to return the expression, but knows she shouldn’t when things are so serious. “It’s going to get harder.”
“Is it?”
“I had a young man bring me here thinking he would marry me, but he’s not going to. I think he’ll try to insist. Will you not perform the marriage?”
He has a number of questions, but only one answer. “If you don’t want to be married, I won’t marry you.”
She exhales her relief in a great sigh. “Perfect, thank you. I’ll be back later this afternoon.”
It’s far from the first strange encounter Bellamy has had since taking up employment the “blacksmith” at the Hammer and Rings six months ago. He’d been reluctant at first, having no formal training with metalworking, but Charles had assured him that no one had expected real smithing from the shop in years, and if anyone did need that kind of work done, he could always direct them elsewhere.
And that, at least, has been true. All anyone has wanted Bellamy to do is marry them, and that, at least, he’s good at. His favorites are the older couples who come to Gretna Green to be married quickly and without any fuss, the ones who have done this before and now just want it to be done with. It’s a settled in, comfortable kind of romance that always makes him smile.
The young people worry him more, mostly because he sees his sister in every willful young bride who’s decided she knows her heart and her parents could never understand. It’s not even that he disagrees with their decision so much as it reminds him that he doesn’t, and he thinks they probably know enough to make those choices, which means that he should, perhaps, give his sister more credit than he does. Which isn’t a thought he likes to sit with.
Not that everyone who comes to him is making the right choice in getting married, of course, but the bright-haired young woman is the first one to actually come and tell him not to marry her. That’s a new one.
It’s a busy morning–a local couple in their thirties comes in with a large group of family for a more raucous ceremony than usual, and then and older couple who just want theirs done as quickly as possible–and by the time the woman comes back, he’s almost convinced himself he won’t see her again.
But there she is, wearing the same dress, hair swept up, blue eyes nervous now as she looks around the shop. The young man next to her rubs Bellamy the wrong way as soon as he looks at him, although it’s hard to be sure he’d feel that way if he hadn’t heard the woman wasn’t interested in marrying.
Then again, she never said the man forced her–she had him bring her, under false pretenses. She wasn’t kidnapped.
Still, he doesn’t like the man’s looks, or trust him to take the news that he isn’t getting married well. But even if Bellamy isn’t much of a smith, he spends plenty of his days lifting heavy things and banging anvils. He can make sure the man doesn’t take his feelings out on his unwilling bride.
“We’d like to get married, as quickly as possible,” the man tells Bellamy. “It’s a pound fee?”
“It is,” he says. His eyes flick to the woman. “You want to get married?”
She wets her lips, but her focus is on her betrothed, not on Bellamy. “I’m so sorry, Finn, but–I didn’t come here to marry you.”
If he looked heartbroken, Bellamy would feel bad for the man. But he just seems confused and a little offended, as if the thought of a woman not marrying him is incomprehensible. As if anyone in the world would want to marry him.
“What?” he asks.
“I appreciate your escorting me, but I don’t think I’m ready for marriage. I’ll pay your fare for wherever you want to go. But I won’t marry you.”
“What will you do?”
She shrugs. “Whatever I want.”
Bellamy offers up a silent prayer to any gods who might be positively inclined toward a man with a few things in common with a priest, asking whoever is listening to make Finn just walk away.
But his jaw works. “You can still marry us, can’t you?” he asks Bellamy.
“I marry people who consent to be married. She doesn’t. I can’t do anything for you.”
“Clarke,” says Finn, turning his attention to the woman, voice pleading.
At least Bellamy knows her name now.
“We don’t have anything to talk about. I’m sorry I had to lie to you, but I needed to get out. I appreciate what you did for me.”
“And that’s it,” he says. “Just like that.”
She shrugs. “Just like that.”
“At least let me walk you back to the inn. We can talk. I can make you–” He seems to realize that’s a bad road to go down. “You have to see reason. If you go home unmarried–think of your reputation, Clarke! Be reasonable.”
“I can care for my own reputation, thank you. And walk myself home. But I’d like to–” She must be casting about for an excuse to not leave with this man, so Bellamy steps in. He did promise to not marry her; he might as well make sure he finishes the job.
“See the anvil?” he supplies. “A lot of people do. Mine’s an antique.”
“Yes, please.”
Finn looks like he might still protest, but Bellamy carries himself so he doesn’t look as big as he is, for the most part, and he can make himself look bigger when he wants to.
“For your train fare,” Clarke tells Finn, handing him a small bag. “I really can’t thank you enough.”
Judging by the way his hand dips when he takes the money, it’s more than he was expecting, and apparently enough to mollify him. “What should I tell your family if I see them?”
“That we didn’t marry after all. And that I’m not coming back.”
With that, he’s finally convinced to take his leave, and once he’s gone, Clarke slumps against the wall in relief. “Thank you,” she tells him, eyes flicking up to meet his.
Bellamy shrugs. “It’s not much harder than marrying someone.”
“Still, I robbed you of a fee.” She finds a pound in her purse and gives it to him. “The same rate, yes?”
“People don’t usually pay me for not marrying them. I’d be rich.”
She smiles. “Just this once. Can I see the anvil?”
He shows her around the shop, which doesn’t take long, and calls Octavia in to watch it after so he can walk Clarke back to her inn, in case her former fiance is waiting to make his case again. She gathers her things and asks him if he knows the location of a good boarding house.
“I can’t thank you enough,” she says, once he’s brought her to one.
“It was my pleasure,” he says. “I don’t get to not marry people very often.”
She laughs. “You’re very good at it.”
“Thank you. I hope–” He still doesn’t know what happened to her, why she hatched this scheme or what she plans to do, so it’s hard to know what well wishes she might appreciate. “You enjoy the rest of your time here,” he settles on, at last.
She smiles. “I hope so too.”
*
Three days later, she’s waiting by the shop door when he arrives to open up, her arms full of flowers.
“Good morning,” he says, frowning. “Do you need to not be married again?”
She smiles, a bright, sudden thing, gone as quickly as it came. “I think I’m sufficiently unmarried.”
“I’m glad it took.” He unlocks the door. “How can I help you?”
“That was my question to you.”
“Was it?”
She shrugs. “You perform marriages.”
“Usually.”
“And you’re paid a pound.”
“Depending. Some people pay more, some less. It depends on how much they have and how generous they’re feeling.”
Clarke nods. “The law is that two people have to agree to be married in front of witnesses, yes?”
“It is.”
“So you need another witness sometimes. I can do that.”
“So can my sister. I manage fine.”
“I need an occupation. I have flowers,” she adds, showing off her armful. “Which people might like. It doesn’t have to be much, but flowers are traditional.”
“You understand that people come to be married here because they don’t want to bother with a real wedding,” he points out. “If they wanted flowers–”
“You can want flowers without wanting a real wedding. Can I try it?”
“Try what, exactly?”
“Being a witness and offering flowers.”
Bellamy considers her, taking in the changes of the last few days. She’s dressed more plainly now, or at least less ostentatiously. As the son of a seamstress, he’s always had a good sense for clothing, and while the dress isn’t flashy, it’s well made, with some detailing that would cost money. She gave Finn a bag of coin to get him to leave, and gave him a pound too, and now she’s obtained a good number of flowers. It’s possible she’s reckless with her money, but she doesn’t feel reckless to him. She has enough money she can use it to solve her problems: to rid herself of a troublesome suitor, to buy flowers for weddings.
To make a good impression on the man who performs those weddings.
“If you’d like,” he says. “We weren’t ever introduced.”
“Clarke,” she says. No surname, no title. Just Clarke.
“Bellamy,” he says. “Come in.”
He’s not expecting Clarke’s gambit to pay off, but the first couple of the day smiles when she offers them flowers, and they pay her two shillings for the flowers and another two to be their witness. It’s not going to make her rich, but she’s making more than it cost her to buy the flowers, and the couple seems to appreciate it.
“Can I come back tomorrow?” she asks, and Bellamy shrugs.
“If you’d like. Are you planning to say here?” he can’t help asking. “I thought you’d give your fiance a few days to leave and then go yourself.”
“Why would I go? It’s nice here.”
He’d need a great deal more context about her life than he has to offer a good reason for her to not settle in Gretna Green, but at least if she keeps on working for him, he might someday get that information. And he’ll know how she’s doing, too. He likes keeping up with people.
“Then you can come back whenever you like,” he says, and is rewarded with another one of her smiles.
“Thank you.”
He may come to regret it, but he hasn’t yet, so all he says is, “You’re welcome. I’m looking forward to having some help.”
*
Bellamy’s too stubborn to just ask for Clarke’s story, so he puts things together slowly, picking up the pieces she scatters and trying to assemble them into a picture that makes sense. She mentions her family rarely, but both of her parents are alive, and they seem well off; she’ll mention a gown her mother bought for her or some business her father is involved in, things that speak of having money to spare. She has a few friends she’ll reference in passing, but he gets the impression that she’d grown apart from them for one reason or another even before she left her whole life behind.
Mostly, it doesn’t bother him, not knowing the particulars of her life, because he knows the broad strokes of her. She’s smart and interesting, good company when things aren’t too busy. Octavia had been getting tired of having to be on site to be a witness if he required one, and she’s glad to have someone else take over her position. Bellamy isn’t rich, but he has enough that he can give Clarke a cut, and it seems to be enough for her to get by. She seems to like being here, and he likes having her.
Every now and then, Octavia will ask if he’s going to marry her, and he always says no, less because he doesn’t want to marry her and more because he doesn’t think he will. He certainly doesn’t know how to ask.
It’s a recurring theme with Clarke: he never knows how to just say what he wants.
Almost a year after they first met, though, she gives him at least some of the answers he’s been looking for, showing up late with a newspaper instead of flowers in her shaking hands.
“What happened?” he asks.
“My father passed away.”
“I’m sorry,” he says, the words coming out before he’s even consciously thought them, the expected response, but he has no idea if it’s appropriate. “I assume.”
That makes her smile. “I am sorry. But it’s complicated.”
“You know you can always talk to me, if you want.”
She sighs. “He wanted me to marry. Someone he picked out.”
“I thought as much.”
“I thought it was greed. He and my mother had plenty, I thought they just wanted more. But if he was ill–” She sighs. “He probably wanted to make sure I would be taken care of once he was gone.”
“Will your mother be all right?”
“Without me to worry about, she should be.” She sighs, rubs her face. “I wasn’t planning to go back, so why do I feel guilty now that he’s dead for not seeing him? I wouldn’t if he was alive.”
“I’m not sure. My father died when I was three, and my mother died when I was there. But maybe you thought the two of you would make it up, someday.”
“Maybe.” She sighs. “And I blame myself. When I left, it probably broke his heart.”
“Did you ever get in touch with them again? After your elopement.”
“I wrote them a letter and sent it through my friend Wells, so they wouldn’t know where I was.”
He frowns. “Didn’t you tell them you were running away to Gretna Green?”
“Yes, but no one stays here. They just come here to get married and leave.”
It’s exactly what he thought she’d do when he first met her, so he can’t really argue the point. People do move here–he moved here himself, after his mother died–but it’s not exactly a destination for well-born young ladies.
“Were they looking for you?”
“I honestly don’t know. I burned my bridges very thoroughly when I left. Not marrying the man you elope with does much more harm to your reputation than marrying him would. They couldn’t have taken me back. But–I did love them.”
“So why did you leave?”
Her mouth twitches. “How long have you been wanting to ask that?”
“I figured you’d tell me.”
“If you ever asked.” She wets her lips. “As I said, he must have known of the illness,but he didn’t tell me. All he told me was that I needed to marry as soon as possible. He picked a groom, but his taste was very poor.”
“So you found someone to run away with.”
“I know it seems–” She sighs. “I said I wouldn’t marry Mr. Wallace, and he said I would. If I stayed, he would have made me.”
“You were old enough to say no.”
“And then there would be another, and another. I couldn’t stay knowing he didn’t care what I wanted. So I gave him a story about what I wanted that he could believe.”
“What do you want?” he asks.
She opens her mouth and then closes it, rethinking whatever she was going to say. “When I left, I didn’t know. I just knew that marrying some rich stranger wasn’t it.”
“But you know now?”
“I want what I have,” she says, as if she’s making her mind up about it slowly. “Just this.”
“Good.”
“And I want to go to London.”
“Oh?”
“Not to stay. Just for the funeral, to pay my respects. He was still my father,” she adds, her tone tinged with steel. “I loved him.”
He nods. “Of course. Do you want company?”
When she really smiles, Clarke doesn’t like to be seen, like she’s embarrassed by the expression. She ducks her head, but he can still spot the edges of it, warm and soft, making his heart skip. “Would you mind?”
“Of course not. I can always find something to do in London.”
She shows her amusement this time. “Have you ever been to London?”
“No,” he admits. “But I’m sure I could find something to do if I went.”
“I have some ideas.”
“Such as?”
“You’d probably like the British Museum.”
“I probably would. When are we leaving?”
*
Bellamy isn’t famous, really, but he is somewhat notorious. The anvil priest is a dying breed, a casualty of modernity, and Bellamy is likely the last there will ever be. There’s been talk of changing the law, to move away from the old rites, but people like what he does. And he is, if he does say so himself, charming and engaging, a perfect symbol of the entire institution of irregular marriage. He has a reputation, and there are people now who come to have him marry them, specifically.
Which he encourages as much as possible; he can use all the business he can get. And all the publicity.
So he brings his anvil to London with them.
“It can’t be that expensive,” Clarke observes as he hauls it to the train. “If someone stole it–”
“It’s an antique, Clarke. It’s irreplaceable. If I’m losing a few days of work, then I should at least get some attention out of it.”
He regrets the words as soon as they’re out of his mouth; Clarke’s expression clouds. “You don’t have to–”
“I didn’t mean it like that. I haven’t had a holiday in years. But if I can get some publicity for the shop while I’m at it, I might as well.”
“You can’t bring the anvil to the funeral. Or the British Museum.”
She’s smiling now, so he lets himself smile too. “It would take some of the focus off you.”
“And remove the mystery of where I’m living.”
“I’ll leave it in the hotel,” he promises. “Don’t worry.”
There’s a crowd to see them off at the train station, the whole town laughing and jeering as Bellamy hefts his anvil up before him. Clarke’s right, it would be easier to just replace it if someone did steal it, which he can’t imagine they would. But everyone will be talking about this, and they’ll talk about it in London too. He doesn’t have to cart it with him everywhere he goes, just to and from the train, and then, once he’s not holding it, he’ll disappear.
It’s quite a trick.
Once they’re in London, he realizes there was some part of him that worried Clarke missed it, that she would change as soon as she stepped off the train. Maybe she missed this, being a part of society, being somewhere exciting. Maybe she’s not meant to stay with him.
“The air’s so dirty here,” she says, making a face, and Bellamy lets out a breath.
“It is. Good thing we aren’t staying too long.”
Clarke is quiet for a second, and then she says, “I was thinking.”
His heart lodges in his throat. “Thinking?”
“I’m going to need to tell my mother who you are. I don’t know what I should say.”
“You can’t just say I’m a friend?” he asks. “Coming to support you?”
“I doubt she’ll believe me.”
“So you’d rather tell her a lie she will believe? It’s up to you,” he adds, before she can respond. “I’m here to support you, and I’ll do that however you think would be best. If you want to tell her you did get married in Gretna Green after all, that’s fine. Or we could be living in sin, if you want to scandalize her.”
That makes her laugh, and some of the tension drains from her frame. “You’re right, it doesn’t really matter what I say. She’s going to believe the worst no matter what.”
“What’s the worst?”
“That we’re not married but I’ve already had one of your children and more are on the way.”
“I can think of worse things.”
“My mother can’t.”
“As I said, whatever you want to tell her. I’m here to make your life easier.”
“Thank you.”
He shrugs, not sure what to say. It’s no great sacrifice for him. Not even a small one. He wouldn’t be anywhere else. “Well, you are taking me to the museum.”
They spend a day being tourists, which is nice, and the second day, they go to the funeral. Bellamy knew Clarke came from money, but it’s different experiencing it in person, all the well-dressed mourners and the large casket. He doesn’t think of death as an opulent affair, but he’s never known anyone rich who died before. Apparently, they go all out.
Clarke introduces him as her husband, mostly so she doesn’t have to have a long conversation with any friends or relatives about who he actually is. Plenty of them heard she’d run off to get married, so it’s what they expected, the rebellious daughter and her low-born husband, here to disgrace the family. The bigger surprise is that she came at all.
They make it through fifteen minutes of introductions and small talk before Clarke’s mother appears, not that Bellamy actually recognizes her as Abigail Griffin. She’s just another woman dressed in black, her grief no more apparent than anyone else’s, but she yanks Clarke’s arm, eyes roving over her, cataloging every difference.
“You came,” is what she finally says to Clarke.
“I saw in the paper.”
Her gaze moves from Clarke to Bellamy, taking him in too. He thinks he knows some of what she’ll focus on–the shade of his skin, the quality of his clothing–but he holds his head high and meets her eyes when she gets to his face. He’s here because Clarke wants him to be here; that’s the only thing that matters.
“Is this your husband?”
“Bellamy, yes. Bellamy, my mother, Abigail Griffin.”
Abigail’s mouth works, the expression reminding him of Clarke. “So, you went to Gretna Green with one husband and came back with a different one?”
“I went with a fiance,” Clarke shoots back. “I traded him for someone I liked better.”
Another long pause, and then she finally says, “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Which of us?”
“Either. Your father was trying to help you, and you–”
“If I don’t want to be helped, it’s not helpful!” she snaps, clearly louder than she meant to. She recovers, takes a few deep breaths. “I know I could have reacted better, but you weren’t listening to me. I didn’t know what to do.”
“You weren’t listening to us either.”
“You weren’t going to convince me to marry Mr. Wallace. We were at an impasse.”
Clarke’s mother slumps all at once, looking older than her years. “Why did you come back, Clarke?”
“I don’t know. I thought I should. If you want me to leave–”
“No, no. Of course I don’t–how long are you in town?”
“Only until the day after tomorrow.” She glances at Bellamy. “We could have dinner? Catch up?”
Bellamy doesn’t join them. Clarke clings to his hand through the ceremony, so hard it feels like she might break it, but she says she can handle dinner on her own, and he lies in their room in the inn, wondering if he’ll ever see her again. If she’ll be spirited away or, worse, convinced to stay here, to return to the life she was supposed to have.
But she comes back as planned, collapses onto the bed with a sigh of relief.
“It went well?” he asks.
“As well as it could have. I told her I’m not married, but I’m happy. She said I could come home and she wouldn’t make me marry anyone. That I could do what I wanted.”
“Tempting.”
She turns her head to smile at him. “Not really. I’m already doing what I want.”
He smiles back. “Good.”
*
It’s a year and a half before he sees Clarke’s mother again, which sounds like a long time, but it’s much shorter than he was expecting, given he thought he’d never see her again. Clarke, maybe, would visit home, but he hadn’t thought he’d be invited, even if Clarke wanted him to come.
His relationship with Clarke complicated and straightforward all at once. She’s his best friend, his constant companion. Once Octavia married and left the house, Clarke moved into her old room. The town gossips are convinced they’re fucking or married or all of the above, and if Bellamy’s honest, he thinks they should be. But he hasn’t figured out how to ask, when he already has so much. He already feels greedy just for wanting.
He’s happy, and he doesn’t need more.
“I thought you must be the anvil priest,” is Abigail Griffin’s greeting, when she arrives. “I didn’t think there could be many Bellamys.”
“Mom,” Clarke says, startling as Bellamy shoots to his feet. “What are you doing here?”
She looks better than the last time they saw her, no longer dressed for mourning and smiling in apparently genuine amusement.
“Don’t stand on my account. I came for the same reason everyone does: I’m getting married.”
There’s a little color in her cheeks, a pleased flush that Bellamy’s familiar with from years of performing marriage ceremonies. Whoever she’s marrying, she’s happy.
Clarke’s jaw is hanging open, so he does the talking. “Congratulations. What kind of ceremony are you looking for? We have flowers if you’d like, and Clarke takes pictures for a fee.”
The camera had been expensive, but it will pay for itself in no time. And Clarke loves it.
“I heard the priest’s wife performs ceremonies too,” says Abigail, still watching Clarke. “Is that you? Did you finally get married?”
“Not yet, but I’m not a real priest either,” Bellamy says. “People like to simplify things.”
“Who are you marrying?” Clarke finally manages. There’s no sign of a groom, so it’s a good question.
“Marcus Kane. You remember Marcus. He was asking about a horse he liked, but he’ll be along shortly.
"You’re marrying Marcus Kane in Gretna Green,” Clarke says, voice blank.
“I thought it would be better to not make a big deal about it. We don’t need anything elaborate.” She smiles. “A picture would be nice.”
“Of course.”
“And if you can perform the ceremony–”
“I’ll be the witness,” Bellamy says. “No problem.”
It’s not as strange for him as it is for Clarke, but it’s still plenty strange. Still, Marcus Kane seems nice and Abigail seems happy, and after they all go out to dinner together, like a family.
“So, the two of you aren’t married?” Marcus asks, with apparently genuine interest.
“We just haven’t had time,” Clarke says, straight-faced, and Bellamy chokes on his wine.
“Of course,” her mother says, sounding amused. “It would be so difficult to organize.”
“We’re very busy.”
“Well, when you do marry, I hope you’ll let us know,” says Abigail. “I know that this place isn’t exactly known for long engagements, but I’d like to be here, and it wouldn’t take us long to come up. I’d like to see more of you,” she adds, to Clarke. “I know it’s been–difficult. In the last few years. But I’d like it to be better.”
“Me too.” Clarke glances at him, her expression unreadable. “If we get married, we’ll be sure to let you know so you can join us. We’re not in any rush.”
They finish the meal, but Bellamy’s mind never completely leaves that conversation, doesn’t move on from Clarke’s mother’s certainty that a marriage is coming, the easy way Clarke talks about it.
He doesn’t have to say anything, of course. Clarke doesn’t see to be planning to. They can go on as they have been, and he’ll be happy.But he doesn’t know when he’ll get another excuse to bring it up, and if he doesn’t take this one, he’ll be thinking about it for days, weeks, maybe the rest of his life.
They’re on their way home when he gets his courage up. “If you want to marry me while your mother is here, now’s probably easiest.”
She glances at him, expression impossible to make out in the dark. “It’s a little late tonight.”
“Well, tomorrow.”
“Can you marry yourself? Or would we need to get someone else to do it?”
“Almost anyone could, that’s the point. But I’d probably ask someone else to do it. If you–” He clears his throat. “I love you and I’ve wanted to marry you almost since I met you. So we’re clear. I just didn’t know how to ask.”
She laughs, a sound like tension breaking. Or maybe just a sound that breaks tension. “This might be the least romantic proposal in history.”
“People don’t usually come to me for romance. But I can get down on one knee, if it will make a difference. Come up with a whole speech. Whatever you’d–”
She tugs his arm, and once he’s stopped, she pulls him down by the front of his shirt, leaning up so she can catch his mouth as quickly as possible. Her lips are a little cool in the night air, but the kiss is warm and perfect, everything he’s been wanting for all these years, and he tugs her closer, reveling in the feeling of having her at last.
“Just find someone who can marry us tomorrow and I’ll be happy,” she says.
“I think that can be arranged.”
The ceremony takes all of a minute, Miller asking both of them if they want to be married, with Clarke’s mother and her new husband as witnesses. They kiss again and that’s it, no fuss, no great declarations. Not a great romance that will echo through the ages, by anyone’s standards.
How about a time stamp for the Home Improvement/HGTV verse: (new) addition. Thanks so much for doing this again!!
Series here!
“Honestly, I’m impressed it took them this long to ask us about kids,” says Clarke, which is the most positive spin she can put on the email they just got from the network.
Bellamy snorts. “Which isn’t creepy at all.”
“I never said it wasn’t creepy, I said it could be creepier. Big difference.”
“I guess it has been an entire season since we got married. They showed a lot of restraint not asking sooner.”
Clarke smiles. “That’s what I’m saying, yeah. They were probably just hoping we’d bring it up first, but whatever.”
“They’re definitely growing.” He flops down next to her on the couch. “Do you want kids?”
It’s not their first time having the conversation, but it’s also not a conversation they’ve ever really resolved. They’ve established that Bellamy wants kids and Clarke isn’t opposed, but it’s not as simple as that for them. He’s reluctant about having a kid on TV, but not completely against it, depending on how it’s handled, which Clarke does get. And she can’t imagine the email made either of them feel better on that front.
But they’re getting older, and while Clarke wouldn’t exactly say her biological clock is ticking, she knows that if they want to have children the old-fashioned way, they should start thinking about it sooner rather than later.
“I’m not sure,” she says, leaning into him. “And I feel like we should be?”
“At least seventy-five percent sure, probably.”
“I might be that sure.”
That seems to surprise him. “Really?”
“You’re not?”
“I still don’t really want to raise a child on camera.”
“Yeah, there is that. We could just start trying to get pregnant and end the show once it works.”
“The babies-ever-after ending?”
“I hear it’s a classic.”
He takes a second. “Do you want to be pregnant? I sort of thought you were leaning towards fostering.”
Clarke considers that herself. “I’m still not sure. But some of that is also–fame stuff.”
“Yeah?”
“You know how the network is. We’re not the only leading couple they’ve got, and most of the shows follow the same formula, just at different stages. You get together, you get married, you have babies. It’s what most of our viewers want. And it’s not like that’s the worst thing ever, but–”
“But you’re still mad about all those people who said that the network was trying to get woke points by casting bisexuals and then having them end up in a heteronormative relationship?”
“Like you’re not. They kept putting bisexual in scare quotes!”
“I know, they’re all assholes. But unless you’re going to divorce me and marry a woman, there’s nothing you can do to stop them from being assholes. You’re allowed to want to have kids, and fuck anyone who says you’re lying about who you are because you fell for me.”
“Obviously they’ve never seen you,” she says, with a small smile.
“Obviously. So, ignoring people on twitter who are wrong anyway, what do you want to do?”
“I’m still not sure.”
He kisses her hair. “Okay, well, the good news is that you don’t have to know. The network can wait.”
“But we should still think about it. For us, not for them. If that’s something we want.”
“And you think you do.”
“Yeah. You haven’t said much about what you want,” she observes. “That matters too. Is it just the TV thing?”
“Kind of.” He sighs. “I feel like I should be happier just giving it up, I guess.”
“What else is new? You hate admitting you like being a weird, HGTV celebrity.”
“I know. So maybe it wouldn’t be bad for a kid. Or not worse, I guess. But if we had a baby and quit the show, by the time it was old enough to know about the show, everyone would have mostly forgotten. It wouldn’t be a big thing at school or whatever. That sounds better to me.”
“It probably wouldn’t be even if the show was on,” Clarke says. “Kids aren’t really our demographic.”
“Their loss.”
“I grew up in Hollywood,” she points out, gentle. “It’s weird, but it doesn’t ruin everyone. Especially not this level of fame. It’s not like we’re going to star in blockbusters with a baby.”
“And we don’t live in California, let alone LA.”
“I’m not saying we have to have a kid on the show, or involved in the show. Just–it might not be as bad as you think.”
“Yeah, that’s how pessimism usually works. Stuff isn’t as bad as I think it will be.”
Clarke smiles, leans up to kiss him. “All I’m saying is maybe you don’t have to give up your career to be a father.”
“A father.” He sounds a little awestruck. “Jesus.”
“Whenever you’re ready.”
“Yeah. Let’s see how that goes.”
*
In Diyoza’s defense, the email really isn’t that bad. The network seems to be aware that they need her and Bellamy more than she and Bellamy need the network; after all, they like doing the show, but if it ended tomorrow, they’d be fine. They have as much work as they can handle and if they stopped filming, they’d keep getting work. And obviously the network would be okay too, but they’re happier keeping a hit show around than trying to find something new for their time slot. They’ve got a good thing going and there’s definitely no reason to rock the boat.
But Moving On Up has always had broad seasonal story arcs, starting with her and Bellamy’s second courtship, and they’ll need a new one for the fifth season if they want to keep the trend going. And she and Bellamy have actually had a break from that this season, since Miller got together with one of the camera men back in season two, and he and Monty are now secure enough in their relationship to allow it to be dramatized. It was nice, taking the back seat for a little while, but it was a risk for the network too, and the ratings for the season have been down. Diyoza probably wants to bounce back from that with an affirmation that the show is still about Clarke and Bellamy.
Which is another reason Clarke is bristling against babies as a solution. Like Bellamy said, she’s not going to change her entire life because some assholes on twitter think her marrying a guy (and Bellamy marrying a woman) makes her straight, but there are people making good points in there too. Her life is less and less of a lie, as the show catches up with reality, but she could have had a female love interest or something. She could be doing more to be a visible bisexual woman on a network that skews very cishet.
On the other hand, she doesn’t owe anyone her life or her happiness. Just because she’s bisexual and in the public eye, she’s not required to be the perfect representation.
But making it about babies still feels like a lot.
“What about foster kids?” she asks Bellamy.
“Is it weird that I feel worse about those?”
“From a fame perspective?”
“Yeah. If we had a baby, a lot could change by the time the kid has grown up, like you said. But if we got a foster kid, I’d want someone older, and then we’d be having them sign onto–” He waves his hand. “All this.”
“Which they could do.”
“And then what?” Clarke cocks her head, confused, and he clarifies, “We’re not going to be on this show forever, right?”
They probably could be on the show forever, or on another one, if they got tired of this gimmick. But at the same time, their lives without the cameras are good too. Clarke couldn’t imagine keeping going with what she did in Should I Stay Or Should I Go after the show wrapped in part because what they did was so tied to the show itself. She could have kept on doing renovations–and she did–but the traveling around, the competition with Murphy, those things she’d lose.
And Bellamy, of course. If she and Bellamy hadn’t been together when the show wrapped, she would have let them recast Murphy, would have kept going just to stay with him. But now, she has a life. She and Bellamy are married and settled, with a shop that does well enough and jobs lined up all around the tri-state area. They’ve settled in as part of the community, the town’s best-known citizens, and they don’t need the show to keep that status. At some point, she’ll get tired of having cameras around. The logistics of cameras and reshoots and everything else will stop being worth it, and she’ll settle in to just being a person.
It could be soon.
“What if we just let them give us a kid?” she asks, the words coming out at the same time the idea is forming. “If we cast someone in the role of our foster kid. It doesn’t have to be real, it just has to be a good story. We spend a season talking about it, making up our minds, signing up for foster programs, and then we see one season of us as a family, and then–that can be it.”
“It?” he asks. “Done after five seasons?”
“I think maybe.” She taps her knee. “I don’t think–we’re never going to feel like we’re living our lives, as long as we’ve got the show. It’s always going to be about how it works on camera, what that means, you know?”
“Yeah, I know. That’s part of why I didn’t mind taking a bigger role, I think. For this show.”
“Really?”
He shrugs. “Not that I thought of it in those terms, but yeah. Even on Should I Stay Or Should I Go, I always knew the cameras were there, so taking on a bigger role wasn’t that different. It was fun. It’s still fun.”
“But it’s always a little fake.”
“Pretty much.”
“Whatever happens with kids, with family–I want that to be real.”
“Me too,” he says. “So–two more years, and we’re done? At least with this one.”
Clarke has to smile. “This one?”
“If we miss it, we could figure out something else. Something that isn’t about us. More business, less personal. Just if we want.”
“You’re going to miss being on TV.”
“I might,” he admits. “But I’m not sure. I want to find out.”
“So, two more seasons, one fake foster kid, and then we decide what we actually want to do with the rest of our lives.”
He smiles. “This, but with kids.”
“Something like that. I’ll ask Diyoza if casting a kid for us is actually a thing. If it’s not, we can just be–working on it, I guess. See how it goes.”
“It’ll be nice to not worry about that,” he admits. “Not having to think about whether or not we want something to be a part of the show.”
“Or feeling bad if we don’t put it in the show.”
“Or that.” He puts his arm around her and squeezes. “It’s still our life, Clarke. We don’t have to feel bad for wanting to keep some of it to ourselves, or all of it.”
“I know. But I’m looking forward to not having to pick and choose.”
“Yeah,” he agrees. “Can’t wait.”
*
The weird thing about getting older is that time starts to mean something different. Two years still sounds like a long time, but Clarke knows it’s going to fly by, especially once filming starts. The cameras eat up time in great gulps, and it’s not bad, but it means that a decision like “we’ll get a kid in one year and be done with the show in two” sounds like it won’t happen any time soon, but once the choice is made, everything goes very quickly.
They start filming a couple months after that conversation, and the first few renovations they do are all for families with small children. Bellamy’s a natural with kids, so he’s the one who does more interacting, asking them what they want for their rooms, how they want the yards remodeled. It makes something flip in Clarke’s chest every time she sees it, how natural he is, how much he clearly loves kids. Even if they hadn’t planned this, it would probably inspire her to start talking about next steps.
As it is, they’re about halfway through the season when she says, “Did we ever come to a conclusion about babies?”
“I thought we did. Did you not?”
“We agreed to do fake fostering and then figure it out. I think I figured it out: I want to have a baby.”
“Huh.”
“And probably foster too,” she adds. “We have plenty of room, and I know there are kids who need families, especially older ones, and I think we could be good at that. But we could do that and still have a baby.”
“We could, if you want. Do you want to start working on that soon?”
“Maybe once this season is over. Then if it works, we still don’t have to deal with having a newborn on the show.”
“And we have some time to get used to the idea.”
“You need time?”
“A little, yeah. Just to wrap my mind around it.”
“If you don’t want–”
He kisses her. “I want. I just thought you didn’t, so–I didn’t want to get my hopes up.”
“You could have just told me, too.”
“You’re the one who has to have a human grow inside you, your vote counts more.”
“Cool. My vote is that we talk to a doctor and start planning.”
“I like that plan.” He smirked. “It was me giving that girl a piggyback ride yesterday, right?”
“No,” she lies.
As usual, he sees right through her. “Of course it wasn’t. You were pretty cute not knowing how to hold the baby last week.”
“I can learn!”
“You can. It’ll be fun.”
“Fun,” she agrees, trying for dubious, but ruining it with an irrepressible smile. “Sure.”
*
There’s a part of Clarke that wants to cancel the foster-kid auditions once they’ve decided to actually start trying for a baby sooner or later, but a larger part of her is kind of morbidly curious. Diyoza’s looking for kids between nine and twelve, old enough to know what’s going on but young enough to still be cute, who are in the foster system for shorter stints with no real need of a forever home. It feels vaguely surreal, but probably fine, assuming everyone is on the same page and no one thinks they’re being taken advantage of.
So, of course, the first kid fixes them with a calculating stare and asks, “Are you getting a sponsorship or something for this?”
According to the profile Diyoza gave them, her name is Madison Templeton and she’s eleven years old. Her parents died when she was seven, so she’s been in the system for a while, living with various relatives. Her aunt is her current caretaker, but she’s been declared unfit and has to complete a course before regaining her rights. It’s a good position for the show, because the woman was able to grant the network rights to show her niece as a foster kid, but they won’t need to keep her for long.
It makes Clarke feel like she needs a shower.
“A sponsorship?” Bellamy asks.
“Or is it like a ratings stunt? You want to test drive adding a kid to the show before you commit.”
“This is the last season of the show,” says Clarke. “Ratings aren’t really a big deal anymore.”
“So you just want to get good PR before you go out?”
“We’re really thinking about fostering,” Clarke says. “Why not get started now?”
“But you’re just looking for kids you can’t actually keep. What’s up with that?”
“It seemed like the best solution when we were trying to figure stuff out,” Bellamy says. He cocks his head at her. “You don’t think so?”
“It seems kind of shitty. You give a kid a few months of the good life and then throw them away.”
“Don’t you just need a couple months?” Clarke asks. “And then you go back to your aunt?”
The girl considers for a moment, face twisting like she’s trying to find a way around it. “Yeah, but still.”
Bellamy is watching her with interest. “We don’t have to foster anyone. If you think it’s a bad idea.”
“If I do?”
“We wanted an older kid because we figured we could talk about what was happening with them and make sure everyone was on the same page. So, yeah, we want to know what you think. You’re the expert.”
Madison chews her lip, thinking it over. “I’ve been a lot of places,” she offers. “And every time I tell myself I’m not going to stay there, but I get my hopes up anyway. Like, even if my aunt takes the class and gets me back, I don’t think I’m going to be with her for that long. So you can tell some kid that this is just for a few months, but they’ll probably still be hoping you’ll keep them. You’re rich, right?”
“Pretty rich, yeah,” Clarke says. “The house isn’t that big, but we have plenty of money in savings. And more than enough room.” She wets her lips. “You don’t think your aunt is going to get custody back?”
“She will eventually, probably. But it’s not really a priority for her.”
“So what do you want?”
Madison looks surprised. “What do you mean?”
“You showed up,” says Bellamy, figuring out Clarke’s train of thought as easily as ever. “Did you just want to see what was going on? Or do you want a couple good months while your aunt gets her shit together?”
“I’d take the months if I could get them,” says Madison. “It sounds kind of interesting. Would I have to do anything?”
“Appear on camera occasionally, go along with reality TV stuff. Other than that, probably pretty standard foster-kid stuff. Go to school, do your homework, talk to us if you have problems.”
“If you pick me,” she says, careful. “You’ve got a bunch of kids to audition, right?”
“Talk to,” says Clarke, feeling uncomfortable. “They’re not auditions, just–getting a feel for people.”
She tries to convince herself it’s not a lie, but she and Bellamy make it through exactly one more interview before the guilt gnaws through her.
“We liked Madison, right?” she asks Bellamy.
“Yeah, we did.”
“And we’re going to pick her, right?”
He smiles. “We are?”
“Aren’t we?”
“Probably, yeah,” he admits. “You don’t want to keep going?”
“I feel like an asshole, making these kids line up for us.”
“Yeah, I feel that. It seemed normal, but I was picturing, like–actors. Not real foster kids.”
“Diyoza said it would be easy for people to figure out if it was just actors,” Clarke says, with a sigh. “But we know people don’t check, so I should have told her no.”
“But you didn’t, and you want to take Madison.”
“Like you don’t.”
He smiles with half his mouth. “It’s going to be a disaster.”
“You think?”
“We’re going to get attached and want to keep her.”
“But you still want to.”
“I still want to.”
He nods. “Me too. I’ll tell them we’re done with the meetings. We made up our minds.”
She still feels like a little bit of an asshole, but in the unavoidable way that comes from feeling like doing something is worse than doing nothing, because she can’t do everything. They could maybe take another foster kid, maybe even two, but they can’t take everyone who needs a place. And they might not even be a good place, after all. Starting with one kid and going from there is a better plan, and Madison will probably give them honest feedback about whether or not this is a good fit for them.
Despite everything, Clarke has a good feeling about this.
They go to pick her up the next day, find her outside the social services office with two duffel bags, apparently all the possessions she has. She watches as they drive up, eyes narrowed, loads up her stuff without comment. They drive most of the way back to the farm before she asks, “Why me?”
“We liked you,” says Clarke.
“That’s it?”
Bellamy shrugs. “It seemed like the best reason.”
She sits with the words for a long moment. “Yeah,” she finally says. “I guess so.”
*
They have a month to settle in before filming of the last season starts, and it’s definitely necessary. One of the nice things about Moving On Up, at least from Clarke’s perspective, is that the reality is always in the past tense. They went back and recreated the start of their relationship; Bellamy proposed off-screen months before the second season, which followed his attempts to come up with a sufficiently romantic gesture. The two of them were married a week before the big ceremony that happened on TV. If they’d had to deal with meeting Madison–who prefers Madi–and getting used to her in real time, on camera, it would have been incredibly stressful.
Not that getting to know her without cameras isn’t a lot. She’s a good kid and Clarke likes her, but she’s prickly, distrustful, and it takes time for them to get used to each other. She refuses to unpack her stuff because she could be gone any day, and Clarke wants to tell her she’s not going anywhere, even though she knows as well as Madi does that it’s true. Her aunt is still her guardian, and she’s a temporary part of the family.
By the time the cameras show up, they’re not perfect, but they’re at least mostly settled. Madi likes the dog and the farm, is coming to like Clarke and Bellamy despite her better instincts.
Bellamy’s the one who suggests they sit her down the day before filming starts to check in, but Clarke agrees it’s the best choice. At this point, they pretty much understand her, and it’s worth addressing their concerns now, before the cameras are around making everyone self-conscious.
“How are you feeling about filming?” Bellamy asks, to start them off.
Madi shrugs. “Fine. I don’t have to do much, right? Just be around?”
“Yeah. We’ll probably see you once or twice an episode, and the producers want you hanging around the store, but we’ll be doing most of the talking.”
“Saying how great it is?”
Her voice has an edge to it, and Clarke and Bellamy exchange a look before Clarke picks up the conversation. “It’s not bad, right?”
“No.”
“We’re not going to kick you out when the season ends. You have a place here for as long as you need one.”
She jerks up, eyes flashing. “What if my aunt never wants me back? What if she doesn’t care enough to get custody back?”
“Then you can stay,” says Bellamy. His voice is calm. “And if she does take you back, we’re not going anywhere. If you need us, we’ll be here for you.”
As is her way, Madi takes her time considering it. “You really mean that, don’t you,” she finally says, less a question than a revelation.
“We haven’t done the best job with this whole thing,” he admits, slow. “TV really does destroy your brain. We don’t know how to be people anymore, we’re paranoid and careful, even with–you’re a kid. Don’t argue,” he adds, smiling a little. “We’re older than you, we still get to call you a kid. You’re old enough to understand what’s going on, but that’s not enough.”
“It’s not?”
“We were never just planning to throw you away. If you need someone–you’ll always be family, Madi. Even if you don’t live with us for very long, that doesn’t change anything.”
“What if I never want to leave?” she asks, voice so soft Clarke can barely hear it.
“You’d have to talk to your aunt.” She puts her arm around Madi’s shoulders. “We can’t just take you, it’s still–she’d have to give you up.”
“She would,” Madi says. “She doesn’t want me.”
“We can talk to her,” Bellamy says. “If you want. It might take time, though.”
“Just like that?” Madi asks.
“If you want,” he says again.
“But you didn’t want to keep anyone.”
“You’re not anyone,” Clarke says, smiling. “You’re Madi. We want to keep you.”
*
The last episode of the show is Bellamy adding an extension to their own house, the first renovations they’ve ever done for themselves.
“You know we already have enough bedrooms, right?” Madi asks Bellamy. She took to reality TV like a fish to water, but Clarke doesn’t think she’ll miss it. She’ll find something else to be good at.
“It’s symbolic.”
“What does is symbolize?”
He glances up at Clarke, and she smiles. The pregnancy is small and new, enough that it hasn’t been confirmed in the show. They just had a conversation about wanting to try, leaving their fictional lives on a more uncertain note. The truth can just be theirs.
“Our family getting bigger. You don’t want more room?”
“I like room outside.”
“There’s still plenty of that. It’s not going anywhere.”
“And this way you’ll be farther away from any babies we have,” Clarke adds. “They won’t wake you up.”
“They still could. Babies are loud.”
“It’s good TV, that’s it,” Bellamy says. “Happy now?”
“Kind of. I figured we were good TV already.”
“People have spent a lot of time with us,” Clarke says. “They want closure. To feel like we’re happy and doing well. They want to know that we’re going to be okay.”
“And we are, right?” Madi asks, sounding only a little insecure. She mostly believes, these days. That they’ll be keeping her.
Clarke gives her a hug around the shoulders, her favorite kind of low-pressure affection. “Yeah. We’re going to be great.”
Hi! Whenever I hear the song 'Christmas Wrapping' by The Waitresses I think of a Bellarke modern AU based on it, with the two of them meeting and almost getting together all through a busy year, and it never working out, and then all sorting itself out at Christmas, and would love to read your take on it. Here's the link to a youtube vid with the lyrics in case you don't know the song: youtube. com/ watch?v=ARq6uYSsUq0 Good luck with all the writing, you're awesome!
hey y’all, due to the realities of “having shit to do over the hoildays,” I’ll be taking a few days off of posting after this! we’ll be back for the last seven fills starting Saturday, 12/29. however you are spending the rest of the week, I hope you enjoy it!
December
“You look miserable.”
Bellamy was zoning out, plotting out the rest of his (fairly grim) evening in his head and ignoring the sounds of the lodge party around him, but the unfamiliar voice startles him out of it and looks down to see a cute blonde wearing a truly hideous sweater and smiling up at him from under a reindeer-ear headband.
“You look shockingly upbeat,” he says without thinking, and she laughs.
“Haven’t you ever heard of Christmas cheer?”
He glances between her mug and her face. “So just a bunch of alcohol?”
“95% Bailey’s, 5% hot chocolate,” she agrees. “With whipped cream on the top.”
He has to smile. “So you’re saying I should be drunker.”
“I don’t know you or your life, but you are at a Christmas party. So, yes, you should be drunker and less sad. Unless you’re a mopey drunk, in which case you should be drunker and more sad.”
He laughs. “One, I’m not really at this party.”
The woman pointedly looks around, then back at him. “Are you astral projecting?”
“My sister works here, so she got me a deal on the room, but I’m not really doing any of the guest stuff. I just wanted coffee. Non-Irish.”
“Why aren’t you doing guest stuff? Just because you got a deal doesn’t make you not a guest. And feel free to tell me to leave you alone any time, I won’t be offended.”
“I’ll just leave once I’ve got my coffee,” he says, with a smile he hopes comes across as friendly and teasing, not smug. The woman is cute and also right: in theory, he really should be taking advantage of all the facilities at the lodge. Not that he’s ever much for parties, especially ugly-sweater parties, but he could at least be learning to ski or something. “I’m in grad school,” he explains. “I’m done for the semester, but I’m trying to get ahead for next semester. And I teach too, so–free time doesn’t really exist right now.”
“What are you studying?”
“Education. It’s a licensing thing, I can teach, but I need a masters’ for–” He waves his hand. “You don’t care.”
“Professional license?” she asks, to his surprise. “Or something like that. It’s a professional license in Massachusetts.”
“That’s where I’m getting mine, yeah.”
“What do you teach?”
“History.”
The woman nods, takes another sip of her drink. “I’m in Boston. I’m not a teacher, but I’m a social worker, so I talk to a lot of teachers about how the kids are doing. Are you done with grading?”
“Mostly,” he says, absent. The crowd clears enough he can get to the drinks table, and he’s glad when she follows him as he finds a mug and fills it up. “You’re in Boston?”
“Yeah.”
He laughs. “Wow, me too. What are the odds?”
“Probably not that bad. I think it’s mostly people from New England here. It’s a pain to get to Vermont.”
“I guess you’re right. What area of the city are you in?”
She’s not that close to him, but it’s not like it’s a huge city. He knows some of the schools she works with, and they have some acquaintances in common. He’s also competent enough to learn that her name is Clarke Griffin, she’s twenty-five, single, and bisexual, and she just keeps getting cuter and drunker. Which is actually kind of a problem, because in order to not feel scuzzy flirting with her, he’d have to get a lot drunker himself, and he still has stuff he really has to get done tonight.
“Are you here through the holiday?” he asks, once he’s stayed for as long as he possibly can without breaking out in anxiety hives.
“No, this is actually my last day. Our office doesn’t close except for Christmas day, so we always need coverage. My friend Raven said time is a construct, so we always go on vacation the week before Christmas to celebrate.”
He nods. “That sucks.”
“I don’t mind. The office is dead and I’m the only one around, it’s kind of nice. I catch up on paperwork and play my music really loud.”
He smiles. “I meant that you’re leaving here and I really can’t stick around tonight. Grading to finish up and papers to submit.”
“So you’re going to start having fun after I leave.”
“Probably not, but I’ll at least have maybe two hours of free time.”
“And I’m guessing it’s not any better once you get home.”
“I’m used to it.”
“Yeah, but I want to ask for your number. But if you never have free time–”
“If I get your number, I can get in touch when I do have free time.”
“Works for me.” They trade phones for the number exchange. “Good luck with the grading.”
“Good luck with not being too hungover tomorrow.”
“I’m good at not getting hungover.” She bites the corner of her mouth. “Do you think there’s any mistletoe around?”
“No idea.”
She leans up and kisses the corner of his mouth, light. “Well,just pretend. Merry Christmas, Bellamy Blake.”
He smiles. “Merry Christmas.”
February
Bellamy has three spring breaks, which is both better and worse than it sounds.
New England has this regional quirk where the K-12 schools have two spring breaks, one in February and one in April, which Bellamy would be fine with, except that colleges don’t do that, so he has a total of three weeks off over the course of the spring, but it’s never actually being totally off. When he’s not teaching, he’s still got grad school, and when grad school is off, he still has to teach.
Still, with teaching off his plate, he has a little more flex time, enough that he thinks he could, potentially, actually get a drink with Clarke.
There’s a part of him that thinks even asking is stupid. He liked Clarke, enjoyed talking to her and would like to do it more, but this year feels like the wrong time to attempt a new friendship, let alone a new romance. But pending getting in touch with her until after the summer semester seems risky, at best. He doesn’t want to miss out on something good just because he regularly realizes weeks have passed without his noticing.
And it’s not as if they’ve been completely out of touch. He was competent enough to text her the day after their first meeting, to make sure she’d made it home okay, and she in turn asked if he’d finished his grading. It hadn’t been a long conversation, but she’d texted him a few weeks later with a history question, and he’d checked in for advice about a student who was acting up. They’re both doing their best to keep the connection alive, tending to that small spark, and that means Bellamy can put in the effort to actually see her, now that he has some time.
Me: I sort of have a break coming up
Clarke: Sort of good for youWhat break?
Me: February break for high schoolI still have grad school stuff, but no teachingSo I probably have some amount of free time
Clarke: Shit
Me: Yeah, I hate some amount of free time too
Clarke: Not thatI’m chaperoning a trip for some of the kids at a group home over spring breakIt’s a great programReally coolI love doing itBut I’m going to be in California all week
Me: That does sound like a great programWhere in California?
Clarke explains the itinerary, where she’s most excited to go, what challenges she’s anticipating, and it’s sort of the whole Clarke problem in a nutshell. Part of him feels like he should take this as a sign it’s not meant to be, that he and Clarke will only ever be ships passing in the night and it’s pointless to fight it. But every time he talks to her, it reminds him of why he does like her, why he wants to figure out how this could work.
And, a week later, she’s texting him pictures of herself on a California vacation, so she wants to figure it out too.
It’s just a matter of time.
April
Me: Do you want to come to my birthday party?
Clarke: Yes, obviouslyBut I’m not going to get carried away and say I’m actually comingI think we might be cursed
Me: That would be a weird curse
Clarke: It would, but I’m not taking any chancesWhen’s your birthday?
Me: April 25
Clarke: Happy early birthdayTurning 30, right?
Me: Somehow, yeah
Clarke: I assume the party isn’t on the 25th
Me: No, on Friday
Clarke: This Friday?
Me: Yeah, I know it’s short noticeI wasn’t planning to do anything but then my friend talked me into it
Clarke: I think I can actually make it!Where and when?
Obviously, Bellamy doesn’t actually think they’re cursed, but he does have some trouble believing that Clarke will actually make it, or ]that it will actually be good if she does. Maybe she’ll show up and he’ll realize he doesn’t like her as much as he thought he did, that he’s too invested in a person he barely knows.
“Maybe you’re just scared because you haven’t had a crush in like five years,” Miller says, dry.
“It hasn’t been that long.”
“You sure?”
Bellamy frowns, trying to remember. “Gina and I dated three years ago, so–”
“Yeah, but she picked you up at a bar. It’s not like you had time to get in your head about it.”
“Clarke picked me up at a ski lodge.”
“And then left and you haven’t seen her for four months. And you’ve been in your head about it the whole time.”
This is probably both true and a large part of his problem. Bellamy’s pretty good at relationships, if he does say so himself, but actually getting intoa relationship is always rocky. Especially when he has a crush. Clarke is the worst of all worlds because it should be a slam dunk, but the universe is conspiring against them.
Right on cue, his phone buzzes with a text from her: So we might actually be cursed.
He groans. “Fuck, I think she’s canceling.”
Miller’s eyebrows shoot up. “Seriously?”
Clarke: I think I’m still going to make itBut one of my clients has a problem with her foster homeAnd I need to get her out and find somewhere else for her to goSo I’m going to be late to very lateI’ll text when I’m done to make sure you’re still thereSorry
Me: You really don’t have to apologizeGo help the kid I hope everything’s okay
Miller’s watching him. “So?”
“Work emergency. She’s delayed.” He sighs. “Honestly, if I didn’t know better, I’d say she just didn’t want to hang out, but she started it, and she keeps saying she wants to make this work.”
“Does she ever invite you to do stuff?”
“Yeah, every couple weeks, but she’s busy too. She works Tuesday to Saturday, so Fridays are usually out, and a lot of weird overtime. Or emergencies, like this.” He smiles with half his mouth, caught between amusement and weariness. “Last time she asked if I wanted to hang out, I was chaperoning a dance. The time before that, I was out of town.”
“So you two really do have the world’s shittiest luck.”
“From what I can tell, yeah. Even if she comes tonight, I have no idea when our schedules are going to work out again.”
“But you’re going to keep trying?”
He takes a drink of his beer, shoots Miller a sidelong glance. “What, you think I shouldn’t?”
“Nah, just surprised. I sort of figured you’d just give up on the whole thing. Decide this was the universe’s way of telling you that it wasn’t meant to be. I probably couldn’t even make fun of you for giving up at this point.”
“I want it to work,” he says. “Or at least give it a fair shot.”
“Huh.” Miller raises his glass. “Then I hope she shows.”
“Yeah, me too.”
She texts at 10:30 to ask if he’ll still be there in fifteen minutes, and he probably wouldn’t be staying much longer left to his own devices, but she’s worth waiting for.
It doesn’t occur to him until she sits down next to him that this is his first time seeing her in person since December. It’s a little disorienting, how rarely they’ve actually been together, relative to how much he likes her.
“Hey, happy birthday,” she says.
“Thanks. Everything okay? With the kid.”
“It’s not great. Her foster dad was making her really uncomfortable. We got her out for the night, but she’ll need a new placement, and we probably have to do an investigation into the family.”
“That sucks.”
“It does, but I’m done with it for the night, so–I’m all yours. Is anyone else still around?”
“I made them leave so they wouldn’t make fun of me.”
“For waiting around for me?”
“For being shitty at flirting.”
She grins, the brightness of it lighting up her whole face. “You don’t really need to do a lot of flirting. I’m pre-picked up.”
“I like flirting.”
“But you’re shitty at it.”
“I’m practicing.”
She laughs. “Well, at least you know it’s going to work.”
“That helps.” He leans in, his own smile huge. “So, do you come here often?”
“First time. But I’m hoping to come back.”
They stay for another two hours and make out in their Lyft, but when Clarke asks if he wants to come up to her place, he shakes his head.
“I’ve got stuff to do tomorrow, and I don’t–” He smiles, a little sheepish. “I don’t know when I’m going to see you again, and I don’t want it to be, like–”
“We sleep together and don’t see each other for another four months?”
“Pretty much.”
“Yeah, that makes sense.” She leans over for one more kiss. “Happy birthday, Bellamy.”
“Thanks.”
June
Clarke: So, is summer less busy for you?
Me: Usually yes
Clarke: But we’re cursed?
Me: Twelve-month masters. I have one more summer term to goPlus I’m going on vacation with my sisterBut in theory next fall is going to be better
Clarke: In theory?
Me: I’ll be done with school but we might still be cursedI don’t want to jinx it
Clarke: TrueFingers crossedKeep me posted
August
Me: Good news/bad news
Clarke: Your vacation got canceled so you can hang out with me next week?
Me: Close The AP history teacher just quitAnd they want me to replace herWhich is awesome, I really want to be teaching that classBut she took all her materials and left with no noticeSo I’m going to be scrambling to come up with an entire APUSH curriculum
Clarke: So you’re going to be really busy next semester
Me: I’m going to be really busy next semester
Clarke: I got a promotion so Kind of similar boat thereI was going to tell you whenever or I saw youOr whenever it kept me from seeing youWhichever came first
Me: You tooGlad everything else in our lives is going well
Clarke: It could be worseNothing could be going well
Me: YeahStill, we should at least get drinks to celebrate
Clarke: Probably sometime in October
Me: That sounds rightSee you then
Clarke: It’s a tentative date
October
Clarke: Am I allowed to booty call you?
Bellamy’s buried under a pile of grading, but the sound of the phone pulls his attention back, and he finds it and stares at the message for a long second, trying to do the math in his head. Clarke is at a Halloween party that he was theoretically invited to, but he was just too slammed.
No is an acceptable answer pops up and he smiles.
Me: No, you should definitely come overBooty calls are very welcomeDo you have my address?
Clarke: I actually don’tAre you easily accessible via public transportation
Me: Yeah but on the green lineSo
Clarke: That’s fineI’m in Cambridge, I’ll take the train over and sober upSee you soon
Amazingly, the knowledge that Clarke is coming over doesn’t completely break his concentration. If anything, it actually motivates him more, because he wants to be done and have his full focus on his–whatever Clarke is. His pending girlfriend, maybe. The person he’s definitely going to date when they can just get their acts together.
The person he’s spending tonight with, for sure.
Things go wrong five minutes after she gets on the red line.
Clarke: We’re standing by between Central and Harvard
Me: Did they say why?
Clarke: I assume signal problemIt’s always signal problemAnyway, I might be a while
Me: That’s fineJust let me know when you get here
In theory, it’s about forty minutes on the red line to the green line, but Clarke stands by at every station between Harvard and Park Street, and then her next train goes out of service and Symphony, so it ends up being a full two hours before she arrives, exhausted and still dressed in Hogwarts robes.
“I don’t even want to get laid anymore, I just want to pass out.”
Bellamy smiles, pulling her into his arms. “Yeah, I don’t blame you. Do you want to sleep here?”
“If you don’t mind.”
He kisses her hair. “I wanted to see you, or course I don’t want you to just leave. You want the tour?”
“I assume it’s short.”
“It is. And it ends at the bed.”
It’s nice, having Clarke in his space. He loans her a t-shirt to sleep in and she gets settled while he brushes his teeth and gets ready himself. He hasn’t had anyone sleep over since he and Gina broke up, and it’s nice, the way she curls around him and exhales like there’s nowhere else she’d rather be.
“This girl was hitting on me at the party,” she murmurs.
“Yeah? Was she cute?”
“She was. But it was like–I have someone. Or I want to have someone, I guess. I don’t know why I’d hook up with someone else when I just want to be with you.”
He pulls her closer, rubs his thumb against her shoulder. “Yeah, I’m glad you came here. I know it’s been–rough.”
“It’s not just you. I’ve been busy and held up and–” She presses her lips against his chest. “It feels like maybe this wasn’t supposed to happen, but I still want it to.”
“Me too. But I have somewhere to be early tomorrow so–”
“So we’ll catch up later.”
He smiles. “Yeah, we always do.”
December
The thing about Christmas is that it is, by mutual communal agreement, a big deal. It’s not one of those holidays where you just sort of celebrate it with whoever you’re with; spending Christmas with someone means something.
So Bellamy figures he’ll ask Clarke if she wants to hang out after the holiday. He knows she’s doing her usual trip with Raven and working the holiday, so he figures he can check in once the dust has settled, maybe make some plans with her for New Year’s.
He never lies about what he’s doing, but he feels weird telling her. It feels so dramatic and stupid, opting out of the holiday, and he doesn’t want her to feel like she has to hang out with him.
Which is also stupid. It’s stupid all the way down.
But somehow, it feels like next year is going to be better. After a year of playing phone tag and trying to make things work, they’re still trying. And he’s getting into the groove of teaching AP and Clarke isn’t going to work on weekends anymore and they might be able to make time to see each other more than once every few months.
It doesn’t feel like he needs to rush it now. They’re already taking their time, so they might as well do it right.
So New Year’s with Clarke. That seems doable. And he’ll relax until then.
She sends a bunch of pictures from her vacation in Florida, which means selfies in a bathing suit and sunglasses, pretty much the best Christmas present ever, and when she gets back and asks what he’s up to, he admits that he’s around and free.
His phone rings immediately. “You’re in Boston doing nothing right now?” she demands.
“I’m playing video games, it’s not nothing.”
There’s a pause. “You don’t want to see me?”
He scrambles up, even though she can’t see him. “Fuck, of course I do.”
“But you weren’t going to tell me you were here?”
“It’s Christmas Eve.”
“And?”
“I thought it might be weird. I’m not even doing anything, just sitting at home alone. It’s not like–” He sighs. “I didn’t want it to be a big deal.”
“It’s not. Can I come over?”
“Yeah, of course.”
Half of him expects the train to fuck her over again, or for something else to go wrong, but he tidies up a little anyway, just in case she really does show up. He wishes he had a tree, or at least a few lights, but it’s too late for that.
It’s not like Clarke’s coming to see his (lack of) decorations anyway. He’s the big draw.
“I can’t believe it’s only been two months since I saw you,” he teases, when she arrives, but Clarke isn’t fooling around. She yanks him down by the front of his shirt, mouth crashing into his, and Bellamy laughs into the kiss. “Hi.”
“Hi. Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas.” He tucks her hair behind her ear. “I figured we’d just hang out after the holiday.”
“Which is a total waste of two days we could be hanging out. I thought you were hanging out with your sister again.”
“I was going to, but then I realized I don’t have anything to do for vacation.”
“And you didn’t tell me.”
“I didn’t want to ask you to come spend Christmas with me. It seemed weird. We’re not even–are we dating?”
“Not very often.”
“I think this is going to be our year. I’m finally going to have enough time to be a real person. Or at least to be your boyfriend.”
“New Year’s resolution?”
“If there’s one thing I learned this year it’s that you’re worth prioritizing.”
“Yeah?”
“I spent a whole year wishing I was seeing you. I don’t want to do that again.”
“But you wanted to wait until December 26th to see me,” she teases.
“Sorry. Do you want to spend Christmas watching Netflix on my couch and making out? I didn’t get you anything and I’m planning to have mac and cheese for dinner. It’s not going to be glamorous.”
“Am I going to see you again in the next week?”
“As much as you want, yeah. School’s out until after New Year’s, so I’ve got plenty of time.”
“Perfect. I want to get laid.”
He laughs. “I can’t believe you waited a whole year for this. Most people who have just given up by now.”
“It’s like you don’t even know how hot you are.” Her expression softens, and she leans in, giving him a soft kiss. “You’re worth waiting for, Bellamy.”
“And you’re worth making time for.” He tugs her toward the couch, and they settle in, close and warm.
Somehow, it feels like Christmas. No tree, no presents, not even any snow, but warm and happiness and–love, probably. The start of it, at least. Something growing.
“This is going to be our year,” he says, and she smiles.
