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chasholidays · 6 years

Note

1st Christmas timestamp of "Two Voices, Now They Are Singing"

Original fic here!

Christmas, for Clarke, hasn’t been very exciting or notable for a good few years now. When she was a child, she got as caught up in it as anyone, the spectacle of it, the music and the presents and the atmosphere. And she didn’t ever lose that, exactly, but it was easy to feel, as she grew older, that the holiday didn’t deliver on its promise. Especially after her father died, she and her mother didn’t do much more than exchange a gift or two, something practical, usually, have dinner, and attend mass. It’s not a bad day, and when she was teaching, she appreciated having the break from classes, but it’s not like it was when she was a child.

Or at least it wasn’t. Now, though, she has a child of her own, and a family, and Christmas has an entirely new meaning.

It starts with the tree.

“You cut your own?”

Bellamy frowns. “How else would we get one?”

“They have tree lots. The trees are already cut for you.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

After nine months of being married to Bellamy, Clarke finally feels as if she’s getting used to her husband. She had known him before, of course, but most of what she knew about him came after her pregnancy, and it’s been a strange, uneven road of getting to know him since then. She knows about his family history, his sister, his mother, but she only recently learned his middle name.

“Getting the tree was never really the most fun part of Christmas for me.”

“Because you didn’t cut your own, obviously.”

She has to smile. “Obviously. Is the baby coming? Is this important for her to witness this?”

“She’s making Christmas memories, Clarke.”

“She’s not even three months old, she doesn’t have memories yet.”

He leans over to let Julia wrap her little hands around his finger, smiling his usual warm smile. There had been a part of Clarke that worried about the baby being born, that couldn’t help wondering if once she was born, he wouldn’t love either of them as much as he’d thought he had. It had seemed like it would be easy, to think you wouldn’t mind raising another man’s child, only to find the reality of it upsetting.

But Bellamy doesn’t seem to think he’s raising another man’s child. He’s raising his own daughter, and he adores her.

Sometimes, Clarke remembers that she is quite exceptionally lucky.

“Do you think that?” he asks, distracting her from her thoughts.

“What?”

“I know she won’t really remember,” he says. “Not anything specific. But I think she’ll remember some part of it. I remember being unhappy before I remember knowing why.”

“Really?”

He shrugs. “I don’t think it ruined my life. But I want her to know we love her before she knows anything else.”

“And that means she needs to come cut down a Christmas tree with us?” she asks, leaning her chin against his shoulder. “So she’ll know?”

“She comes with us most places, right? It’s this or leave her with Octavia.”

“I wasn’t objecting. But I wasn’t expecting you to have a lot of Christmas traditions, I guess.”

“My mom never did much, so I was in charge. And it was nice to have–” He shrugs. “When we were little, we couldn’t afford much, so we’d always get two big presents a year, Christmas and our birthdays. It was always a pretty big deal for us. And now we’ve got Julia,” he adds, picking up the baby and giving her a bounce. “I haven’t really done that much for Christmas recently, but I want her first one to be good.”

Clarke has to smile. “Because you want her to be happy.”

“You say that like it’s weird. Of course I do. I want her entire life to be as happy as possible. Don’t you?”

“Well, yes. I just didn’t think Christmas was such a big part of that.”

“I don’t know if it’s such a big part,” he says. “Might as well find out.”

In no time at all, their little house is full of Christmas cheer. First it’s the tree, and some boughs of holly and evergreen, and then Bellamy strings up lights and Octavia puts up bows and snowflakes. Bellamy brings home armfuls of Christmas cards and treats from school, and it still makes her heart twinge strangely to see them addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Blake. When she got those in years past, she tended to just read them and put them aside, but Bellamy likes displaying them around the apartment, and Clarke gets sucked in without really planning to, just because he has absolutely no aesthetic sense at all.

Or he was baiting her into helping. Either way, she’ll admit she enjoys herself.

Presents are a little more complicated. Clarke doesn’t have a lot of friends, not of the kind she has to buy gifts for. In years past, she made cookies and gave them out in small packets; she thinks she even gave them to Bellamy last year, along with the rest of her coworkers, and it’s staggering to remember how slight her impression of him was, back then. He’d always struck her as brusque and a little grumpy, but in a way she liked. He’d been handsome, of course, and the students liked him, which always improved her opinion of people.

But she didn’t even know his first name, somehow. She’d written Mr. Blake on the tag and not given it a second thought.

“What do you think your brother wants for Christmas?” she asks Octavia.

“Things for the baby.”

Clarke smiles. “I don’t think I can buy him things for the baby.”

“You could, he wouldn’t mind. I’m going to.”

“But he’s going to get me something.”

“Oh, yes, obviously. He’ll probably get you a lot of things. Bell loves Christmas.”

“So I need to buy him something. Any ideas?”

“You don’t have to get him something, he won’t be offended if you don’t. But you know him, he’s not hard to shop for. School supplies, books, he likes all that stuff.”

“It’s not very special.”

“Just tell him how much you love him or something. He likes giving people presents, that’s his big thing. It makes him happy. If that’s not your thing, he won’t mind.”

It’s clearly a perspective Octavia finds comforting, but it only makes Clarke feel worse. Bellamy’s absolutely going to find some amazing gift for her, and if she doesn’t find one for him, it’s going to be awful.

So she goes to Miller.

“Do you not have friends?” he asks, squinting at her.

“Not many,” she admits. “Besides, you’re his best friend. I want advice about him. Why wouldn’t I ask you?”

“Because I just give him booze for every holiday. I assume you don’t want to do that.”

“Not really.”

Miller regards her. “Look, I’m just going to tell you this once,” he says. “Or, whatever, I’d probably tell you more if you wanted, just don’t make me. Bellamy’s going to love whatever you get, because he’s legitimately crazy about you, and you make him happy. So, like–get him something you think he’ll like and he will.”

“And this is why I came to you for advice,” she says. “Thank you.”

He smiles, just a little. “Like I said, let’s not do this more often. Merry Christmas.”

Two weeks before Christmas, packages start arriving.

“Bellamy, this is way too much.”

He shakes his head, looking about as confused as she feels. “These aren’t from me. Give me some credit,” he adds, regaining some of his equilibrium and flashing her a smile. “I know how to be subtle.”

“Do you?”

“You haven’t found any of your presents yet, so obviously I do. I think these are from your mother.”

“My mother?”

“That’s what it looks like. Addressed to Julia Blake, so we know it’s not for us.”

“I’m sure there’s something for us in there, but–I wonder how much she’s going to send.”

“We knew Julia was going to get the most presents.”

“Is she?” she asks, wary. “How many presents are you hiding for me?”

“Just three. And two are small.”

“How do you define small?”

“Roughly equivalent to books. I didn’t think you liked making a big deal of it.”

“No. I’m trying to figure out how much I should be getting you,” she admits.

“As much as you want. But not this much,” he adds, looking at the packages. “This is excessive.”

“I want to be getting you as much as you get me.”

He thinks it over. “I’m getting you one larger present that I think is going to be meaningful. And then two smaller things I think you’ll like. If you want a budget I can give you one, but I think it’s more about emotional impact.”

“That actually makes me feel a lot better,” she admits.

He leans over to kiss her. “I know. I am actually getting to know you,” he teases. “You don’t have to worry, Clarke. I’ll be happy with anything you get me. And I assume you’ll be happy with anything I get you.”

“Of course. And Julia’s too young to know what’s going on, so she’ll be happy no matter what. So as long as we get something nice for Octavia, we’ll all have a merry Christmas.”

“You don’t sound worried about that.”

“I was going to take her out shopping. I assume she’d hate any clothes I bought her, so she can just do it herself.”

“Perfect. Can I just contribute funds to that and call it a day?”

“She’s not getting three presents too? She’ll be counting.”

“Small stuff is easy.”

“Easy for you,” she says.

He squeezes her arm. “You’ll be fine. I’m already having a great Christmas. With all these gifts from your mother, how could I not be?”

“Obviously,” she says, unable to hide her smile. “How could you not?”

Three days later, she stumbles on his present, completely by accident. She’s with Julia, looking for an outfit for Christmas mass, when she sees a display of merchandise for new parents.

It’s not as if she thinks Bellamy doesn’t consider himself Julia’s father. She knows he does. That’s how she refers to him, and how he refers to himself. As far as almost everyone else in the world is concerned, there isn’t even a question.

But she’s gotten to know him too, by now, and she knows he still thinks of it sometimes, that he’s still aware. And it’s an awareness that nags at him, every now and then.

So she doesn’t buy any of the products they have at the store, but now that she has a plan, it doesn’t bother her that she doesn’t think his big present is going to cost very much. It’s not really about price, after all.

It’s meaningful. That’s the important thing.

They’re having Christmas morning in their own house, on their own, and then Bellamy and Clarke will go see Clarke’s mother for dinner while Octavia stays home, which everyone agrees counts as an additional present for her. Clarke’s not entirely looking forward to it, but Abby wants to see her grandchild for the holiday, and it’s hard to object to that.

Still, her present to Bellamy feels private, so she wakes him up early.

“Isn’t Julia supposed to be the one who can’t wait for morning?” he grumbles, when she shakes his arm. “Fuck, what time is it?”

“We have half an hour before breakfast.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want your sister to see me give you your present.”

“I’d assume it was sex, but we’re waiting another week on that.”

“It’s not sex. It’s just–private.”

He yawns, but does drag himself into a sitting position. “Mine probably is too, come to think of it. O would just make fun of me.” He gives her a quick peck. “Merry Christmas. Is mine under the tree?”

“Not the one I want to give you now.”

“Let me go grab yours and I’ll be back.”

Bellamy’s present is waiting in the closet, and Clarke rescues it from its hiding place and returns to the bed, sitting cross-legged. Bellamy doesn’t take long downstairs, returning with one of the small packages that had appeared under the tree with her name on it last week.

“I thought it was going to be a bigger one,” she says, giving the box a careful shake.

“Size isn’t everything, Clarke. You go first.”

“Why me?”

“Christmas tradition. Youngest to oldest. You’re younger than I am, so–”

“You made up that rule so Octavia would get to go first, didn’t you?”

“Like she needed the excuse. Go ahead.”

She takes the wrapping off carefully, and, as she expected he would, Bellamy folds it up to save for later. The box is instantly recognizable as a jewelry box, and she opens it to find a delicate silver chain with a hoop-shaped pendant.

“I wanted to–” He smiles a little, sheepish. “I know you have a perfectly good wedding ring, but you got that before we were–before it was real. I wanted to give you something else, something that says–”

She catches his mouth for a kiss. “I love you too. Put it on for me?”

She pulls her hair up, and he fastens the clasp around her neck. It’s something she would have happily bought for herself, and the realization sends a thrill through her. Looking back now, she remembers telling him these things, that she prefers gold to silver, that she favors simple designs without too much ostentation. It had been months and months ago, when Christmas wasn’t even on the horizon.

“It’s perfect, Bellamy. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. My turn?”

“Your turn.”

Her package is larger, and when he feels the weight of it, he smiles. “You got me a private book?”

“Just open it.”

He does as he’s told, sliding his finger under each strip of tape to pull it up, the paper coming out even cleaner than Clarke’s had, for all the care she took. But his hands still in the folding when he realizes what he’s actually looking at, and Clarke’s the one to take the paper.

“Family Photo Album,” he reads, fingers tracing the title.

“I know we have photographs of her,” she says. “Of all of us. But I wanted somewhere better to keep the best ones than a shoe box. There are already some in there, but there’s room for plenty more.”

He opens it up, smiles at the first one, the two of them in a picture her mother insisted on taking so she could announce the marriage before the baby came along.

“Mom and Dad?” he asks, glancing up from the caption in surprise.

“That’s our role in the family.”

“It is.” He smiles at the next one page, Dad and Julia and Julia and Aunt Octavia, and laughs aloud at Dad and Aunt Octavia, a Christmas picture of the two of them as children that Octavia had managed to find. “This is–I can’t believe we didn’t have one already.”

“Well, we’re still new at being a family,” she says. “We haven’t gotten everything figured out yet.”

“No,” he agrees, closing the album and leaning over to kiss her again. “But I think we’re getting close. Should we just go downstairs? Get a start on Christmas breakfast?”

“That sounds perfect,” she says. “Why wait?”

#peachfacedlovebirds

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ponyregrets · 7 years

Note

there's this muscle tee on lookhuman that says never apologize for your bad mythology puns, so what if bellamy wears is and all of a sudden longtime friend clarke is alarmed by her sudden attraction to him because ARMS

AO3!

If anyone had asked Clarke, she obviously would have said that Bellamy is hot, the same as she'd say that Raven is hot, or Lincoln, or Monty, or Octavia, or any of her friends. She has a very attractive friend group. They could definitely be on a generic sitcom or soap opera. She'd watch that.

And Bellamy would probably be the most popular one, because he's attractive and surly and sarcastic, and there would probably be a thriving slash fandom for people who shipped him and Murphy, like he and Miller wouldn't be way better. Fandom loves antagonist relationships and white dudes. Clarke knows how it is.

But that's the kind of hot she thinks of Bellamy as being: theoretical and objective. It's not a hotness that affects her, really. Sometimes she'll catch his smile at just the right angle, or or he'll be too lazy to put his contacts in, and she'll remember that he's notably and somewhat remarkably attractive, but it usually passed pretty quickly.

And then his thirtieth birthday rolls around.

"Thirty," he says, morose. He's poking at his yogurt with an expression like he doesn't trust it.

"I know how old you are, yeah," says Clarke. "That's why I put a candle in your yogurt."

"Yeah, that really helped."

"I really don't get what the big deal is. Do guys freak out about turning thirty? Is that a thing?"

"It's the twenty-first century. Everyone can freak out about everything. Gender roles are dead or dying."

"Seriously," she says, poking his arm. "Is this actually an issue for you?"

"I'm not thrilled about it," he admits. "Just--thirty."

"You keep saying that like it's somehow going to clear things up for me."

"You know what I thought my life would look like at thirty?"

"When? I'm pretty sure you had pretty realistic ideas about it, like--yesterday."

"Clarke."

"Bellamy."

"I thought I'd be--settled," he says, finally. "Married, maybe a kid. I know that's stupid," he adds. "Thirty's not that old, my life is good, I'm happy. It just still feels like something to reevaluate."

Clarke sobers, feeling a little guilty. "Do you want to be married with a kid?"

"Not really. Married wouldn't be bad," he adds. "But I'm not miserably single or anything. Just--"

"Thirty's a big deal. I get it, I'm too young to understand. I'm only twenty-seven, so--"

"God, you're an asshole," he says, laughing.

"Seriously, thirty isn't that old. And your life is amazing."

"Is it?"

"You're a great teacher, you can actually afford to live alone, you have a sister who loves you, good friends, an awesome best friend--"

"Yeah, Miller's the best," he teases.

"He is." She nudges his foot. "Honestly, Bellamy. I know thirty feels like a big deal, but--if you want to get married, you'll get married. We could get you on a dating app. You could lie about being a huge nerd so people will like you."

"Yeah, lying is a good start to every relationship."

He's smiling again, but she can't help worrying. Bellamy can be kind of vain and definitely overthinks things, but if he's stressed, she always wants to help. Just because whatever is stressing him out feels a little silly, she's not just going to ignore it.

Which is why she starts thinking about Bellamy's romantic prospects, and that's really the first issue.

The second issue is Octavia's birthday present, which she'd like to think would be fine, if she wasn't worried about Bellamy dating, and how it actually really has been a while since Gina, and she hasn't actually noticed him hooking up either. And it makes no sense to her, because Bellamy is a great prospect, and he deserves to be happy.

All of which she's thinking about when he pulls a t-shirt out of the bag his sister handed to him at his birthday gathering, barking out a laugh when he sees the text. "Never apologize for your bad mythology puns," he reads, showing the group the shirt. "Your name is historical, by the way. Not mythological. You can stop complaining about that."

"Like you haven't gotten drunk and ranted about how history becomes myth on multiple occasions," Clarke teases.

"Shut up," he says, but he's still smiling. He puts his arm around his sister and presses a sloppy kiss to her temple. "Thanks, O. Appreciated. I'm never going to wear this."

"Are you kidding?" asks Raven. "You have to put it on now."

"Yeah, birthday clothes go on immediately," says Monty. "That's a rule."

"A rule?" he asks, sounding both amused and dubious. "I need a source on that."

"Wikipedia," Clarke says, grinning. "Come on, Bellamy."

He shoots her a look she can't quite read, and then he shakes his head and unbuttons his shirt.

It seems impossible that she hadn't ever seen Bellamy without a shirt before, although as soon as she thinks of that, she realizes she's certainly never seen Monty or Miller or Lincoln shirtless either. They haven't gone swimming together, so why would they be casually shirtless? It's not particularly normal to see friends in states of undress. This is a very normal thing to have not experienced.

So of course she's never seen Bellamy shirtless, and the sight of him knocks the breath out of her. He goes to the gym, so she assumed he was in decent shape, but he's not obviously huge and built like Lincoln is. But he looks so much bigger without his shirt on, broad and firm, all perfectly toned chest and stomach, freckles thick on his shoulders and trailing down from there, as if they were poured on and dripped over his body.

He's only without the shirt for about fifteen seconds while he makes sure the new shirt is oriented correctly and pulls it on, and that should make it better, but the shirt looks to be about two sizes too small, and all it does is emphasize all the muscles Clarke now knows exist and make his arms look comically huge.

Everyone else is looking too, so she doesn't feel bad, but--how can he possibly be single? Even if no one knows he's secretly sweet and caring and wonderful, someone else must have noticed that he's probably the most attractive person in the history of the world. She can't believe she didn't notice. It feels like she must be the last to know.

"Like it?" he asks, and Clarke tries not to startle too obviously. He's asking the group, but he's looking at her.

"You look like a giant dork, Bell," Octavia says, happily.

"It's cute," Clarke tries, and immediately regrets it. It's not what she's actually thinking, which is that she wants to take it off him with her teeth, but it's too far the other way, inadequate but also kind of weird.

But he smiles. "Yeah?"

"Dorks are in," she says, and he ducks his head. She has to fight the urge to crawl into his lap and map the contours of his chest, and she really needs this to wear off. It's just a weird fluke, definitely. One of those odd spots of remembering that her best friend really is an attractive guy, the kind that will pass, like all the others.

And maybe it would, if he would just stop wearing the shirt, like he said he would. If she never saw it again, maybe she'd forget it. But a week later, they're at Monty and Miller's for game night, and he's wearing it again, and then at Octavia's cookout the next week, and it's suddenly impossible to ignore how much she wants him.

Which is why she decides to get him a significant other.

It seems like the simplest solution, completely logical and reasonable. Infidelity makes her itchy, and she's basically incapable of being attracted to people who are in relationships. If Bellamy gets a girlfriend or a boyfriend, the feelings will shut off, like she's hitting a switch.

"You should get Tinder," she tells him.

They're grabbing dinner after work, which means he's not wearing the t-shirt, but she's permanently broken now, so she can't help catching the pull of muscles under his button-down, aware of what's waiting beneath. And that's ignoring the renewed appreciation of his face, his smile and his laugh and the way his eyes soften when he looks at her.

It's such a fucking problem.

"Like, firewood?" he asks. "For what?"

"It's an app."

"For firewood?"

"Do you seriously not know what Tinder is?"

"No idea."

"It's a dating app."

"And I should get it."

"You're worried about being single, right? Thirty, not married?"

"I'm not really worried about that. Crisis over. I'm good. Thirty doesn't really feel nearly as different as I thought it would. And I'm not in a rush to get married."

"But you should date."

He looks amused. "Yeah? Why?"

"Why wouldn't you?"

"You don't date."

"I don't not date," she says.

"Do you have Tinder?"

"No."

"So why should I get it? I'm not looking to hook up with random strangers, Clarke," he says, and it sounds so oddly specific that she wants to object. "Really. I'm good."

"You haven't dated anyone since Gina."

"You haven't dated anyone since Lexa," he shoots back. "Is it a competition now?"

"I didn't have a breakdown about my birthday."

"It wasn't a breakdown. Just a mild--" He huffs. "It's a milestone, and that makes you think about where you are and where you want to go, okay? But--where I want to be isn't online dating, okay?"

"So where is it?" she asks.

He bites the corner of his mouth, and she wants to lean in, catch his lips with hers. She's been thinking about it way too much, kissing Bellamy. She's seen him kiss a few people, and she didn't realize she remembered what it looked like until she started thinking about it, but she does, and she wants it for herself. He looks like he'd be good at it.

"Here," he says. "I just want to be here."

It's a nice sentiment, and Clarke should listen to it, but she has a problem that she needs to solve, and that problem is that just being with Bellamy isn't enough for her anymore, and she needs to get that back.

So she goes to Raven.

"I want to set Bellamy up with someone."

Raven looks unimpressed. "Why?"

"Because he's single."

"So? He can be single. You're single. I'm single. You starting a dating service?"

"I think he'd like a relationship."

"Nope," says Raven, effortless. "Try again."

"He was talking about how he thought he'd be married when he was thirty."

"Then he can find a spouse."

She huffs, gives up. "He's hot, okay?"

"And?"

"And I want him to date someone else so I'll stop thinking about how hot he is."

Raven pauses, looks at her. "So, wait, you somehow only just noticed Bellamy's hot?"

"It just became a problem," she says.

"You just noticed that you're into your best friend and favorite person in the whole fucking world, and you think he wants to date someone, and your solution is to hook him up with someone else?"

Clarke opens and closes her mouth a few times, trying to understand the words. Of course she's hooking him up with someone else. It's not like she can date him. She can't. Because--she can't. He wouldn't.

"Someone he actually wants to date," she says, and Raven rolls her eyes.

"You run that past him?"

"He didn't want to sign up for Tinder."

"Clarke," says Raven.

"What are you expecting me to say to him? I just realized I want to make out with you, are you interested?"

"You think he'd say no?"

It's a tough question. Clarke has those friends, the ones she'd kiss in a second, if they asked. Raven would have been one, was, right up until--

Right up until she stopped being able to think about kissing anyone except Bellamy.

"I don't want to stop at making out," she admits.

"You're the one who said you wanted to make out with him, so--"

"I know." She puts her head down on the table, groaning. "I just want to stop feeling like this. If he was dating someone else--"

She feels Raven's hand petting her hair. "Pretty sure that wouldn't work. You could just tell him you're in love with him."

"I'm not," she says, on reflex.

"You sure?"

She wants to say yes, but she knows she's not actually that shallow. Lust happens to her, has happened before and will probably happen again, but this is different.

"No," she says.

"Maybe figure that out and go from there," says Raven. "And don't try to set him up with anyone but yourself."

It's good advice, even if the only reason she takes it is that once Raven's said it, she can't stop thinking about it. She'd say she's been in love before, first with Finn and then with Lexa, but those were easy. Simple. She was dating them and the relationships progressed to a point where she was in love, and then they ended at some point and the love didn't exactly go away, but it stopped being the same kind of love. The whole thing followed a natural arc. She started the relationships with relatively little investment, and then fell in love once she'd gotten to know them.

But it's not as if she needs to get to know Bellamy. As Raven said, he is her best friend and favorite person, and now that she thinks about it, why wouldn't she be in love with her favorite person? It's so entirely logical that she feels stupid for not realizing it sooner. Of course she's in love with Bellamy.

The revelation doesn't really help matters. How do people just say they're in love? She tends to make out with people and go from there, but she doesn't know how to make out with Bellamy, and has even less idea of what else to do.

So she avoids him. She bails on their usual Monday-morning breakfast, claiming she overslept. When game night rolls around, she says she's feeling tired. When he texts and asks if she's okay, she assures him she is, and when he asks if he can come over to watch TV, she says she think she's coming down with a cold.

It's not the mature way to deal with the situation, but she doesn't really know how to look at him yet, so she can't be spending time with him. Not until she figures it out.

But this is Bellamy, and he's her best friend, so on Saturday morning, he shows up at her place.

He doesn't call first, but when her doorbell buzzes, she's sure it's him. No one else would come to see her without warning, and she's sort of been expecting it. She can't remember the last time they went this long without seeing each other, which is weird too, once she thinks about it. She can go a month without seeing Raven or Octavia, but a week without Bellamy and she's already feeling like an asshole.

When she opens the door, he's not only wearing the stupid fucking t-shirt, but his glasses, and his hair is a mess, and she doesn't know how she ever thought she was anything but in love with him. Or how she thought she'd get out of it.

"I brought breakfast," he says. "And some cough medicine. And a can of soup. In case you're really sick."

She has to smile. "So, you think I'm not sick and brought supplies anyway?"

"Just in case." His eyes sweep over her, and Clarke feels her heart flip over. "What's wrong?"

"I had a stressful week."

"You could have told me."

"Since when do I deal with stress well?" she asks, with half a smile, and Bellamy smiles back.

"You're a dick," he says. "I was fucking worried."

"I know. Sorry."

"It's cool." He goes to the kitchen to pour coffee, moving around her space with an ease that never seemed like a big deal before. He wasn't supposed to be her best friend. He was just supposed to be Lincoln's girlfriend's kind of awkward brother, and then they got along, and now--

Now he's refilling her coffee without being asked, handing her a breakfast sandwich, with bacon on an everything bagel, and pushing up his glasses when they slide down his nose, smiling at her and making her heart ache.

She doesn't know what happened.

"So, what's wrong?"

The question isn't a surprise, but she still doesn't have a good answer. "Can we not talk about it? Just--for an hour or two."

"I'm setting an alarm," he says. "Two hours and then you have to tell me."

"Of course you are."

They get set up on the couch with Netflix going, and once they're both settled in, he asks, "Do you want a hug?"

The smart answer is no, and it's the considerate one too, because if she tells him what's actually bothering her, the hug might be something he feels weird about.

"Yeah," she says anyway, and when he raises his arm, she curls into his side. They don't do this very often, but it still feels familiar. They do it just enough that she knows she wants to do it more.

"You really do need to tell me," he murmurs, rubbing his thumb against her arm. "Just--"

"I know," she says. "It's fine. You don't have to worry."

"Like that's ever stopped me," he says, and Clarke laughs and buries her face against his shoulder. He smells like soap and boy, and the stupid t-shirt is softer than she expected, and she doesn't want to know she loves him. She just wants to go back to not having any idea. "Seriously," he adds, soft. "This is a lot."

"So just imagine how annoying it is for me."

She doesn't mean to fall asleep, but the stress wasn't a lie, and she feels warm and safe and happy, completely relaxed for the first time since his birthday, so she passes out about halfway through the first episode of Parks and Recreation. It's some good sleep, as sleep goes, and she's actually feeling pretty refreshed when his alarm goes off.

"Shit," she hears him mutter. "Sorry, I forgot--"

He fumbles it off and glances over her like he's hoping she didn't actually wake up, and she lets herself lean up and press her mouth to his. It's no more mature a way to deal with the issue than anything else she's done, but at least she gets the kiss. Even if it's shitty, which it is, and Bellamy is frozen, which he is, she got to try it once.

He's the one to pull back, and she knows her heartbreak is written all over her face, which is why his laugh is such a surprise. She can't believe he's laughing at her, but she doesn't have time to object before his hand is on her jaw and he's kissing her now, grinning into it, kissing her like all he needed to know was how little she wanted to stop.

"Please don't tell me you're blowing off stress," he murmurs. "If this is just --"

"No, this is what I was stressed about," she says. "Telling you that I--"

He brushes his nose against hers, pulling her closer. "That you what?"

"You look really good in that shirt," she tells him, and he looks like he may never stop grinning.

The whole thing is a great look on him.

"Just the shirt?" he teases. "So if I took it off--"

He's half on top of her now, and when she tugs the hem of the shirt, he removes it without complaint, still beaming down at her.

"I'm in love with you," she says. It feels safe, at this point. "It was stressful."

He tucks her hair back, smile gentling as he looks at her. "Trust me, I know. But I didn't blow you off, I just stressed about it on my own time."

"Mine worked better," she points out, and he leans down again, mouth brushing her jaw.

"Yeah. I like your plan a lot more."

He stays for basically the entire weekend, and they do their best to not get more than about five feet from each other until they have to split up for work on Monday. Clarke's reassured to find out his thirtieth-birthday freakout was mostly realizing that he was in love with her, because she would have felt guilty if he'd been pining away for years and she only just noticed. Their timing was surprisingly good. No one was miserable for too long.

She's not sure exactly how the news makes its way through their friends; she assumes Bellamy tells his sister and Miller, and she tells Raven, and by the next game night, it's just common knowledge. Which is good, because Clarke's always found it really awkward to tell people about a new relationship, and it feels even more awkward to explain that she's dating Bellamy. It feels as if she needs to justify why it happened now, why it didn't happen sooner or later, and she doesn't have a good explanation. This was just how it went.

But apparently Octavia got the full story, because she plops down next to Clarke on the couch and says, "Did that stupid t-shirt actually get my brother laid? Really?"

"It looks really good on him," Clarke says, trying not to blush. "Please tell me you don't want me to tell you about our sex life. That would be awkward."

"Nope, definitely not. But he's really happy, so--"

"I'm really happy too," Clarke promises. "Don't worry, it's not just him."

"Good. Glad I could help." She glances over at Bellamy, and Clarke follows her gaze. He's chatting with Miller, wearing a standard blue button-down and slacks and looks as good as he ever has, even if it took Clarke a while to notice, and she really does adore him. "Happy for you guys."

"Yeah," says Clarke, turning her attention back to Octavia with an effort. "Best birthday present ever."

#peachfacedlovebirds

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