Archive of Our Own

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i. just can't catch it when it's going

Clarke’s thirteen when her parents divorce and she moves with her dad to a quiet little suburban neighbourhood where people have porches and tire swings and block parties with homemade carrot cakes and apple pies. 

Another thing they have is small, noisy things. Like puppies, and talking robot toys, and babies. The last place they lived people would glare at you if you dared to be too loud, or too big. They didn’t like anything out of order. Clarke likes it better here, even if she does miss her mom a lot. 

She only sees her on the weekends now, back with the old, glare-y, judgy people behind tall white brick walls and steel gates she was never entirely sure were designed to keep people out or to keep them in. Clarke worries she’ll be lonely in such a big house on her own, but it’s only two weekends before her mom has her meet Marcus and she figures her mom will be fine after all. She’s made friends. 

So has Clarke. There’s a lot of kids around, and most of them will be going to the same school as her once summer ends. They show her around town, know all the cool spots to hang out and which of the old people to avoid. Her favorite of her new friends has to be Octavia, who lives a few houses down her street, even if sometimes it feels like she never really got a choice in the matter. 

Since day one Octavia wanted to be her friend, like she was some sort of shiny new toy that automatically made her cooler than the other kids, and since Clarke didn’t really have any reason to dislike her they bonded over R5 (Octavia claimed Ross but Lynch was Clarke’s but her friend never blinked twice at every nervous mention of the fact which definitely solidified her favorite friend status) and grape popsicles and how much they hated school. Clarke didn’t really hate school, but Octavia was very passionate about it so she just went along with it for the time being. It isn’t like it was a lie that she enjoyed summer more. Everyone enjoys summer more. 

The other thing that brought them together was family, or maybe the lack thereof. People out here were living the white-picket fence, divorce doesn't exist and love is forever, 2.5 kids fantasy. For Clarke, it was just her and her dad, and for Octavia it was pretty much the same thing except she had a brother, Bellamy, and not a father. Not a mom either, not even locked away in some faraway castle like Clarke’s. A castle is what Bellamy called her old house that one time Clarke tried showing Octavia pictures of her old life per her friend’s request and he snuck a look in at the scrapbook she made herself over their shoulders. Octavia got bored within a few pages but the comment stuck with Clarke regardless. Maybe he made it stick, when he referred to her as ‘princess’, handing the two of them a pack of oreo’s each with a playful wink just a moment later. 

Princess. It’s not like she hates the sound of that. She isn’t stupid. She knows her dad drives around in a car that most of their neighbours probably couldn’t afford, that he locks his favorite watch away in a safe for a reason, and that people’s eyes sometimes bulge when she mentions her dad is an Aerospace Engineer. She doesn’t exactly know what that means, but it definitely sounds super important. 

It’s one of the infamous block parties where Clarke makes up her mind about the final of the noise beacons. She’s obsessed with puppies — they’re cute and energetic and absolutely adorable. She is indifferent to the robot toys and not really sure why some of the boys are going so crazy over them. Babies she’s only seen strapped in strollers from across the street so far. 

Octavia’s brother almost never comes to any of the cook-offs or the treasure hunts, not the end-of-summer BBQ either. He's always working. He has a lot of jobs keeping him busy. He’s there today though — Bellamy — and he’s the one holding one of the babies, Mrs. Desai’s son Ryker, while some of the other ladies from the neighbourhood that are her dad’s age and over fawn over the two of them. The women around here are kind of obsessed with him, Octavia complains about it all the time. Ever since their mother died there’s always one of them around, lurking. They’re always checking up on him, bringing over too-healthy potroasts and leftover school supplies and hand-me-down clothes. 

Clarke’s never seen one of the tiny humans up close and personal, just in movies on tv and on posters on the street advertising diapers and baby milk and stuff to keep them from crying. She always thought it’d be fun, to have a little brother or sister, a certainty she’d never be completely alone. She thinks Bellamy’s a good big brother, even if a lot of the time Octavia disagrees. Octavia disagrees about a lot of things with Clarke when it comes to her brother, she thinks his freckles are stupid, and that the food he makes is disgusting, and that his jokes totally aren’t that funny. 

Clarke smiles as Bellamy holds up the tiny thing in the air to distract it when Ryker starts to get fussy, a frown forming between his big brown eyes. It’s almost hilarious how huge his eyes are compared to his tiny face. She’s read somewhere nature made it so adult people don’t want to eat babies. She thinks it’s stupid because who the frick would want to eat a baby? Mrs. Workman’s blueberry cheesecake is right there, over by the snack table.

Ryker’s eyes suddenly grow even larger as one of the ladies reaches out to caress his cheek with her knuckles while cooing lovingly (which just makes Clarke wonder if maybe the baby might bite her finger off and eat it instead), and Mrs. Desai is hurrying to grab something from her bag all of a sudden. It’s too late. The baby burps and spits up his food then, all over Bellamy’s shirt. The white gooey stuff dribbles down the back of his shoulder, Clarke’s nose scrunching up at the sight. The baby’s mom starts to passionately dab at Bellamy’s clothes with a napkin as he brushes her profuse apologies off, even though Clarke figures he’s probably not been covered in vomit since his own sister was that small. 

Yeah, so—not that fun. Puppies are definitely still the best.

⥧

ii. where’s my fucking teenage dream?

Clarke gets the whole wanting to eat babies thing now. Especially when they’re fat and squishy and giggle about everything and nothing. They’re just so. damn. cute.

Their most recent local addition has been from this couple who moved into the house across from her and her dad. His name is Zoran and he has tiny hands and a huge strawberry birthmark all over the left side of his face. CocoMelon makes him drool, he loves it that much. 

His mom, Sienna, handed him over to Clarke one time while getting the groceries from her car. She’d never held a baby before so her heart pounded loudly in her ears the entire thirty seconds his mom wasn’t standing right beside her to do any necessary damage control, scared to shit that she might drop him. 

His little hand clutched around her blonde hair as he made incoherent babbling noises, and all Clarke could do was stare down at him with wide, panicked eyes, her entire body tense. He’s cute, sure, super adorable and small and innocent, but pretty much also defenseless. Imagine having an entire thing depend on you for everything. Just the thought alone made something heavy press behind her sternum. 

“You’re a natural,” Sienna had told her with a sweet, slightly tired smile, pressing her ringing cell phone to her ear while shouldering her Target bag and fixing Zoran’s collar. Multi-tasking seemed exhausting. 

“Thanks,” Clarke muttered skeptically as she uncurled Zoran’s fist from her hair, wincing slightly when he made a last ditch-effort attempt at holding on as she was already handing him back over to his mom. She didn’t know about being a natural. Sienna was probably just trying to be polite. Clarke felt more than awkward holding him, having to adjust him four times in her hands before his mom was finally able to take him from her. Babies seemed a lot of work. She mostly liked them from afar, or as long as she had someone to give them back to. 

"I'm serious. He looks good on you."

Clarke just smiled in thanks. It was a sweet sentiment, but she was relieved regardless when she got to hand the baby back over to his mother. He was back to just being cute now, not as daunting and scary as before, still making grabby hands towards Clarke. She let him hold on to one of her fingers, a grin cracking across her face as he tried to bring it to his mouth. His little lips were wet, cheeks chubby as he smacked his lips together repeatedly. So endearing, the thought of eating him definitely crossed her mind again. 

Sienna had told her phone to hold on a second as her eyes flicked over back to Clarke, nudging her head towards the porch. “Looks like someone’s hungry,” she’d excused herself, making gushing noises at her son as she moved towards the house, soon starting to talk to the other person on the line again. 

The next time she sees Zoran he’s almost a month older. She’s running late to meet Wells, her hair damp down her back as she rummages through her tote for her bus pass. As soon as she spots him in the front yard, she skitters to a stop. They grow like weeds at this age and he’s crawling. The sun has nearly set in the sky, the hubbub of people talking and laughing coming from the backyard as the smell of smoke fills the air. 

Someone is chasing the baby, and it only takes her a second to realize it’s Bellamy, as he scoops him up from the grass and holds him up in the air until Zoran’s giggling. Now he’s a natural. Her hair was the only interesting thing to the baby. 

Her and Octavia haven’t been as close since they started high school, which is okay. It’s not like they ignore each other, their interactions are just mostly limited to a nod in the hallway or an enthusiastic ‘hey!’ of drunken recognition while brushing past each other during a party on the way to the bathroom. 

She doesn’t think her and Octavia were ever meant to last, more one of those ‘time and place’ friendships than anything else, and she’s not too broken up about it, but she also doesn’t really know where this leaves her with Bellamy. He’s definitely the most loyal person she’s ever met. He might use one of Zoran’s toys to shiv her, or call her fat to her face. Fat is apparently one of the worst things to be called around this town.

Lately, a lot of things she wasn’t previously concerned about have suddenly started to matter. It’s like she got her period a year ago and everything is in a different light now. Josie was complaining about armpit rolls in the girl’s bathroom the other day, and Clarke never really cared about them before, wasn’t even aware they existed or should ever be a problem, but now she thinks she’s supposed to care about bra bulge? She’s figuring it out. Everything’s just been really confusing. 

“Hey princess,” Bellamy gives her a nod, settling the baby in the crook of his elbow. He kicks his little feet and baby talks indecipherably against Bellamy’s shoulder, leaving a wet spot of drool on his t-shirt when he pulls back slightly. Bellamy hardly seems to care, still looking at her. 

“Hi,” she answers, after a beat, eyes darting between the baby and him and the peal of laughter coming from the backyard. A lot of puzzling emotions are swirling inside of her. 

He must take her hesitation for regular awkwardness when it comes to the rules of social etiquette in a neighbourhood as small as theirs, because he looks at the grill that’s just barely showing behind the house and then back at her with a contrite smile. “I wouldn’t worry about it. They’re pretty to themselves. The only reason they invited me is because Osias works at the same carshop as me, which is the same reason I came.”

She adjusts the strap of her bag on her shoulder, shifting her weight from one foot to another as she bites her lip. She’s still not sure where the two of them stand on a scale from neighbourly small talk to old-but-never-really acquaintances catching up, and it’s making her second-guess everything she’s doing from the way she’s talking to the way she stands. “Work gets uncomfortable fast if you turn down all the friendly invitations, huh?”

Bellamy grins, hoisting Zoran up a little. “It’s uncomfortable either way when you figure out they’re only asking in the name of being polite.”

“I get it,” Clarke says, shrugging a little. Her dad and her are fighting all the time now, even though they used to get along so well. There’s no common ground these days. He’s always working or watching stuff like golf. He only seems to remember the things she liked when she was five years old (Frozen and blueberry pancakes and playing piano) and most of their actual conversations are about old soccer matches as if she didn’t just sit through those for his and Wells’ sake. He comes to all her volleyball games though, so at least he’s trying. She snorts, crossing her arms over her chest. “They’re nearly forty. What are you going to talk to them about, taxes and knitting?”

He laughs, and the deep, rumbling sound doesn’t take her by surprise even though her heart still lurches, coming to an abrupt halt before speeding off again. “You’re cute.”

What the fuck? Clarke’s cheeks grow hot, and instead of replying she chickens out and drops her gaze back down to Zoran, tickling his chest with three of her fingernails. “You ’re the cute one, aren’t you?” 

New light and all, Bellamy’s Octavia’s brother, but for the first time — earth stopping and then spinning backwards on it’s axis — she also realizes he’s Bellamy. He’s twenty-one and funny and totally hot. He’s good with children and his shirts are always so damn tight when he goes on his jogs or mows the lawn and he watches the History Channel for fun and all his friends are like, so totally cool and now he apparently thinks she’s cute. Cute. She desperately wants him to like her, and she never wants anyone to like her, thinks they either do or they don’t, and if it’s the latter then that’s their own problem.

Bellamy’s eyebrows raise, and all of a sudden she’s hyper aware of how close she’s standing to him when she flicks up her eyes to meet his brown ones and she realizes she could practically count his freckles from here. “Do you wanna hold him?”

She’s already shaking her head, falling back a small, subtle step. “I’ll just drop him.”

The corners of his mouth tip up, amused in a way that should be condescending but somehow doesn’t feel like it. “The fact the fear’s crossed your mind makes you responsible enough to hold him.”

Clarke brushes him off, really not in the mood to embarrass herself in front of him when Zoran inevitably bites her or manages to pee all over her. “I’m late.” She’s already missed her bus, she’s pretty sure, but she also can’t stay here with him. She might combust. “Besides, he looks better on you.”

His eyebrows are really raised now and she doesn’t think her cheeks have ever been this warm. She could faint. She’s tried out flirting before, thinks she’s quite good at it even, but this is aggressive in every way. It just slipped out, figured it was a friendly thing to say after Sienna pretty much told her the same thing. It’s too late to do any damage control, but she wouldn’t be Clarke if she didn’t try. “I mean, he seems to like you best.”

Wrong thing to say, if the smirk splitting across his face is anything to go on. He’s an ass, she realizes. A complete, and total ass. He’s definitely making fun of her and she immediately decides he isn’t that cool after all. He’s just hot, sometimes she gets the two confused. Then the smirk grows just a little softer, something traitorous swooping low in her belly, and she doesn’t think she imagines the implicating tone to his voice when he casually counters, “I doubt that.”

Her breath hitches in the back of her throat, and she forces herself to swallow, clamping her mouth shut as she nods at him, nudging her head down the sidewalk. “I should go.” A beat passes, as if she’s hoping he might say something else, like he might want to keep her around too. He doesn’t, and she scrapes her throat, starting down the sidewalk. “Enjoy the barbeque. And the income taxes talk and everything.”

His mouth twitches, and then he looks down at Zoran, manipulating his little arm so it looks like he’s saluting her. Her stomach does that weird swoop again. “See you around, princess.”

⥧

iii. tell me i’m not dreaming alone

Clarke made a huge, unbelievably terrible, horrifying mistake. When her mom laughed in her face when she said she could babysit her sister for a day and a half while they went away to visit Vera across the country, it only made her double-down on the half-meant offer out of politeness. She could’ve been at Josie’s nineteenth birthday bash in Paris, but noooo, she had to be stubborn and insist she was a responsible adult now that she was in college and carving out a life for herself. 

She is. Most of the time. But, fucking Paris, France. Who wouldn’t want to go to France? Instead she’s in Arkadia, Middle of Fucking Nowhere in some convoluted ploy to prove she can take care of herself, that she can get a place with Roan and Josie off-campus next year, and major in art, and prove Lexa who’s in grad school and thinks she’s so much better than her was wrong for breaking up with her, and make something of herself. She’s got issues, she’s well aware.

One hour down and she’s already losing her mind. When her mom said she couldn’t even keep a cactus alive, she was painfully right. Except cacti don’t wail like they’re dying cats for prolonged moments of time, no matter what she does. She changed Caelan‘s diaper twice, and tried to give her a bottle, and when that didn’t work even attempted to bribe her with the applesauce she likes so much that her mom won’t let her have, gave pleading a seriously pathetic shot, and distracted her with anything that jingled even slightly but none of it seemed to work for even a second. Clarke’s covered in applesauce and drool, her hair a mess from her sister pulling on it and trying to eat it, and cheeks red from exertion over wrestling the child into submission. 

Maybe it’s her. Maybe the baby can sense she doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing, or she’s so profoundly unlikeable even an infant can tell. Not just any infant, her sister, too. Maybe Lexa was right when she said she liked how easily she could detach, and Finn too, telling her she was incapable of feeling anything real. She might actually be a heartless monster. Caelan can probably tell. That, or she’s gone clinically insane from the constant crying and is projecting her own insecurities onto a seven month year old. 

Fuck, she’s really losing it. She needs a helpline, an Ask-the-Audience Phone-a-Friend lifeline, as soon as possible.

Her dad’s away to some NASA convention two states over, her ex-girlfriend would fucking murder her at even the mere suggestion she comes over even though it’s a national state of emergency, and none of her friends have any actual experience with babies. Josie would laugh and propose adoption, Roan would ghost her and Wells, bless him, would try to help but fail just as miserably. She could ask Mrs. Desai from down the street, but her pride might not survive when she inevitably ends up gossiping to her dad, who’ll tell her mom. 

Clarke’s never felt so lonely. And desperate. She’s given up, scrolling down her phone to find Mrs. Desai’s number, or maybe even just FaceTime her mother to go straight to the source of Regret and Eternal Humiliation, but then she passes Bellamy’s name. Pausing, she stares at the name. Bellamy Blake. He practically raised Octavia, and she’s seen him with kids, they’re like magnets around him, he’ll probably know what to do. And most importantly, he won’t snitch to her parents. He might make fun of her a little, but she can take it. She’s used to that.

Caelan screeches loudly, headbutting Clarke in the shoulder repeatedly, fat tears streaming down her pink cheeks as she trashes in her arms. Clarke makes up her mind then. 

< Are you home?

To her surprise, he replies within a minute. Probably FaceTiming Octavia, or one of his Instagram model girlfriends. 

> Yeah

> What’s up, princess?

 

Her chest glows with both irritation and fondness at the old nickname, shaking her head at her phone as her sister errupt into another deafening howl, one pudgy fist stuck in her mouth and the other reaching up to clamp around a loose piece of hair that’s fallen from Clarke’s messy bun, tight enough to be painful and have her crouched over in an uncomfortable position to keep the strain off it. What is it with babies and their obsession with her goddamn hair?

< Can you come over for a sec?

< Need help

If anything, those should be the magic words, and they are, because barely three minutes later her doorbell rings. Clarke makes her way over there while shushing her sister, pressing soothing kisses to her warm temple. She doesn’t bother with a hello. “I’m in way over my head,” she starts, looking him up and down from the other side of the threshold. He’s in sweats and a muscle T with some overused fitness phrase on it, which only slightly makes her feel better about hijacking his Saturday night. He probably didn’t have any plans. “I’ve tried everything, food, diaper changes, music, distraction, bribery, and none of it worked. She won’t stop crying—”

He seems entirely too calm for the sounds her sister is making as he steps into the hallway, and it both annoys and astonishes her. “Babysitting?”

The door closes behind him and Clarke helplessly looks down at the baby in her arms again, her face hot and strained as she wails and wails and wails, looking like she’s about to pop an aneurysm. Obviously Clarke’s been in a room alone before with her, but it’s never been like thi . Google told her it might be a twisted intestine or a very dramatic case of attention-seeking loneliness. “My sister, Caelan. Currently possessed by a first-class demon.”

He grins, half-amused as he scratches Caelan’s arm fondly. She looks kind of stupid in her identical overalls now, but Clarke had this whole plan set in place where she would fingerpaint with her and take matching photos with their art works to tease her mother about corrupting her and then give her a bubble bath and put her to bed. She’s quickly learning babies don’t like planning. “Your mom’s really into the unisex C names, huh?”

Clarke lets out a huff of indignant laughter. “If only she was into creating a child prodigy that could talk at seven months and tell me what her f-u-c-k-i-n-g damage is.” She tries to keep a brave face and her voice light, but can’t help but press another kiss to the crown of her sister’s head as the mask of casual indifference chips, worry gnawing at her while dread starts to pool low in her stomach. What if something is wrong with her? She’s too little and breakable and precious. Clarke can’t let anything happen to her.

“Hi Caelan, I’m Bellamy,” he introduces himself in his normal voice, only slightly more kind-toned than usual, as he effortlessly lifts her from Clarke’s arms. He smells like cheap Axe body spray and the Blake's old familiar laundry detergent, and it’s nice, because some things really do never change. “Aren’t you the cutest little thing I’ve ever seen?”

Caelan settles down immediately, her curiosity from being held by someone new subduing her irritability almost instantly. It’s not like Bellamy has some sort of magic touch. Or at least that’s what she tells herself internally, in hopes of roping in her suicidal tendencies. She's competitive, okay? The baby’s eyebrows pinch together as she claws at Bellamy’s jaw, and a small giggle of surprise bubbles from her when he pretends to eat her hand, lips wrapped over his teeth. It’s not like her usual bright giggles, but it’s more than anything Clarke’s accomplished so far. “Hadn’t tried flattery, that’s on me,” she mutters bitterly, toying with the button of her sister’s overall a little sadly. 

As if on cue Caelan turns fussy again, a whimper and trembling lip turning into a loud sob and down-turned corners of her mouth as her back arches and her fists clench. Bellamy doesn’t blink twice, making quiet shushing sounds as his forehead creases in thought. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?” He asks, wiping the tears rolling down her cheeks with his free palm as he bounces her up and down in his arms softly. “Are you in pain? Do you have cramps?” 

He rubs her tummy gently as he watches her put her fist back in her mouth, his eyes lighting up in recognition. Clarke’s gonna be so pissed if he figured it out in less than two minutes. Grateful too, because she was literally about to start sobbing and pulling on her hair herself. 

“Poor thing’s probably teething. Do you have a washcloth?” Bellamy addresses her now, as he picks up her pacifier from the coffee table and goes to put it on a paper towel in the fridge. Meanwhile Clarke hurries to pull a clean cloth from one of the cabinets in their laundry room. She watches Bellamy turn the tap on where she finds him in the kitchen, feeling if it’s cold enough before putting it under the stream. He hands it to Caelan, who immediately starts chewing on it, eyes clearing up a little as a small hiccup turns into upbeat gibberish while she gnaws on it with her gums. Her tiny head rests against Bellamy’s shoulder limply, tear tracks on her flushed cheeks slowly drying. She must be tired from all the temper tantrums she’s been throwing for an hour straight. He chuckles a little, pushing Caelan’s damp hair from her forehead. “Your mom’s timing is impeccable.”

Clarke can’t believe she didn’t think of that, too busy suffering from an onset case of Main Character Syndrome to Yahoo Answer it for a little bit longer. She forgot babies didn’t have teeth yet. She feels so fucking stupid, and embarrassed too. He must think she’s an idiot. She worries her bottom lip, staring down at her sister and the tears sticking her long eyelashes together. She loves her a lot, she’s pretty sure, more than she loves herself or anyone else in the entire world, and Clarke couldn’t even figure out why she was upset. “Oh.”

He glances up from Caelan with an absent-minded smile, eyebrows rising at the pensive look on her face. “Oh, what?”

It’s incredibly stupid, but tears burn the back of her eyes regardless. She’s exhausted too. “I thought — I don’t know. It’s stupid.” She shakes her head, pulling her sleeves over her hands as she crosses her arms over her chest, keeping her gaze locked on her sister. She can’t look at him right now. Out of her peripheral vision she can tell he tilts his head, as if to encourage her to continue. Her mouth opens, and closes as she re-considers it, hesitating. Bellamy has definitely always been judgemental when it came to how expensive her shoes were or the fact she always changed the channel when Abba came on or that one summer she went redhead, but never about stuff like this. One time Octavia off-handedly admitted she didn’t empathize with others in the way he or Clarke or someone else might and he got her a therapist before it could get to a cat-killing stage and hasn’t brought it up since. That’s about as well-adjusted as a person can be. She’s pretty sure she can trust him not to make fun of her. “I figured — she could sense I’m cold and frigid, or something.” 

Clarke mostly tacks the ‘or something’ on to dilute the efficacy of her statement, suddenly feeling a little bit too vulnerable. It’s just — she doesn’t really have anyone to talk about this stuff to. Her dad’s always busy, and her mom has Caelan now, Josie would probably tell her to stop being a drama queen and Roan would most definitely ghost her if she tried, and Wells is, well, he’s Wells. He’s perfect and everybody immediately falls in love with him and his easy charm and he has never had a single negative thought about her. He just wouldn’t get it. It makes her feel like an exposed nerve right now, waiting for Bellamy's response.

“That’s not stupid,” Bellamy tells her, his voice and probably face softening, in a way that luckily doesn’t feel too much like pity. She didn’t even realize she’d been holding her breath until now. “A little concerning maybe, that you think she would care as long as you feed and change her.”

Her head snaps up to look at him, only to find him smiling at her. It dims a little then, his expression sobering. “Where’s this coming from?”

Clarke shrugs. She doesn’t know how much his sister told him about it while it was going down, but the whole thing was a pretty big scandal at their high school back in the day. Bigger than when she came out, even. “You remember Finn?”

He snorts, nostrils flaring as he gently hoists up Caelan. “Definitely.”

She stares at a point just below his chin, swallowing tightly. “When I wouldn’t take him back, he pretty much told me I was heartless, that I never really loved him if I was so willing to put him aside, that he was sure I wouldn’t even know how.” 

It’s funny because a lot of these things she thought she got over and left behind. Clarke knows she’s good at compartmentalizing — like I have the SATs to worry about instead of some random bout of teenage drama — and rationalizing — like Finn was just upset and trying to hurt her the best way he knew how — but even still these memories had a way of lodging themselves somewhere in the back of her mind, staying with her and rising to the surface at odds times. 

Times like these. 

Bellamy shakes his head lightly, brow furrowing together. “So besides being an ass, he’s a comedian now too?”

The corners of her mouth tip up weakly, giving him half a close-lipped smile as her eyes flick back up. She can’t look him in the eyes too long, because it’s doing funny things to her chest. She lifts another shoulder in a half-assed attempt to play everything down. “I know I’m hard to like, most of the time. Lexa — my ex — she was kind of like that too, needed people a while to warm up to her.” Her lips twist, forehead creasing as she digs her thumbnail into the side of the knuckle of the finger next to it. “She really hurt me though, and she didn’t care because she did it with ‘honorable intentions’." Clarke rolls her eyes, then deflates again. "She told me so many times how alike we were…” Lexa was so cool. Nothing made her happier than to get her approval. Her frown deepens, raising her gaze back up to him, wrapping her fingers around her opposite elbow. “But she was so cruel in that moment. That was the first time I realized I didn’t want to be like her.”

“Time to let go of those demons, Clarke,” Bellamy tells her softly. “You’re not cold, or frigid, or any of those things they called you. You’re one of the most selfless people I’ve ever met.” He glances down at her sister, shooting Clarke an encouraging smile. “You were upset because Caelan was just a minute ago.”

“One of?” She teases, half-heartedly, a lump forming in her throat as she grasps desperately onto the rest of her dignity trying to keep it together while her shoulders slouch forward sadly. “I couldn’t even figure out what was wrong with her.”

Bellamy seems to be able to read her expression expertly, opening his free arm for her to step into. She does, burying her face in his shoulder with her own arms pressed to her chest. His hand comes up on the back of her head, sliding into her hair just below her bun as he lowers his voice, ”Hey, you’re her sister, okay? That’s all she needs for you to be.” 

Clarke nods against his shoulder, once at first, and then a few more times as his words settle in. Maybe he’s right and she’s putting too much pressure on herself. He would know. He really always was a great brother to Octavia. She takes a second there, for strength and understanding, only pulled back to reality when a small, soft little palm lands on the side of her cheek. She turns her head enough to look at Caelan, who’s trying to reach for her nose with the hand-eye coordination of a blind cat while chomping away on her cloth. Clarke smiles, catching her hand in hers and pressing her lips to it, giving it a few smacking kisses.

“Happy you’ve finally shut the f-u-c-k up, little one,” she muses, lovingly. 

Bellamy laughs, and when she looks up to smile at him in thanks and to make a pact to never mention this to any living being ever again, she suddenly realizes how close they’re standing and how genuinely appreciative the look in his eyes is. Flustered, she takes a step back, eyes darting between him and Caelan.

How the hell does he look so good with a baby on his strong, very big arm? She doesn’t even know why she likes it, she just knows it isn’t doing anything particularly good for her more-than-well-buried teenage crush on him. Another thing she thought she left behind with her training bras, exercise induced asthma and Cosmopolitan magazines trying to brainwash her into thinking men doing the bare minimum is desirable. 

Luckily, her sister picks this moment to yawn and Clarke uses this sign from God herself to take her back from Bellamy without making any prolonged eye contact, bringing her over to her dad’s office. He put up Clarke’s own old crib for the weekend, her name on the headboard weathered by time. 

Clarke takes longer than necessary tucking her sister in and stroking her hair, at the same ruminating about how to say goodbye to Bellamy in the least awkward way possible. She’s seriously considering 'thanks for helping me out, bro' as her best option when she feels him come up beside her. He puts the cooled pacifier in Caelan’s mouth, and they watch her eyes start to droop lazily. 

They quietly leave the room, shutting the door behind them. Exhausted, Clarke slumps down on the couch, throwing her head back with a soft groan. It’s not long before the couch dips beside her, and she peeks at him through one eye. 

He rubs his hands over his thighs, leaving them there. “How are classes? College still everything you hoped it would be?”

She blinks open her eyes now, pulling her socked feet up on the couch. “You’re staying?”

One of his eyebrows arches, and he’s stifling a secret little smile. “Do you want me to go?”

She considers it. Then considers downplaying her answer in the name of being casual and cool. She likes hanging out with him though, so eventually she just decides on the truth. “No.”

He’s full on grinning now, and it makes her want to kick him in the shin. “Then yeah. I figure you can buy me some pizza to thank me for my very neighbourly favors.”

She figures it’s a nice way for him to say he’s willing to be her security blanket if Caelan wakes up again, which is sweet, but still. Clarke doesn’t want to be another burden of responsibility for him. She’s got it handled. ”You don’t have anywhere to be?”

He lets out a huff of laughter, rubbing the back of his neck. “My cat gets really depressed if I’m home too much, so I actually think this is good for us.”

“You have a cat?” What else happened while she was gone? Her eyes flick down to his hands, just to make sure he didn’t find himself a wife in the meantime. He must be twenty-four, five by now, which seems way too young to get married to her, but she wouldn’t put it past him. He’s one of those family-oriented types. 

“Ares.” Fitting. He raises his brows. “Octavia’s at college too, you know.”

“I know.” She bites down on her lip, trying to keep the judgement out of her tone. It’s not like she wants him gone, but she remembers a time where he was so popular there was always some friend at his side whenever she saw him and he wasn’t at work. Clarke's also found alone and lonely are two completely different things. “It’s Saturday though.”

He hums, thoughtful. “Are you calling me a loser?”

She laughs, toning it down into a teasing smirk. “Maybe. At least I had the baby as an excuse.”

“Since you’re so worried about my social life, I was meeting a friend—” Date, she gets from the tone in his voice. Maybe a booty call, even, if he’s going through this much trouble to hide it from her. Besides, he’s not really dressed for dinner and a movie. There’s a flash in her head, of what that might look like. Clarke unconsciously presses her thighs together. “—later tonight, but I rescheduled when you texted me.”

She punches him in the arm, everything else immediately forgotten and replaced with fond exasperation. He’s such a dumbass. “You’re an asshole, you’re aware of that, right? You don’t have to drop your entire life any time someone asks you for help.”

He fakes a hiss, rubbing his bicep mostly for her benefit. “I know I don’t have to, but I wanted to.” Bellamy looks at her then, and the soft look in his eyes makes her cheeks heat with embarrassment. She knows he doesn’t mean it like that, he’s just being nice, but her brain is still rushing to remember it like that. So in ten years, she can lay awake at night, pondering about what it was he really meant. 

“Fine. Whatever,” Clarke concludes cooly, shaking the weird feeling coursing through her veins off as she reaches for the remote, turning the tv on and switching to a random channel. As she hands over her phone with the Domino’s app open on it for him to scroll through, she starts, “So I got this new professor last semester...”

⥧

iv. and i wonder in his world, is it me, is it you?

Clarke’s mostly gotten over her stupid, immature crush over the years. Especially since her and Bellamy are friends now, and she knows how annoying his repetitive rants on poor driving etiquettes are, and how overbearingly overprotective and in turn belittling he can get, and how absolutely rank he smells during a bad hang-over. He’s pigheaded and stingy and unnecessarily petty, but was also there for her when she unexpectedly lost her dad senior year of college and tells her to her face if she’s making a mistake or being a dick and never fails to forget a single one of her milestones, celebrating each and every one of them as equally important. He’s her friend. Currently from a distance, since she’s in Sweden for grad school, but they still text regularly and sometimes Skype during big occasions. 

She still has her moments of weakness, though. She’s only human.

Octavia decides to start procreating at the mere age of twenty-two, with a six foot one tall tattooed beast of an older man at that, which Bellamy was definitely peeved about for the first few months of her pregnancy, considering he wanted her to have an actual life after he worked so hard to get her one. In between the lines Clarke kind of got he was mostly scared, to lose his sister and to not be the sole person she depended on anymore. He’d never say, but she’s managed to decipher Bellamy over the years. It’s pretty easy, since he usually wears his heart on his sleeve. The fact he gave up his entire childhood and young adulthood to take care of Octavia didn’t help the situation either. Lots of fights and cold shoulders and one-sided digital mediation on Clarke’s end later, and now his entire Instagram is just Ares and Ziggy and every home modification he completes entirely by himself. 

Clarke’s on there, occasionally. More often than Miller, actually, who he actually is in the presence of regularly, she does take pride in rubbing that in Miller’s face more often than not. The last snap is of her from across a diner booth from last Christmas break, trying to stuff her face with enough lumpias to warrant her a cardiac bypass in the near future, titled ‘girl next door’. 

Ziggy is where it’s at though. Those pictures are like her own personal brand of crack, like some scientist in a lab figured out what made her tick and found a way to transform those feelings into pheromones via picture. He’s beautiful, with a mom like Octavia and a dad like Lincoln that was going to be a given either way, but he truly is. He has big brown eyes and is always smiling the brightest of smiles and has smooth dark skin with lots of rolls in them. She loves the rolls especially much, but what drives her even more insane is whenever Bellamy is in the frame with him. 

When Ziggy’s on his shoulders at Disney World, the smallest of hands completely engulfed by his big fingers. Or them both on all fours on one of those brightly colored play carpets, surrounded by carelessly thrown around toys and sporting identical mischievous grins. God, when Octavia got them those matching ‘Uncle’ and ‘Don’t Make Me Call My Uncle’ t-shirts? Clarke had to recover for days — she’s never seen him look that genuinely happy. Him asleep on the couch, his nephew on his chest taking a similar nap. The one that’s 80% arms — fucking ridiculousy sized arms — as he hoists Ziggy up in the air, mid-laugh. 

It never fails to get the same reaction from her. A little pulse of something right under her ribcage. Her mouth dries up and her heartbeat lurches and her stomach flips and then—

And then it’s over again, when she scrolls to the next picture and it’s a candid one of him and Gina, all wrapped up in each other with his lips on her cheek, or worse, one of his not-so-candid insufferable gym selfies. Like, we get it. He works out.

It’s always fleeting, the feeling of want she feels when she looks at him with Ziggy. It always lingers just a little bit too long for her to trick her mind into pretending it was never there at all, though.

⥧

 v. see ‘em springing up like daisies

“What the fuck?” Clarke complains while toeing off her shoes by the door, tossing his spare key onto the table behind the couch as she walks around it to get a better view of the scene in front of her. “Did you have a baby while I was in Europe and not tell me?”

Bellamy rolls his eyes at the movie that’s playing on his flatscreen. “Me and Gina broke up, remember?” She remembers all the drunken tears over the telephone, yeah, but that was months ago. Still, one broken off engagement isn’t sufficient birth control for most. Although, if she thinks about it, Gina probably isn’t as crazy as his last ex who definitely would get knocked up just to keep him around. Her heart painfully squeezes in her chest at the thought — it just seems wrong. The idea of him having children with someone who doesn’t truly see him. He smirks, sitting up a little with his back against the arm rest and taking the baby with him. She gets a better look then. “Besides, not exactly the right brand of Asian, princess.”

“Jordan?” She guesses, plopping down on the couch beside him as soon as he lifts his legs closer to his torso. Clarke holds out her pinky for the baby to where he’s comfortably resting in the crook of Bellamy’s arm, half dozing off. His fist still wraps around her finger though, giving her that special kind of newborn-buzz. It might be a reflex on their end, but there’s nothing quite like it. “Nice to finally meet you, little guy.”

Jordan yawns, grip so tight around her pinky it makes her all kinds of stupidly proud. Oh, fuck. He’s adorable. She finds herself smiling down at him, free hand dropping down on top of her ankle where it’s crossed over her other, sitting directly across from Bellamy even though there’s two more cushions of space behind her. It’s just natural, the laws of gravitation or whatever.

“He has so much hair,” she notes, awed, finally tearing her eyes off the baby — his full head of dark hair, and cute slightly red button nose, and small perfect lips — to meet Bellamy’s gaze. He’s already looking at her, head ducked, with this small, kind of absent smile on his face.

He blinks a few times, his face clearing up as he scrapes his throat. “Yeah, isn’t it insane?” Bellamy chuckles softly, bending down awkwardly to kiss Jordan’s forehead. His face only slightly scrunches up, continuing to sleep. “Jasper made him a mohawk the other day, I have a bunch of pictures of it. I’ll show you later.”

Clarke snorts. “Buddy’s gonna have a terrible eighteenth birthday, I can already tell.”

“Oh, definitely.” He’s grinning with pure anticipatory joy. “I live for embarrassing the shit out of all of these kids. It’s payback for their parents being pains in my ass for so long.”

He’s a good uncle, just like he was a good brother. He’s good at everything, he’s kind of annoying like that. In her heart of hearts she knows he’d be a great dad, too. Nobody loves like him. She blurts it out before she even realizes she desperately wants to know the answer to this particular question. “Do you want kids?”

His brow pinches together briefly as he does a double-take. “What?”

Well, she already said it, so she can’t back down now. He definitely heard her, so it would just give it a weird, loaded connotation if she pretends she never said it in the first place. There is a weird, loaded connotation to it, but he doesn’t know that. “Do you want kids?”

Bellamy doesn’t seem to have to think about it then. “Definitely.”

A thoughtful hum in the back of her throat is her full answer, studying his face carefully. What’s usually easily readable is now less so, and he catches her half by surprise when he speaks next. 

“What about you?”

Clarke narrows her eyes at him, nearly suspiciously. “What about me?”

He’s smirking now, a teasing tone to his baritone voice. “Have you grown over your paralyzing fear of dropping babies and out of having existential crises over the possibility a few months old might hate your goo-gah-guts?”

She pinches his shoulder, until his face creases and she knows it hurt a sufficient amount. It’s what he deserves. “I wish someone had dropped you as a baby.”

“I guess you’ve gone from deadly afraid to wildly enthusiastic at the prospect of newborns taking deep-dives.” He shakes his head mockingly, a playful glint in his eyes. “Sweden changed you.”

“You’re insufferable,” Clarke deadpans, then brushes her hair behind her ears on both sides, deflating a little. Softer, and completely unable to look him in the eye, she admits, “I do. Want children.”

“They’ll be very lucky kids.”

Clarke rolls her eyes at his corniness. He’s just saying what she wants to hear. Probably remembering that embarrassing conversation they had years ago, where she professed her insecurities of being unlovable unprompted. “You’re making me blush.”

“I can tell,” he responds casually with one of those annoyingly smug smirks on his face, and it’s now she actually does flush. Fucking dick. “Always loved it when you got all red in the face over an exposed shoulder or a bare forearm back in the day.”

“You were always walking around half-naked and I was a prude full of teenage hormones, okay?” She counters, lighthearted, flicking him in the forehead. She isn’t actually embarrassed that much anymore. Teenagers are weird and dramatic and humiliating, it comes with the age. You live and you learn. There’s just a few things she didn’t grow out of, that still ring entirely true even now, and she doesn’t want him to know that. “I didn’t lose my virginity until I was like twenty.” 

Silence stretches between from a beat and she suddenly regrets bringing it up. It feels kind of weird to talk to Bellamy about this, even though they’re both very much adults who’ve had sex. With other people. Lots of other people. Maybe that’s the part that bothers her, makes her clamp up and act all awkward. 

He narrows his eyes, not irritated, only curious. “You and Finn…?”

“No. Thank God.” She lets out a deep, shaky breath and then promptly turns so her back is against the couch and she’s facing the tv, resting her hands on top of her thighs as she stretches her legs out in front of her.  She frowns at the eerily familiar face on the screen, trying to place it. “What are you watching?”

He winces then, laying it on a little thick because he thinks he’s hilarious, making her whip her head back to look at him. The betrayal. “You fucking continued Dark without me, didn’t you?”

Bellamy shushes her, pretending to shield Jordan from her. It’s a lame comeback, using an infant against her. “Don’t curse with the baby around.”

“Fine,” she huffs, crossing her arms over her chest. She doesn’t care if she’s acting and pouting like a child. “I’ll have you know I’ve finished the whole second season too.”

“Hypocrite,” he mutters under his breath, a teasing biting tone designed to get at her, but she refuses, knowing ignoring him will get to him faster. She focuses her gaze on the television, letting the indecipherable string of German words drown out the pounding of her heart for a few moments.

It’s barely a full minute before she’s glancing back at him out of the corner of her eye, biting her lip at the sight of Jordan cuddled closely to his chest. Something hot pricks under her skin. It’s not fair. It’s probably stupid cavewoman hormones that are making her feel this way. Bellamy's entirely too superhumanly good-looking.

Clarke wants to kiss him. She always wants to kiss him, but with him cradling a baby, all of that is just heightened. She wants—she longs. Longs deeply and desperately. Needs. Needs to be close to him, to press her mouth over his, and share the same breath of air. Wants. She wants to sit on this couch and watch Dark with him and tell him about her day and to have him laugh at her jokes and tease her about how much she overthinks about everything and she wants him to make her his famous soup dumplings from scratch and share a few bottles of beer with him while listening to Fleetwood Mac and brush their teeth at the same time with their elbows brushing because no matter how much they snap at each other for it they’ll never switch places at the sink and to crawl into his bed when the sun sets and sleep with her head on his chest and wake up to his bedhead and morning breath and to repeat it every day. To be with him, to live here, to give him something just like Jordan and Ziggy, something just like them. 

The air in the room feels kind of suffocating, her chest spreading a shimmering heat to the rest of her body, filling her with physical unease. It’s legs on the couch, legs off, sitting back, sitting up, hands on her thighs, arms crossed over her chest, rolling of her shoulders, slouching backwards, one knee to her chest, two knees to her chest, ass shimmy, pillow under arm, no knees to her chest, and a few more stolen glances before he finally snaps and calls her out on it. 

Bellamy scoffs, a little huff of disbelief laughter following. “Why do you keep looking at me so weirdly?”

She refuses to look at him, because her self-control decides to kick in now, adjusting the collar of her sweatshirt. “I’m not.”

From the corner of her eye she can tell his eyebrows disappear further into his hairline. “You are.”

 “What are we, five?” She throws back, irritated, even though her narrowed eyes can’t help but flick down to the baby in his arms again before coming back up to him. God, don’t his arms ever get tired?!

He scoffs, again, as if insulted she’s even bothering to lie to him. “You’re all fidgety. And definitely staring.”

“I haven’t seen you in a while.” He opens his mouth, probably to argue they FaceTime at least once a week, so she beats him to it. “In person.”

Bellamy’s mouth purses, petulant. “You saw me at your Welcome Home party yesterday.”

“For like five minutes,” Clarke huffs, crossing her arms over her chest. It was a family-and-friends-packed bar on what was already a busy Saturday night. There was one ten second hug and a quick ‘how was the flight’ before she was dragged off to the dancefloor with Josie and forced mingling and downing shots until the morning sun would be doing permanent damage to her eye-sight as soon as she woke up the following day. 

Today. Today is that day which makes the idea lingering in the forefront of her mind even more of a stupid plan. Clarke most definitely looks like crap. Looking like crap while throwing caution in the wind and risking it all is definitely a recipe for disaster.

But the idea is that — she could just tell him. Maybe not about the whole soup dumpling, toothbrush, willing-to-have-your-children fantasy, but an I like you could be a good start. She’s pretty sure her face has already given her away twelve times over by now, and he’s just too polite to call her out on it. It's not like her feelings for him are subtle. 

Clarke takes a deep breath, readjusting on the couch so she’s sitting directly across from him again. Her tongue darts out to wet her lips, his eyes raking her face quickly as if he’s trying to take as many of it in before she eventually puts up a mask again. She could do that, her poker face is undefeated so far, but she finds she doesn’t care to. Clarke’s been hesitant for so long. too long, and she’s not anymore. She trusts that they are stronger than a possibly bruised ego and temporary awkwardness if this doesn't work out. She trusts him. She clears her throat, fidgeting with the hem of her sweatshirt. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a while.”

Bellamy just stares at her, a confused glint in his eyes. “Okay?”

She forces herself to keep holding his gaze, in case she chickens out if she doesn’t. Her mouth feels dry, her palms sweaty. “What time are they picking up Jordan?”

His eyes flick over to the clock on the wall behind her, returning to face her with a puzzled but slightly intrigued look. “In like ten minutes.”

Clarke takes in a shaky breath, nodding curtly, mostly to herself. “Good.” 

She can withhold for that long, probably. Clarke does have a semblance of self-control usually. It hasn’t even been that long since she got laid. Jam-making, goat-owning Norwegian Niylah in that cabin in the mountains was like a few months ago. It was good, and it scratched the itch, but she didn’t walk away from Niylah wanting her children, or her toothpaste kisses, or her drunken voicemails, or her sleep-infused bedroom smiles. Besides, there’s an actual baby in the room. In his arms. And if he doesn’t feel the same way, she can make her grand escape along with whoever comes to pick Jordan up. Knowing Bellamy, he’ll probably want to talk about their feelings first and what not, apologize for the fact he can’t think of her as anything other than a platonic, sisterly friend. That he still sees her as the thirteen year old little brat he met all those years ago and that he'll never see her as anything else. Now that she thinks about it, ten minutes sounds a little bit too long. She should drag it out, make—

“Clarke?” He’s full on frowning at her now, concern etched all over his face and Clarke takes extra care not to squish Jordan in between them when she leans forward to touch her mouth to his. 

It’s just that at first, a single press of their lips, only pulling back enough to gauge his reaction with slightly widened, panicked eyes. His warm breath fans across her face as her trembling fingers gently cup his jaw, her mind just a single repeat of his name, a buzz, symphony of Bellamy, Bellamy, Bellamy. 

Tension’s drawn tight between them and she’s not sure what he wants for a few unbearably long seconds. Then his eyes flick down to her mouth, just briefly, but giving her enough warning to suck in a fresh breath of air before his mouth is on hers again. Her hand slides to the back of his neck, fingers twisting into the curls at the nape of it as she drags him closer. Their mouths open, moving together, more, deeper, closer, closer, Bellamy, Bellamy. Goosebumps rise on her arms and up her neck, even though her body feels contradictorily hot, skin buzzing insistently.

Clarke makes a soft noise of protest as he pulls back from her, pupils fat and breathing heavy as he stares down at her. “Someone’s at the door.”

Her gaze is still locked on his wet mouth, drawn to it like waves to the shore. She didn't even hear the doorbell. Whoever it is, they’ll go away. All they have to do is ignore them. “I don’t care,” she mutters, already leaning back in, eyes sliding shut as her lips connect to his again. 

He detaches from her with a small amused chuckle, planting a few more dry kisses on her lips before he rationalizes, “Let me just hand over their son before they call CPS on us, and then I’m all yours, okay?”

Clarke blinks up at him stupidly as he rises up to his feet, moving Jordan in an upwards position to his chest as the fingers of his free hand linger intertwined with hers. Her head clears slowly, her voice scratchy and pathetically small as she checks, “All mine?”

“All yours,” he echoes with a sweet small smile, a halfway pleading look in his eyes. Bellamy gives her fingers a final squeeze before he drops them entirely, making his way over to the front door, only stopping on his way there to pick up Jordan’s diaper bag. 

Clarke absentmindedly reaches up to touch her fingers to her swollen lips, her heart hammering on so loudly it drowns out the voices coming from outside. The door closes with a click, and her pulse lurches with anticipation as a pair of socked footsteps draws closer. All mine. Sounds as good of a place to start as any. 

⥧

vi. taking my hand 'stead of taking my crown

It only takes a couple of times for Clarke to figure it out. 

There’s a few tells. He’s always touching her. He usually is, but now his hands stray to one place in particular. Resting on it as they watch tv, or a little rub good morning as he passes her by in the kitchen. The little hitch in his breath every time he sees her naked, whether it be in passing when she gets ready to shower or when he’s the one undressing her. Then there’s the lingering looks as soon as she starts showing that he doesn’t think she notices. 

Of course she notices. She doesn’t think there’s a person in the world she’s more attuned to than Bellamy, for better or worse. Besides, Clarke doesn’t really have any room to judge considering she’s been wanting to jump him every time he’s held a baby since before she even knew what jumping someone was. 

It helps that since she passed the three month mark, the constant nausea stopped getting the best of her and she felt more comfortable in her own skin, that her hormones have been spiking like crazy and she’s seriously horny all the time. Now she has an automatic Get-To-Jail free card she can pull on him whenever she likes without coming across as too needy. 

Bellamy likes it when she gets needy, but this is a more dignifying way to get what she wants. Like right now, when he texted her was going to work on the crib for a few hours in their garage. She knows him blocking it off with a ‘few hours’ was his way of telling her he was unavailable for anything else and not to worry if she came home to find the house empty. He’s been very task-orientated lately, trying to get things done before the baby gets here. He’s nervous, and it keeps him distracted. It’s his way of making himself useful and keeping his hands busy so he’s not hovering over her twenty-four/seven. Bellamy’s acutely aware she hates it when he gets too overbearingly protective. It’s a box of Mac and Cheese, I can handle it, has been a recurring argument in their household for months.

It’s a sweet sentiment, but right now — after a long day of work, panties damp and breasts aching — she needs him to hover. She doesn’t bother with anything fancy, just drops her clothes on the floor and slips one of his old t-shirts over her head. Even with the belly, it still hits her mid-thigh. 

Bellamy looks up from where he’s sanding down the headboard as she raps on the door interlocking the garage to the house with three of her knuckles. She really didn’t come up with a reason for her to be here, getting dicked down pretty much the only thing on her mind since lunch, and instead improvises. “Hey. I was wondering if you wanted anything to drink?” When he just blinks at her in confusion, she trails off, getting more unsure of herself, adding, “A snack?”

His eyebrows raise, but she doesn’t miss the way his eyes rake over her figure as he puts down the sandpaper, wiping his hands on the back of his jeans. His gaze lingers exactly where she knew it would, his adam’s apple bobbing up and down visibly. There’s a flash of something in his eyes, and then it’s gone again as he leans his hip against his work table, arms crossed as amusement makes the corners of his mouth tip up in a grin. “Have you turned into a Stepford Wife since I last saw you this morning?”

“Rude,” she comments, her cheeks heating even if she’s not going to give in that easily. 

He just looks so fucking smug, and it only makes her want to fuck him more. They should study him in a lab, she thinks. “What? Did you make me fresh, hand-squeezed lemonade?”

“Shut up,” she groans, shifting from one fuzzy slippered foot to another, trying to release some of the tension between her thighs.

Of course he doesn’t, making no effort at all to hide the fact he’s laughing at her, not with her. “Did you bake me an apple pie? Are you gonna rub my back, see me off to golf club?”

Clarke groans at being caught so easily, throwing her head back slightly as she rolls her eyes. “Fine.” She mirrors his stance, instead leaning against the doorjamb, knowing full well it draws up his t-shirt tighter, highlighting the curve of her belly. “Maybe I want you to fulfill some of your other husbandly duties.”

His gaze flicks down briefly, as if on instinct, and then his teeth slide into his bottom lip as he gives her an almost uncharastically guilty look. “You could’ve just asked.”

She pouts, rubbing the underside of her bump, where the skin's drawn tight. Kid’s getting kind of heavy. “You know I don’t like asking.” And she’s not going to. 

“What are you doing?” Bellamy asks her, a suspicious tone to his voice as his eyes narrow, flicking between her hand and her face. He’s on to her, and she’s pretty much ready to give up the jig. She’s drenched. 

Clarke turns to the side, hand rubbing up and down the curve at the front of her body slowly. She bites down on her lip to keep from smiling as she watches him drawn to the movement of her fingers like a magnet. “Don’t you like seeing me like this?”

“Clarke,” he nearly scolds her, pushing off the table as his brows furrow. His face flushes and his eyes are suddenly darting everywhere, hand rubbing the back of his neck. She realizes he’s embarrassed. It’s cute. 

“Oh come on. It’s okay, Bell,” she laughs, reaching for his hand, squeezing it. It kind of feels like karma, considering she spent so many years suffering all by herself because of him. “I like seeing you with babies, you like seeing me pregnant, I think it’s as good of a combo as they get.”

Bellamy doesn’t say anything, probably still processing the fact she is more than aware of his not-so-secret obsession but allows her to pull him closer to her anyway. She doesn’t want him to think she’s making fun of him, because she’s not, and she needs him to understand that. He’s still avoiding eye-contact, so she puts his hand on top of her belly, making his brown eyes snap to hers. They’re dark, pupils fat with want. 

“You’re gonna be such a good daddy,” Clarke whispers hoarsely as she holds his piercing gaze, slowly pushing his hand down until he’s slipping between her legs, palming her, feeling just how wet her panties already are. Something shifts between them, heavy tension crackling in the air around them. “It turns me on just thinking about it.”

“Yeah?” Bellamy checks, gruff, finally finding his voice. He gets it now. He applies some more pressure, drawing a little gasp from her as her back immediately arches, fingers flying down to keep his wrist in place. He ducks forward a little, nosing at her neck, pressing a wet kiss right beneath her ear. “You’ve been thinking about it all day?”

She hums, then starts nodding furiously, already too delirious with pleasure to form any words. He’s rubbing her now, small, slow circles over the cotton material of her underwear, shooting sparks of pleasure up her spine. It doesn’t take much to get her going these days. 

Bellamy presses another kiss to her jaw, her head instantly falling back for him to make his way down her neck, but he doesn’t. Instead he tells her, “Let’s go inside, yeah?”

Clarke can empathise with not wanting to risk a splinter in her ass, but that’s as far as her lust-riddled mind can reach. She would’ve been content with the hallway, the kitchen, even the laundry room, gets half-upset when he passes the living room without a second glance, and is entirely driven crazy by the time he drags her up the stairs, which she figures is as good a place of any, tugging on his hand to make him stop. He takes one look back at her before he’s letting out a small breathy chuckle, which tells her how much of a wreck she probably looks. He uses his free hand to push her hair back from her face, resting it on her cheek with a fond look in his eyes. 

His palm still smells like her, and it makes her groan out loud as a pulse of need surges through her centre, blindly reaching for his belt. Bellamy’s laughing again, even though she doesn’t think anything’s particularly funny at the moment, forcing her to come up another step so she’s directly below him. “You’re pregnant,” he rationalizes, way too responsible for his own good. Her fingers tighten around his meanly, nails digging into the back of his hand as she tries to grasp onto the last of her sanity. “We can’t just be doing it in cramped cars and breaking kitchen tables. You love our kitchen table.”

It’s true. They got it at this little off-brand store two towns over, run by some old lady who wasn’t interested in making any profits. It’s old and weathered and creaks dangerously every time they put more than four plates down on the thing, but it’s a gorgeous walnut wood, with a resin river design. Her point is, he could probably fix it, if they did break it. Right now it’s a safety hazard with a baby around anyway. It’s not about the fucking kitchen table. She’s so turned on she might actually die if he doesn't do something about it soon. 

Her brows pinch together, a dark look in her eyes. It's a matter of principle at this point. “So you didn’t care if I broke my back sucking you off on on here, but now that I’m carrying your child you’re too good to fuck me on these stairs?”

Bellamy doesn’t back down, which she knew he wouldn’t, meeting her with a dark glare of his own, his voice nothing but a gravelly promise, “I can’t fuck you here the way I want to fuck you, princess.”

That finally shuts her up, allowing him to drag her up the rest of the stairs. After what seems like ages, they finally reach their bedroom. She’s on the bed within seconds, and he’s pulling off her underwear in one swift motion, leaving her in just his old t-shirt. It’s pushed up so her black bra just barely peeks out from under the soft material, exposing the generous curve of her belly. 

The sight forces Bellamy to take a pause as he stares, mouth parted slightly before he remembers what he was doing. She aches for him, for the almost possessive look on his face, the eagerness in his eyes and the gentleness of his movements. He backs away, ghosting his mouth along the seam of her soft skin at the crook of her knee. 

“Look at you,” he praises, his voice nothing but a deep, dark rumble, vibrating along the sensitive skin of her inner thighs. Her toes curl. “My pretty girl.”

“Bellamy, please,” she urges, nearly whining before she draws in a sharp breath. Clarke’s half-way annoyed that despite the best of her intentions she’s ended up begging for it anyway. 

Clarke feels rather than sees him smirk as he nuzzles the crease of skin between her thigh and cunt. She knows it’s coming, and yet the shock of his tongue against her clit still makes her jolt, a moan spilling from her lips. Rough fingers spread her open, blowing gently over the sensitive nub, forcing goosebumps to rise all over the back of her arms, her nipples tightening against the confining material of her bra.

The fact he’s taking it so slow, that he still has such control over himself instead of just fucking her in a feverish burn, deperate to fill her up to the brink with his come would probably make her feel like she’s doing something wrong if this wasn’t Bellamy. There’s nothing he enjoys more than taking his time, teasing it out, making her burn for it. 

Two of his fingers circle her entrance, more than enough of her slick gathered there for it to be incredibly easy for him to push inside. The thought alone makes her whimper weakly, her pussy clenching around nothing. He doesn’t like easy. Instead, Bellamy licks a broad stripe over her, just barely brushing over her clit, mostly teasing the sensitive skin around it. 

Clarke arches a little, bucking up her hips in hope of pushing her clit into his mouth but Bellamy knows her better than that. He expertly follows her motions, leaning away from her while his hand skates up her belly, dragging the cups of her bra down to roll one of her nipples between his fingers. Pleasure-pain sparks up her spine, breasts hypersensitive these days. They're heavy too, so it feels absolutely heavenly when he palms one of them, taking it's weight. 

She lets out little gasps and moans while her fingers clutch at his hair, tugging him closer. She watches him with lidded eyes as his gaze flicks up towards her, spreading her wide with his fingers again, this time finally pushing inside. His fingers feel incredible, relief coursing through her. 

Clarke’s fingers tighten in his curls, mouth falling open with a silent noise before she bites down on her bottom lip to keep from scaring their neighbours. She’s practically squirming on the mattress, desperate from some friction on her clit but also not willing to part from the way his fingers are moving inside of her. The slick, wet sounds only drive her closer to desperation. He definitely wants her to beg. 

Sweat forms on her wrinkled brow, her grip on his hair probably painful at this point. She removes them, knotting them into the sheets instead, desperately seeking for any sort of purchase. “Bell, please, I—” Clarke stumbles on the words, her breathing heavy. His fingers crook up, making her moan helplessly. It takes her another second to gather her thoughts again. “I need you. I need you to — I have to come.”

“Yeah?” Bellamy rasps, rough, adding another finger as he brutally picks up the pace. Her clit aches, and she can barely keep her eyes open. “You have to come, princess?” He lowers his mouth enough so she can feel his warm breath right where she wants it, and her pulse skitters in anticipation. “Need me to make you come, baby? Take care of you?”

Clarke barely manages to nod, entire body tensing as he finally laps at her clit. She tastes blood from the way her teeth have been digging in her lip out of pleasurable torture, but she doesn’t even care. The burn of orgasm is too close for her to care about anything else but the way he’s moving his fingers and tongue. “God, yes, don’t stop. Right there.” 

“You take such good care of me,” she tells him incoherently, voice driven up to a fever pitch, her skin covered in a tiny layer of perspiration. She’s so close. He sucks on her clit, drawing another thin, needy cry from her that soon turns into a chant. “Don’t stop, don’t, no, don’t stop—” 

It’s like a bucket of cold water is thrown over her as Bellamy pulls his mouth off her, and all she can do is let out a desperate whine, throwing her forearm over her eyes. Fuck. Her heartbeat pounds loudly in her ears, the crest of pleasure she was so close to fading away into a dull but intense ache. 

Clarke’s still trying to catch her breath as she hears him fumble with his belt buckle, the rustle of clothes hitting the floor. “I hate you,” she murmurs, as she feels the bed dip with his weight, climbing over her. Her eyes feel too heavy to open, even as he presses a dry kiss over her mouth, then her chin, working his way down her neck. 

“No, you don’t,” he responds, a grin evident in his tone. The worst part is she can't even argue with him. His hands reach for the clip at the front of her bra, snapping it open. Bellamy kisses along the red welts the band has left on her ribs and she lowers her arm off her eyes, dropping it down on the mattress as she relaxes back into it. His mouth feels nice.

He gently sucks a nipple into his mouth, swirling his tongue around the sensitive area while his hand grips the other, teasing the peakened bud with his thumb. The ache between her thighs turns sharper again, even as the one on her chest is lifted by the way he’s worshipping her. 

Clarke is almost sad when he moves on, kissing her belly as he rubs the sides of it, lifting up on his knees. One of his hands comes up to her face, running his knuckles over her flushed cheek, a reverent look in his eyes. “Wanna turn around for me, pretty girl? Let me take care of you?”

She obediently turns around to get on all fours, and the way he shoves his dick inside of her is unceremonious at best, both of them moaning as it sheaths fully inside of her. “Oh, fuck,” he stills, fingertips digging into her hips, hopefully leaving bruises. “You feel so good, baby.”

Clarke hums, breathless, instead of gathering together the strength to give him a verbal response she pushes her hips back into him, clenching around him. He lets out a half-whine, half-groan, tightening his fingers around her hips to keep her still. 

She turns to look at him over her shoulder, brows pinched together in confusion. She’s more than ready to take him, was more than ready before they even started. One of his hands comes up cup her chin, shooting her an apologetic look. “Fuck, I’m so sorry, princess.” His eyes are a little wild now, desperate in their pleading. “You gotta give me a second or I’m gonna come.”

Clarke smirks, but her eyes remain soft, turning her head enough to kiss his palm, the pad of his thumb. She wasn’t aware just how much all this pregnancy talk turned him on. She can feel his cock twitch inside of her as her tongue darts out, taking his thumb into her mouth. She holds his gaze as she lets off him with a filthy pop. “I want it.”

His eyes darken impossibly so, his nostrils flaring slightly as he watches her every move. “I get so hot just thinking about how I’m carrying your baby. I’m at work all day, thinking about how well you’re taking care of us. How lucky they’re gonna be with you as their daddy.” Her mouth opens in a silent gasp as Bellamy gives her a sharp and sudden thrust, pushing his thumb back between her lips. 

Grinding into her slow but hard, growling as she moans around his finger, clenches around his cock. She’s overcome with helpless pleasure, mouth dropping open as his hand curls around her waist instead, teasing her nipples. Her head hangs forward, too boneless and focused on keeping herself upright. No sounds come out from her parted lips except for the quietest, most desperate little wrecked noises in time with the driving of Bellamy’s hips. 

“Drives me fucking crazy hearing you say that,” Bellamy groans, kneeding the flesh of her hip and ass. 

Clarke’s already way too close from her first-almost-there orgasm, a jolt of pleasure going up her spine as he lets off her breasts to thumb at her clit. Her breaths get shorter, core pulling tighter. It’s barely a few seconds before she’s falling apart around him, wave after wave of ecstasy washing over her as she comes harder than she has in a while. 

A string of curses follow from his mouth, not a single one of which she catches. The pounding of blood in her ears drowns out most of anything else as she comes down from her high, his spent trickling from between her thigh as he pulls out the first thing she really registers. Lowering herself onto her elbows, she manages to roll onto her side. 

He collapses on the bed beside her and she eagerly grabs into his face, dragging him towards her for a kiss. Despite still being out of breath, he obliges, groaning into her mouth as one of her hands runs down his neck, to his upper back, over his shoulder and down his arm. Once he’s gathered some semblance of his consciousness, his unsurprisingly comes up to rest on the curve of her stomach between them, stroking it softly. 

Bellamy ducks forward to press a kiss to the column of her throat, burying his face in her neck. Her heart is still tripping traitorously in her chest as her fingers settle on the back of his heated head. She loves being close to him, especially while still sensitive from her high. They stay like that for a moment before he pulls back, shifting onto his back with a small grunt. 

After a second they glance at each other, both letting out a huff of laughter. “That was—fuck.” 

“Quite the snack, huh?” Clarke teases, an amused glint in her eyes. "I'm sorry it wasn't the apple pie you wanted so dearly."

He leans in to kiss her damp forehead, shaking his head at her lightly. “Menace.”

She stretches out her arms above her head, pleased little smile on her face. ”I’m just happy that I can still get you to regress to your teenage boy self after all these years.” It’s a pretty big testament to her power, so she’s allowed to be smug. He used to be a total manwhore and he usually has stamina for days. It makes her feel pretty sexy.

Bellamy hums thoughtfully, a little indignant tone to it as he turns his cheek further into the pillow for a brief second. “It makes you happy we almost had under-twenty-seconds sex?”

“It’s payback for all the pent-up sexual frustration I suffered through for years because you couldn't stop being around cute babies.”

His eyes shine as he smiles boyishly. “If that’s my karma, I’ll take it.”

Clarke pushes his hair away from his eyes, swiping her thumb over his cheekbone. “I love you." After a beat, she adds, "I really do mean it when I say I think you’ll be the best dad.”

“Love you,” he mumbles against her palm before he kisses it. He slides his arm around her waist, pulling her closer. “When it comes to favorite parent you’re definitely gonna give me a run for my money though.”

“It’s not a competition.”

“We both know you don’t mean that.”

“We can use Mother’s and Father’s day as a scoreboard.”

“What’s the grand finale? Eighteenth birthday, the day they leave for college, the house they pick after the divorce?”

“Maybe when we’re both old and gray, taking our last breath in the same bed. We’ll see who they mourn harder.”

“I’m dying first.”

“I know. You’re old.”

“Okay, you can die first.”

Clarke barks out a laugh, nipping him in the side. “We both know you don’t mean that.”

He pecks her on the nose. “Want to take a bath while I make dinner?”

She nearly moans with pleasure, her body never not sore these days. “God, yes. Favorite husband ever.”

“You’re not allowed to get remarried after I die.”

He helps to pull her up from the bed, and she snorts. “What are you gonna do, haunt me?”

“My kids will make their new step-parent’s life a living hell,” Bellamy responds instantly, as if he’s already given this serious thought before. He sits her down on the toilet as he turns the tap on, sticking his hand into the water to check the temperature. She likes it scalding.

“Oh, so they’re your children now?”

“Why else have children if not to emotionally blackmail your spouse into staying faithful to you forever, even after death?” 

He disappears into their bedroom so she has to strengthen her voice enough for him to hear her response, returning pulling a pair of grey sweats over his hips. “Out of deep love and inherent selfishness?” 

“Nah, I just really wanted to stop using condoms.”

“Right. And whatever happens, happens.”

“Nothing to agonize over for years and years. Worrying about money and ovulation tests and timing.”

“No, that just sounds silly,” she agrees. “We just live life as it comes.”

Ares meows from downstairs, the old bastard’s sign of letting them know he wishes to be fed. Bellamy laughs, kissing the crown of her head. “I’ll see you downstairs in a little while, yeah?”

Clarke hums, giving him a smile before he leaves, stomping down the stairs as he curses at the feline. She lowers her chin to look at her bump, patting it gently as her smile grows. She already loves them more than anything in the world, even if she hasn’t met them yet. There’s a pretty realistic, not at all off-chance possibility Clarke might spontaneously combust on the spot when she witnesses Bellamy holding their baby for the first time. 

Well. At least she’ll die happy. 

⥧