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Chapter Text

"Bellamy..?"

The syrupy and saccharine influence of the late afternoon sunshine, weighted all the further with the oppressive lashings of a practically lethal dosage of ultraviolet rays, lays unpleasantly thick and heavy against his likely thoroughly-pinked-skin; Bellamy practically melting apart at the hardly functional, cohesive seams in the coastal sun. Exceedingly minimal thoughts and reaction further slowed by the heightening dehydration certainly tightening his lax muscles at this very moment, aided in the sheer amount of cheap, shit beer he's been pounding since opening his eyes a few hours ago.

The melodious churn of perpetually thrashing waves, disrupted only by the occasional shrilling of an idle seagull or two, had made it easy enough to slip off into some pleasant state of being and not. Made it easy enough to fumble through the halfhearted attempts of finding his sunglasses before promptly collapsing in the cheap, half-bent lounge seat that was probably older than him or the house. Made it easy enough for him to not be a person.

"Bellamy." An attention-catching kick against the rusted metal frame of his sprawled out seat accentuated a clearly finite amount of patience. The sudden jolt of movement grated the ugly, brightly-colored Walmart brand lounger with a surprising amount of strength.

Fucking Octavia.

It had only been two weeks since Bellamy had dragged all of his lackluster worldly possessions back home from Ark University, two of the longest weeks of his life thus far. Also two of the absolute shortest weeks of his life. Though the desperate relief at the prospect of sequestering himself away back home on the appallingly shitty Texas coastline, desperately relieved at the opportunity to lap at his wounds as though he was little else but a thoroughly-scolded house cat, helped soothe the lasting fiery hot ache of disappointment laden hard and heavy against his bones.

It wasn't as though his first year away at university was another magnanimous failure that was so innately intertwined with the Blake family lineage; his grades were remarkably good when reflecting upon the fact that an astonishing percentage of his worldly bodily fluid was likely all vodka at certain points, he managed to score a remarkably mediocre roommate that had some semblance of home-training, and he had a few vaguely tolerable friends who seemed somewhat capable of holding a passingly intelligent conversation.

But getting dumped by the girl he thought he was gonna marry right before finals did really fucking suck.

"Bellamy!" Octavia's voice had pitched with the heat of annoyance, the red-kissed and fire-haloed outline of her figure leaning closer was faintly visible under the burning influence of sunlight straining against the embarrassingly futile protection enshrined within his cheap sunglasses. A clawed little hand raked against the sun-tender skin of his uncovered shoulder and upper chest, white-hot lines of irritated skin bursting to life as the lasting trace of beguiling booze was effectively kicked from Bellamy's drowsy nervous system.

Especially when he only went to Ark University in the first place because that's where Gina wanted to go.

"Are you serious? You can't be this fucked up at like 3pm again, it's weird- also only girls get this drunk off beer. You're like a little girl."

He fumbles for a moment, drunk and heat-exhausted and still a little out of his mind with the wallowing throes of self-pity, kicking in vain against the patchy outline of the lounge chair as he attempts to sit upright. Opening his eyes sends a fiery explosion of sensitivity and agony welling fresh and hot behind Bellamy's eyes, each and every little intricately-woven neuron and synapse shrieking in protest to the sudden influx of information and sensory output being required. It takes everything in him not to promptly vomit on his little sister's well-worn sneakers.

The world roils upon an unfamiliar axis; colors too bright, shapes lacking any semblance of proper definition, rhythmic pulses of pain interwoven into the most vital and soft parts of his thoroughly pounding skull. Octavia stands adjacent to him, sun-kissed skin gleaming and freshly-dusted in a finite layer of soft freckles from the sheer amount of exposure she seemed to get amidst the summer, hands irritably perched atop slim hips. Her dark eyes, wide puddles of rich earth tones, have an expectant little glare frosting the tops of her finely crowned lashes.

"Jesus Christ Octavia, what do you want," the defensive groan comes out more like a partially garbled moan, tongue thick and heavy under the drugging influence of too much booze and too much sun and not nearly enough water. Ruefully, he begins to rub at the stinging red lines of his little sister's displeasure, relieved that his awkwardly perched sunglasses afford him a minimal defense to rolling his eyes.

"I told you yesterday- Clarke is coming over, you can't be slouched over in the backyard like some geriatric old freak." Octavia tilts her chin up, expression pinched as though he had somehow massively inconvenienced every fundamental component of her life by getting drunk and sprawling out in the backyard. "You're depressing and weird and it makes my friends feel bad."

He scoffs at that, tasting the sticky remnants of beer and tobacco heavy on his tongue and teeth. Why would he care about what any seventeen year old thought of him? Half of Octavia's shitty friends still couldn't even legally qualify at getting their driver's permit. Clarke was the newest addition of his little sister's friends; proudly sorted into the fold of prized collections as though she was a new, uniquely shiny jewel in the charm bracelet of Octavia's fast-to-burn-out social life. He hadn't even met her yet, seeing as they only managed to meet shortly after Bellamy had originally moved out for university, but half of his failingly sober conversations were over-saturated with the sheer intensity of Octavia's girlish devotion to her newest best friend. Clarke, Clarke, Clarke.

God, no wonder their mom was worried about Octavia being a closeted lesbian.

"Not my problem," Bellamy shrugs, leaning forward a bit more than intended due to the slippery indulgence of alcohol resting loftily at his joints, "go hang out at her place or something."

"Nuh-uh," Octavia exclaims, disbelieving and exasperated, reaching out with little demon hands to swat at him again- though this time, Bellamy retains enough sticky and impermanent faculties to fend her away. She kicks at his rickety lounge chair again, the flimsy metal trembling violently beneath his swaying inability to recollect a semblance of balance. They continue striking and swatting at one-another as though quarrelsome cats, half of their attempts at hitting skin much too discordant and unorganized to make legitimate contact with any semblance of force.

If anything, the only noteworthy repercussion to their seemingly unending bickering is felt with their poor neighbors who likely hear their shouts and complaints. "Clarke's mom is like, the ultimate bitch. Besides, mom lets us stay in the living room and watch whatever we want for as long as we want. Just go pass out in your room, you've already exceeded your daily three hours of consciousness."

"God, maybe I will- just stop talking to me nonstop. You're so goddamn shrill-"

Octavia manages to kick the weakest leg of the brightly colored and brightly decaying yard seat out from beneath Bellamy, sending half of the chair collapsing down into the sandy earth of their somewhat beach-front adjacent yard.

-

It's not like Bellamy wanted to be like this; flimsy, taken apart, fine muscles and arteries and sinews rotting apart with the ruinous touch of his grief.

He's always been a little sensitive, the fine inner workings of his fucked up brain a little too closely linked for any semblance of a proper reaction. Had a baseline of angry tears; always ready to cry, to get his feelings hurt, to lash out and hold it against someone. My butterfly boy, his mom had always said, thumbing away the angry tears that had seemed to frequently dust his cheeks as a little kid. A fucking crybaby, one of his mom's boyfriends, maybe the one who shot a cop, had sneered through a mouthful of cigarette yellowed teeth.

But it was different now; never just the occasional thrashing of tears, always the deep-rooted sadness. Something new and different and bad underscoring the fabric of his sense of self. The once singular thread-line of sorrow, woven through the unseen and delicate knottings of his circulatory system, had somehow expanded. Eating up more of him than he had to give, making him something different and just. Bad.

It hadn't been entirely too difficult to control throughout those last dragging years of high-school, hadn't been too difficult to control when he had someone like Gina who was kind and empathetic and so wholly unable to impart any sort of judgment. But then Gina left (probably because he's a suffocating drain that stole away all of the goodness in other people to make up for a lack of his own) and the somewhat tolerable world felt a lot less functionally navigable.

So Bellamy drank and argued with Octavia and tried to suffocate the stubborn embers of his own wallowing misery.

It helps. He's almost normal again. It's not working. He's insufferable to be around.

The dark sheets of his old bed are cold and a little rough; scratchy little shivers creeping down the stiffened expanse of his lightly-sunburned back as Bellamy rolls over from his belly in a fidgety attempt to find additional comfort. The misaligned windows, wooden and chipped to the bare bones after an entire childhood of rough treatment, allow the final rivulets of sticky pink light to pour in from the outside world.

The soft hum of sea-emboldened mosquitoes hmming by the poorly sealed pane of glass hangs heavy in the otherwise quietly miserable expanse of his bedroom, the only faint reprieve from the perpetual creak and moan of their old seaside house.

Reluctantly abiding by the demands of Octavia, Bellamy had somewhat willingly retreated to the safety of the house- largely out of the pounding headache ravenously picking apart at the base of his skull, and not out of any genuine want to make things easier or comfortable. The quiet darkness of his bedroom made the growing urge to be sick a little more manageable anyways, defended him from the inevitable annoyance of listening to Octavia prattle on about the newest gem in the ever-rotating crown of her most prized personal relations. Did you know Clarke- When Clarke and I- it was never ending. This is Clarke's favorite- Well Clarke says. Some random teenager he's never even met somehow an unending plague upon his exceptionally limited sanity.

Even now, bundled away in bed nursing the worst of the lasting pavings of misery and alcohol-induced sunburn sickness, Clarke is somehow an equally magnanimous presence. If he looks too closely out the window, he'll certainly see her and Octavia lounging about in the backyard- window perfectly level with the primary field of sight that occupied the scope of their yard that backs up to the shitty Galveston beach. Faint rivulets of happy chatter and laughter drift wanly against the rigid paneling of his old crooked window- rising and falling like the tides in natural progression with whatever idle nonsense that Clarke and Octavia happen to be spewing on and on about.

It makes Bellamy feel a little creepy and weird, knowing that he's hiding away inside the prison-like confines of his childhood bedroom, unfettered access immediately available to the privacy of his sister's friendship. Like a loser or something. An unfamiliar laugh echoes heavily in the alcohol-softened edges of his consciousness, ringing sticky and hot and making his heartbeat kick up a little.

Bellamy slings a sun-burn stiffened arm over his eyes, ignoring the heady pulse of pain ricocheting through his thoroughly abused nervous system at the movement, groaning as he sullenly attempts to force himself to fall asleep again.

Definitely a loser.

-

Bellamy officially meets Clarke Griffin exactly three days later; it is the best thing that has ever happened to him, it is the beginning of the end.

It's an especially humid Thursday, the shoreline plagued with the unending monotony of viciously temperamental afternoon thunderstorms carefully crafted under the beguilingly warm waters of the gulf. Sleazy bursts of heavy, prickly rains and the occasional lashing of vibrant lightning had effectively choked out the usual rush of seaside life, little cafes and boutiques and beaches abandoned in pursuit of shelter against the summer-warmed rains.

Bellamy, Aurora had quietly questioned in the dark impermanence of morning; warm, labor-calloused hands gently cupping his face as though checking for a fever.

Hmm, it had been difficult to respond in the moment, everything fuzzy at the edges and slurring together under the sharp, pronounced pain of his latest hangover magnified by the early hour. Even opening his eyes was a feat that took an immeasurable amount of strength, every singular fiber of his being resisting the urge to vomit at the insular change of light currently frying his brain.

I'm worried about you, his mother's voice was constrained with the unfamiliar sharpness of concern, dark eyes wide in the exceptionally low light permeating his half-ruinous, half-lived in room.

I'm fine. The response was easy enough, some little part of his brain courteous enough to allow a singular threading of conviction to pulse through the exceptionally limited answer. Bellamy had never felt more grateful in that moment, relieved that some somewhat conscious and aware and human part of him had made sure to keep his childhood bedroom relatively clear of any beer cans or liquor bottles.

His mother's sigh of disagreement had been swallowed under the tenuous crack of lightning, the storm finally cresting to life in that moment.

The rain and unbearably wet, constraining weight to the usual skies had effectively kept Bellamy inside for his usual routine of getting shitfaced before sleeping through a majority of the day. He was relegated to the worn, exceptionally battered war-zone of the old living room couch, sprawled out against peeling leather and easily eclipsing the short expanse of available space; socked feet hanging heavily off the old arm. An arm was thrown over his eyes once again, the makeshift blindfold a perpetual accent to his daily retinue of his especially limited activities, meant to shield his light-sensitive eyes from the occasional streak of white-hot lightning cutting the bleak, gray afternoon skies.

The TV was a sterile source of continuous noise against the hum of rain in the otherwise empty house; shapeless and seamless transitioning of vapid conversations thankfully taking off the weight of any semblance coherent thought, allowing him to absently and idly focus on stupid reruns of daytime television. His mom was at work as usual, and Octavia had left at the first singular hint of daylight for some cheer practice or meeting or some other equally insufferable activity.

The loneliness was as much of a relief as it was a source of torment.

"Octavia..?"

The soft moaning of rusted hinges heralds the unceremonious opening of the slouching front door, heavy wood dragging against a thoroughly-stained entryway rug. His skull rattles angrily at the intrusion of noise, though some little part of his nervous system shivers in delight as it makes the lightning-quick connection between the speaker and the honeyed little bit of laughter he heard a few days ago.

"Not here," Bellamy manages to croak out, not really caring that the-person-who-is-presumably-Octavia's-friend has a key to the front door he most definitely locked at some point or another during his half-baked stumblings through the house.

Soft footsteps pad closer, the faint jingling of jewelry weaving a musical little path as Clarke made her way through the entryway and infringing upon the sacred place of his lounging space. Bellamy reluctantly drags his forearm away from its protective shielding of his eyes, instead managing to awkwardly stuff his sleep-stiffened right arm behind his head in a futile attempt to prop himself up into a more upright position.

He feels a little embarrassed for some reason. He doesn't want to dwell on that for long.

Clarke appears shortly thereafter; sun-kissed golden and heavily adorned in all sorts of faintly ringing bracelets and necklaces and jewelry that sings along with her movements, little top and loose skirt gently dusted with coastal rain. Startlingly pretty and colorful against the storm-grayed haze weighing heavily against the mismatched arrangement of the living room, pretty enough to make his cheeks pink just a touch.

And her absolutely magnificent tits barely contained in that little woven crop-top didn't exactly help to lower his heart rate.

"Oh, sorry," a little smile graces the warm curves of her face, pale eyes sharp on him as though he was the most interesting thing she had ever witnessed, "normally Octavia is home by now." The unsettled feeling curling through his veins heightens a touch more at this realization, prompting him to sit up just a bit more.

"Yeah, well. She's not," Bellamy manages to grump out, a little flustered by the fact that his seventeen year old sister's newest friend was actually hot. And also looking at him hungover and half-naked on the couch.

Clarke continues forward with little regard for his short answers, stepping right up to the back of the couch. Small hands, heavily adorned with rings and bracelets and noticeably-well manicured nails, come to rest lightly against the battered top portion of the couch he was strewn about, her willowy little figure leaning in close over the top of the couch. It startles Bellamy a little, the sudden minuscule amount of distance between them; this close he can see her pale hair is carefully accented with several fine little braids, the girly kind that take an ungodly amount of time for something so not immediately stand-out-ish.

He can smell her too, something that makes every intricate little webbing of his circulatory system roar to life with a ravenous pulse of awareness, the sweet whisper of artificial coconut suddenly sticky and thick against the weight of his tongue.

"Oh yeah, you must be Bellamy! Octavia told me you moved home a few weeks ago, but I haven't seen you at all," Clarke remained braced against the shoddy wooden framing of the old leather couch as she leaned over him, honey-blonde hair spilling around the soft rounds of her face like a silky little waterfall. Though her words were casual enough, something about the quiet shock of absolute interest in both her words and wide eyes rigidly catches his attention. Makes Bellamy fixate a little more than he was prepared to.

"She's right, you look like shit."

The blunt little jab makes Bellamy's cheeks heat further still, his heart thudding with the newfound stress of someone's interest and attention being so vibrantly fixated upon him.

"Jesus, do you have any semblance of personal space?" It's the only somewhat coherent answer he can manage to bite off, drowning in the closeness and the soft drag of her long blonde hair just barely grazing against him. The smell of her. "This is one hell of a way to try and introduce yourself."

"Oh yeah, sorry. I'm Clarke- Octavia's friend. Also you're sitting in my spot." Clarke smiles again, perfect teeth sharp against the pale blush of her lips, moving to stand fully upright and independent of the couch once again as she sweeps further into the living room. His brain is still a little fuzzy and out of sorts from both the lingering undercurrents of a hangover and also the brief induction into the personal space of Clarke, he hardly has the time or focus to react as she comes to kick his legs away off the couch.

"Your spot? You don't even live here," Bellamy echoes in ready complaint, though he indulges in her instructive pushes that mean to steer him away from occupying the entire width of the little old couch. It leaves the lower half of him hanging awkwardly from the battered, uneven length of the old couch- legs strewn abruptly to the side in some attempt of a jackknife position.

"I'm here more than you actually, so it's my spot!" Clarke immediately refutes, fully shoving his legs away and claiming the once-occupied seat with a little flourish of jewelry and trinkets colliding with the soft expanse of her sun-freckled skin. The way her genuinely incredible tits jump a little at the sudden movement of draping herself across the couch muddles any sort of quality response to the argument for longer than he'd like to admit. Clarke sits heavily on her hip in the corner section of unoccupied space, knees folded beneath her skirt and elbow propped against the rough leather back of the couch, entirely too casual for the first interaction of two strangers.

"Y'know, Octavia told me your girlfriend dumped you and that you were spinning out from it all," she begins after a few sticky heartbeats of silence, perfectly manicured nails reaching to idly toy with the frayed edges of socks- the gentle clicking of her bracelets and rings catching upon themselves in a discordant symphony. "She showed me some pictures of her too, Gina or whatever her name is. She's cute I guess, but totally not worth Ted Kaczynski'ing yourself or whatever this is."

The genuine earnestness in such a clipped, bared fangs assessment of the utter calamity of his picked apart and carrion-riddled relationship is startling; bizarre in the sudden unending fixation and invasive in the trepidation-free yawning jaws and very clearly well meaning. The conversation is hardly the strangest thing that's ever happened to him, but it certainly feels like it. Bellamy groans, partly in frustration at the ceaseless conversation and partly at the stubbornly-lingering dredges of a lasting hangover, fine musculature of his legs tensing up in response to the new and raw and frankly way too casual point of contact with Clarke's warm, jewelry clad hands.

"You do realize this is an absolutely insane interaction," Bellamy manages after a few heartbeats of luxuriating in the little pinpoints of contact between them, lonely and so terribly acutely aware of it, roughly scrubbing a hangover-heavy hand over the sleep-sticky and scruff-kissed skin of his face, "we don't even know each other and you're calling me Ted Kaczynski. A domestic terrorist. That's weird."

"Fine, Chris McCandless then. And it's not weird."

"I don't know who that is, but I'm gonna assume it's another offensive comparison."

"Eh," Clarke's little half-haphazard shrug, muscles rolling easily beneath the sun-kissed skin of her shoulders, hardly gave any leeway for interpretation.

The fine, softly-rounded features of Clarke's face are streaked and overwrought with the sad, soft light of the static-heavy TV rolling on in an endless monotony of shitty daytime soap operas and weight-loss diet pill commercials; the dark afternoon sky, sodden and sullen with a mirroring terrible temperament to his own, roiling and shivering under the force of its own explosive lightning creeping across the slanted panes of old salt-stained window glass.

The living room had been dark and dreadful and like another secondary place to leave himself to pull apart, but just the faintest whisper of her smile somehow making it all a little brighter.

"I don't think it's weird- besides, someone probably needs to tell you that anyways."

"Why?"

"'Cause your mom and Octavia probably love you too much to be mean enough to help," Clarke says it simple enough, with all the well-refined grace and excitement of coworkers being forced to make polite small-talk about the weather while trapped in the elevator, "and it now impacts me. Also you smell like shit. Cheap beer isn't really a flattering smell to roll around in for a few days at a time."

Bellamy groans at that, hoarse sound welling up from somewhere low and soft and vital within the cavernous expanse of his chest, forearms fully folding in upon his face in a defensive attempt to ward away the hotly-melded frustration-amusement frothing within his pulsing blood.

It's probably a bad sign that he's spent the entirety of his summer break drunk somewhere in the sun-baked sands of the Texas coast, probably an even worse sign that seventeen year old girls can recognize how functionally non-functional he's become. She laughs a little at that initial reaction, and it sounds just as rich and warm as it did just a few days ago through the fine-meshing of his shitty bedroom window.

Yeah, the beginning of the end.

-

Sometimes Bellamy misses Gina. Sometimes he doesn't.

It's hard to distinguish where the elaborate webbing of his own seemingly innate sadness begins and ends; hard to know whether he was always this sad and Gina just happened to be his preliminary life-raft against the raging seas, or if he loved Gina enough to genuinely miss her like this.

If he asked his mom, it was the latter. If he asked himself, it was the former.

Hard to know even on the best of days where the simple act of being awake doesn't feel equitable to getting in a car accident, even more difficult on the days where a quiet tremor remains a tumultuous undercurrent somewhere between the thin flesh and fine bones of his hand. Only nursed back into a sleepy pulse of dormancy when he's eventually able to find an adequate amount of booze. Easier to be fucked up then acknowledge the absolute failure of his ability to handle virtually anything.

If Clarke's around during those days, they don't seek each other out.

-

It's a week after that initial conversation, awkward but also not meeting- maybe two.

The daily mid-afternoon storms have quietly slipped from the foreseeable weather chances, sky continuously blue and cheerily undisturbed by the usual monotony of bleary rainstorms; the beach, already dry and picked apart by the scalding presence of the Texas sun, effortlessly bleached into stark shades of yellow and brown and whatever other meandering colors screamed immediate death-by-heatstroke.

He had mostly stopped going outside during the day, partly because of the rapidly mounting intensity associated with the heat and partly because their neighbor complained about how getting drunk everyday in front of their kids was inappropriate and quite frankly just weird. It was probably a good thing though, a secondary defense against the inevitability of some form of melanoma or another.

In the absence of his tenuous ritual of normalcy, Bellamy sometimes managed to fix a few oddities around the house before the shake of his hands became too distracting. Salvaged the old screen-door that had to be slammed three or four times to shut, fixed Octavia's window that had somehow gotten jammed to the point of non-function, kept their old little fridge from burning itself out from a clogged vent. Little things that said I'm trying.

It's somewhere between late afternoon and early evening; the heat of the day reaching its smothering, suffocating peak. A slim hand prods his shoulder. The expectancy that shades the initial movements quickly blossoms into exasperation; an impatient little pinch of nails serving as the only real reason he decides to lift his head from the uneven confines of his carelessly-strewn about sheets.

"Bellamy," Octavia complains, evidently having little patience for the tedium of waking him up. Though his vision was scuffed and hazy under the sticky vestiges of ever apparent and ever unyielding sleepiness, he could somewhat clearly discern the familiarity of one of his old shirts torn apart into the new life of an exceptionally ill-fitting tanktop, "wake up. Mom said I could take your truck, but I can't find the keys."

"I'm not letting you take my truck," his tongue is heavy and tired and he can't decide if he's more irritated about one of his shirts being mangled or the fact that Octavia thinks she's taking his truck anywhere. It was already old and practically mangled to the point of death-throes; Octavia would certainly kill it with the simple act of looking at it too closely.

"Too bad, mom already said yes. Clarke and I are going to the pier, they're hosting the county fair this year." Octavia abandons the methodology of simple pinches, instead rearing back and open-palm slapping the still sunburned skin of his back with enough force to make the initial frenzy of contact echo sharply in his dark and way too hot room. The mention of Clarke would've likely been enough to wake him up, embarrassingly enough, though his sister slapping him was an effective second-assurance.

Bellamy, in lieu of any proper response, flounders a few mindless kicks in the general direction of where he thinks his sister might be standing, rough-worn sheets tangled and effectively restricting any meaningful measure of capability. It takes a few seconds, but eventually he manages to catch Octavia somewhere between the hard jut of her hip and the overly-muscled line of her skinny thigh, sending her stumbling back a few paces into the warped old dresser adjacent to his bed.

"Don't care, still not happening," Bellamy croaks out, baleful glare stained with sleep and pointed remaining fixed on Octavia and his now thoroughly shaken old dresser, miscellaneous items rolling about idly in response to the sudden contact, "give me a few minutes and I'll take you guys."

Octavia eyes him with an equally mutinous mirror to his own dark glare, though thankfully she seems to agree with little other than the occasional grumbled complaint as she straightens back up and retreats with most of her pride intact. Though she's careful to say much, because he can see the tremulous bit of relief shading heavy beneath her thick lashes, apparently just relieved that he might even be willing to venture outside of the house for once.

-

The early evening air is wet with humidity; the usual droll of melodic waves and pitchy seabirds disrupted by the vibrant chatter of enthused fair-goers, sharp swells of neon light wavering faintly against the gathering dusk of the slowly setting sun. Carelessly strung rivers of happily-chattering people sweep by in irregular pulses of activity, crowding on by through the narrow isles framed out by colorful little stalls of games and foods and all sorts of little trinkets to be sold.

Clarke and Octavia wander a few paces ahead, arms interlocked together as though reminiscent of a well-braided daisy chain, carelessly forging ahead through the seemingly endlessly river of fair-goers in absent little sways that pull in the direction of a particularly inviting stall-front. It's a little awkward and embarrassing to be following two high-school girls around like a scorned puppy, especially as they lean in to share furtive little giggles with matching sets of flushed cheeks and knowing little smiles, but thankfully nobody seems to really care or acknowledge him.

His already tentatively bruised pride was both soothed and further aggravated by Octavia's purposeful inability to even acknowledge him, but at least Clarke was a little more forgiving. Even when the three of them had been awkwardly squashed together in the crammed front-cab of his old truck.

"Bellamy," Clarke suddenly calls, sun-freckled face washed interchangeable stains of pinks and blues and purples as she looks back over her shoulder in the vibrant current of flashing neon lights, little hand loosely wrapped around Octavia's bicep as they remain paused in the little walkway.

"What," Bellamy replies, habitually turning his key-ring over and over against the cacophony of unending noise, watching as his sister makes another lame attempt at pulling away from her friend.

"Your sister is trying to ditch us," Clarke complains, unyielding against Octavia's little protests as she rounds, fine features pulling together in a well-woven expression of irritation at the apparent revelation of his sister's true intent, "she thinks this guy Atom is here and that he'll hang out with her-"

A little petulant in nature, maybe even treading the fine line between little care and something akin to jealousy.

"Clarke!" Octavia pulls free from Clarke's grasp entirely, exasperated and embarrassed, leveling another little shove in the general direction of the blonde- catching her softly on the braided straps of her brightly-colored tanktop, "I told you that you didn't have to come. You always do this- you say you're fine with it, but then you freak out."

"You know he can't even read, right? He got held back last year 'cause he can't read above a third grade level."

"I let you have Lexa, you owe me." Octavia insists, dark brows arched incredulously, snatching Clarke's jewelry heavy wrist and giving it a purposeful squeeze.

"Girls don't count- you said so yourself!" Clarke's cheeks flush a deeper shade of red at the mention of whoever Lexa is, pretty lips tipped with the sharp undercurrent of a little snarl as she not-so-subtly yanks her wrist clean of Octavia's slim fingers with the melodic flourish of twinkling bracelet charms.

Yeah, his mom's concerns about Octavia being a closeted lesbian make a lot more sense watching this.

"I don't really care," Bellamy tells both girls, though the pretense of caring about his further involvement in the conversation wanes fully as the two continue to bicker, sullen and stubborn and apparently willing to push each other around in public in an attempt to further gain ground in the snippy argument. "I just came with you guys so Octavia didn't wreck my truck."

Clarke throws an agitated little glare in his direction as Octavia presses in close, apparently unappreciative of his unwillingness to throw a grace-giving life-raft in the general direction of the little lover's quarrel, lips downturned under the pressing weight of the sulky frown gracing the fine ridges of her thoroughly blushed and petal pink lips. Octavia leans in noticeably closer in another futile plea for clemency, voice dropping to a pointed whisper traded upon shared breaths, careful hands reaching out to idly touch at the silky crown of Clarke's loosely-bound braids- though Clarke's defensive slap lacked any semblance of hesitation to imply that she was feeling particularly forgiving.

Bellamy rocks his weight onto his heels, feeling the sand-crusted wood of the ancient pier bowing faintly beneath the unusual weight distribution, as he attempts to wait out the vestiges of their argument.

"Bellamy," Octavia finally concedes after a few too many tension-stiffened heartbeats, leaning back from the stiff line of Clarke's shoulders, evidently the less-than-pleased victor of whatever squabble had been traded upon bite-thickened hisses, "do you mind hanging out with Clarke for a little bit?"

"I don't really think I have a choice," Bellamy says after a few minutes, unable to stifle the voracious upbeat in his previously sleep-sticky pulse, a little part of him pleased that he was able to hang out with Clarke and a little part of him pleased that she got some sort of comeuppance in response to comparing to him a serial killer amidst their initial meeting, "so whatever. I guess."

Octavia hardly sticks around long enough to hear out the intricacies of his totally well thought out and honest answer, slender frame easily swallowed up within the ever-churning shallows of the casual stumbling by denizens, dark hair disappearing easily against the lingering pulses of the setting sun. Clarke watches her go, forearms crossed against the soft material of her generous top, stiff and evidently unhappy; Bellamy wonders if he looked the same watching Gina leave.

"So," he eventually intones after another heinously awkward lull in pursuit of another overly girly argument, voice sticky against his tongue and teeth as he half-heartedly attempts to navigate the emotional landmine he had somehow landed within immediate proximity of, "that was.. weird."

Evidently not the best thing to lead with, seeing as Clarke promptly turns on him with all the fiery displeasure that had once been wielded against his sister's retreating shadow just moments ago, very pretty and very blonde features awash with the faint undercurrents of sour jealousy and bitter defeat. A little crybaby. Eating a brick would've probably been less painful in the moment. 

"Wow, Bellamy, you're very observant- has anyone ever told you that before?"

Bellamy scuffs his old flip-flops against the sand-dusted walkway boards, unable to offer little other than a combative little half-smile that probably does little other than further irritate his sister's friend-maybe-girlfriend even further.

"So I've been told," Bellamy is a little more generous with this allowance, "but whatever. I saw a lemonade stand a little way back- one of the good ones where they make it from scratch and add all the shit you want."

Clarke doesn't attempt to disguise the plaintive glance tossed in the general direction of the ever-roiling crowd that Octavia had effectively disappeared within, visibly turning over the sticky wheels of their heated exchange with little regard for his attempt at further pacification. When he's finally deigned the purposeful, all-consuming grace of being worthy of her direct acknowledgement, a new shade of resolve heavily frames the pale curves of her fine-little lashes- poignant and hungry and not at all dissimilar to the way she had sized him up that first day on the couch.

"Fine. You're paying."

-

A handful of short-change and a few minutes spent idling in the frigid company of a less-than-thrilled Octavia-assigned-buddy later, Bellamy and Clarke have one of those little buckets of lemonade frequently traded off between their hands when the chill grows to be unpleasant; twin mirror lips stained sharp with remnants of raspberries and blackberries and all sorts of other little fruits, a shared straw occasionally drifting back and forth in the absence of further sips. They ramble about with little direction and even less conversation, Bellamy mostly following wherever Clarke happens to stray- static-washed currents of music faintly drifting on by in stagnant lurches as they meander between countless different stands proudly displaying all sorts of fair gimmicks. Terribly fried and re-fried foods, warbling vestiges of music from poorly received radio stations, definitely rigged games, a nearly offensive array of dessert choices at any one individual's immediate access.

A little while ago she had wrapped her hand around his forearm to more effectively steer him, fingers chilly after an extended turn holding their shared lemonade, and he hadn't really known what to do with it beyond attempt to stifle the eager little shiver that creeps down the length of his spine at the initial contact. Definitely a loser if a seventeen year old girl putting her hand on his arm gets him this worked up. Mostly, Clarke watches people play the overpriced games in hopes of winning a lopsided and misshapen stuffed animal; mostly, Bellamy watches her.

"Am I allowed to ask about you and Octavia?" He eventually questions, curious and self-destructive enough to lap at the fresh wound evidently lashing up somewhere soft and vital inside of Clarke.

"No." Clarke's immediate reply is stiff, her well-manicured nails bearing down against his perpetually sunburned forearm with enough insistence to speak of the unforgiving ground he was treading upon.

"Ok. Am I allowed to ask about that Atom guy?"

"No."

"What about Lexa?"

The responsive glare casually tilted in his direction is radioactive enough to rival the melting of the chernobyl reactor; mutinous and molten and gleaming wetly under the sharp reflection of cheery neon signage. Again, eating a brick would've probably been more casual, even with the blatantly obvious writing shining atop the wall before him. Likes to think he's pretty normal and cool and accepting about stuff like that, even if it finds an especially tedious intersection with his sister. Maybe even a more confusing intersection considering he's somehow in the middle of it as well, a tumultuous summer seastorm of feelings billowing low and hot somewhere important inside of him.

"Lexa doesn't matter. You don't even know her," Clarke's voice is weighted down by a tightness that's unfamiliar, suddenly looking acutely uncomfortable and aware of the countless other people milling about all around them. "We're not playing twenty-one questions or something like that."

"Oh. Yeah, I guess you're right," Bellamy feels even more off-balance, fingers tightening their hold on the flimsy plastic of the little lemonade jug, floundering for a proper foothold in the terrible depth of the conversation he had evidently waded into with little care. His face feels hot, pulse jumping to a heated surge in the empty caverns of his chest. "I just meant that.. even if you were-"

"Well I'm not," Clarke hisses, nails ghosting his sun-tender skin with the purposeful embellishment of crescent moons in a firm directive to stop, her own cheeks flushed pink in a way that must be identical to his own, "so can you please stop?"

Bellamy forks over the lemonade immediately in a hopeful attempt to soothe over the miserable blunder, chipped tooth anxiously pulling at his sugar-stained lip in a reflexive gesture of his absolute nervousness. "Yeah, sorry."

Thankfully, unlike how Octavia's initial attempt at winning back favor stalled with the grace of a over-charged outlet, Clarke seemed much more willing to accept his show of good nature; hand not currently wound around his forearm like a decorative trophy instead snatching back the fruit-filled drink with the gall of a starved stray cat, mutinously sipping at the partially chewed straw.

God, he's definitely a loser.

"I'll forgive you if you win me that penguin stuffie," Clarke eventually concedes after a chasm-like stretch of terse silence, peeking up from beneath exceptionally pale and dandelion-like lashes as her bright lips purse pointed around the straw. A weak, though relatively earnest attempt at forging through the awkwardness of this first extended interaction of theirs.

"Those games are rigged, Clarke," Bellamy grouches, throwing a complainant eye in the direction of the ring-toss stall she was purposefully eyeing, though he doesn't do much to stave off her not-so-gentle pushes in the way of the stall. Obviously he's gonna play the stupid fucking game, 'cause he feels bad, but he likes to complain."Nobody ever wins them."

"Sorry, did you say something? I can only hear winners." Clarke smiles a little at his exasperated puff, only willing to relinquish her hold on his arm as he haphazardly digs around for his wallet, pale teeth stained a faint pink from the lethal amount of raspberries she had ordered in their drink. This is much better, he decides.

(He does eventually win the prized penguin stuffie, though it takes quite a few tries and all of the remaining spare cash in his wallet.)

-

The tentative peace, etched through the hard-worn labors of the much prized penguin stuffie, stays good for the rest of the night; sticky remnants of bad-blood and errant steps and wayward friends-maybe-girlfriends soothed by the comfort of a busy fair-grounds. Clarke and Bellamy try all sorts of shitty games and food, even risk death and dismemberment on the few ancient rides dragged out every early summer for the much-anticipated occasion of the county fair. Their conversations are actually quite pleasant when they avoid the abrasive points of contention, which happened to boil down to the infinitely expansive category of dark-haired women in their love lives.

It's good and it's easy. It's almost like they're friends.

Until Bellamy has a fucking panic attack sitting in the truck with Clarke while waiting for Octavia to meet up with them.

It's quick, slipping across the wiry expanse of his intricately-woven nervous system with the silent menace of oil spilling across water, no warning, no grace. One moment they're listening to the shitty connection of his old radio blaring a listlessly generic pop song and laughing about something stupid, and the next it's like the entire weight of the known world and mapped universe is verging in somewhere hot and overwhelming deep inside. It locks up his muscles with a terribly sharp thread of tension, seizes everything up and pulls the ground out from beneath him- lungs simultaneously scorched into the point of no return from the all-consuming press of heat that ladens heavy and knowing atop his shoulders, yet entirely unable to draw in a singular breath.

He's fucking dying.

Bellamy's throat feels clogged under the scalding pressure of unshed tears suddenly roiling forth to the surface with the welcoming grace of an earthquake, blood set aflame under the frigid grace of adrenaline firing at full capacity through the racing confines of his circulatory system, faint threadings of sweat dusting different points of his body as he promptly folds into the chilling embrace of the steering wheel.

He's seven and feeling the pressing chains of the inability to leave his bed for the first time, he's eleven and feeling his mom's latest shitty boyfriend is screaming at him, it's the first time their power got cut for not paying bills, it's Gina leaving. The shared brutality of both a week's worth, and a lifetime's worth, of sorrow rushing up to tear him apart at the partially-taped-together seams. Melt him down to what exceptionally minimal good parts remain. All to the monotonous hum of a shitty Maroon-5 song sleuthing through the blown speakers in his dash.

Bellamy, Clarke sounds far away and scared; muffled as though lost somewhere far away and deep below the surface of a lashing ocean, what's wrong?

He can't answer, not that he would have an answer to offer should he live through the terrible pulse of his own heartbeat echoing so flagrantly within his own skull. Though his face is pressed against the steering wheel, violently trembling forearms banding around his face in a desperate attempt to protect himself from further embarrassment, he can still see Clarke- feel her presence lingering restlessly just beyond his reach.

Are you ok? The question rings faintly in the backdrop of roaring blood and adrenaline. 

A sharp ache blossoms against the gentle slope of his nose as Bellamy bears down closer into the beat-up steering wheel, fiery whispers of tears licking against the stifled curves of his cheek as he attempts to combat the cloying weight of crushing despair curling hot and tight against his entire being. It only lasts a few minutes, an agonizing grind of altered perception filtering through his hazed and darkened vision as he attempts to suck in a breath against the uncaring vinyl of the old dashboard.

Distantly, as though enshrouded in some terrible physical filter of altered being, he can feel Clarke's palm hesitantly come to rest somewhere between the center of his bowed shoulder blades; unsure and scared and grounding in the limited warmth it manages to offer through the idle sweeping motions it cycles through. It's enough to prompt Bellamy to actually gasp for air, likely for the first time since the entire ordeal started. She's close now; close enough that their sides are pressed together, the prized penguin stuffie sandwiched between their thighs.

Uhm, it's ok. You're alright. Clarke's little hand keeps rubbing slow circles against the trembling musculature of his back, the regularity and deliberation of her nervous fingers pulling sharply against the constricting pressure tearing through all the soft and read and tender parts of him, the unending grace of a predatory bird gorging upon any semblance of awareness and capability. A sob vibrates up the twisting expanse of his vocal chords, Bellamy promptly throwing himself into the unsuspecting arms of Clarke, who stumbles back a touch in surprise. Later, he'll find the resolve to be embarrassed about putting her on the spot in such an intensive manner.

The steady throb of her heartbeat welcomes his frantic embrace, soft and unknowing and grounding; her arms eventually folding around him in a comforting half-hug. "It's ok, Bellamy. You're alright." Clarke's soft words, along with her fingers curling close and tight against the tender curve of his scalp in absent little half-scratches, seem to help pull the world back into the shape of being. Racing blood and heart and hormones gradually soothed to a sludge of partial awareness, everything aching as little bits and pieces of Bellamy flutters back to himself in jagged bits. He doesn't let go, neither does Clarke; the soft, unblemished skin of her shoulder softly framed with the tender mappings of partially-dried tears as he remains sniffling in the hollow of her throat.

The radio continues to blare insignificant pop songs as Clarke whispers nonsensical sounds, lips tucked against the soft crown of his thoroughly-mused curls. It was hardly any time, likely just a few minutes, though it felt like hours feels like it takes even longer to come back to himself as Bellamy and not some terribly damaged and insignificant little thing that was always yelled at by others.

"Hey," Bellamy eventually croaks when he feels capable of lifting his head from the safety of her embrace, close enough that the ragged words ruffle the gentle slope of her eyelashes. Clarke stares back at him, wide eyes dark under the liminal light of the interior of his truck.

"Hey," she eventually murmurs back, one hand coming to gently brush away the errant curl stuck to his cheek under the sticky cement of his salty tears, her own hands surprisingly shaky. The penguin stuffie had dropped to the floor, no longer the prized center of focus for the evening.

"I'm sorry.. I don't know-" he licks his lips, chapped and irritated by the fraying influence of the heightened stress and tears, embarrassed and exhausted and entirely unsure of where to go from such a terrible happening. Clarke just shakes her head a little, thumb carefully tracing the raised ridge of his eyebrow with a delicacy that feels entirely foreign. My butterfly boy, his mother's voice is a hollow resonance echoing through his now pounding skull, hardly a sufficient answer for why he would do something like this.

"It's ok," Clarke says in lieu of pressing for a further answer, blessedly merciful in her willingness to abide by the.. unconventional aspect of the evening. Thankfully, she doesn't even make him leave the apparent safety of her prolonged embrace, careful little hands drawing idle shapes into his skin in a comforting attempt of normalcy. "It was a little scary, I've never seen.. that happen before. But I guess you're in the same boat..?"

"Yeah," Bellamy whispers, fingers curling tight in the coarse denim of her shorts, fingers snaking below the loose cut of her top to nervously rub circles into the warm skin of her belly as he retreats from the knowing of her gaze and back into the safety of her throat. Clarke doesn't stop him, but only wraps her arms around his shoulders a touch tighter; shared mirrors of anxious trembles nearly synchronized in the way they web between their tightly bound bodies.

"If you want, we can just tell Octavia that you got sick. I can drive us home no problem," Clarke eventually offers in the lapsing silence, the cheerily glinted digital clock embedded into the aged mechanics of his dashboard signaling the hour of their doom creeping ever closer. The idea of Octavia finding him like this sending another round of irregular pulses lashing through his already worn-out circulatory system- though having Clarke on his side seems to lessen the sting. Pragmatic, willing to help him, unflinching.

"No, it's ok," Bellamy eventually murmurs from somewhere beneath her jaw, feeling his own voice echo up along the cavernous hollow of her chest and along the fine lines of her delicate vocal chords. "I'll be ok, I just need a minute."

Clarke exhales a little in what must be disagreement to some various contention with his lazy response, but she doesn't make him leave and doesn't do much more beyond occasionally rubbing his back and it's enough.

(When Octavia finally does show, late as ever, even her trained and innately aware eye doesn't catch any slight with the invisible point of tension weighing down the old truck interior. Clarke remains seated between them in a purposeful measure of protectiveness and Octavia is a little too blatantly drunk and a little too blatantly kiss-happy to realize something has changed, that something has left her sitting on the outside of this new and unusual thing.)

-

The dashboard clock reads 12:03AM.

"Is there anything I can do to make you feel better?"

Soft streams of buttery light simmer heavily atop the hot, salt-kissed night air, slipping playfully across the sun-warped visor of Bellamy's truck sticky and syrup-slow with all the rolling urgency of a drunken heartbeat.

Not entirely dissimilar to the sleepy, over-exerted pace of his own being. Bright to partially aware to flickering over and over again; trembling currents of yellow light gleaming smug and all-knowing against the well-manicured lawns of Clarke's street, the poorly-managed streetlights an abnormality in an otherwise faux-perfect suburbia hell. Bellamy's flushed, tear-dusted cheek rests heavy against the cool, cracked plastic of the dark steering wheel, forearms partially barricading his face from further view in their haphazardly strewn position atop the steering wheel, elbows hooked limp against the roughly-hewn curve of the damaged old console.

The silence feels more permanent now, a lasting threat of vulnerability that makes him feel melted down at the most vital points; even with the faint whisper of a static-heavy radio, even with the low pulse of the continuously rolling waves just across the street, it was too quiet. The lasting vestiges of her casual question weighs heavily against his pounding head and heart and slow tongue, terribly uncertain waters left to flounder within as the ravenous roar of his blood washes away the stubborn undercurrents of his receding emotions.

Octavia had been too drunk to fully question just why Bellamy had dropped her off home first, instead of driving straight to Clarke's house and then heading home in one trip. Octavia had also been drunk enough to proficiently fill the unusual silky slip of silence webbed out between the now terribly knotted interweaving of their triad-like relationship, had been too drunk to notice how hard Bellamy's hands had gripped the steering wheel or how Clarke conspicuously kept her hand close enough for him to grab. If you need, she had offered in the dying eclipse of their final moments Octavia-free tension. 

"No, Clarke."

Clarke was still sitting curled in the stain-roughened and thoroughly-scuffed old passenger seat, slim fingers idly turning a little teacup charm over and over as she sluggishly blossoms peach and yellow and gold under the lavish roll of the flicker of the half-dead street light.

The rounded curve of her own cheek is perched against a knee tucked high against her own chest, little sandal-clad foot strewn casually atop the monotonous brown of the seat, as disarmingly casual and pretty as ever. Entirely too relaxed for everything that's already happened. The penguin stuffie is perched between her folded knees, another silent witness to the absolute disaster of the hour.

"You sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure," his voice feels rough against the tightly-clinched bracings of his teeth; embarrassed and exhausted and tired of being treated like too hot glass just moments away from a violent explosion, splintering apart at the seams. It was bad enough when his mom or Octavia gave him the look, and having Clarke do the same would likely be enough to send him into a shallow, sandy grave under the strain of his death-throes of embarrassment.

"Asking over and over doesn't-" the soft grating hiss of fabric catching in upon itself, slipping unhappily away from the familiar perchings on skin, and the subsequent framing of movement lurking just beyond the thick curtain of his teary-wet eyelashes derails the weakened bite of his furthered complaint.

Whatever Bellamy meant to said promptly dies upon his tongue, sugary and finite and dissipating with the familiarity of candy, as his attention fixed immediately on Clarke from the protective confines of his own arms. He can do little other than simply watch, stained warm and bright and yellow from the overhanging street lights as Clarke manages to shift into a more upright position in the old seat, charm-bracelet heavy hands reaching up to peel- oh.

She's taking her clothes off. Right now. 

The flash of pale pink coming into his frame of sight suddenly makes the blood pounding in his ears rise from an entirely different emotional perspective. Bellamy's heart leaps up high and tight in his throat, a frenetic uproar of blood and attention and disbelief seizing his lungs with enough force to constrict any futile semblance of trying to breathe, relegated to little more than simply sitting by as his sister's seventeen-year-old-best-friend-maybe-girlfriend takes her underwear off in his fucking truck in the middle of their conversation after his meltdown.

Clarke lets out a little huff as she folds up both of her legs and drags her underwear free of the remaining length of her shorts, charm bracelets and rings making a happy little chime sound as she's able to successfully present her pristine, pink and heart-embellished underwear to the unsuspecting world. Girly and much more.. cute than anything he would've ever imagined.

He feels like he's gonna fucking die at the sight alone, even though his head is still half-buried in his arms. A bright red little heart embroidered front and center in the warm, freshly-shed garments proudly gleams in the center of his vision; a friendly little hello, attention-warranting and sweet.

"D'ya think having these will help?" Clarke's question, earnest and gentle, rings hot and heavy in Bellamy's ringing ears- bizarre and weird and nice and god his face feels so fucking hot right now.

Worse than any sunburn he's had in the past few weeks.

Her warm hand lightly catches somewhere on the junction between his shoulder and forearm, the tentative pressure of little fingers probing into the tense, continually quivering musculature of his being that was so terribly battered after the recourse of everything that's happened this evening. Bellamy, tongue heavy and dry and likely a few years closer to death, lifts his head as she makes to officially hand over the heart-patterned panties.

"You do realize you're insane, right?" Bellamy eventually manages to eek out, aching somewhere low and tender in the great pit of his chest, hands shaking a little as he carefully accepts the underwear Clarke unceremoniously drops into his open palms- gentle expanse of nerves and sinews and absolutely living flesh trembling with the urge to move at the sticky, soft remnants of warmth lingering in the little scrap of fabric. "Just so terribly weird."

"Seems like me being weird cheered you up- this is the first time you've actually acted like a person since Octavia was in the car with us."

Clarke's hands fold around his own with the soft whisper of her many bracelets clicking together; his own palms forced to close in a mechanical, practiced gesture. The dwindling vestiges of soft heat lingering the heart-stamped panties feels more prominent, soft and alive and right there. In his hands. If he leaned in close enough, he could probably still smell her.

"I genuinely don't think I have the vocabulary to describe how this made me feel- but I don't think cheered up are the right words, Clarke," Bellamy's face still feels so terribly hot, a little too shy and embarrassed and turned on to properly look over at his sister's seventeen-year-old-maybe-girlfriend currently leaning in close enough that he could feel the soft warmth of her breath curl across his face, eyelashes ruffled into a semblance of disarray at the continual motion. "This is absolutely-"

"Thanks for giving me a ride home," Clarke simply says in response, smacking a chaste kiss against the blistered red of his flushed cheeks, dry and polite in her disruption from the conversation- her own hands unlocking from around his own, leaving him to idly clutch her underwear in the front seat of his car like some sort of freak. The interior cabin lights of the old truck petulantly flicker to life as she gathers her flagrantly scattered array of personal items, an irritating chirp echoing alongside the wild thump of his pulse as she simply clambers out the door.

"Tell Octavia to call me when she wakes up!" Clarke instructs, casual and a little manipulative in the way she grins at him; all teeth, gleaming softly in the wet light of the street, certain and knowing, like a housecat about to pounce upon a particularly unfortunate spider roaming the halls. Bellamy can hardly tear himself away from that weird little place he's in to offer a simple nod, upside down and drowning and so completely unmoored- awareness focused down to the pair of panties in his hand as Clarke slams his truck door and scuttles up the darkened length of what must be her front yard.

He's such a loser- probably a creep too.

Chapter Text

Bellamy mostly stops drinking- the quiet little ache that roars through him when he first wakes, desperate and so deeply wanting for booze or cheap weed or anything to cleave off that terrible feeling of being a person, soothed by the fact that he carries Clarke's underwear around with him like a fucking lifeline. And when his jaw starts to tremble with that coerced and carefully conditioned urge to tear himself apart the earliest convenience of his latest, favored addictive substance, sniffing her panties usually helps. 

It's weird, so undeniably weird and fucked up and probably embarrassing. It's hard to care when he happens to bump into Clarke while lingering around the house, Octavia sullenly trailing after her with a reluctance that belays her still-not-forgiven choices regarding the fair, and she smiles at him like it's their own little secret. He wonders if she realizes how her casually discarded panties have become his most prized possession, something kept between his lips like a beloved cigarette huffed after a particularly grueling day at work. 

The bad feeling is still there, pervasive and innate and so closely intertwined with the fabric of whatever it is that makes Bellamy himself, and the panties don't do much to help- not even when he wraps the little heart-embellished garment around his stiff cock late at night and desperately tries to get off. But it makes everything feel a little less unbearable, and that's enough. 

God, how fucking embarrassing. 

-

Bellamy gets a shit job down on the docks shucking oysters at some old bar.

On a good day, it’s miserable. 

The hours are inconsistent at best, the pay even worse- he only gets paid by the dozen he serves, and spends most of the day babying the upstate tourists who get sloshed on watered down tequila and heat sickness. It’s a little difficult to gauge what makes him more suicidal most afternoons, the smell of beer and sunscreen or Santeria playing on a near-permanent loop every day without fail. 

Could be worse though, he supposes. 

Money is money, and it’s a reason to leave the house most days. Doesn’t hurt that he usually gets fawned over by a handful of miserable housewives, and there’s plenty of raggedy stray cats that like hanging around the bar more often than not. Skippy the three-legged cat with no teeth was probably his best friend at this point, all things considered. 

They spent hours together after closing anyways. 

Can you still call something your best friend if it hurts you? Bellamy wonders one night, irate at the newly-flushing, reddened lines of neat little claw-marks framing the length of his index finger. Skippy is too busy wolfing down the handful of cold fries Bellamy dropped at his feet to feign guilt at the instinctive urge to lash out at the faintest hint of kindness. 

He thinks briefly of Clarke and Octavia, realizing he has his answer.

-

The best part of it all is the fact that he’s too busy to embarrass himself in front of Clarke again. 

Really, he’s too busy to do much of anything; stacks as many open-close shifts together as they allow, shows up early only to leave late, only comes home to crawl into bed. Shores up shitty barstools and counts-counts-counts cash when his hands start to itch with the feigning urge of boredom. The bar smells of cheap sunscreen and salt-brine, an unsavory mix that blocks the burn of watered down tequila. Finds his mother only in brief instances of passing, quick hellos and goodbyes traded in the crowded maze of the sloped hallway, distracted and removed. 

Fills himself so full of the meaningless monotony of the day that he doesn’t even realize he’s empty. 

Cheap plastic and oxidized metal sits sticky in Bellamy’s palm, the slight weight made all the more heavy by the billowing vestiges of exhaustion. Well past three in the morning, an already shit closing shift made absolutely agonizing by the petulant babying of drunk locals hesitant to be turned out into the night. The little relief brought on by coming home on half-dead feet was instantaneously diluted by the realization that the tv was still on, the living room awash in the silver hum of the shopping network. 

Perhaps, if more awake, he’d recognize that he was walking the line of disaster. Again.

The sticky shine of massacred lip-gloss slips high and uneven across Octavia’s cheeks, glinting pointedly in the low light of the endlessly scrolling tv; head dropped heavily in Clarke’s lap, hair knotted and unkempt, faint shadows of messy makeup hanging beneath the crown of dark lashes. Bruised knees and socked feet half-drawn onto the couch, otherwise mostly resting in the cradle of Clarke’s lap, one hand possessively curled atop her thigh. Clarke was half-upright against the rough fabric of the old pillows, head pillowed against the folded clutch of her own arm resting high on the back of the couch- ring clad fingers mostly stuck in the dark sheet of Octavia’s hair. 

It’s practiced and familiar intimacy, almost enough to make Bellamy feel like the simple act of walking into his house was sacrilegious intrusion; an unanticipated reprieve from the ever-simmering threat of tension looming high like the wavebreak. 

Clarke’s gaze, dusted silver and shiny under the faint snow of a shitty channel connection, finds him with a practiced, overly familiar ease. 

“Late night?” Clarke’s slim fingers slide against the sea of unkempt, dark hair slipping across her lap and the couch. Lackadaisical movements, slow and without any discernible rhythm, only pronounced by the faint click of rings. 

“Always,” Bellamy grumbles, faulty attempts at good humor stolen by the tired grate of an overused voice and an afternoon of absolutely grating customer service platitudes. His boots scrape unhelpful atop uneven floors as he makes to kick them off. 

“Should still have some food in the fridge,” Clarke mumbles, unoccupied hand coming to grasp at the forearm Bellamy bears against the couch, reluctantly leaning over the warped old frame to get a better look at Octavia. 

“Too late to eat,” Bellamy dismisses, exhaustion eagerly dissipating under the scorched blood blisters that happily simmer in the wake of brief contact, skin prickling with the sticky vestiges of a desperate urge to seek out more. “She smells like Midland on a Saturday night.” 

“She got a little too friendly with southern comfort,” Clarke rasps, finger absently tapping against the skittering line of his frenetic pulse. “Happens to the best of us. Wanna sit down?”

“Sit down? And do what, watch the shopping channel?”

“I’ll buy you a necklace if you don’t bitch the entire time.”

“How generous.” Bellamy sits down, stiff and sore and sullen, unsympathetic to the little space left for him to occupy. It’s hardly the most comfortable way to sit, especially with the weight of Clarke and Octavia bearing down against his side. 

“Thanks, I was properly socialized as a child. Too bad you can’t say the same.” 

The television drones on, a monotonous display of overindulgence meant to cater to the voracious appetites of shopping addictions, and the first watery stains of impending dawn frame the crooked paneling of old windows. In the lukewarm lighting of poorly rendered color-balancings, Bellamy looks at Clarke and Clarke continues to look at Octavia. Mostly too tired to do much other than look. Against the continuous flicker of shadows and mindlessly scrolling adverts offering ceaseless contact information for shopping centers, he can see the faintest line of silvery skin twining across the length of Clarke’s cheek. Fine, delicate edges of long-healed skin neatly stitched back together, further brought to life by the silky shine of glitter stubbornly clinging to Clarke’s face. 

Something he hadn’t seen before, never been close enough to just look at her face with unfettered access or fraught interruption.

“Wicked scar,” Bellamy muses, lightly tapping an index finger against Clarke’s cheek for emphasis, “you fall?”

Clarke snickers a little beneath the heaving shadings of blonde lashes, fingers carefully winding silky ribbons of Octavia’s dark hair with a precision verging on clinical. The sound is caustic in a way that is unfamiliar, a wholly alien display of genuine emotion from Clarke, however brief it might be. 

“Something like that,” Clarke responds, quieting a little at the abrupt stirring of a restless Octavia, evidently still a little too drunk to sleep comfortably, “ask me tomorrow and maybe I’ll tell you if you’re lucky.” 

Suddenly, Octavia’s mention of Clarke’s mom being the ultimate bitch sits a little more pointedly in the forefront of Bellamy’s mind. 

-

Similar to the rest of Clarke, the nature of her scar becomes a feature of downright obsessive fixation. The inherent quality of Bellamy’s personhood apparently relating to his desperate need to know, to fill himself with an all-compassing sense of understanding, even in regards to the most mild of minor details. A desire to gorge on all things verging on destructive in nature, unthinking as though some unremarkable little pet store fish that ate and ate and ate until it simply died. 

“How’d you get that scar?” Bellamy asks the next morning, ravenous curiosity enough to stave off the lingering exhaustion fixed to the connective tissues paralleling his battered and bruised bones.

Octavia, still half-dead to the world and reeking of cheap whiskey, looks at him like he just kicked a puppy. A subtle attempt at dissuading him from continuing onwards that only makes him more curious, prickling friction chafing at the seams of the entire interaction. 

“I fell,” Clarke says casually behind a mouthful of cereal, glitter gleaming pointedly against the heavy shadows beneath her under eyes. 

“You’re such a shit liar.”

“Takes one to know one,” Octavia cuts in, unusually stern in a way that suddenly makes a shadow of their mother’s face gleam soft and familiar in the delicate lines of her face. A cutting directive that so deeply contrasts the lackadaisical, careless nature of his sister in a way that almost makes Bellamy pause. “Pass the jam.”

The snippy command is further accentuated with a rough kick to the old chair Bellamy is perched against, rickety legs of warped wood creaking abruptly against the sudden pressure sending him skidding back. 

There’s a graceful out offered in the ensuing silence that Bellamy isn’t outright stupid enough to ignore, especially against the bristly chill of united non-compliance from both girls. He’s grateful that the early morning shakes had mostly abated by this point in his sobriety when he makes to hand over the old glass jar, conceding defeat even as the faint line of a little scar glints torturously in the warm light of the morning.

-

The first time Bellamy and Clarke fuck, when Bellamy and Clarke finally fuck, it's hardly ceremonial; it's like slotting together with the cosmic violence of two planets crashing together, orbital alignment pathways magnanimously inter-aligned with the desperate need for absolute destruction. Hot and all-consuming and inescapable, falling into the finite delicacy of being totally consumed with all the grace of a fucking car accident. Scorching heat and sweet flesh melting off the bone, too hormonal to think beyond immediate gratification. Insides blistering blushed, reddened, blackened; a thoughtless, simplistic wanting that arises with all the natural awareness of existing beneath your own skin.

It's a finite chance that Bellamy happens to be up so late that night, shaded a tad too overtired to easily drift off to sleep as usual. A little too roughened at the edges by his own ability to finally click into the ease of sobriety. It's definitely not chance that Clarke also happens to be up so late, even less of a fractional splinter of chanced-innocence regarding her choice to spend the night. 

(Later, recollection of the event vaguely softened by the gentle strain of time, he'll wonder just how lucky it was- how chance it all was. Clarke graciously indulging in Octavia's pleas to go to some shitty house party after days of tepid intersection, hardly drinking enough to get pleasantly buzzed, convincing his sister to come home early so that she could practically corner him in the bathroom with embarrassingly little clothes. 

Bellamy can never tell who really wears the collar and who really wields the leash.) 

"I want you to fuck me," Clarke says like it's simple, like asking for him to pass the ketchup while frequenting the kitchen together during a meal. Uncaring, maybe unknowing, that the cheery little statement makes his brain short out- makes all semblance of coherent thought simmer down to thoughtless fluidity, pulse practically leaking from his nose and ears. His skin blisters hot and his heart screams under the strain of its own frantic pulse; Bellamy remains helplessly perched on the bathmat at her gentle push against his shoulder. 

Even in the half-burned out fluorescent lights of his shitty shared bathroom, Clarke looks woundingly pretty standing above him. Wearing only panties and some sleep shirt that looks a little too similar to one of his own tops that had gone missing a week or two ago- casually offering up the quiet desire sifting through his neurons in stubborn resilience. 

"What?" Bellamy eventually manages to croak out, the hard lines of his cheeks aflame with want and surprise.

"I want you to fuck me, Bellamy," Clarke repeats, gracious and patient as though he's a fumbling toddler learning a new skill. He practically leans into her reaching hands, the entire delicate range of his nervous system practically collapsing in delight at the newfound point of contact as she drags him forward a little. 

"I- uhm. I don't-"

"I know you want to. Wouldn't have kept my panties in your pocket like a fucking lottery ticket if you didn't," her socked little feet curl against the tattered surface of the bathmat, legs lengthening briefly as she luxuriates in the stretch of rising to her toes. Pulls him closer to the soft, wet heart of her that he desperately wants to kiss. 

"I can't fuck you, you've been drinking- that's.." Bellamy turns to drag his scruff-roughened cheek against the smooth expanse of Clarke's soft belly, delicate hairs freckling the length of his nape prickling up to alertness at the shivery-good closeness. The smell of Clarke lingers heavy against the softened weight of his tongue; a little sweet in that artificial sugary nothingness of lotion, the gentle current of sweat and faint musk lingering just below the steady rise of her pulse. Makes it a little hard to think, especially with the way the gentle curve of her nails draws across the slope of his scalp.

He's a masochist for refusing. 

"I've had two beers. Only a pussy would get drunk from that much alcohol," Clarke murmurs from above him, the building ache in his knees softened by the familiar rasp of her voice. Slim fingers twine tighter into the frizz-coarsened curls atop his head, purposefully nudging him closer to the soft wisp of her panties. Another cute pair- pink with bows and cherries aimlessly printed across the thin fabric. 

Bellamy can't resist baring his teeth against the soft curve where her belly and thigh connect, hand lifting her sleep shirt trembling a little at the warm press of skin gracing his teeth and tongue. She shivers a little at the rough drag of his teeth, blushed lines rising up between the joint of her pelvis to the top of her navel. Even makes a pretty noise, sends his blood roaring and rising to the surface.

His little sister's best-friend-girlfriend has him quite literally on his knees for her, alone and unsupervised in the shitty bathroom they share. Being so sweet for once, asking nicely, offering up her cunt on a silver platter. And he still hates himself enough to try and refuse. 

"Don't think that matters," Bellamy manages to murmur, the disagreement slurred as his nose brushes against the frilly lace lining Clarke's underwear. "tryin' to be a gentleman." His tongue catches unpleasantly against the dry fabric of her underwear, briefly slipping up to kiss the overly sensitive skin that sits below the lace lining fringing the waistband. Smells so heartachingly similar to the musk of the pair she gifted him, so much more rich and warm and deep and alive- the world is softening up, melting away like a citronella candle left in the afternoon sun for too long. 

"Besides, not gonna fuck you while mom and Octavia are just down the hall." It feels like eating a bullet, refusing so directly.

"If I say please, will you at least eat me out?" Clarke wriggles a little, shuddering sharply beneath the blushed expanse of her pristine skin as he keeps lapping all over the smooth softness of her tummy. Driven half-mad at the taste simmering against his teeth, brave enough to say no but weak enough to keep going.

"Mhmmm," he exhales, but it sounds a little too close to a whine- much to the delight of the sleuthing pulse of embarrassment simmering low in his belly. 

"Please, Bellamy- I'll suck your dick too. Please," Clarke whispers, rolling her hips so that the soft curve of her belly bumps against his straying nose, a heavy pulse of want drawing upon the familiar rasp of her quiet pleas. "Just touch me, please."

It's enough; more than enough, the graceless indifference of indulging in swallowing seawater after the somber realizations of remoteness sinks in. The strange and messy tentative connection of their relationship quivering at the prospect of getting his mouth on her hot little cunt, every little cell of his being simmering with delight at the idea of making her feel good too- all the more exciting at the idea of Clarke returning the favor, at the offer of finally getting to hear her gag like she does so often in his dreams. 

"Yeah, okay- okay, Clarke, wanna taste this pretty pussy for real this time," Bellamy immediately agrees, hands firmly locking against her hips and dragging her down to the floor with him, a little too desperate and eager to work with the delicate finesse he would ideally go for. Clarke half-folded against the bathtub, back arching at an awkward angle as she makes room for him to finally tear away the half-soaked fabric of her panties and slot between her pink-flushed thighs. 

For all the hours spent imagining how this would finally happen, Bellamy doesn’t even attempt the careful and practiced reverence that had haunted the sugar-shaded reaches of his fantasies. Instead, he fits his mouth right over her entire cunt and sucks hard- torturing the most sensitive and delicate part of her with a crass carelessness he didn’t even realize he was capable of, the responding kicking of socked feet against his back only inciting him to go wilder.

“Oh fuck,” Clarke gasps, both hands winding into his hair and tearing, head knocking back painfully against the shitty bathtub insert, “oh fuck!”

Bellamy suckles greedily at her swollen, red-flushed labia for longer than necessary based on the way Clarke’s half-muffled noises pitch with a faint underscoring of pain, before moving to abuse the puffy little pearl of her clit- tongue lashing harshly against the tender swelling of delicate nerves. The movement and angle makes his jaw ache a little, but the instantaneous effect it holds over Clarke makes it difficult to even realize anything hurts. Her nails scrape roughly against his scalp, feet pushing wildly against him as he presses a little harder into her clit, offering only a minute’s reprieve when he laps the abused little thing further into mouth and sucks softly as though trying to kiss it better. 

“Bellamy,” Clarke moans, voice straining under the polite clasp of her own hand slamming across her face, heavy-lidded and tortured gaze fixing on him with enough heat to melt him down to ash, entire magnanimous existence reduced to the singularity of burnt, crumbling bone. The silky, hot slide of wetness gleaming against his mouth and chin suddenly feels like a vicious trophy of sorts, finally leveling the playing field in a way that hurts so good. 

“That’s so good, you’re-” Clarke doesn’t have a chance to voice whatever half-coherent babble was being meticulously pried from between her trembling thighs, cunt fluttering violently against his mouth as Belamy lifts her hips a bit higher and sinks his tongue into her cunt. She makes a desperate, half-animal noise as she twists beneath his hold, pussy happily fluttering against the rough attempt he makes to lick at the silky insides of her. The warmth scalds him, drowns him- she smells so much better here, right up against him, the faint smell on her panties hardly holding a candle to the raw realness of it all. 

The desperate clutch of Clarke’s cunt, throbbing and pulsing as though some direct and tender connection to the frenetic pounding of her heart, makes Bellamy abruptly realize he’s about to come in his fucking pants on the bathroom floor. So desperate and keyed up for Clarke that the simple act of getting to taste her was enough to send him into meltdown, half-drunk and half-drowning himself in his unwillingness to surface from between her legs, even when the pleasure seems to hurt too good for Clarke’s own ability to withstand. 

“I can’t wait,” Bellamy suddenly gasps, face wet and hot and body seemingly puppeted by the sticky strings of wild hormones and a raging heartrate. “I won’t-”

He hardly has time to properly lift his head from the break-neck clutch of Clarke’s sticky, flushed thighs- her bruising, shearing grip somewhere between tussled locks of dark hair roughly yanking him upwards towards her face, seemingly uncaring for the awkward bump and slide of their mid-sections as she smashes their lips together. Bellamy isn’t very surprised that Clarke doesn’t mind the fact that his face and mouth are still drenched in her wetness, but maybe he’s also too turned on to pay attention to anything other than how she bites and licks at his mouth. 

“Fuck me, Bellamy,” Clarke manages to huff out between rough, messy kisses. Their teeth click with a frenetic urgency that would certainly be audible to anyone lingering outside the bathroom, hands restlessly skimming across every sliver of fresh skin offered up as though some sort of gift or another. 

The shitty flooring of the old, dingy bathroom grates awkwardly against Bellamy’s knees as he hastily pulls down his sleep pants and boxers, movements fumbled and half-mad with the desperate relief of finally, finally getting to relieve the tension. The angle of it all, wedged half-way against the bathtub and the crooked old door, is hardly anything romantic; everything always a little damp from the perpetual humidity cloying the coast, a soaked towel still on the floor from Octavia’s earlier shower, the sticky old shower curtain eagerly latching on to any bit of clothing or skin that strays too closely. 

It’s still the best he’s ever had, hot and rushed and cramped as it is. 

The first press of his cock into Clarke drips down the length of his spine like molten glass, burning down the intricate, interconnected netting of neurons and nerves and synapses as though it was little other than cheap garbage left outside the local gas station. The blistering bite of pleasure trembles down his musculature, dusting his skin in the silky rise of fine little hairs, as he skids out and thrusts in with little grace. Clarke oofs at the abrupt fullness, teeth digging into the muscle of his bicep in retaliation, the singing stretch of the clumsy, rough fuck undoubtably adding further tension to the already precariously thin line between pleasure and pain. 

“Clarke,” Bellamy moans, dropping his head into the hollow line of connection where her shoulder and neck meets, any semblance of enjoyable rhythm clouded by the syrup-thick rush of pleasure sparking hard and heavy in his blood. The breath is punched from his chest with every thrust in, the desperate squeeze of Clarke’s hot cunt fluttering sweetly against him, raw and bare and unrestricted from the thin veneer of a condom. "God-!"

The lack of finesse and rutting hardly seems to bother Clarke judging by the muffled sounds of half-hurting noises of pleading encouragement and the tight threading of legs folding around his waist. Bellamy’s hand knocks roughly against the thin material of the old bathtub, haphazardly clutching against the chipped old coating in search of a secondary outlet of relief against the broiling heat building his belly. Clarke’s head knocks awkwardly against the corner of the old bathroom, sweat-strewn hair catching pointedly against the old, rusted out doorstopper. He feels like he’s sixteen again and would probably be a little embarrassed if he had the mind for such awareness. 

Probably some sort of karmic vengeance for all the times he made fun of other guys for only lasting a minute or two in bed. 

The pressure coils up tight, pulling every little muscle and sinew and tendon down to a universal point of contraction; everything pulling up hot and tight and trembling with the desperate desire of relief. Each thrust in, sticky and loud and verging-on-instinctive, makes his dick twitch and ache, balls drawing up tight and hurting a little against the brute force of their pelvises meeting.

“Gonna come,” Bellamy strains out between desperate breaths his lungs hardly cooperate for, teeth clicking together roughly against the clench of his jaw, a faint tremor creeping up the delicate wirings of his tender and primal hindbrain.

“Sorry-” Clarke makes an enthused sound behind the hazily-strewn curtain of wild hair, tilting her hips and clenching down hard enough to make his eyes roll back, “can’t last.”

“Come inside me,” She rasps, delicate brow furrowing at the unbearable weight of concentration, nails digging into him with a cutting force and legs crushing him into the soft and sweet heat of her, “please.”

The flush staining her cheeks creeps low, an enticing glimmer of rushing blood slipping down to her chest and belly, skin gleaming iridescent with the dusting of sweat and stubbornly-clinging glitter. Her mouth hangs open, a bright glint of teeth sitting high and pretty against the bruised and swollen cut of her lips. Bellamy can see his own desperate focus shining high and wet in her blown out gaze, desperate and messy and shared secondary only to the synchronized to the matching thud of their racing hearts. 

“Fuck, Clarke,” Bellamy whines, desperate to kiss her but certain that he would simply drown, helpless to the explosive unraveling streaking whitehot and abrupt against his thoroughly used and abused nervous system. “Fuck, fuck fuck-! ” 

Clarke tilts her hips up a little bit more, roughly flexing and grinding against his pubic bone in search of that final killer blow of friction, and Bellamy is simply helpless to stop himself from coming. 

The low moan that rattles up from somewhere deep inside him is hastily choked out by Clarke roughly pulling him closer in an attempt to muffle sound, drown out the particularly incriminating sounds of their activities in the bathroom. Silky fine pleasure devours him from the inside out, tearing apart every little atom and molecule with the gleeful insistence of vultures descending on fresh roadkill- his arms practically collapse out from beneath him at the first inkling of pressure being released, going deadweight against the trembling clutch of Clarke’s body. If the first twitch of his cock made Bellamy feel like he was gonna pass out, then the resounding flutter of Clarke’s own coarse-edged orgasm bearing down against the sticky ropes of come spilling into him simply felt like the sweet embrace of death. 

The two of them twitch and writhe against each other for miniscule seconds that feel like hours, exhausted mirrors of melted down flesh and bone left to curdle and congeal on the shitty, busted up flooring of the bathroom. Whitehot, phosphorous scaldings of ecstasy broiled bright and all-consuming in the rapid pulse of Bellamy’s roaring blood, reorienting his center of gravity lower and lower as strength deserts him. He feels completely empty and completely full; impolite mess of shared fluids webbing tacky and irritating against their thighs cooling uncomfortably. He makes no effort to lift himself off Clarke, though she doesn’t seem to mind much judging by the way her legs remain purposefully locked against the slope of his lower back. 

Clarke lifts herself a little bit to pull Bellamy back down into another kiss, cooled of frantic heat and a little more practiced, and suddenly a lifetime of bad decisions and heartbreak suddenly feels perfectly worth it.

-

Great waves, salt-strewn and tumultuous in the choppy currents of the retreating moon, roar against the watery stainings of first light building against the far point of the horizon; sultry reds and blushing pinks bleeding together to frame the pitch and roll of the gulf. It’s too early to be considered morning, but too late to be considered night. The blistering sky only just beginning to simmer with the familiar cry of seabirds, cheery morning song quashed faint and patchy against the continuous pounding of heavy surf break. Dutiful fishermen, hands old and gnarled under the bite of time and salt, pitter about the cool rollings of sand as they cast lines and check old bait traps. Eager surfers slide between the framed markings of fishing lines with a practiced ease, too busy trying to monopolize the rare moments of free space during the changing tides to pay much attention to the risk of swimming near open hooks. 

An unusual moment of quiet ahead of the inevitable bustling surge of afternoon traffic that was so normal during the summer. 

Truthfully, Bellamy wasn’t really sure why he was out here in the water; another monotonous day of opening-closing shifts, too overtired to make a genuine effort at crawling into bed at some semblance of a respectable time. Clarke hadn’t been over much in recent days, reluctantly dragged away to some tedious family thing or another, relegated to brief glimpses and quick passings. The occasional quick fuck in the kitchen. Or the bathroom again. Or the back of his truck. Or the laundry room. Or the hallway. Addictive, a new vice, precious and already terribly difficult to part with. An alien, uncomfortable emptiness interwoven through the crooked familiarity of their home, a trio of habitual orbital paths thrown off at the sudden removal of the fixation point. The first time Bellamy had really been alone all summer, and evidently Octavia was akin to a twin mirror in the listless drifting that had overcome her usual routine in the face of Clarke’s prolonged absence. 

“Bellamy?” Octavia’s voice is almost lost to the methodical roll of waves breaking on the shore, soft and slight against the continued song of pinwheeling seabirds. 

The salt stings comfortably against the line of Bellamy’s shoulders, waves breaking coarsely against the mechanical and meticulously-bound muscle of his chest, as he continues to idly float in the early morning ocean. Surfers and fishermen and idle early-morning enthusiasts continue their leisurely paths all along the coastline, disrupted only by the shape of Octavia curiously making her way to where he currently treads water.

“What the fuck are you doing out here so early?” Octavia questions, face bespeckled in the delicate framings of salt-heavy droplets from navigating the heavy surf, head tilted upwards against the effort of treading against the open roll of waves.

“Couldn’t sleep after work,” he responds, tasting the faint stainings of brine and sweltering humidity building against his lips, “what about you?”

“Fell asleep early since there wasn’t anything to do with nobody home last night,” Octavia admits as if it was some sort of vulnerability, “kept waking up and deciding to just stay up. It’s so boring without Clarke around.”

Bellamy snickers at that, already intimately aware of the lackluster nature of the past few days. Boredom almost akin to being strung out and left to crave a fix; the trusty pair of underwear Clarke had given him hardly much of a relief now after having the real thing, yet too beloved of a possession to stray far from his reach. Inconvenienced and left itching like a newly-remade addict. He was certain his own misery was reflected in Octavia’s dark gaze, even if it differed in its nature. 

For a few moments, Bellamy and Octavia simply slip atop the sleepy pulse of a rising tide. Easily trudging along against the soft sweeping of a growing current, watching as the world gradually grows lighter and lighter along the beach. It won’t be long before the first torrent of summering beachgoers arrive.

“When does she get back into town?” He tries to be casual with the question, but the pointed flutter of Octavia’s wet crown of lashes indicates that his increasing lack of subtlety hasn’t exactly flown under the radar. It was only a short trip out of state to visit some cousin or another, but it already felt like a terribly long time. 

“Tomorrow, I think,” Octavia replies, cheeks already warming against the building threat of scorching humidity, wine-like blush slipping down to the delicate lines of her chest, “you really like Clarke, huh?”

Bellamy simply splashes the crown of the freshly-crested wave at Octavia in lieu of a proper response, sorely aware that it was nearly impossible to lie your way through the scrutinizing eye of a vindictive teenage girl. Octavia squawks loudly in protest, slippery rivulets of sodden dark hair curling wildly against the churning waters as she tries to protect herself from the heavy spray. There's something a little soft and envious in the tepid reflection of his little sister's curious stare, likely as close to gracious acceptance as she would ever manage. The quiet unraveling of Clarke and Octavia's relationship evidently not wholly unnoticed by either girl. 

“Told you she’s awesome and you’d never want her to leave,” Octavia’s voice strains at the effort of splashing an especially heavy wave in his direction, overtaken by an equally childish indulgence that hadn’t hung around much in their older years. 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Bellamy complains, blinking roughly against the sting of seawater nipping at his face, “but why is Clarke always here?”

It feels wrong, wedging open the newly-earned reliance on each other in an attempt to figure out one of the many questions he’s had for Clarke since the beginning. Exploitative, dirty, more akin to genuine loser behavior than anything he’s fumbled into thus far- impulse further watered down into a shading of regret at the sudden expression framing the fine arches of Octavia’s faintly salt-burned face. 

“Ask her yourself.” The attempted retort lacks any semblance of heat that Octavia would usually fire, perpetually prickly at the prospect of any sort of prying or digging beneath the surface.

“I’ve tried,” Bellamy begins, the sticky rush of seawater rolling pointedly against his shoulders and chest, the tide gently attempting to pull him out to sea with a well-worn practice. “Not much luck asking personal questions.”

Somewhere on shore, a crotchety old fisherman shouts at Bellamy and Octavia for drifting a little too close to his definitely illegal line of fishing poles half-buried in the wet sand. A lady, decked out in an offensive display of overly expensive workout gear, breezes on by, half-heartedly trailed by a dog that already seemed too hot and overstimulated by the beach. 

“I don’t know, like, the full story,” Octavia suddenly confesses after a few more moments of silence, sounding young and hushed as though a scorned child repeating some sort of offensive rumor, “just what bits and pieces Clarke’s talked about.”

Bellamy raises his brow, at once intrigued and a little disbelieving at the cowed-down nature of his perpetual pain-in-the-ass sister. It was hard to think of a family history more complicated and embarrassing than their own; disowned grandparents, a string of deadbeat and violent loser boyfriends meant to play house with, narrowly-escaped foreclosure after attempted foreclosure. A long line of losers, forever stuck in the mud and shit.

“But I guess her parents worked together as doctors or something, like really famous and important and in charge of trying to develop new, badass medicine kind of doctors,” Octavia began, somber and dark gaze burnished into something not entirely unlike well-ground seaglass by the steadily rising light, “but her dad got caught committing fraud or messing with their results, so it was a complete shitshow. Ruin your career and life kind of shitshow from what Clarke said, go to prison for a looong time kind of shit.”

Bellamy clicks his tongue against his teeth, the sticky remainder of saltwater grating irritably against the soft innersides of his mouth as he screws up his face. He nods at Octavia to continue, the rising tide clipping pointedly at the soft divot of his chin as the story lapses for a brief moment. He wonders how much Clarke’s version of events differs from this hastily recounted secondary retelling.

“It ruined their lives, I guess- they couldn’t stop fighting, their medical licenses were gonna be taken, they couldn’t keep making house payments.” Octavia begins again, voice a little shaky. “I guess her dad just couldn’t take it or whatever. So he killed himself and Clarke was the only one at home when he did it.” 

“Fuck,” Bellamy says, aghast and off-kilter and muscular flexing with that instinctive jolt of sorrowed sympathy that cut through muscle and bone and curled up somewhere low and deep. A similar sense of anguish that was clearly reflected and finely etched into the sun-freckled skin of Octavia’s own face. “That’s so fucked up.”

“Yeah,” Octavia sighs, rocking back and forth with the instinctive, frenetic rolling of the tides pushing at her shoulders and chest, “it was a gun, too. Pretty sure she’s like seriously fucked up from it, but we don’t really talk and I don’t ever wanna ask. Plus, it’s the reason she and her mom can’t stand each other. That kind of shit ruins people, y’know.”

The waves keep rolling and the world keeps spinning despite the almost instantaneous surging of guilt Bellamy feels for even asking about any of this in the first place- something too deep and raw and fucked up to be traded like casual gossip. The sympathy, molasses thick and wrought with the desperate urge to immediately rethink every little action and interaction with the new context, wars with the anxious feeling of being a voyeur, an uninvited guest in this grief. Something cruel and unkind and trodding on grief-heavy bones, a feverish pursuit of soft vulnerability like bone marrow. 

“Does mom know?” He eventually asks, the perpetual sting of coarse salt lining his face sitting secondary to the tight, twisted up feeling sitting in his belly. Feeling clumsy and contorted over his own problems, which had guided the reigns of misery, seeming so small and insignificant to this terrible mess that he’s found himself in. 

“Yeah,” Octavia nods, absently brushing a few strands of salt-stiffened hair free from her unusually serious and stern face, “that’s why she doesn’t really mind Clarke sticking around so much. Doesn’t wanna send her home to an empty house, but also doesn’t wanna send her home to just fight with her mom all the time.” 

Bellamy and Octavia keep floating alongside each other, gradually winding their way down the beach against the grinding grain of the invisible current, as the sky brightens with the tenacious burning of a long, hot summer sky. The sticky push and ebbing of the churned, heavy waves offers a reprieve from the conversation, a lull that allows the newfound heaviness to settle deep and low and without interruption. The gnawing, biting grate of sympathetic anxious-sorrow grinds deeper into his bones when he remembers that Clarke is out of town on a trip with her mom.

“That’s so fucked up,” Bellamy repeats, unsure and unable to properly convey all of the different emotion churning through him like the collision of different seas meeting out in some faraway, distant place. Just a secondary attempt at externalizing all of the newfound information, at speaking out something that maybe reflected all of his thoughts about everything. 

“Don’t tell her I told you,” Octavia warns, tapping his biceps with a pointed, half-manicured nail, “and don’t try to treat her any differently. She’ll figure something’s up, just act like I never told you anything.” 

“Yeah, sure.” He agrees, knowing that it probably won’t work out very well either way. “No problem.”

Bellamy taps the faint, thin line of an old scar framing the gentle ridging of his lipline, contemplating the almost mirror-like scar lining the soft swell of Clarke’s cheek, hardly acknowledging the strict attempt at instruction on behalf of Octavia. 

He’s never really been much of a rational person when it comes to Clarke anyways.