Chapter Text
“Excuse me!” a voice called from the other side of the room. “This isn’t what I ordered.”
Bellamy watched as Clarke scrambled from behind the counter, moving quickly over to the man in the corner, watched as her head nodded as he handed his mug over and raised his eyebrow at her, and she nodded as she backed away, one hand out in apology as she moved back behind the counter to get him whatever it was that he really ordered.
Clarke had been there a couple weeks, now. She spent the first few days in O’s apartment, burrowed in her room searching for job adverts and unpacking and getting all her mail forwarded and all the annoying details she forgot about when she jumped on the train.
But then, one night as he was sprawled out on the couch writing a paper listening to Octavia argue with Monty and Jasper about not bringing the duck into her apartment, Raven came in and plopped down next to him, yelling at Clarke’s open bedroom door that the coffee shop next door to the apartment building was hiring.
“You’re in,” she said, when Clarke came to the doorway, eyebrows raised. “The manager has always had a crush on me so I called in a favor.”
Bellamy snorted. “Oh, Wick.”
Raven rolled her eyes, elbowing Bellamy in the side. “Just go down there tomorrow at ten and he’ll get all the paperwork done, and you can start right away.”
She wasn’t great at it. Definitely wouldn’t be getting the barista of the month award anytime soon--mostly because Wick gave it to himself every month, but still--because she was constantly spilling drinks and breaking cups, but she was trying. And she was better than she’d been at the start of the week.
And he got free coffee out of it, whether she was a good waitress or not, so he wasn’t ever going to tease her about it for fear that he’d suddenly have to start dropping five bucks on coffee every time he popped in to see Clarke.
He glanced over at her as she tucked a stray strand of hair back behind her ear, trying to shove it back into one of the bobby pins that held back all the layers that wouldn’t fit into the bun at the back of her head. She had cinnamon splattered over the apron tied at her waist, and a small brown blotch on her shirt from when a customer knocked into her, bumping the tea she was holding back against her shirt.
She was smiling but there was a thin layer of sweat where her forehead met her hairline, and he glanced at the clock, wondering if her break was coming up soon, so she could plop down with them--him and Monty--but there was still another thirty minutes before she’d be able to stop over.
He heard a chuckle from his right, and he glanced over to see Monty shaking his head.
“Dude,” he said. “Stare harder, I dare you.”
Bellamy scoffed, feeling a heat creep up on his cheeks, but he shook his head at Monty, brushing it off like he didn’t know that’s exactly what he’d been doing.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bellamy said. He stared down at the coffee in front of him, watching his face warp in the reflection below him.
“Just ask her out.”
Bellamy almost spit out his coffee.
Coughing, his eyes watering, he stared at Monty, who didn’t seem to be joking at all.
“Clarke?” Bellamy rasped out.
“No, that little old lady in the corner by the window. I think she’s been checking you out.” Monty rolled his eyes. “Duh, Clarke.”
Bellamy cleared his throat and shifted forward, wiping his palm on the top of his thigh. The armchair he was in suddenly felt a little too small.
“I’m not into Clarke,” he mumbled.
“Totally convincing.”
Bellamy flipped him off, and picked his book back up again. He heard Monty chuckle at him, but he didn’t say anything more about it as Bellamy stared down at the pages in front of him, watching the lines of text blur in front of him, not taking any of it in.
He heard footsteps to his left and he glanced up out of instinct, but it was just a kid moving around him to go to the bathroom.
He flipped to the next page.
Things were just different with Clarke. It wasn’t like how he was with Monty or Jasper or Raven. He’d grown up with Clarke, watched her make all the big decisions in her life. She’d known him when he was a completely different guy than he was now; an angry teenagera guy struggling to get through school, and she had been the only one he’d been able to be happy around--besides Octavia. The guy he was with his friends now, was the guy that Clarke had let him become when they were growing up.
So it was different.
And he was still trying to reconcile in his head how he could go from never seeing her, not having seen her for years really, to seeing her nearly daily. And it being totally normal.
After her first night back, with Raven and the boys and the margaritas, they hadn’t really done any of the “what have you been up to” talks. He told her he was still in school, getting his PhD, and she’d nodded saying that Octavia had mentioned that in one of her emails a while back. She’d patted him on the arm and told him it was great and she was proud of him, giving him a warm smile before stealing the TV remote back from him and sticking her feet in his lap, and that had been that.
Ever since then they’d just been like they always were. Like they hadn’t lived hours apart for years, like it was totally normal to see each other everyday.
He saw Monty watching him out of the corner of his eye still.
“You could just ask her out, you know,” Monty said. Bellamy snapped his book shut.
“I’m not into Clarke!” he hissed.
Monty glanced over his shoulder, following Bellamy’s gaze, to where Clarke stood, piling muffins onto the cake stand on the counter, and snorted.
“How many times have you been here this week?”
“It’s on my way home from work,” Bellamy mumbled. “And I get free coffee here.”
Monty just raised an eyebrow. Bellamy glanced back over to Clarke, imagining what it would be like if he just strode up to her and asked her to grab dinner.
She’d probably say yes, he knew that. But only because they ate dinner together upwards of three times a week, either at her and Octavia’s apartment, his apartment or Monty and Jasper’s. Dinner for them wasn’t unusual. She’d probably shrug and suggest Chinese food because she always suggested Chinese food and then he’d have to explain that he meant going out for dinner, and she’d suggest the new sandwich shop that opened a block away because Jasper was obsessed with their paninis, and he’d have to explain again that he meant just the two of them, and she’d probably start to suggest something else and he’d have to stop her and explain that he meant a date. He wanted to go to dinner with her--just her--on a date.
And then she’d probably crinkle her eyebrows together and give him a soft “Oh,” and he’d want to jump into a hole in the ground and die.
“It’s just not great timing,” was all he said to Monty.
“Oh, yeah, right, of course,” Monty said. “Because finally being reunited with an old friend, who you’ve clearly missed and now see almost every day is just terrible timing.”
“She dropped her whole life, Monty,” Bellamy said. He pictured what she looked like, that first night, sitting on her bed, the phone in her hand, the dial tone ringing out after her mom hung up on her. Her head softly drooping down onto her chest, her jaw set hard so she wouldn’t cry. He remembered the empty suitcase sitting in front of her, a few drawers still sticking out of the dresser from when she had been hastily shoving things in, packing herself into a new life so quickly so she didn’t have to give herself time to think about it. “She’s trying to start fresh. It’s just not the time.”
He shook his head at himself, for admitting what Monty knew all along--that he wanted to. That he missed her and that walking in on her unpacking, a margarita in her hand, had been the best surprise he’d had in months. That he was hoping they could pick up where they left of--which they had, without any extra weirdness--and that maybe if he played his cards right he could figure out what that feeling in the pit of his stomach that he had whenever he was around Clarke was all about.
“Asking her if she wants to go see a movie with you isn’t taking advantage, Bellamy,” Monty sighed. He shifted on the couch, scooching down to the end next to the arm chair where Bellamy was sitting. “I get the hesitation, but I think on this one, waiting might not be your game.”
Monty’s head tipped in Clarke’s direction, where she was standing at some guy’s table, a smile plastered on her face, his hand resting on her arm.
“You don’t want to miss your chance,” Monty shrugged.
Bellamy sipped his coffee, picking his book back up again. “My chances are fine,” he grumbled. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to ask her out. Thinking about it gave him knots at the pit of his belly, but he shrugged it off as indigestion.
***
The person on the other side of the line was speaking before he’d had a chance to say hello .
“I have an embarrassing favor to ask you,” Clarke’s voice rang through. “And I need you to not laugh at me about it. Or at least, not over the phone. I need to be able to punch you when you do, inevitably, laugh at me. Promise?”
Bellamy smiled, leaning back into his couch. “Absolutely not.”
“Jerk,” she laughed.
He tapped his fingers on his knees, waiting. It hadn’t been that long since he saw her. He’d stopped in earlier that day to grab coffee from her on his way back from the library, and they’d chatted for a bit, but he had papers to work on, so he couldn’t stick around. He checked his watch and saw that she’d probably just gotten off her shift and home when she’d called him.
He didn’t know what to do with that.
“It’s really weird that I can see you.” Her voice brought him back down from his thoughts. He glanced over to his window and saw Clarke standing at hers across the alleyway, leaning against the back of her couch. When she saw him glance over, she gave him a small salute and he chuckled.
“You get used to it after a while,” he shrugged, standing up and moving over to the window. “What’s the favor?”
He watched as she lifted her hand up, pointing at him, accusing, before he’d even done anything. “Don’t laugh,” she warned.
He held his free hand up in surrender.
He watched her lips move and heard a soft mumble into the phone, but it was too quiet to make out anything she actually said.
“What was that now?” he asked.
“I need your help,” she grumbled into the phone. “Doing laundry.”
He knew she could see him, biting his lip, stifling his laughter, but he couldn’t help himself. He gnawed on the inside of his cheek and shook his head. I’m not laughing , he wanted to say to her, but just as he thought it, a laugh burst from his lips and he couldn’t stop it.
“Stop!” she scolded him, he could see, even across the alley and through the window her cheeks were going red, but she was having a hard time schooling her face into something serious. “Fine, be a jerk. Are you at least going to help me?”
He nodded, his hand on his stomach, slowing down the laughter. “Yeah,” he said. He relaxed his face, trying to push away any amusement she couldn’t see on it. “Yeah, of course. Meet downstairs in five?”
She nodded through the window and threw him a thumbs up as she hung up the phone in lieu of answering, and he went to the kitchen to grab the half of the sandwich he had left over from lunch, before pulling his shoes on and walking down to meet her.
***
They’d been at the laundromat for two hours, and Clarke was smiling, turning away from Bellamy so he couldn’t see as she finished off the next load by herself, not double checking anything with him, like she’d done with the one previous to that.
“So,” he said, hopping up on top of the machine next to her. “Not as hard as you thought, right?”
Clarke reached out a hand and shoved at him, making him sway to the left, his hand coming down on the edge of the dryer to steady himself.
“I know it’s stupid,” she said. She had her basket propped up on the machine to the left of her and was folding the warm load of clothes she’d just taken out of the door behind Bellamy’s dangling feet. “But it’s on the list, and I needed to learn at some point.”
“The list?”
Clarke’s face was red and she wouldn’t make eye contact with him, so he kicked his right foot out, nudging her with his toes, poking at her until she swatted him away with a laugh.
“I have a list,” she said, still avoiding his eye. “Of things I have to do.”
“Like ‘take out trash, wash dishes?’” he asked, one eyebrow raised, watching the blotch of red creep up her skin.
“No, you jerk,” she said, throwing a pair of rolled up socks at him. “Like things I have to do . Learn to do. If I’m going to be on my own.” She folded a couple more pairs of socks, waiting for him to answer, but he just watched her, pushing back the small smile playing at his lips. “Actually on my own, not like when I was at school with my mom taking care of everything. I’m starting small, working my way up to the harder things. It’s stupid, I know,” she said again shrugging.
Bellamy lobbed the pair of socks she’d thrown at him right back at her, watching as they bounced off the top of her head and into the pile in front of her.
“It’s not,” he said cheerfully. “I mean you’re right, it’s embarrassing that you still didn’t know how to do laundry--” he clutched onto the edge of the machine as she shoved at him once again, her tongue sticking out at him. “But it’s a good thing. You’re figuring it out. On your own.”
She shook her head, a small, soft rejection of whatever it was she was hearing from him.
“This wasn’t exactly on my own, though, was it?”
Bellamy hopped down off of the machine, nudging her to the side with a press of his hips against hers, making room for himself to help fold alongside her.
“Being independent means doing what you have to do,” he said simply. “Sometimes that means asking for help.”
She still wouldn’t look at him, and the red creeping up from her neck was painting her cheeks, but he saw her bite into her lip, keeping her smile, however small, to herself.
“Plus,” he said, breaking the silence again. “You know how to do it now, you won’t need my help next time.”
“Yeah,” she hummed. “But you’re a much better folder than me, so I may have to figure out another way to con you into coming back with me next week.”
It was his turn to blush then, and he turned away, moving to grab piles of folded clothes back into her hamper before she could catch the heat creeping up his chest.
He did wonder, though he wouldn’t ask her, why she decided to call him for help. He was sure Octavia wouldn’t have teased her as much, and Monty and Jasper were right across the hall, always offering to do her favors. He had a small, squashed bit of hope that it wasn’t just a convenience thing--that she’d known him longest (beside Octavia), and he’d seen her at far worse than lost in a laundromat, that he just lived across the alley and she knew he was home because she could see him through the window.
“Thanks,” she said, startling him from his thoughts. Her hand was resting on the back of his bicep, catching his attention as she spoke. “I didn’t say that before, but I really appreciate this. You didn’t have to give up your Saturday night to help me learn something every nineteen year old knows how to do.”
He smiled down at her and she pulled her arm away, pulling a new load out of the dryer.
“Not a problem at all,” he said. “So long as you admit that you’d basically be lost without me.”
That time he caught the ball of socks before it hit him in the face.
***
They were at the laundromat for the better part of four hours, washing and drying and folding what seemed to be every article of clothing Clarke owned, but it was nice. His back was hurting and screaming for a chair with some actual lumbar support instead of the tops of machines he kept sitting on, but he hadn’t been able to spend this much time with Clarke alone since she’d moved in with Octavia.
He’d forgotten how silly she was, giggling and goofy, not afraid to look a little wild, unaware of what people thought of her. They spent the night teasing and talking and bumping each other, and he forgot, for a few seconds, that’s they’d ever lived hours apart at all, because it all felt so natural and normal, hanging out with Clarke joking and doing laundry together.
He’d gone to the bathroom, looking in the mirror and seeing a stranger stare back at him, a goofy smile plastered on his face, his hair pushed up and out of his blush covered face, and he’d stopped startled.
Maybe Monty was right.
Maybe there was no point in waiting around and doubting himself, worrying about screwing up a good thing. If it was so easy to fall back together now, maybe it would be just as easy to fall a little closer.
He splashed some water on his face, cooling the heat from below his skin, and cleared his throat. Fuck it, he thought. Might as well.
He pushed his way out of the bathroom, moving back over to Clarke, mouth open, ready to say--well he wasn’t sure, but something , when he saw that she wasn’t alone.
The man had short floppy hair, a snug grey hoodie clinging to his torso as he watched Clarke punch something into his phone before handing it back to him.
“Cool,” he heard the guy say, smiling at her. “I’ll give you a call sometime.”
His skin suddenly felt a little too cold, and he wished he hadn’t splashed all that water on him, wishing the heat would come back to his cheeks and his chest and his hands.
“Hey!” she said, spinning around to him. “I think I’m finally done. Want to go back to my place? Watch a movie or something? It’s still early.” She glanced at her watch. “I think I even have a pint of ice cream in the freezer that O hasn’t gotten to yet.”
“Yeah,” he said, nodding. He picked up one of her baskets. “Sure, sounds good.”
She glanced at him, eyebrows scrunched up. “You okay?”
He nodded, bumping his elbow into hers. “I’m good,” he said. His voice sounded a little more normal that time. “I get to pick the movie though.”
She rolled her eyes, but nodded at him, moving to grab the other basket. “Fine,” she grumbled. “But if it’s some boring documentary, you don’t get any of the ice cream.”
He followed her out, the air feeling crisp and cool on his skin. He took a second to breath it in, happy for the excuse for cold feeling still running through his fingers, before following her around the corner and up the stairs, into her building, her voice cutting through the silence she didn’t seem to notice all the way back.