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Bellamy doesn’t know why strange animals are drawn to him. He’s never had a pet, never really wanted a pet for that matter. Sometimes he thinks he wouldn’t mind having a cat, but he’s allergic, so.
It started with the duck.
Clarke and him are playing Mario Kart, and friendships are about to be broken. They’re both too competitive for their own good, and Mario Kart brings out the worst in them. They’re in the final lap of moo moo meadows, Bellamy in the lead, when there’s a knock on the door. He pauses the game and stares at the door like it’s going to magically tell him who’s knocking before he looks over at Clarke with raised eyebrows. She looks equally as confused as he feels.
Octavia is two towns over at uni, not that she would knock anyway. Actually, none of their friends would knock. And neither of them ordered take out. So unless it’s the crotchety old man who lives next door coming over to yell at Clarke for parking on his grass again, he has no idea who it would be.
(And Bellamy knows for a fact that it’s not the crotchety old man who lives next door coming over to yell at Clarke because he has it under good authority that he is in the hospital for chest pains. Bellamy only feels a little guilty about not having any sympathy for the crotchety old man.)
“Don’t look at me. I didn’t get anywhere near the decrepit old man’s precious grass.”
Rolling his eyes, he stands up. “Don’t be rude, Clarke. Besides, he’s in the hospital.”
Clarke makes no move to get up and follow him to the door. She’s lounged on his favorite chair, socked feet dangling off the arm. “He was the one being rude when he yelled at me the first time. It’s grass, Bellamy. It’s going to die anyway. Not to mention we’re in the middle of a mother effing drought.”
He ignores her. They’ve had this conversation one too many times in his opinion. He looks out the window to see if anyone’s standing by the door.
(no one is there. Not that that’s weird. It could have been someone dropping off a package. Not that he ordered anything, but. Octavia.)
When he opens the door he expects to see a box, but instead he sees beady little eyes and a long, brown beak staring up at him.
“Who is it?” Clarke yells from her perch.
Bellamy isn’t really sure how to answer that. He looks over his shoulder at Clarke, who’s too busy reaching for his Wii controller to unpause the game so she can cheat to see his utter bewilderment at the situation at hand. He blinks a few times. Rubs his eyes. Maybe he’s seeing things. But when he looks back down, yeah. There’s still a duck sitting on his front porch looking up at him.
A duck knocked on his front door.
“Uh, Clarke?”
His tone finally gets her attention. She pauses the game again and walks up behind him. He can tell when she notices it. She tenses up, a small little gasp escaping her mouth, and then she’s pushing him aside and reaching out to pick up the duck. He reaches out to stop her, the thing could bite her and who knows what kind of diseases it carries, but she moves too quickly. Before he can do more than huff, she’s cradling the damn thing against her chest.
“Bellamy, it’s a duck!”
Honestly, he has no idea how to respond.
“What are we going to do with her?” Clarke looks up at him, eyes twinkling, and her lips twisted into a smirk. “We should name her Daisy.”
“We are not naming her, Clarke. She’s not even ours to name.”
“But, Bellamy, she’s lost!”
And when those big blue eyes look up at him, he already knows that, yes, they are going to name this duck Daisy, and yes, Daisy will become Bellamy’s responsibility. Which is how he finds himself driving to Miller’s house with the duck sitting in the front seat of his old pickup.
Miller doesn’t even look up from his phone when he says, “Dude, why are you holding a duck?”
He only gets as far as Clarke’s name before Miller looks up, appearing way too exasperated for a man who hasn’t even heard the full story yet.
“Bellamy, there are easier ways to woo the woman you love. Namely, asking her out. Maybe even buying her flowers. But a duck? Nah, probably not the best route.”
He glares at his best friend, but plops down on the couch beside him anyway. Really, Miller isn’t wrong. But that doesn’t mean that Bellamy wants to hear it.
“Daisy, meet Miller. He’s a douchebag. Miller, meet Daisy. She knocked on my door and Clarke made me promise that I would find her a good home. You’re going to help me do that.”
“Like hell I am.” Miller glances at Daisy. “This is weird, even for you.”
“This could win brownie points with Monty. He loves a weird story.”
They both stare at each other, both slightly regretting their decisions to befriend the other. But finally Miller sighs, “Fine. But you owe me a drink. Or a dozen.”
They eventually find Daisy a good home. Indra looks a little scary, and Bellamy might have not wanted to leave Daisy with her, but as it turns out, she’s brilliant with animals. Plus, she has more than enough land for Daisy to wander around. Clarke cried saying goodbye, and swears that she saw Bellamy tear up, too. But Bellamy swears that it was just allergies. He’s pretty sure he saw one or two cats creeping around the place.
-
The next time it happens, Bellamy had just arrived home from visiting Daisy at the farm. And, yeah, he feels like that accurately describes where he is in life right now.
(Daisy is doing just fine. She waddled up to him to say hello, but quickly waddled away when she realized that Clarke was not with him and he did not have any bread to feed her. He also feels like this is a good description of his life.)
But this time, it’s not a duck. It’s a squirrel.
He first sees it when he’s playing a game of ultimate frisbee with Miller and a few guys from the station. He doesn’t think too much of it. He sees squirrels all the time. But, thinking back, it was weird that this one was just sitting on the bench watching him. At least, it seemed to be watching him. Maybe Bellamy was just paranoid at this point.
He still doesn’t think too much of it when him and Miller are walking back home, and the squirrel is scurrying around behind him. He assumed it was a different one. There are squirrels all over the place, what are the chances that it’s the same one?
He only begins to think something is strange about the entire thing, when he’s washing the glasses him and Miller used and he spots the squirrel is in his backyard, sitting on a upturned bucket, staring at him through the window. Not only was it strange, but also a little creepy. But, still, he doesn’t react until he goes to his bedroom. He’s all snug in bed, ready to end the day and fall into the dream world, when there’s a scratching sound at his window. His open window because it’s a nice, cool autumn night. And he wanted to spell the crisp air. It’s a perfectly normal thing to do.
He nearly pisses himself when he looks over and sees the squirrel perched there, staring right at him. It’s then that he reacts, his hand immediately finding his phone.
“Bellamy, it’s nearly midnight. What could you possibly want right now?” She sounds tired, and any other time, Bellamy would feel guilty about calling her so late. But honestly, the squirrel has priority over his guilt.
His eyes never leave the squirrel when he tells her, “I think I’m being stalked?”
“Bellamy.”
She sounds so exasperated that for a moment he thinks about telling her to forget it, and he’ll just call Miller instead. But it’s Clarke, and she was here for the duck. He figures she would appreciate it afterwards more so than Miller would.
“There’s a squirrel in my bedroom. I think he followed me from the park. He looks a little crazy eyed.”
There’s a moment of silence and then, “I’ll be right over.”
Bellamy stays on his bed watching the squirrel watch him while he waits for Clarke. He hears her unlocking the door, but still doesn’t move. Too scared that the squirrel will disappear and Clarke will think he’s actually insane.
“What the fu--” She stops in the doorway, eyes gone wide as she takes in the squirrel sitting on the window. “Wait, there’s an actual squirrel?”
There’s a tense moment where Clarke looks at Bellamy with unbelief and Bellamy just stares back wondering what she thought he actually mean when he called her at midnight about a rabid squirrel. Because, yes, at this point he’s pretty sure the squirrel is rabid.
“Would a lie about being stalked by a squirrel? Is that legitimately something I would lie about, Clarke?”
Clarke stares at him a beat longer than necessary, and then shakes her head. “You’re right. What else would it be?”
And there’s something in her voice, something pained and lacking, but Bellamy doesn’t have much time to dwell on what the means because suddenly the squirrel is running through his living room and all over his kitchen. It’s one thirty in the morning when they finally manage to trap the thing in an old laundry basket. It’s still scuffling around, making weird breathing noises, when the two of them collapse on his bedroom floor, breathing heavily with hair matted on their foreheads from sweat. There’s a moment when all they can hear is the scuffling squirrel and their breathing before Clarke sits up and says,
“I’ll call the vet ER.”
It’s another half hour before someone shows up to collect the rabid squirrel, and by that point Clarke decided to name it Sebastian and it’s entire life history up to this point. Bellamy is pretty sure it’s proof that they both need sleep, which is why he just tells Clarke to stay the night.
There’s another unidentified tense moment where Clarke just looks at Bellamy, and there’s something he can’t read in her eyes. But soon she just sighs and crawls underneath his covers.
(What? Bellamy is a gentleman. He just slept on top of the covers. If they ended up spooning in their sleep, Bellamy can’t be blamed. Though he might be blamed for spending a little extra time in the morning in bed, holding Clarke just a little too tight.)
-
Bellamy is convinced that that’s the last of the weird animal stories. Two is enough for any person. Right?
Nah. It happens again almost two months later.
It’s colder at this point, and Clarke can almost always be found snuggled into his couch with his warmest blanket.
(“Don’t you have a house of your own, Clarke?”
She’s so snuggled in the blanket, that her voice comes out all muffled, “yeah, but I’m poor and don’t have money to use my heater.”
“Clarke.”
“Bellamy.”
“Use your damn heater.”
“But then I wouldn’t be able to use that excuse to come over here and steal all your food.”)
He’s on his way home from a very long, difficult shift, and he’s already planning a dinner for two because he just knows that he’s going to find Clarke snuggled into his couch once again. But his dinner planning gets cut short when he sees a fluffy little ball shivering in the middle of the road. He has half a mind to ignore it, but then it keeps shivering and Bellamy can’t ignore anything that might possibly be suffering.
He makes his way over to the shivering fur ball, already wondering if he’s making a mistake, when halfway to it he realized that the fur ball is actually a rabbit. It’s black and white, both ears flopped over, and a little pink nose with a black speck in the middle. And it’s shivering and looking up at Bellamy as if begging him to help. And, really, no one can blame him for scooping it up and taking it to the nearest vet right then and there.
(It takes nearly two and a half hours. The rabbit had a broken leg and a scratch on his left ear, but the vet assured Bellamy that he should make a full recovery.)
Bellamy had almost forgotten about the Clarke that was more than likely curled up on the couch waiting for him to come home until he walks through his front door and is ambushed by a hurricane of messy blonde hair.
“Bellamy Blake! Where the hell have you been?”
It doesn’t occur to him until that moment that if in fact she had been waiting for him that she could have been worried. That maybe she had called him and that maybe, possibly, he most definitely should have checked his phone or let her know that he was running later than usual.
“I found an injured rabbit?”
Clarke pulls away then, looks at him and cocks her head to the side. “A rabbit?”
He nods towards the crate that’s dangling at his side. It’s bright pink and black, and he’s pretty sure it’s a cat crate but whatever.
“He has a broken leg and a scratch on his ear. He was in the middle of the road just sitting there shivering.”
“So you took him in and now you’re stuck with him.”
“Actually, I’m giving him to Miller to give to Monty for his birthday.”
Clarke huffs and steps out of his personal space. Bellamy ignores the feeling of loss that twists up his stomach and follows her to his kitchen.
“Are they dating yet?”
“Nope. But maybe Freddy will be the tipping point.”
Clarke glances over her shoulder at him, a little incredulous. “Freddy? That’s an awful name.”
“Like Sebastian is any better, Clarke.”
“Shut up and eat the soup I made for you. Also, you had me worried sick. I was about to call the hospital and see if there had been any police related injuries tonight.”
Bellamy just smirks as he places the crate down and gets a bowl of soup. “It warms my heart that you were so worried about me, Princess.”
“Shut up.”
“You already said that.”
“I hate you.”
“Love you too, Griffin.”
-
It’s his day off, and Bellamy is lounging on the couch watching old Friends reruns, when something at his window catches his eye. At first, he thinks that he’s just seeing things, but really, he should be used to it by now.
He stares at the chicken standing on his windowsill, wondering what he did in a past life to make all animals think that he was some sort of safe zone.
It takes him all of thirty seconds to decide to call Clarke again, and she just laughs when he finishes telling her.
“Y’know, when you called about the squirrel, I thought it was some sort of weird booty call. Now, I realize this is just part of your life. Bellamy Blake: Animal Whisperer.”
Bellamy chokes on the juice he was drinking, is too busy coughing up a lung to ask Clarke what exactly she meant by booty call, before she informs him she was already on her way over and should be there in fifteen minutes.
(And if she did think it was a booty call, what does it mean that she came over that night? Bellamy nearly chokes on his juice again thinking about it.)
(The chicken is fairly easy to catch. They put her in the bathroom until Raven comes to fetch her. She calls her Clucky, which Bellamy tells her is very unoriginal. Raven punches Bellamy in the arm on her way out.)
-
Bellamy is still having a crisis over the whole Clarke Thought He Called For A Booty Call Yet Still Came Over situation when he comes home to a cat yowling from his roof.
He stares at his phone unsure whether to call Clarke or not. Finally, he settles on calling Octavia since she is on break and visiting. She’s over in ten minutes, climbing onto the roof like some kind of ninja, and cooing at the cat for five minutes straight before it finally decides it likes her and comes cuddling into her arms.
Bellamy spends the entire time safely on the ground, calling up to O to make sure she’s okay, and also catching her up on all his life happenings. Including The Booty Call Incident 2k17.
Octavia somehow manages to climb off the roof without a ladder and not dropping the cat. Bellamy is slightly amazed and slightly horrified.
“Big Brother, you’re an idiot. Just ask her out already. Oh, and I’m keeping this cat by the way.”
She’s halfway to her car when Bellamy finally calls out, “You’re not allowed pets in your apartment, O!”
“I’m living with Lincoln now!” She calls back before jumping in her car and driving away.
(Bellamy is fine. He swears. He didn’t nearly have a heart attack at the ripe old age of twenty-eight.)
-
“You’re an idiot, Bellamy.”
Bellamy thinks he might should be offended by how often the people in his life call him an idiot. But, at this point, he’s too excited and nervous to care.
“Okay, we’ve already decided that. Like, eons ago. The point of today is: do you think this plan will work?”
Miller sighs, eyes Bellamy like he’s rethinking being friends with him, and then shakes his head. “Yes, this idiotic plan of yours will work, but only because Clarke is just as big of an idiot as you are.”
“Wow, Nate. You’re so encouraging. I’m so lucky to have you as a friend.”
“Your mom.”
“What are we? Twelve?”
“Leave me alone and go woo your woman.”
-
This time, Bellamy doesn’t call Clarke. Mainly because Clarke can tell when he’s lying by his tone alone. Also because Bellamy isn’t sure he’d be able to go through with it if he actually called her. So instead, he just sends her a text.
Bigger Blake:
So..
I have another animal situation
The Griffin:
I’m not even surprised anymore
What is it this time?
Snow leapard?
Snow owl?
Snow bear?
Bigger Blake:
Snow bear?
Polar bear*
The Griffin:
Shut up and tell me
Bigger Blake:
Jesus
Just get over here
Looking back, he probably should have waited until he got home to text her. But, he was anxious and wasn’t really expecting anything to be out of the ordinary when he got home.
But. There was just one small, out of the ordinary thing when he got home.
There was a dog on his shed in the backyard. Which.
His backyard his fenced
There isn’t a tree near his shed
What the actual hell
Bellamy is still outside, staring at the dog in what could probably pass as mild disbelief, when Clarke shows up. She’s about as speechless as he is.
“What the hell?”
“Right?”
There’s a moment of silence and then Bellamy says, “You always wanted a dog, right?”
“Right.”
Another moment and then, “But my landlord doesn’t allow dogs.”
“We can co-parent him. You basically live here anyway.”
“True.”
And then they make a plan to get the dog down. It takes a ladder and a chair, Clarke’s hair getting stuck in a nail on the shed and Bellamy having to cut it with his pocketknife, and a very risky move to get the dog down. But it works and in the end, they both sit in the living room watching the dog chase its tail around in circles.
It takes Bellamy almost ten minutes to find his courage.
“So, originally, there wasn’t an animal crisis.”
He watches her carefully, and doesn’t miss it when she tenses up. She doesn’t turn to look at him, though.
“What do you mean?”
“It was just a way to get you over here so I could basically tell you that I’ve been in love with you for years.”
She’s still not looking at him, but her shoulders have relaxed and he’s pretty sure she’s smiling at this point.
“You could’ve just asked me to come over to hang out.”
“Yeah, but you thought the squirrel was a booty call. I was trying to be romantic.” And, yeah, it’s a little idiotic like Miller said, and he feels heat creeping up his neck. But Clarke is finally looking at him and she’s smiling like she just got the best news of her life, so. It couldn’t have been that idiotic, right?
“Bell, booty calls aren’t romantic.”
They’re both grinning like the idiots they are, and yeah. Bellamy is pretty happy at this point.
“The keyword there was trying.”
She leans over and kisses him then. It’s slow and steady and warm and, “Your lips are chapped. Are you out of chapstick again?”
She mumbles something that sounds an awfully lot like fucking idiot, but she’s still smiling. “Bellamy, just leave the romantic stuff to me from here on out.”
“You’re just as bad at this shit as I am, Clarke.”
“Yeah, probably.”
And Bellamy has another comment on the tip of his tongue, but it dies when she leans back to kiss him again. This time a little less slow, a little less steady, and a lot hotter and dirtier.
(They’re both half naked by the time they remember the dog. They both agree they can’t ruin his innocence so soon and scurry off to Bellamy’s bedroom laughing and trying to trip each other as they run down the hallway in their underwear.)
-
Clarke was taking a power nap before her shift at the museum. She was curled up in her spot on bellamy’s couch and preening in the sun like some sort of overgrown cat. When she had first fallen asleep, Bellamy was only a few feet away watching Psych, but when she wakes up she doesn't see her boyfriend anywhere. She stretches and listens to the stillness of the house as she wakes up, when she hears the faint sound of someone singing. It only takes her a few moments to recognize the Moana soundtrack.
She finally gets curious enough to go search for the person singing. She thinks maybe Octavia came over for a visit or maybe Monty and Miller came over before their ultimate frisbee tourney this afternoon.
The person she finds lying belly down, face to face with Logan, singing the Moana soundtrack is actually the last person she ever expects. But then, his life had recently turned into a Disney Princess movie, so she figures she shouldn’t be as surprised as she is.
“Bell?”
He turns to look at her standing in the doorway, and the smile he gives her causes her heart to swell a little, and reminds her just how in love with him she is.
“Yeah?”
“Were you singing to Logan?”
She expects him to look sheepish, but his smile just grows, “I think he secretly really likes it.”
She laughs, and forces herself between him and the dog. She lies on her side and reaches out to tap Bellamy’s nose, “You’re like a Disney princess.”
He laughs at that, eyes turning into crescents. “If I’m the princess does that mean you’re the prince that saves me?”
She smiles, snuggles into Bellamy’s chest, and says, “Nah, we save each other.”
(She ends up being late for work, but she thinks her boss should be more understanding. It’s not her fault that her boyfriend is so comfortable that she doesn’t want to leave.)