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“Okay, bye, love ya’.”
Bellamy doesn’t know why he says it. The words literally escape his lips without his brain consenting to it. After, it’s too late. There’s this sudden silence, this lack of an answer from Clarke that says everything there is to say about the way she reciprocates his feelings.
She doesn’t, by the way.
He hangs up. That’s the sensible thing to do, right? When you told your best friend from ten years, who you’ve been pining for the last two years, that you love them. And then, he just stays still and mute, staring at his screen forever, waiting for the next catastrophe. The text that will say that they need to talk. The awkward emoji that will show she’s not interested. What if she sub-tweets him on her social account? Oh Lord, what if she calls him back to hear exactly what he meant by “Love ya’”?
That’s it, he just needs to find a good reason. People say “love ya’” to everyone these days. It doesn’t have to mean anything, right? Right?
His heart gives a painful squeeze in his chest, and his hand tightens around the phone.
So why is it something they never said to one another? Ten years of “I need you”, “I care about you”, “You’re so important to me”, “You’re my family too” and never, not once, these three words.
The answer is obvious for Bellamy, at least. That’s because he does love Clarke. Romantically. He doesn’t know when he began to fall. Most likely, it was somewhere between the first and the third hour after they first met. He can pinpoint, though, the exact moment when he understood in his heart he was in love with her.
They got separated for a few months because of Clarke’s work. She flew to Thailand to help people from a village to build a school and give medical and health knowledge to the locals. There, she didn’t have any cell reception and no internet, zero way of communicating with him. Plus, the time difference was hell. Even when they could have talked together, one of them was asleep or at work. She was supposed to stay there for six months. Bellamy was missing her like crazy, their shared apartment empty of laughs, and banter, and colors, his days turning into a brooding grey as his mood went bluer.
Until one day, eleven days exactly before the day she was supposed to come home, a little bundle of energy barged into him when he was leaving his office and jumped into his arms, hands tightening around his neck, hair tickling his nose. It took him a few seconds, but when pure relief filled his lungs and a deep sense of home seeped into his heart, he realized. Clarke was home. His home.
He closed his arms around her and pressed her more against him, lifting her from the ground and inhaling her sweet perfume. “You’re really here,” he whispered into her neck. She nodded and tightened her embrace around him.
The warmth in his heart exploded and invaded his whole being with so much joy and excitement that he could have yelled from sheer happiness. Instead, he laughed and spun her into his arms. She giggled and — God, he just needed to see her face right now, watch her big smile and her bright blue eyes and prove to himself that she didn’t exist just in his imagination.
He detached himself from her and even if it was night already, her entire presence was lighting up their surroundings, like she was his own personal sun. Words got stuck in his throat, battling to be the first one he’d say. He wanted to ask her what she was doing here already, how she was doing and when she arrived, and why she didn’t tell him. He wanted to tell her everything that had happened when she was away, how much he missed her, how much he was happy to see her, how much he loved her. God, he just wanted to kiss her—
See, that’s when Bellamy figured out that he was in love with Clarke. And also that he couldn’t tell her. Not now, nor ever. Not after having realized how much he needed his best friend in his life, how important she was for him. He couldn’t and never should jeopardize that. Never .
How could he just break the promise he made to himself two years ago like this? Without even thinking? What a stupid, dumbass fool he was. Ugh!
What should he do now? He doesn’t even have any chores left to do because he freaking did them all this morning because he needed a clean space to (procrastinate) write the second volume of his novel. No more dishes to wash, or laundry to fold. He even vacuumed the floor, for god’s sake. And now he can’t even get mad at Clarke for leaving her things all over the place like he planned to do because he fucking just told her he loved her.
He still hasn’t moved from the window he was standing in front of since he hung up on Clarke. Fuck, did he just hangup on Clarke? Did this whole moment really happen or was it a hallucination? Well, Clarke should be back home in a couple of hours, so he guesses that he’ll find out then. In the meantime, a second round of vacuuming never hurt any floor, he thinks? Also, it’s crazy, how quickly dust can come back, right?
So here he is, thirty minutes later, cleaning imaginary dust from the already spotless floor of their apartment, when, beneath the loud noise of his Hoover, even louder knocks echo on the door.
Great . It has to be his neighbors, right? He vacuumed too much, he’s pretty sure. Uh, this day is just getting better and better. He really doesn’t need an argument with his always angry neighbors, not after letting slip his love confession to Clarke. He just hopes it’s just Raven and not Murphy because as much as he can deal with the former, the latter has a gift to piss him off.
Turns out it’s not Murphy. Nor Raven, even. It’s Clarke.
She’s out of breath, her cheeks red from god knows what. Did she just run all the way from her workplace to here? God, is she so angry at him, or did she find him so pathetic that she had to rush over here to yell or laugh right at his face? And how can he deal with yelling or laughing while still holding his freaking vacuum cleaner?
“I forgot my keys!” she exclaims after a few seconds of just taking him in. Then, like it’s nothing at all: “Do you love me, like platonically? Or love me like, love me ?”
She’s so cute suddenly, making quotes gestures in the air. She’s always cute, of course, but at this moment, she’s just— he loves her, okay ? He’s about to tell her just that, but she’s not finished, apparently.
“Because I love you too. Non-platonically, I mean. Romantically, I guess.”
Oh. Oh !
“No—” he begins, because he wants to tell her that he doesn’t love her platonically at all.
Nope. Wrong start. Clarke’s face falls, and she folds her arms protectively on her chest.
“I mean yes, I love you but—”
No, it’s worse. Now she’s frowning. Hard. And biting her lower lip in worry too. He sighs and—oh god, that wasn’t the right thing to do right now either. She swallows painfully and averts her eyes. Does she believe that she’s bothering him? Or worse, that he’s trying to let her down easy? How can he manage to make things worse every time he speaks?
That’s when Murphy and Raven appear from the staircase, hand in hand like the perfect couple they are, and walk slowly behind Clarke’s back to their apartment. An awkward silence settles as they put their key into their lock and open their door. Then, before disappearing, Murphy’s voice echoes through the hallway.
“Just kiss the girl already, Blake.”
Their door closes with a “click” that snaps Bellamy out of his stillness. Right, “kiss the girl” sounds actually like an excellent plan. Maybe he’ll thank his neighbor later by choosing to not vacuum at every hour of the day.
But he can’t “kiss Clarke already” because she’s in the hallway, and all folded on herself, and embarrassed, and he’s still holding the fucking Hoover. He doesn’t want for their first kiss to be as awkward as their first “l love you”. It’s not his fault if he’s romantic to a fault.
“Please, come inside?”
She hesitates, he can read it in her eyes. She was always the “run away from my problems” kind of girl. He sees that she’s trying her best to be better and to stay now when things get hard in her life, and he’s proud of her for that. But he also understands that old habits die hard.
She sighs, and she unfolds her arms and raises her head, and god—she’s so beautiful.
He puts the vacuum aside and lets Clarke in. The door isn’t even entirely closed behind her when Bellamy takes her in his arms and presses his lips on hers. It’s a lot like the hug that made him realize he was in love with her, but backward. Clarke stills for a few seconds, just like he did when he thought she wasn’t real. And then she’s moving all at once, just like he did when he processed what was happening. It’s almost as good as their hugs, too, but also so much better? Because he always tries to let his hands lay respectfully in the middle of her back, and—okay, sometimes, he kisses the spot between her neck and shoulder, but it’s barely a kiss, more a touch of his lips on the skin that’s just there.
But now, he can let his hands roam on her body as she melts into him. He can touch her, and feel her, and swallow her little sighs with his mouth and causes her moans and—wait, everything is happening too fast. He has to do something first.
“I’m in love with you. Romantically. Since forever, I think you should know that,” Bellamy tells her, his voice a little rough from all the kissing and the want that is slowly seeping into his veins.
“Love ya’ too,” Clarke responds with a smug smile before crashing her mouth on his.
Wow, it seems like “too fast” for him was “not quick enough” for Clarke. What about taking things slow, then? Which pace is the best pace to set after pining for his best friend for years and confessing his love by mistake?
Clarke tears her lips from his neck and gives him her answer.
“Now, take me to bed.”
Well, there’s no misinterpreting that, is there?