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“THE QUEEN IS HERE!”
Clarke hears Raven’s voice all the way from the front door to her bedroom, and thus isn’t surprised when the brunette bursts through her door, carrying a bag over her shoulder and a smirk on her face.
“I thought we agreed I was the queen.” Clarke simply says, not bothering to look up from her sketchbook. Raven, feeling ignored, takes the sketchbook and tosses it away, smiling at her like she knows something the blonde doesn’t. It’s irritating.
“I got a feeling you’re about to go back to be the princess real soon.” She cryptically says, and then turns around to rummage through her –rather packed– bag. “Now get dressed, loser, we’re going to a party.”
That sparks up Clarke’s attention. “A party? Whose?”
“Octavia’s. Haven’t you heard? Blake the Eldest is back from college.”
Clarke is dressed in a flowery dress, headed to a party she isn’t even sure she wants to attend to. She likes Octavia well enough, though they’ve had their differences in the past, but it’s her brother she’s always had trouble getting along with. Bellamy Blake was eighteen years old the last time she saw him, when she was only thirteen. The Bellamy she knew then liked to call her princess and pick fights with her for no reason other than the fun of it. Idly, she wonders what he’ll be like now as she enters the backyard of the Blake house, where the party seems to be on fire.
Raven drags her through the crowds, leading her to a row of chairs at the very back of the yard, sitting down with the rest of their friends: Jasper, who’s playing extreme rock-paper-scissors with Monty –and losing. Staring at them, evidently amused at Jasper’s predictability is Nate, weirdly out of place without his beanie. Behind them the music is loud but not unbearably so, and there’s so many people here –some of them she doesn’t even know– that it’s impossible for her to notice the person creeping up behind her and getting close enough to whisper in her ear:
“Looks like the princess finally decided to grace us with her presence.” Clarke jumps so high in her seat she nearly stands up. She’d know that voice anywhere. Turning around, she’s eye to eye with the one person she hadn’t given much thought to since he left five years ago: at twenty three, Bellamy’s taller and broader, but his face is still the same, with the full mouth and the crinkling in his eyes that indicates he’s actually enjoying himself and not just being an asshole like the smirk he’s sporting would make it seem. The freckles dusted across his cheeks seem to have augmented, too.
In short, he’s still the attractive imbecile she’s used to dealing with, only more so. “Bellamy.” She says with a blank face, studying him in silence. “Welcome back.”
“Don’t look so excited, Princess.” He sits down beside Nate, whom he high fives as they turn to watch Jasper and Monty go at it, the backs of their hands a nasty red color now. She takes a moment to study him.
Physically, he’s almost the same. But there is something to Bellamy now that wasn’t there when he left five years ago. For starters, his eighteen year old self wouldn’t have let go of a fight with her that fast, his sarcastic remarks today hardly have any bite at all. He seems more at ease, too, his posture a lot less stiff than when he left, back then when he was ready to pick a fight with anything that moved (especially her) like he had something to prove.
And hey, maybe he had. She knows neither him nor Octavia or their mom have had it easy. Both his and O’s dads have been out of the picture since the very beginning, and they didn’t always live in this nice house in the better part of this –admittedly not that big– town. And Bellamy had fought for them since the first time he held his little sister in his arms when he was five. Probably since before, knowing him. People always used to look down on him, but he got the final laugh when he scored a full scholarship on an Ivy League college in Boston. Now, watching as he laughs at Jasper for losing five times in a row, Clarke’s a little glad he’s back. Only a little, though.
They spend the night like that, drinking without rush and making jokes in a circle. Eventually, Octavia and her boyfriend of one year, Lincoln, join them –Bellamy doesn’t even bother glaring at him, he’s changed that much. Sometime later Aurora Blake calls from the living room, where the older people are gathered, to come have dinner and though her stomach whines in protest, Clarke stays put. She’s quite comfortable in her beach chair, and if she closes her eyes and feels the breeze she can almost imagine she’s actually at the beach.
“Having fun, Princess?” she hears him say. Not bothering to open her eyes, Clarke adjusts herself in her chair and crosses her legs.
“I have a name, you know. And unbelievable as it seems, I am having fun,” beside her, Bellamy laughs a throaty laugh that makes her go back to thirteen years old and having the smallest of crushes on her best friend’s older brother, but then she remembers that time someone stole her clothes after gym class, forcing her to ask the only person nearby –conveniently, him– for help, resulting in walking around in her gym shorts and an oversized t-shit,his t-shirt. Only to find out it had been him who had taken her clothes on the first place. She’s still annoyed at that.
“Don’t I know.” He says “that’s all you used to say ‘I have a name, Blake.’ ‘Stop calling me princess, Bellamy’ in that annoying demanding tone, like a fucking princess.” The way he shifts his voice to imitate hers annoys her enough to make her open her eyes, and what she sees leaves her confused: Bellamy’s closer than she’d anticipated, looking at her intensely. She’s suddenly very aware of the length of her dress and that she’s not thirteen with braces on her teeth anymore.
“Why are you still here?” she asks, sitting straighter and looking curiously at him. “This party’s in your honor, y’know. There’s not gonna be food left when you go there.”
“I’m not hungry, Clarke.” His voice is softer now, in a way he’s never really talked to Clarke. Octavia? Sure, his mom? Hell yes. But not to Clarke. She takes her eyes away from the trash can she was intently staring at to look at him, and finds that his eyes are also a lot less fiery than when he first arrived. “I heard about your dad.” He simply says, and Clarke has to drop her gaze in order to keep him from seeing the grimace she makes.
Jake Griffin will forever be a touchy subject for his daughter, but it’s been three years, she’s learned to live with it. “Yeah” she says, a sad smile gracing her features “who didn’t, though. The old man was the most famous person in town, right after the mayor.” Clarke lets out a small laugh, lying back on the chair.
“Well, that happens when you’re a great person.” Is Bellamy’s only reply. Clarke hums in agreement and they keep quiet for a little after that. She’s about to stand up to go inside when he speaks again. “I also heard about how you came to be best-friends with Reyes.”
“What the hell, Bellamy? You come back after five years and the first thing you do is remind me of all the bad things that happened in my life while you were away? Rude.” She doesn’t want to let it affect her, but he’s never picked actual bad things to start a fight with her before. She knows he likes riling her up (and she’s really too willing to let him sometimes) but this time he has crossed a line. She stands up and turns her back on him, ready as hell to leave his presence, but before she can even take a step he’s holding her by the arm and sitting her back in place.
“I didn’t mean it like that, Princess. Jesus, I’m sorry” he quickly apologizes, rubbing her arm with his thumb in a way that definitely does not make her skin tingle. Get a grip, Griffin. “I just… what a fucking asshole, Clarke. I was so mad when O told me.”
“Really? Because I’m more inclined to believe you laughed your ass off.” She mutters, sending a venomous glare his way.
“I may enjoy our fights, Clarke. But you’re still my little sister’s friend. You’re still my friend.” Bellamy’s gazing at her with an earnest look on his face, and that’s how he got into her good graces before: with the puppy eyes and the well-placed words that always got him a throng of followers ready to take the blame for all the stunts he used to pull. She lets out a long sigh.
“Alright, whatever.” She starts “Let go of me, Bellamy, I’m going inside.”
“Clarke, wait.” She thinks the main reason why they always fought is because she can’t say no to him. Back then, saying no meant refusing a dare, but now his voice is pleading, and even though there’d be no shame in ignoring him now, she’s still as useless at doing it as her thirteen-year-old self was. “I overstepped my boundaries. Let me make it up to you. Wanna go for coffee sometime?”
She feels like she stepped into a different dimension. Did Bellamy Blake just ask her out? This can’t be real. She extricates her arm from his grasp and starts heading inside, all the while shaking her head. “I don’t think so. Goodnight Bellamy.”
Bellamy continues to harass her for the rest of her summer vacation. She starts packing for college a week before she needs to leave and it proves to be very hard with a (supposedly) grown man following her around when she’s out of her house and knocking on her door when she’s inside. It throws her off balance, the way he just comes back and starts hitting on her like they didn’t spend the majority of his teenage years and her childhood biting each other’s head off. He even uses the “did it hurt when you fell from heaven” pick up line once, though he does so through a laughing fit and allows her to punch him for it later.
Two days before she leaves, she hops on her car and drives through the highway to the clearing she and her dad used to go to whenever they spent too much time away from each other, and is annoyed to find a very familiar truck parked in there when she arrives. Nonetheless, she refuses to be deterred and gets off the car only to be met with Bellamy Blake’s very broad back facing her. He’s sitting on a big rock (her and her dad’s big rock) and doesn’t seem to have noticed her arrival.
But of course, that’s not the case. “Come to finally accept my offer?” he asks when she’s close enough for him to see from the corner of his eye. Clarke scoffs.
“Nah.” she replies lightheartedly, sitting beside him on the unoccupied half of the rock. “Just wanted to visit this place one last time. What are you doing here, though?”
“Just thinking.” He says, drawing his legs to his chest and wrapping his arms around them. “I’m going back to Boston next week.” He says quietly, not looking at her.
“Funny,” she says “so am I.” Bellamy raises his head, turning to watch her with an incredulous look.
“What?”
“Yeah, I’m studying pre-med there.” The way Bellamy’s mouth is slightly open in surprise brings a tiny smile to her face, if only because that’s a look that hasn’t ever been directed at her. In his defense, he recovers rather quickly.
“Go out with me then. When we’re both in Boston.” He proposes with a radiant smile. She’s always thought him beautiful when he smiles, the kind of beautiful that makes her itch for charcoal and paper but –dammit, Clarke, this is not the time to want to draw your ex-nemesis.
“What is it with you and this sudden desire for a date with me, anyway?” she questions, pushing back a lock of wavy blond hair that obstructs her vision. “I don’t recall you being very taken with me before you left.”
“You’ve changed, Clarke, and so have I.” he replies “When we were younger I thought you were pretty cute, but then you were thirteen and I eighteen and we didn’t get along at all and you were fucking thirteen. Then my scholarship application got accepted and –in short, I was a mess.” He pauses to catch his breath, and Clarke tries to lighten the mood asking if he’s still a mess, to which he replies by gently pushing her arm away. “Anyway, being away was great for me. I got a job at a bar in Boston and I grew up a lot. There’s also the fact that I loved being in college. I’m sure Octavia loved the freedom, too.” He smiles. “And I missed you a fucking lot. Sometimes I thought about calling you, but then I remembered our fights and didn't think you’d want to hear from me.”
He keeps quiet after that, and Clarke doesn’t speak in fear of ruining the atmosphere. She’s missed him a lot, too, if she has to be honest. The only people in this place able to hold up a good argument with her are his sister and Raven, and none of them manage to get her riled up the way he did.
“So when I came back last month I thought I’d give it a try.” He starts speaking again. His hand sneaks its way along her arm to grab hers, and she looks down to see how it dwarfs her hand in size. She’s never felt small beside him until that moment. “Didn’t think you’d be so impossible, though.” At this she laughs.
Clarke admits that she’s missed him too, and it gets her a smile from Bellamy big enough to light at the very least the inside of her car, which is no small feat if you ask her. “Fine, Bellamy.”
“Huh?”
“Let’s go out. When we’re in Boston.”
“Really?” he asks, standing up from the rock to face her, but holding onto her hand. She nods. “Why not here, though?”
“I’ve still got a lot to pack. Some stuff to deal with before I move. I don’t want that to possibly ruin the date. Also your sister and our friends will never shut up.” Bellamy grimaces at the last sentence, and nods in approval of her arguments. He sits back on the rock, dropping her hand to pull her against his chest, where she makes herself cozy.
Later, after an hour of hushed, idle conversation, Clarke looks up at him to suggest leaving, but he’s looking down at her and so her face collides right into his. When she opens her eyes after the impact, there is little to no space between her and Bellamy, and he’s looking at her lips like they’re the ocean and he just wants to drown. Raising a hand up to his cheek, she caresses his freckles with her thumb and pulls his mouth to hers.
She can’t wait for Boston.