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"You know what the problem is with casual sex?" Clarke asks, flopping down on the couch next to Bellamy with a sigh.
"Having to google people from the bathroom at the bar before you take them home to make sure they won't murder you?" he offers without hesitation. "Hell, having to find people at bars to hook up with?"
"You pick up people at bars too," she points out. When they first started living together, Clarke had thought their wildly divergent takes on relationships might be a source of friction. She doesn't care what other people do in their personal lives, but people who are really into dating and monogamy can get pretty judgey about people who favor casual sex, and Bellamy gave off pretty generally judgmental vibes.
Luckily, it turned out he didn't have anything against sleeping around, he'd just gotten it out of his system in college, when Clarke was convinced she was going to marry first Finn and then Lexa. Once both those relationships blew up in her face, she figured she might as well take a step back from trying to find a long-term relationship and just have fun.
Five years later, she's still having fun. At least, most of the time.
"Yeah, but not as often, if I'm lucky. Besides," he adds, with a teasing grin, "I figured if I said lack of emotional connection and empty orgasms, you'd get mad at me."
"No, that's closer," she admits, ignoring his teasing for the moment. "Not the emptiness, but the orgasms. Or lack thereof."
He snorts. "I told you that guy looked like a douchebag."
"I wish everyone who looked like a douchebag was bad in bed, but you really can't tell. Sometimes they're smug because they're really, really good. Like you, I hope."
"Thanks for giving me the benefit of the doubt."
"Any time you want to prove it, feel free."
He shakes his head, still smiling. She can never tell if he thinks she's joking or not, but all he ever has to do is ask. Bellamy's hot, and she would absolutely fuck him in about half a second, if he wanted to. "I don't want to ruin you for other men. That would really reduce your dating pool."
"Very considerate of you."
"You could try fucking someone other more than once, then you could have good sex regularly."
"I still get plenty of good sex regularly. And a relationship isn't a guarantee of good sex."
"No, but at least you can have a conversation about it. Or you should be able to. I know the last time you dated someone long-term was college, but when you're an adult, you can just tell your partners that they're bad at oral."
"Really?" she asks, unable to keep a dubious note out of her voice. "How's that gone for you?"
"Okay, you don't say exactly that. But I've dated some people who don't give head how I like, and they've taken feedback. And then they get better. With just one night, you don't see a lot of improvement, even if you bring it up."
"I don't know if anyone takes you've never given a girl an orgasm well, as feedback."
"Yeah, I've never tried that one."
"Weird."
"Sorry the douche didn't get you off. And sorry I'm better at judging whether or not guys are good at sex on sight than you are."
She snorts. "I don't think we can say that."
He shrugs. "I'm just saying, I took one look at that guy and knew he was going to suck in bed."
"Yeah, brag about it." She lets out a long sigh. "You sure you don't want to fuck me?"
"Not tonight, sorry."
"Then I'm going to go fuck myself and go to bed."
It's the kind of thing that should be weird, but Bellamy just gestures over his shoulder, half wave and half salute. "Enjoy."
If she's thinking about him and not any of the attractive strangers she's fucked lately when she gets herself off, that's her business. No one else has to know.
*
"I wouldn't fuck that guy," Bellamy says, three weeks later, while the guy Clarke has been flirting with is in the bathroom.
"I don't think he'd fuck you either, he seems straight."
He ignores her. "I bet you five bucks he doesn't make you come if you go home with him."
"Huh." She thinks it over. "I don't know if I'm going home with him yet. And that's a shitty deal for me."
"How so?"
"Not only do I not get off, but I lose five bucks?"
He snorts. "Sorry, did you want to put your money on your date being bad in bed? I figured you were betting on them by default."
It's a valid point. "Fine, if I go home with him and he doesn't get me off, I'll give you five bucks."
He offers his hand and the two of them shake on it, and by the time the guy gets back, Bellamy's melted into the crowd. It's something he learned to do early in their friendship, and Clarke's grateful; even the densest potential hookups manage to pick up on how much more she likes her roommate than them.
She lets the guy take her home, and she gets a cab back from his place after. Bellamy's on the couch playing video games, as he always is. The first few times, he made excuses, but once they got to know each other better, he admitted it was a nervous thing. He grew up taking care of his baby sister, and he couldn't ever sleep while she was out. He has to wait until everyone is home and the door is bolted before he can go to sleep, so Clarke never stays out too late.
She hands him a five dollar bill without a word, and he puts his arm around her and gives her a squeeze. "Sorry I was right."
"If you were really sorry, you'd five me back the five bucks."
He smirks and pockets the money. "Guess I'm not really that sorry."
*
"What about him?" Clarke asks, pointing to a guy with dirty blonde hair and a nice smile. Bellamy has won three bets in a row, so she's pretty sure she has some kind of gift.
"I'm starting to think you just have really shitty taste in guys," he says, cocking his head. "That guy?"
"I'm not going to marry him."
"You're also not going to get off with him."
Raven looks between the two of them with raised eyebrows. "Did I miss something?"
"Bellamy's got an eye," says Clarke.
"I've got two eyes," he says. "I'm getting another round, you two want one?"
They both agree, and Raven fixes Clarke with a hard look once he's gone. "Are you guys getting weirder?"
"Probably."
"You should just fuck him."
"I keep trying, but he keeps saying no."
"Okay, yeah, you should tell him you want to marry him."
"If he won't fuck me, why would he marry me?"
Raven groans. "You're going to give me gray hair. What's he got an eye for?"
"Guys who can give me an orgasm."
Her head hits the booth with a light thunk. "Seriously, Clarke."
"He's good at it! I don't want to waste my time."
"You say that, but you've been in love with your roommate for like six months and haven't done anything about it."
Clarke feels her entire body stiffen, her blood running cold and then hot. "I'm not in love with him."
"No?"
"No."
Raven regards her with her too-shrewd eyes. "I know the Finn thing did a number on you. On both of us. And the Lexa thing right after…" She sighs. "I'm not saying I don't get it. But you've got yourself convinced that because he won't sleep with you, he doesn't want you, and it's fucking stupid. How many times does he have to tell you he's done with casual sex before you figure out what you need to ask is if he wants to date you, not if he wants to sleep with you?"
Clarke opens and closes her mouth. "We live together," she finally says.
"A lot of people who are dating do, yeah."
Bellamy comes back with drinks before Clarke has to say anything to that, and after that she spots a girl with a nose ring and a pan flag pin on her bag ordering a drink at the bar, so that's her evening sorted out.
No need to think more about Bellamy at all.
*
Clarke isn't opposed to being in love, not really. She still thinks she wants to be, someday, but it's a vague, unformed someday, the same way it always has been. She's not even thirty yet, she doesn't need to settle down. Bellamy is allowed to be ready for that, but that doesn't mean he wants to do it with her. He's never given any indication he did.
But he's been single for a while now, and he's not exactly wanting for interested partners. Maybe no one's been appealing, but maybe Raven's right, and if she asked him, he'd say yes.
Just the thought of it fills her head with cotton and static, turns her stomach to butterflies and bile.
It's too much to think about, so she doesn't.
*
Clarke's feelings on marriage aren't universal, nor does she expect them to be. But it's still a little weird that people she knows, people her age, not only want to get married but are getting married. No matter how often she asks Monty how he knew he was ready, he hasn't come up with an answer that really makes sense to her. He just fell in love and asked Bellamy's friend Miller to marry him, and Clarke is grateful for it, because Bellamy needed a roommate and that's how she met him.
Still, Monty and Miller's actual wedding is a lot to process. It's not the first wedding she's gone to of a peer, but the others have been acquaintances, not friends. This feels like the start of a new era in her life, the one with spouses and kids and mortgages, and it's no wonder that Clarke decides she needs to get very drunk. Especially since Bellamy is the best man, so not only is he looking stupidly hot in his tuxedo, but he seems to be everywhere, organizing everything, and Clarke's always been kind of into competence. Even if she misses having him to hang out with.
He finally finds her during the reception, sinking into Harper's empty seat with an audible sigh of relief. "Holy fuck, weddings are a pain."
She doesn't want to perk up when she sees him, but it's inevitable. "Hi!"
He squints at her, then he grins. "Open bar, huh?"
"You're behind," she says, sliding her drink to him. "I know you don't want to think about what this means either."
He accepts the glass and takes a long swig. "What what means, exactly?"
"Our friends are getting married."
"God forbid I think about our friends being happy, yeah."
"You want to get married," she says, trying not to make it sound like an accusation and not really succeeding.
He smiles. "In general, yeah. Is that a problem now?"
"It's just weird. It's going to happen more and more. Your sister's going to do it, and Raven, and…I need another drink."
"Wait until I finish this one," he says. "I finally get to hang out with you, don't just leave."
It's hard to argue with that. "You did a good job. Very best manly."
"Thanks, that was the goal." He's watching the dance floor. "As long as all the weddings are like this, I'll be happy."
"What do you mean?"
He takes another long drink. "The first wedding I ever went to was my mom's. When she married my sister's dad. I was five and I already knew it wasn't going to last. They didn't even like each other that much. Maybe Miller and Monty won't last forever either, but they're starting from a good place. It's nice. I'll go to as many weddings as our friends want, as long as they look at each other like that."
"You're such a romantic," she says, all fondness, and he finishes off her drink.
"That's me. Let's get another round."
It takes two more drinks before it feels like a good idea to ask him to dance, and he doesn't say anything for a long, horrible moment that feels like a thousand years.
But then he smiles and stands. "Yeah, we can dance."
His hand is big and warm as he helps her up, and his eyes are deep and dark, impossible to look away from. It really sucks, how pretty his eyes are, because brown eyes are so common, but no one else's can compare. It used to just be that she couldn't hook up with guys with black hair, but brown eyes are out now too. Pretty soon it's just going to be all guys, period, and then probably girls with black hair and brown eyes, an endless slippery slope. It's inevitable.
They haven't even had sex, and he's still ruining other guys for him.
She slides her arms around his neck and relaxes into him, and he leans his head on her hair. It's the high-school prom kind of dancing, slowly turning in place to music, nostalgic in the best way.
"You going to fall asleep on me?" Bellamy asks, his voice a pleasant rumble against her chest.
"Probably not. But I know you'll bring me home if I do."
A faster song comes on next, and that wakes her up. Monty and Miller come over too, then some of their other friends, Raven and her new girl, Bellamy's sister and her giant boyfriend, and it becomes a real party again, everyone laughing and jumping around and drinking even more.
The night gets hazy from there, but never so hazy that she loses track of what's happening. She knows that she keeps dancing slow dances with Bellamy, and that she's looking at his mouth a lot, and that he's stuck to her side like glue. She knows the whole night feels alive with possibility, and she knows, as she follows him into the cab home, that she's going to kiss him when they get back.
She's not drunk, she's not out of control; she knows she pulls him down and kisses him in the kitchen, and she knows he kisses back. He takes control, after a second, pushing her against the door, kissing her hot and wet, open-mouthed and greedy, and she's pulling him as close as she can, greedy for it, sliding her hands under his shirt, trying to get more and more and--
"Fuck," he says, pulling back, his breathing heavy, his hair a mess.
"Yeah," she agrees, trying to pull him in again, but he steps away, taking himself out of her space.
"Clarke, we can't."
"Why not?"
"We live together. It would be awkward."
"It doesn't have to be."
He smiles with half his mouth. "It would be. Sorry, I don't fuck roommates."
"But you want to."
She hates how needy it comes out, hates even more the way Bellamy's face twists, how his facade of good humor cracks, showing something ugly underneath. "Jesus, is that what you want to hear? That I want you? Fuck, Clarke, of course I want you. Every fucking time, I want you. I want to give you the best sex of your life and wake up with you and--" He cuts himself off, looking away. "And I'm drunk and I'm going to bed. Sorry," he finishes, a sort of general statement without a clear antecedent, and leaves before she's collected herself enough to say anything.
She's still against the door, so it's easy to let her head drop back, the pain of the impact barely even registering. "Fuck."
*
His door is closed when she gets up in the morning, and it's still closed once she's had her coffee and some cereal. She showers, and when she gets out, the door is still closed.
For all she knows, he's not even in there. He usually gets up before her, he might have gone somewhere to avoid her. Miller is headed for his honeymoon, but Octavia would let him come over and mope on her couch, if that's what he needs.
But he never closes his door during the day. Even when he's gone, the door is open. It's impossible not to read into that. And if she doesn't talk to him soon, she's going to crawl out of her skin.
She gives him until ten-thirty, and then she pushes the door open without bothering to knock. He's on his bed in his usual sleepwear, just a pair of flannel pajama pants, and he has a book open on his face. He looks like a cartoon character, albeit a miserable one.
He has no visible reaction to her coming in, but somehow, she's sure he's awake. If she knows him, and she's pretty sure she does, he was trying to read, but he couldn't stop thinking about how he screwed up last night, and now he's obsessing over what he could have done differently, how he could have done better.
Just like that, the knot of tension in her stomach undoes itself. She climbs into bed next to him, settling with her arms around his neck, her head on his shoulder.
"You really didn't need to apologize. I should have. I'm the one who jumped you."
"You did," he agrees. "You want to apologize?"
The book is still on his face; he's her favorite person in the world. "Not for kissing you. But I was wrong."
"About what?"
She closes her eyes, breathing him in. He didn't shower last night or this morning, and he hasn't brushed his teeth yet. He smells a little stale, if she's honest, but she's not going to let that stop her. "I thought if you didn't want to have sex with me, it meant you didn't want me at all. I figured if you were interested, you'd fuck me. But it was the other way around, right?"
"I don't fuck roommates," he says, a pointed non-answer, and Clarke's whole heart bursts.
"Okay, but do you live with girlfriends?"
He finally moves the book to look at her. "Clarke."
"What?" He doesn't actually seem to have a follow up, so she props herself up on his chest. "I stopped hooking up with guys with black hair. Then brown eyes. Glasses are out too. Every time I compare someone to you, they come up short. And I thought if we had sex, maybe you'd like it and want to do it more."
He slides his hand into her hair, gentle, his smile mostly fond and only a little exasperated. "You don't date. I'm not going to be the asshole who pressures someone into a relationship they don't want."
"I get it." Her eyes flick down to his lips. "I want it," she says, and that's all he needs. The hand in her hair tugs her down, back to him, and they're kissing again, less desperate than last night, sweet and warm and slow until she ruins it laughing against his neck.
"What?" he asks, nuzzling her temple.
"You need to brush your teeth, sorry."
He laughs too. "Wow. Romantic."
"I love you," she tells him. "And I'm going to be here when you get back. But seriously, brush your teeth, Bellamy."
His grin is the brightest she's ever seen. "Well," he says, pushing her off him gently so he can get up. "If you love me."
*
"See, that's the nice thing about a relationship," Bellamy says, kissing her hair as she curls around him. As promised, he's very, very good at orgasms, and managed to live up to her expectations for not only his dick, but his hands and his mouth too. Exceeded expectations, even.
"Cuddling after?"
"That too. But you couldn't have told a random one-night stand to brush his teeth first."
She blames the endorphins for the giggles that overtake her. "I probably would have been too drunk to notice during a one-night stand."
"Is that supposed to be an argument in your favor? Because that's not wowing me."
"It's not in my favor, I'm not really on team one-night stand anymore."
"Yeah?" he asks, his voice a little too casual. "You're really good with that?"
She kisses his shoulder. "It's not like it was a religion. I had fun. I don't want to get married tomorrow or anything. But I'm pretty excited to try being in love again. It's pretty great, so far."
He tugs her closer. "Yeah. I think we're going to like it."