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“Alright, fish-breath,” Clarke yells, glaring at Bellamy from across the field. “We booked the field for this hour, and you know it!”
“Sorry princess,” he calls back coolly, and she glowers. “You snooze, you lose.”
“Oh, go suck a dolphin’s dick, Blake,” Clarke snaps, and behind her, the rest of the team cackles.
“You first,” he smirks, and she flips him off before spinning around in her cleats.
“Sorry, Clarke,” Octavia sighs from the back of the line. “I could lure all his boys off the field?” she offers, and Clarke knows she’s just kidding, knows she never would, but. It’s tempting.
“It’s not your fault that your brother’s a moron,” Clarke frowns. Beside her, Raven grins, letting the points of her teeth show.
“I’d let her sing, just to fuck with them.”
“Yeah, well, you also pulled Wells’s arm off the first day you met him,” Clarke points out. “Because you thought it’d be funny.”
Raven shrugs, unapologetic. “It was funny,” she says. “And besides, it works fine now.” As if to prove her point, she waves over at where Wells is sitting with his textbooks on the bleachers. He waves back with the arm in question, which has since been resewn.
The girls storm their way into the locker room, tossing down their gear. Fox pulls off her face guard with a hiss—she always manages to get her fangs caught, somehow. Clarke’s pretty sure she’s dealing with an overbite or something.
“What now, Cap?”
The girls all turn to Clarke in question, who glares back at each of them in turn. It’s a fine line to walk, between intimidation and inspiration, but she’s pretty sure she’s got it down.
She pulls back her lips so her fangs gleam. “Now, we obliterate them.”
“Guys, should we really be doing this?” Wells asks, for the fourth time, as they stuff flowers and vines in the boys’ lockers as fast as Harper can grow them. They pull off her skin easily enough, but it takes nearly a full minute for a whole rose to bloom.
“Shut up Jaha,” Raven manages to bark while keeping her voice at a whisper. “You are literally a zombie; what are you afraid of?”
“Nothing,” Wells says, incredulous, pushing the littlest leaves through the locker slits because he likes the small ones best. He keeps putting every other one in his pocket, which on the one hand is endearing, but on the other it means less go into the lockers. “And I’m not a zombie—the politically correct term is Simulacrum.”
Raven snorts. “Simulacrum my ass. You’re a zombie, Wells. Embrace it.”
Wells frowns but says nothing; they’ve had this exact argument at least a dozen times, and neither of them ever really get anywhere with it.
“Everyone shut up,” Clarke hisses, hearing the faded sound of Bellamy running his team for their final lap. “Okay, wrap it up, let’s go!”
They wait until the last of the boys are inside before heading out to practice, trying not to laugh too loudly and give themselves away.
Of course, there are only five wood nymphs in the whole school, so it’s not like it’ll be hard to guess who’s responsible for the veritable garden currently spilling out of the guys’ lockers, but. It’s the principle of the thing.
Bellamy finds Clarke in the art room afterwards, where she’s getting ready for the Friendly Fangs meeting. He flops down in the computer chair beside her, spinning around to kick his feet up on her lap.
“Did you really fill our lockers up with flowers? How old are you?”
“Immortal,” Clarke smirks, and he rolls his eyes.
“Yeah, but you were born like sixteen years ago, don’t be pretentious. You’ve still got three or four years of growth.”
“Eight,” she corrects, mildly amused because they both know Bellamy knows exactly when she’ll stop aging. She’s flipping through a few note cards for the Scare Skills test tomorrow. Bellamy flicks the one in her hand.
“Do you ever stop?” he teases, and she shoves his feet off her lap.
“Not all of us can rely on our singing voices,” she says primly, and he tugs on her hair.
“Hey, I don’t just rely on my singing. Sometimes I use my roguish good looks.”
Clarke gives him a look because, as the son of a sea nymph, while he can appear out-of-this-world hot to humans, she just sees him as he is. Which is, essentially, part-fish. There are a lot of scales, and his fingers are a little bit webbed.
It doesn’t stop him from being out-of-this-world hot, though, which seems a bit unfair. But she still gets to make fun of his gills.
“And anyway, it’s not like you aren’t gorgeous. Plus, you can hypnotize people.”
Clarke frowns. “I can’t,” she argues, which isn’t strictly true. She definitely could, and has in the past, just to practice. But she can’t, really. She can’t force someone to do whatever she said, not even if they didn’t remember it in the morning. If anything, the amnesia would just make it worse.
“You wouldn’t,” Bellamy says, fond. “But you could, if you really wanted to. My singing just makes people want to fuck me. They don’t actually listen to what I say.”
“Hey don’t sell yourself short,” Clarke pats his knee comfortingly. “People don’t listen to what you say when you’re not singing, either.”
Bellamy laughs just as the door opens and the club members start to file in. Technically, Bellamy’s not actually a member since he doesn’t have fangs, and anyway his kind don’t attack people. Mostly they just sort of stick to the water, because they find land-dwellers annoying. Bellamy only came to Ark Hallows because Octavia wanted to.
But that hasn’t stopped him from showing up to every meeting since Clarke founded the club last year. Originally, he’d come to heckle her. He only knew her as the irritating sophomore that had forced her way into his Advanced Monster History class, and they tended to argue over everything. They didn’t exactly hate each other, but there was definitely some pre-hate there.
Plus, she earned a spot on the girls’ varsity Scream Team, which was pretty unheard of for an underclassman. Normally, he wouldn’t really care, but she’d decided to drag Octavia into the sport with her.
And even when Anya was team captain, before she graduated, Clarke had been the one to lead the rest of the girls into some sort of war against the boys’ team, for hogging the playing field every afternoon. Which, obviously, wasn’t true. Well, not really. Not every day.
So when Bellamy heard that Ark’s resident princess was making something called Friendly Fangs, which was easily the most ridiculous name for anything he’d ever heard of, he couldn’t really resist.
But while he was waiting for a good moment to interrupt her speech about the benefits of taking supplements rather than eating or drinking humans, Bellamy started to actually listen.
“Cool speech,” he told her after everyone had left, and she was reorganizing the classroom, even though it didn’t need it. Mostly she was just connecting all the dry erase markers to form one long stick.
She stared at him, suspicious, which he couldn’t really argue with. “Why did you come?”
“To piss you off,” he said, shrugging. If he lied, they’d both know it was a lie, and he’d look like an idiot. “But you made some really good points.”
Clarke raised a brow at him, and he fought a grin, because—this was the real reason Clarke Griffin was so annoying. Sure, she was stubborn to a fault, and hot-headed about everything, and she’d get in his face and bare her fangs a little when they fought, and Bellamy could handle all of that.
But she was also hot, and sometimes he couldn’t decide if he wanted to throttle her, or shove her in a janitor’s closet to make out.
“Seriously?” she asked, wry, and he snatched up her marker yardstick.
“Seriously,” he said, poking her with the tip so she scowled. “But, about the Gargoyles—”
Clarke gave an exasperated sigh. “Really? You’re going to fight me about that?” But she sounded kind of excited about it.
Raven, hair still wet from the locker-room shower, takes one look at the two of them and makes a face. “How can you two be so Freddy vs Krueger out on the field, and then like this,” she flails her hand at them in general, “After?” Most of Raven’s references are monster villains, because she thinks she’s funny.
"We're complex," Bellamy says, and Clarke high fives him.
Raven originally joined the club because her wendigo boyfriend wanted to. She didn’t realize until later that it was because he had a crush on Clarke, who was so oblivious when it came to emotions that she didn’t even realize.
But that was a while ago, before the wendigo spirit managed to swallow Finn whole. It took Raven some time to get used to being without him. They’d broken up a few months before, but he’d still been there. She’d still talked to him between classes, and he’d still given her a ride home every night.
Clarke helped, but Clarke’s help was pushy. She wanted to save everyone, and the world, but her strategy needed some work. And she wasn’t great about time management, so mostly she just tried to get Raven to do things she thought might make her happy. Raven would wake up and find old busted carburetors on her front stoop, with the day’s paper. Clarke would slip Victoria’s Secret coupons in her locker because she was embarrassed, and she’d have random kids check in on her in Chop Shop class. Honestly, it was a little smothering, and Raven could only ever reign herself in for so long. Sometimes she just wanted to be unhappy, and wallow a bit.
Surprisingly, that was where Bellamy stepped in. He distracted Clarke enough that she’d actually relax for once, and they’d bicker like they always did, but it had some sort of calming effect. Raven figured it was just how they flirted, because they were equally inept.
But then, between her clubs and classes and scrimmages and Bellamy, Clarke was too busy, and so even when Raven wouldn’t have minded the company, she found herself alone.
Except for Wells, who always seemed to know when to show up at her door with some B horror flick he found at the gas station for half off with a Kit Kat. And he always seemed to know when to let go, just sit in a corner with one of his massive books about philosophy, and let her exist in her own skin, with no expectations and no worries and no grief. Just her, and Wells’s shadow in the corner, waiting for when she’d want to talk about it.
She’s trying to figure out how to turn watching dumb movies at her house into an actual relationship. She should probably ask Clarke, but if she asks Clarke, then Clarke will make it a thing. She’ll start campaigning to get Raven and Wells together, she’ll probably even coerce Bellamy and the team, and it’ll be insufferable.
So for now she just makes faces at the dumb love-nerds, and rolls her eyes at Wells, because he gets it. He always seems to get it, like it’s instinct for him.
Clarke’s halfway through the meeting, with minimal and mostly helpful interruptions from Bellamy, when Jasper and Octavia come bursting through the door.
Clarke knows Jasper mostly as the awkward witch that runs the school paper, and accidentally sets things on fire a lot. Usually around Octavia, for obvious reasons, which is why she started hanging out with him more. She just thought it would be fun—and it was—but then she discovered she has a pretty good eye for things like layout, and declared herself senior editor.
“You’ll never guess what’s happening,” she says, marching into the room and shoving her phone into Clarke’s face.
Clarke frowns at her. “You and Jasper interrupting the club meeting?” she tries, and O huffs a little.
“Look,” she orders, and Clarke sighs but glances down at the phone anyway.
She’s still reading when Bellamy comes up to peek over her shoulder, leaning down so his chin sits on the base of her neck. “What the hell,” he says.
“What the fuck,” Clarke corrects, because proper profanity is important. Behind Octavia, Jasper’s nodding his head so wildly Clarke’s worried it might fall off.
“Care to share with the class, kids?” Raven calls, and Jasper whirls around, like he was waiting for that question this whole time.
“We’re battling the humans!” he crows, and across the room, one of the ancient desktop computers bursts into flame. “Whoops,” he mutters, flushing, as Bellamy rolls his eyes and waves a hand. Water springs up out of nowhere, and puts out the fire.
“Wait, what does that mean?” Wells asks, frowning. “Why would we battle anyone? We’re in high school.”
Clarke bats Octavia’s hand out of her face and turns to him. “Not that kind of battle—apparently, we’re having a lacrosse tournament. Or something.”
“But we don’t play lacrosse,” Fox says, confused, and Clarke sighs.
“Apparently Styx is close enough that our rivals—Grounders Academy—has invited us to the county tournament. Jaha said yes.”
Everyone sort of glances over at Wells a little, trying not to be obvious. He’s still frowning, with a furrow in his brow that clearly means he wasn’t aware of this plan until now.
“Okay, so what?” Bellamy says, grabbing everyone’s attention. He’s slouched back against the front desk, purposefully nonchalant about it. “We pretend we’re just a bunch of regular teenagers, kick a ball around with our sticks for a while, totally kick their asses, and come home. It doesn’t have to be a big deal.”
The whole room’s staring at him now, completely disbelieving. Bellamy Blake—the same one who once stuck a giant magnet up in Principal Jaha’s office, so all the bolts flew out of his skin and the school had to be closed for three days while they collected his body parts—just because he threatened to suspend Octavia for fighting—is saying it doesn’t have to be a big deal.
“Bellamy’s right,” Clarke says, and now everyone’s staring at both of them, because Clarke once almost drained three drunk frat guys who messed with Harper at a party. Aggressively overreacting is sort of her and Bellamy’s thing. “And there’s a huge Scare Skills test tomorrow, so go home and study.”
Bellamy shows up at her dorm that night around nine. “What the hell are we gonna do?” he demands, marching in once she opens the door. “This is a huge deal!”
“I know,” she sighs. She’s been thinking about it since the meeting—will the game be at Ark or at Grounders? If it’s at Ark, they’ll have to cover up the Franken-Lab with curtains, or something. And what about the bats up in the attic? Would anyone even go in the attic? What about the giant spiders? They might have to stay out in the woods behind the school, and they’ll definitely make a fuss about it. There’ll be mosquitos and gnats around for weeks while the spiders sulk. What about the phantoms? They tend to be moody all the time; they’ll be even worse if they have to stay in the walls all day. They might make the ceilings ooze again, and that took a long time to clean the last time; only apple-vinegar gets it all out.
And then there’s the students; Harper’s constantly leaking vines and little flower buds, and Monroe has teeth like a shark but no glamour ability, and Wells—with his patchy skin covered in stitches and mismatched limbs; he’ll have to wear a cloak, or something.
“Do you have a plan?” she asks, turning just in time to catch Bellamy staring at her legs. She’s wearing her sleep shorts, which shrunk in the wash a few days ago, covered in a pattern of anatomical hearts. “Bell?”
“Hm?” he hums, glancing up, and then sighing. He flops down on her bed, rubbing a hand down his face. His shirt’s ridden up a little in the fall, and she can see the jut of his hipbone underneath brown skin, and the barest hint of hair just above the hem of his pajama pants. She glances away.
“I thought you might,” he says, grinning ruefully, and she sits down beside him.
This isn’t the first time they’ve visited each other’s dorms—they usually pair up on group projects for class, and they like to quiz each other before each test, because no one gets as invested as them. Not everyone lives on the school’s campus. Raven and Wells don’t, and neither does Miller, Bellamy’s banshee friend. But Bellamy and O don’t have any family in Ark Hallows, and Clarke’s parents are working for some Vampire non-profit over in Papua New Guinea. They try to skype every Sunday, but sometimes their schedules just don’t line up.
“How does the tournament even work? Do they have a girls’ team and a boys’ team? Is the scoring for lacrosse the same as for Styx?”
“O said they have a co-ed team,” Bellamy says, sitting up so they’re leaning into each other’s sides. Clarke does her best not to fidget. “So I thought we’d just try to pick members from each Scream Team that’ll be easiest to pass off as human, and then practice together for a few weeks.”
“That…actually sounds really good,” she agrees, and he smiles.
“Don’t sound so surprised. I’ve been known to have a few good ideas.”
“Name one,” Clarke dares, and she’s expecting him to say something stupid, like being born, or naming Octavia.
But instead he just looks down at her, softer than usual. “Getting to know you,” he says, serious and a little hopeful, and Clarke bites her lip.
“Yeah?”
Now he’s grinning, full and bright, and she curls both of her arms around his. “Definitely.”
“I bet more of my girls make the team than your boys,” she says, muffled by his shoulder, and he snorts.
“Is that your way of asking me out?”
“Who says I’m asking you out?”
He glances down at her, anxious, but relaxes when he sees her grin. “You have to at least wine and dine me before I put out,” he says, mild. “I don’t know what you take me for.”
“Pretty sure I don’t have to do much of anything before you put out,” she goads, and when he goes to argue, she hitches a leg over his and slides into his lap, slotting up against him.
She moves back and forth experimentally for a minute, until she feels his hands grip her hips, and he lets his head fall to her shoulder with a groan. She grins wickedly.
“Thought so,” she says, smug, and he pinches her.
“How about,” she hedges, and she’s still grinding down on him, shallow and steady, and he’s starting to move up against her so they have a rhythm. “If the girls make the most points during the actual game, you have to ask me out, and if the boys do, I have to ask you.”
“I can’t believe you’re talking right now,” Bellamy whines, and their movement’s gone erratic. “But sure, fine, whatever the hell you want, princess—just—” He pulls her down as she yanks him up, and they’re both laughing too hard to really kiss all that well. There’s not a lot of strategy; it’s just sloppy, relieved touches and spit on chins and little sighs.
“We’re not having sex all night,” she declares once they’ve gone still completely, and he’s still catching his breath against her throat. “We still have a test in the morning.”
“We haven’t had sex at all,” he points out, pressing a kiss to her shoulder before she slides off. “But sure, alright.” He regards her for a moment, just looking, and she gets it. She can’t stop staring at him, can’t stop thinking finally, finally, finally—because God, she’s wanted this for a while. And he’s got an arm around her, like he’s reluctant to let go, like it’s the same for him.
They’re such idiots.
“Want to go over the flash cards again?” he offers, and she laughs, reaching over for the stack on her nightstand.
She wakes up with him still curled around her, and it’s a little suffocating with his weight and body heat, but mostly it’s warm and comfortable and exciting. She has Bellamy Blake in her bed, and she’s pretty sure they’re dating.
Well, sort of. They will be after the game, anyway.
She presses back against his crotch, once she realizes he’s hard. It takes her a few minutes of wiggling before he gives a low, throaty groan and bites her shoulder, slipping a hand under her shirt.
“Morning,” she sighs, and she can feel him smile against her skin. “We should call the teams together, and decide who to pick.”
Bellamy hums in agreement, mouthing up her neck and tracing stars along her stomach until she feels like one of those massage chairs, languid and buzzing and relaxed. “Do we have to do that right now?”
“Probably not,” Clarke decides, rolling over. “We deserve fun, too.” She gets a little tangled in the sheets, and he has to help get her legs free, but then she’s leaning over him, sucking bruises on his jaw.
“I’m still not putting out until you take me to dinner,” he says, ridiculously stubborn. “Somewhere fancy. I’m talking crab. But, like, fancy crab. Not that breaded microwave stuff at the Food Lion.”
Clarke has to laugh at that, ducking her head down to his shoulder as he rubs a hand up and down her back. It’s surprisingly chaste, given that she’s on top of him, in her bed, in considerably less clothes than he’s used to seeing.
“You know I’m not wearing a bra, right?” she teases.
“I slept here last night, I’m aware,” he says, dry, but his eyes still immediately go to her breasts, and she can see them darken.
“Aren’t you going to say something romantic, like you’re having trouble resisting my blood, or something?”
Clarke makes a face. “Why would I want your blood? It’d taste like fish—gross, no thanks. And supplements have been proven to provide us with more nutrients than the real stuff, anyway. Plus they come in different flavors.”
“Like what?” he asks, and Clarke knows he’s heard all of this before, if only in her club meetings, but—he’s asking because he’s interested, and he wants to hear it again.
“All kinds, but I mostly get the mango. Or blueberry cobbler.” Bellamy scrunches his nose, and she shrugs. “It tastes better than it sounds.”
After that, they get distracted making out for a bit, before realizing they should probably sneak Bellamy back to his own dorm to change. There isn’t a specific rule against students sleeping over in each other’s dorms, but it’s frowned upon, and Mr. Jaha would definitely tell Clarke’s parents, who would manage to give her such a look of disappointment that she’d feel guilty from miles away.
Clarke gets dressed while he watches shamelessly, and it should maybe make her feel self-conscious, but mostly she’s just a little annoyed that they don’t have more time.
She walks him to his dorm, and is planning on doing something lame, like hitting him in the arm as a goodbye, in case somebody sees them—but then he pulls her in by the back of her neck, and licks at her mouth until she melts against him.
She’d expected his scales, or at least the little green-blue fins along his arms, to feel weird but mostly they feel like Bellamy, which she’s absolutely into.
Besides, he didn’t complain about her freezing cold hands and feet, or blood-breath this morning, so.
“See you on the field, Griffin,” he grins, nosing at her cheek for a minute.
“We have four classes together today,” she points out, amused, and he huffs.
“Mine sounded cooler,” he declares, and shuts the door.
Clarke just stands there for a second, basking, until the sound of a throat clearing makes her whirl around.
Monty’s grinning, leaning in the doorway of his dorm across the hall, dressed in a pair of matching flannel pajamas. “So, Mr. Captain and Mrs. Captain finally got together, huh?”
“Shut up,” she says, flushing, and he laughs. “I see you and Miller together at the pep rallies—don’t think I don’t know about you two.”
Monty shrugs, uncaring. “We don’t really care if anyone knows or not. And staying the night in each other’s dorms is way easier when you’re both in the same wing.”
“I know,” Clarke says primly. “I dated Thalia last semester.”
“Nice.” Monty high fives her and then heads inside to change, while Clarke heads to class.
Clarke takes her team out to meet Bellamy’s on the field that afternoon, and she can tell they’re expecting to fight over it, like usual, so when she sees Monroe start to crack her knuckles, she calls out.
“Listen up! The Grounders have a co-ed team, which means they’ll only play against another co-ed team. So Bellamy and I are going to select those of you who can pass as human the easiest—keep in mind that our choices have no bearing on your skills in the game. This is a shallow competition, based solely on your looks.”
She gets a few laughs, but mostly just mild confusion, surprise, and the serious game faces she’s used to seeing. Everything’s a competition for them, after all.
“You heard the princess,” Bellamy barks at his own team. “Line up! Heads straight—let us get a good look at you. If any of you are uncomfortable with having to pass as human, fall back now.”
A few guys and two of the girls immediately step out, which Clarke is actually grateful for. One of the girls is Mel, a Gorgon, who has to tightly bind her hair in scarves so she doesn’t inadvertently turn anyone to stone. The other is Charlotte, their newest and youngest recruit. She has raw talent, but she’s a little too shy to really all out on the field.
In the end, their decision is fairly simple. There’s a limited amount of monsters who can easily pass as human, so most of their combined team is made up of the ones who are ambiguous-looking at best. Octavia makes the cut, of course, and Raven, and Fox, Sterling, Mbege, Myles, Wick, Harper, Monroe, and Luke.
Across the field and by the bleachers, Roma leads the Fear Squad in a new number designed to be less horrifying. There’s a lot less blood spray than usual, and they don’t even have Glass do her scream.
Monty and Murphy are the Squad’s spotters, and Clarke can tell they’re having difficulty not chanting the usual curses. She sends them both a discrete thumbs up.
They are going to rock this tournament. The humans won’t know what hit them.
“They’re even worse when they’re working together,” Raven pants, collapsing on the metal bench beside Wells, and nods over to where Bellamy and Clarke are standing side-by-side, sending matching glares out at their team.
“Knees up,” Bellamy barks.
“Higher,” Clarke bellows. “I want to see them touch your hearts!”
“Absolute power,” Wells grins wryly, and Raven does her best not to find it hot.
She’s not sure when her type became Wells Jaha, resident golden boy of their entire town, but. What’s done is done, she supposes. She wants what she wants, and right now, what she wants is to make out with the zombie beside her.
“So, do smart brains taste better than dumb ones?” she asks, because when Raven starts feeling too strongly, making fun of Wells helps calm her down.
He gives her an unimpressed look that she’s used to by now. If anything, it’s comforting, because it’s so familiar. “I’m not a zombie,” he sighs. “Frankenstein’s Monster. It’s really not hard to remember.”
“Yeah, but zombie sounds cooler,” she says mildly, and he grins.
“I don’t eat brains,” he says, slow, considering. Wells always speaks like he’s tasting each word before he says it out loud, weighing its worth on his tongue. “But I do make a pretty mean lasagna. If you ever want to try it. I’m not sure if werewolves can eat carbs.”
Raven’s mouth goes dry for a moment, so she doesn’t answer, and it’s only when she sees the flicker of doubt in his eyes that she finds her voice.
“I think I can handle lasagna,” she says finally, and he gives a soft smile.
“You think you can?”
She shrugs. “I think we should try.” He takes her hand with the one that’s not marking his place in the ancient book in his lap.
The moment is ruined by the shrill sound of Miller’s scream, and Raven snaps her head up to find Bellamy and Clarke glaring over at her.
“Thanks Miller,” Bellamy says, and the announcer just shrugs before wandering off towards where the Fear Squad is on a water break. “Reyes!” Bellamy calls out. “Get your ass back in here! This isn’t a vacation!”
“Believe me, I'm aware,” Raven shouts back with a scowl, and Wells squeezes her hand just once before letting go.
“Go,” he says, amused. “I’ll be here when you’re done.”
“I know,” Raven says, cracking her neck as she stands. “I’ll score one for you,” she says, and he beams at her.
Clarke finds her in the Chop Shop room, and perches carefully on an old workbench stained with oil and grease, and what might be old viscera, but it’s hard to tell.
“So, you and Wells,” she hedges, clearly trying her best to not sound smug, and failing at it.
“Me and Wells,” Raven confirms. “Pass me the socket wrench.” Clarke hands her a Phillip’s Head screwdriver, which she takes before getting the wrench, herself. “I was expecting you to say something a lot sooner, to be honest.”
“Bellamy said I shouldn’t gloat.”
Raven grins up at her, feral. “So, you and Bellamy,” she teases, and Clarke throws an old rag at her face with a laugh.
“Me and Bellamy. After we win tomorrow.”
The tournament is on a Saturday, and the Ark Screamers are more than ready to take on the Grounders. They’ve been practicing steadily for two weeks, suffering through the combined tyranny of Clarke and Bellamy until their knees threatened to collapse around sundown. It’s torture, and definitely miserable, but it’s also oddly motivating. Like, they’ve put in so much pain that now they have to make it worth something.
Plus, it would be nice to take home that trophy. Ark Hallows doesn’t really get to compete against anyone, for anything, because of who and what they are. So it’ll be nice to finally win something of their own, even if it is technically fraud.
“So, what, we both got our happy ending? How does that work? Isn’t it statistically impossible?” She points to a tool. “Give me those wire snippers.” Clarke passes over what looks like it might be a very long screw, and Raven sighs.
Clarke hums, considering. She swings her legs back and forth on the bench, and pulls out an old Sleeping Beauty Nalgene bottle Raven knows is probably filled with blood supplement—the gross blueberry kind that only Clarke likes and is single-handedly funding.
“We seem to like beating the odds.”
Bellamy finds Clarke in the old art room, staring at the First Place trophy they’ve just put on the shelf. Everyone else is in the gymnasium celebrating, but Clarke’s having a hard time walking away. They won something. It’s not really that surprising; they earned it, they worked hard for it, they deserved it, but. That doesn’t always mean anything.
Bellamy wraps an arm around her from behind and sets his chin on the top of her head. He likes to stand like that, she’s found. He likes to curl around her in every way, really. She’s pretty sure it’s some sort of overprotective-dominance thing, but it makes her feel warm and loved, so she doesn’t really mind.
“You’re all sweaty,” she says mildly, and he laughs.
“So are you,” he points out. “We won.”
“We won,” she agrees, turning around to face him. “And I’m pretty sure us girls got seven points, while you and your boys only got five.”
“You’ve got that backwards, princess,” he argues, and she grins, reaching up to curl her fingers in his hair. She loves his hair, and she’s spent too long not running her hands through it, so now she’s making up for lost time.
Bellamy seems to be doing the same thing, but with her breasts. Even now, his thumbs are brushing up against them.
“Well, I guess there’s no proof as to who beat whom. What should we do?”
“Call it a draw?” He leans in to kiss her, and she smiles against his mouth.