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Clarke has never had even a lunch detention, let alone a full-on Saturday one. But she’s seen The Breakfast Club, so she’s pretty confident. Plus, Wells will be there, since it’s sort of his fault they got detention in the first place.
Actually, no—it’s not his fault, it’s the asshole who took his clothes and towel out of the locker room while he was showering after Gym. He’d been calling out for help for five minutes before Clarke just got sick of waiting in the hallway, and went to check on him.
She found the asshole in question, and then hit him with a chair, which is how she landed detention for a whole month, while Wells just got the one, for walking through the hall with just Clarke’s hoodie tied around his waist.
Her mom drives her and Wells over, because his dad stayed the night in his office at town hall again.
Abby frowns at her, slowing to a stop outside Ark High’s front doors. “I hope you take this as a lesson,” she says, for the hundredth time. “Physical assault is never the answer.”
“Sometimes it’s the answer,” Clarke argues, and then slams her door shut, which she feels a little bit bad about. It’s not her mom’s fault that she’s stuck in detention every Saturday until the end of junior year. Honestly, she’s lucky she didn’t get suspended, which would have been way worse; three days of pacing in her room, worrying about her GPA, which she does not need, right now.
“On a scale of one to ten, what are the chances they’ll let us actually get some work done?” Wells asks as they head towards the library.
“Zero, duh. Haven’t you seen The Breakfast Club? We have to wait for the chaperone to inevitably leave, and then get high and share life stories.”
Wells makes a face. “I hope not—that sounds horrific.”
Clarke pats his arm. “Somehow, I think we’ll survive.”
She doesn’t actually realize she’s in The Breakfast Club until she sees who’s already inside the room.
“Well, well, well,” Bellamy smirks from where he’s lounging at one of the tables. “If it isn’t Ark’s princess, herself.” He nods over to Wells. “Hey, Jaha. Heard about the shower stunt. What a bunch of pricks.”
Clarke still isn’t sure when Bellamy and Wells became, if not friends, then at least friendly. She’s pretty sure it had something to do with a European History class, in which they bonded like soldiers during war.
She doesn't blame Wells for it—Wells has problems with disliking people who aren’t outright bigots. He’d probably at least ignore Bellamy out of solidarity if she asked him to, but he’d be pretty bad at it.
Plus, Bellamy the an infuriating ability to win everyone over without much effort—everyone, of course, except Clarke.
“Hey princess,” he grins.
“Hey asshole,” she scowls, marching over to sit across from him. Trying not to spend the whole afternoon arguing with him would be impossible, so she might as well stay close so the others might not have to suffer. “What’d you do, get in another fight with Wallace over colonialism?”
Bellamy flushed, fidgeting in his seat, clearly annoyed. Clarke did her best not to laugh—he was right, after all. Wallace is a dick. “He tried to say the Trail of Tears was exaggerated!” He runs a hand through his hair, which he only ever does when he’s flustered.
Clarke bites back a grin. “I bet I know what he’s gonna be for Halloween.”
Bellamy eyes her warily before giving in. “What?”
“A tool.” She waggles her eyebrows until he snorts.
He opens his mouth to respond, but gets cut off by the camcorder suddenly shoved in his face. “And here we are with Ark High’s ultimate Bad Boy; Bellamy Blake. What’s your favorite scary movie?”
“Fuck off, Jasper,” he growls, pushing at the camera. Jasper just shrugs and turns his focus to Clarke.
“How about our Princess Mom, then,” he says cheerfully. “Clarke, what’s your favorite scary movie?”
“Princess Mom?” she splutters, while Bellamy laughs. She kicks his shin under the table.
“Is this about the Mt. Weather murders?” Wells asks, disapproving as he takes a seat next to Clarke.
“Today’s the anniversary,” Jasper says with a conspiratorial grin. “Twenty-five years, to the day. There’s an urban legend, that the spirit of the Mt. Weather killer will strike again, you know.”
Clarke and Bellamy fake-gag simultaneously, while Wells just levels Jasper with his most serious look.
“A lot of innocent people died that day,” he reminds him. “The whole scary movie thing is in really poor taste. Show some respect.”
Jasper, appropriately chastened, reluctantly puts his camcorder down.
“What are you even doing here?” Bellamy wonders. “You’re a geek.”
“You named your sister after a Roman Emperor’s sister,” Clarke says mildly, and Bellamy shrugs.
“Yeah, but that makes me a history buff,” he grins, and she throws her pencil at his stupid, pretty face.
“Mr. Kane got pissed because I kept filming in class,” Jasper rolls his eyes dramatically. “The AV club needs new footage! That’s not my fault.”
“You were filming stuff for your vlog, weren’t you?” Wells asks.
Jasper makes a face. “No comment.”
“What up, losers,” Raven crows, walking over. She sits next to Wells, and he pulls a chair out for her to rest her leg. She lays her cane on the table, knocking Bellamy’s battered copy of Oedipus Rex to the floor.
“What the fuck, Reyes,” he grumbles, bending over to pick it up while Raven grins brightly.
“Did you blow up the Chem lab again?” Clarke teases.
“Nah—auto shop. I took one of the carburetors home—but only because I had better tools in my own garage. Apparently it’s still theft, even if I bring it back.”
“Please tell me you fucked with Kane’s car to get back at him.”
Raven seems to think it over for a minute before giving a wolfish smile. “Hell yeah I did.” She leans over to bump Clarke’s fist.
“Where’s the teacher?” Wells wonders, glancing around, and Clarke suddenly realizes they’ve been completely unsupervised for the last ten minutes.
Raven rolls her eyes. “Relax, it’s Mrs. Kane. She’s helping Monty with something in the home ec room. They’ll be back any minute.”
While no one was looking, Jasper apparently turned the camcorder back on.
“Hey Raven, what’s your favorite movie?”
“Hm, good question,” she muses, staring straight at the lens. “I think I’ll go with Fuck off, directed by Get That Thing Out Of My Face, starring Not Asking.”
“Audience, we are in a very hostile environment today,” Jasper says to absolutely no one, or maybe the room in general; it’s hard to tell. “I’m seeing a lot of grumpasauruses in the area. Could it maybe be a sign of the Mt. Weather Killer’s spirit?”
“I’ll give you a sign,” Bellamy growls. “It’s called my foot up your ass.”
Jasper frowns. “Well that’s not very polite.”
Monty and Mrs. Kane choose that moment to show up, with Murphy and Miller in tow, each sporting split lips and a black eye.
“Did you two bareknuckle brawl, or what,” Bellamy wonders, crossing his arms and cocking one eyebrow. Clarke wonders if he’s aware it makes him look like a dad, about to interrogate his child’s prom date.
Miller and Murphy share a strange look, before giving two half-hearted shrugs. “More or less,” Murphy offers, and they take their seats.
“Jasper I thought we agreed no cameras,” Monty says, and Jasper waves a hand.
“John Murphy, Nathan Miller, please tell us—what are your favorite scary movies?”
“That one with the saw,” Murphy says after a moment. “And the teeth-pulling. That was sick.”
It’s unclear if he means sick to be a compliment or not, and there’s a quiet minute as they all try to figure it out.
“Bladerunner,” Miller decides, and Jasper frowns at him.
“That’s sci-fi.”
“Isn’t it the one with the guy who kills vampires?” Miller asks, confused.
“You mean Blade?”
“I dunno, man—does it have the Gargoyle dude in it? The beatboxing one?”
Jasper stares at the group at large, clearly exasperated. “You’re messing with me,” he decides. “You’re all messing with me.”
“Mr. Jordan, I assure you this detention is in fact very serious,” Mrs. Kane says mildly, marking their names down for attendance. She’s technically the receptionist, but she sometimes fills in for things like Saturday detention, and after-school SAT tutoring. “Now, I know this will be difficult as that camera has seemingly become an extra limb attached to your body, but I would appreciate it if you would put the darn thing away.”
“Sure thing, Mrs. K,” he calls out. “But just one quick question—what’s your favorite scary movie?”
Mrs. Kane hums for a minute, and then smiles sweetly. “This one.”
That’s when the lights go out.
“Oh, blast,” Mrs. Kane sighs. There’s enough light from the narrow windows that Clarke can just make out her form. “Alright, sit tight everyone, I’ll go check the generators. Darn things are from the seventies, I don’t know why they can never manage to update those machines.” She mutters good-heartedly to herself the whole walk out.
“What the hell,” Bellamy says.
“It’s the spirit,” Jasper explains, clearly excited. There’s a muffled thump, and a small yelp of pain, so Clarke assumes someone hit him with a book.
“I’ve got a lighter,” Murphy offers, and a small flicker of light erupts from his hand.
“And we’ve got tons of kindling,” Raven adds, and even in the darkness, Clarke can tell Bellamy’s outraged.
“You are not burning books,” he declares.
“Relax,” Raven says, and Clarke can practically hear her rolling her eyes. “I’m not talking Library of Alexandria, or anything. I meant notebooks and shit—Jaha, I know you brought your physics homework.”
“It’s due on Monday,” Wells sighs, but he sounds resigned about it.
The lights flicker back on, showering everything in pale yellow.
“I guess Mrs. Kane fixed the generators,” Bellamy says, not even convincing himself. Vera Kane is in her late sixties, a narcoleptic kind-to-a-fault receptionist, who has been known to sleep on top of ringing telephones, and is technologically illiterate. Thinking she could do anything that involved tinkering with heavy machinery is pretty laughable.
“Maybe the ghost has shitty eyesight,” Murphy deadpans, and Jasper scowls.
“It’s a spirit,” he sniffs, and Murphy rolls his eyes.
“Right. My bad.”
Things get a little boring after that. They don’t know if the lights will go out again, and they’re still just waiting for Mrs. Kane to get back, so they stack textbooks on either side of the table and start a game of paper football. They’re all pretty bad for it, except for Miller and, surprisingly, Monty, who have paired up to dominate the others.
Eventually they lose interest in the game completely, and start just balling up sheets of paper to throw at each other’s heads. Murphy teaches them all how to make origami toads that hop when you push them. Jasper tries to get a game of Truth or Dare started, but the dares are all either make out with so-and-so, or go lick that book. Really lick it. So the pages stick together, c’mon. And so everyone just picks Truth, anyway.
Bellamy nudges Clarke with his foot. “Truth or Dare?”
She rolls her eyes, marking her place in his book with her finger. “Truth. Obviously.”
He smirks, which automatically makes her suspicious. “Do you secretly like me?”
Clarke must look as shocked as she feels, because suddenly Bellamy’s going pink and trying to backtrack.
“I mean—not like that, I just—like, do you like me, as a person?”
It’s incredibly endearing, to see Bellamy fail at human interaction so completely. Clarke wants to see it more.
“Yes,” she says, and then, because he’s flustered and blushing, which she’s sure is a good sign, she adds “To both.”
He looks confused for just a second, and then he’s about to speak, when the lights go out again.
Murphy flicks his lighter, and the bookshelf to his left collapses.
“Jesus fuck,” Raven hisses, as they all hold their breath and wait.
Wait for what, Clarke’s not sure—either for Mrs. Kane to show up or the lights to come on, or Jasper’s spirit to burst out and murder them all.
Nothing happens, but she’s not feeling very relieved.
Bellamy’s the one to break the silence, standing up with a screech of his chair. “We should split up,” he decides, “And look for Mrs. Kane. She could be lost, or passed out somewhere.”
“Sure,” Miller says, easy, and Murphy does too.
“Um, am I the only one who thinks this is a horrible idea?” Jasper asks. The red blinking light of his camera shines starkly in the darkness. “That’s literally how everyone dies in the movies.”
“Good thing this isn’t a movie,” Bellamy shrugs, and takes Clarke’s hand. “We’ll search the main hall, Reyes and Jaha take the annex, the rest of you search the basement and the gym.”
It makes sense, Clarke knows, that he would tangle their fingers together as they walk. It’s dark, and they can barely see in front of their noses. It’d be easy to lose each other along the way.
But then he tugs her into a utilities closet pretty much immediately, so maybe there’s another reason.
“You just wanted to get me alone and make out,” she accuses, but she’s grinning too much for it to sound very disapproving.
The whites of his teeth show when he grins. “I thought they’d never shut up,” he sighs, and leans down to kiss her.
Then they hear the scream.
It’s high pitched, though it could be Jasper’s or Monty’s, she supposes, since she’s never heard either of them scream before. She’s beginning to think maybe she’s not in a John Hughes film—or at least, not completely. She’s in The Breakfast Club, meets Scream. Clarke lunges for the door, but Bellamy pulls her back easily.
“It’s okay,” he says, and she gapes at him, even though he probably can’t see her.
“Okay,” she splutters. “They’re our friends, and they need help! That scream could’ve been—”
“That was Monty, and it’s fine, seriously. It’s all part of the plan.”
Clarke does her best not to shudder. He’s still got his hands on her arms, and he’s rubbing his thumbs up and down them, warm and comforting. “Bellamy, what—”
“It was Monty’s idea,” he shrugs. “Convince Jasper he’s stuck in a horror movie, basically. Teach him a lesson about that fucking camera. I think Monty just got sick of being filmed whenever they hung out.”
“So, the lights, the bookshelf,” Clarke frowns a little. She knows she shouldn’t feel insulted, but—they left her out of the loop. It’s hard not to be annoyed. “Mrs. Kane?”
“Nah, Mrs. Kane was a wild card.” He seems to sense she’s upset, because he dips down to rest his head against hers. “I wanted to tell you. I was going to, but then Jasper showed up—with the fucking camera. Honestly, he’s a menace.”
Clarke grins. It’s hard to stay angry, when she’s now a part of some enormous, thought-out prank. Plus, Bellamy’s pressing her up against the wall now, and she’s pretty sure they’re about to hardcore make out for like, twenty minutes. At least.
She curls her hands in the hair on his neck, as he noses her cheek. “I can’t believe this is only happening because you’re such a history nerd,” she teases, and feels him freeze.
His cheek goes hot against her own. “Uh, yeah,” he agrees, not at all convincingly, and she pulls back a little. He smiles down at her, sheepish. “About that—I sort of, picked that fight with Wallace.”
“I know,” Clarke frowns, confused. She thought he’d have his tongue in her mouth by now, and she’s a little disappointed. “You always pick fights. It’s kind of your thing.”
“Shut up, so do you.” He wets his lips, and she does not whimper, but it takes effort. “I heard about your fight, the day before, and that you got a month’s detentions. So, I picked the fight. And I may have thrown a shoe at some point, to get maximum sentencing.”
Clarke’s gaping again now, stupidly, but it’s fine since he can’t even see her. And even if he could, he probably wouldn’t mind—he got himself five Saturday detentions, just so he could sit with her in the library all day.
She kisses him, sloppy and desperate, up on her tip toes until he finally gets himself together and leans down a bit, laughing into her mouth.
But he’s still trying to be careful with her, hands hovering lightly over her ribcage, until she gets too impatient, and moves them herself—she places one firm on the underside of her breast, and the other she trails down her stomach, to flirt with the band of her jeans. Bellamy thumbs at the button, hesitant, and murmurs against her neck.
“What have you—what do you want?”
She’s a little busy trying to suck a hickey into the skin behind his ear, so she just shoves his hand down her pants in answer, and he chokes a little.
“Why didn’t you just ask me out?” she asks, breathless, as his fingers drift lightly between her thighs. Bellamy Blake is a tease, she’s decided, and she’s going to kill him if he doesn’t do something in the next five seconds. “Like a normal person.”
“My way, I get to finger you in a janitor’s closet,” he says, biting her jaw. “Now relax. I’ll take care of you.”
And he does.
By the time they stumble out, their clothes are all wrinkled, and their hair’s a mess. There are red marks up and down Clarke’s neck from his mouth, and he keeps reaching over to trace them with his finger, grinning sloppily, like it’s the best thing of all time.
“Your skin is way harder to bruise,” she scowls, rubbing at the spot behind his ear. It’s barely even visible.
He grins, slinging an arm around her shoulders. “Guess you’ll just have to keep trying, until you get it right.”
“And probably after,” she agrees, leaning in. “To perfect my strategy.”
“Practice does make perfect,” he nods, and they stride in to find the others camped out in the World War II nonfiction section, getting high. The lights are back on, and going strong, but Mrs. Kane’s still nowhere to be found.
“I guess he knows now?” Bellamy asks, sitting on the ground beside Miller, who passes him the blunt. Bellamy tugs Clarke into his lap without a word, and she thinks about fighting him on it, since that’s still her go-to response—even in the closet, they were all teeth and nails, competing to see who could give the best orgasm—but decides to just snuggle in, instead.
To her surprise, Jasper doesn’t seem at all upset about being fooled—instead, he’s wildly failing about as he fills them in on what they missed, which was mostly just a lot of random screaming, and running in the dark.
“It was very Blair Witch Project,” Jasper says, delighted, and bumps Monty’s fist. “Totally authentic—it’s gonna go viral, I know it!”
“Mrs. Kane is asleep in the guidance office,” Wells says, coughing a little on the inhale. This is clearly his first time smoking, and Raven keeps having to correct how he holds the roach clip. Or maybe, as Clarke suspects, he just wants her to.
“The bitch could sleep through the nuclear apocalypse,” Murphy says, flipping through a book on how to draw cats.
Jasper ignores them all completely, still basking in the glow of weed and internet fame. “We’re gonna be a hit,” he swears, and Clarke grins into Bellamy’s shoulder.
“So, what is your favorite scary movie?” she wonders.
He’s about to answer, when a scream echoes down the hallway. They all turn towards the noise.
“Is this part of the joke?” Clarke asks, and Bellamy shakes his head. “Then what—”
The lights flicker and go out.