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Clarke should have seen this coming, really. She knows better than to trust her friends when it comes to parties, mistletoe, or their belief that Clarke and Bellamy are meant to be together if they would just admit it. Nevermind the fact that she and Bellamy are just friends. Best friends, obviously, and she loves him, but—you’re supposed to love your best friend. That’s what makes them your best friend.
But Raven’s never seen it that way, and Octavia insists regularly that Clarke and Bellamy are in love, so.
It’s not really a surprise that she’s currently in the kitchen, standing under mistletoe with Bellamy.
“Where’d that come from?” she wonders, frowning at the soft leaves hanging above their heads. “I thought we banned mistletoe.”
Bellamy frowns at it too. “I know we banned mistletoe. Remember last year? Jasper had too much eggnog and tried to kiss my sister.”
“And Octavia punched him in the nose,” Clarke remembers. “Yeah, see? Why is there any mistletoe?”
The rest of their friends are still in the living room, enjoying the Christmas party, and Clarke had only meant to be gone for a moment, to check on the pies. Bellamy had followed her, empty glass in hand.
The pies need another fifteen minutes, Bellamy’s got a new cup of punch, and they’re supposed to kiss.
“Someone must have snuck it in. You know, we really don’t have to do this,” Bellamy says.
He’s right, of course. It’s just them. Nobody else is there in the kitchen to see them, to hold them to it, but.
But. It’s tradition, Clarke tells herself.
“It’s just a silly tradition,” Clarke says. “No big deal.”
“Then we shouldn’t have to do it.”
“Do you not want to?” she asks. It doesn’t really matter to her if he doesn’t want to kiss her. Best friends don’t kiss, not like that, but she think she’s a pretty good kisser. It’s not like it would be torture to kiss her.
“What? No!”
“You don’t?” Her stomach feels kind of funny. Maybe she shouldn’t have any more eggnog; maybe she’s getting sick.
“No, I—I mean, I don’t not want to kiss you,” Bellamy says hastily. “I mean—fuck. Do you want to?”
Now her stomach feels fizzy, little bubbles of anticipation bursting through her. “I don’t not want to,” she says, repeating his words. “Besides. It’s a Christmas tradition. It would be nice.”
“Nice,” he echoes.
“Nice,” she agrees. “You know, I don’t think I’ve actually had a mistletoe kiss before. Maybe I’m due. I can go find someone else, though, if you don’t want—”
Bellamy sets down his glass with a loud clink, cups her face in his hands, and kisses her.
It’s short, sweet. Dry lips against hers, the scent of him close and spicy. An entirely appropriate mistletoe kiss.
He pulls back, just a little, and she slowly opens eyes she hadn’t realized she’d closed for the brief kiss.
Clarke can still feel his breath against her lips, he’s so close.
His eyes dip back down toward her mouth, and she thinks that maybe—
Without really knowing why she does it, she puts her hands on his shoulders, sliding them up into his hair.
Bellamy shivers at her touch. Should it thrill her, that her touch makes him shiver? It doesn’t seem an altogether friendly notion.
But it does thrill her.
And it thrills her, that his eyes seem even darker than normal, that he watches her intently, that he doesn’t move away from her.
And it thrills her that the second she moves toward him, he’s already moving into her, and their mouths collide in a frenzy of motion, all lips and tongues and shocking heat.
He moves into her, moving them across the room until the cold of the refrigerator against her back shocks her, but he licks into her mouth at her gasp, and Clarke groans, fingers tightening through his curls. His chest is firm against her front, his warmth a shocking contrast to the cool metal against her spine, and she wishes she could feel even more of him, wishes that she wasn’t still dressed in her party dress and tights.
It’s that thought that startles her out of the delirium of the kiss, pulling her mouth from Bellamy’s with a gasp, turning her head when his lips chase hers so he lands a kiss on her cheek instead of her lips.
That brings him out of it, too, and he pulls back a little. The only sound in the kitchen is the electrical hum of the oven, and the quiet pants of their breathing.
“I—” Bellamy stops, clears his throat. “Sorry.”
He moves away from her, and she feels suddenly cold, and lonely, like she’s already missing him even though he’s only gone a few feet away.
It’s the fact that this isn’t the first time she’s felt like this that gets to her. The fact that when he drags himself off her couch, saying he needs to head home for the night, she misses him already; or that when he stops by her work on his lunch just to wave at her through her classroom door and then leave again, her heart lurches and she misses him the second he disappears from sight. The fact that she’s missing him, all the time, because she wants to be with him always, and not just in the same room, but close, touching, warm and content.
God. She really loves him.
“Are you?” she blurts out.
Bellamy’s brow wrinkles. “What?”
“Are you really sorry?” she asks again.
“I…”
“Because I’m not,” she says. “I’m not sorry I kissed you, and I’m not sorry I liked it, and I’m not sorry I want to do it again.”
He stares at her. “You…want to do it again?” he repeats slowly.
Clarke nods. She feels sick to her stomach with a horrible combination of terror, euphoria, and nerves. She might throw up.
“Oh, thank god,” he says, and crosses back to her in a second. “God, I just—”
She’s laughing. It’s probably a fear thing. She’d read articles about babies who laugh to release of tension from fear. That’s probably it.
Clarke Griffin is reduced to the emotional control of an infant when it comes to Bellamy Blake.
But he’s kissing her again, so. It might be worth it.
“Not sorry,” he says in between kisses. “I’m not, I’m not. I just want to kiss you.”
“Good.” Clarke squeaks when he nips a ticklish spot on her neck. “I want you to. As much as you want.”
“Really?”
“As much as you want,” she repeats, as firmly as she can manage, and that catches his attention, bringing his eyes to meet hers.
“Did you know mistletoe is poisonous?” he says suddenly. His hand is on her cheek, and his thumb taps her lips while she watches him.
“What?” she asks, blinking.
“It’s poisonous, and there’s this myth that the goddess Frigg’s son was killed with it, but when he was brought back to life she declared mistletoe a symbol of love and vowed to kiss anyone who passed beneath it.”
“That’s—” Clarke pauses. “More morbid than I expected, actually. Nerd.”
Bellamy laughs, kisses her again, soft and sweet. Clarke likes kissing, she’s always liked kissing, but somehow nothing has ever come close to how much she likes kissing Bellamy.
Yeah. She’s totally in love with him.
They’ve been dating for seven months when Bellamy pulls a piece of mistletoe out of his pocket, holds it over her head, and kisses her right there in kitchen again until she’s giddy.
“I am definitely not complaining,” Clarke says when he pulls back, gripping his arms, “please continue to make out with me as much and as often as you’d like. But I don’t think you need the mistletoe to do it, especially since it’s July.”
“Nah, I needed it,” Bellamy says. He sets the plant on the counter next to Clarke. It’s been carefully dried and preserved, she sees, and has the sneaking suspicion it’s not the first time she’s seen this particular bunch. Their friends had caught them mid-kiss in the kitchen when they went to see what was taking so long with the pies, and all hell had broken loose. By the time Clarke had gotten back to the kitchen to start cleaning up from the party, the mistletoe was gone.
“Okay,” Clarke replies, amused. “Weirdo.”
“It’s just—” Bellamy starts, then takes a deep breath as she raises an eyebrow. “It’s just, there’s another thing I know about mistletoe. Other than the poisonous thing.”
“Alright...” she says slowly.
“They say that if a couple in love kisses under the mistletoe, it means they’ll marry within the next year,” Bellamy says, and Clarke goes utterly still.
“They say that, huh?”
“I love you,” he says in response. “I love you so fucking much, and I’m pretty sure I’ll never stop loving you, and I just want to spend the rest of my life with you. If you want to,” he adds belatedly, then stops, waits, anxious eyes on her face.
Clarke stares back at him. “You’re serious?”
“Yeah. Marry me?”
She realizes in that moment that he’s still holding the mistletoe over their heads.
“You’re such a dork,” she says. “God, I love you.”
“Uh, thanks,” he says. “So, is that a yes, or?”
“A year isn’t long to plan a wedding,” she replies, twining her arms around his neck, because of course her answer is yes. A smile starts to grow on Bellamy’s face, and he finally puts the mistletoe down so he can hold her close and kiss her again.
“I think we’ll manage,” he says, lips brushing hers, both of them grinning. “Twelve months is plenty of time.”
(They manage it in six.)