Work Text:
In retrospect, if Clarke had more time or fewer things on her plate, it might have occurred to her to be worried about her TA. Mostly because he’s not just the assistant for her favorite Poli Sci class, he’s also her barista, he bags her groceries, and a couple of times a month he works the night shift as a security guard at the museum where she interns. If she’d had the opportunity to give it much thought, she would have been concerned for his health– physically, because she’s not sure when he eats and sleeps; mentally, because he has so many customer-facing jobs. Secondarily, she might have been worried about developing an inappropriate crush on someone who grades her papers– she has had time to notice how attractive he is.
As it stands, they’ve simply become fixtures on the fringe of each other’s lives. He’ll nod and she’ll smile in acknowledgement when they pass each other in the museum halls, or when they make eye contact across the classroom.
She’s pretty sure he has an awkwardly large amount of information about her life for two people who aren’t really friends. He knows her political opinions and what kind of grades she gets. He knows how she takes her coffee, to the point where she doesn’t even have to order anymore. She’s pretty sure he knows a little bit about the implosion of her relationship with Finn, seeing as he comped her latte when she and Raven held confronted him just a couple of tables down from where Bellamy was working the counter. He knows how unhealthily she eats, and could even know what brand of deodorant she uses. She’s thankful he’s never been working the checkout when she’s had to buy tampons. She doubts he’s storing up these scraps of information, but it makes her feel like she’s at a disadvantage. She doesn’t know hardly as much about him.
The semester ends and suddenly she’s got free time to paint and draw, to study for the GRE, and to worry about Bellamy. She’d assumed, without putting much thought into it, that he’d also have more free time over the summer. But the first time she goes to get some test prep done over a cup of coffee, he’s seated at a table in the corner, apron on, hunched over a work schedule.
“Please tell me you’re cutting back on your hours,” Clarke says, sliding into the vacant seat opposite him. He looks up in surprise, pen dangling from his mouth, and Clarke feels a tug of… something she’s not ready to name. They’re friendly even if they’re not friends, and she’s self-aware enough to know that she feels probably too much responsibility for other people.
“I’m cutting back on my hours,” he says automatically.
“Are you really?” She asks, peeking down at the spreadsheet in front of him. She can’t read it upside down, doesn’t really know how it works anyway, but he’s got his own planner out next to it, and in the scrawl she’s come to recognize, he’s filled almost every available slot with one job or another. It’s endearing that he still uses pen and paper when the rest of the world has mostly gone digital.
“No,” he admits, shooting her a quick smile. “I’m reworking my hours to fit them around the class I’m teaching over the summer.”
“You work four jobs, Bellamy.”
“That you know of.” She stares him down until he relents and says, “Yeah, I know it’s a lot. I just don’t have a ton of other options.”
“Gambling problem?” She jokes. “Alimony? Child support?”
“Actually…” he begins, scratching the back of his head in mild embarrassment. Clarke’s stomach drops immediately and she feels like a jerk.
“Shit. Sorry. I wasn’t trying to make fun of your problems.”
“I know,” he says, drumming his fingers on the table. “It’s not really what you’re thinking anyway. My little sister moved in with me when our mom got evicted. I’m just trying to do better by her than Mom ever did.”
“That’s a lot to handle,” Clarke frowns, wondering how he has time to take care of another person on top of everything else he’s doing. “How old is she?”
“Seventeen. She’s about to be a senior in high school.”
“And how many jobs does she have?”
“Just one,” he says, firmly enough she can tell he’s had the argument about working too hard with someone before. “I’d rather she focuses on her grades and gets a good scholarship to college than spending all her time helping me make rent.”
Clarke studies him for a moment, then picks up his phone from where it’s sitting atop his planner and starts entering her number.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m giving you my number,” she tells him. She’d thought it was pretty obvious. “If she ever needs a ride or if you need… anything, really, I want you to let me know.” When she’s finished, she sends herself a text with his name before handing it back over.
“Why?” He asks, pocketing the phone and starting to pack his things up. Clarke figures his break is almost over.
“Why not?” Clarke shrugs, unpacking her own things to take over the table when he leaves. She doesn’t feel like over-analyzing her reasons at this stage in their non-friendship. She doesn’t know if he’ll ever actually ask her for anything, kind of doubts it, really, but she figures he knows he has her as a resource now. If he doesn’t use her, it’s his own fault.
Somehow, after that first interaction, she can’t just leave him alone. She starts seeking him out at the museum, if she sees he’s scheduled to work, to ask if he wants in on ordering takeout. Even when he says no, she orders more food than she needs and hangs out in the guard room to eat, leaving the half-empty cartons behind for him to finish instead of packing them up to bring them home. After a while, he figures it out and just starts agreeing to split the cost with her.
He retaliates by making fun of her about all the junk food she’s buying as he packs it into bags. He makes her switch from plastic to paper bags, and she starts finding singular bananas or carrots tucked between her Cheetos and frozen pizzas.
She finds out from one of the other baristas that he almost never takes his break, which is stupid because he doesn’t actually get paid more if he works through it. She starts making him sit with her if they’re not too busy when she comes in, under the pretense of needing someone to quiz her on practice problems or seeking his advice on what classes to register for in the next semester.
She gets to meet his sister one day when she comes into the coffee shop and he’s already sitting at one of the tables, chatting with a beautiful teenage girl. At least, she hopes it’s his sister. Otherwise this would be troubling.
“Clarke,” he says, sitting a little straighter when she approaches the pair to say hello.
“Hey, Bellamy. This must be Octavia?” Even if she didn’t look seventeen, Clarke thinks she would have seen the family resemblance. Bellamy is darker, with more freckles, but they’ve got the same eyes, the same habit of tapping their fingers on the nearest surface, the same confident smirk. Bellamy’s sister is employing that expression now, giving Clarke a once-over before extending her hand and introducing herself.
“Yeah, hi. I’m Bell’s sister.”
“Clarke was one of my students last semester,” Bellamy says. Clarke’s stomach drops just a little. They were more like friends than they had been before, but he still sees her as one of his students. That’s fine. At least she knows where they stand.
“Cool,” Octavia nods, checking her watch. “You want to sit down? I think Bellamy’s break is about over, but I wouldn’t mind some company while I wait for him to get off shift.”
“Clarke probably has stuff to do, O.”
“Not really,” she shrugs. “It’s not like I actually want to study.” She drops into the empty chair, smiling brilliantly at Octavia. Ninety percent of her wants to actually get to know Bellamy’s sister, and the other ten percent mostly wants to spite him for not wanting her to hang out with Octavia. She doesn’t know what his problem is, but she’s obviously handling it in the most mature way possible.
“Go back to work Bell,” Octavia says, pushing his shoulder gently. “We’re good here.”
He goes back to the counter with great reluctance and Octavia rolls her eyes.
“So,” Octavia says, her voice a little sharper than before. Defensive. “Are you Bell’s girlfriend?”
“I am extremely not his girlfriend,” Clarke laughs, leaning back in her chair. “I might go as far as friends, but only because I pretty much forced that on him.”
“Yeah?”
“We kept running into each other at all of his jobs–” Octavia rolls her eyes again at this, and Clarke can’t restrain her smile. “–and at some point I just figured it was dumb to pretend like we didn’t know each other.”
“Are you the one who keeps tricking him into eating your leftovers?” Octavia asks, squinting at her. Clarke blushes.
“That’s me,” she says, unrepentant.
“Good,” Octavia grins. “He nags me all the time, but he doesn’t listen when I try to make him take care of himself. It felt like karma when he told me one of his coworkers was making him eat dinner like some kind of self-care ninja.”
“He probably just got tired of both of us bugging him about it,” Clarke says. Self-care ninja is an awesome title, but she’s not sure where it ranks on the friendship scale. She hadn’t thought he’d noticed her efforts to make him eat proper meals, rather than the snack foods the guards keep in their area, but if he’s mentioned it to his sister he probably thinks Clarke is weirdly obsessed with his eating habits.
“Maybe,” Octavia says, doubt coloring her tone. “But it’s more probable he just likes you. Usually if he gives in because he’s annoyed, he makes a big deal about it, he doesn’t just give in. Also, he’s sending me a death glare right now because he’s worried I’ll tell you something embarrassing about him or scare you away.”
Clarke looks instinctively over to the counter, where Bellamy is indeed frowning in their direction. He schools his face into cool composure when Clarke grins and waves, and Octavia sticks her tongue out.
“I’m not scaring you away, right?” Octavia confirms.
“No,” Clarke tells her, gaze still on Bellamy. “I don’t scare that easy.”
She gives Octavia her number too, certain the younger girl will be less weird about asking Clarke for something than Bellamy would. She’s even right, as she finds out when Octavia calls her a couple of weeks later while she’s sitting in the guard room, having dinner with Bellamy.
“I gotta take this,” she says, stepping out into the hallway. “Hello?”
“Clarke? It’s Octavia. Blake. Bellamy’s sister.”
“Hey, what’s up? Are you trying to reach your brother? I can go get him–”
“No, no. I meant to call you,” she says, clearly uncomfortable. “Bell is on the night shift tonight, but you’re not, are you?”
“No, my shift is actually over. I’m heading out when I finish eating dinner.”
“Great. Would you mind– I mean, do you think you could pick me up? I was going to spend the night with a friend, but we had a fight and I don’t really want to stay here. And I don’t want Bellamy to have to leave his shift.”
“Sure,” Clarke says, slowly. “Just text me the address. And you need to tell Bellamy you’re going home. You don’t have to tell him I’m taking you, if you think he’ll be weird about it, but he needs to know where you are, right?”
“Yeah, I’ll let him know. Thanks, Clarke.”
Bellamy is switching off with the other guard when she gets back, getting ready to make his rounds, so she just waves and tells him she’s headed out, nodding when he tells her he’ll see her around.
Octavia is waiting for her on the front porch when Clarke pulls up. She’s clearly been crying, and Clarke isn’t sure she’s good enough friends with either of the Blakes to be the one offering comfort, but she’s the one who’s there, so she tries asking Octavia if she’s okay.
“Yeah, it’s just dumb drama,” Octavia tells her, sounding more angry than upset. “We got in a fight about her boyfriend. I told her I was glad we got to hang out tonight because she’s been so busy with him all the time, and she took that to mean that I don’t like him. Things just went downhill from there.”
“I hate that,” Clarke says, turning when Octavia tells her to. “People can be idiots about the people they’re dating.”
“Are you an idiot about my brother?”
“I’d say I’m just shy of stupid,” Clarke says honestly. She thinks about how sad she’d feel if she’d just had a fight with Raven and then had to go home to an empty house, and finds herself offering to stay for a while. “If you want, we can do sleepover stuff back at your place. Paint nails, watch a movie. There’s even this braid thing I keep seeing on Pinterest that I want to try, if you want.”
“As long as it’s an action movie,” Octavia says, wrinkling her nose. “I’m not really in the mood for a rom com.”
“I think we can manage that.”
Clarke really doesn’t mean to fall asleep during the movie, but it was kind of a long, weird day and it just sort of happens. She awakens to Bellamy shutting the door firmly behind him when he comes in from work around four in the morning.
“Oops,” she mutters, sitting up and yawning.
“Clarke?” He says, like he can’t believe she’s been asleep on his couch for hours. She kind of can’t believe it either. “What are you doing here?”
“Octavia called me,” she says, unsure how he’ll react to this information. “I picked her up on my way home, only I didn’t make it all the way there.”
“She called you? She’s met you once.”
“You were at work. I have a car. Besides, I’m probably better versed in teenage girl drama than you are.” He backs down a little when she says this, but not much.
“She still shouldn’t have called you,” he scowls. “And you definitely didn’t have to spend the night just because–”
“That was my own fault,” she says, standing and rooting around in the blankets for her phone. She’s getting the sense that Bellamy is less than thrilled to have her in his apartment, and she finds herself once again questioning whether they’ve actually crossed from casual acquaintances to friends. The way he’s acting, she guesses probably not. “I wouldn’t have wanted to be alone if I was in her shoes, so I came in for a little while and I must have fallen asleep at some point. It was my bad. I’ll get out of your hair.” She’s made it out into the hallway when he stops her.
“I just don’t understand why you’re– are we some kind of charity case for you?” He’s full-on angry now, shoulders back, jaw set, and Clarke is torn between being reciprocally angry, offended, and turned on. If he wasn’t mad with her, for whatever reason, she’d know for sure which camp she was in.
“Of course not.”
“Then what is it? What is it with you and the takeout and giving us your number and whatever else you’re doing to rack up positive karma points?”
“ That’s what friends do, ” she says, loud enough to almost be considered yelling, and while he doesn’t back away, her words do give him pause. She didn’t realize how closely they were standing, how he was trying to loom over her while they argued. How he would have been able, at this proximity, to hear her just as clearly if she’d whispered.
“Oh,” he says, a bit awkward. Clarke watches a variety of expressions flicker in his eyes: understanding, embarrassment, reluctance. “Can we rewind this conversation? I may have overreacted a little bit.”
“A bit,” Clarke scoffs, still a little miffed.
“Sorry,” he says, raising a hand to rub the back of his neck. Clarke realizes once again how closely they’re standing, and also wonders when he has time to go to the gym with as many jobs as he works. He really must never sleep. “It’s just– we’re friends?”
“I thought we’d crossed that threshold, yeah,” Clarke says, and now she’s the one feeling awkward. “I mean, I get it if I’m just some undergrad who’s been bugging you. I’ll back off. But with as much as we run into each other, I just figured it made sense for us to be friends instead of… I don’t know, accidental mutual stalking?”
Bellamy cracks a smile and it’s almost too much for Clarke to take.
“I’m just glad you don’t think I’m an incompetent caretaker,” he admits, and yeah, Clarke can see how he might have been taking all of this the wrong way. Before she can apologize, he’s barreling forward. “Or a weird old guy trying to hit on someone too young for me. I’ve been trying all summer to figure out whether I could turn accidental mutual stalking into a date.”
“Yeah?” Clarke feels a grin coming on. “What did you come up with?”
“I had this whole plan,” he says sheepishly. “Next time I saw you– which I was not expecting to be this soon– I was going to ask you whether we could run into each other on purpose sometime.”
“That can be arranged,” Clarke laughs, feeling a little ridiculous about how relieved she is. “Maybe we could run into each other this weekend?”
Of course he’s working most of the weekend, but Clarke just hangs out at the table nearest the counter for a while, then follows him home so he can make her dinner and tease her about how he’s probably preparing her the first veggies she’s eaten all week. They look out for each other, she realizes with a funny warmth in her chest. It’s just as well. She’s planning to stick around for a while.