Archive of Our Own ^beta

One month after moving into her new apartment, Clarke knows the following things about the person in #3:

1. They have not bothered putting a name plate up on their door or mailbox.
2. They have a very active sex life.
3. They're at least pretty quiet about it, and their partner(s) tends to be too. No screaming orgasms or anything.
4. Their bed has the creakiest springs Clarke has ever heard in her life. She thinks if she went onto the street when #3 was having sex, she'd still be able to hear those damn bed springs.
5. The person in apartment #3 is not aware they are living in a glass house with regards to noisiness and is convinced Clarke is the loud, inconsiderate neighbor, just because she has a cat who is sometimes a little bit annoying when she's hungry.

All of which adds up to this: Clarke has been living in her new apartment for one month, and she's already involved in a passive-aggressive note war with her neighbor.

The first one arrived after two weeks, and it was probably meant to be helpful.

Clarke might have appreciated the note, if it hadn't come at the end of a very long ER shift, if she hadn't slipped on it coming in her door after midnight, and if she hadn't been able to hear #3 getting laid as she read it.

"But you're the asshole here," she told Eowyn, picking up the cat and cuddling her. She was meowing a little, but quietly. Clarke has a talkative cat, which should not have been a big deal; it's not her fault #3 doesn't like cats. They're allowed to be wrong about cats. That's their right.

She didn't respond immediately. For one thing, she wasn't sure what to say, and for another, sticking a snarky note under someone's door while they're getting laid is a level of passive aggression even Clarke wasn't willing to stoop to.

Not for the first incident, anyway.

In the morning, the note still rubbed her the wrong way. It was a complaint (your cat was loud) framed as concern (maybe there's a problem), and those always annoy Clarke. Her cat was loud. That sucks. It's a valid thing to be upset about, but #3 was kind of a dick about it.

Clarke knows there are people who don't escalate situations; she knows people like that. Wells and Monty can diffuse arguments so gracefully, no one would ever know they'd done it.

Clarke is not one of those people.

She thought about knocking on the door to drop it off, but decided it would be too much, so she just slid the note under the door on her way to get drinks with Raven and called it a day.

The notes started coming every other day or so after that and ranged from detailed and valid (they actually filled out the chart, which impressed Clarke) to short and petty (Your cooking made the hallway smell weird), and Clarke tries to tell herself she has the moral high ground, but she knows it's bullshit, honestly.

"Have you ever thought about just talking to them?" Monty asks. He's making eyes at the hot bartender in the beanie and failing to make a move, just like every Saturday night.

"And ruin a perfectly good passive-aggressive feud?" Clarke asks. "Why would I do that?"

"You both have exactly one valid complaint," says Raven. "Theirs is that your cat is too loud, which, don't get me wrong, I love Eowyn, but she can be loud. Yours is that their bed squeaks when they have sex. These are things that are annoying, and there's no good solution. They can't expect you to get rid of your cat and you can't expect them to buy a new bed or cancel their sex life. So making peace is definitely the way to go here."

"Or passive-aggressive note wars," Clarke says. "I think you're really underestimating how awesome passive-aggressive note wars are." She looks at Raven and Monty's beers and nods. "Next round?"

"You know there isn't an upper limit on number of friends you can have, right?" Raven calls. "You don't have to alienate everyone else."

"But I have you, you're all I need," says Clarke, grabbing the empty bottles and taking them back to the bar for disposal. Monty's crush nods his appreciation, and she orders another round, propping herself back against the counter so she can survey the room. She's at that level of drunkenness where she feels like she's observing her own life from a distance, mellow and content, and she likes what she sees. She's happy that she moved. She wanted a fresh start, away from Lexa, away from her mother, and being close to Raven and Monty again is exactly what she needed. Wells is even thinking about relocating too. She might not be making new friends, but Raven's wrong. She doesn't need new friends.

Of course, that's when a guy leans against the bar next to her and smiles, and, okay, she could maybe use one new friend. If they look like that.

"I'm trying to figure out what you're looking at," he says, conversational. His teeth are bright and white even in the shitty bar light, and she can make out freckles on his tan skin. "Either you can see out the window a lot better than I can or you're just zoning out."

"Zoning out," Clarke says, returning the guy's smile. "But thanks for trying to give me some credit for being deep and inscrutable or whatever."

He grins. "Zoning out can be deep and inscrutable. Maybe you're thinking deep thoughts."

Clarke ducks her head on a laugh. "Honestly? I am thinking how glad I am I don't live near my mother anymore."

"That seems worth celebrating," he says, offering his beer. She glances over her shoulder to see if her drinks are up yet and grabs her bottle, toasting him.

"It does, doesn't it?"

"Where's your mom live?"

"DC."

"Yeah, okay. Seattle is about as far as you can get without leaving the continental US. Good job."

"I also applied for a job in Hawaii. Just for fun."

He snorts. "Sorry you didn't get it."

"Who says I didn't?" She inclines her bottle to the table where Monty and Raven are bickering. "Friends were here."

"Must be some friends," he says. "I'd abandon basically everyone I know if I could live on a tropical beach."

"Fuck you, Blake," says Monty's bartender crush.

"Fuck you too," says Blake, not even bothering to turn his head. "He'd leave me for the beach too," he adds to Clarke, and the bartender doesn't argue the point.

A dark-haired girl starts waving at them from the direction of the pool tables, and Clarke cocks her head. "I think someone needs you."

He turns and waves back. "My sister," he says. "Apparently she finished kicking her boyfriend's ass and wants to kick mine. Did you need help with those drinks or you got it?"

"I've got it," she says. "Thanks."

He pushes off the bar and gives her a small smile as he goes to join his sister, and Clarke heads back to Monty and Raven with her beers.

"See?" she says. "I made a friend. His name is Blake, and he would ditch everyone he loves and move to Hawaii if he could."

"He sounds great," says Raven; Clarke sticks her tongue out.

She doesn't get a chance to talk to Blake again, but she catches his eye a couple times, exchanges smiles or amused glances, and gives him a little wave when she leaves.

"That's definitely our bar," she tells Monty. "Blake knows your bartender."

"Awesome," he says, and they high five.

When she gets home, there's another note under her door, although there's no light on in #3. They're probably out, finding their hookup for tonight. Clarke's ideally going to be drunk enough that she'll sleep through the show. She always sleeps better when she's drunk.

She reads the note while she feeds Eowyn--who is not that loud, seriously--and does her best not to laugh. Even if #3 isn't home, she's not giving them the satisfaction of her having smiled at the list.

On her way to work the next day, she prints off an Amazon page, shoves it under the door, and is in a fantastic mood for the rest of the day.

When she gets in two days later, there's a small box with Amazon packaging by the mailboxes. She doesn't have anything coming herself that she's aware of, but she checks the label anyway. She has subscribe and save shit; Amazon gives her unexpected bounty all the time.

It's addressed to Bellamy Blake, apartment #3, and Clarke turns the name over in her head as she cooks. Bellamy Blake. It's the kind of name that feels like it was meant to be said all at once, possibly during an action movie. Possibly followed by You'll pay for this!

Or maybe that's just her.

She checks her jar of earplugs and decides it's definitely the right size box for Bellamy Blake to have ordered them, so she scrawls a quick note and drops it off on the way to her death shift the next day.

She works for twenty hours because her relief gets stuck behind some accident, and Clarke has been in ERs enough by this point she's just grateful to be leaving before the accident victims get in. Which says some bad things about her life.

The prospect of cooking is beyond her at the best times, and at 10:30 at night after twenty hours of work it's even more, so she ducks into Monty's crush's bar to get caffeine and maybe food if the kitchen is still open. If nothing else, she can just have enough Coke that she'll be able to make her own dinner.

To her surprise, Blake is behind the bar. He's got better lighting back there, and Clarke wants to check him out, but it seems like a lot of mental power right now. He definitely has great arms, but that's about all she can take in.

"Hey, Doc," he says, apparently taking in her scrubs and general exhaustion. "I think if I give you a beer, you'll pass out."

"I would. I wanted caffeine."

He nods. "Better. You hungry?"

"Yes, fuck. Do you still have a kitchen? I mean, that's open. And will feed me."

He chuckles. "We do, yeah. Did you want a menu or were you just planning to pass out on the bar and I wake you up when there are nachos?"

Clarke feels her mouth tug up a little. "Do you do cheeseburgers?"

"Yeah."

"Awesome. Medium rare, cheddar cheese, with fries and a Coke. The Coke as soon as possible. I'm sure you guys run a tight ship, but I don't really want my face on your bar. It's probably still really unsanitary."

"Good policy," he says, putting in her order and getting the Coke. It's Wednesday and not particularly busy, so he lingers, watching her. "You okay? Did you lose a patient or something?" He pauses. "We met last Saturday, by the way. In case you don't remember."

"No, I remember. Blake. Friends with Monty's bartender crush. And I'm fine, just a long shift." She yawns. "I didn't know you worked here."

"I don't, usually. I'm actually a co-owner. Me and Miller. That would be, uh, Monty's bartender crush, I guess. I don't usually take shifts, but we just lost someone and haven't rehired yet. Miller does most of the work, honestly," he continues, when he seems to realize Clarke is not going to carry much of the conversation. "I'm just an investor at this point. Which is cool, I always wanted to have enough money I could fund shit."

"That is pretty great. What do you actually do?"

"I'm a history professor."

"Huh."

He smirks. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It's a filler word. It's basically meaningless. Don't read into anything I say right now, I'm exhausted."

His smile smooths out, becomes kind of fond. "Drink your Coke, Doc. I'll have your food out in a few."

She's going to give him her name, but he has to deal with other customers, and she's too tired to care much. Either she'll see him again and they can have a real conversation with proper introductions, or she won't and it won't matter.

The burger is delicious and she tips outrageously, even before Blake frowns and asks, "Are you sure you can get home okay?"

"Yeah, it's not far. Thanks for the burger, Blake."

"It's--" His mouth twists in a smile. "Never mind. Get some sleep, Doc."

"Will do," she says, and basically staggers out.

She makes a point of cuddling Eowyn a lot as soon as she gets home, because the cat probably is lonely, and then collapses into bed without even getting undressed.

It's not until the morning she discovers that there's a menu from the bar on her floor, with a post-it note attached.

Clarke puzzles over her response while she watches Netflix with the cat, because it feels almost nice, as gestures go. Like Bellamy is actually trying to help her out, in a weird way. And she doesn't know a weirdly nice way of her own to respond. Bellamy Blake's food always smells amazing, and none of their (she's still not sure if Bellamy is a guy's name or a girl's; after a lifetime of confusion about being a girl named Clarke, she's not making any assumptions) other personal habits are noticeable enough for her to offer commentary on.

Then she hears them having surprisingly loud sex in the shower, so that's clearly the subject of her next note.

She's just finishing it up when the argument starts.

For whatever reason, she'd assumed Bellamy Blake had a lot of different casual partners, not a relationship. And while she can't make out what the two people--a man and a woman, one of them presumably Bellamy--are saying, she knows the rhythm of a breakup fight, the horrible cadence of it.

The door slams, hard, and there's a pause before she hears the man say, "Fuck," muffled, but still understandable.

And then, even weirder, Eowyn meows at him.

It's the meow she gives Clarke when she's upset, and the guy responds, "Hi, asshole cat!" in an overly cheerful tone.

His voice sounds a little familiar, but she can't place it. It's hard enough to understand him at all. But Eowyn is talking to him, and Clarke is knocking on the door before she's really thought it through.

"Have you really been pissed that my cat--" She starts, and then falters. "Blake?"

"Bellamy, actually," he says. It's absolutely the guy from the bar, his curly hair damp, his shirt clinging a little. He's wearing pajama pants and hipster glasses, and he looks worn out. "C. Griffin? Or are you just lowkey stalking me and really bad at it?"

"Clarke," she says. She wets her lips, off-kilter. Bellamy Blake.

He nods. "Did you want to come in to yell at me? It's been kind of a theme today."

That makes her wince. "I didn't want to yell at you. But--" She glances at her own door. "If you've been talking to my cat, I thought you might want to meet her."

His initial surprise quickly fades into a smile. "Yeah, uh. Let me just grab my keys."

It's more surreal than she expected, only in part because Bellamy Blake is an actual guy she knows, not just a faceless asshole. Anyone could have opened that door, and he was still somehow the last person she would have guessed.

"What's her name?" he asks, leaning down to let the cat sniff his hand.

"Eowyn."

"Nice." She butts her head against his fingers, and Bellamy takes it as an invitation to scratch her ears. Clarke looks away.

"You failed to mention you were talking to her." she says.

"Huh?"

"How many of the times she was howling at you were you responding?"

"Most of them."

She snorts. "That's why. She likes chatting. I was actually worried something was wrong! I was thinking about getting a baby monitor to make sure she was okay!"

Bellamy looks up, flashes her a grin. "I did say I wasn't a cat person. Everything I know about cats I learned from pet WebMD. And the Discovery Channel."

"As a doctor, I'm offended you use WebMD."

"Oh good, I was hoping that would piss you off."

Clarke starts really laughing, and Bellamy looks pleased, proud even. "Mission accomplished," she says. "I'm having tea, you want some?"

"It's ten at night."

"Assume my sleep cycle is a disaster. I work at an ER. And it's herbal anyway."

"Then yeah, tea would be great."

He and Eowyn follow her into the kitchen, and Clarke gets started on tea stuff while Bellamy does his best to look like he's not poking around. It's not like she can blame him; she'd be curious too. She is curious.

Of course, then he finds the note she didn't give him on the table.

"I wrote that before I heard you guys--" she says quickly. "Before the breakup. Sorry."

"No, it's fine. It wasn't really a breakup. Or--I didn't think it was, and she did, which was kind of the root cause. And, wow, that makes me sound like a dick."

"Well, I thought you were hitting on me at the bar, so you kind of seemed like a dick either way."

He smiles at that. "I was hitting on you, yeah. And she was--we had a casual thing in grad school. She moved to the area, we picked it back up. I thought we were picking up the casual thing and she thought we were picking up a relationship, because why not? I feel bad but--I really had no idea." He smiles. "I thought I was doing pretty well with you at the bar, I've never fucked up this badly this quickly before."

"Did you know it was me?"

"No idea, nope." He accepts the tea and considers her; Clarke tries not to flush under the scrutiny. "I was really trying to be nice," he says. "My first note. I've never had a cat so I didn't know if it was something to worry about."

Eowyn is butting against his leg, fond, and Clarke has to smile. "I thought you meant you hated them."

He scratches the cat behind her ears again. "Nah, never got much of a chance to form an opinion. She seems nice."

"Yeah. I am sorry for--I appreciate the concern. I didn't mean to be a dick."

He grins. "You did."

"I did. But not about the cat. If you're worried about her, I actually would like to hear about it."

"I'll keep you posted. Does she like being picked up?"

"If she doesn't, she'll let you know very quickly," Clarke says, and he laughs and scoops Eowyn up. It's a lot to handle, a hot guy cuddling her cat in her little kitchen, looking delighted that she's letting him.

Bellamy Blake: kind of a dick, but definitely a cat person.

"I had a lot of fun with the notes," he says, not looking at her. "They were a daily highlight for me, honestly."

"Yeah, me too."

"But it's good to actually meet you."

After they finish the tea, he lingers a little, but she's yawning and he is too, so he just takes the note off the table and asks, "Can I take this?"

"You want it?"

"I've been saving them."

Clarke smiles. "Then, yeah. It's all yours."

She finds another note on her way to work the next day.

Her shift is terrible, but she's smiling the whole time anyway. But he's not in the bar when she stops by after, and his door is dark. She finds herself wondering what he does, when he's away from home.

Maybe he's finding a girl, or a guy, for the night, and the thought makes her go cold. It's not like they talked about it, except to confirm he was flirting with her. And maybe he's not a relationship guy. Maybe he just wanted to take her home, and now they're neighbors, and it would be weird.

She's mostly asleep herself when she hears the springs of his bed creak, but just once, like he's turning in himself, and she tells herself that's not what was keeping her up. But she goes to sleep in seconds, once he's back.

On Saturday, she fills Raven and Monty in on the situation, even though the entire thing is kind of embarrassing. Not that she really did anything wrong. How was she supposed to know her dick neighbor was hot and her kind of dick? She hasn't even fucked it up, honestly. But it still feels like something she should not be sharing around. The main reason she tells them is it's funny too, and she's hoping Bellamy will be around and want to come talk to them.

"I told you to make peace with him," Raven says.

"And I did. See?"

"I think we're all missing the most important point," says Monty. "He knows the bartender. You have an in now. You can work this connection for me. You are not thinking about my needs enough, Clarke."

"I don't know if it's that much of a connection yet," Clarke protests, and, right on cue, Bellamy slides into the booth next to her, with one beer for himself and one for her, like he's done it a thousand times. He's wearing a crisp white button down and has a tie loose around his neck. His sleeves are rolled up to the elbows. It's a great look for him.

"Hey," he says.

She hasn't seen him or talked to him since she found out who he was, but it doesn't feel weird at all, somehow. He yelled goodbye to Eowyn on his way out of his apartment yesterday; they have to be friends now. "Hi. Raven, Monty, this is my neighbor, Bellamy. Bellamy, my friends."

"Nice to meet you guys," he says, raising his glass in greeting. "I would have gotten everyone a round, but I didn't know what you were drinking."

"No problem," says Raven. "So, are you gonna gossip about your bartender friend, or do you have weird morals or something?"

Bellamy snorts. "Hell no, I'll gossip. Nathan Miller, thirty-one, single, gay. We went to college together. My best friend, so if you're not cool I'll kick your ass," he adds, raising his bottle to Monty.

"Fair enough," says Monty. "I'm getting another round."

And just like that, they're friends. When she sees his light is on when she gets home, she'll knock on his door and see if he wants to come watch Netflix or get some takeout or just hang out. He'll cook more food than he needs and invite her over to eat it, and he picks up cat toys for Eowyn based on extensive Amazon research. If they're both at the bar, they'll sit together, and he flirts a little, but aside from that, it's just friendship.

His bed hasn't been creaking, not that she can hear. Raven says she's a coward.

Raven might be right.

And then, two months after the note about not being a stranger, Bellamy leaves something else under her door.

She hadn't realized how much she missed the notes, which feels stupid, considering she gets to see him all the time. But the notes had been something to look forward to, something fun, and the idea that Bellamy might have missed it too makes her smile, almost as much as the note itself does.

Almost, but not quite.

Eowyn brushes up against her legs, demanding affection, and Clarke scoops her up and cuddles her. "It's been a while, huh?" she asks, and the cat mews and tries to squirm out of her arms. Clarke lets her, after a second. "Yeah." she agrees. "I think it's about time too."

He's not home, of course. Clarke knows him well enough to not be surprised that he'd make sure he wouldn't be around for the aftermath of the note. If she never brings it up again, he probably won't either. He'll just take it as a no and move on, start bringing girls home again, keep on being her friend and liking her cat. It's amazing, how sure she is how it would go.

But that's not what she wants, anyway.

She slides the note under his door and turns on Netflix, loud enough that he'll be able to hear the murmur of it when he gets home. They've gotten good at it by now; not passive-aggression, exactly, but they're both great at signaling they're available to hang out without coming out and saying it.

A relationship with him might be a terrible idea, but Clarke wants it anyway.

It's been about an hour when she hears his door, and then he calls, "Hey, Eowyn!" He always says hi to her cat, because he always knows her cat is home. It's one of her favorite things about him.

Eowyn meows back at him, and Clarke only hesitates for a second before calling, "Hey!"

He knocks on the wall, twice, its own kind of greeting. And then there's silence, except for Netflix, and Eowyn licking herself, and a thousand other things. But she can't hear Bellamy doing anything, so he's probably reading. And he wants her, she knows he does, but she still can't quite breathe.

His next knock is on her door, and Clarke takes a breath, wipes her hands on her jeans, and gets up, gets the door, and gives him a smile.

"Can I still get passive aggressive door notes if you're my girlfriend?"

"Yes, but they're all gonna start with that congrats on the sex picture."

"Even better," he says, and leans down to kiss her.

Clarke has learned a lot about Bellamy, in the last two months. She knows he's thirty-three, that he has a PhD and likes to remind her that he's therefore just as much of a doctor as she is, that he's lactose intolerant but stubborn about it, that he basically raised his little sister because his mom wasn't around and sees a therapist once a week to talk through the various ways that fucked him up.

She didn't know what it would be like to kiss him, but she'd thought about it a lot. His hands are familiar by now, but they feel different cradling her face, calluses catching against her own skin. She knew his lips were always a little chapped, but she didn't know that he'd taste like coffee, that he'd lick into her slowly, almost delicately, like he thinks she's something precious.

She pulls him all the way inside and uses his body to slam the door closed, making him laugh against her mouth.

"Pushy," he murmurs, sliding his hands down to her hips between soft kisses.

"I don't want the cat to get out." She nips his lip. "Maybe I should have come over to your place. Less of an audience."

"I hear my bed squeaks, though. You'd be distracted the whole time."

Clarke smirks. "Like we're gonna make it to a bed."

His head hits the door with an audible thunk; Clarke takes advantage of the opportunity to kiss his neck. "No visible hickeys, my students would never let me live it down." He slides one arm under her, lifting her up so he can shove her up against the wall. "Aside from the shower, is there anywhere in this apartment I'm not allowed to fuck you?" he asks, eyes dark.

Clarke tugs him down for another messy kiss. "Not off the top of my head," she says. "Let's find out."

They do make it to the bed eventually, but not until they're ready to go to sleep. Bellamy admits that Clarke's bed is a lot quieter than his, and even rolls around a little, testing to make sure nothing is going to happen. It's basically the most adorable thing Clarke's ever seen, but then again, she hasn't gotten laid in a while. The whole world looks great right now.

She slides in next to him. "Sorry my apartment is better than yours," she says, tucking her face against his neck. "Between the cat and the bed, I've just all the good stuff."

He laughs and curls around her. "Why do you think I wanted to date you in the first place?"

Her alarm goes off at five, which seems to upset him, but he has no trouble rolling over and going back to bed. She, on the other hand, has a lot of trouble dragging herself into the shower and getting dressed for a day of work. There should be a rule: no work the day after you get a new significant other. Just sex and high fives.

She briefly thinks about waking him to say goodbye, since she didn't actually warn him when her shift was, but he looks so contented, she can't bear it.

But it would be rude to not at least leave a note.