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Clarke gets a cat by accident.
No one really believes this when she explains this, probably because all her friends are assholes. And because, admittedly, Clarke isn't generally the kind of person to do things by accident. If she'd actually been planning to get a pet, she would have researched every shelter in town, made pros and cons lists of the various types of pets she could get, figured out what age and type of animal was best for her lifestyle. She would have gone the whole nine yards, and then a couple extra yards for good measure.
Instead, what happens is that Bellamy comes by to "borrow" some beer one night and says, "Did you know there's a cat on your counter?"
Clarke blinks. She and Bellamy aren't really friends; they share a duplex and had an ongoing issue with their mail getting mixed up for the first couple months that Clarke lived here that started them off on pretty contentious terms. By the time she realized she kind of enjoyed sniping with him, the mail issue had been resolved, and they've both been coming up with excuses to see each other a few times a week ever since. Like borrowing beer, which cannot possibly be returned.
Making up a cat doesn't really fit into their established sniping, or into what she knows of Bellamy's personality, so she says, "What?" and gets up off the couch to see what he's talking about.
As promised, there's a cat sitting on her counter, licking its paw with delicate grace. Aside from being too skinny, it looks to be in decent shape, clean, with a glossy coat of mostly black fur, with scattered gold and orange patches.
"I didn't think you had a cat," says Bellamy, mild.
"What the fuck."
"Congratulations," he says. "She hissed at me."
"Probably because you were checking if she was a girl. Is that your reaction to unfamiliar animals? Looking at their genitals?"
"I was just trying to get to the fridge," he says. "She's a tortoiseshell. Tortoiseshell cats are usually female." When she raises her eyebrows, he glares. "I like Animal Planet, okay?"
"Good for you."
"I'm going back in," he says, and the cat does hiss as he passes, but in a fairly non-threatening way. Just like she's saying hello. While showing her teeth.
He snags the beer and steps back to Clarke's side.
"Good job. Heroic."
"I thought so. Thanks for the beer. Good luck with the cat."
"What, you're leaving?" she asks.
He shrugs. "I got the beer. Why would I stay, exactly?"
"I need help with the cat."
"The cat obviously hates me."
"But you watch Animal Planet. I don't." She crosses her arms over her chest. "If you're going to steal my beer, the least you can do is help me with the cat."
"I'm borrowing your beer," he says. She counts to three in her head, and he folds. He's kind of a soft touch. It's cute. "What kind of help?"
Clarke looks at the cat again; now that Bellamy isn't in her personal bubble, she's gone back to licking her paw. "Let's drink the beer first."
They drink it in her living room to check her laptop for any useful posts on craigslist about lost pets, because she doesn't remember seeing any signs around the neighborhood, and that seems like the most logical first step.
She's composing her own found cat post when Bellamy remarks, "She's really thin."
"Maybe she's been lost for a while."
"I'm just saying, maybe she's never had an owner. Or they didn't give a shit."
"Then no one will call." She wets her lips. "Do you think I should go get cat food? Or something? Do you think she'll just wander out again?"
"How did she wander in?" he asks, which is a valid question, and one Clarke hadn't actually considered yet.
"Huh. I honestly have no idea. All my windows have screens, so--"
"So figure it out before a human breaks in. I've got some cans of tuna somewhere in my cupboard, I think. Meet back in the kitchen in ten?"
"Good talk," she says, and does find that the screen in her bedroom window has been broken, possibly by the cat, so she closes the window and goes to the kitchen to see if she can get a picture of the cat for her craigslist post.
She's no longer licking herself, but she's still sitting on the counter, looking like a queen.
"If we feed you, will you stop hissing?" she asks. The cat kind of blinks at her, but doesn't respond, obviously. It's a cat. She's not expecting a conversation.
Bellamy comes back with three kind of old cans of tuna, but they aren't past expiration and the cat literally broke in, so it's not like she should have high expectations about Clarke's hospitality.
"You should call some shelters," he observes, while Clarke gets a can open. The cat is very interested in the tuna, and even comes over to butt her head against Clarke's arm while she gets it into a bowl, demanding and affectionate all at once.
That's probably why her voice is sharp when she asks, "Shelters? Why?"
"Because if someone is missing a pet they probably know. I assume the owner would get in touch to see if anyone turned her in."
"Oh, yeah." She puts the bowl on the floor and the cat digs in like she's never seen food in her life. Maybe she hasn't. "I guess you're right."
Bellamy leans against the counter, strong arms pulling the material of his t-shirt tight over his chest when he crosses them. He looks like he came out of an ad for designer pajamas; it's really not fair.
"I'd give her to the shelter, if I were you."
"Maybe I want to keep her."
"Even if you want to keep her." He runs his hand through his hair. "So, I've got a little sister."
"Did you try to give her to a shelter?"
He smirks. "Cute. No, we found this lost dog in the park when she was--I don't know, eight, I think? And she was so excited. I tried to tell her we couldn't keep it--even if it didn't have an owner, we couldn't afford it, and we weren't supposed to have pets in our apartment. But I didn't know what to do with it, so we took it home and fed it and she gave it a name. But I found the owner in like two days, and O didn't talk to me for a week. It's better not to get too attached before you're sure you can keep her."
Clarke bites her cheek on a smile. "How old were you?"
"Thirteen or fourteen."
"That's actually kind of cute."
"Always glad to help." He looks down at the cat. "I don't know. I get that you're an adult, and I think if she's got an owner, they're probably an asshole, she's so thin. But like you said, maybe she's a beloved family pet and she's been missing for a while. Just--think about it. Ask the shelter how long you should wait, maybe. I don't know."
This time, she can't help her smile. "Thanks for your help, Bellamy."
"I'm taking another beer," he says. "In payment for the tuna."
"The tuns is like a year old. You were never going to use it."
"And you buy shitty beer." He raises the beer in a salute. "See you later."
The cat finishes off her meal and licks her chops, content. Clarke finds some water and puts it out too, and then goes back to post the notice on craigslist.
She's playing 2048 when the cat comes in and starts kneading her claws against Clarke's leg, pushing her head under Clarke's hand, until she has no choice but to pet her. She's soft and has big green eyes, and even if Bellamy's right about the whole getting attached thing, there's no way she's going to give the cat to a shelter.
After a week, no one has called, and Clarke names her Minerva.
*
She's never had a pet before, and she assumes that's another reason her friends think she must have thought it over before diving in. But there wasn't any deep, profound reason she didn't get a pet before; it just hadn't occurred to her. It's kind of nice, though, having her around. Minerva is aloof most of the time, not really one of those cats who likes to cuddle, but Clarke's fine with that, kind of prefers it. For the most part, they do their own things--Clarke feeds Minerva and sometimes pets her, and Minerva repays her by being generally cute and talking at Bellamy non-stop whenever he comes by, like she has very specific expectations of him which he can neither understand nor fulfill.
"Your cat's an asshole," he tells her, about a month after he first found the cat in the kitchen. His wifi went out, so he's borrowing hers, because Hearthstone won't play itself, or something. The cat is sticking her head under his hands and yowling at him, as is her wont. To Clarke's delight, Minerva doesn't care about any of her other friends, either ignoring them or shyly sniffing them and then running away. Her indignity is reserved for Bellamy alone.
"You're an asshole," Clarke counters, reflexive. "She just wants you to pet her."
"No, she doesn't," he says, and makes his point by petting the cat, at which point she hisses and runs away. "Like I said, the cat's an asshole."
"You love the cat."
"Keep telling yourself," he says, but when Minerva comes back and settles by his leg, purring, he absently pets her, and Clarke has to grin.
The cat has more quirks, of course. Clarke tried, really tried, to keep her inside, because she knows it's safer for the cat and better for the local wildlife, if she's an indoor cat. But Minerva is smart and very, very determined, and in the end it's basically impossible to keep her from scurrying out when Clarke leaves for work or checks the mail or lets anyone else in, and in the end she has to give up and accept that she has an outdoor cat who is, as Bellamy has said, kind of an asshole. But she doesn't bring dead things into Clarke's bed and she's good about coming when she's called, so it could be worse.
And, as it turns out, it is worse. But, again, for Bellamy.
"Your cat left a dead mouse in my bathtub," he tells her.
Clarke's immediate reaction is to demand why he thinks it's her cat, but it's obviously a stupid question, because who else is going to leave a dead mouse in Bellamy's bathtub? And he does have Minerva tucked under his arm, presumably because she was in his place.
"How did she get in?"
He actually flushes. "She, uh--sometimes when you're at work, she scratches at my door, so I let her in. But I didn't today, so fucked if I know. Window, I guess?"
Clarke has to smile. "You let her in?" He's a teacher, and currently on summer vacation, which means he's at home at lot more than she is for the moment.
"She just howls if I don't."
"I guess she likes you better than me," she says. "She never leaves dead mice in my bathtub. You're the chosen one."
"Apparently it means she thinks I can't hunt for myself." He hands her the cat. "I just want the record to show she's a dick."
"Your opinion has been noted," she says. "Thanks for bringing her back. Check your screens."
"Is your cat hitting on your hot neighbor for you?" Raven asks when Clarke goes back into the living room; Clarke had sort of forgotten she was on the couch. Interacting with Bellamy might short-circuit her brain a little. "That's awesome. She has more game than you do."
"Is leaving him a dead mouse hitting on him?" Clarke asks. "I've never tried that before." And then, because it's adorable, she adds, "He lets the cat into his place when I'm at work."
Raven rolls her eyes. "Jesus. Just leave a dead mouse on his pillow yourself and put us all out of your misery."
"No wonder we're both single."
"Yeah, with how hot we are, we have to have some major personality flaws and relationship issues," Raven says, and turns the TV back on. "Come on, I was kicking your ass."
*
In July, Bellamy goes to visit his little sister and his new baby niece for two weeks, and Clarke decides to clean her apartment out of lack of anything else to do. It's probably bad that her reaction to her neighbor leaving for vacation is sulk-cleaning, but it's not like her apartment doesn't need a major overhaul.
Plus, Bellamy is sending her all these pictures of the baby and, even worse, of him holding the baby, which, honestly, Clarke's not even sure she wants kids and it's still way too much to deal with.
So she figures she can clean and move a bunch of furniture around and generally improve her apartment. She just sort of put stuff down wherever it fell when she moved in; this is a good time to rearrange everything.
Raven might be right. She really should just ask Bellamy out. This is sad.
Minerva is deeply upset by the entire thing, and deals with Clarke's renovations and vacuuming by hiding under the couch and periodically howling to register that this is even worse than regular cleaning. It seems odd, to Clarke, since her standard response to vacuuming is going outside, but then she has to move the couch and finds the cat was defending some a hoard, like some kind of bizarre dragon.
A dragon that's into underwear.
It's really a lot of underwear, like--so much more than is normal. Not that she has a specific expectation for how much underwear a cat would be expected to steal, but--okay, one or two pairs would be one thing. This is like thirty.
"What the fuck, cat," Clarke says, and Minerva flees out the cat door.
Since Bellamy isn't around, she calls Raven and Monty, because it's really a lot to deal with on her own. And they seem to be mostly guys' underwear, so--Monty can help. Maybe. He can't hurt.
"Seriously, what do I do with this?" she asks, once they've arrived. And they've all done a shot. Just because--it's the kind of situation where you should do a shot. "Do I try to return them?"
"How?" asks Raven. "Door-to-door?"
"Hello, are you missing any underwear?" Monty asks. He holds up a pair of boxers that says here comes the main event on the crotch. "Someone definitely misses these."
"Maybe we just sort them and--take a picture?"
"Or just put them in a box on the porch with a sign that says free man panties," Raven suggests. She pokes a pair of black boxer-briefs. "Which ones do you think are your hot neighbor's?"
Clarke feels all the blood drain out of her face, because of course Raven's right. Some of these are probably Bellamy's, and she has no idea which. "Oh fuck," she says, and pulls out her phone to text, Weird question, are you missing any underwear?
"Smooth," Monty says, looking over her shoulder. "Definitely what I'd say to the guy I want to fuck."
"Yeah, I really don't believe you'd do better with this situation," she says. "Start sorting?"
"This is the least exciting way to interact with underwear," Monty grumbles. "Ever."
"On the bright side, I am giving you free booze. So just--by color, I guess?"
"Underwear rainbow," Raven says. "I'll drink to that."
It takes about fifteen minutes for Bellamy to text back, and Clarke is nervous about it in the background, thinking he'll--she doesn't know. She has to talk herself out of sending a follow-up text to clarify, because if she can avoid explaining this situation to him, she'll be happy.
Is this a pickup line? he asks. Like, do I say no, and then you say, do you want to be? And the implication is that my underwear are on your floor? There's another pause, and then he adds, Tell me if that's what's happening, because the actual answer is yes but I don't want to ruin your bit.
Clarke snaps a picture of the half-sorted pile and sends it to him with, Any of these look familiar?
She watches the ellipsis indicating that he's typing for a minute, and then it disappears and her phone starts to buzz with an actual phone call.
"Hot neighbor," she tells Monty and Raven, and goes out onto the front porch to take the call.
"Jesus, I can't leave you alone for two weeks," he says, sounding amused. "I didn't know that was a kink. You're always an education."
"Are the ones with the chili peppers yours? I really want them to be yours."
"Is that what you're into? I can buy some."
Clarke bites back on her smile; he should just come back already. She misses him. "Seriously, what did you think was happening?"
"Losing them in the wash, I don't know. You can't actually be saying I should have guessed your cat was breaking into my room and stealing my underwear. No one should think that."
She laughs. "Yeah, okay. I don't blame you for not coming up with this one. They aren't all yours, right?"
"Does anyone own that much underwear?"
"Don't judge."
"Not gonna happen, I love judging." There's a noise on his end, and she hears him say, "Shut up, O!" and then there's a pause. "Sorry, my sister is also a dick."
"Do you know anyone who isn't?"
"Not if I can help it. And I basically raised her, so this one is my fault. What are you going to do with all the underwear? Quilt?"
"I'm thinking craigslist."
"That's your solution to everything. Are you trying to sell it or what?"
"Just see if anyone wants to claim any of it."
There's another pause. "Okay, yeah, wait until I'm back to do that."
"Why?"
"You're going to get some weirdos."
"I am not."
"You really are. You're posting on the internet asking if anyone wants free underwear. Don't do it without me."
Clarke bites her lip, grinning stupidly. "You're cute when you're protective."
"I'm cute all the time." He pauses. "I'll be back the day after tomorrow."
"You just want first dibs on all the underwear."
"Some of it looks pretty good, yeah. I'd better go in before my sister gets any more bright ideas."
"What was her first bright idea?"
"See you in a couple days, Clarke," he says, pointed, and hangs up.
When he sends her underwear picture back with all the most garish and ugly pairs circled and the caption, These are mine, she can't stop grinning.
*
She doesn't know when Bellamy's getting back, except sometime on Monday, and she's too embarrassed to just text him and ask, so she's just sort of hoping he'll stop by. But when she gets home from work, there's no trace of Minerva in the house, and she doesn't come when Clarke calls, so she gives his door a smart rap and can't help a big, stupid smile when he opens the door, all messy hair and crooked glasses. It's only been two weeks, but she really did miss him.
"Did you steal my cat?" she asks.
"Nice to see you too. I had a good flight. My sister's good, my niece is healthy, thanks for asking. You're really polite." He grins. "And yes, I have your cat. I didn't steal her, she broke in."
"Your security sucks."
"I just leave the window by my desk open when I'm home," he says. "Besides, I want to catch her stealing my clothes. I'm still not convinced it's not you covering your tracks."
"If I stole your underwear, why would I tell you instead of just keeping it?"
"Maybe that's part of the thrill. I don't know your kinks."
It's tempting to ask if he wants to know her kinks, but instead she says, "Do you want to come check out all my weird underwear or not?"
"Your weird underwear or the cat's weird underwear?" he asks, and then pauses to consider mind. "Never mind, same answer either way. Let me get the stupid cat first."
He brings Minerva back, and she immediately goes over to curl up on the pile of underwear, like it's her bed or something. Bellamy stares in mute horror for a second, and then gives up and starts laughing, dropping his head onto Clarke's shoulder. She's never heard him laugh so much, or had him so close, and she lets herself pat his hair, which is just as thick and soft as she always thought it would be.
"You have the fucking weirdest cat, I swear to god," he says, when he finally recovers
"I think she counts as your cat too, at this point," Clarke points out. "She's at your place half the time. She's stealing your underwear."
"I don't know, owning a pet together is a big step." There's a deliberate pause, and then he moves a little closer, sliding his arms around her waist. Clarke can feel her heart pick up, her stomach swoop, all the stupid, sweaty excitement of things happening. She thought this would be different, once she got older, but this is always how it was with Finn and with Lexa and with Niylah. This is how it is every time. The boy she likes is making a move, and her whole body is lighting up. "You should let me buy you dinner first."
She leans back into him, feels him relax as she does it. "That was pretty smooth. I'm impressed."
"You were ignoring all my unsubtle lines about showing each other our underwear. I had to take drastic action."
"Apparently I've already seen yours, so there's not a lot of mystery left."
"It looks better on me," he says.
"I bet you don't look better with it than without it," she points out, and he presses his lips under her jaw, soft and sweet.
"Only one way to find out."
*
They get a pizza and sort through the underwear again, because Bellamy has opinions on the likelihood of anyone actually recognizing generic underwear and he thinks it's not actually worth posting any kind of please come take these message.
"I think we should just let her keep them," he says. "Look how comfortable she is. And everyone has already written off the underwear. I know I did. I honestly don't even want mine back. They make her so happy. And she probably barfed on them."
Clarke leans in to give him a kiss; she hasn't had anyone to kiss for a while, and she's not going to be able to stop any time soon. "I knew you were a softie."
"Shut up," he says, and pushes her back onto the couch. "I just want her to stop hissing at me."
He's a little less forgiving the next morning, in part because Clarke's alarm goes off way before he's used to getting up in summer and in part because the boxers he was wearing last night have also disappeared.
"You know where they are," Clarke points out. "And you can go back to sleep. I'm the one with a job."
"I'm just realizing our cat has probably been sleeping in a pile of dirty underwear," he says, making a face. "So I'm doing laundry while you're gone and then scrubbing my entire body until I have all new skin cells."
"Hot," she says, and leans down to kiss him. "You're not worried you're going to run out of underwear in a week, dating me?"
He grins, settling back in her bed. He looks very natural there. "Nope. Totally worth it."