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Clarke Griffin has--okay, Clarke Griffin has a few claims to fame, but she only actually likes one of them. Telling people that her mother is in congress and her father designed that app that every single person she has ever met uses to organize their day, those are--awkward. It's not her fame, and it's not fame she likes. Those she keeps quiet.
Her favorite claim to fame is this: for four years when she was in middle and high school, she was best friends with Bellamy Blake.
Well, technically, the first year they were less best friends and more constantly bickering, but they got to be best friends, once the bickering cleared up. Or at least got friendly. She'd honestly figured they'd be best friends forever, because she was a kid and naive, but his mother had died and he'd had to move across the country to live with his grandmother, and they hadn't done that well keeping up with each other. It died off after a year, and she wasn't sure how to revive it, no matter how much she missed him.
He was nineteen when he got cast as James Potter in the Marauders TV show, and Clarke sort of wondered for a while if there was any way she could get in contact with him without coming across like she was just trying to capitalize on his fame. If that would actually be a good icebreaker.
The bigger he got, the more Clarke simultaneously wanted to reach out and was sure it would be a bad idea. He's a star now, and Clarke's proud as anything, but it's also hard, and she knows it's hard. Even her level of fame is weird; his is unimaginable. In the weeks leading up to his twenty-first birthday, there were bets about what his soulmate mark would look like, and it was honestly surreal to Clarke. Because after all of it, he was still Bellamy, this kid she used to fight with about whether Sailor Moon and Buffy the Vampire Slayer would get along or be threatened by each other.
He probably could have used a friend, but she wasn't sure how to make him believe that was why she'd be calling him. She knows what it's like, when people know your name. Everyone seems to have an ulterior motive, and she wouldn't be able to deal, if that was what he thought of her.
So when she starts college, she doesn't let him know where she's going. When she gets her own soulmark, she doesn't share it with him.
When she moves to LA for grad school, she doesn't try to call, and she pretends she doesn't see him in ads, doesn't sometimes fantasize about running into him, catching up, making friends again. Anyone would fantasize about that.
But it would still be weird, trying to seek him out, so it's just her party trick, with people she trusts. I knew him when. They weren't talking before he became famous, and it would be suspicious to start after. She can amuse people with the time they got arrested for trying to break into her house when she locked herself out and the time she tried to cook him breakfast for his birthday and caught it on fire. She can tell stories about how he was a giant dork who loved history and his sister, and both of those are obvious from every interview he's ever given, so probably people don't even believe her.
But that's okay. She knows it's all true. And she likes talking about him.
And then, suddenly, she's at her favorite coffee shop and someone is saying, "Uh, I'm really sorry, but can I sit here?" and when she looks up, it's him. Bellamy.
She stares for a second, not believing her eyes. He's doing some tricks to try to look like a civilian, sunglasses and a baseball cap, but he's so obvious. At least to her. Maybe someone else would be fooled.
"Bellamy?" she asks, and immediately feels like an asshole. He probably thinks he's been made or something. "Shit, don't leave, sit down. It's--Clarke Griffin. Not just some random fan. We went to high school together? For a while?"
He doesn't sit so much as he collapses, staring at her in open shock. "Clarke?"
"Hi."
"Wow. Uh--hi. What are you doing here?"
She holds up her book. "Studying. Grad school."
"Holy shit," he says. His face breaks out into a huge smile and--wow. Clarke knew he was hot; he's always been hot. But she hasn't witnessed it in person in a while, and he's definitely grown up well.
At twenty-four, Bellamy Blake is taller and broader than he was at sixteen. His hair is longer, and he lets it go curly instead of trying to fight it. To disguise his soulmark, he started getting tattoos at age twenty, and Clarke would be lying if she said it wasn't a thing for her. She hadn't thought she was particularly into tattoos, but she was absolutely wrong.
Or maybe she's just really into Bellamy.
"I think that's my line," she says, giving him a smile.
He laughs, with apparently genuine delight. "Seriously, holy shit. How long have you been in LA?"
"About a year."
"And you never called?"
"I didn't have your number." She ducks her head. "Besides, you're a big star. And we haven't talked in eight years."
"I'm not a big star."
"You are."
"Not too big for you," he says, and she finds she actually believes him.
"Well, you could have called me too."
"True. I wish I had." He gives her another brilliant movie-star smile, all bright, white teeth. "So, what are you in grad school for?"
They stay there for almost two hours; Clarke gets basically no work done, but she finds out that Bellamy is still taking care of his baby sister, who's in college now, is still a giant dork, and wants to see her more. She has Bellamy Blake's number. He even hugs her on their way out, all warm and firm and perfect, and it's very hard to let go.
She'd feel bad, except it's not like she didn't have a crush on him when they were in high school. This isn't some brand new thing that happened because he's famous.
Okay, she still feels a little bad. But--anyone would have a thing for him. It's not just that he's famous.
It feels like it should be hard, to just become friends with him again, after so long. Not just because he's famous, but because it's been so many years. It's hard to believe it can just be so simple.
But she's taking the bus home and there's a guy chugging actual listerine to get drunk, and Clarke is texting Bellamy without even thinking about it. He replies almost instantly, and that's it. Friendship rekindled. Just add water.
Or listerine.
Two days later, he asks if she's planning to study at the coffee shop again any time soon, and, okay, honestly, she had no such plans--she usually just studies at home--but obviously if he's looking for someone to hang out with, she can go in. And then it becomes this regular thing, although after only two meetings, he sheepishly asks if she could maybe study at his place instead.
"I don't like to get into regular things," he admits. "Like--going to the same place at the same time. It's kind of obvious."
"Especially with someone."
"I wasn't gonna say it," he says. "But yeah. It's kind of awkward, being me."
"Sucks to be you," she says. "Do you have a really huge celebrity house? Do you have a butler?"
"Didn't you grow up rich? How is this exciting for you?"
"I grew up politician rich. That's different from celebrity rich. It's a lot less exciting."
"Really?"
"You're famous."
He ducks his head, clearly embarrassed. "It's not a big deal," he says. "It's just a job."
"Don't sell yourself short," she says. "You're a great actor, Bellamy. And a famous one."
His smile is a little shy, and her heart twists up. "I don't even have a house. It's a condo."
"But a big one, right?"
"Come see."
It's not a huge place, but it's nice, lots of sunlight and a small yard in the back. He's got a couple cats who run when they come in, but slowly get used to her, and by her third or fourth visit, Apollo likes her and Artemis is willing to sit on Bellamy and glare while she's around, which is major progress.
She's pretty sure she and Bellamy are friends again too, really friends, so when she finishes her final exams and can finally breathe, he's the first person she calls. His show's on hiatus already, so they both have about a month of free time, and he's indicated, without coming out and saying it, that he'd like to spend a lot of that month with her.
He has other friends, she's sure. But she's also pretty sure he likes her best. Which works out really well, because she likes him best too.
"I brought booze!" she yells, pushing the door open. He gave her a spare key after a month, and every time she sees it on her key ring, it makes her feel kind of embarrassingly warm and fuzzy.
"I already had booze!" he calls back.
"You can never have too much booze."
He's tugging on his shirt as he comes out, apparently fresh from the shower. Clarke watches his tattoos disappear under the hem of his shirt and tries not to think about licking them.
"I am going to want to be really fucking wasted for the zombie apocalypse." He gives her a smile. "Done with finals?"
"Done with finals."
"Congratulations. How do you want to celebrate?"
It's not actually a loaded question; it just feels like one. Or maybe she's just still thinking about his abs. She's kind of always thinking about his abs.
"Did you miss all the booze?"
"I assumed there was an activity to go along with the booze. But I guess it's fine if there's not. If you just want to binge-drink, I'll support you. But I'll probably stay sober so no one gets tabloid pictures of an unknown blonde woman vomiting on my lawn."
"They'd figure out who I was," she says.
"Even more reason to stay sober and safe."
"We can do something. But drinks first, then activities."
"Priorities," he agrees, and they end up on the couch watching a documentary on Netflix and trying to come up with rules fro a drinking game. Which is, admittedly, mostly Clarke making fun of the documentary itself through the rules, and Bellamy telling her she's uncultured.
She's slightly buzzed when his shirt rides up to show the curl of lightning around his hip, and she can't help the brush of her fingers against it. It's--people care about celebrity soulmarks on a level that's genuinely creepy, and Clarke doesn't want to be that person. But friends talk about this stuff. That's what friends do. She knows the vague details of most of her friends' soulmarks. It's how friendship works.
Bellamy's breath catches, and she remembers she's also just touching his stomach. Which is more than a little weird.
"Sorry," she says, pulling her hand back with a small smile. "I just--the whole extra tattoos thing is new for me. How does that work?"
"You go to a tattoo parlor and ask them to give you a tattoo," he says, but his voice doesn't quite hit the right teasing note. "It's pretty simple."
"I meant--hiding your real mark. How does that work?"
"Not very well," he admits. "It's better for me than some people. But there's still a bounty for clear pictures of all my ink."
"You need to give me more information," she says. "You can't just leave it at not very well. I get the pictures thing, I've seen online speculation about which one is the real one, but--"
"I was still so stressed the night before my birthday. If it showed up somewhere that wasn't covered, I was going to have to get like three more just so people wouldn't figure out which one was the real new one. And--you have one, right? A soulmark."
"Yeah."
He nods. "Even when you get good ink done, they try not to really make it too convincing. So if someone really looks hard--they can usually guess. Half the speculation about which one is the real one? O wrote it. To throw people off when makeup artists or whatever talk about which one they think is real. Not that those always get it right either, so--"
"What about, um--" She worries her lip. "Do you date? How are you ever going to figure out who's your actual soulmate?"
"Ideally, it's someone who's in Hollywood," he says. Her surprise must show, because he laughs and nudges her shoulder. "Not because I'm into celebrities. But I usually just sleep with people who are hiding their soulmarks too. It's safer."
She smiles, even though it's not really a positive. "Mutually assured destruction."
"Basically, yeah." He glances at her. "What's yours?"
She wets her lips, and lets herself admit, "It looks kind of like one of yours."
"Which one?"
"The pictures were too blurry, I'm not even--" She wets her lips. "It's not fair if I tell you. You're the one with a billion of them, you could just say--"
She doesn't realize how close they're sitting until he pulls back and tugs his shirt off, and suddenly Clarke has a front-row seat for Bellamy Blake's tattoos. He has ten in total, all over his chest, his arms, and her fingers are tracing over the one she knows, the familiar one, before she's even fully processed it.
She gets what he means about the tattoos. It's not that the others are less intricate, but her own mark has all these details, the way the jewels catch in the light, the small things that artists wouldn't just think of on their own.
It's definitely true; someone could probably figure out his real mark was the crown, if they saw it from the right angle. But Clarke doesn't need to, because she recognizes it already.
"Yeah," he says, on a breath. She doesn't even have to say it. "I was hoping, when I got it."
He called her Princess back in high school, first because he thought she was spoiled, and then affectionately, as a nickname. She'd noticed he didn't, when he saw her again, and she thought it was just that they were older. Something they'd outgrown.
But maybe he just didn't want to get his hopes up.
He was the first person she thought of, when she saw it. It was so hard, not to call him and ask. He's a year older than she is. He would have already known.
"I saw an article calling you the king of Hollywood," she says, not looking away from his mark. "So I guess it works both ways."
"Clarke," he says, and she pulls her own shirt off so he can see hers, in the hollow between her breasts.
"It was really awkward when I hooked up too," she tells him. "No one likes seeing a soulmark when they're trying to grope you."
"Not no one," he says. "I'm pretty sure I'm going to fucking love it." And he tugs her up for a kiss before she can respond.
"I probably should have called," she admits after, tracing her fingers over the black lines all over his chest. She really likes tattoos, as it turns out. Not just the one that matches hers.
She might just like him.
"Let's not do this again. I could have called too," he says, nuzzling her hair. "I just didn't know what to say."
"I'm rich and famous and painfully hot and I think you might be my soulmate," she supplies. "Seriously, you had the easiest pickup line ever."
"So it's my fault." His voice is full of warmth. "Thanks, Princess."
Her fingers find the crown, and she smiles. "You're welcome."
They go back to the coffee shop the next week, and he keeps his arm around her the whole time.
"Baiting the paparazzi?" she asks.
"Soulmark's got to be less exciting when I have my soulmate, right? Mystery solved." He gives her shoulders a squeeze. "Besides, celebrities are people too. Maybe I just want to brag about my girlfriend."
"On a global scale."
"Sorry, are you not excited on a global scale?"
Her hand slides up his side, to the spot where his real mark is. "Universal scale," she says. "Brag away."