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Bellamy is not really that into the whole hipster coffee shop thing.
He’d be fine with staying home to make his own coffee, except there are too many distractions in his apartment for him to do the things he needs to do-- clutter that demands to be tidied, a TV that demands to be watched, a cat that demands to be given attention. And it’s the cat that’s hardest to say no to, because most of the time she prefers to pretend she wants nothing to do with him.
And he’d be fine with Starbucks, or Costa, or any other big-name chain, except they’re so expensive. The Drip Shop may be far too hipster for his tastes, but it’s right around the corner from his place and he can afford to go there as much as he needs to get his grading done without breaking the bank.
So he can put up with the minimalist decor and the baristas with wooden bowties and edgy haircuts. He can live with that, can be amused instead of annoyed by it, like Ron Swanson at Grain ‘n Simple-- enjoying the flannel-clad patrons in their natural habitat.
There is one thing, however, he enjoys unironically: the art.
The stuff on the walls rotates to showcase local talent, which is cool, he guesses. But the chalkboards are done by one of the baristas (his favorite, according to Octavia, though he pretends that isn’t true), and they’re always awesome-- clever puns, cool designs that make him wonder how he’s even the same species when he can barely draw a stick figure.
They were actually what drew him in to check the place out that first time. She’d drawn on one of those sidewalk signs a map of their neighborhood, with a banner that said ‘coffee’ over The Drip Shop. The awesome part was that she’d filled the rest of the map with legitimately cool drawings of different dragons, another banner reading, ‘here be dragons (best not to take your chances)’.
He’d laughed and headed inside, and once he saw the prices, there was no going back.
Now, he’s known there, which is kind of cool.
He’ll get a nod from Miller, the surly one who wears a beanie no matter how warm it is out, or talk Game of Thrones with Luna, the one (he’s pretty sure) who keeps adding new vegan items to the menu, or watch Murphy very carefully to make sure he doesn’t make Bellamy’s coffee Irish like he did that one time.
But it’s always the best when he walks in to see Clarke behind the counter.
Octavia isn’t wrong; she is his favorite.
(And even though she can be just as grumpy as Miller, she always smiles when she sees him, so he thinks he might be her favorite too.)
She’s done the sign above the espresso machine to read ‘this machine kills fascists’ in a pretty good emulation of Woodie Guthrie’s guitar, and her t-shirt proudly displays a cartoon of the Mount Rushmore busts wearing aviators (because why not).
He doesn’t think of himself having much of a type, but Clarke is completely unlike any of the girls and guys he’s ever had a thing for in the past. It’s not just the hoop in her nose, or the way her hair is undercut on one side, but her personality, too. She’s got opinions on everything and isn’t afraid of a good-natured argument, even if it’s about his never-changing coffee order.
“Are you going to be less boring today?” She asks, eyes gleaming behind her clunky frames.
“Why mess with perfection?”
“Aw, you think our coffee is perfection,” she coos, uncapping the Sharpie she keeps hooked on her apron strap and starting to decorate his cup.
That’s another thing he unironically enjoys: when she’s the one behind the counter, he can always count on her to liven up the plain white to-go cups with something funny or interesting or cute doodled on the side.
(One time she drew an intricate depiction of various scenes from the Odyssey, and he might have it saved for posterity on his bookshelf at home.)
Today, it’s the backs of the characters from Rogue One, standing with their arms around each other and watching out the window of a spaceship as the Death Star gets blown up, ‘fixed it’ scrawled in Clarke’s hand at the bottom.
“Nice,” he says, shooting her a grin. “I can rest easy now.”
“We’re a full-service coffee shop,” she replies with a smile before another customer requires her attention.
He sets up shop for the afternoon and is halfway through his stack of grading when Clarke drops into the seat across from him, her ankles brushing his under the table. She’ll often hang out with him on her break, propping her feet up on one of the other chairs and sipping at a drink that she deems more interesting than his.
“Try this.” She shoves it under his nose, distracting him from his attempts to read a student's handwriting, and he blinks at it.
“What is it?”
“Chai latte. Or if you’re Starbucks, a Chai Tea Latte, which is so redundant I’m sure you’d be infuriated.”
“You’re not wrong. I kind of wish you hadn’t told me,” he admits, taking a tentative sniff. “It smells like it has sugar in it.”
“It does have sugar in it. That’s part of what makes it taste so good.”
He sips at it tentatively. It does taste good on a blustery winter morning like this one, but he can’t just say that. Not when she’s better at being smug than basically everyone else in the world.
“Well?” She prompts.
“It’s fine,” he shrugs, and she grins because she knows him well enough to read between the lines.
“Fine,” she scoffs, taking it back from him and downing a large gulp. “If you ask me, it’s perfection. I’m totally making this for you next time.”
“You seem weirdly invested in my coffee habits.”
“Maybe I’m just trying to be a good salesperson. The more complex your drink is, the more we get to charge you.”
“Well I’m only paying for a plain coffee, so I’m pretty sure your employer won’t like it very much if you upgrade me for free.”
“I’ll use my employee discount,” she shrugs, pulling out a blank cup to doodle on like that’s no big deal. Which obviously means she thinks it is a big deal and doesn’t want him to mention it. “Get you hooked, and then start charging you.”
“That something you learned from dealing? I guess caffeine is a drug too, so I can see where those lines of work would have some crossover.”
“Hey, I don’t judge your life choices.”
He bumps her foot with his. “Yeah, you do. All the time. Every single day.”
“Shit, you’re right,” she says, biting her lip on a smile. “Never mind, judge away.”
“I will, thanks.”
When her fifteen is over, she caps the pen and heaves a sigh. “Time to get back to the grind. Or the grounds, as it were.”
Bellamy gives her a thumbs-down even as he laughs. “You’re not even going to let me see what you were drawing?”
She turns the cup around and his jaw drops at the perfect depiction of Luna, her wild hair taking up three quarters of the available space and an enigmatic smile on her face.
“It looks just like her,” he marvels, and Clarke blushes.
“I’m doing portraits of all the baristas. Put them up on a shelf behind the bar or something. You know, so everyone else will wish they were in our super special club.”
“Yeah,” he snorts. “I’m so jealous.”
“I’m sure it keeps you up at night,” she smirks, and he shakes his head.
“Get back to work, slacker.”
“I want the record to reflect that I’m going because I want to, not because you told me to.”
“Duly noted.”
“Good.” She looks like she wants to say something else, but instead she gives him a little smile and turns back to the counter.
The next time he goes in, Miller is the one working, and Bellamy’s heart doesn’t exactly plummet, not like an elevator dropping all the way to the ground, but maybe like it slipped one floor. Just a little lurch of disappointment.
Which is stupid, because he likes Miller. He just… was caught unprepared.
Unlike Clarke, Miller hands over his order without comment.
“What, no artwork on my cup?” Bellamy teases. “What kind of establishment is this?”
Miller rolls his eyes and takes the cup back, grabbing a pen and scribbling something quickly. When Bellamy sees it, he has to laugh. It’s a crude drawing, not nearly as good as Clarke’s would be, but it’s very clearly a hand giving him the middle finger, and he stuffs an extra dollar in the tip jar.
“For your trouble,” he says, and Miller rolls his eyes, fighting a smile.
“Go drink your damn coffee.”
“Sir, yes sir.”
Without Clarke to be glancing at every ten minutes, he’s able to get absorbed in his work like he isn’t normally. His tunnel vision is so bad he actually jumps when she slides into the seat across from him.
“Sorry.” She grins wide, not sorry at all, and he tries not to think about how her plum-colored lipstick accentuates the perfect, extremely kissable shape of her lips. “Mind if I join you?”
“Of course not.” He pulls his things to one side, trying to tamp down his excitement when she pulls a sketchbook out of her bag. “Not working today?”
“Not until later.” She pauses. “I needed some human interaction and I thought I might find you here, so--”
“You came to hang out with me?” He asks, delighted. She scowls.
“I didn’t immediately cross out that possibility.”
“You like me,” he says, sure of it. “I’m your favorite. It’s alright, you can admit it.”
“Shut up,” she grumbles, and he does, if only because he doesn’t want to drive her away. This is the same trick his cat pulls all the time-- she’ll come close if he leaves her alone, but the minute he offers affection she runs.
If the cat runs, it’s not a big deal. He feeds her; he knows she’ll be back. He doesn’t want Clarke to run. He wants to encourage her to hang out with him as much as possible, and if that means he has to play it cool, he can do that.
So he goes back to grading while she draws, and for two people who only ever hang out in the coffee shop, it’s amazing how comfortable he is with her. Usually, there’s pressure to fill silence, or an expectation for him to be interesting and witty and on in a way that gets tiring.
With Clarke, it’s just a peaceful coexistence. It feels like she’s enjoying sitting next to him and doing her thing while he does his, with no expectations other than his presence. It’s been ages since he’s been so relaxed around someone.
“What do you think?” She says after a while, flipping her page around to show him what she’s been working on.
She’s drawn her surroundings, Bellamy bent over his work in the foreground and the recognizable decor of The Drip Shop in the background.
It’s amazing, of course. She’s got a distinctive style-- one, at this point, he thinks he could identify on sight-- that falls somewhere between realism and anime, all bold lines and shading, and very little color. Unlike her coffee cup art, this isn’t a hastily drawn doodle, but something she obviously put a lot of time and effort into.
But more than that, he can’t drag his eyes away from the depiction of himself. The line of his hand holding his pen, the sweep of his curls, even the freckles that dot his skin. She’s managed to capture the feel of the day, somehow portraying him simultaneously focused and at ease. He had no idea she was looking so closely.
“Wow,” he says, when he finds his voice. “That’s incredible, Clarke.”
“Yeah?” She asks, pleased.
“Yeah.” He shakes his head, still in disbelief. “You’re really talented. I could never draw like that.”
“Sure you can.” To his surprise, she gets up and comes around to his side of the table, settling in beside him and leaning even closer. “I’ll teach you.”
He takes her pen warily, but if he says no, she might move back to the other side of the table. This is a rare gift he’s being given now, so instead he warns, “I’m going to be bad at this.”
She grins and it’s a lot to handle when her face is so close to his. “That just makes it more fun.”
And it is kind of fun, letting her give him pointers and place her hand atop his to guide it. After twenty minutes, he’s drawn what he thinks is recognizably a coffee cup, even adds lines coming out the top like steam.
“Whoa,” she teases, bumping her shoulder against his companionably. She’s been smiling the whole time, soft and gentle, and she smells like something floral that he’s pretty sure he’ll forever associate with her. “Bold move, Blake.”
“Go big or go home,” he deadpans, but he thinks it’s obvious how proud of himself he is. “You’re a pretty good teacher, you know.”
She ducks her head. “Thanks. I’m sure you are too, even if you spend all your time off gossiping with your barista about your students.”
“Not all my time,” he points out. “Sometimes we gossip about your customers.”
“True. Speaking of--” She pulls her phone out to check the time and frowns at whatever she finds. “I have to clock in in about thirty minutes.”
“Bummer.”
“I know. But plenty of time to finish my Murphy cup.”
“I don’t think you thought this through,” he says, eyeing the likeness. Which he has a good view of, because she didn’t move back around to the other side of the table. He’s basically winning at life right now.
“What do you mean?”
“Now whenever I come in here I’m going to have Murphy staring me down whether he’s on shift or not.”
“If it somehow got turned around to face the wall, I’m sure no one would say anything about it,” she says with a small, absent smile, most of her focus on her work.
“I thought you weren’t supposed to let customers behind the counter.”
“Well, you’re very charming. I could have been charmed.”
He pauses, thrown off guard.
“Sure,” he says finally. “I guess anything is possible.”
He doesn’t get a whole lot done for the rest of the day.
After that afternoon, he’s out of town visiting O for the weekend, and then he’s got parent-teacher conferences all week after work, so he doesn’t get a whole lot of time to go to The Drip Shop. By the time he does return, Clarke has finished the portrait cups.
There’s Luna next to Murphy; Miller’s face on her other side, smirking out at the world with perfectly stippled stubble; Clarke’s own face, sans glasses; and at the very end, next to hers, he’s shocked to see his own face.
Her memory is incredible. She’s gotten everything just right, from the scar on his lip he got fighting a much bigger kid in middle school, to the dimple in his chin, to the Blake jaw he’s seen on his sister a million times, and in the mirror a million more. Even his expression-- a sardonic smile with a playful lilt-- feels exactly right.
“Do you like it?”
His eyes snap to her, her nervousness written plainly on her face.
“I guess I’m more of a regular than I thought,” he says, his eyes drifting back to his portrait. It’s remarkable.
“I know I should’ve asked before I put your face up there for everyone to see,” she says, and he can tell without looking that she’s worrying her lip. “I didn’t mean to make things weird. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry.” An awed smile blossoms on his face as he grasps the fact that she thinks of him as part of the crew. He’s in the super special club. Even if she doesn’t want to date him, this is probably the next best thing. “It’s awesome.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” He turns his smile on her, letting it shine at maximum wattage. His sister used to tell him to use that one carefully, back when he was young and wasn’t always careful with other people’s feelings, and he feels a thrill when Clarke looks a little dazed. “I knew I was your favorite customer.”
Her lips twist together in a tiny smile of her own. “You might just be one of my favorite people. Globally. Top ten, at least.”
“Yeah?” He nearly laughs in disbelief.
“Yeah. I mean, my best friends are pretty cool. And John Boyega. But you’re definitely up there.” She takes a deep breath, seemingly encouraged by the downright ridiculous look on his face. “So we should probably go out sometime. If you think that would be-- something you’re into.”
“Tonight?” He blurts, and her cheeks grow pink.
“I’m working a double,” she says regretfully. “I don’t know if I’ll be up for much tonight.”
“I’ll cook you dinner,” he offers. “You can judge how boring my taste in movies is and I’ve got some pretty-- well, cheap wine, honestly, but I’ve also got a cat and I think you might get along.”
“Based on what?” She asks, smiling a crooked, fond smile.
“Just a feeling. What do you say?”
“That sounds great.” She grabs a cup and writes out her number on it. “Text me your address. I’ll get started on that chai latte.”
He laughs and shakes his head. “You really never give up, do you?”
“Nope,” she agrees, more cheerful than he’s ever heard her. “Not a chance.”
She’s not lying about being dead on her feet; by the time she shows up at his place, she looks about ready to collapse. But instead of going for the couch, like he offers, she settles in at one of the kitchen chairs to watch him cook, laughing softly at his jokes and perking up as the apartment starts to fill with the aroma of good cooking.
“Oh, shit,” she says suddenly, interrupting her own sentence.
When he turns around to make sure everything is okay, he has to bite back a smile. The cat has jumped up onto the table by Clarke’s elbow to investigate the newcomer (though still keeping a safe distance between them), and though she’s probably been there for a while, Clarke seems to have noticed only now.
“That’s Checkers,” he says, tamping down his urge to laugh at the trepidation on both their faces. “She’s nice, I promise.”
“It’s fine, I like cats. I just forgot you had one,” Clarke says, holding out her hand for the animal to sniff. Unfortunately, that’s the wrong move, and Checkers leaps off the table primly, going over to rub at Bellamy’s legs and meow with disdain.
Clarke follows to reach past Bellamy and snag a carrot, and the cat retreats even further.
“I know,” he tells Checkers before turning to explain to Clarke, “She likes to be the initiator. I promise if you wait her out, she’ll come to you.”
Clarke makes eye contact with Checkers, who flicks her tail and disappears into regions unknown, and then leans into Bellamy’s side, raising an eyebrow at him.
“You sure about that?”
He shrugs the shoulder she isn’t leaning against. “No, but it’s worked for me so far.”
She hums, resting her head on his shoulder and letting her eyes droop closed. “I guess it has.”
Yeah, he thinks, smiling to himself as he wraps an arm around her waist. It's not a bad strategy at all. In fact, he'd say it's worked out for him pretty well.
And it keeps working for him for a long, long time.