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The music pounds in her chest, the bass booming against her ribcage, making her feel her sobriety slip away faster than she’d like (it might have something to do with the third glass of gin that she’s now nursing). But that’s nothing compared to the twinge in her heart that’s a curious mix of hurt, jealousy, and anger.
Why?
The reason is that five tables from the bar where she sits, even through the dark, even when obscured by the view of gyrating, very drunk bodies, she can see a very familiar dark mop of hair buried against the neck of a very pretty brunette. By the look on the unidentified woman’s face, she’s having so much of the fun she’s not having. Clarke feels her eye twitch momentarily as she grits her teeth – because even with her greatest efforts, she cannot seem to peel her eyes away from the blatant display of affection. As much as she would want to look away, there’s a part of her that wants to wish this wasn’t Bellamy that’s lapping off the skin of another girl.
She came here to celebrate a break up – nothing more. There’s this jerk that she finally realized was a jerk and she’s celebrating his good riddance, so she really doesn’t want to go home feeling like she’s just been betrayed by another asshole.
Not that – not that they have – had – something. It’s just that… for the longest time, Clarke has just been saddled with this ridiculously massive crush on her roommate’s big brother. And it started when she accidentally hit him with a baseball bat on the head because he had shown up unannounced that first week of college – and then she treated his bruised head. With that close proximity, she had seen the constellation of freckles on his nose, on his cheeks. She had seen the brown in his eyes become translucent against the light. She had run her fingers through his hair (to check the bruise, that’s why – shut up, Octavia).
She may also have heard his quiet intake of breath when she got too close to his face, or the way his eyes fluttered when she bent down to check his forehead. Or the grumpy frown he’s taken to wearing whenever she’s around that she has always found adorable rather than the intended intimidating effect that he claims to be have never failed.
Or that one time he was so drunk he tried to have sex on the phone with her and then later realized when she answered with a hiss and a low voice (it’s three in the morning – she’s awake because she’s been studying for a killer final, and then he just came and distracted her – fuck) that it’s not her current conquest that he has dialed.
Never mind that his rough voice sent a violent shudder down her spine when he asked if he could touch her where she ached to be touched – holy fucking – shit –
The thought brings her back to the present, and she realizes she’s been staring at the couple for too long because now there’s an insistent blush on her neck, and a gathering heat between her thighs.
He looks up and her chest seizes as his eyes find hers with pinpoint accuracy amidst the thick crowd. His eyes are dark, hooded, and heated – making her feel as if it was her neck that he was marking, her skin that he’s kissing. And then her heart jumps when his eyes turn curious, when his lips upturn in the slightest of smirks. Her lips part, and her eyes widen at the realization that he recognizes her and that he may have known that she’s been staring at them – and – why is he smirking at her?
And then, he turns his head to run his teeth down the woman’s ear, then presses a soft kiss to her cheek. His lips are moving – he’s whispering to her ear and it makes Clarke shiver because it’s as if she’s feeling his hot breath against her skin, his dirty words a deep echo inside her mind.
His hand comes up to the other side of the brunette’s face, his fingers tracing the sharpness of her jaw, while his thumb parts her lips ever so slightly – and then she’s turning her head and catching his lower lip in between hers –
Clarke averts her gaze.
She feels too hot in this short dress, feels too drunk, too young, too naïve – too fucking hurt to be here in this place, watching as the man she has feelings for make out with someone that’s not her. She swallows the hard lump in her throat, licks her chapped lips, and breathes in deeply. Time to go, Clarke.
She fishes for a bill in her purse, cursing under her breath when she finds her hands shaking, pins it under her glass, and gets up to leave, trying to remember how to breathe in a normal pattern. She pushes through the crowd and feels the relieving gratification of the chilly air outside the bar cooling her overheated skin.
She starts on her way back to her apartment, her heels clacking in a staccato rhythm against the hard pavement, partially distracting her from her muddled thoughts when she hears a deep voice call out from a dark alley. And she knows its cadence too much for it to be anyone else’s. She curses under her breath again.
“Enjoyed your solo night out, princess?”
She looks up, she’s helpless not to, and wills for her eyes not to betray the sharp pinch of hurt in her chest as she remembers what she saw inside not five minutes ago. He emerges from the shadows, hands in the pockets of his coat, eyes dark and piercing just like a while ago – but this time, there’s an incredibly small amount of softness to them that has always made her fall deeper into the pit of insanity that is having feelings for Bellamy Blake. Fuck.
“Yes,” she lies through gritted teeth and picks up her pace, burying her own hands deep inside her coat pockets to steady them. “Asshole,” she adds in a whisper. She walks past him successfully, breathing a little bit in relief that she has not succumbed to the urge to punch him in the gut.
But of course, he would just not let it go that easily. That’s him – that’s big brother Bellamy. Sometimes he forgets his being an older brother doesn’t have a universal scope. He’s just like this for her for too long she doesn’t know whether to scream or cry or do both in frustration because there’s something in her that doesn’t want the brotherly affection. Especially when he can be this gentle papa bear one minute and then a supreme asshole the next.
Fuck Bellamy Blake, seriously.
“Wait – Clarke, are you – are you going home alone?” he asks, jogging to catch up to her. He’s now striding beside her but she doesn’t give him even a glance.
“I came here alone, I can go home alone,” she stubbornly replies, hating the way her voice sounds brittle and small. Maybe it’s because she’s replaying the scene in her mind over and over in her head. She ducks her head to stop the oncoming tears.
“No, wait,” he says, grabbing her arm in a gentle grip, but it’s enough to make her stop in her tracks. She keeps her head down as he speaks on. “I can walk you home, it’s already midnight anyway – hold on, are you –
She lifts her head up to look him directly in the eye, this time not even reigning in the hurt and the anger. Her lips turn into a scowl and her eyes narrow at him, her hands clenching inside her pockets.
“Why do you care anyway, Blake?” she snaps, and he looks taken aback – good. “You should go back inside – back to your conquest of the night and stop buggering the fuck out of me!”
He blinks, maybe because she rarely curses out loud, or maybe because she rarely raises her voice, or maybe because she rarely cries. Not in front of him anyway. Because he does things to her – things that she hates that she secretly likes. Like the way he makes her feel when he’s the only one that laughs at her crude medical humor even when everybody finds it gruesome, or the way he makes her feel protected when he puts a gentle hand at the small of her back when they walk together. Or the way he fucking makes her feel like she has a chance even when there’s literally no fucking way he’d ever look at her the way she –
“Don’t you know that I hate you so fucking much, Bellamy Blake?” she shouts at the empty street. There are tears at the corners of her eyes now, but she doesn’t care. He even has the decency to look hurt that he actually staggers back an inch away from her. She extricates her arm from his grip and jabs a finger at his chest. “You’re an asshole, an idiot, a freaking jerk – I don’t even fucking know why I’m in love with you!”
There’s a stunned silence, three whole seconds of it where there’s nothing but her harsh breathing in the air, before they both realized what just came out of her mouth.
She turns sharply, her heart heavy and breaking, and jogs to her car. Never mind that the heels are now chaffing her soles. She just needs to get out of there fast.
But of fucking course, it takes her longer to insert the key to her door (fucking old ass car) because her hands are shaking, so he inadvertently catches up to her.
“Clarke,” he speaks, and she turns and presses her back to her car, willing for it to swallow her whole and just make her disappear right at that moment. “Just – just wait. A-about what you said back there –
She shakes her head, her chest feeling too tight, her gut feeling too heavy to even breathe. So she speaks over him. “Tell me,” she whispers shakily, roughly, and he stops talking. “Tell me you didn’t see me in there. Tell me it’s not you being a jerk back there and playing with me – because – because that’s just fucked up.”
Now it’s his turn to snap his mouth shut, his turn to shake his head. “I can’t. I-I’m sorry.”
“What came over your enormously big ego to think that – that playing with me that way will give you – I don’t know – anything?” she now screams, feeling the tears roll down her cheeks because this is so fucking unfair that her heart is ensnared by a huge fucking jerk whose idea of a good time is making her fucking jealous.
“Nothing,” he admits, and his voice is so soft she hardly hears it over the harsh breeze. “It was wrong and so fucking desperate – I just… the guy you’re dating…”
She gapes at him, blinking a couple of times to shake out the daze, but she’s still so confused. She got rid of that guy, why is he bringing him up now, out of all the times?
“I broke up with him,” she says. “What does he have to do with this?”
He takes a deep breath, and takes another step towards her. But his stride is so long he stops just shy of touching her. His breath is now coming in ragged and short, his eyes full of panic and pain – and how dare he?
“You were with him,” he says, and his face contorts as if in physical pain, shuffling his feet in place. “I was… I was –
“You were what, Bellamy?” she exclaims, throws her arms up in exasperation. “I’m so tired of your fucking mind games – for so long, I played into your freaking games like – like
Her speech is cut off when he takes a firm step forward, and plants his hands on the roof of her car on either side of her, caging her with his body; so close, but just shy of touching. She halts, shocked (and turned on, god dammit) speechless. But he looks so open, so vulnerable – so freaking fragile that despite everything, she wants to soothe the fold on his brows, and kiss the frown on his lips. But she can’t – not when she feels like her own heart is being ripped out of her chest.
“I was fucking devastated,” he tells her, his voice that deep caress that makes her want to get out of there and never return and embrace him and never let go all the same time. “I…I wanted to – to kiss you when it’s his lips that’s on yours.”
Her breath catches and she finds that she cannot tear his eyes from the gaze he’s locked her on. “I wanted to touch you – and I am so fucking angry when he yells at you because you’re so goddamned smart to still be with that asshole.”
“You-you never –
“Because I thought you’d never see me that way, Clarke,” he interjects, and there is so much there in his tone that it takes Clarke her full attention to digest.
There is a pregnant silence where he does nothing but stare at her while she does the same. And the noise in her ears is the roaring of her blood, the unexplainable heat underneath her skin she gets whenever he’s in close proximity. His eyes flit around her face, as if taking her in – and she wants to hide her face because this is definitely not her finest get up.
He sighs ever so lightly. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispers, leans closer until she can actually count the freckles on his face, until she can feel his breath on her face.
Her hands, out of their own volition, latches onto the opening of his coat, and drags him down until he’s meeting her lips with a soft kiss – the one that’s barely there, the one that makes her sigh and open her mouth to press harder.
He lets out a shaky breath, and then returns his kiss with as much fervor, his arms going around her and wrapping around her waist, pulling her closer until the space between their bodies becomes nonexistent. And then his tongue slips past her lips and caresses hers and the fire he had stoked earlier returns with renewed vigor.
He’s all heat and hardness, and she’s been thinking about how his lips would feel against hers, how he kisses, but this can never compare to the dreams she used to have. He sucks on her bottom lip and pins her against the side of her car just when her knees were about to give in, his hand burying itself in her hair – fingers caressing her locks as if he had been dreaming about this –
She jolts with the realization, pulling away, and his groan of protest almost made her go back in.
“How long?” she whispers, her voice shaky and unsteady.
“What?” he asks, resting his forehead against hers, eyes still closed. She delights in the fact that he’s just as out of breath as she is.
“How long have you been…” she trails off, partly because she could not verbalize the words, but mostly because his fingers are massaging her scalp, his thumb drawing careful circles on her overheated cheek.
He chuckles nervously, his other hand slipping inside her coat and running down her back, making her shudder against him. “Ever since… you hit me on the head with a bat, I guess. What can I say? You shook me, princess.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” she asks in disbelief.
He licks his lips, another nervous tick, and opens his eyes. “I-I don’t know, I was scared shitless –
“You were – fuck –
“Doesn’t matter,” he murmurs, leaning down again, his lips brushing against the skin of her neck. “I’m tired of waiting, dodging – whatever it was that we always did.”
He starts kissing down her neck, nipping and biting, and she feels like she’s on fire. Oh and she feels the same.
How she does.
She wakes up the next morning with a hellish hangover, but with a possessive arm wrapped around her middle. Her muscles feel pleasantly sore and loose, and there’s a twinge between her legs that reminds her of the happenings of last night.
She smiles to herself, gets up and grabs his shirt, drapes it over her body, and prepares breakfast.
If he wakes up later and embraces her from behind, plants heated kisses against the back of her neck, and snakes his fingers down her underwear, and they burn the omelet – well. They can always try another.