"You know, Bell, when you asked me to help you babysit, somehow this wasn't how I was expecting it to end up," Clarke said as she slumped further into the couch.
"Can't say this how I saw the night going either," he agreed.
They looked down to where their hands were cuffed together at the wrist.
~ Ten Hours Earlier ~
Clarke was putting finishing touches on her latest painting when her phone began to shout the opening theme from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She huffed. "I really need to learn to put that on silent when I paint," she muttered under her breath, letting it ring through to voicemail. It was silent for all of two seconds before she heard the telltale rock theme again. "This is what I get for thinking I can have a relaxing day off." She began wiping her paint-splattered hands on the oversized shirt she was wearing and wandered over to see the caller ID. Just as she picked up the device, the screen went black again.
She huffed and began to unlock her phone to check her call history. It started ringing for a third time. "Hello?" she answered it curtly, not even having waited for the screen to fully load with the caller information.
"What you up to tonight?" Bellamy sonorous voice came through the speaker causing an involuntary smile cross Clarke's lips.
"Well, I was painting until someone decided to keep calling until I picked up." Her harsh tone dropped as soon as she recognized the voice.
"Hey, don't mess with success," he joked. "Repeated calling almost always gets you to answer the phone."
"True," she allowed. "I just need to remember to put my phone on silence for once, then I won't have this problem."
"But then you wouldn't be able to hear my offer for the evening."
"Oh, really. And what's that?"
"A night with your best friend, dinner included," he said with his best approximation of a game show announcer voice. "And if you lock in your answer right now, you'll get a bonus prize of hanging out with everyone's favorite nephew and nieces!"
Clarke let out a small chuckle. "So basically you got roped into babysitting the rugrats and you don't want to do it alone."
"Yup," he let the announcer voice drop. "It's O and Lincoln's meet-cute anniversary and they're going for a romantic walk in the forest preserve followed by dinner and drinks or something like that."
"Aww. They're so adorable! What time should I meet you at Octavia's?"
"I'm getting there around 4:00," he informed her.
"Great. See you then!"
"Bye, Clarke."
"Bye, Bell."
Shortly before 4:00, Clarke pulled up in front of Octavia and Lincoln's raised ranch. Bellamy's car was already in the driveway and she parked behind it and made her way toward the door. Before she could even knock, it was yanked open by a bubbling seven-year-old. "Auntie Clarke!" Owen exclaimed, throwing himself at her.
"Hey, kid," she smiled and returned the hug. "What's new?"
Owen let go of her and led her into the house, filling her in on everything he had learned so far in the second grade. As soon as she entered the living room, she heard some quiet giggling before one of her legs was enveloped by small arms. "And hello to you, Miss Lily," she said smiling down on the second of Octavia's children.
"Auntie Clarke, will draw me pictures to color?"
"Sure think, chickadee. Maybe we can get Uncle Bellamy to tell us one of his stories and we can draw and color pictures for that later tonight."
"Lily," Owen complained, "I'm trying to tell Clarke about the solar system."
"You can tell me all about it in a little bit, I just want to say 'hi' to your mom and dad before they leave. I assume they're around here somewhere," she looked around the living room and saw no one except Lily who was smiling up at her. Clarke was a sucker for the twinkling eyed three-year-old. She lunged at Lily, reaching out to grab her, exclaiming accusingly, "Unless you ate them!" Lily squealed in delight and ran around the living room. Owen helped to corner his sister which allowed Clarke to scoop Lily up and talk directly at her belly. "Octavia? Lincoln? Are you in there?"
"You're silly, Auntie Clarke," Lily told her through giggles. "I didn't eat them."
"Huh?" she huffed. "Then where are they?"
"In the kitchen," Owen supplied helpfully before heading in that direction himself.
Clarke made no move to put Lily on her own feet, but carried her upside-down into the kitchen, the toddler giggling the whole way. Upon entering the kitchen, Clarke found the adults standing around the island. "Whew, there you are. I thought Lily ate you," she exclaimed faux-relieved. "Guess I can put my hostage down." She lowered the girl to the ground who streaked off twittering, not before telling her big brother to chase her, which he obliged without hesitation. She looked up to Bellamy's fond smile.
"And how's my youngest niece?" she asked, reaching out for little Kiley, the chubby one-year-old.
Bellamy handed her over, the smile not leaving his face. "And what? Not even a greeting for me?" he asked.
"Nope. You're second rate, at best. You need a face as cute as this," she looked down to Kiley who had eagerly began chewing on the ends of Clarke's hair, "before you get the first greeting."
"And what about us?" Octavia snarked. "We made your favorite rugrats as you so often call them."
"Yeah, yeah. You're alright," Clarke smirked. "Hi, Octavia. Hi, Lincoln."
"And still nothing for me," Bellamy stated.
"We'll see how I feel after you feed me dinner," Clarke smiled.
"Speaking of dinner, if we want to go for that walk and still make our reservation we should probably get going," Lincoln said. And with that good-byes were made and the actual babysitting began.
The night went smoothly; Bellamy and Clarke working seamlessly in tandem, entertaining the kids, feeding them, more entertaining, and finally getting the younger ones to bed.
"And then there was one," Clarke puffed, flopping down next to Bellamy on the couch and laying her head on his shoulder.
"And then there was one," he agreed while shuffling a bit to put his arm around her, tucking her in closer to him. She couldn't say she minded one bit; she snuggled a little closer to breathe in the musky scent that could only be described as Bellamy.
"Good, you're back!" Owen said happily as he came back into the room, carrying a large box. "I was just going to show Uncle Bell some magic I learned from the kit Jasper got me."
"Awesome," Clarke expounded. "What are you going to do? Card tricks? Pull rabbits out of a hat?"
"Mom said I can't have a rabbit; they poop too much. But I have a few card tricks and then a couple others."
"Alright, Bub. You've got half an hour to wow us and then it's get ready for bed, read some books, and sleep," Bellamy told him, giving Clarke a pointed look; she was always more indulgent of the kids and was liable to allow them to persuade her to let them stay up later.
"But Bellamy," Clarke whined. "I'm not even tired."
"Says the girl who's practically half-asleep on my shoulder," he responded without missing a beat. Clarke pouted at the truth of his words, but made no move to show she was more awake and snuggled closer.
"Mom was right," Owen said, breaking Clarke out of her reverie. "You guys are going to get married. You act just like her and dad sometimes."
Clarke's eyes widened and she bit her lip, unsure of how to respond, her quiet fantasy voiced by a seven-year-old.
Bellamy stiffened slightly, but elsewise didn't move or try to dislodge her. "What else did she say?" he asked, his tone light.
"Well, it was when Lily was asking why she didn't have any cousins like the other kids at school. Mom told her it was because you and Auntie Clarke weren't married yet, but Lily probably wouldn't have to wait too long if you would finally realize you're in love with each other."
Clarke could feel her cheeks burning; she avoided looking at Bellamy lest she find out that he was looking at her and could see her blush at the truth of Owen's words. "Why don't you show us some of your magic tricks," she said with a strained voice.
"Okay," Owen happily agreed, not realizing the awkward situation he had just created. He pulled out a deck of cards from his box and began to shuffle them.
Clarke moved to sit up a little straighter under the guise of being more attentive to Owen. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Bellamy frown slightly, but that could have just been her mind playing tricks on her.
"Pick a card," Owen said, holding out the fanned deck to Bellamy who obliged his nephew. "Show it to Clarke but don't let me see it." Bellamy showed her the eight of hearts, dramatically shielding it from Owen's view. She nodded seriously. "Now put it back in the deck here," Owen instructed, trying to subtly look at the face of the card that was being held aloft over the split deck. Bellamy placed the card in its spot and Owen closed the other half of the deck over it before straightening the cards, turning them to face him and looking through them. He theatrically pulled up the eight of hearts and showed it to them asking, "Is this your card?"
"It is!" Bellamy yelled it excitement. "How did you do that?"
Owen smiled giddily. "A magician never reveals his secrets."
"What have you got for us next?" Clarke asked excitedly.
"Umm," Owen shuffled through his box. "I want to try this one that I found on the computer, but I'll need a member from the audience. Oh, wait! I can just use both of you."
"It's not dangerous is it?" Clarke questioned. "I once saw a magician chop off someone's hand and I'm quite attached to mine…get it? Attached?" she laughed at her own joke and looked toward Bellamy.
His eyes twinkled in amusement. "You're hilarious, Clarke," he deadpanned.
"And you guys used to say I wasn't fun."
"It's a true mystery why any of us could have thought that about a pre-optometry major whose wildest adventure was to go for midnight milkshakes the night before an exam."
"Hey," she defended, hitting his shoulder with the back of her hand. "That was a big exam; I should have been sleeping."
"Whatever you say," he grinned. "What do you need us to do?" he turned his attention back to Owen who was proudly holding a pair of handcuffs in one hand and a handkerchief in the other.
"Alright, I'm going to handcuff you together and then with a few magic words I'm going to set you free."
"You've got it, kid. I trust you." Clarke said presenting her right wrist that was closest to Bellamy, who in turn put out his left hand.
Owen's smile was contagious. With two younger sisters, it wasn't often that he had the undivided attention of two adults. He tightened one side of the cuffs around Clarke's wrist, the other around Bellamy's. "Now, test it out and see how strong they are," he said as if reading from a script. The adults dutifully tugged lightly on the handcuffs.
Owen placed the handkerchief over Clarke and Bellamy's connected hands and began waving his own hands over and around the cloth. "Abracadabra, Alakazam, with this magic I free your hands!" he shouted and dramatically whisked off the cloth. Clarke felt a tug from the cuff as Owen tried to pull off the handcuffs with the cloth.
His face fell when the handcuffs remained around their wrists. "That was supposed to work. Let me try again." He replaced the cloth and spoke the words again, but Clarke and Bellamy remained attached at the wrists.
By the time he was trying to free them for the fourth time, Bellamy shared a look with Clarke, worry lacing the corners of his eyes. She made a face in return, and shrugged her shoulders slightly.
"Hey, bud," Bellamy said gently. "Why don't you just get out the keys and we can practice this again another time?"
"There aren't any keys," Owen said. "The thing said to grab the chain with the cloth and it should work."
Clarke's eyes lit with realization. "Was the trick from a kit on Amazon?"
Owen nodded. "They said it was a sneak preview of the book it came with."
"And where did you get the cuffs?" Bellamy recognized what Clarke had just figured out.
"I took them when me and Mom were picking up Daddy from work. They were just sitting on his desk."
Clarke tried to calm the slight bit of panic that was rising in her chest. "And you didn't grab any keys with them."
"No," Owen shook his head. "The instructions didn't say I needed keys." He started to look sad and scared, realizing he'd done something wrong.
Not wanting him to feel guilty for his honest mistake, Clarke reached out and tugged him closer and placed a kiss on his head. "It's okay, honey. I wasn't planning on letting your uncle Bellamy leave my side tonight anyway. Now I just get to make sure he doesn't. We'll get the keys from your dad when he gets home. No big deal."
Owen gave her a watery smile. "You sure?"
"One-hundred percent," Bellamy assured him. "Now, how about you go get ready for bed and we'll be up in a little bit, so you can read us your bedtime story. I hear you're reading one about dragons!"
"Okay," he said still not fully back to his peppy self, and made his way upstairs.
Bellamy angled toward Clarke, "We're not really waiting until Lincoln and O get home right?"
"Oh hell no," Clarke shook her head. "Definitely not letting anyone else find out about this. Do you know how much shit we'd get from our friends? There are only so many handcuff gag gifts I can stand."
"You've gotten handcuff gag gifts before?" Bellamy teased, a glint in his eyes.
Clarke blushed furiously, "No comment."
"Now, I'm intrigued."
"Be intrigued later. We have a seven-year-old to put to bed and probably like an hour to figure out how to get out of these before Octavia and Lincoln get back."
Forty-five minutes later, three children sound asleep, and several YouTube videos watched, Clarke turned to Bellamy.
"You know, Bell, when you asked me to help you babysit, somehow this wasn't how I was expecting it to end up," Clarke said as she slumped further into the couch.
"Can't say this how I saw the night going either," he agreed.
They looked down to where their hands were cuffed together at the wrist. Bellamy looked like he was about to say something, but then stopped himself.
Clarke gave him a questioning look. "Hmm?"
"How…how were you expecting the night to end up?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I, uh…" he trailed off, looking like he wished he hadn't said anything in the first place. Clarke waited patiently; it was best to just let Bellamy get wherever he was going in his own time. "I don't know. I've just been feeling like we've been going somewhere, like our relationship, and I, uh, I wanted to spend some time with you without all our friends hovering around us."
Clarke felt a blush creeping up on her cheeks, the corners of her mouth turned up in a shy smile. "So basically you thought your best plan of action was to live out a cheesy '90s teen romance cliché? Ask potential significant other to come help babysit and then make out on the couch once the kids are all asleep," she teased. "I'm surprised you didn't ask me to wait until Octavia and Lincoln had already left, so we could be all sneaky about it."
"I—that's not—" Bellamy huffed in response, pouting out his lip.
With her free hand, she cupped his jaw and slowly leaned in for a kiss. She didn't push it past a gentle pressing of her lips to his and pulled back with a smile. Bellamy wore one to match. "I was hoping it was something like that," she sighed.
Bellamy surged in for a deeper kiss, but when he raised his left hand to bury it in her hair, Clarke's own hand came with and they broke apart laughing. "This whole making out on the couch thing would be so much better if we could figure out how to get out of these cuffs," Clarke chuckled.
"Let's see if we can find a bobby pin or something and try that one video again," Bellamy agreed.
…
The next morning Clarke woke up to a text from her best friend.
Octavia
Do you happen to know why Lincoln's
handcuffs are on the living room table
and why my son refuses to say anything
about it?
7:42 am
No comment.
I plead the fifth.
7:45 am
She looked over to the other half of the bed and smiled to see a pair of warm, brown eyes blinking sleepily. As unconventional and clichéd as it was, she was happy she and Bellamy had finally gotten together. He held open his arm and she snuggled into him; he buried his nose into her hair and murmured, "Go back to sleep." With a smile on her face, she did just that.
I've decided to challenge myself to write a little bit every day. And as much as I love my longer fics (read: "All My Friends Are Heathens"), sometimes I just want a little fluffy short story. And if anyone has any prompts they'd like me to attempt, feel free to send them to me.