Clarke glanced at the inexpressive apartment building and the phone in her hand, which screen was lit up with a message from Octavia, showing the address of the place. Since she heard that Clarke was looking for a place to stay for six months when she was in town practicing as a doctor in a local hospital, Octavia had gladly offered her housing.
She apparently had a roommate, but having assured Clarke that he was warned beforehand and expected her, she wasn't worried.
Octavia herself didn't arrive in the city until she got back from Lincoln's place, where she would move in as soon as Clarke decided if she was okay with the accommodation.
Apparently, Octavia and Lincoln were celebrating some kind of milestone in their relationship and Clarke's request had come in the best possible moment. She didn't mind checking the rooms herself and meet the mysterious roommate.
The apartment was on the third floor, the door unassuming, without labels or name tags, except for a small number in calligraphy font.
Confirming that she looked presentable enough, she knocked on the door firmly to alert the occupant and waited for him to open the door. Living with a guy didn't bother her, when she knew that Octavia trusted him.
She didn't expect to be greeted with toned abs and a bare chest in the form of one of the most attractive guys she has ever met.
"Hi?" he asked looking her formal attire from up and down, attempting to guess what was a woman he had never met doing outside his door.
"Uhm, I'm Clarke. Octavia's friend?" she tried to keep her tone natural and not to pose it as a question as she fought down the blush. The man obviously didn't know who she was.
He stopped the movement of dragging his hand across his face to get rid of the last remnants of sleep. It was almost comical how the man's eyes widened.
"Shit, you're Clarke. Fuck, I completely forgot." He then dashed back into the room leaving the door half open and giving Clarke a view how he picked up some discarded clothes from the floor and threw them on.
Getting tired of waiting as the guy had disappeared from her sight she began to check her e-mails on her phone.
In few minutes he was back on the doorway with a red plaid shirt – that was almost buttoned wholly up – thrown on and a pair of black jeans slipped onto his legs. But he wasn't alone.
The girl was half-dressed and stormed out of the apartment, not even glancing towards Clarke while the man disinterestedly looked at her leaving the hallway. Clarke cocked her eyebrow. She already didn't have a good impression on him.
"I'm Bellamy, O's brother," he introduced himself to Clarke as she shook his hand with a slight distaste. "Sorry about the mess. Come on in!"
Clarke stepped over the doorway into the room which floor was scattered with dirty clothes and empty glass bottles that were standing on the tabletops.
"So, Clarke, what do you do?" Bellamy questioned her while she took in the apartment, finding it cozy, but having enough space to move around.
The living room area housed one armchair and a couch of a smaller sort, in front of it a small wooden table on which lay a flower arrangement and untouched mail.
"I'm studying medicine."
"Oh, an aspiring doctor?" He quirked his eyebrow and smirked, showing off a small dimple on his cheek and Clarke cursed the universe that even if he seemed nice enough, his whole body image reeked of cockiness and attitude.
"Something like that," he turned around – the smirk still on his face – and strode towards the kitchen, expecting Clarke to follow him.
"And what about you?" she didn't particularly care, but if she was going to room with him for the next six months, then she should have been aware of his habits such as dropping in unexpected at 3 am.
"Taking history classes while working as a bartender on most nights," he said nonchalantly, glancing at Clarke who nodded as response.
He proceeded to show off the apartment and how few of the utilities worked in case she was interested in knowing these things before moving in.
In less than fifteen minutes they were done and Bellamy leaned on the backside of the couch as he stared at Clarke – arms crossed over his chest – and waited to hear her final thoughts.
"This is it. Take it or leave it." He was overly confident that she would accept it and his assumptions were correct.
"Following his mother's death, Nero gave himself fully to his longstanding artistic and aesthetic passions. At private events beginning in 59, he sang and performed on the lyre and encouraged members of the upper classes to take dancing lessons…"
"For the last time, I'm not changing the channel!"
"I told you I wanted to see that show last week," Clarke attempted to reach for the remote control again, but Bellamy held it out of her reach.
"Na-ah! Wednesday evenings are mine!" When he saw that Clarke's fingers almost grazed the item they were fighting over, Bellamy hugged it close to his body and prevented Clarke from getting close to it.
"But we agreed to bend the schedule for the other's benefit if needed!"
"Not if the other preferred to watch something else!"
"Couldn't you just record that stupid documentary? Or watch a rerun!" Bellamy narrowed his eyes.
"Well, you can surely watch your show on Netflix, too!" Clarke shot him a vile look, huffed and left the room, which made Bellamy regret not meeting her wishes, since he was recording the documentary for his assignment regardless.
It was fun seeing her getting riled up, but after few weeks, it started to hurt a little bit, when she would storm out and not speak to him for days post the argument.
Raven pushed open the door of the crowded bar, the opaque door displaying the logo 'Dropship' in fancy writing. Duran Duran playing in the background, she and Clarke tried to find two empty seats in front of the bar stand.
"I just can't believe he thought I chose the wrong scalpel, when he was the one that picked the second from the left, when I specially said third and he just blames me!" Raven nodded while dragging pissed off Clarke towards the seats she spied from the corner of her eye and pushed her on the stool.
One of the bartenders asked for their order, as Clarke was venting out her frustration about her partner from her anatomy practical, Raven ordered something stronger for her. Maybe just to make her less uptight. Her ears started to hurt.
Countless shots and drinks later Clarke was singing along to the hit song from the 90's and swaying her upper body to the rhythm. She was supporting herself on Raven – her hand on her shoulder – as she attempted not to lean forward too much.
After the end of the song she raised her hand signing one of the bartenders and before Raven had a chance to take her hand out of the air to prevent her from getting another drink as Clarke had had one too many, one of the workers noticed them and came forward.
He didn't see Clarke at first as she had chosen this moment to be clumsy and had spilled her clutch on the floor and was now on her knees to grab it in her grasp once again.
"What can I make for you?" the bartender asked, he was one of the ones that hadn't yet served them and so wasn't familiar with Clarke's over the top drinking. He was one of the most sought bartenders as he was often surrounded with a hoard of women, but since the things had slowed down for a bit, he was free to choose the customers.
Raven could acknowledge a good-looking specimen of man from far way, but since she was taken, she wouldn't act on it. He seemed more of Clarke's type anyway.
"No, we're done for tonight. My friend here reached her limit few drinks ago," Clarke jumped up from the ground and stared at him wide-eyed, twirling her hair between her fingers.
"Bellamy, so this is where you work," she slurred and Raven had to bite her lip to hold off the laughter, because she realized that he was the mystical roommate that was working in an unnamed bar.
Clarke would skin her in the morning because she let this happen, but she couldn't pass off the chance seeing them interact. All the conversations involving him were always about how annoying and insufferable he is, as if she was forced to live with him. Now she saw what the real deal was.
Bellamy chuckled and leaned forward, obviously entertained that Clarke had exceeded the drunkenness level that was acceptable for her and seeing her in that kind of element must have brought him a lot of joy.
Well, Raven was not going to say that to her, she didn't want to lose her other leg, because Clarke attacked her, even if it would have been a heroic tale to tell people in the future, if she survived after Clarke had let the mortification turn into rage directed to her and the rest of the world.
"You have so many freckles on your face, it's adorable," Clarke kissed the tip of his nose causing Bellamy to back off a little, clearly startled by her forwardness and advances.
"I think the princess has to retreat back to her castle now," said Bellamy, slightly uncomfortable with the situation
"But I don't want to!" whined Clarke and Bellamy threw a helpless look at Raven, who just gently grabbed Clarke's arm, which was closest to her and pulled her away from the tabletop while Bellamy straightened and turned away to get back to other customers.
The next morning Bellamy had to nurse Clarke's hangover, while she refused to leave the apartment, not any smarter than the day before as she hardly remembered being in a bar in the first place. Clarke never learnt about the incident.
It started with small barely noticeable touches. A hand on the shoulder. A little push from the small of the back. The teasing that could have easily been mistaken as flirting. It shouldn't have come up as a surprise, when they were first identified as a couple.
"Did you find the tomato sauce?" Clarke asked Bellamy, who raised his hand that held a can and positioned it in the trolley. The store was not that crowded, although it was already past five o'clock and most people had finished their work by now.
"Now, we only need mushrooms and lettuce and were done," Bellamy started moving in the direction of the outlet of fresh greens, when Clarke grabbed his maroon sweater, stopping him mid-step.
"We can't go this way, there's my old neighbor Patty," at Bellamy's confused look, she explained. "You don't want to know. One time, when I was eight and had fallen sick, she brought her cat over in attempt to be a ventriloquist. If she sees us, she will probably talk our ears off and proceed to share all the embarrassing stories about me and we'll never get back to the apartment in time."
"Intriguing, shall we find out?" Bellamy wiggled his eyebrows, he wasn't against knowing all the dirty bits about Clarke that he could have used against her to get what he wanted, but Clarke pushed him away from her personal space.
"Absolutely not, she's a nightmare. Let's hope were lucky and she doesn't recognize nor see me."
"Clarke!" She had jinxed it.
Plastering a happy smile on her face, when inside she was fuming and it didn't help that Bellamy was holding back laughter, she shifted her body to lock eyes with the devil herself.
"I haven't seen you in years, why did you never come to visit me?" The plump woman in a blue coat and a purple hat that had a synthetic rose glued on almost ran to hug Clarke, leaving her groceries behind.
"Hi, Patty!" she nearly cringed how fake her cheerful tone sounded.
"Oh! And who is this handsome young man?" Patty looked Bellamy up and down, obviously pleased with what she saw.
"It's Bellamy. We're living together." Bellamy nodded in greeting as Patty gasped theatrically and clapped her hands together.
"Already? How long have you two been together?" squeaked Patty and in that moment Bellamy and Clarke both fathomed what she was implying.
"Oh, no, no, we're just roommates," she corrected and looked at Bellamy who was as shocked as she was.
"Clarke, honey, you don't have to lie for my sake. You're old enough and I can withstand the truth that you're not a child anymore and that means soon you will marry – hopefully him, he's cute – ," she winked at Clarke, "and I have to accept it that you have grown up."
"I'm so sorry, but we are in quite a rush and I hope we don't offend you, but we have to shop quickly and start cooking dinner," Bellamy jumped into the conversation, saving them both from Patty's gushing.
"Oh, I didn't mean to be a hindrance, I'll let you, two lovebirds to be. I'm of course hoping you'll invite me to your wedding!" Patty rushed back the way she came from, allowing Bellamy and Clarke to let out shared sighs of relief.
"She always jumped into conclusions."
"Yeah."
Neither of them mentioned how it wasn't that hard to imagine them being a couple and how they quickened their movements to get out of the store as fast as they could, without any reminders that it had now become a possibility in their minds.
Similar incidents started to occur more often the longer they had been living in the same space, and shortly it became futile to explain their situation to people, who didn't want to listen. It was easier to pretend to be a couple, than tell the truth.
"Please, Bellamy, don't let me endure it alone."
"I said that I'm not interested in going with you to some kind of posh event that you are forced to attend."
"Nobody else is free on that day!" Clarke was ready to pull out her hair in despair.
"I'm not free on that day, I have a shift. Did you even ask anyone?"
"You can still change it, it's two days away. And yes, I did." That was a lie. "Please, Bellamy," she begged. "What will it cost you?" Clarke pouted and Bellamy took a swig of the bottle he had in his hand.
"Fine, but, I'm the most boring company you could ask for at those kinds of events." He was glad that the bottle didn't slip through his fingers when Clarke jumped on the couch and embraced him unexpectedly.
Her breath tickled his neck and he had a hard time staying still, when she was practically in his lap.
"I just have to show my face, smile and pretend that I enjoy myself. The invite said plus one, so of course I would take somebody to suffer with me." Clarke leaned towards his face and softly teased, "Besides, we're dating and you won't ditch your girlfriend in favor of work, right?"
They had never been in such an intimate position, if he wanted, he could have closed the distance, but he didn't do it.
Bellamy sighed and ran his fingers slowly through his messy curls. "Do I have to wear a suit and tie?"
"Yep," her smile was contagious and he couldn't help but grin back.
Since they arrived to the town hall, they had managed to avoid the people they knew, which included Clarke's mom and Kane, or to put it like that, her soon to be stepfather. Bellamy had met them only once in person and because it was before all the couple thing blew up, her mother had no idea that Bellamy appeared as her boyfriend in public, and so she hadn't yet requested a dinner to acquaint with him further.
Nobody bothered them or asked them, which were their relations with the senator or the political party. The boring speech in the beginning of the event hadn't ruined their mood to at least sample the rich people's food that was laid out on the tables.
"Okay, I can see salami, dill, pâté and some unknown piece of fruit," Bellamy popped the small refreshment in his mouth, chewing it thoroughly. "Melon, this is ridiculous. But it didn't taste half-bad."
Clarke took one from the other sort on the tray next to the former and tasted the odd looking snack in an effort to figure out what it was made of.
"Some kind of cheese, Brie, if I'm right. Mayonnaise, cucumber and salmon. This wasn't that pretentious."
Bellamy laughed and found a bottle of champagne to fill up their empty glasses, when they heard a voice calling Clarke's name, which in turn prompted him to stop his action and look at the arrival.
"Hi, mom."
"Clarke, are you enjoying yourself this evening?"
"Surprisingly, yes."
"And you brought Bellamy." He was surprised that Clarke's mom remembered him. "Clarke has mentioned you a lot," her eyes dropped to his arm that had snaked around Clarke's waist inadvertently. "I wasn't aware that you two were together." Abby's gaze looked between her daughter and then Bellamy, trying to figure him out.
"It's not official."
"I see," then Abby smiled. "Well, I hope to see you at our Christmas feast next week, if you don't have other plans yet." She passed them – a pleased look on her face – and took off to look for her fiancé.
"You're stuck with us forever," uttered Clarke when Abby was out of the field of sight.
"How so?"
"My mom never approves who I'm dating, this is a first. It's as if she actually rooted for us to end up together. Damn, why did you have to leave such a good impression when she made an impromptu visit?"
"Is it a bad thing?"
Clarke didn't answer, but sent him a playful look before she took her half-full glass of champagne, sipped it and left towards the exit, leaving him wondering if their pretend relationship had suddenly become a real one.