Title: Fracturing the Fairytale

Author: CharmingPromise

Rating: T (language and non-graphic sex)

Disclaimer: Characters are not mine, I am borrowing them for my (and hopefully your) enjoyment. Each chapter will have a princess themed song- this chapter is Princess by the oh-so-talented Matt Nathanson

Part: 1/?

Summary: Bellamy is a soccer star and three year's running Mr. Ark U champion. To make his senior year campaign a little more challenging his teammates make a bet that he can't get a date of their picking elected as his Ms. Ark U. Of course the girl in question is his little sister's best friend and the Princess he loves to hate. Bellarke slow burn ensues.

The She's All That (college version) AU that you totally knew you wanted.

—-

Oh Princess, you make the party

With your hands in your pockets

And your innocent eyes and all those things

Running around in your head

Oh Princess, you make the party

You've been everybody's darling now, everybody's win

Bold for the boys who keep you guessing

And all those things running around

And, "All my pauses they're all stops anyway"

You would say

And, "All pauses they're all stops anyway

And I could really use a win"

Princess- Matt Nathanson

—-

Bellamy pinned the soccer ball between the toe and heel of his feet and lifted it in an arching rainbow over his shoulder before executing an almost textbook bicycle kick. The ball swished against the back of the net and Bellamy got to his feet and dropped into a deep bow towards the smattering of applause from his teammates.

Okay so maybe Miller had left the net unattended in favor of the sidelines and water when practice ended a few minutes ago, but that was still a pretty damn impressive goal.

"Show off," Murphy commented when he joined the rest of the team at the cooler before they headed to the locker rooms to shower.

"I'm sorry that's a weird way to pronounce 'captain'," Bellamy said innocently cupping his ear in the direction of Murphy's sour face, "Wanna try that again?"

"You are a show off…. Captain," Murphy revised mockingly.

"Better," Bellamy asserted, "Time to learn your place plebe."

Murphy snorted and lobbed a soccer ball in the direction of his captain's crotch but Bellamy easily dodged the shot. Murphy was an unrepentant dickhead but Bellamy had known him half his life and he figured longevity alone earned them a permanent place in each other's social circles.

The juniors and seniors on the team filed into the athletic complex while the underclassmen were stuck with the menial labor involved in cleaning up and locking away the equipment, before they were allowed to shower off and go home.

It was a month into Bellamy's senior year and he was sincerely enjoying the privileges that came not only with seniority but with leadership as well. He had been named captain in a unanimous vote at the beginning of the season, and if the early scrimmages were any indication, he was going to be presiding over a winning team.

Bellamy was already shucking his t-shirt and toeing off his cleats on his way through the complex to the men's locker room and the waiting showers when Wick thumped him soundly on the back. Bellamy felt adhesive along his spine and the fluttering of paper against his back and he reached awkwardly to yank off the poster Wick had just torn off the wall and reapplied to his bare back.

'Nominations for Mr. and Ms. Ark U are Now Open!'

Bellamy saw his own smug face staring back up at him from the poster and he quickly crumpled the bright gold flier and pegged Wick in the forehead with it.

"Ready to defend your title again this year Mr. Ark U?" the scruffy blonde teased, completely undeterred by the paper projectiles or Bellamy's murderous scowl.

After a particularly impassioned speech on society's superficial obsession with beauty and the evils of beauty pageants largely fueled by a really solid batch of pot brownies Wick and Murphy had nominated Bellamy Blake for Mr. Ark U as a prank their freshman year. Unfortunately, despite his stoned disdain for societal beauty standards, he was also the literal embodiment of them not to mention the much talked about new star of the school's most prominent sports team and he won in a veritable landslide.

Bellamy had eventually forgiven the duo when he realized that the title came with some scholarship money (he was on a full ride for soccer but he was able to apply the funds to his outrageously expensive history textbooks) and a few sexually ambitious groupies.

Since then it had become tradition for the team to nominate him, tradition for Bellamy to grumble and grouse about it, and then tradition for him to win and be forced to put on a tragically tacky sash, dance awkwardly with the freshly crowned Ms. Ark U at homecoming, and force a smile for some school promotional shots in exchange for some scholarship money and notoriety.

"Seeing as I don't have any say in it and you punks are going to nominate me no matter what, I guess I'm going to have to aren't I?" Bellamy replied, picking the litter off the floor only to bean Murphy with it this time.

"You have an obligation to your people," Miller said dryly, shouldering open the door to the locker room and ditching his sweaty goalie shirt into the laundry hamper.

"There isn't even a challenge in it," Bellamy complained once they had made their way into the communal showers, "I don't even campaign and I still walk away with it every year. Says something about the idiotic athlete hero worship at this school."

"Oh yeah, that condition that allows you to walk around campus like a god, that really sucks for you Blake," Jonesy teased from several shower heads down.

"I'm speaking at a big picture level Jones," he called over the gushing water of several showers, "I'm a deep thinker."

"We can always make it more interesting this year if you'd like," Murphy suggested and Bellamy shuddered as some of the water from his teammate's spray sluiced off his arm and splashed him at the neighboring spigot. It didn't matter how hot or cold it was outside, Murphy always took ice cold showers and Bellamy was of the opinion that if that didn't cement him as a psychopath then nothing would.

"The degenerate gambler in me is starting to get really intrigued by this conversation," Wick called over, "I smell a bet coming."

"Let's test out exactly how popular you are here at this Podunk little school," Murphy said, "We pick the girl and you make her your Ms. Ark U for the year. See if you can make someone hot enough just by bringing them as your date. Not only can you exercise that obscene competitive edge you have, we can dethrone your bitchy ex at the same time."

Bellamy wrinkled his nose at the mention of his ex, they had only dated for about a month and he despised being associated with the girl for the remainder of college. Of course she had also managed to win Ms. Ark U three years running and he was forced to share a consummately awkward dance with her each and every year.

Bellamy didn't really think that he had a type when it came to girls physically, but he knew he liked them smart and independent. Echo had seemed ideal at first with her perfect ten body. It seemed like she had a quiet confidence but it turned out she was just a raging bitch. She was quiet because the only reason she saw to open her mouth was to talk down to someone and her confidence was just unchecked narcissism. Sure she was a head cheerleader since her freshman year but she had the ego of a teenage pop star and the empathy of a pet rock. She managed to win this stupid school popularity contest every goddamn year through sheer sex appeal and intimidation. It made Bellamy shudder worse than Murphy's cold water to think that he had ever been of the opinion that she was something other than the textbook definition worst.

"Why do you pick the girl?" Bellamy asked, the idea of knocking Echo down a few notches more appealing than he wanted to admit, "I'm the one who has to take her as a date."

"What and make it easy for you? I thought you wanted a challenge," Murphy sneered, "Don't worry I'm not going to stick you with some impossible swamp donkey, I just don't want you picking some little cutie from your fan club and walking away with this bet without putting in any actual effort."

Bellamy mumbled a weak denial about the existence of a 'fan club' as he cranked the shower into the off position a little more aggressively than required. He grabbed towels, draping one around his waist and running the other over his shaggy black curls, cursing his competitive nature that was making this stupid bet sound appealing.

"Harper seems pretty disinterested in him," Wick was musing as the rest of the team finished their showers and joined him out at their lockers.

"Can we not pick a cheerleader?" Murphy demanded with a scowl, "Are you trying to toss him a softball?"

"What about Maya?" Miller suggested, "She's friends with the guy I've been seeing and she seems totally over the athletes here. She's head of the chess club and she says we bogart all of the funding."

"She'd probably put up a strong front at first but you know he'd eventually charm the pants off a girl like that with all his hidden intellectual bullshit. The surprise nerd card is kryptonite for those chicks," Murphy mused, obviously getting frustrated with the lack of viable candidates to which Bellamy just gave a smug smile.

"Why don't we just nominate him for both titles?" Troy, their junior midfielder, suggested, "With those cheekbones he'd probably have half a shot. We all know Blake is the prettiest princess on the team."

Murphy's entire face lit up in delighted realization and Bellamy felt his stomach drop, "Speaking of Princesses," Murphy drawled, looking Bellamy directly in the eye with a mocking smile.

"Fuck you," Bellamy said simply, yanking the Dropship t-shirt that served as his second uniform of the day over his head, "Bet is off."

Everyone on the team knew about the Princess, more widely known by her actual name, Clarke Griffin, and most of them had been subjected to one of their Captain's rants on how infuriating she was. Bellamy had known Clarke since she was 5 years old and he was 8 when his little sister had brought her home the second day of kindergarten, declaring the fiery little blonde to be her best friend for, like, ever.

What had begun as innocent competition over Octavia's attention had gradually progressed into a more contentious relationship as Bellamy got older and became more aware of Clarke's privileged upbringing. Mom was the youngest chief of staff at NoVa General and Dad had been a well regarded environmental engineer before he passed away with cancer and Clarke lived in the nicest neighborhood Arlington had to offer, wore clothes that would make an heiress jealous, and recreationally rode horses. The stark contrast to the simple means he and Octavia had to live by on a single mother's salary not only embarrassed him but made him resentful for unintentionally alerting his sister to exactly how poor they really were. Octavia really hadn't been kidding about the 'for, like, ever' thing though and Clarke had become a constant fixture in his life for the past 14 years.

"Oh come on Blake," Murphy pleaded, his smile falling a little at the prospect of his fun being over before it even started, "I will be your complete bitch for the remainder of the school year if you pull this off. You think it's nice forcing me to call you captain imagine how else you could potentially humiliate me."

"And if I lose? Because you realize you are stacking the odds severely against me?" Bellamy asked, visions of bitch-boy Murphy somewhat renewing his interest in the entire scenario.

"Apart from the disappointment I'm sure you will torture yourself with, you're walking that stage naked come May. You're enough of a golden boy to actually pull it off without getting your diploma yanked then and there," Murphy said with a smirk, "Come on, I get that you two loathe each other but Griffin is an undeniable bombshell, honestly you're getting off pretty easy here."

Bellamy stuffed his gear into his duffle bag as he considered Murphy's terms. John Murphy was the only member of the team who had gone to high school with Bellamy and therefore had extensive first hand experience with the Clarke Griffin/Bellamy Blake blood feud so of course that is who he would pick. He could already see the destruction this would all cause if it went south but he also knew that spending extra time with Clarke meant extra time with his little sister and he had a really hard time passing that up. They had been apart for the majority of the past three years and now that Octavia was at school with him he wanted to make up for lost time. He also wanted to be present in case any XY chromosome having individuals tried to talk to her so he could pummel them into nonexistence.

The thing that finally made up his mind though was something not even Murphy was aware of. For all of their screaming matches and proclaimed hatred Bellamy was undeniably drawn to Octavia's blonde best friend and a twisted part of him had to know what that was about. Winning a bet, humiliating Echo, and acquiring a Murphy-slave were as good of excuses as any to explore that.

"Fine," Bellamy said, "It's a bet." He and Murphy shook on it and he was sure to put a little extra oomph in the handshake to punish the weasely kid for pulling out the Princess card.

"This is going to be an unmitigated disaster," Miller observed with the same sort of quiet gruffness that he always spoke in.

"What's going on?"

The underclassmen had finished cleaning up and were dragging themselves into the locker room now. A couple of the freshman had paused at their row of lockers observing the tail end of the exchange. Finn Collins a passably mediocre defensemen was giving them an expectant smile, assuming he deserved to be filled in on everything the older boys talked about.

"Murphy apparently doesn't see enough of Blake's bare ass in the showers," Troy replied cryptically, clearly not appreciating the newbie's presumption anymore than the rest of them.

"Okaayyyy," Finn dragged out, his smile faltering.

Bellamy threw his bag over his shoulder and was preparing to leave when Sterling, another one of the freshmen spoke up, "My friend Mel said there's a party at the cheerleading house tonight. Were you guys going to go?"

Bellamy just sniffed dismissively, Sterling seemed like a nice enough kid and didn't instinctively rub him the wrong way the way the Collins twit did but he had outgrown the mindless drunken ragers at the cheerleading house before the second semester of his freshman year. A decent fake ID really minimized the appeal of sweaty house parties with girls he, by and large, had less than nothing in common with.

"Mel was really hoping you'd show," Sterling added, a bitter undercurrent to the statement that Bellamy knew he was desperately trying to hide was audible nonetheless.

"Send my regrets," Bellamy said, grateful that he had an actual excuse and didn't have to lie to a teammate, "Wick and I are working tonight."

"The cheerleadering house is kinda conquered territory at this point anyway," Murphy smirked.

"Another time maybe," Jonesy offered, trying to lessen the sting of rejection a little though Bellamy was pretty sure the blonde would be happy enough to have this 'Mel' chick to himself.

"I'm going to run past the apartment on my way," Bellamy called to Wick as they peeled off in opposite directions leaving campus. They had a rare free weekend with no practice before the regular season games began and while the majority of the team was taking the opportunity to party their faces off, he and Wick had swung a couple extra shifts at The Dropship to hopefully pick up a little spending money.

Bellamy pulled on the pair of designer headphones, that had actually been a present from Clarke the Christmas before, and began the several block walk between campus and the apartment he shared with his sister.

Bellamy had always been a talented soccer player but it had been impressed upon him at a young age that if he wanted to go to college it was going to need to be on scholarship so he had refined that talent with hours upon hours of practice and had been recruited by Ark University, a small Division 1 school in DC only a metro ride away from his childhood home in Northern Virginia. As a little liberal arts school, they were a little lacking in the math and sciences, but they had very well regarded Humanities and Arts programs which was perfect for a History nerd like Bellamy.

Everything had seemed to be falling perfectly into place until about a week before graduation he and Octavia had been woken by the oscillating blue and red flashers from police cruisers there to tell them a drunk driver had made them orphans at ages 17 and 14.

He was lucky to have good enough grades and plenty of credits that he was able to skip the last month of his senior year to grieve and figure out what this meant for his future without flunking. He couldn't even fathom running off to college and leaving his little sister to bounce around in foster care despite having worked his whole life towards this scholarship. They didn't have any living relatives but Bellamy was going to turn 18 in a month and he was determined to take custody of Octavia and save her from spending her teenage years in the system.

It hadn't come to that though as Dr. Griffin had recently become Senator Griffin and she pulled every string at her disposal to have Octavia placed in their Arlington mansion.

'Clarke considers you two family,' Abby had told him, sitting both Blake siblings down at a formal breakfast in their parlor. They had a parlor for fuck's sake. For all of the generosity in her offer and her kind words, her tone was a little calculating. A sour, bitter part of Bellamy couldn't help but wonder if this was a political strategy, taking in the pretty little orphan girl as a face for her anti-drunk driving platform. 'I can't let you throw away this opportunity Bellamy. Octavia is welcome with us for as long as you need.'

Clarke had been sitting next to her mother with a happily expectant look on her face and Octavia looked about as pleased as any girl who lost half of her family could look. They had been as good as sisters for almost a decade and it was about to become a reality.

With that Bellamy had gained yet another reason to resent Clarke Griffin. He was deeply grateful for the Griffin's help since it kept Octavia safe and well cared for and allowed him to attend school on the scholarship that he had worked so hard for but it was a huge burden of debt to carry and Bellamy had no idea how he would ever repay it. He hated feeling the obligation to Abby Griffin and if he was being perfectly honest he could admit that he often took that out on her daughter.

It hadn't been much of a surprise when Octavia chose to join him at Ark since she could pursue her teaching degree anywhere and it saved a lot of money on housing for them to get an apartment together. It had, however, been quite a shock when class valedictorian Clarke Griffin confirmed her acceptance there as well. Ark was a good school but Bellamy knew for a fact that she had been accepted into Georgetown's pre-med program which would have been even closer to home and much more in keeping with her mother's astronomically high expectations. Given their policy of mutual levels of snark and general asshole behavior around each other he hadn't gotten much of an in depth explanation of the choice but Octavia mentioned something about her hating hospitals and going against the Senator's wishes and getting an art degree instead. Ark University was the better choice for a studio art degree and so here she was continuing to insert herself into Bellamy's life and thanks to this idiotic bet he had agreed to, it was about to get even worse.

The more he thought about it the stupider it was and the more hopeless his chances of winning seemed. The issue of access was so much easier than it would have been with any other girl since Clarke had pretty much moved into his apartment. There was a dorm room that she nominally shared with another freshman girl on campus but after being sexiled seven times in the first two weeks of school she had more or less ceased living there. Bellamy had gotten a frantic call from Octavia several weeks ago demanding that he meet her at Ikea 'fucking ASAP' only to find the emergency had been their inability to lift the component parts of Clarke's new futon and dresser combo and the lack of forethought that maybe the metro wasn't a viable option for transporting furniture. Since then Clarke's futon had supplanted their ratty old couch and she exchanged groceries and a Netflix subscription for squatting rights.

The trouble with Clarke was the fact that their personalities were nothing short of combustible together. He had a hard enough time having a civil conversation with her much less convincing her to go on a date with him to the biggest social event of the school year.

It would have taken nearly half a bottle of whiskey and possibly some amateur hypnosis to get him to admit it, but he never felt more alive than when he was arguing with his opinionated princess. It was probably the reason that they found an opportunity to pick a fight with each other whenever possible.

They would argue over politics to the horror of their assorted friends.

Bellamy was a socialist with side helping of left leaning anarchy while Clarke was a more moderate bleeding heart. Bellamy would call her mother a fascist and Clarke would put saran wrap over his toilet. On several occasions Octavia would step into the middle of a screaming match to angrily inform them that they were arguing the same damn side before either of them had even realized it.

They fought about what food to buy.

'There are other foodstuffs than variations on buffalo chicken you know?' Clarke would scold as the three of them wound their cart through Whole Foods.

'You can eat it as a wrap, as a sandwhich, as wings, or even as dip so I'm not totally sure why there needs to be.' Bellamy opined, tossing Tostitos into the cart, 'I might reduce my diet to only dishes that can be translated into dip form.'

'And that is why I am an atheist; because that statement should never come from someone with your physique.'

'Look I'm sorry I don't get on board every couple months when you decide to try and like kale again.'

'It's a super food.'

'It's butt lettuce.'

Their battles over music might be the most heated and even Octavia knew to make herself scarce when they started in on that particular topic.

Clarke had a guitar that lived in the corner of their living room now but he had never heard her play. All he knew was that she liked the most atrociously maudlin singer/songwriter crap and it made him want to break things but since it was his apartment he had to settle for trying to break her spirit.

'How do they even get through daily life without tripping over their fucking feelings all over the place?' he asked mockingly.

'Go buy another vinyl you gross hipster,' she retorted.

The only thing they managed to agree on was books since both of them were voracious readers. Octavia had teased them that it was a sign of the apocalypse the day they realized that Catch-22 was both of their favorite books. Since then they would leave whatever book they had finished for the other in a designated spot on the kitchen island. Just this morning Clarke had left the Cormac McCarthy she had just finished there with a note inside that read 'This book is too good for you but enjoy anyway Fuckface.'

Bellamy was debating the merits of using their mutual love of reading as a means of getting Clarke to warm to him, or at least be slightly less openly hostile, up until the second he put the key into the lock of his apartment.

Clarke and Octavia were lounging across the futon that was pulled up into its couch configuration. Clarke was slumped into the cushions, her feet up on the coffee table in front of them while Octavia was sprawled on her back, her head pillowed on Clarke's stomach. Octavia was staring intently as Alex Trebek introduced the second round of Jeopardy categories while Clarke was sketching aimlessly in pencil, the sketchbook propped up against Octavia's ponytail.

'The early Greek's name for the water passage connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean now known as the Strait of Gibraltar.' Alex intoned to the contestants on the screen.

"What is 'the halls of Montezuma'," Octavia chirped.

"What is Gates of Hercules," Clarke corrected, never looking up from her sketch even when Alex confirmed her answer.

Bellamy rolled his eyes at the two girls engaged in their daily ritual. It was a rare evening he didn't come home to find the two of them on the couch, Octavia contributing outrageously incorrect answers to even the simplest Jeopardy questions and Clarke following immediately with the right response. Bellamy had berated Octavia over this initially ('I basically raised you O, it's fucking embarrassing') but eventually accepted whatever stupid game they were playing and would even try to beat Clarke to the answer when he was around.

It seemed to be fate that the day he was coming home with the mission of seducing Clarke she would be answering ancient greek trivia in an obscenely tight tank top reading 'I make horrible science puns but only periodically', blonde curls piled haphazardly on her head and blue eyes darting alertly over her sketch, pretty much seducing him on sight.

Murphy had not been incorrect in part of his assessment at least. For whatever derogatory things Bellamy had ever had to say about her upbringing and attitude he couldn't find a single fault in Clarke's appearance. Girls seemed to find the label curvy to be insulting but Clarke was the textbook example of why it wasn't with her small waist and generous chest. Her pretty face was made beautiful with that pair of clear blue eyes that were always alight with intelligence and Bellamy was pretty sure he persisted in sleeping with brunettes solely to avoid any reminder of her sun drenched blonde waves. If he was being honest all of this only served to add another layer to the complicated relationship he had with the girl on his couch. It had always been easier to fight with her and pretend to dislike her than to address potential feelings for a girl who was a completely inappropriate choice. Maybe that had been his deeper motivation for accepting this bet in the end, this felt like the safest way to do something that had been nagging at him for years.

Bellamy actually shook his head as if to dislodge his current confusing train of thought. Wherever this utterly terrible bet was going to lead it was going to have to start with actually talking to her.

"Hey O," he greeted, dumping his soccer bag in an unceremonious pile just inside the door and moving into the kitchen to make a quick sandwich before he had to head to the bar, "Clarke."

He pulled his head out of the fridge, arms full of lunchmeat, cheese, and condiments to see both girls had abandoned Jeopardy to stare at him over the back of the futon. Their twin looks of shock might have been funny if not for the fact that he was pretty sure he had done something critically stupid.

"Um….. what the fuck is wrong with you two?" he asked, dumping his dinner fixings on the counter, feeling uncomfortable with the way they were tracking his every move around the kitchen.

"You just called her Clarke," Octavia said pointedly.

"Is that not her name anymore?" he asked with a smirk.

"You've called her Clarke like twice in the fifteen years we've been friends," Octavia continued, "The first time you met her so that you could point out it was a boy's name."

Despite being only 8 at the time Bellamy remembered that first meeting and the way Clarke had dismissed him with a sniff and a 'whatever' that seemed so much older than her 5 years and the fact that she had persisted in calling him 'Amy' for nearly 2 months after that in retaliation.

"And then this past spring when we came for that campus visit and she walked out from behind a bus and got hit by that car and we all thought she was dead but then she just rolled over the hood and stood up on the other side," Octavia finished.

"Right, because I'm a goddamn superhero," Clarke said sullenly, clearly annoyed that this part of the story was always omitted.

Octavia offered her an indulgent smile before turning back to Bellamy, "Like, twice, ever."

If calling her by her given name was this suspicious he was in for an even more difficult task than he had initially imagined. This was going to take both planning and work on his part, neither of which he was afraid of. Bellamy Blake loved a challenge which is exactly why he was in this clusterfuck of a situation in the first place.

"My apologies Princess," he said, his voice muffled by a mouthful of turkey sandwich, "I'll remember my place next time."

"You eat like a feral child who was never socialized to human ways," was Clarke's only reply as she sank back on the sofa, obviously placated by his response.

"She's not wrong," Octavia said, turning back to the TV in time to chime, "Who is Nancy Drew?"

"What is a mongoose?" Clarke amended.

"I am so sincerely blessed to share my home with two such sought-after ladies such as yourselves and not with some weirdoes who spend their Friday nights answering trivia in the form of a question to the television screen," he teased, grabbing his wallet from the gym bag by the door and shoving it into his back pocket in preparation for his walk to The Dropship.

"Hey!" Octavia said, taking faux offense to his joke, "We're going to watch Dazed and Confused and take a shot every time someone says 'wasted' as soon as Alex finishes up with final Jeopardy."

"I stand corrected," Bellamy put his hands up in surrender, "Social butterflies, both of you."

"Octavia's not going to be hungover tomorrow either," Clarke said but it sounded like it was more of a reminder for his sister than a comment meant for him, "She promised we're going to Eastern Market tomorrow morning so I can get some flowers to paint for my watercolor class. I'm supposed to do a still life of something in my home and I can't have my sophisticated art friends thinking I'm some sort of philistine who lives somewhere with nothing but Ikea furniture that is decorated in petty misdemeanor chic."

"You could always, I don't know, paint something in your own dorm room," Bellamy suggested, mildly offended by the slight on his decor. I mean, yes it was 90% Ikea but Octavia had bought that one floor lamp from Pier 6 and they had to do something with the street signs drunk Bellamy brought home.

It had started freshman year when he had woken up with a pounding hangover and the Blake St. sign from about 10 blocks over but it had become quickly apparent that when he blacked out he also became a criminal mastermind and had added a couple 'No Parking', a trio of Stop signs, speed limits ranging between 25 and 50 mph, and inexplicably a 'bear crossing' sign. He didn't know why Clarke was complaining, he heard he had gone pretty far out of his way to get her the Griffin Ave. that hung next to the futon.

Clarke had gotten pretty used to ignoring his cracks about her living arrangement over the past few weeks and ignored him as she had every previous time, "Flowers, O, remember."

"Bright eyed and bushy tailed," Octavia promised, skipping across the kitchen to grab a handle of vodka off the bar along with as many chasers and snacks as she could feasibly carry. She paused at the door to give Bellamy a loud, smacking kiss on the cheek on her way back to the sofa.

"You should come with Bell," Octavia suggested while Clarke cued up the movie on Netflix, her only contribution a small shrug as if to say she didn't care one way or the other if he showed.

"Yeah maybe," Bellamy said, suddenly remembering he was supposed to be winning Clarke over not snarking at her to move back to her dorm room.

"Try to keep her from doing any online shopping after 3 shots," he said, nodding toward Octavia, "We have enough blankets to build ourselves a nest to last out another ice age and the cats don't wear clothes."

Mulder and Scully looked up from their respective napping spots in his recliner and on top of the bookcase as if in gratitude.

"Not with that attitude they won't," Clarke sniffed waving him out the door while Octavia said a friendly goodbye with a raised middle finger.

—-

It was just after three in the morning when Bellamy dragged himself in after a full night's shift at the bar. There were nights when he questioned the necessity of having a job that kept him out past the witching hour several nights a week, but with nothing more strenuous to do than some reading for his Advanced Classics seminar (and no he would not have done that reading recreationally had it not been assigned)(see: yes he totally would), the late night at the bar had been well worth the tips. For all of the railing he had done against the privileged class he grew up around it was certainly paying off now that he was in charge of pouring alcohol down their throats.

Bellamy ditched his keys and wallet on the island in the kitchen before looking into the living room where the TV was playing an old episode of Real World/Road Rules Challenge softly and where his sister and her best friend were still camped out for some unfathomable reason.

So much for Eastern Market in the morning he thought with a huff of a laugh only to have Clarke's head pop up from behind the back of the sofa, a finger to her lips shushing him.

This wasn't highly unusual, Clarke was a goddamn tank when it came to alcohol and there wasn't a single occasion when she didn't drink Octavia under the table. Clarke was also one of those strange cases where she never got 'drunk' per se. Clarke was either sober or blackout, like after 8 drinks a switch got flipped. Apparently their movie themed drinking game hadn't been quite enough given the still rather coherent look in her eyes.

Bellamy walked softly into the living room and saw his little sister passed out across her friend's lap, her mouth rather charmingly hanging open and soft snores emitting from her.

"Successful night?" Bellamy asked, smiling fondly at his mess of a sibling.

"CT just gorilla stomped across the gulag wearing Johnny Bananas like a bitchy little backpack so I would say yes," Clarke whispered, nodding towards the TV.

"Glad to hear it," Bellamy responded, rolling his eyes, "Let me get this delinquent off your bed so you can get some sleep."

Clarke nodded and planted a smacking kiss on top of Octavia's head, displaying just how drunk she might be for the first time since Bellamy had walked in. He bent and lifted his sister, carrying her to her bedroom and laying her gently on the bed, before rolling her like a burrito in her covers. He might love her and always need to take care of her, but that didn't mean he wasn't going to have some good natured fun with her passed out ass.

After making sure that Octavia was safe in bed with a glass of water and some aspirin on her bedside table he went back out into the main living area to quickly check back in on Clarke before heading to bed himself.

It was as if caring for Octavia had been the only thing keeping Clarke in the land of the conscious because the second he had relieved her of this duty she had dropped off to sleep herself. Bellamy felt another smile tugging at the corner of his mouth and walked over to quietly pull the wedge out of back of the sofa to convert it into a bed. He snagged an arm under her legs and another around her back and softly shifted Clarke more towards the middle of the mattress. Clarke grumbled something incoherent and wrinkled the bridge her her nose in her sleep.

"You're fine Princess," Bellamy reassured her sleeping form and couldn't ignore the small tug of affection he felt over her downright adorable expressions.

Well fuck, he thought as he let one of their many throw blankets drift down over her and he watched Mulder sandwich himself next to her. It looked like his motives for accepting this bet might have been way more complicated than he had been willing to admit.

—-

TBC… Reviews are pretty much my favorite second to Bellamy's cheekbones.

Come tumble around on tumblr with me under the same name!