This was written for the Bellarke Secret Santa on Tumblr. Just now getting around to posting it here.
It started simply, as these things usually do, and only escalated because Bellamy Blake was an asshole.
Looking around the bland, beige walls and regulation cubicles of Ark Contracting's Telemarketing Division, Clarke Griffin could hardly think of a more depressing place to spend her time, especially during the holiday season. Outside the walls of the basement offices, the city was bursting with color and Christmas spirit, lights and glittering trees and Santas of every size and shape all around. Inside, the only special light they were treated to was the endless flickering of the failing fluorescent bulb over Jasper's cubicle, which Mr. Kane continually promised would be fixed.
This was the last place on earth Clarke had ever expected to end up, but the hours fit in perfectly with her class schedule, and the money was just enough to keep her from running back to her Mom and begging for help. Which. Yeah, it was worth doing time in the depressing environment, though when she had to sit through a meeting with Marcus Kane gleefully pointing out that many people were going to need new roofs after the recent winter storm, it was not always the easiest place to stomach.
Just over a week before Christmas, she was home watching a mini-marathon of Christmas movies with her roommate when she got the idea. It was just something small, a cheap little token of holiday spirit, but she'd even roped Raven into helping her make a long paper chain of snowflakes on a string to hang in the office.
She made sure to get to work a few minutes early the next day, so Kane couldn't get on her about wasting work time, then used paper clips to hook the string into the ceiling tiles. She'd made it just long enough to run along the length of all the cubicles, and Harper and Monty had jumped in to help her hang it.
"Brings a little Christmas spirit to this hellhole," Harper said.
Most people filing into the office made a comment about how cute they were, or how nice it was to have a bit of holiday decoration. Even Indra, who had worked there (and hated it) essentially forever, actually almost smiled when she saw it. There was definite twitching around the corners of her mouth.
Then there was Bellamy.
Clarke liked to think that she was an agreeable person. She could get along with almost anybody, and even if she had nothing in common with a person she could still manage to be friendly. Years of being forced to perform the "perfect daughter" act in front of guests had helped her to remain polite even in the face of the most exasperating people.
That didn't work with Bellamy, who'd taken an instant dislike to her for reasons she still didn't understand. He picked and poked at her at every opportunity, and he somehow just knew how to push her buttons like nobody else. After a screaming match over whose documents had jammed up the printer (it was totally his, and she would argue this until her dying day), they had been called to Kane's office and reprimanded, and they'd both taken pains to avoid one another as much as possible for the sake of keeping their jobs. It was a test of patience on her part, for sure, because every time she heard him refer to her as "princess" in that smug, condescending tone, she wanted nothing more than to plow her fist into his annoyingly attractive face.
But she was better than that.
More or less.
Of course, Bellamy had to make a comment on the snowflakes, calling them "fucking ridiculous" on the way to his cubicle.
But she was the better person, as usual, and simply ignored him.
Until a few minutes later, when she witnessed the jackass standing on his desk, scissors in hand, and snipping the snowflake strand in two.
Turning, he smirked at her and saluted with the scissors as snowflakes fell around the cubicles.
And then it was on.
A trip to the Dollar Store with Raven netted a surprise score of 5-inch-tall fake Christmas trees covered in tiny red bows. Cheesy, but super cute.
Before the shift even started that afternoon, each cubicle had a tree of its own, Jasper had even named his ("He shall be called Firby!") and Monroe and Harper were making "garland" for their trees by chaining paper clips together.
Clarke swore she heard Indra say that her tree was "cute," but nobody else heard or would believe her.
Bellamy, of course, managed to "accidentally" knock his tree into the trash, loudly lamenting its untimely death. Naturally, his two copycat flunkies — the Johns, Murphy and Mbege — followed suit.
But the fact that they were jerks couldn't ruin anybody else's fun, so Clarke decided to ignore them, no matter how many times Bellamy walked past her cubicle and acted like he was going to knock her tree off, too.
It couldn't be more obvious that Bellamy didn't like being ignored, so she should have been prepared the next day to come in to the office and find every single little tree, red bows and all, spray painted black.
Clarke still had a key to her parents' house, so she made a stop when she knew her Mom would be at work and raided the attic for some old decorations that would never be missed. When her co-workers arrived the next day, they were treated to a long string of colored lights twinkling merrily along the line of cubicles.
Even Kane commented on how the lights made for a cheerier environment.
Aside from a deep sigh (accompanied by a dramatic eye-roll), Bellamy was silent on the subject.
Jasper was less so. "I'd like to see someone try to cut this string of decorations," he said, with no subtlety at all. He was holding a bit of a grudge over poor Firby.
"Yeah, maybe they'd electrocute themselves," Clarke agreed.
No comment from two cubicles over.
She would never have admitted it, but Clarke was just a tiny bit disappointed that Bellamy would give up so easily. Not that she liked fighting with him or anything, but it almost made her a little sad to see him lose.
She should have been suspicious.
When she came in the next day and plugged in the lights, the effect was underwhelming. For good reason; she saw on closer inspection that every other bulb on the string had been pulled out.
Growling, she unplugged the lights altogether, just as the asshole waltzed in.
Early. Which he never was.
Unless he came to gloat.
"Losing your Christmas spirit, Griffin?" he asked.
"You wish, Blake," she said.
She spent the evening seething, conveniently forgetting her disappointment when she'd thought he'd given up their little contest, and was still so angry when she got home that Raven insisted they go out drinking. She even called Wells for backup.
A few drinks in, Clarke was feeling better, but that didn't mean she was anywhere near done ranting about her most annoying coworker.
"He's an asshole," she said.
"Maybe he's Jewish," Wells offered. One of Wells' best — and most frustrating — qualities was his insistence in seeing the good in everybody. "And he doesn't celebrate it."
"Nope. Ass. Hole." She waved her beer bottle in the air. "Besides, I'm not putting up a Nativity scene or something. It's freaking Christmas trees and lights. Who doesn't like Christmas lights?"
"Maybe he has a reason to hate the holiday season," he said. "Maybe he lost someone around Christmas time."
She considered that possibility for moment, then shook her head. "Doesn't matter. Doesn't mean he has to ruin it for everybody else. He just hates happiness. He's the Grinch. Or Scrooge. He's the Scrinch!"
"Soooooo," Raven drew the word out, and if Clarke's brain had been up to speed she would have known what was coming. As it was, she was so busy peering into her nearly empty bottle that she missed the look on her friend's face completely. "This Scrinch — how hot is he?"
"Ohhhhh," Clarke shook her head, then drained the last of her beer, shaking her head again. "So hot. Like, he's got freckles. And permanent, like, sex hair, all thick and curly and you just want to …" she grasped her hands in front of her like she was getting a fistful of it. "You know? And he does the thing where he rolls up his shirt sleeves, and how … I mean, how can forearms be so —"
She stuttered to a stop, taking in the way her two best friends were looking at her. "But whatever," she said. "I don't like him or anything."
"It's okay to have a crush," Wells said kindly.
"I do not have a crush on that asshole," she said. "Anyway, he hates me. And he hates Christmas."
"And happiness," Raven supplied.
"Yes!" Clarke banged her bottle on the table. "Yes, he hates happiness! I could never like someone like that."
She was so hungover the next day, she slept late and then dozed on the couch, stumbling into work without ever having given the Christmas battle a second thought.
Fortunately, Monty and Jasper had stepped into the breach, dangling multicolored tinsel over basically every available surface. It was a bit of overkill, but she appreciated the sentiment anyway.
It also made her even angrier when she came back from her break to see the two Johns pushing Monty out of the way to get to what was left of the tinsel, stuffing it into a garbage bag.
Bellamy was just standing to the side, smirking.
"If your minions touch Monty again, I will destroy you," she told him.
"Hey, it's got nothing to do with me," he said. "I'm just standing here, all right?"
"Oh, right, like you didn't incite all this with your—"
"What. Is. Going. On?" the voice of their boss rang through the office.
Nobody answered, though they all got very quiet. Clarke continued to glare at Bellamy but bit back the angry words she wanted to throw at him.
"Should I assume by this ruckus that every number on all of our lists has been called?" After a long pause, he sighed, so disappointed in all of them. "I thought not. Get back to work."
Clarke looked away from Bellamy first, about to head back to her desk, when Kane called to her.
"Clarke, while I appreciate the … spirit of your decorating spree, it seems to be a bit disruptive," he said. "Perhaps instead, we should just have a small holiday party for anyone who's interested on Wednesday? I could extend the break time a bit, for some snacks and music, maybe?"
Smiling triumphantly at Bellamy, who was making faces behind their boss's back, she nodded. "That sounds great, Mr. Kane, thank you!"
Throughout the rest of the night, emails and texts flew as Clarke and her co-workers (those who weren't Scrinches) made plans for the party. Just about everyone was willing to pitch in, so when it came down to it, all Clarke had to do was bring some cookies.
After shift on Tuesday, several of them stayed to deck the office halls with selections from a huge box of decorations that Indra had brought in and dumped at Clarke's desk without a word. Monty hooked up his iPod to play Christmas tunes through his computer, and Jasper, Monroe and Harper hung around late, helping to transform their dingy work space into a cheery Christmas Wonderland.
They wrapped up the decoration session with a big group hug, taking one last look at their masterpiece before flipping the lights out and leaving.
Suck it, Scrinches.
"You brought cookies?"
Clarke rolled her eyes and pulled the plastic container closer to her chest as Bellamy moved up beside her. "You brought your usual shitty attitude, I assume."
"Never leave home without it," he said, leaning against the wall next to the elevator, poking the "down" button even though she'd already done so.
Clarke fought a smile. She definitely had a weakness for a smartass attitude, which Bellamy had in spades. If he wasn't such a jerk …
"Can I ask you a question?" she burst out. "Why exactly do you hate Christmas so much? Did your grandma actually get run over by a reindeer? Are you offended by happiness in some way?"
The elevator finally showed up, and he stepped inside, deigning to wait for her before he jammed the button for the basement.
"Not all of us have it as easy as the princess," he said, sounding angry. "When you live a charmed life, you have nothing better to worry about than if the office has tinsel for Christmas."
Clarke gasped. "I don't believe it. All this attitude from you is because of my mom?" Abby Griffin was a deputy mayor, and she definitely never had to worry about money. "You hate me because of money? God, you're shallower than I thought."
He scoffed. "Everyone else is stuck working here; you're just slumming. I don't know what you're doing in a place like this, but you don't belong."
The doors opened on the basement, but Clarke moved over and hit the button to shut the doors, holding it steady while stepping into Bellamy's space.
"You listen up, Blake. I could go running back to my mom, and she'd pay all my bills. All I have to do is give up everything I care about and let her run my life," she growled. She was so angry she could punch something. Or someone. "Yeah, I'm well aware I have it better than a lot of people in there. Jasper lost his mother a month ago. Harper got kicked out of her apartment because her shitty roommate drank away her half of the rent. Monty's parents aren't speaking to him since he came out. Indra has no family and has worked at this shithole forever. Everybody has it rough, and I thought maybe, just maybe, we could have a little bit of holiday fucking cheer in this place. So if you don't want to enjoy this party, you're going to shut your mouth, take your minions and stay the hell out of the way."
Releasing the button, she stepped out into the hallway, marching into the office fueled by offense and anger.
She stopped dead in the doorway, gasping in dismay at the sight before her. The decorations they'd spent hours on the night before were not just taken down, they were destroyed. Garland and glittery cardboard snowflakes had been torn down and ripped to pieces, and tears came to her eyes at the sight of Indra's mini Christmas tree with half the branches snipped off and scattered. The colored lights that they'd strung all over the cubicles had been pulled down and twisted into a huge knotted ball.
Clarke dropped her box of cookies on a nearby desk as Bellamy came in after her, surveying the room with wide eyes.
"Clarke," he said slowly. "I —"
"You son of a bitch," she hissed, pushing past him and jumping into the elevator, hitting the button for the top floor.
It was freezing up on the roof, but the cold felt good. There were a few benches scattered around and a lame attempt at a roof garden that failed long before the weather turned cold, but it was still a nice spot to be alone.
She was trying to pull it together, figure out how they could salvage something out of this mess, but mostly she was trying to understand how someone could be so mean.
Why was it so hard for them to let people have a little fun and celebrate? They weren't hurting anyone, and she just didn't get why they would take pleasure in ruining it for everyone.
Clarke heard the door to the roof stairwell bang shut behind her, and she just knew it was the asshole.
"What do you want?" she asked without turning around.
"I … I wanted to apologize," Bellamy said, hovering uncertainly behind her before sitting next to her.
"Apology not accepted."
"I didn't know Murphy and Mbege would do that," he said. "I mean, I know I started it, but I didn't mean for it to get out of control."
She shrugged. "Well, I'm sure that will be a great comfort to the others who worked on that for hours last night. And to Indra, who just lost a bunch of nice decorations."
She saw him hanging his head out of the corner of her eye and turned on him. "Seriously, what the hell is your problem with Christmas? Why do you hate it so much?"
"I don't hate it," he said quietly. "I love Christmas. I just … I always spend it with Octavia, my little sister. But this year, she went to meet her boyfriend's family. We're going to celebrate it next week instead, and I was fine when she asked if that was okay, but the closer we got to the holiday …"
Clarke nodded, feeling sympathy despite herself. "No other family?"
He just shook his head, eyes on the ground.
"That sucks. If only you could have had another holiday event to cheer you up, like, I don't know, a party at work."
He turned to her, smiling faintly. "Fighting with you cheered me up a little bit."
"Merry Christmas," she said flatly. Though she might have enjoyed their war a tiny bit, the mess downstairs still upset her.
"I was thinking," he said. "Maybe we could still make this party work? We've got cookies, right? And some others are bringing food and music. And we can see if any of the decorations can be salvaged?"
When she just looked at him, wondering if she could trust him, he held out a hand. "Together?"
She offered him a small smile and took his hand, which engulfed her own in warmth, paradoxically causing her to shiver. "Together," she nodded.
The party was a hit for everyone but the two Johns, who had been caught on video trashing the decorations and got reamed out by Kane, who was actually sporting a Santa hat for the evening.
They managed to pull together enough untouched decorations to keep the place looking festive, though nowhere near the glorious scene it was before the guys destroyed it. And, best of all (though she'd never admit it), Clarke got caught with Bellamy under the mistletoe that someone had put up in a doorway. It was every cheesy Christmas movie come to life, and even though he'd just brushed his lips softly over her cheek, it left her heart pounding for a good while afterward. And she could tell he knew it by the cocky grin he sent her afterward.
The asshole.
He stayed for the cleanup, though, joking around with Monty and Jasper (who finally forgave him for Firby), and volunteering to help Clarke drag a couple of big bags of trash down to the dumpster on their way out.
"So … no big plans for tomorrow, then?" she asked.
"Sleep," he said. "Then maybe eating something. Sleeping some more. Not talking on a phone all day."
"Sounds good," she nodded. She tossed her bag into the dumpster and watched as he did the same. "I … my roommate and I do a thing. It's like a Christmas movie marathon? We start at noon on Christmas Eve, and we watch stuff all night and into Christmas Day. Our friends come over when they can, some of them stay the whole time, and some are in and out. We drink way too much, usually we order pizza and eat a lot of other stuff with basically no nutritional value. If you wanted to come by, you could."
"You're sure that would be okay?" he asked hesitantly as they walked around the side of the building to the employee parking lot.
"I wouldn't have invited you if it wasn't. Like I said, people are in and out, so you could come whenever it's convenient, in between naps or something. But we always start out with the best Christmas movie of all time, so you need to be there at noon if you don't want to miss it."
"'It's a Wonderful Life'? 'Miracle on 34th Street'?"
She looked at him like he was crazy. "Um, 'Die Hard,'" she said. "Duh."
"Of course," he said, laughing. "That was my next guess."
She stopped at her car, unlocking the door. "Look, you don't have to come if you don't want, but you'll be welcome if you do. And you'll know some people there. Monty always stays all day, and his boyfriend will drop by when he gets off work. Jasper will probably show up for a while, and I invited a couple others from work."
"Okay, sounds good. Text me the address?"
She got his number and sent him the information while he stood by her car.
"Will there, ah, will there be any mistletoe at this party?" he asked as she opened her door. "I feel like I missed a real opportunity today."
She couldn't help but grin. "You wanted to get Jasper under there, eh?"
"Something like that."
"Well," she said, stepping closer to him, heart beating hard as his eyes dropped to her mouth. "Real men don't need mistletoe to make a move. Next time you see him, just —"
Bellamy cupped her cheeks in his hands, moving his lips against hers and almost instantly warming her up from the inside. Sighing, she fisted her hands in his coat and pulled him closer, sucking his bottom lip into her mouth. He took the opening she offered, deepening the kiss into a slow slide of lips and tongues that set her head spinning. No matter how cold it was, she felt like she could keep kissing him forever.
When he finally pulled back a while later, she was backed up against the back door of her car, flushed and out of breath, his body pressed fully against her, and she thought she might actually burst into flames despite the cold.
Naturally, the asshole was a fantastic kisser.
Leaning his forehead against hers, he took a deep breath, and she noted with satisfaction that it was just as shaky as hers.
"So," he said gruffly, "you think Jasper will like that, or …?"
Laughing, she pushed him away.
Clarke woke up smiling, running her fingers over her lips and kind of wondering if maybe it was all some kind of weird dream.
She didn't mention anything to Raven as they were cleaning the apartment before the party (in other words, shoving all their random shit into their rooms and closing the doors) just in case it was all her imagination.
Maybe she'd snapped after the Great War on Christmas, dreaming that she made out against her car with her archenemy. Because it was slightly possible, in that she'd fantasized about a scenario like that once or twice in her time at Ark.
She continued to wonder as they set out their buffet of junk food on the kitchen counter (various kinds of chips and dip, homemade frosted cookies and some mini pizza rolls that Raven loved but Clarke thought were gross. They left space for Wells' annual veggie tray (a flagrant violation of the no-nutritional-value rule, but it was Wells, so they overlooked it), and the many edible contributions their friends always brought with them.
She wondered (and worried, a little bit), right up until she answered the door, and Bellamy Blake stood there holding a grocery sack of junk food in one hand and a string of paper snowflakes in the other.
"The Scrinch's small heart grew three sizes that day," she said, shaking her head at Raven's bark of laughter and Bellamy's confused look. She took the sack from him, ushering him into the apartment and introducing him to Raven before leading him into the kitchen.
Setting the sack down, she stood in front of him with a smile. "Merry Christmas, asshole."
He laughed, tossing the snowflakes down on the counter and brushed a kiss over her mouth. "Back at you, Princess."