This fanfiction was written for Bellarke Secret Santa 2018 (hosted on Tumblr) and originally posted to AO3.

This is dedicated to great-wanheda on Tumblr. They were interested in seeing Bellarke ice skating this Christmas, so here it is!

We're Like Penguins on Ice

"I don't know what convinced you this would be a good idea." Bellamy tugged his winter hat tighter over his ears, a lopsided smile on his face. Clarke glanced back at him, an unabashed smile on hers.

"It'll be fun!" She slid some cash across the counter to the worker as she spoke. "You'll love it!"

Bellamy laughed without humor. "You just heard yourself, right? There's no possible way I'm going to love ice skating." He leaned forward and wrapped his arms around Clarke, guiding her body to rest against his. She went easily, and her own hands lifted to rest on his arms.

"It's for Raven's birthday," she reminded him. Tilting her head back, she managed to catch a glimpse at him through her lashes. "It'll be fun," she told him again. Bellamy lifted an eyebrow.

"You've said that at least ten times since we left the house. Are you sure you're not trying to convince yourself?" Clarke rolled her eyes jokingly at his teasing tone.

"It will be fun. I won't let it be anything except fun." Bellamy chuckled at her insistence.

"Hun, you've never skated before. I've never skating before. We're going to be wrecked so hard."

"Now, now," she tisked, pulling away from his hold. "Positive attitude, Bellamy." She settled back against his chest. "Plus, Shaw is going to teach us. That's the only way he managed to get us out here."

Before Bellamy could list one of the many reasons why them skating was a bad idea, Clarke pulled away from him and grabbed their pairs of rental skates.

As they walked towards the bench, she passed him his pair. He held one of the skates up and examined it closely. While he had grown up in Canada, skating was something completely foreign to him. It was the exact same thing for Clarke. She had grown up in Canada, but had never gone skating either.

He wasn't completely oblivious to the activity. He watched hockey and ice skating before. He knew Tessa and Scott were Canada's sweethearts and won more titles than he could remember for ice dancing (also – were they just skating partners or partner partners?). He had shouted at his television more times than he'd like to admit during the Olympics and Hockey Night in Canada, as if he could skate better than those athletes.

As if he could skate at all.

As Clarke sat, she turned to him, her lip between her teeth. "Have you ever tied a skate before?"

He sent her a pathetic look. "Clarke. You're asking me if I've ever tied a skate before? Me?"

"Right." She tried to supress her laugh. "Sorry."

Bellamy glanced down at his skate. The task seemed too daunting for him. He was only human – how could anyone possibly figure out how to put on that!? It was a blade attached to the bottom of your foot! Not only did the laces look impossible to figure out, but the whole idea of standing on a blade on a slippery surface was absolutely wild. Plus, the skate looked more dangerous than anything.

"Well, it can't be harder than tying a shoe, right?"

In fact, it was much harder than tying a shoe.

After his fifth attempt at lacing it, Bellamy pulled his foot out of the skate and pressed his fingers to his forehead in frustration. Clarke continued working on hers. She was always more determined and stubborn than he was – she wouldn't be giving up any time soon.

He looked around the small room filled with benches. Dozens of people bundled to the eyes sat around the room, each trying to tie their skates. Nobody seemed to be having any issues. He swore in his head. Of course, they would be the only ones failing at something as simple as tying skates.

His eyes landed on a couple a few benches from them. The male was crouched on the ground, the woman's foot resting on his knee. Both of them were smiling as he tied her skate with ease. Right. Two people and one skate. That would make things easier, right?

"Let me help you," Bellamy offered, dropping to the ground. Clarke pulled away from her skate, huffing loudly. She tried to push some of her loose hair out of her face, but the mitten on her hand only made each strand stand up with static. She glared at the offending hair.

While Clarke battled her hair, Bellamy battled the laces. He watched the couple out of the corner of his eyes and copied their movements.

He took Clarke's foot between his knees, positioning her leg so the laces faced right up at him. It was a familiar setting, one that he had been faced with as soon as Octavia was learning to tie her laces on shoes. He could do this.

With her foot between his legs, he managed to pull the strings until they were tightened and tied them off as he would with shoes. That was correct, right? Was the bunny knot adequate for this situation?

It didn't matter. That would have to do. They were already late for meeting Shaw and Raven.

"See? You're not half bad." Clarke swooped down and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek. He smirked without breaking concentration on her second foot. "We'll be ready to hit the ice soon."

He grimaced at the visual her words gave him. He couldn't imagine hitting something as solid as ice would be fun. "Hit the ice? You might want to choose a better phrase."

"Maybe our falls will be protected by all of our layers?" Clarke suggested hopefully. Bellamy sent her a look filled with doubt and dropped her skate-clad feet to the ground. They swapped places and Clarke took his foot in-between her legs.

"And just lace them like shoes," he instructed as she slipped on his skate. She nodded her head and got to work on lacing them up.

If Bellamy thought that lacing up the skates was difficult, then standing up with them was impossible.

After one absolute failure of an attempt at getting off the bench, Clarke clutched Bellamy's gloved hands in hers. She couldn't wipe the smile from her face and Bellamy couldn't blame her. They were sad but absolutely hilarious in the most pathetic way.

If they couldn't even stand up, how did they expect to skate?

"On three?" Clarke nodded her head, giggled erupting from her mouth. Bellamy couldn't help but join her. "Clarke, stop. I – I can't stand."

That only made her laugh harder.

"Bellamy, stop, I'm going to cry," she hissed. She couldn't stay upright anymore and toppled to the side, her hands wrapped around her torso. Her face was spread wide with glee, her eyes crinkled from the pure joy, and her whole body shook with each laugh.

Gods, she was beautiful.

Looking at her made Bellamy soften. She was sprawled across the dirty floor, the white pompom on the top of her hat landing in a puddle of muddy water, and her hair was sticking up in all directions from the static, but she never looked more beautiful. She cracked her eyes open slightly and looked at him from the ground.

"What are you doing?" she questioned, her laughter slowly subsiding.

Bellamy shrugged. "Just thinking about how pretty you look right now." She awed and sat up from the ground. He smirked. "Pretty funny."

"You're not even funny, Bellamy," she commented, rolling her eyes. Despite her mock stern tone, he could see she was smiling from his lame jokes. Yeah, he was lame, but at least it made her smile.

She reached her hands out for his. Bellamy looked at them wearily. "Do you really think I'll be able to pull you up? I can't even figure out how to keep myself upright."

"Mm. Just try. Pretty please?" She batted her eyelashes and Bellamy snorted. Like it was ever even a question if he was going to help her or not.

Bellamy reached forward and took both of her hands in his. With the nod of his head, he yanked Clarke upwards so she was standing in front of him. Her hands instantly shot out from his and grabbed his shoulders, using his stabilization to balance herself.

After half a minute of Clarke balancing on her skates, she slowly removed her hands from his shoulders. He examined her body, trying his hardest to figure out what she was doing to be able to stay upright.

"Hey. It's actually pretty easy," she commented, bending her knees slightly to test. When she was satisfied with her balance, she reached her hand out for his. "Come on. Let's get you up."

He frowned. "I don't know if this is a good idea."

"It's a great idea."

"I have fragile bones you know. I'm getting old." When she was about to protest, he cut her off. "I'm older than you. You don't understand."

"Okay, first off, smarty, you're older than me by a few years. Secondly, you're literally only 23 years old."

Bellamy snorted. "Okay, fine. Help me up."

He grasped both of her hands in his tightly. He wished that they had taken their gloves off before they attempted to stand – the material covering their hands made it nearly impossible to grasp anything tightly.

He sucked one final breath in before pushing himself off the bench, propelling him right into Clarke. She stumbled a step backwards, trying to balance both of them. His arms wrapped around her body tightly, anchoring himself to the one thing keeping him upright.

As soon as Clarke was sure they weren't going to fall, she let out a tiny laugh. "How are we going to skate?" she asked him, her voice too amused for the situation.

"I told you!" he said. He pulled back an inch to look her in the eyes. "This is going to be a disaster!"

Bellamy never felt worse about being right.

Even walking to the skating rink had been a disaster. Clarke and Bellamy clutched hands tightly, both trying to use the other for balance. Bellamy would admit that it probably would've worked better if at least one of them had decent balance.

The walk to the rink was excruciating. It lasted minutes and Bellamy was drenched in sweat by the time he reached the ice. Every step they took, they would both wobble on their skates, throw their arms out to try and balance, and clutch on to each other.

Every. Freaking. Step.

He was pretty proud of himself, all things considered. He managed not to fall on his butt on the way to the rink, and he even managed to steady Clarke the one time she tipped too far off balance.

They must've looked like a bunch of toddlers learning to walk for the first time. Or maybe it was closer to penguins on ice. At least, that's how it felt to Bellamy. They were sliding all of the place, their legs shook from the effort, and each step was a struggle.

When they met up with Raven and Shaw, she had already been laughing for a solid five minutes at them.

"I can't believe you guys came!" she managed to say between her laughs. "Shaw was convinced one of you would pretend to have caught the flu or something."

"Damn, that would've been a good idea," he muttered under his breath. As if the ice rink heard his insults, he slipped backwards and went flying to the ground.

Clarke let out a sharp gasp and yanked his arm towards her own body. Once again, he went toppling towards her, completely not in control of his actions. He collided into her, sending them flying into the door that lead to the rink.

He let out a painful groan and Raven laughed harder. They weren't even on the rink yet. Bellamy could already imagine all of the bruising he was going to get from the day.

"Are you guys ready?" Shaw questioned, waddling up to them. Clarke peeled herself off Bellamy's side and grimaced.

"I don't think we'll ever be ready." She turned to Raven, who was still bent over and laughing. "You better know how much I love you to be doing this."

"This is better than any gift you could ever give me," she said.

"Aw. I didn't think our presences were so appreciated," Bellamy said dryly, gripping the door tightly.

"Oh, yeah, sure," she snorted. "I didn't mean you guys actually being here. I was talking about the joy I'll get by watching you two fall on your asses over and over."

"If I could figure out how to walk, I would've tackled you by now," Clarke threatened, her tone teasing. Raven shrugged and stepped onto the ice.

"Oh well. Looks like you won't be able to tackle me!" She skated backwards for a few meters, a coy expression on her face. "Have fun!"

"Aren't we going to teach them?" Shaw called.

"It's more fun this way. Have fun!" Raven repeated again, spinning to skate away. "I'll be watching from over there!"

Clarke turned to Shaw, desperation on her face. "Don't do this, Zeke. I swear, if you leave us, I will never forgive you."

"Sorry," he said, shrugging as he stepped onto the ice. "I'm sure you guys will be fine. Yeah. You'll be fine. Just don't put your hands out to brace your falls; you'll break your wrists."

With that inspiring piece of advice, he went skating after his girlfriend, leaving Clarke and Bellamy alone once again.

"Remember that you're the one who got us into this mess," Bellamy pointed out. Clarke stuck her tongue out at him. "Very mature."

Clarke ignored him and inched her way towards the ice. "What's the worst that can happen?" she wondered out loud. Just as she was about to step onto the rink, she turned back to Bellamy, a soft smile on her face. "Come here." She stuck out her hand in his direction, beckoning him over.

Swearing under his breath, Bellamy pushed away from his safety spot and stumbled towards where Clarke stood. He latched onto her outstretched arm as soon as he could, hanging onto her like his life depended on it. She couldn't help but laugh.

"Are you laughing at me?" he asked, his tone not impressed. His question made her laugh harder.

"No," she promised. "Just about this whole thing! I mean, we came here for Raven's birthday, but she's not even here! It's absurd that we're even in this situation. I mean, are we going to die on her birthday?"

"Oh, no," he said. "She's there." He gestured vaguely across the rink. "Watching." Low and behold, Raven and Shaw were skating in circles on the opposite end of the rink. Raven looked like she was having a grand time watching them make fools of themselves.

Bellamy had to admit, if their positions were reversed, he would be doing the same thing. He must've looked beyond ridiculous in that moment.

"Well, I guess we should attempt it, right?" Clarke wondered, turning to look at Bellamy. He looked emotionless. "We'll be fine."

"Shaw just wanted me about breaking my wrists," he pointed out. "There are many possible ways where we won't be fine." He sucked in a breath. "But I'll do this. For you. And, also I think Raven's is recording us on her phone, and it would be pretty cool to go viral."

"Oh, right," Clarke snorted, rolling her eyes affectionately. "You sure?"

"Positive. We'll crush it."

"Totally."

"Yeah. We can do this."

"For sure."

"We own this ice."

"You said it."

"Alright. Let's go."

Bellamy and Clarke stepped onto the ice at the same time. He wasn't too sure who pulled who down, but he was tumbling towards the ice the very instant he touched the ice. Clarke let out a loud yelp as they both fell to what Bellamy was sure to be the end of their wrists.

Turns out, his earlier suspicions were right. The amount of layers he had on did provide some padding to break his fall. That, or he actually listened to Shaw's advice.

Regardless of why it happened, Bellamy was counting his blessings that he managed to land on the ice without much pain. Clarke was pressed tightly to his side, her hat having slipped down her face to cover her eyes. Her whole body was shaking silently with the ferocity of her laughs.

"Are you okay?" he asked. She couldn't manage an answer, so she merely nodded. A wide smile spread across his face at her joy. "All bones intact?" Another nod. "Aright. Good." He felt himself chuckling, the shock wearing off. "Good."

He could see Raven and Shaw skating towards them with clear concern on their faces. Bellamy couldn't help but chuckle at the two of them. He hoped they caught their failure on video. Was AFV still a thing?

Before they reached them, Clarke managed to get a hold of herself long enough to speak. "I'm sorry for dragging you out here," she managed to say. "This really blows. I think I bruised my butt."

Bellamy let out a loud laugh. Knowing that she wasn't seriously hurt, he swooped down and pressed a soft kiss to her lips. He pulled away just enough so he could see her eyes. "It is totally worth it."

Pop culture references in this fanfic:
-"Tessa and Scott" refers to the Canadian ice dancing pair Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir.
-"Hockey Night in Canada" is referring to a Canadian television show on CBC Television that broadcasts NHL.
-"AFV" refers to America's Funniest Home Videos, a television show.

I hope everyone reading is having an enjoyable winter and a wonderful holiday season. xx