—-

I was talking, not two days ago

To a certain bartender I'm lucky to know

And I asked Henry, my bar tending friend

If I should bother dating unfamous men

And Henry said, "You're lucky to even know me

You're lucky to be alive. You're lucky to be drinking here for free cause I'm a

Sucker for your lucky, pretty eyes"

"Princess, do you

Really want to flap your wings and fly

Because you've got time"

Polyester Bride- Liz Phair

—-

Clarke was complaining loudly about the cottony state of her mouth when they made it back to the apartment with just under an hour to spare before he was expected at the bar. Both of them had above average alcohol tolerance so a bottle of wine between them wasn't enough to leave either of them drunk but it was apparently enough to remove Clarke's volume control.

They pushed into the apartment where Clarke headed straight to the sink, actually sticking her head under the faucet rather than bother with the step of dragging a glass out of the cabinet that was just slightly out of her reach and inconvenient when she was sober.

Bellamy snagged two cups and elbowed her out of the way to fill them both and hand her one which she counted to gulp greedily. She seemed completely unconcerned with the fact that her impromptu head bath left the front of her shirt drenched which was good because it meant she also didn't notice the way he was staring at the way the cotton was plastered to her not insignificant cleavage.

Once the issue of rehydration had been addressed they both turned to see Octavia scowling at them from the futon. She had clearly been in the process of painting her toenails but the task was ignored in favor of pinning them with a look of total annoyance.

"I can't believe you went to a wine bar without me," she pouted. Clarke looked sheepish over the rim of her second cup of water and Bellamy felt downright forlorn that he had somehow upset his sister. It had been instilled in him from a very early age that his sister was his responsibility and he took that calling very seriously. It was something like instinct for him to take responsibility for her feelings and it always hurt when she was upset. It took a real and concerted effort to shake the guilt he felt over her disappointed stare; going to dinner without her hardly warranted that sort of regret.

"Wine bars have cheese plates and for all of our differences you both know that the one thing we all agree on is cheese plates," Octavia continued, her disapproving scowl alternating between him and Clarke.

Bellamy shook off a second wave of remorse and pinned her with a hopefully equally disapproving stare, "What are you even doing up?" he asked, remembering their rationale for getting dinner without her in the first place. Octavia's average hangover usually last long into the next afternoon and often had her throwing up past dinner time, to see her alert, showered, and seemingly making an effort on her physical appearance like she had plans was highly unusual.

"I have a friend who's working part time as a paramedic who came over and set me up with an IV," Octavia said vaguely, suddenly very interested in her toenails once more.

Bellamy instantly picked up on the lack of personal pronouns and narrowed his eyes at the back of his sister's head.

"Can 18 year olds even be paramedics?" he asked, suspicious.

"I wouldn't know would I?" Octavia said glibly, shooting a coy look over her shoulder.

Clarke clearly sensed the growing tension in the room and put herself between the siblings.

"Un-uh," she snapped, pointing an accusing finger in Bellamy's face. Bellamy had a moment to feel betrayed that he was the one who got yelled at when clearly his sister was the one keeping secrets and in the wrong here before she continued. "You just spent the vast majority of the day being an actual cool human being please do not go fuck it up now with your weird, vaguely misogynistic, over-protective bullshit."

Rude, Bellamy thought, but also not inaccurate.

"I'm not-" Bellamy began to protest, but Clarke beaned him with a loaf of bread off the counter before he could finish.

"And you," she said, turning to Octavia, equally annoyed. Bellamy wrongly assumed there was more to follow because Clarke just walked over and tapped his sister on the nose and Octavia swatted her away but gave a slightly contrite nod. He should have known better than to expect something coherent since the two girls had moved past needing to communicate everything verbally years ago and could now hold entire conversations with their eyebrows.

Bellamy rolled his eyes and made a conscious effort to put this mystery paramedic behind him for the time being. He had a 6 hour shift ahead of him at The Dropship and he did not need that particular monkey on his back while slinging drinks to fucked up college kids. Octavia capped her nail polish and walked across the room in the wooden march of the recently pedicured, motioning for Clarke to follow her to her room. Being left out from cheese plates apparently had a 5 minute anger maximum.

"Come on, I'm going to pick out something slutty for you to wear."

Clarke crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue at his sister's back but followed her to their wall of dressers.

"I doubt Mulder is really going to appreciate you going through that kind of effort O. He's pretty obsessed with Griffin enough in her vagabond attire."

Clarke opened her mouth to respond but Octavia just kicked the door closed, leaving him standing in the kitchen, mildly intoxicated and alone. It could have just been the wine but Bellamy was pretty sure that something was up that he wasn't being included in. He slowly downed another glass of water, staring at the closed door and straining to hear the muffled voices from behind it. It seemed unlikely that Clarke would gossip to Octavia about her own brother but it wasn't beyond belief. It had been a long time since Bellamy had cause to wonder about a woman's feelings towards him and the anxious pit in his stomach felt suspiciously like something that accompanied a crush.

Octavia and Clarke failed to help him out by either leaving the room nor raising their voices so he was forced to change into his t-shirt and leave for work in his suspended state of confusion.

"Work now," he called through the door and the voices behind it hushed just long enough for Octavia to acknowledge him with a brief 'see you later'.

Bellamy settled his headphones on his head and tried to let his music drown out his thoughts, an alarming amount of which were now about Clarke Griffin.

—-

Any hope he had of forgetting about Clarke and the bet were immediately dashed as he took up his post behind the upstairs bar at The Dropship.

"So how was your day Casanova?" Wick damn near purred as he leaned against the bar polishing glasses to prep for the night ahead.

Bellamy shot a death glare at Miller who was the only one he had remotely clued in to his day with Clarke and who sat calmly at the end of the bar picking at a plate of nachos. Miller just shrugged and popped a jalapeño into his mouth. There were very few patrons at the bar before 9 PM so his friends often took the opportunity to get discounted nachos, the only debatably palatable thing on the menu.

"We went to the museums" Bellamy muttered, knowing full well it was going to get him mocked on several levels.

"Uh-oh. Bellamy Blake's litmus test for girls," Wick teased, "How did she fare?"

"She recited the myth of Atalanta and the golden apples in the National Gallery because it's the inspiration behind her favorite painting."

The smug look on Wick's face faded with almost comical quickness.

"For fucks sake, you're in love with her already aren't you?"

Bellamy shifted uncomfortably and took up cleaning the glasses Wick had abandoned. "I'm not in love with her," he said defensively, "It's been like 24 hours."

"Try more like 13 years," Miller piped up.

"I've got $50 riding on you lasting at least a week so keep that denial up please," Wick pleaded, snatching the rag back and stacking clean glasses under the bar.

"You have side bets about if I'm going to fall in love with her?" Bellamy sputtered.

"Of course we do, you're a high-key hopeless romantic and I need spending money for the season."

"A week?" Bellamy choked, looking at Wick and then to Miller hoping for confirmation that at least his best friend wasn't participating in this fiasco.

"Dude, I've got double that on 3 years ago."

Bellamy groaned and began to take out his aggression slicing lemons and limes.

"Why do you think I let you go along with this stupid bet in the first place?" Miller asked, his expression shifting to something more sympathetic, "You've got some serious feels to work around regarding her and I just want to see you finally happy. Whether that's with her or just putting her behind you finally."

Bellamy was grateful that the bar was still mostly empty so he was able to pour himself a shot and down it without judgment. He was not typically one to drink at work even when work was literally an establishment of drinking but he thought he was probably going to need some incentive to make it through the rest of this conversation.

"So we're going to beat Murphy, take his money, and get you a kickass girlfriend in the process," Wick beamed, apparently over his disappointment at potentially lost side bets already.

Bellamy took another shot and resolved to just be honest with his teammates. For all of their joking he was 90% sure they actually did have his best interests at heart and he was quickly coming around to the idea that his best interests might in fact include Clarke. Something apparently his friends had been aware of for longer than him.

"I'm just not sure where to go from here," he admitted morosely, "Today sorta just happened organically and I really can't depend on her initiating dates to the Smithsonian for the next month if I'm going to pull this off."

"Jesus how are you this bad at this?" Wick marveled. "You are lucky you are so damn attractive or you'd be living a life of celibacy."

Miller snorted, as Bellamy's best friend he was one of the few soccer players who was well aware that their captain's promiscuity had not lasted past the first couple semesters of college.

"You've known her for a million years," Wick continued, "What are her likes and dislikes? It's a pretty solid fucking handicap that you already know this stuff. Thank god you didn't decided to fall for a stranger."

Bellamy stared at his fellow bartender and blinked.

Wick sighed and whipped him with a dishtowel.

"I'll start slower," he said, "What does Clarke like?"

Both men paused to fill drink orders while Bellamy contemplated his history with Clarke to provide Wick with an adequate answer.

"Books," Bellamy offered lamely when the flow of patrons lulled.

"And?" Miller prompted, "You two already have some kinky literary foreplay going on and it hasn't amounted to anything yet."

Wick held up a single finger to indicate he was going to start keeping tally.

"Bryan's here," Miller announced and pushed away from the bar, "I'll try and do some recon while I interact with someone I'm interested in, in a completely healthy manner."

Wick shifted his tally to start with his middle finger as a parting shot to Miller but turned his attention back to Bellamy expectantly.

"Christ Wick I don't know. She likes unconventional animal friendships and hates the patriarchy, wet socks, and me. How does any of this help? If you can tell me how to transition the knowledge that she eats more Lunchables than anyone of legal voting age should into a functional relationship then please let me know."

Bellamy served a few jack and cokes with more of a scowl than usual. The entire situation was enough of a clusterfuck when he was just trying to win a bet with Murphy. Now that his friends were actively trying to interfere with his personal life it was getting incrementally worse by the second.

His entire life had revolved around his sister, school, and soccer, three S's he was comfortable with and perfectly happy centering his universe around for the rest of his days if need be. He was in no way prepared to deal with a crush, especially on the girl in question, and even less so when everyone around him apparently had something to say about it.

"Seriously, you're the worst at this," Wick opined again, "I give up. You should probably just take your shirt off and hope she gets distracted enough to trip and fall on your dick."

"That's my usual game plan," Bellamy deadpanned, punching Wick lightly to show there were no hard feelings but secretly glad that the conversation was coming to an end.

"I could always find a duckling to befriend Mulder," he suggested, "Unfortunately Scully would probably murder it and disrespect the corpse and that really ruins the impact of the gesture."

"I might try something requiring a little less planning because it looks like you're about to get another chance," Wick muttered before quickly retreating to the other end of the bar.

Bellamy was confused for all of ten seconds before he noticed his underage sister and her best friend weaving their way through the accumulating crowd on the dance floor and up to his post at the bar.

"Am I in some sort of time warp where you are suddenly 21?" he asked, glowering at Octavia even as she pinned him with one of her toothier smiles.

"Hey there big bro! We're so happy to see you too!"

"How did you get in?" he continued to interrogate. One of the main appeals of The Dropship was that he didn't have to worry about it's intoxicated patrons getting anywhere near his little sister.

"We got really great IDs," Octavia said primly, not remotely deterred by his obvious anger.

"From who?" Bellamy ground out. He was about to disembowel whoever had robbed him of the 2 carefree years he was supposed to have before he had to worry about Octavia bar hopping.

"This is my ID and this is Clarke's." Octavia framed Clarke's right boob and then her left, the beaming smile returning. Clearly there had been some shots imbibed since he left the apartment.

He was suddenly rendered completely unable to ignore Clarke's chest, something he had been trying desperately to do since the pair approached. He had taken short notice of the expanse of midriff his sister had exposed but it was hard to be distracted for long from the sheer blue top Clarke was wearing over a bra that did absolutely jaw-dropping things for her breasts.

"I'm not sure if I feel empowered or objectified," Clarke observed, a small frown on her face. Bellamy dragged his eyes up and almost immediately regretted it since the blue shirt did even more incredible things for her eyes.

"Apparently I'm going to have to have a talk with Roan about the difference between legal forms of identification and an underage rack," he grumbled and was pretty proud of himself for controlled quality of his voice considering the tests being currently conducted on his libido.

"Well it was nice seeing both of you. Thank you for visiting me at work. Now leave and please never come back."

"Oh hells no, it took me at least an hour to get this one here into something other than overalls." Octavia pouted, "I straightened her hair Bell."

Bellamy allowed himself to briefly notice that Clarke's usually wavy hair was in fact straight. He was actually grateful for this small change since he immediately realized he was very partial to her typical unruly curls that would be perfect to tangle his hands in. He was on sensory overload enough as it was without her just-been-fucked hair further inciting him. He might have put up a fight if he had been aware that they were finding something slutty to wear to his place of employment.

"Come on," Octavia wheedled, "If we're going to be out at a bar wouldn't you rather it be somewhere you can keep your eyes on us?"

Bellamy cast his eyes to the ceiling, summoning all of the patience and self-control he had. She wasn't wrong.

"Fine. But I hope you both enjoy drinking ginger ales for the rest of the night."

"Yep, sure," Octavia said, bouncing up to give him a hug over the bar.

Clarke offered a fist bump before Octavia dragged her down to the other end of the bar to immediately order drinks of the non-ginger ale variety from Wick.

Bellamy gave his friend his most exasperated glare as the duo skipped off to the dance floor with a round of shots and drinks. Wick failed on the subconscious communication though and simply mimed boobs in front of his chest and gave him a thumbs up and a smile.

Bellamy spent the majority of the next hour trying to do his job while keeping a watchful eye on his sister and Clarke. If he was being completely honest with himself he was doing a fairly poor job of monitoring his sister and a much more successful job of checking out Clarke but to be fair it was about time for his to loosen the reigns on Octavia anyway. He heard exactly this from Clarke on a regular basis so he hoped that she would be okay with the fact that it was her ass in a pair of tight white pants that helped distract him.

They were camped out on the fringe of the dance floor with their two stoner friends Jasper and Monty, who Bellamy could not begin to fathom how they got in given they were both exceedingly flat chested.

He saw Miller buzz by a few times, engaging in friendly conversation with each member of the small posse. He more or less trusted Miller but the threat of 'recon' made him a little nervous when he saw Clarke glance his direction as they spoke.

Octavia moved with a sort of liquid grace that likely came with the athleticism that made her such a talented kick boxer but Clarke could not claim the same skill. Her dancing was about 70% jumping around and 30% stanky leg but it didn't seem to matter as numerous men approached the girls over the course of the evening. Bellamy was consummately thankful that none of them appeared to have any success with either one of woman.

He had apparently helped to raise goddamn MacGyver, however, since despite his best efforts his sister continued to somehow procure drinks. Because they seemed to be doing just fine without asking him, he managed to be caught completely off guard when Clarke disappeared from the group and materialized in front of him at the bar. It was a busy night but not out of control yet so she was able to perch herself on a stool immediately in front of him with little effort on her part.

"How bout we put this farce to an end and you just sell me a drink?" she asked batting her eyes mockingly.

"How bout you tell me about the paramedic?" Bellamy replied, holding a vodka bottle just out of her reach. He definitely would have been better off trying pretty much any other topic of conversation but sometimes he honestly couldn't help himself.

"No," Clarke shook her head emphatically, "no, no, no."

Bellamy gave her what he hoped was his most endearing pout but the way her lip curled up in response he was pretty sure he missed the mark.

"Clarke will not be involved in sibling disputes for any reason whatsoever," she recited, "It is literally house rule number 2 right below 'own your farts' and above 'cats get priority seating'."

"Is this going to be a dispute?" he asked, suspicion peaking again.

"They are hanging on the fridge, a place I know you are very acquainted with," she continued, ignoring his prodding, "house rules are the only thing between us and anarchy."

"House rules which I explicitly refused to ratify," Bellamy reminded her, leaning across the bar so they could converse over the music which was getting more and more bass heavy the later it got.

"Because you refused to name 2gether as official house band not because it's unreasonable for me to expect to be left out of family drama," Clarke reminded him, face becoming solemn despite the ridiculous place the sentence started out.

"He's good and I think he's going to be good for her. She's happy Bell."

Bellamy ran his hands through his hair, "Why hasn't she told me?"

"Maybe if you stopped being so damn scary about it she would," Clarke suggested but the teasing tone had returned so Bellamy assumed he was being let off the hook.

"I'll work on it," he promised and was surprised to realize that he meant it.

Clarke let her grin fullt emerge with his assurance and booped him on the nose with a finger before she sat back on her stool. "This calls for shots!"

"How did you put it?" Bellamy asked with a smirk, "No. no, no, no?"

Clarke rolled her eyes toward the other end of the bar where Wick was taking shots with a cute red head and then looked expectantly back at Bellamy.

"Fine but I'm giving you a water also," he relented.

Clarke leaned in across the bar this time as he lined up two pickle back shots, Clarke's favorite and another thing he could add to Wick's list of things he knew.

"Thanks Dad! Do you have a Flintstone vitamin chaser for me back there as well? I'm not sure I'm getting enough thiamin in my diet."

"Given the proportion of your diet composed of pizza rolls I can promise you that you aren't," Bellamy teased. For all of his anxiety he found that talking with Clarke was just as easy now as it was before he realized he may or may not have been nursing a tragic crush on her. Even when they were taking the piss out of each other there was never a dull moment or awkward stutter and he wondered if maybe he shouldn't move himself off the list of things she hated. Maybe she got off on their arguments just as much as he did.

Here's hoping, he thought as they knocked back the shots together. Clarke took the moment he spent recovering from the quick vodka, pickle juice double punch to lean further over the bar to pour herself another drink 'for the road'. Bellamy hoped the way he choked on his own tongue over the view he got down her shirt during her efforts could be written off as further reaction to the shot. He was not the experienced vodka drinker that she was after all.

"Look, I've got my first art show of the semester coming up this Friday and he's going to be there," Clarke said, returning to their earlier conversation, completely unaware of her effect on him as she sipped her newly acquired drink.

"I have to clear it with Octavia but if you promise not to be weird and passive aggressive I'm sure she's just about ready for you to meet him."

Apparently Clarke was going to continue to accidentally set up opportunities for him to spend time with her Bellamy marveled, if she kept it up much longer he was going to start to wonder if she was complicit in the bet or had a side wager of her own.

"Weird and aggressive are two of my more dominant traits but I'll do my best. That's- Thanks," Bellamy said, grateful not just for her unknowing assistance in the bet but for mediating a potentially volatile situation with Octavia despite her protestations.

Clarke saluted him with her glass and disappeared into the crowd on the dance floor.

Bellamy tended bar in a mild daze after that, not even bothering with the light flirting that he usually leveraged for more tips.

He nearly didn't notice when the first few chords of the song played but was unable to ignore Octavia throwing herself into Clarke's arms with a gleeful yelp. Bellamy was typically of the opinion that anything that made his sister that happy was a good thing but this proved to be a rare exception. Bellamy put his fingers in his ears and glared at Clarke accusingly. Clarke, to her credit, made an absolute production of her 'who me?' shrug as she pretended to search the room for the guilty culprit.

Jasper of course was fully on board with the musical selection and Octavia jumped onto his back for a celebratory piggyback around the bar as he lip-synced rather convincingly. Clarke gave up her innocent act and flailed her way back to the bar, belting out the lyrics to accompany some confusing arm motions that he assumed were meant to be math symbols.

"You, plus sign, me, equal sign, us Blake," she sang before flouncing back to her friends. Bellamy allowed himself to laugh since that was all he could do when his underage sister and friend came to his place of work and took over the bar all the way up to the music. He also couldn't say he disagreed with the sentiment of the song. He might have to rethink his position on 2gether as house band moving forward.

The music returned to more modern club hits and he watched Jasper and his sister collapse to the floor next to a table Monty and Clarke had staked out for them during the final triumphant lap. Octavia hopped gracefully to her feet as Jasper used Monty's pants leg to crawl his way back up to standing. Bellamy watched fondly as the foursome settled in to the table, glad that his sister had found people who loved her like he did.

"Miss me high, hit me low," Wick said, breezing past for a quick high five and Bellamy was fairly certain the smile on his face was nothing short of goofy over what he viewed to be a highly successful night all things considered. So maybe his tips were a little lacking but Octavia survived a night at the bar without incident and he had managed something that approximated actual flirting with Clarke.

"What's up man!"

It wasn't fair to say that Finn Collins' voice was enough to ruin his good mood but it certainly didn't do anything to prolong it.

"Is Roan deeply stoned tonight?" he asked rhetorically.

"Dude, Chuck E Cheese is like 5 blocks north of here and I'm pretty sure they're closed for the evening," Wick interjected as he passed behind Bellamy on his way back to the other end of the bar.

"It was probably the music," Bellamy mused. "He is summoned by the playing of dated boy band hits. Some sort of sorcery contained within his hair."

"Thats some dark magic transcending the limits of satire."

Finn laughed along with them assuming the conversation was good natured hazing instead of the outright mocking Bellamy intended. There was a sliver of him that felt a little guilty mistreating one of his teammates but there was something about the young defenseman that triggered him. He played like he was sensitive and enlightened but there was a sense of entitlement he just couldn't hide and more than a hint of white savior complex.

"You were right about the cheerleader house, it was totally beat last night," Finn observed, apparently still under the impression they were holding a conversation.

"What can we get you man?" Wick asked for which Bellamy was grateful since he wasn't planning on doing anything more helpful than glare.

"Uh- two pickle back shots would be great," he ordered, shaking his hair away from his face in the manner that made Bellamy especially twitchy.

Wick filled the order and Bellamy tried not to openly scowl as he carefully navigated away from the bar.

The shots shouldn't have been a giveaway, its not like its an especially unique drink order; but the fact that circumstances had been going so perfectly his way definitely should have been a clue that things were about to take a drastic nose dive Bellamy mused as he watched Finn cross the dance floor and hand one shot off to Clarke.

"Did we know this?" Miller asked, seeming to materialize out of nowhere due to some best friend telepathy that signaled he was needed.

Bellamy watched as Finn leaned in to say something and Clarke tipped her head back to laugh. His hand hovered near her hip and she looked genuinely delighted by whatever he was saying. Bellamy wanted to break things and he wouldn't be disappointed to start with Finn Collin's nose.

"Well this certainly fucking complicates things," Wick observed. Bellamy thought he summed the situation up pretty perfectly.

—-

TBC. Reviews mean so much to me! Sorry again for the wait!