From anonymous on tumblr: "Clarke punches a dude in the face. "GET AWAY FROM MY BOYFRIEND." (They are not dating.)"

In retrospect, it was probably abad idea to go alone to Mount Weather with the sole purpose of drinking until he forgot his baby sister was hooking up with a guy nearly a decade older than her.

"Only seven years," Octavia had insisted, annoyed, when she overheard him ranting to Clarke on the phone earlier that evening. "And Clarke knows him!" Pitching her voice to be heard over the phone, she added, "Tell Bellamy that Lincoln's nice, Clarke!"

"Lincoln's nice," his best friend had repeated dutifully.

"You fucking know this guy?" Bellamy had replied. It felt like a betrayal. Clarke knew how long it had been just Bellamy and Octavia, and how much Bellamy worried about his sister now that she was living on her own. It was pretty much all he ever thought about anymore, other than the fact that his best friend was beautiful and smart and funny and he was maybe more than a little bit in love with her.

"We met in a watercolor class last year," Clarke had said, her voice gentle. "Bellamy, don't worry about him. He likes to paint flowers. He's nice."

"I like to fucking bake cookies, Clarke, but that doesn't mean I'm fucking nice," he had snarled, hung up, and slammed his way out of Octavia's apartment.

"I'm not nice," he mutters now, glaring at his fourth (fifth? fuck) beer bottle. "I'm a fucking asshole."

He's not quite sure if he means he's an asshole in general, or he's an asshole because he yelled at Clarke and hung up on her.

"Fucking asshole," he repeats loudly, slamming his fist down hard enough that a couple empty bottles rattle against one another.

"What did you call me?"

He glances over, sees some guy in a polo shirt with thick douchey hair looking at him. If Clarke were here, she'd probably call him a douchebro.

(Okay, he wishes she were here. Just a little.

Okay, a lot. After a decade of friendship, he pretty much always wishes she were here.)

"Fuck off," he says. "Wasn't talking to you."

"No, I want you to repeat it," the douchebro says, sliding off his stool and approaching Bellamy. "Say it to my face." A couple of his friends drag themselves to their feet and stand behind him. The looks on their faces has Bellamy snorting; they look like long-suffering soldiers being forced into a reluctant game of follow-the-leader.

"Are you laughing at me?" the douchebro says, voice very quiet.

Bellamy shrugs, takes a swig of his beer. "I don't give enough of a shit about you to bother laughing," he says.

When a hand grabs his collar, yanking him out of his seat, Bellamy's arm jerks and the bottle hits his teeth hard.

"Fuck," he swears, slamming the bottle down and scowling at the douchebro. "Listen, asswipe, I told you I wasn't fucking talking about you."

"Yeah?" is all the douchebro says before he pulls back and punches Bellamy right in the face.

His head moves back a little with the hit, and a sting registers where the douchebro's bulky class ring sliced along his cheekbone, but that's about it.

"What was that?" he says. Honestly, at this point he should probably be pissed that he just got punched in the face, but the guy might as well have thrown a handful of paper at him. It hurts that little.

The douchebro's face purples.

"Hey, man," one of the his friends says, pulling at the hand still grasping Bellamy's shirt. "Come on, let's get out of here."

The douchebro shrugs him off, glares at Bellamy. Bellamy can feel the blood trickling down his cheek.

"I'm not done," he snarls to his friends, and Bellamy groans, but before he can say anything or the guy can follow through with another hit, a furious voice cuts through the air.

"Get away from my boyfriend!"

It's a goddamn dream come true. Bellamy twists awkwardly in the douchebro's grip to see Clarke bearing down on them, looking like some fucking angel of vengeance or some shit.

Holy shit.

The douchebro gapes at her, no doubt taking in all the fury packed in such a tiny package (Bellamy has the irrational desire to punch him in the gut; he doesn't deserve to consider anything about Clarke), but then narrows his eyes.

"This doesn't concern you, blondie," the douchebro says, and then Clarke hauls back and slams her fist into his nose.

He lets go of Bellamy immediately to bring both hands up to his face, tears leaking between clenched eyelids as he swears.

"The fuck!" he shouts, though the words are muffled through his hands. "You fucking bitch, what the hell?"

"Hey!" Bellamy starts, suddenly furious, but Clarke cuts him off with a sharp gesture.

"Don't," is all she says as she turns her back on the group of guys, all huddling in a concerned group around the douchebro. Clarke pulls him by the back of the neck until he leans down, and for one wild second he thinks she's going to kiss him. Which, he thinks, he really wouldn't be opposed to—

But when he's leaning down far enough for her satisfaction, she just grabs his chin and turns his face so she can examine the cut on his cheek.

Clarke hums. "Shouldn't need stitches."

Then she smacks him on the shoulder. "What the fuck, Bellamy?"

He opens his mouth to respond—how, he doesn't know, given that she looks kind of glorious when she's got that pissed look on her face, and his brain is short-circuiting, and she's still got one hand on the back of his neck—when douchebro shoves his way in between them, glaring down at Clarke.

"My father is on the city council," he says thickly, blood dribbling through his fingers. "I'll have you arrested for assault."

"I know who the fuck you are, idiot," Clarke snaps. "I'm Abby Griffin's daughter."

The douchebro's eyes widen comically at the name of the city's mayor. "Clarke Griffin! I didn't realize you—"

"Go fuck yourself, Cage," Clarke says cheerily, and turns to Bellamy.

Cage and his friends flee the building, and Clarke snags a napkin off the bar to press mercilessly against the cut on his face.

"How drunk are you?" she asks.

He hums, enjoying her touch even as it stings. "Not as much as I was."

"Good," she says, and then Bellamy nearly chokes when she shoves her hand into his back pocket.

"Holy shit—" Bellamy cuts himself off before he embarrasses himself anymore as Clarke pulls out his wallet with a raised eyebrow.

"You could've—" He swallows. "You could've asked, princess. Even kindergarteners know how to use their words."

"Like you used your words to have a calm, civil discussion with Octavia about her very nice, very sweet, very serious boyfriend?" she replies, and slides his debit card over to the bartender.

Clarke finishes settling his bill as he sputters, then she tucks his wallet back into his pocket (again, holy shit) andpoints to the door. "Out."

"How'd you find me?" he asks to cover up the way her brusque touch is making him react. He's a little curious, but mostly unsurprised. Clarke has a long history of being able to do pretty much anything.

"Logged into your account for the find-your-phone app," she says.

That seems pretty reasonable, until Bellamy remembers that his password is Clarke's name and birthday, and he's pretty damn sure he's never told her that.

"Oh."

She points at the door again. "Out."

Octavia lives close enough to downtown that Bellamy left his car at her complex when he stormed over to Mount Weather, so when Clarke starts stalking down the sidewalk Bellamy's not sure what she wants him to do.

"You can sleep it off at my place," she says. "Then you can go apologize to your sister about being a dick. And you know what? You owe me, like, a million cookies for dealing with you tonight." Since she was fifteen, Clarke's regularly demanded cookies as payment for real and made-up infractions on his part. Bellamy tends to just go with it, because Clarke'll usually come over to 'help' and she inevitably gets covered in flour and sparkling sugar, and she's pretty much the cutest thing he's ever seen.

"You can't make me do anything," he grumbles instead, and hurries to catch up to her. For being so short, she sure moves fast.

The cool evening air quickly clears away the remaining fuzziness of his buzz, and as he trudges next to Clarke he thinks he should probably just call a taxi and sleep in his own bed.

Or he could just follow Clarke home, sleep on her stupid, uncomfortable, Ikea couch that she made him put together, and then see her in the morning, all rumpled and grumpy and beautiful. And he could make sure to make the coffee the way she likes it, stirring in the amount of sugar she likes but doesn't let herself have when she makes it herself, and hand it to her with the kind of kiss on the cheek he can get away with giving his best friend.

Bellamy keeps walking to her apartment. He's a pathetic asshole, but he'll take what he can get.

To keep himself occupied, he replays the image of Clarke storming up to Cage in the bar over and over. Something is funny about it though, and he can't put his finger on it until he suddenly realizes—

"Did you call me your boyfriend?"

She glances at him out of the corner of her eye, and doesn't respond.

"Before you punched douchebro. You called me your boyfriend," he says, way too delighted at the idea of Clarke pretending even for a second that he was her boyfriend, and pokes her in the shoulder.

He expects her to scoff, or roll her eyes, or say something snarky because that's what always happens when they get to moments like this, usually when Bellamy does something dumb like stare at his best friend's mouth for, like, five whole minutes imagining if her cherry chapstick makes her taste as good as it smells.

But she doesn't say anything, just wraps her arms around herself and walks faster, refusing to look at him again or respond. And Bellamy starts getting a funny feeling in the pit of his stomach, and it reminds him how he felt when Clarke convinced him to go on the Spin-Out at the county fair when he was nineteen and she was seventeen and she had found out he'd never gone on an upside down ride ("Gravity works the way it does for a reason, Clarke!"). Everything was upside down and he was kind of scared but at the same time Clarke was right there and it was all kind of beautiful.

Yeah, it feels something like that, looking at the tense way she's holding her shoulders, the way her hands are tucked against her sides like she's holding herself back from something.

So of course he fucks it up, asking her as she's unlocking her apartment door, "Why are you being weird?"

She stiffens. "I'm not."

"You called me your boyfriend, and now you're being weird," he insists, making sure to flip the deadbolt and fasten the chain before following her into the kitchen.

"Would you just leave it alone?" she demands. She's glaring at the sink and gripping the edge of the counter like it's the only thing keeping her standing. "It was a stupid slip of the tongue."

"It's a pretty specific slip of the tongue," he prods, and Clarke lets out a frustrated sound as she whirls to face him.

"What the hell do you want me to say, Bellamy? That, yes, I called you my boyfriend? That I'm sorry? That you're not my boyfriend, and I wish you were, because you're a fucking idiot but for some stupid reason, I'm fucking in love with you?"

His mouth is dry, and he wonders if maybe he never left the bar, just kept drinking until he hallucinated Clarke arriving and punching and taking him home to tell him she loves him. Honestly, it seems like the kind of thing his mind would come up with.

"Um," he says.

A tear drips off Clarke's chin, and she brushes it roughly away with her knuckles.

"Fuck you, Bellamy," she says tiredly, turning away. "You know where the blankets and stuff are. I'm going to bed."

Bellamy's heart thumps so hard he thinks he might be having a heart attack, and he scrambles to reach her before she escapes into her bedroom. He catches her in the hallway and grabs her shoulders.

"Clarke, wait!"

She wriggles, trying to get out of his hold, and glares at him when she fails.

"I'm tired, and you're drunk, and if you don't let go of me in three seconds I'm going to punch you in the nads."

"I told you, I'm not drunk anymore," he says, and when Clarke starts to snarl at him, he covers her mouth with his.

She squeaks a little, which sucks because Bellamy didn't think he could find her any more adorable, but as usual Clarke delights in proving him wrong.

Her body starts trembling under his fingertips as he kisses her. Bellamy can't remember the first time he imagined kissing her like this, only that it feels like he's always wanted to but it was never the right time, and now that he's actually kissing her, he doesn't want to fuck it up. So he does his best to keep it slow, coaxing, sweet, fitting her lower lip between his and sucking gently until she whimpers and shoves him so hard his back slams against the opposite wall.

"Clarke—?" he whispers, feeling a little like she did just punch him in the nads because he can't quite breathe and the look on her face is killing him.

But then she launches herself across the hall, molds her body to his, and kisses him with all the ferocity he'd been carefully holding back.

She tastes sweet and a little bit spicy, like the cinnamon gum she loves so much. Bellamy hates the gum, but he doesn't think he's ever tasted anything as good as Clarke.

Her hands snake under his shirt and he nearly chokes when her nails scratch over his belly.

"Clarke, Clarke, wait," he pants, and she stiffens, pulls away. He almost whines at the loss of her touch, and prays she doesn't try and punch him as he reaches out for her.

She lets him tug her back to him, cheeks flushed and watching him with wary, wild eyes.

"I just—I just wanted to make sure," Bellamy says. She's tense in his arms, and he strokes a hand down her spine, hoping to soothe her. "That you know."

"Know what?" she grumbles, and the sound of her voice sends a bolt of lust straight through him, because she sounds hoarse and dazed and impatient, and it's all because of him.

"That—" Bellamy has to pause, clear his throat, because he sounds pretty wrecked, too, and it's all because of Clarke. "That you know you're my best friend." Clarke grows even tenser. "And I want to be your boyfriend, too."

A second passes, and then her body melts into his.

And she socks him the shoulder. "You're such a dick!" she says, and deepens her voice in a terrible approximation of his. "Oh, I'm Bellamy Blake and I'm an overdramatic asshole, and I don't know how to express feelings with words—"

"I'm also fucking in love with you, too," he interrupts mildly, and Clarke's eyes snap to his.

"What?"

"That's what you said, right?" He tries not to sound as nervous as he feels in the face of her shock, but he fails. "That you love me. The more-than-best-friends kind of love."

She nods slowly, worrying her lower lip between her teeth, and Bellamy brings a hand to cradle her jaw. The skin under his fingers is soft and smooth, and he runs his thumb across her mouth to tap the little beauty mark above it.

"Awesome," he says, "because you're kind of incredible and I'm definitely in more-than-best-friends love with you."

"You're a huge loser," she tells him, smile spreading across her lips, and she kisses his thumb.

He wonders if he should buy his sister a present or something. It's kind of all her fault that this has turned into the best fucking night of his life.

"You're the one in love with a loser," he points out.

"True." Clarke pauses. "Does that mean you'll bake me cookies whenever I want?"

Bellamy snorts. "Uh, no, because knowing you, you'd wake me up at three in the morning to ask for snickerdoodles," he replies. "But I'll bake you cookies once a week."

She considers it, then nods. "Deal."

"Deal?" he echoes, amused. "I wasn't aware that this was a negotiation."

"Hey," she points out, "I think that you getting access to all this?" She gestures at her own body. "Is probably worth negotiation."

He thinks about getting access to all of Clarke, and nearly gives himself whiplash as he nods fervently in agreement.

"I find those terms completely acceptable."

He's not as enthusiastic when Clarke adds breakfast with Octavia and Lincoln the next morning ( "Civil breakfast, Bellamy, civil," she stresses) to the terms of their agreement, but he still figures he's getting the best deal of his life.

(He's right.)