From the-girl-who-nerded on tumblr: "How about Bellarke working retail together and having to get up at ungodly hours to restock the store and staying late to put everything back and they always try to outdo each other and their manager gets tired of it and threatens to not let them work together any more and they pretend their not upset by the prospect but they totally are"

Total disclaimer, I am tired and I asked for and filled this prompt while tipsy. It is a Tipsy Prompt.™ It may be utterly ridiculous, but I had fun. :D

"Do you think this is my color?" Bellamy demands. It's eleven at night, and she and Bellamy are both clopening––meaning they're closing tonight, and have to be back early enough to open, too.

Clarke glances over to him while she continues to put the dressing room go-backs on hangers; the peach colored dress is held up to his cheek as he drapes the garment across his body.

"Oh, absolutely," she says. "But that neckline is a tragedy. You need to show more of your chest or no girl is going to want anything to do with you."

"That's offensive," he says, slinging the dress's hanger over his arm and moving to her side to start on separating the men's go-backs from the boys'. "I have a lot more going for me than my looks, Clarke."

"Like what?" she asks.

"Like how much faster than you I am at go-backs," he retorts, and steals her cart from her.

"Dick," she mutters as he starts hanging all the garments in their proper places, and ignores the fact that, technically, he's doing her work for her.

They've clopened three nights in a row, and then the next week schedule comes out and they're fucking signing. That means showing up to start their shift at four fucking forty-five in the morning on Sunday. All of the sale signs throughout the superstore need to be replaced, either by different sales or returned to their normal retail prices, by the time the store opens at seven a.m.

"Do you think," Clarke says as she jogs toward the doors at four-fifteen Sunday, "that bomb threats against the store are, like, taken really seriously?" She wants to die, she is so fucking tired.

Bellamy huffs, breath coming out in visible little puffs in the cold morning air, and glances at her while he tries to beat her to the entrance. "Probably," he says, "but you should try it out anyway. See what happens."

Clarke flips him off and throws herself into a fucking painful sprint. She ends up slapping the "NO ENTRY" sign on the exit doors just a second before Bellamy does, and through her wheezing pants she crows, "Take that, Blake!"

He's pretty pathetic, honestly. His legs are a good half a foot longer than hers, and she still beat his ass.

Suddenly, Clarke nearly topples over, which is annoying considering how much she was enjoying Bellamy's sour expression while she leaned on the doors, catching her breath.

The manager stands back to let them into the store, and Clarke shuffles inside, sighing. Bellamy follows, pushing his hair back from his face, and Clarke totally doesn't notice the sharp line of his jaw when he yawns.

Indra looks at them, exhaustion clear on her face as she locks the door behind them. "You two realize you don't get overtime just because you voluntarily showed up for your shifts half an hour early."

"It's his fault," Clarke insists the same moment Bellamy blames her.

Octavia Blake shows up in her line at checkout. She only has one item, and Clarke grins because she is going to fucking win, and all because Bellamy's own flesh and blood betrayed him in their "who can get the most people through their checkout line in fifteen minutes" contest.

"I knew you liked me better," Clarke declares, and scans the DVD Octavia's buying. "Your brother's basically unlovable, right? You can tell me," she adds sympathetically. "My dad's a psychologist. I'm predisposed to being a great listener."

Octavia just rolls her eyes and gestures at checkout stand four, Bellamy's line. "You tell me."

Clarke looks at the long line of women, and the stupidly charming smiles he's directing at them, and frowns.

"He's just lucky his face is like...that," Clarke decides, and ignores the curdle of jealousy in her belly and Octavia's knowing smirk.

"This is ridiculous," Kane says, and he sounds tired and annoyed and basically this is starting like every conversation Clarke's had with her mother since her parents got divorced and Clarke decided to move out into her own apartment.

You don't need to work retail, Clarke, her mother likes to say, exasperation weighing down her voice. This is not your life.

She likes to say that, that this is not your life bit, as if Clarke's life is a disaster just because she's working retail and supporting herself while she takes classes at the community college. Clarke feels pretty awesome when she thinks about that, honestly. And frankly, Clarke's not even all that impressive; she knows Bellamy is taking classes, working, and putting his sister through her own general education requirements at the same time.

There's nothing disastrous about making a living and going to school like this.

"You two are getting out of hand," Kane continues, and fuck, if he's going to continue like this in that voice Clarke's going to try and get his number for her mother.

Bellamy fidgets in the seat next to her, though, and she immediately feels guilty. Because, in a way, her mother is right. This is not her life, because if she fails, her mother or her father will take her in and support her.

This is Bellamy's life, and he needs this job because he has his little sister to support, and no one to support either of them if he fails. He doesn't have the luxury of being allowed to fail.

Clarke adopts a contrite expression, at least until she hears what the hell Kane wanted to talk to them both about.

"You're being disruptive," he states, "rushing customers through the store, racing go-backs down the aisles, coming in so early and staying so late that shift managers have to put in for overtime."

Clarke fidgets a little too at that, and a glance at Bellamy shows her his cheeks are glowing red.

"Now I don't know what kind of," Kane wiggles his hands at them in a vague gesture, "nonsense is going on between you two, but as of right now you're being put on probation."

Clarke swallows, glances again. Bellamy's jaw is clenched, and he's staring at his knees.

"Oh, for god's sake," Kane gripes. "Not official probation, Blake. But you and Griffin are going to be separated until you can prove you're behaving like model employees."

Shit, Clarke thinks.

"Fine," she says lazily. "Great."

"I'd actually like to thank you," Bellamy says, "I'm pretty sick of her, honestly."

The next week––god, it fucking sucks. She clopens with Maya, who is sweet and cute and Clarke considers hitting on her, just for something to do, but she has a feeling Maya would just blush and/or file a mildly-worded complaint with HR.

So she doesn't, and her shifts are utterly dull, and she nearly falls asleep at the wheel on her drive home because all she can think about is her bed, instead of how much she wants Bellamy Blake in her bed, which is what usually keeps her going through clopening shifts.

Clarke does run into him, once, in the breakroom. He's staring, mesmerized, at his food on the rotating tray in the microwave as it heats.

"Bellamy!" she says loudly when she's been standing next to him for a good two minutes. He nearly falls over, which is adorable.

"Fuck," he says, then looks around, eyes bleary, for a manager, or Cage because that dick likes to snitch to the managers about stupid shit like the occasional curse word.

Thankfully, they're alone.

"Oh," he says, and clears his throat. "Uh, I didn't know you were here."

"They put me in softlines," Clarke says, and Bellamy nods. If somebody were put in softlines, they were stuck doing clothing and shoes and dressing room go-backs, and the chances of them ever even seeing someone not in the same area during their shift was about 2%.

"I'm at checkout," he says. "I'll be working softlines tomorrow, though. Opening."

Clarke smiles faintly. "I'm closing tomorrow. Hardlines." Baby clothes, electronics, toys, food.

Bellamy shrugs, staring at the microwave again.

"This...this kind of sucks, doesn't it," he asks, conversational.

"God, it's the worst," Clarke says, and Bellamy cracks a smile. "Sterling won't even race carts in the parking lot with me, Bellamy! This is serious."

"Maybe if you'd stop trying to get people to race carts in the parking lot, we'd be off unofficial probation," Bellamy points out, and Clarke wants to tell him how fucking wrong he is and also make out with him.

But she doesn't, because that sounds wildly stupid and awesome and absolutely like something she shouldn't do, and instead steals forkfuls of his weird, spicy leftovers while he complains and pushes the tupperware closer to her.

Their first shift back together is...well, it's interesting.

Kane's there, at least at the beginning, so Clarke pretends she doesn't even know a Bellamy, let alone the Bellamy Blake who's working the checkout stand right next to hers. Anybody named Bellamy is totally lame, in her opinion, and totally not someone she would make out with and/or marry, given the chance.

And then Kane leaves.

"Thank god," Clarke says, and because there is literally one person in the entire fucking store, turns off the light of her checkout stand and logs out of the register. Bellamy grins as she hops up onto his conveyor belt, and Clarke beams.

"I'm going to kick your ass in go-backs tomorrow," she says cheerily.

Bellamy, because he's an asshole, pushes the button that makes the conveyor belt move. Clarke shrieks as the belt moves beneath her, then glares as it tows her closer to him.

"You wish," he tells her. "I've been practicing, you know. Murphy doesn't believe in corporations and refuses to actually try to finish his shit before closing. So I've been doing all of the shit on our shifts."

"Like that's any different than usual," Clarke teases, and then she blanches a little. She doesn't––it's not like she doesn't try to do her work, or that she wouldn't finish on time, but Bellamy does like to take a lot of her stuff when they're on shift. But she doesn't––

They don't admit it. Or they don't admit it to each other, that they do each other's work, but Clarke's definitely accidentally-or-on-purpose admitted it to her best friend, which she's regretted ever since as Raven takes every possible opportunity to bring up how Clarke's clearly in love with him, and Bellamy with her.

Which is not true. Like, at all.

Mostly.

"Yeah, well. I'm not the only one," he mutters, but glances up at her from under his lashes. They're such long ones, too, pretty and dark against his cheeks and fuck.

She flushes, and then her hip hits the bumper at the end of the conveyor belt, and she's only inches from him. From Bellamy, and his stupid pretty eyelashes and his stupid pretty face.

"You going to check me out or what?" she asks, and she means for it to be flippant, silly even, but she sounds fucking breathless and stupid, and––

Bellamy just looks at her for a long moment, then he fucking grins and reaches out to tuck her hair behind her ear.

"Well. Since you asked so nicely," he says, and leans over to kiss her.