He doesn't answer the door. She knocks, and knocks, and it's almost midnight so the neighbours start to get a little testy about all the banging, so she finally just tries the door. It's open.
"Bell?" No answer. It strikes her that Kaitlyn could very well be here, and probably won't be happy to see her. But she'd asked Bellamy to call if he needed anything, and he had, so she just keeps walking. He's not in the kitchen, or the living room, or his office. Anxiety beginning to creep in, she makes her way to the bedroom.
Please don't be in bed with your girlfriend, she thinks, rounding the corner. He's easy enough to spot, laying on his once-white duvet, beside a worryingly large splotch of crimson.
"Bellamy?" She hurries over, and he looks up, eyes glassy. "Oh, what did you do?" Her gaze runs over him, bare chest and black boxers, every inch of exposed, tanned skin. But she can't tell where the blood has come from. He blinks at her.
"Hey. I think I might need stitches," he tells her morosely, the kind of resigned way you might inform someone that they've just missed the bus. Her hands twitch.
"Where?"
He wiggles a little, making a pained noise, and she realizes he's trying to sit. Grabbing his forearms, she tugs him up. The way the blanket sticks to his back is her first clue to where he's actually hurt.
"Okay just-" he tries to stand, and she puts her hands firmly on his shoulders, holding him down. "-hang on, Bellamy. Sit still." She walks around the the other side of the bed, and stops dead. "What the fuck?" The upper half of his back is crossed with fairly deep red gashes, bits of glass still stuck in some of them. Thin rivers of fresh and dried crimson paint the rest of his skin, pooling a little under him where he sits.
"I fell."
"You…fell?"
"Inna the…cupboard."
"Wh-" For a moment she has no idea what she's talking about. Then she remembers the glass front cabinet that he has in the living room, the one he keeps some of the artifacts he collects in. It had been so dark when she came in that she didn't notice it, but she's guessing upon that closer inspection the entire glass panel will have been shattered. Half of it seems to be embedded in Bellamy's back. "Oh. Okay, I'm gonna turn the lamp on, don't move." She reaches behind her, flicking on the lamp and swiveling it so the beam is a spotlight on his injuries. They definitely look worse in the light, but she can tell it's mostly superficial. As she begins to run her fingers very gently around the lacerations, he squirms.
"Ouch."
Her lips twitch. He's never been a very good patient, and that combined with the fact that he's practically wasted has apparently turned him into a four year old.
"I can clean this up, but it's going to hurt. If we go to the hospital they'll probably give you something for the pain."
"No." His turns, hand snaking out to grab her wrist. "No hospital."
"Bellamy," she sighs. "I don't really want to pull all this glass out, and probably give you stitches, without at least some local anaesthetic."
"I don't want to go to the hospital," he repeats, eyes half lidded, but somehow still fierce. She hesitates. There's a medical bag in her suitcase, she brings it every time she flies, just in case. It's a habit she learned from her mother. Her options are to clean him up here, the best she can, or to force him into the car, drive him to the hospital against his will, and deal with him complaining while they sit in the ER for several hours.
"Fine." She throws her hands in the air. "Don't move," she mutters, again, pointing at him sternly. He pokes himself in the chest, in what she suspects was supposed to be the hand gesture for scout's honor, and she pads back out to the foyer, where she left her bag. As she wheels it back, her eyes fall on the cabinet in the corner of the living room. It is indeed wrecked, jagged spires of glass framing a gaping hole in the front panel, smudges of scarlet all over. She'll have to clean it up later, see if any of Bellamy's prized artifacts were ruined. Making a quick detour to the kitchen, she grabs a glass mixing bowl.
Back in the bedroom, Bellamy glances up at her suspiciously.
"How'd you know?"
"Huh?" Walking around to face his back, she leans him slightly forward, and grabs a wad of gauze and some antiseptic from her bag.
"You brought the-" he waves his hand vaguely, but she knows he means her medical bag. "How'd you know?"
"I didn't," she murmurs, sterilizing her tweezers and eyeing him nervously. The alcohol might dull the pain a little, but this is going to be unpleasant for both of them. "I always keep one in my suitcase when I'm flying, in case something happens on the plane."
"Oh." He's quiet for a moment. "Why'd you have your suitcase?"
"I…" Shit. She'd just assumed he'd be too drunk to pick up on that. "I was on my way to the airport. I'm going to start taking the glass out. If it starts to hurt too much, just let me know, and we can go to the hospital."
"No hospitals," he mutters. She rolls her eyes.
"I'll check in on how you feel about that in thirty seconds," she tells him, raising her tweezers and grabbing the first shard. He groans, a low whining sound, and she bites her lip. As carefully as she can, she eases it out and drops it into the glass bowl beside her. "Still no hospital?"
"Just get it over with," he grunts. She shrugs, moving on to the next piece.
It takes almost forty minutes to get all of them, forty minutes of Bellamy swearing, and Clarke yelling at him to stay still, and the occasional death threat, but when the last shard of glass clinks against the others, Clarke can feel her own shoulders slumping in relief.
Bellamy seems to sense her change in pace, glancing over his shoulder at her.
"Done?" He looks so hopeful, eyes lidded heavily, exhausted from the pain and the long day.
"Getting there," she tells him sympathetically. "I've got to disinfect these, and then two of them are going to need stitches."
He sighs, defeated, but turns back around to let her work.
"Where's Kaitlyn?" She asks as she pokes the needle through his skin, hoping to distract him. A vein in the back of his neck stands out as he tenses against the pain. When he answers her, she can hear the strain in his voice.
"Iunno. Home."
Clarke frowns, wanting to know more, but also not. The thread tugs through his skin, a hiss escaping from his lips and she makes a soft noise, like something to soothe a startled dog, and he quiets down. Compared to removing the glass, this part is done quickly, and then it's time to sterilize and bandage him up.
"This is going to sting."
"It's been stinging for the past hour and a half," he grumbles, sounding sleepy. With a deep breath, she swipes the alcohol soaked pad across a cluster of smaller cuts, and his back straightens like a whip, something resembling a snarl grinding out of his throat.
"I told you."
"I hate you."
"I know," she pats him patiently on the shoulder and moves on to the rest of his injuries, at one point having to physically hold him down. "Bellamy hold still-"
"You're just doing this because you're mad at me!" He mumbles, voice muffled into the comforter due to her knee pressing on the back of his neck. He's laid out flat on his bed now, on his stomach, Clarke pinning him to the mattress as she finishes dressing his cuts.
"What are you talking about?" She's a little out of breath, due to the effort it takes to subdue someone twice her size, but she presses the last piece of gauze into place with a feeling of victory, and relief.
"It's like…payback," he tells the blanket. She climbs off of him, realizing that the blood that had soaked into his bedding is now probably smeared across his stomach. A shower is out of the question, after all the work she just put into getting him bandaged.
"Can you stand?" She asks, and he rolls onto his side, scowling.
"Of course I can stand."
"Well, do it then."
He does, though not without a few seconds of struggling. Once on his feet, he sways a little, ducking away from her hand when she reaches out to steady him.
"Come on," she guides him out into the hallway.
"Where are we going?"
"To clean you up."
"You just did that."
"To clean up your front."
"Why would you-" he looks down, eyes widening at the mosaic of blood there. "Oh."
Clarke flips on the bathroom light, setting him down on the toilet.
"Yeah, oh." She grabs a face cloth from under the sink and wets it. Then she hesitates. He could probably do this himself, though she doubts he'll be coordinated enough to do a good job. There's something about the idea of giving your ex a sponge bath that seems almost universally inappropriate. Then again, the more quickly she gets Bellamy and his bed cleaned up, the sooner they can both get some much needed sleep. Making a decision, she kneels in front of him, beginning to dab at his chest with the cloth.
After a minute or so she looks up, and finds him watching her sleepily. As she continues to wipe the cloth across his skin, she can't deny that it's strangely intimate. Especially considering he won't take his eyes off her face.
"Stop that," she mutters, rinsing the cloth out in the sink. The water runs pink, then clear, so she rings it out and starts back in on Bellamy.
"Stop what?"
"Stop looking at me."
"So bossy," he sighs, still watching her. She finishes cleaning his chest.
"Show me your hands," she commands him, because she'd be the first to agree with him on that one. He does, suspiciously, and she runs her eyes along the very minor scrapes there, probably gotten from steadying himself as he fell. She flips them over, inspecting his palms, which are also a little scratched up, but no worse for the wear. She cleans the blood off those as well, then pats them dry with a towel. "Alright," she slaps him lightly on the thigh. "You're blood free."
"To bed," he declares, getting to his feet and starting down the hallway. Clarke catches his arm.
"To the couch," she corrects, his confused blinking makes her lips twitch. "Until I've changed your blankets."
With a shrug, he heads back into the living room, disappearing around the corner.
"And don't go near the cabinet until I've cleaned it up!" She shouts after him. A muffled grunt comes from somewhere down the hall, which she takes to be agreement.
His bedroom looks a little like a murder scene. He didn't actually lose that much blood, most of his cuts were superficial, but in his drunken state he somehow managed to smear it into the biggest mess possible. With a deep sigh, she strips off the duvet cover, sheets, and mattress cover. The blood doesn't seem to have soaked into the mattress itself, save for a few spots that she scrubs with stain remover, so she throws the dirty bedding in the laundry and remakes the bed with new sheets.
By the time she heads back out to find Bellamy, he's drifted off on the couch, head in his hand, snoring softly. It occurs to her to leave him there and let him sleep, but her memories of past nights where he ended up sleeping on the couch all ended with his very sore neck. So she places a hand on his shoulder, shaking gently.
"Bellamy. Wake up."
He does, with a snort, eyes widening when he sees her.
"Clarke? You're still here?"
"Unfortunately. Come on, let's get you to bed."
He gets to his feet, staggering a little, his arm automatically falling over her shoulders to steady himself as they walk.
"S'like déjà vu, huh?"
"Hmm?" She glances over at him.
"You, me, stitches."
Fighting the fatigue that's settled like fog over her brain, Clarke searches for meaning in his words. Then she remembers.
"Oh." Her lips curl in a soft smile. "Back when you first came to stay with me." Her gaze flicks to his forehead, to the small scar still visible there.
"Yeah."
"You're just an accident prone guy, I guess."
He shakes his head clumsily, hair falling into his face.
"Nah, it's you."
"Me? How is it my fault?"
"Not your fault," he mumbles, apparently frustrated by her inability to follow his drunken train of thought. "You're just always here, cleaning me up. Taking care of me. It's usually the other…the way…around." He sighs. "You're the first person who's ever done that for me."
"Oh." They round the corner to his bedroom, and she guides him gently onto the bed. The sheets were already pulled back, so he just crawls under them, eyes shut. "All good?"
Bellamy throws her a thumbs up, and Clarke returns it tiredly.
"Alright. Goodnight, Bellamy."
As she begins to leave, one of his eyes opens.
"Where you going?"
Déjà vu, indeed.
"You're not the only mess in this house that needs to be cleaned up," she tells him. He frowns.
"Come to bed."
"To…" Her eyebrows fly up. She can tell by his voice that he's already halfway passed out, so instead of arguing with him, she nods. "Okay. I will in a minute."
Appeased, he rolls over, pressing his face into the pillow. He'll be hurting in the morning, in more ways than one, but Clarke wasn't lying when she said she needed to clean up before crashing for the night. She's already exhausted, but forces herself back out into the living room, flicking on the over head lights to inspect the damage he's done to his cabinet.
One door will need to be replaced, the window panel essentially decimated, and there's a layer of broken glass covering everything within a five foot radius. It would be easiest to just vacuum the shards, but having finally gotten Bellamy down and out of her hair, Clarke decides to grab a broom and begins sweeping by hand.
Once the sharp pieces are disposed of, she wipes the bloody smudges off what remains of the glass door. None of the items inside seem to be damaged, which Bellamy will be grateful for when he wakes up.
Needing a moment, she collapses onto the couch. She'll grab her suitcase and head to the airport as soon as she gets her second wind. She'd called on the way here to change her ticket to an open voucher, so she'll almost definitely be put on standby when she arrives. Bellamy probably won't even remember most of tonight in the morning, and all the past few hours have really done is reinforce the fact that she can't be around him without her old feelings coming slamming back. She still needs to go.
But when she opens her eyes again, it's light out. And an unpleasantly familiar face is hovering in front of her, eyebrows drawn angrily together. Clarke blinks at the blonde, mouth dry.
"Oh," she murmurs, voice rough sleep, heart sinking in her chest. "Hey, Kaitlyn."
