"By all means, take your time. It's not like we have a movie to get to or anything," Clarke mutters, watching her companion dig through the couch.
"I need my wallet. It's here somewhere," Bellamy replies, voice muffled into the cushions.
"I'll pay."
"No, you won't pay. You're not allowed to pay for anything ever again, remember? Besides, I need my drivers license."
"I'll drive."
He finally pulls his head out from under the coffee table, and glares at her.
"Clarke."
"Bellamy," she whines, "we're going to be late."
Rolling his eyes, he stands up, scratching the back of his neck.
"You could help me look, you know." His voice is mild but his eyebrows are drawn together. With a mighty sigh, Clarke turns to the closest piece of furniture, a beat up night stand that he uses as a hallway table, and tugs open the drawer.
"For fucks sake." She holds up the brown leather wallet, and Bellamy glances over at her, face coloring.
"Oh," he says. Clarke throws it at him.
In the end they're only five minutes late, but Clarke harasses him about the trailers they missed all the way to Johnny's.
"You can watch them all on online anyways," he mutters, as they push through the front door. "Now would you let this go?"
Raven looks up as they approach, shaking her head.
"You made her miss the previews again, didn't you?"
Bellamy scowls.
"They're all on YouTube! I don't see how this is such a big deal!"
"Not the theatrical versions," Clarke says, just because she knows it will push his buttons. Not one to disappoint, he groans, dropping his head into his hands. Just then, Miller and Wick arrive, dropping onto the seats on either side of Raven.
"Monty's not here yet?" Miller asks, voice indifferent. Clarke bites her lip. Ever since her and Bellamy started hanging out a couple months ago, she's noticed that his old roommate seems to perk up every time the paramedic comes around. They've all been going out as a group for the past couple weekends, and Clarke's beginning to suspect Miller's interest isn't one sided. Raven and Wick haven't been much better, spending half of their time insulting one another, and the other half checking each other out.
Apparently their group has a problem with follow through. Not that Clarke would know anything about that.
She spends more time with Bellamy these days than she does without. Aside from work, and sleeping, they're together almost all the time. It first started when she took him up on his offer, calling him after a particularly long surgery that had turned into an emergency amputation. He talked her down off the ledge, she gave him some advice about handling Octavia's new boyfriend, and by the time they hung up they had finally crossed the line between acquaintances and friends.
A few weeks ago, Raven asked her what they do in all the time they spend together. Clarke had shrugged.
"We just…hang out. It's nice to have someone around, you know?"
The truth is that sometimes they don't even talk, just sit around in silence, Bellamy at his desk working on his research and sending out teaching applications, Clarke laying on his couch watching TV. She's always needed alone time after getting home from the hospital, time to decompress. But these days she finds more peace in being with him, whatever they're doing.
And so maybe she's in love with him. But the idea of losing what they have, and the comfort that he brings her, it terrifies her. Enough to convince her she should keep her feelings to herself. Besides, Bellamy is one of the most straightforward people she knows. If he felt the same way, he would have said something by now. After the weirdness of their initial introduction, and the couple sporadic meetings after that, their friendship had solidified firmly into a platonic one.
"No," Clarke announces, coming back to their current conversation. "Monty's going to be late tonight, he had a union thing."
Miller's face falls, infinitesimally, and Clarke suspects she's the only one who sees it.
"Lincoln's coming later too," Octavia adds, and Clarke feels Bellamy tense beside her. She squeezes his knee, a warning.
"Be nice," she whispers, leaning in so his sister can't hear.
"I'm always nice," he replies, and Clarke snorts so hard the rest of the table turns to look at her.
But he is nice when Lincoln arrives, or, he's civil, which is the best they can really hope for, and their Saturday night passes with the same happy ease as the past few. She's built a family here, Clarke realizes. A wildly incestuous, slightly alcoholic one, but a family nonetheless.
When Monty shows up, Clark pokes Bellamy.
"Move," she mutters. He just frowns at her, then goes back to his conversation with Miller. Clarke pulls up another chair beside her, and then pokes him again. "Bellamy, come sit here." Her voice is low enough that only he can hear her.
"What's your problem?" he asks, even as he gets up and then drops himself in the seat that she offered. She just looks pointedly at Monty, who slides into his now vacant seat beside Miller, and they both watch as the cop's face changes from surly to content. This seems to come as a surprise to Bellamy.
Later, when they're back in Clarke's apartment, the clock reminding them that daylight is only a few hours away, Bellamy rolls over on the couch, eyes boring into the side of her head.
"What?" she asks, without looking up from her spot on the floor. Her own eyes are glued to the TV, a re-run of some 90's cartoon she'd never heard of before tonight. The animation is terrible, and some of the lines are almost obscenely racist, but for some reason her drunk brain is eating it up.
"Are Miller and Monty a thing?"
She shrugs.
"I don't know. Monty's pretty private." Not for lack of trying, Clarke has been springing that question on her friend for weeks now, hoping to catch him by surprise and get some answers. That's the problem with emergency responders, they think too well on their feet.
"I've known Miller for six years."
She doesn't say anything, knowing he'll eventually get to the point if she just lets him talk. Onscreen, a goldfish with buckteeth and slanted eyes begins to tell Clarke about the wonders of the Orient. She frowns.
"He used to bring girls home. I don't ever remember him bringing home a guy."
At that, Clarke turns her attention away from the TV, eyes settling on Bellamy's face.
"Okay."
He rubs his face tiredly.
"How could I not know my roommate was gay?"
Clarke rolls her eyes, turning back to the cartoon.
"Well, maybe he's not."
"But you saw that tonight, Monty-"
"Maybe Miller's just good at keeping secrets, he is a cop. Or maybe he's bi. Maybe he's just as confused about it as you are," muses Clarke, wincing when the oriental goldfish is struck down by a narwhal with an afro. "God. I can't believe this aired after the challenger exploded. It's like bad World War Two propaganda."
When Bellamy doesn't reply, she glances back at him. The creases etched into his forehead tell her there's something else on his mind.
"What now?"
He blinks.
"Nothing."
Clarke sighs, getting up and dropping onto the couch, directly on top of his legs.
"Bellamy."
He looks at her for a moment, searching her face.
"Why didn't he tell me? Am I not…did he think I would care?" The guilt in his voice sends a wave of affection through her chest.
"Hey." She catches his face in her hands. "I'm sure that's not it. It probably didn't have anything to do with you." His skin is warm under her fingers, and she can't help but trace the constellations of his freckles. "And as for what's going on with Monty, I'm sure he'll tell you in his own time."
Bellamy nods, and she drops her hands, but she doesn't move from his lap. For the hundredth time she wonders if she should just tell him how she feels about him. Suddenly, his eyes go wide in horror, staring past her.
"A seahorse with a Hitler stache just killed that narwhal," he says incredulously. Clarke shakes her head.
"You crashing here?" He sometimes does, when it's late like this, just sleeps on the couch if he's too lazy to go home.
"Yeah," he mutters, eyes still fixed on the TV. She knows that look. He'll be lost in the program until it's over.
"Alright." She gets to her feet. "Don't stay up too all night."
"But mom-"
She whacks him with a pillow.
"Night," Clarke mumbles, forcing herself to move.
As she retreats to her bedroom for the night, she hears him sigh.
"Goodnight."
.-.-.-.-.
"I'm going to tell him."
Raven looks up from her phone, mouth hanging open as she registers Clarke's words.
"Shut up."
"I'm serious."
The brunette's surprise turns to glee, and she claps her hands together.
"Why the sudden change of heart?"
Clarke shrugs, shoving a piece of blueberry muffin into her mouth, chewing as she watches the other customers mill about the tiny café.
"I don't know, nothing dramatic. He crashed at my place last night, and I was lying in bed thinking 'I really wish he wasn't sleeping on the couch right now.'"
"Mhmm," Raven hums, squinting at her. "So this doesn't have anything to do with the fact that his ex is back in town?"
"Well," Clarke bites her lip. "Maybe a little."
Her friend just chuckles, reaching over to steal the rest of Clarke's muffin.
"Whatever. As long as you tell him."
It never occurs to Clarke that she might not get the chance.