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“Blake would you sit your ass down!”
Clarke heard her mom yelling at Bellamy in the next bed.
“Christ Bellamy! Do what she says! I don’t need your relentless -- WAIT. What the hell are you doing here?!”
“I got in a fight with some jackass who was publicly cheating on his girlfriend.” Bellamy said angrily. “Why are you here princess? Hurt your ass falling off your high horse? OW!”
“Watch it Blake,” Abby said, smacking him upside the head. “That’s my daughter you’re talking to and I’m the one holding a needle above your eye.”
“Sorry Dr. Griffin.”
“For your information,” Clarke intervened, “I also got in a bar fight. At least I didn’t get my ass handed to me.”
“Princess,” he replied smugly, “You should see the other guy.”
Clarke rolled hers eyes. “Sure, whatever you say.”
“Alright you two,” Abby said, tying off the last stitch above Bellamy’s eyebrow. “I have other patients to go help after I hook you BOTH up to banana bags. Stay here and try not to bother anyone else.”
As Abby walked away, Bellamy turned his head towards Clarke and cocked an eyebrow. “Well then,” he said suggestively. “Tell me all about this cat fight that I missed.”
“It wasn’t a cat fight, Bellamy!” Clarke replied exasperatedly. “I got in another fight with Maya. This one just got a little more... Violent.”
“Woah there, Princess. What’s that boyfriend of yours going to think about you fighting over Jasper?”
Clarke scoffed in his face, before turning away. “Whatever, Bellamy. I don’t need to deal with your shit tonight.”
Being the older brother of her best friend, to say that Clarke and Bellamy hadn’t always gotten along would be a bit of an understatement. Clarke and Octavia had known each other for years, which, naturally, meant that Clarke and Bellamy had known each other just as long. Clarke remembered their first meeting exceptionally well. She had slept over at Octavia’s house one night in the ninth grade. She woke up the next morning, needing to pee really badly, but it was the first time she had ever been to Octavia’s house, so instead of the bathroom, she found herself in his bedroom.
It was a bit of a shock, to say the least, for the both of them. Clarke was expecting to be able to rip down her pants and take a piss in peace, and Bellamy just wasn’t even wearing pants. He had bolted upright in his batman boxer shorts, and asked her, quote on quote, “who the fuck are you and what are you doing in my room.” Clarke had been so embarrassed that she ran to the actual bathroom, and stayed there until Octavia woke up, for fear of running into him again.
Over the years, they had gotten to know one another better, but they still fought like they always had. Clarke could even call him her friend. She wasn’t sure that he would help her hide a body, but they were friends, or friends that bickered on a regular basis. She made fun of his clingy one night stands and he watched her struggle her way through a university degree. It was how they worked.
“Come on, Clarke, I was just teasing,” Bellamy’s voice drew her back to the present.
“Bellamy, he’s basically my brother!” Clarke retorted. “Forgive me if I don’t trust the pretty face he basically knows nothing about!”
“Honestly Princess,” Bellamy scoffed. “You’re overreacting. I’ve talked to her, and she seems fine. Hell, Octavia’s had coffee with a Maya few times since she got here and thinks she’s great! And she and Jasper almost dated last year!”
“Yeah, well Monty doesn’t trust her either!”
“Clarke! He’s a conspiracy theorist! Ever since he saw those ‘strange floating lights’ outside his house, he’s convinced that every new person he meets is an alien trying to colonize the planet!”
Clarke rolled her eyes. “Whatever Bellamy. I just don’t want him to get hurt again. Maybe she’ll be good for him and I’m overreacting. But I have to know she won’t hurt him.”
“Hey,” Bellamy said softly. “You have nothing to worry about. Besides, Jasper’s got a whole army of friends behind him in case anything does happen. We’ve got him covered.”
Clarke turned on to her side to look at him and gave him a small smile. “Thanks, Bell.”
Bellamy in turn rolled on to his side. “Anytime, Princess.”
Clarke turned back on to her back. “So. What’s your story? What happened that resulted in the great Bellamy Blake turning up in the ER with a busted lip, a cut above his eyebrow, bruised knuckles, and a concussion?”
Bellamy went stiff. “I told you. Some guy was cheating on his girlfriend. I was a little drunk, and I punched him.”
Clarke turned her head slowly and eyed him warily. “How do you know that he had a girlfriend?”
He paled. “Oh... I, uh... I’m close with his girlfriend.”
Clarke’s eyes widened in horror.
“Oh. My. GOD! Is Lincoln cheating on Octavia! Jesus Christ! I’m going to murder that son of a bitch! Who’s the whore—“
“Christ he’s not cheating on her Clarke! It was Finn! Your boyfriend was—“Bellamy cut off. “Oh shit Clarke. I’m so sorry. I was going to tell you, just... Not that way.”
Clarke’s flare of anger faded to a dull buzz at the back of her head, and an ache pulled at her chest. Not that she hadn’t expected this or something like it. Finn had been acting really strange for the past couple of weeks. They’d only been dating for about two months, and for the first month and a half, everything had been great. He would take her for picnics in the park, and romantic walks on the beach. On nights that she was swamped with school work, he would bring her dinner and help her study. He was truly the best boyfriend she would have expected to end up with.
But then, as the weeks went on, he called her less and he kept blowing her off. Clarke would have normally been fine with this; she wasn’t clingy or anything, nor did she want him to be, but it got to the point where it was almost every single time they tried to make plans. When he didn’t answer his phone, she would go to his dorm room to try and find him, but his roommates would just say that he had gone out.
By this point, Clarke had assumed that there could be someone else. She wasn’t stupid, and she had been around enough guys (and girls) in her life to know what it meant when they started to distance themselves from her. It wasn’t even that they’d had ‘the talk’ about dating exclusively, but Clarke had thought they were at the point in the relationship where one could assume they were, especially when he was being so secretive about it all.
Clarke knew that she hadn’t said anything in a while, but she honestly couldn’t think of what to say to him. “I mean—I—“
“Oh my god, Clarke. I’m so sorry. I really didn’t mean for it to come out that way.”
Clarke took a deep breath. “No, Bellamy it’s fine. I just, I’m disappointed but I’m not surprised, you know?” Bellamy raised his eyebrows, and Clarke knew that she was going to have to elaborate. “I’d already assumed that there was something going on with him that I wasn’t going to like. He’s been acting really weird lately and for the first while I didn’t know what to think of it, but there was always this little voice in the back of my head telling me that something wasn’t right, and he was seeing someone else or something like that.”
“Well, apparently the something that wasn’t right was his long-distance girlfriend of three years who finally moved to the city to be with him,” Bellamy muttered bitterly. “But if it makes you feel any better, she dumped his ass right there and then, and I made it pretty clear that you weren’t into guys who cheat.”
Despite her mood, Clarke snorted. “And then you couldn’t even hold your own in a fight.”
“Hey, remember what I said. You should have seen the other guy.” They laughed together for a little bit, and Clarke didn’t know if it was the alcohol talking or not, but she was feeling closer to Bellamy right there, in the ER, then she had to Finn throughout their entire relationship. They really were a hot mess, the pair of them bonding in the hospital.
Clarke and Bellamy were both silent for a while, and Clarke had started to wonder if he had dosed off. When she did look his way, however, his eyes were still open as he stared at the ceiling.
“Hey, Bellamy?”
“Yeah?” he said turning his head to look at her.
“I really do appreciate you sticking up for me tonight.”
“Of course. I’ll always be there to protect your pride when you aren’t around, Princess.”
Clarke smiled, and closed her eyes. They were both a mess, but they were going to be okay.