Chapter Text
If she’d known this would be the last time she’d hear Bellamy’s name before everything changed, Clarke might’ve answered the phone faster. After a twenty-four-hour medical resident shift, the last thing she needed was a ringing phone dragging her out of sleep in the middle of the night. It was probably midnight, she didn’t bother checking, knowing full well that no matter the time, she’d feel the same spike of blind rage when the damn thing went off.
Remind me to put that thing on silent, she thought.
She groaned, low and loud, and extended an arm toward the nightstand, unwilling to move anything else. One eye cracked open, then the other for backup. The caller ID spelled out Jasper in neat little letters, and she couldn’t remember a time she’d hated him more than right now.
He better not be drunk dialing me.
“This better be good, Jasper,” she nearly growled into the phone.
“Clarke!” The surge of urgency in his voice snapped her fully awake. “Clarke, we can’t find Bellamy!” He reveals in mid-panic, waiting for her to grow just as anxious as he is.
“And you're calling me because?”
“He got into a fight with some guy. It was bad. He was bleeding, then he stormed off. Now we can’t find him!” She sits up fast, adrenaline firing before logic can catch up. Bellamy? In a fight? He had his moments, sure, but he wasn’t reckless. Not like that.
“Like a physical fight?” She exhaled sharply, making sure she'd heard him right.
“I'm glad you're amused by this, but I need you to focus.”
“Okay, sorry!” She shot back, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “Why are you calling me?” She wanted to know how she could possibly be of any help in this situation.
“For fuck’s sake can you check the apartment?!” Jasper shouted, finally having reached his point.
“You do realize I’m gonna kill you guys when you get home, yeah?” Clarke groaned. She threw off the warm comforter and walked out into the dark hallway. “Is Octavia still with you? Put her on.”
“She and Raven went running after him, they're not answering,” Jasper reveals. “The rest of us stayed behind jus–in case he comes back.” Clarke noticed the slight jumble of his words and realized he might be a bit tipsy. She scanned their apartment in the dark and unsurprisingly found no trace of Bellamy there. “He's not here. I’ll check across the hall. Let's hope the spare is still around here." She rummaged around the kitchen peninsula by the door before finding the neon green alien key inside a clay holder.
“Oh my god, this is not good." Jasper exhaled sharply over the line.
"You guys still haven't called about this door?" Clarke groaned, giving the boy's apartment door, the one directly across the hallway from theirs, two rough tugs before it opened.
"They're gonna make us pay for it!"
"You catapulted Monty into the hinges on a makeshift go-kart. What else did you think was going to happen?" She rolled her eyes, making her way inside. Light spilled over the familiar chaos of the boys' apartment: the half-organized sprawl of neon signs, dog-eared movie posters, and shelves lined with Funko Pop figures standing in silent formation, courtesy of Monty and Jasper’s ever-growing curated collection. The furniture didn’t match, not even a little. An old corduroy couch sat beside a faux-leather recliner that squeaked when you sat down, but somehow it all worked. Lived-in. Soft. A little chaotic, and warm in a way that made it feel like home.
But no Bellamy.
"So what happened? And spare no details."
"I don't even know, to be honest. He was acting strange all night, had a few drinks, you know. I guess things took a turn when this guy hit on Octavia at the bar. Everything was fine, until that guy started in on him. Just egging him on, getting in his space. And then... Bellamy snapped.”
Clarke marched down the hallway to Bellamy's bedroom door, giving it a hard, impatient knock before swinging it open. Empty.
"Well, he's not here, but I’m sure he’s fine,” She reasoned, locking up the front door before making her way back across to her apartment. Bellamy was a grown man fully capable of handling the ramifications of his own mistakes. She was confident he was making his way back home at this very moment.
For a second, Clarke stayed by the window, eyes scanning the street six floors below like her gut might prove itself right if she just waited long enough.
"Damn, well if you see him..."
She peered below at the dark, quiet street, but saw nothing.
"You'll be the first to know."
She almost turned away until her eyes spotted something dark. A figure emerged into the streetlight.
“Hold up, I think I see him.” A sigh pulled from deep in her chest. "Yeah, I think he's right outside. Let me call you back.”
Six flights of stairs later, she hit the pavement, breathless and pissed and instantly regretting her life choices. She dragged in a long, slow breath through her nose, the kind that hurt a little on the inhale. The cold October air bit through the thin cotton of her pajamas, her bathrobe doing nothing but flap dramatically in the wind like it had something to prove. She crossed her arms over her chest, trying to will warmth into her bones as she scanned the street. The night smelled like wet concrete and dead leaves, car exhaust, and whatever someone was smoking a block down.
Bellamy stood a few yards away, half-turned, gazing at their building across the street like it might give him an answer.
“Bellamy?” she called, voice sharp and visible in the air. Her teeth chattered around his name.
He stopped, turned, and squinted at her. “Clarke?”
She started toward him, sneakers crunching against the wet concrete. He blinked at her like she didn’t belong there, like she was part of a dream he hadn’t meant to have.
“Hey,” he murmured, brows pulling together. “You’re supposed to be asleep... All these buildings look the same. Which one is ours again?” As he stepped forward, he dropped his hand from his head, and that’s when she saw it. A deep, angry gash just above his right eyebrow, slick with blood and lit harshly under the amber glow of a streetlamp.
Clarke’s stomach clenched. “Are you drunk?” she asked, even though his confusion, and the fact that he probably hadn’t noticed he was bleeding, or how bad it was, already gave her the answer.
“Definitely tipsy,” he said, like that made it better.
“Okay, well, blood and alcohol don’t exactly mix,” she muttered, reaching for his arm. His skin was warm against her frozen fingers. The contrast made her shiver harder as the pulled him a little closer so she could get a better look.
She examined the cut quickly, but it was hard to tell in the low light. “Let’s get you upstairs before you bleed out on the sidewalk.”
Back in her apartment, she sat him on the closed toilet lid and gently cupped his chin, holding his head still as she examined the gash above his brow.
“Well, he definitely got you good. What’d he hit you with, a brick?” she muttered, squinting in the dim bathroom light as she debated whether stitches were necessary. The bleeding wasn’t slowing down, and that concerned her more than she wanted to admit at that hour.
“Don’t know,” he mumbled, voice thick and uneven.
Clarke studied him for a second longer, wondering how he was still upright, let alone talking. Then she remembered the alcohol, the slow, numb way it could dull everything from pain to self-preservation. She let it go, not wanting to rattle him more than he already was. He’d made it back from O’Malley’s, which was just a few blocks away, on his own. That had to count for something.
“What the hell is going on with you?” The question came out sharper than she intended. She didn’t usually swear, but Bellamy had been unraveling in slow motion lately. Thursday, according to his sister, he was quiet. Off, but not enough to worry about. Friday, he was back at the bar, too drunk to be funny. And tonight? Drunk, bleeding, and fresh from a fistfight. That kind of behavior might fly for a freshly minted twenty-one-year-old still figuring out his limits, not for a seasoned intelligence detective who knew better.
Bellamy didn’t answer. He kept his eyes down, his jaw tight.
“Well, clearly something’s going on,” she pressed. “Getting wasted, picking fights. This isn’t you.” She shook her head, returning her focus to the gash.
He said nothing.
“I’m going to let you bleed out if you don’t give me something.”
She obviously didn’t mean it, but still, annoyance edged her voice, and she didn’t try to hide it.
“Stop moving,” she snapped as he tried to shift away from her touch. She held his head steady with one hand and dabbed the wound carefully with the other. It wasn’t until she tilted his face into the light after clearing a bit of the blood that she saw it clearly. A thin, jagged gash just above his brow, the skin split cleanly where something sharp had caught him. Not glass. A ring, maybe. Something hard enough to break skin when a fist landed just right.
“If I tell you,” he said quietly, eyes closed, “you can’t repeat it.”
“Sure,” she said, distracted, still trying to wipe away the rest of the blood without pressing too hard. It still wasn’t stopping.
“I mean it, Clarke.”
“Just tell me already.”
He hesitated for half a second before saying, “Gina got married on Thursday.”
She froze.
The words settled between them like dust in the silence.
“Damn,” she muttered, part shock, part something else she didn’t want to name.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
He didn’t answer. Of course, he didn’t.
Gina—the Gina—had once been, according to Bellamy, the best thing that ever happened to him. Until she wasn’t. They’d dated for almost two years before her job pulled her overseas with little to no warning. Bellamy hadn’t followed. Couldn’t. And even though that was over a year ago, Clarke knew better than anyone that heartbreak didn’t care about timelines.
They’d both been through breakups that year, big ones, but this? This, she hadn’t seen coming.
“I have some more bad news,” she said after a beat.
Bellamy lifted his head to meet her gaze, a silent what now? flashing across his face.
It was the first time he seemed to really notice how close she was standing. Her breath fanned across his cheek, and something shifted. There was a strange, quiet tension between them now, nothing overt, but there all the same. A thread pulled taut and humming.
His eyes stayed on hers, curious, unreadable, while she examined the cut.
“You’re gonna need stitches.”
“You’re the doctor,” he replied, tone flat, like he was already halfway elsewhere.
She lingered a second longer, her eyes locked with his, as if searching for something to say that wouldn’t sound like pity or therapy. But what could she offer him? Some pain didn’t want to be fixed. Some pain just wanted to be felt.
Without another word, she stepped back, replaced the towel on his head, and guided his hand to it.
“Keep pressure on that,” she said, turning to wash her hands.
Bellamy sat there quietly while the faucet ran.
“You owe me a new towel, Blake.”
“You got it, Princess.”
* *
When they reached the ER, it was chaos. The waiting room teemed with people, families crowded in thin padded chairs, nurses zigzagging between triage desks, the air buzzing with fluorescent lights and too many voices. Clarke weaved through it all, scanning for an on-call orderly, when she nearly collided with a familiar figure.
The ER supervisor didn’t even flinch, her eyes locked on the tablet in her hands. “What happened? Let me guess—no on-call doctors in sight?”
“Some genius set off illegal fireworks in a car park,” the woman replied without looking up. “We’ve got burns, shrapnel, and one guy swears he can hear colors.” Then her eyes flicked to Bellamy, taking in the bloodied towel pressed to the side of his head. “It’s gonna be a while before anyone gets to your friend.”
Clarke exhaled through her nose. “Great. He needs stitches. Can I take care of it myself?”
“He’s all yours if you can find an empty bed, Griffin.” She handed Clarke a spare tablet, already moving on.
Clarke hesitated for half a second. Technically, she could play up the possibility of a concussion, bump him up the list, but honestly, the fastest route back to her own bed was dealing with it herself. She turned to Bellamy, letting out a long, resigned sigh. “Come on.”
She grabbed his arm and led him past the row of emergency cots, weaving between curtains and abandoned IV stands until they reached the back corner. This hospital was practically muscle memory for Clarke at this point. She’d spent half her childhood in its hallways and most of her adult life buried in its shifts.
“Sit,” she instructed, pulling the curtain shut behind them with a practiced flick. “You’ll fill these out after I’m done.” She dropped the tablet on a tray and didn’t wait for a response.
Bellamy glanced at the cot, then back at her. “No offense, but... shouldn’t you get a doctor? Like—a real one?”
Clarke gave him a look. “What do you think I do here, play pretend?”
He smirked, still a little drunk, and still very much Bellamy. She rolled her eyes, swiping her badge to unlock the supply cart. The latch clicked open, sharp in the hush of the room. She pulled out a suture kit and snapped on a pair of gloves.
“Are you going to tell me what the hell happened?” she said, settling on the stool in front of him, “or am I stitching you up blind?”
Bellamy didn’t answer right away. Just watched her, something unreadable flickering behind the glaze of alcohol. She ignored the smirk forming on his face as she lined up the supplies. “What’s so funny?” she asked, leaning in. Her breath brushed the air between them, warm against the cool fluorescent hum.
“Just...” He smiled lazily. “Always wondered what it’d be like to have you as my doctor.”
She let out a short breath that might’ve been a laugh if she weren’t so tired. “Keep still,” she muttered, a little more clipped than necessary.
He didn’t usually let his thoughts slip like that. But adrenaline and alcohol made people brave. Or careless.
“Answer the question, Bellamy.”
She didn’t wait for a reply. Grabbing an oversized cotton swab, she dipped it in antiseptic and began cleaning the gash on his forehead. He flinched at the sting, hissing through his teeth, but didn’t pull away. Her other hand settled against his jaw, steady and firm.
Outside the curtain, the ER pulsed with motion, wheeled gurneys squeaking past, voices paging doctors overhead, the slap of hurried footsteps on tile. But inside their little corner of it, Clarke moved with calm, controled precision. Her brow furrowed, her focus narrowed entirely to the cut above his brow, like if she concentrated hard enough, everything else might hold still, too.
“Some jerk was bothering Octavia,” he said quietly.
“And for once in your life, you just couldn’t let your sister handle it?” Clarke’s tone was edged, sharper than her hands. “She’s perfectly capable.” She stayed focused as she loaded a small, curved needle into the holder with a practiced click.
“Well, she doesn’t have to be.”
Clarke grabbed a pair of forceps, shifting into position. “All I’m saying is, she’s a big girl and—”
“She also happens to be my little sister,” Bellamy snapped, the words coming quicker than his breath. “If someone’s making her uncomfortable, you better believe I’m gonna step in.” His voice had sharpened without warning, defensive and steel-lined. He shifted just enough to pull out of her reach, eyes locked on hers now, challenging, but not unkind.
Clarke set the forceps down with a soft clink against the tray, her fingers lingering a beat too long.
Of course, he’d react this way.
Grief had soldered Bellamy and Octavia together, fast, hot, and permanent. After their mother died, Bellamy didn’t just step up. He stepped in. He wasn’t just a brother; he’d been a stand-in parent since he was barely out of childhood himself.
And Clarke got it. She really did.
But still. It wasn’t an excuse.
“Are you gonna let me take care of this, or are we gonna sit here and debate Octavia’s capabilities all night?” Clarke asked, brow arched, forceps still in hand. Bellamy stared back at her, unblinking, like he might still be deciding. But after a beat, he gave in with a sigh, letting her resume her position in front of him.
She leaned back in, steadying his face between her fingers again. The wound hadn’t stopped bleeding entirely, but it was better now. She grabbed the instruments, inspecting the gash with narrowed eyes.
“Stay still.” She reminded.
There was a pause, just long enough for the ER noise to sneak back in, muffled voices, wheels rolling down linoleum, someone yelling something unintelligible a few bays over.
“Everyone’s getting married,” Bellamy muttered.
Clarke didn’t look at him. Her eyes stayed on the cut. Her hands didn’t pause.
“Are we still talking about Gina?”
He huffed, barely a shrug, barely an answer. She rolled her eyes, more to herself than to him, and took the moment of distraction to slide the needle into his skin with the first suture. He grimaced but didn’t flinch.
It hadn’t been that long since Lincoln proposed to Octavia on a warm summer evening, something Bellamy still hadn’t completely made peace with. Or, Clarke suspected, even tried to.
“Twenty-six is too young,” he muttered, shaking his head.
Clarke froze mid-stitch. “Okay, one—and I know this is hard for your drunk brain to understand, but don’t move your head while I’m sewing it—and two, you sound like a grumpy old man.”
“Who gets married after a few months of dating—”
“Bellamy,” she cut in, deadpan, “if you don’t stop moving, I’m going to tape your head shut and list you as a walk-in.”
He smirked, only half-apologetic. “Kinda harsh for someone who took an oath.”
“I took an oath not to kill you. Everything else is fair game.”
She tugged the thread tighter, together. He winced. “Okay, okay. Less judgment, more stitching.”
“Then maybe less moving, more sitting still.”
He held up his hands in mock surrender. “Fine. You’re the boss.”
“Finally, something smart out of your mouth tonight.” Clarke smothered a laugh, lips twitching. He was just sober enough for the dramatics to count, just raw enough for her to worry. “And for the record,” she added after a moment, her voice quieter now, more careful, “what Gina did? That was shitty. Especially to you.”
She paused, then glanced up, catching his gaze for a second before turning back to her delicate work.
“I know I probably don’t get to have an opinion about it, but you dragged me out of bed at midnight, so I’m giving you one anyway.”
Bellamy didn’t respond. His head was still spinning, too many thoughts, too many memories, but for the first time since they’d arrived, his features softened. His shoulders eased. He didn’t speak, but the silence wasn’t heavy anymore.
It gave Clarke room to work.
Her movements were controlled and precise. Bellamy watched them for a while, her sure fingers, the slight furrow in her brow, the faint scent of antiseptic and shampoo clinging to her skin. Then, without thinking, his eyes drifted to her face again. Still focused, still unshaken. Unreachable, but somehow the only steady thing in the whole damn night.
“I need a break,” he said quietly, voice edged with something that wasn’t quite a joke.
“Wow,” Clarke said, trying not to sound stunned. “did you hit your head harder than I thought, or are you actually being self-aware right now?”
It came out like a joke, but she was genuinely taken aback. In the five years she’d known Bellamy, she couldn’t recall him ever saying anything like that. It didn’t sound like him. Not at all.
“Or maybe…” he sighed, long and dramatic, “maybe I just need to focus my attention on something else for a while.”
“I know what you mean,” she said, voice softening. “After Finn, I threw myself into work.”
“Yeah, I think we saw you for five minutes that entire first month, Princess.”
She smiled. “My intentions exactly.”
He started to lean back instinctively, like the thought physically pulled him away, but he barely got an inch before Clarke’s hand tightened on his jaw, steady and firm, guiding him right back into place.
“Maybe I should get out of town…” He didn’t say it to her so much as let the thought out into the air, letting it stretch its legs. A change of scenery sounded good in theory, sun, space, silence, but actually doing it? That took planning. And planning wasn’t exactly his strong suit these days. Not with a caseload the size of a filing cabinet and a head full of noise.
Clarke raised an eyebrow, trying to picture it: Bellamy Blake on a beach somewhere, shirt half-unbuttoned, a drink in a coconut, aggressively not doing paperwork. The image was so absurd it almost made her snort.
“Or maybe…” he added, his eyes catching hers again, “I just need a distraction.”
And there it was. That crooked, infuriating smirk.
The one that always came with consequences.
He looked straight at her, gaze a little too clear for someone with a head injury and half a bottle of whiskey still in his bloodstream.
“Bellamy Blake,” she said slowly, needle poised mid-air, “are you hitting on me while I have a sharp object this close to your head?”
He shrugged, utterly unbothered. “High risk, high reward.”
She rolled her eyes, but the smile threatening her lips said she wasn’t completely mad about it.
The smirk lingered.
“Remember that night in Vancouver?”
Clarke blinked. That caught her off guard. It wasn’t like him to bring it up, especially not like this. Sure, they’d flirted over the years. Brief sparks, harmless and fleeting, like static off a wool sweater. But this? This was charged.
She looked back down at his stitches, her fingers moving a little more carefully now. “At this point, I’m surprised you even remember that,” she muttered.
“Oh, how could I forget?” Bellamy said, sounding far too pleased with himself.
“I thought we agreed never to speak of it again.”
“You agreed,” he corrected. “I just didn’t bother arguing.” He chuckled, low and easy, like he was tugging at a loose thread just to see what would unravel.
“It was implied,” Clarke shot back, but her lips twitched in spite of herself.
Bellamy tilted his head slightly, not enough to mess up her work, just enough to annoy her. “Come on, you have to admit, it was a fun night.”
She paused, wanting to laugh at the absurdity of all this. “God, you’re going to have a field day tomorrow when you’re sober.” Still, her fingers hesitated at his temple. Just for a second. Because, as ridiculous as it was, the memory was still there. Sharp. Inconvenient. And far too vivid for something that was supposed to have meant nothing.
It had been one night. One bottle of champagne too many at their mutual friend’s wedding last year, just after both of their long-term relationships had imploded. She and Finn were done. He and Gina had barely spoken since she left the country. They’d danced too close, laughed too hard, and somewhere between the toasts and the slow songs, the whole thing had blurred into heat and motion and a hotel room with terrible lighting.
They’d agreed, without really saying it, to never speak of it again.
Sleeping with Bellamy again was absolutely off the table.
“I am sober,” he insisted, the words tumbling out too fast, a little too slurred to land.
She raised an eyebrow.
“Okay, maybe I’m not that sober,” Bellamy admitted with a laugh. But he was quick to circle back, like a dog with a bone. “What? Come on—am I wrong?” He was grinning now, clearly enjoying how little effort it took to get under her skin.
Clarke sighed through her nose. “Let me get this straight, you find out your ex got married, and your first instinct is to sleep with someone else?”
“Technically,” he said, holding up a finger like he was making a closing argument, “the first thing I did was start drinking. Then I got into a fight. Now I’m thinking about fu—”
“Bellamy,” she cut in, sharp and low, her voice full of warning.
He went quiet, but the smirk didn’t budge. Neither did the heat in his eyes.
Clarke cursed the fact that she was still so close to him, still focused on the final suture, and still haunted by the memory of whatever the hell Vancouver had meant. She just wanted to finish the job, go home, and sleep this whole night off.
But then it hit her: the alcohol. The fight. The head wound.
Bellamy had a head wound.
Which meant he might have a concussion.
“Great,” she muttered.
Bellamy blinked. “What?”
“You have a head injury.”
“I thought that was obvious, Doctor.”
Clarke shot him a look. “You can’t fall asleep. You might have a concussion.”
“Oh, it’s not that serious.” He was quick to brush it off.
Clarke ignored his comment, setting the instruments down on the tray. She gently cupped his face to double-check her work in annoyance. She tied off the last stitch and pressed a clean bandage over the wound.
“You’re gonna need to keep an eye on that for signs of infection. If there’s any swelling or discoloration—” She stopped herself mid-sentence and shook her head. “And why am I bothering with post-care instructions when your recovery plan is probably just nursing another whiskey?”
* *
“You can’t fall asleep,” Clarke reminded, breaking the silence for the first time since they stepped into the elevator of their old and weathered apartment building. It came out a little too clinical, a little too rehearsed, like she was clinging to protocol to distract from the weight of the tension between them.
Bellamy let his head fall back against the elevator wall with a groan. “I thought that was more of a suggestion.”
“It’s not,” Clarke said, folding her arms. “You’re at risk for a concussion. You need to stay awake for at least a few more hours.”
Her phone buzzed in her hand. Octavia.
We're still at the bar. How's his head?
He glanced sideways at her, the corner of his mouth already tipping up.
“Think you can manage that?” she added, already regretting how easily the question left room for interpretation.
Intact. Ego’s slightly inflated though. Clarke quickly replied, shoving her phone back in her pocket. Bellamy's smirk deepened, slow, amused, and just dangerous enough to make her wish she’d phrased it differently. After her earlier rejection, he’d backed off. Hadn’t pushed. But her wording wasn’t helping. She was making it way too easy.
“Stop looking at me like that,” Clarke said, though her tone was more exasperated than stern. More playful than she wanted it to be. Bellamy glanced up at the ceiling, feigning innocence. But the smile on his face didn’t go anywhere.
The elevator dinged, and they stepped out, padding down the hall in silence. They stopped in front of their respective doors, his on the right, hers on the left, just a few feet apart.
“And what am I supposed to do for the next couple of hours?” he asked, voice low and lazy.
“Bellamy…” Clarke whispered, a warning. Her hand dropped from her doorknob. She turned to face him again. He was closer now, but his usual smirk had softened into something gentler. “I’m only teasing, Princess,” he said quietly. Trying, in his own way, to cut through the thick tension between them. For a second, they didn't say anything.
Bellamy blinked, like he was surfacing from something.
He knew this was a bad idea.
Clarke wasn’t some girl at a bar or a night he could forget. She wasn’t anonymous. She was Octavia’s best friend. She lived right across the hall. She knew him, had known him through many versions of himself, even the worst ones. And right now? He wasn’t thinking clearly. Not enough to want something gentle or honest. He just wanted the ache to stop.
He was thinking about Gina. About the woman he’d once been closest to. Now a stranger. Someone else’s wife on the other side of the world.
And god, he felt alone.
Not only in the physical sense, but in that deeper, hollow way that cracked at night and echoed in quiet rooms. Alone, like the last good thing had walked out of his life and never looked back.
He felt pathetic. Lost.
He felt like he was standing in the middle of his life, and nothing looked familiar anymore.
So when Clarke turned to unlock her door, when her hand trembled just slightly and she didn’t move away, he stopped thinking altogether.
He reached out and caught her arm, gently, but with intention, and pulled her back into him.
Then he kissed her.
It was hungry and reckless and completely unplanned. Clarke didn’t think. Her hands braced against his chest, slowly, curling into the fabric of his shirt. He pressed into her, hands sliding down her back with the kind of familiarity that should’ve scared her, but didn’t.
For a moment, she melted into his warmth, one hand reaching up to thread through the unruly curls at the nape of his neck. His breath hitched. They broke apart just long enough to find some air
“I should’ve asked...” he mumbled, inches away, she could feel the heat of his words trail across her skin.
“Yes, you should’ve,” she confirmed, swallowing hard. There was barely any space between them now, and what was left was electric.
Then, without another thought, she leaned in first, kissing the stupid grin right off his face.
Somehow, they made it inside her apartment without breaking contact, without acknowledging anything but hands, mouths, and heat. Clarke didn’t even register the door shutting behind them until she heard the lock click. She was too lost in his touch, in the low rumble of his voice against her neck as her hands scrambled to tug her shirt off.
“Your room,” Bellamy murmured against her skin, his hands finding her waist, stilling her.
“M-My room,” Clarke echoed, breathless, backing up as her fingers fumbled with the handle. It gave way, and they stumbled inside, somehow still intact, still kissing like they didn’t have time to think better of it. She tried to peel her shirt off again, but Bellamy was faster, his mouth moving from her lips to her throat, teeth grazing skin, his hands bunching the fabric with no real intention of being gentle.
Bad idea or not, it felt like the first time Clarke had let herself want something without hesitation.
* *