“Please, Clarke,” Octavia begged her roommate.
“You said yourself that he’s an ass,” Clarke argued as she pretended to keep studying. Octavia had walked into their small apartment only five minutes before with an innocent smile on her face that immediately made Clarke wary.
“It’s not a real date,” Octavia continued. “Think of it as a free meal to help a friend out.”
“Can you even hear yourself?” Clarke asked, finally looking up from her textbook.
“Yes. Come on. If you’re there he might actually act like a human being when he meets Lincoln,” Octavia said before breaking out the puppy eyes. “I really like Lincoln and I know Bellamy won’t because he’s over protective. I can’t let Bellamy ruin this for me. I think he might be the one.” Octavia grabbed Clarke’s hand as she begged. Clarke groaned in response. The brunette knew that Clarke had a weak spot and she had no problem exploiting that.
“Fine. I’ll go. But the moment he’s mean to me I will leave,” Clarke said stubbornly.
Octavia’s face broke out in a wide grin. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. I’ll go call Lincoln,” Octavia said running off to her room.
Clarke turned back to her textbook and study guide with a frown. No way she was going to be able to focus when in two days time she had a blind date with her best friend’s brother to try and keep him in check while he met his little sister’s boyfriend.
Fuck my life
By Saturday night Clarke had come up with roughly six really good reasons why she couldn’t go to dinner with them, but Octavia had come into her room that morning with a dress she had found that would look amazing on Clarke and Clarke knew she couldn’t get out of it now, not without guilt eating her alive for the rest of her life.
“I’m going to Lincoln’s to get ready. He’s nervous about meeting Bell and wants to make sure he looks good,” Octavia said when Clarke came out of her room. There was a backpack sitting against the wall that was undoubtedly full of a weekend’s worth of clothes.
“Of course you are. Seven, right?” Clarke asked, opening the fridge and frowning at the barren contents. Good thing she was getting a free meal that night.
“Yep. See you then. Don’t be late. My brother is a stickler for punctuality. On second thought, be late. Maybe if he’s mad at you he’ll ignore Lincoln.” Octavia smiled widely at her before grabbing the bag and heading out of the apartment.
The door slammed shut and the apartment was quiet. As she went back into her room she caught a look at herself in the mirror, hair frizzy and dark circles under her eyes. It might be a fake date but she still had a lot of work to do before she was in any shape to distract someone from railing on their sister’s boyfriend.
After a few hours of studying, Clarke started to get ready and by the time six-thirty rolled around and she was ready to leave and she thought she looked damn good. The dress Octavia had given her was black and accented her boobs and hugged her curves and she understood why Octavia had given it to her. It made her look damn good and was fit to make her distract anyone.
She showed up in front of the restaurant that Octavia had told her and found a man with dark curls and Octavia’s scowl plastered to his face. “I take it you’re Bellamy,” she said with a smile.
He looked down at her and glared. “And you’re Clarke?” he said, looking her up and down and Clarke was almost insulted when his eyes didn’t linger anywhere on her until she remembered that he wasn’t supposed to like her.
“Yeah. Octavia and Lincoln aren’t here yet?” she asked, trying for civil even as he ignored her.
“Not yet.” He was glaring at the street and looking for all the world like someone itching for a fight. He was pretty enough, even with an ill-fitting suit jacket that strained against his shoulders, but he had bright eyes and freckles that dotted his cheeks.
They stood silently in the fresh spring air for a minute before Clarke decided that even if they were sitting at a table it couldn’t get more awkward.
“Well you can stay out here, but I’m going to go get our table,” Clarke said, turning around and marching into the restaurant. She heard him follow a second later when she was standing in front of the hostess. They were lead to a table in the back corner of the room and Bellamy sat on the opposite side from Clarke and they were handed their menus. When the hostess was gone Clarke shot him a glare.
“Shouldn’t you be sitting next to me so that O and Lincoln can sit next to each other?”
“No,” he said flatly, his eyes never leaving the menu. The silence between them was awkward at best and tense at worst. Thankfully it was only a few minutes later when Octavia came up to the table.
“I’m so sorry we’re late,” Octavia said. “It’s my fault. My hair just would not cooperate.” She smiled, putting a hand on the back of Bellamy’s chair. “Bell, why aren’t you sitting next to your date?”
“I like it here,” he said. He hadn’t taken his eyes off of Lincoln who was refusing to back down.
“I don’t think you do. Move.” Octavia’s hand moved and gripped his shoulder, her finger’s digging into his shoulder.
“I don’t bite,” Clarke added.
With a loud huff and something that sounded suspiciously like “unfortunate” he stood up and moved next to Clarke.
They get through ordering drinks and dinner when Bellamy really started in. “So, how do you plan on taking care of my sister? Because let’s be honest, you don’t exactly radiate trustworthy or responsible.”
Lincoln didn’t even get a second to recover from the shock of Bellamy’s attack. “How dare you! He’s a good man, not that’d you know what that looked like. And I don’t need taking care of,” Octavia cut in, narrowing her eyes.
“Yes, you do. That’s why you’re friends with princess here,” he said as he gestured at Clarke.
“We’re friends because we like each other,” Clarke hissed at him.
He turned to say something to Clarke but Lincoln spoke up. “You haven’t seen your sister in a long time, have you?” he said quietly and the whole table froze as Bellamy turned to look at the man with his arm resting on the back of his sister’s chair.
“And what does that have to do with anything?”
“You still see her as a little kid and she’s not. She doesn’t need taking care of, no matter how hard I try to give her everything she wants. Your sister is strong and always was and she doesn’t need you to help her be strong anymore.” When he finished his little speech Octavia started at him like he had just confessed his love for her in front of the whole world and Clarke would have been jealous if she hadn’t been busy enjoying the mix of shock and anger that had taken up residence on Bellamy’s face.
“You don’t know anything about her,” Bellamy growled at him.
“He knows more than you,” Octavia answered before standing up and stomping out of the restaurant with Lincoln in tow.
With a sigh Clarke too stood up. “Ditching me too, princess?” he asked, his voice dripping with bitterness.
“No. O promised me a meal for putting up with you so I’m getting it,” she said, slipping into the chair where Octavia had just been. “But that doesn’t mean I have to sit next to you the whole time.”
The food came and the waitress looked at them oddly when she noticed that Lincoln and Octavia were gone but Clarke smiled at her (Bellamy hadn’t stopped brooding) and she left without a word.
The silence between them seemed to stretch out for ages when Bellamy broke it. “How long do you think it will be until she talks to me again?” he asked so quietly it was almost as if he didn’t really want to say it.
“It depends on how quickly you apologize. I suggest apologizing to both of them, but I don’t expect you to listen to me,” Clarke answered without looking up from her plate.
“She needs protecting,” Bellamy insisted angrily.
“From what? She can handle herself just fine,” she snapped at him. “Three years ago I might have agreed, but she’s not the same girl I was assigned to a dorm room with,” Clarke said gently. She looked at Bellamy who was staring at her and if they weren’t talking about how quickly his sister would forgive him she could have forgotten that she was there to distract him from Lincoln, not that she had done a very good job of it.
He looked back down at his plate and Clarke started to shake her head sadly because she was right, he wouldn’t listen to her.
“I’ve protected her our entire lives and I’m just supposed to stop now?” he asked less quietly this time.
Clarke thought about it for a moment. Octavia had told her about the fact that he practically raised her and then was her guardian for the last few years that she was a minor after their mother died. It was a sad story and he was a bit like a super hero in her eyes and Clarke knew that eventually they would make up because they needed each other.
“Lincoln is a good guy. You don’t need to protect her from him. She doesn’t need a guardian angel anymore. She needs a brother who supports her. The kind who helps her hide the body if he ever does fuck up,” was the answer Clarke finally decided on. She gave him a smile and he looked back down at his plate as if it had all the answers in the world.
They went back to eating silently but it seemed more comfortable and he did chance her a smile or two when he tried to steal a fry from her plate. When they had both eaten more than was probably healthy he paid the bill and walked her out as if it were a real date.
When they were outside Clarke stopped and turned to him. “Call her. In a few days when she’s a little less angry, but call her.”
“I’ll do that, princess.” Bellamy smirked at her. “But who do I call if I need more advice on how to deal with my sister?”
“Are you asking me on a second date, Bellamy Blake?”
“In a dress like that did you think I wouldn’t?” his grin spread across his face.
“O has my number. Ask her for it when you call her,” Clarke answered before walking away with her own smirk and slightly exaggerated swing of her hips.
She didn’t expect the text from an unknown number she got a week later.
So how about that second date? –Bellamy