Thank you!
Also on AO3
They start off as a storm. Bellamy is an earthquake, Clarke is sure. If people were natural disasters, he’d be the ground shaking beneath her feet, earth shattering, beautiful but deadly.
And still, she loves him. Loves the same guy who made fun of her red boots she showed up to the town council meeting that first week. That’s what you do when you decide to leave a big city behind, move back to your grandparents’ farm, feed the chickens and get your hands dirty.
“Well, if it isn’t the city princess,” he crows, leaned back in his chair, so self-assured with a smirk resting upon his face. His curls look like a crown and Clarke can’t help a blush.
Of course she sticks out like a sore thumb.
But she’s also an asshole so there is that.
“Someone has got to teach you peasants how to behave,” she shoots back, making him gape and everyone else laugh after a pause. Raven Reyes, the town mechanic, is the first one to clap her on her back and say that they are friends now.
And Bellamy - well, Bellamy comes around eventually, when her car breaks down and she’s stranded by the side of the road with her phone battery drained, crates of tomatoes in the back of her grandpa’s run-down truck that works on will power alone.
She’s just bemoaning leaving the city with all its commodities behind, hands gripping the steering wheel and tears dropping into her lap, when Bellamy knocks on the window and startles her.
“You need help, Princess?”
“Not from you.” It even sounds weak so Bellamy chuckles, leans on the roof of the truck, looking like if he has no intention of leaving. “Go on, get out of here! Go mock someone else!”
His brow furrows in part-confusion, part-offense. “You think I’m mocking you?”
“Oh, and you’re shocked?”
A beat of silence, nothing but crickets chirping. Summer is going to come soon, Clarke knows. The country shows you that with grass getting greener, sun scorching your skin, crickets and grandmas busting out their best iced tea recipes.
She loves it so much. It’s even worth tolerating assholes for it.
But Bellamy stays silent, just leaning on her truck with a deeply puzzled look in his eyes. This close, she can see his freckles, even in the dusk, can see the scar above his upper lip, how he makes this whole town feel like it’s bigger than it actually is.
How he seems like a fallen star that accidentally stumbled upon Earth and decided to stay there.
(She doesn’t think about dog adoption programmes he organizes. Doesn’t think about how she runs into him in the library, when he’s reading greek myths to kids, doesn’t think about how that makes her smile. Doesn’t do that. Not at all.)
“Blake, you alright?” she asks at last, rolling her window down. He doesn’t move for another second and then he spins into motion, crouching so his chin is on level with the window.
“I’m really sorry, you know? You didn’t deserve all the shit I gave you.”
It punches the breath out of her lungs and she’s still not sure if he’s teasing her, never can be with Bellamy Blake - as soft as a pillow in the morning and then as rough as the sandpaper she used to fix her grandparents’ back porch.
And she’s still an asshole so she gets out of the truck, reaches into the crate in the back and throws a tomato at him, red stain blooming on his thigh as he stares on in shock.
“That’s for being a dick.”
