Work Text:
Poker night is at Bellamy’s place this month. It’s a rotating schedule between him, Murphy, Miller, and Gabriel. He’s four beers in, and two hands down. Murphy has a stack of chips in front of him, and is grinning like the cat who got the cream. He’s always insufferable when he’s winning. But Bellamy knows he’s got the cards to wipe that smirk off his friend’s face.
His phone lights up where it lies face up on the table beside his chips, and he glances at it instinctively. They have a strict no phone use during a hand rule, but when he sees it’s from Clarke his stomach clenches and his fingers itch to reach for it.
“Favourite ex?” Miller reads. “Please tell me that’s not Clarke.”
“She named herself that,” Bellamy shrugs.
“And that’s worse, because it means your ex had access to your phone,” Murphy points out. Bellamy shrugs again, like it’s no big deal. It is no big deal. He and Clarke dated for four months six years ago. She’s barely even an ex at this point.
Gabriel throws a couple of chips into the centre of the table, and another text from Clarke comes through as it reaches Bellamy’s turn. He glances at his spectacular hand, then at his phone.
“I fold,” he says, putting his cards face down on the table and picking up his phone. The other three make noises of annoyed exasperation, but Bellamy ignores them.
favorite ex
Today 8:33pm
I’m bored. What are you doing?
Pay attention to me ☹
Poker with the guys. Sorry.
Can I join?
Much as I enjoy your company, you’d be extremely unwelcome
I’m basically one of the guys
The guys do not agree
You’re just afraid I’ll smoke the lot of you
You don’t even know how to play poker
You once said card games are for ugly people
Gabriel is there, I must have been wrong
You think he’s hotter than me?
He’s taller
I have a bigger dick
Send me a pic of Gabriel’s dick so I can compare
You’ll just have to trust me
I think I can believe it
I have seen your dick, after all
A fact you love to remind me of
Must’ve been good if you remember it all these years later
I kept a few pics for reference
Pervert
As if you don’t still have my nudes saved
My tits are too good to delete
Bellamy is halfway through typing out a response when Miller elbows him.
“Can you stop smiling like that? You’re embarrassing yourself,” Miller huffs. The smile that had curled across Bellamy’s face without his knowledge drops, and he clears his throat.
“She said something funny,” Bellamy says defensively.
“Clarke is the least funny person I know,” Murphy says.
“What did she say?” Gabriel asks, reserving judgement until he’s heard the joke.
“She wants to see your dick,” Bellamy says.
“I don’t get it.”
“Stop texting her,” Miller says. “It’s guys’ night.”
Bellamy ignores him. “She also wants to come to poker night.” It’s a vehement no from the other three. “I’ll tell her to meet us at the bar after.”
The guys obviously aren’t happy with that, but they can’t exactly stop him, and Clarke seems pleased. Unfortunately, it means their conversation has to end because she has to go and get ready.
His friends are all eyeing him with judgement as they finish the hand, and Bellamy barely notices he could be a hundred bucks richer if he hadn’t folded.
He knows they all think his relationship with Clarke is weird. The words fucked up, unhinged, and co-dependent have been thrown around more than once. Bellamy doesn’t see what the problem is. Clarke isn’t a normal ex. There was no animosity between them when they broke up, no one cheated, no one broke the other’s heart. The timing wasn’t right, and it was a mutual decision.
They were in college—she was a freshman, and he was the RA for her dorm. Technically he wasn’t supposed to fuck the people in his dorm, but the chemistry was too strong to ignore. It was a great four months, really. Bellamy has no regrets. But then she told him she was going abroad for six months, and when you’re that age, six months is a really long time. Neither wanted to do long distance, and neither wanted to go six months without sex.
It had hurt a little, though he never admitted that to her, or anyone else. But it was for the best. If they’d stayed together, they probably would just ended up breaking up anyway, but with more heartbreak and more resentment. And if he thought of her from time to time after that, indulged in little what could have been fantasies, well that’s no one’s business but his own.
Three years later, they’d ended up teaching at the same school, and they’ve been friends ever since. Friends, and nothing more, no matter how much his friends give him shit for how weird it is to be so close with his ex. No matter how often he catches himself thinking about her naked. He wishes he’d been a worse person and actually had kept the nudes she’d sent him back when they were together.
She texts him again during their final hand, and Bellamy purposefully flouts the no texting rule, grabbing his phone immediately, much to the chagrin of his so-called friends.
favorite ex
Today 9:17pm
I’m ready, what time should I meet you?
In half an hour? Sound good?
Sure
How do I look?
Attached with her last message is a selfie, with her hair and make-up all done, her red top showing a sinful amount of cleavage. The sight of her makes him feel like he’s been punched in the gut, and to his utter mortification, he actually moans out loud. And not a deep, manly moan, that he could possibly pass off as annoyance or disappointment or pain—although he does feel a little like he’s in pain.
But no, it’s more of a desperate, longing whine, loud enough for all his friends to hear. His face burns with embarrassment as he replays the sound that came out of his mouth in his head, and Murphy reaches across the table to snatch his phone from his hand.
“Hey!” he exclaims, as Murphy looks at his phone. Yeah, there’s no question of what he was moaning about now.
“Pathetic,” Murphy mutters, passing the phone to Miller, who shakes his head in disapproval. Bellamy hopes his face isn’t as red as it feels. Miller passes the phone to Gabriel, who gives him a pitying look, and Bellamy’s humiliation is complete.
“Shut up,” he huffs.
“She does look hot,” Gabriel concedes, handing Bellamy his phone back.
“Not hot enough to warrant whatever that sound Bellamy just made was,” Miller argues. Miller is so, so wrong about that. Bellamy looks down at her picture again. She looks so good he thinks he might throw up. He wants to lock himself in his room and jerk off over her selfie. They all already think he’s pathetic anyway, may as well live up to it.
“So are you ready to admit that you’re still hung up on your ex?” Murphy prods. “That this isn’t a normal relationship you have with her?”
“I’m not still hung up on her,” Bellamy argues. “We haven’t been together in six years. Even then we were barely together. It was like four months in college.”
“Have you dated anyone for longer than four months since then?” Gabriel asks him.
Bellamy opens his mouth, but words fail him. He wants to defend himself, he really does. But the truth is, Gabriel is right. He’s never had a relationship that lasted more than a few months.
“That’s irrelevant,” he mutters, but he thinks he might be blushing again. God, is he still hung up on her? Maybe he is as pathetic as his friends say. “Let’s just go, can we?”
Their concern for him is touching, really, but he’s not in the mood to be judged for his relationship with Clarke. Maybe that’s why he’d rather hang out with her than with these judgemental idiots. Maybe that gentle tug in his gut that says he needs to see her right now has nothing to do with how pretty she is, or how he wants to feel her sitting in his lap, like she often does. Maybe he only feels this sudden surge of hatred towards the game of poker because he lost every hand tonight, and not because the game was getting in the way of him seeing Clarke.
Right. Even if he can convince himself of that, there’s no way he’s convincing his friends.
-
During the summer, Bellamy sleeps later than usual, and he doesn’t make it to the gym until after 10am, whereas during the school year he’s usually there before six. He spends a couple of hours there, AirPods in, working up a sweat. When he’s sure no one is paying attention to him, he takes a selfie in one of the floor-length mirrors by the treadmills, flexing, showing off his arm muscles.
He posts it to Instagram, with a blasé caption, trying to make it seem like he’s not trying to show off. He pretends he’s not hoping Clarke will see it. But when he gets a like, and then a text from her not two minutes later, he can’t deny he feels a smug sense of satisfaction. She thinks he’s hot too. They’re allowed to be exes and friends and find each other hot. They’re well-adjusted people.
favorite ex
Today 12:06pm
Guess what day it is
Monday
That too
I just found out it’s international ex-girlfriend day
In case you’re feeling generous
Ha. Happy ex day.
Generous??
Present please gimmie x
What you want
Surprise me
Bellamy licks his lips, locking his phone as he heads to the changing rooms. It doesn’t even occur to him not to get her a present. Clarke wants a present, he gives her a present. He’d been planning to hang out at her place tonight anyway, it’s not too much of an effort to bring a gift.
He finds himself at a liquor store after he’s showered and dressed. He figures wine is an acceptable present to give your ex. There’s nothing about wine that says hey I might still have a little bit of a thing for you even though we broke up six years ago.
Still, he kind of wants her opinion to make sure he’s on the right track. He sends her a picture of the two bottles he’s tossing up between, both of which are on the expensive side, but whatever. It’s not like she’s not going to share it with him.
favorite ex
Today 12:49pm
Which one?
Is this my present?
Yeah, sorry it’s not a surprise
I was hoping for something a little more personal
Personal, huh?
What, like a framed photo of us?
I’ll leave it up to you
Bellamy stares at the message, more confused than ever. He has no idea what kind of present she’s expecting from him. He knows the kinds of things he’d buy her if her if she were his girlfriend, or if she were just a friend. But being his ex puts him in this weird limbo, where he can’t be too thoughtful, or spend too much money, or else it’s weird. Even he’s conscious of that. He can’t even ask his friends because he knows how much shit they would give him for buying his ex a present.
It occurs to him for the first time that maybe she’s just messing with him. In fact, now that he thinks about it, it’s obvious she’s just messing with him. He feels a little idiotic that he thought she might be serious.
On the other hand, he’s a little relieved. He can handle a joke. She probably doesn’t really expect a present, but knowing it’s a joke makes it easier to buy one. He doesn’t have to try and impress her. It doesn’t have to be a nice present while still walking the line of ex-appropriate.
He buys the wine anyway, both bottles, because he needs something to drink tonight and it’s just courteous to bring her some too. But he has another idea in mind for her actual present.
-
Her door is open for him when he arrives at her apartment a few hours later, so he walks right in, shutting it behind him. He can hear music coming from her bedroom, so he figures that’s where she is. He heads for the kitchen first, where he opens one of the bottles of wine and pours two glasses of shiraz, then carries them towards her room.
Her bedroom door is open, and Bellamy pauses in the doorway, watching as she struggles to put a clean fitted sheet on her bed, obviously unaware of his presence. Her tiny denim shorts ride up her ass as she bends over the bed, and Bellamy barely manages to stifle his moan. Why couldn’t she be an ugly ex?
“You want wine?” he asks, and she jumps, straightening as she turns to look at him, her eyes wide.
“God, Bellamy,” she says, pressing her hand against her chest as she releases a breath of relief. “Don’t sneak up on people like that.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t leave your front door wide open if you don’t want creepy men wandering into your apartment,” he muses, raising an eyebrow.
“Victim blaming? Not cool,” Clarke says, teasing. Bellamy rolls his eyes. He holds out a glass of wine for her, and she comes over to take it from him. He uses the opportunity to flick down to her tits while she’s distracted by the wine. She takes a sip, then twirls around, setting the glass down on top of her dresser. “Anyway, I knew you’d be here in time to protect me from any potential predators.”
“As if you need protecting,” Bellamy huffs. He’s seen Clarke throw a punch before, and she’s stronger than she looks. He’d back her in a fight any day of the week.
“But you would, wouldn’t you?” she asks. “If I needed it?”
“Obviously,” he says. Is it even a question? She smiles, pleased, as if there had been any other answer. She takes another sip of her wine, and he does the same. He keeps expecting her to usher him out of her room and back to the living room, but she doesn’t. Instead, she hoists herself on top of her dresser next to her glass of wine. Probably because her bed isn’t even half made.
“So when do I get my present?” she asks, mischievous glint in her eye. He shakes his head with a fond smile, pulling the hastily wrapped gift from his pocket.
He hands her the gift, and she’s eyeing him with a smirk that’s somehow curious and smug at the same time. He watches her intently as she rips the paper open and tosses it aside, pulling out the contents and letting it hang in front of her face.
“Friendship bracelets?”
“Yeah,” Bellamy says, grinning. He takes them from her and pulls off the little plastic tag. They’re just a length of black cord with pink beads spelling out best friends. “They’re cute, right?” And they only cost him six dollars, more to the point. And definitely nothing about them that could be construed as romantic.
“I guess.”
“Here,” he says, grabbing her wrist so he can tie it on her, his hands dwarfing her skinny forearm. Then he holds out his wrist so she can tie his on for him. She dutifully does so, his skin tingling at the contact of the soft pads of her fingers brushing against his skin. He can’t keep his eyes off her expression of concentration. He’s so enamoured by her, endeared by her.
“There,” she says, finishing the knot. She looks up to meet his eyes, and he realises they’re a lot closer than he thought. Closer than strictly necessary. He doesn’t move away.
“Do you like them?”
She bites her lip. “Well, it’s not exactly what I had in mind. It’s actually pretty much the opposite of what I wanted.”
“Oh?” he says, quirking an eyebrow. “Apparently I’m bad at hints. What did you want? What’s the opposite of friendship bracelets? An engagement ring?” His eyes dip to her lips for a split second. He curses himself inwardly for voicing the thought so casually. He’s just now realising he’d marry her in a heartbeat if she asked him. So maybe his friends weren’t too far off the mark. Maybe he’s totally in love with her.
“Closer,” she says. “I’m really going to have to spell it out for you, aren’t I?” She drops her hand to his, where it’s resting beside her on the dresser, toying with the friendship bracelet around his wrist. His stomach lurches.
“Spell it out?” He feels like his brain and his mouth aren’t connected. She smells like vanilla and jasmine and all he can think about is her fingers tracing his hand lightly, and how much he wants to kiss her.
“You’ve always been horrible at hints.”
“That’s harsh.”
“I’m your plus one to every event,” she says. “I sit in your lap when we’re out with friends so other girls won’t hit on you. I gave you flowers on Valentine’s Day. I sleep in your bed when I crash at your house, even though you have a spare room. How have you not noticed I’ve been acting like your girlfriend for the past year?”
Somehow his lips are now a millimetre from hers, though he doesn’t remember either of the moving. His breath catches, and he could hit himself for his own stupidity. “Oh,” he says, because his brain still isn’t quite working well enough to form a coherent response. But it doesn’t matter, because then her lips are on his, and his muscle memory takes over.
In an instant, he’s standing between her legs, his hands in her hair, his tongue pushing into her open mouth. Her fingers push under his shirt as they kiss hungrily, devouring each other like they’ve been holding this back for six years. He doesn’t know about Clarke, but he thinks maybe he has.
His teeth graze her bottom lip and she gives a tiny moan that jolts him right to his core. He grabs her hips and pulls her closer to him, and the sudden movement makes the dresser shudder, knocking over one of the glasses of wine, shiraz spilling over the dark wood and dripping onto the carpet. Neither of them cares.
Her breasts are crushed against his chest, the dresser at the perfect height for his hard cock to press against the seam in her denim shorts. She moves her hips, rubbing against him, and he groans into her mouth.
“Fuck, Clarke,” he pants, lips still against hers. His hands glide over her lower back, down to her ass. “Why didn’t you say anything sooner?”
“Didn’t know if you were uninterested or just oblivious,” she replies. She tugs at his shirt and he gets the message, breaking away from her for a moment so he can pull it over his head. Her mouth latches onto his chest, kissing him, her fingers running up and down his abs, his cock twitching each time she brushes the waistband of his shorts. She licks over his nipple, and he moans softly.
“Shit,” he says. “I love it when you do that.”
“I know,” she says, smirking up at him. Does she remember what he likes, after all these years? She’s still smirking as she drags her own t-shirt over her head and tosses it aside, revealing her luscious tits in a lacy bra.
“Come here,” he growls. He wraps an arm around her waist and picks her up from the dresser, carrying her over to her unmade bed.
“You couldn’t have waited until after I fucked you to change your sheets?” Bellamy asks. He watches her tits bounce as he drops her to the bed.
“I didn’t want to fuck on dirty sheets,” she pouts. “I did this for you.”
“Thank you,” he says, half-laughing. Fuck, he loves her. God, he really, really loves her. His heart is full and his cock is hard.
He kneels on the bed between her legs, his hands skimming every inch of her exposed skin. He dips his head to her breasts, kissing them all over. She arches off the bed so he can reach around and unclip her bra and let her tits spill free.
“Still have the best tits I’ve seen in my life,” he says as he palms them, obsessed with the feeling of her soft flesh.
“Do I get a prize for that?”
“You are so fucking greedy,” he huffs. “I already got you a present.”
“It’s not what I wanted.”
“I’m about to give you what you want, baby,” he promises. His tongue finds her nipple, while his hand reaches between them to pop open the button on her shorts. He slips his hand inside, feeling the soaking wet of her panties. He presses the pad of his finger against her clit through her panties, at the same time he sucks a nipple into his mouth, and it makes her whine in pleasure.
His cock is throbbing, straining against the front of his shorts, desperate to be released, to be inside her. He pulls on her shorts and she wriggles out of them, her panties going with them, leaving her naked beneath him.
“Condom?” he asks. Clarke points to her dresser, and Bellamy reluctantly leaves her side to grab a condom from the top drawer. He removes his shorts and boxers on his return, stroking his cock, relishing the way she eyes him with unadulterated lust.
“Bigger than I remember,” Clarke whispers, her voice husky.
“Thought you kept pictures?”
“I wish,” she huffs. “I convinced myself it couldn’t really be that big, that I was just horny and romanticising it.”
He leans down over her to kiss her. “I’m glad you think my huge cock is romantic.”
“More romantic than friendship bracelets.”
“You talk too much.” He pushes his cock into her, and her head rolls back as she arches towards him, drawing a low moan from her lips.
“Fuck,” she groans breathily. “Fuck, Bellamy. Fuck me.”
He needs no further encouragement. He thrusts his hips, pinning her down under him, her legs gripping him tightly. Her warm, wet cunt feels divine, tight and clenching around him, making him more desperate with every thrust.
“Harder,” she whines, and he obeys, slamming his cock into her pussy forcefully. “Yes,” she moans. “Right there, don’t stop.”
“You gonna come, baby? That’s my girl. You’re almost there.” He still knows her tell-tale signs, can read her body, and he knows she’s close.
She comes with a sharp cry that quickly turns silent, her body writhing in pleasure, her cunt clenching around him, gushing over his cock. He gives a strangled groan at the sight of her face flushed and contorted as she comes, and then he’s toppling over the edge with her, shuddering through his orgasm as he hits a state of pure bliss.
When he comes back to reality, he’s still inside of her, on top of her, and he quickly extricates himself lest he crush her. He’s still breathing heavy as he ties off the condom and tosses it in the waste paper basket, close enough that he doesn’t have to leave the bed.
“You good?” he asks her. She nods, looking up at him from where she’s still lying on the bed. “Can I hold you?” She nods again, and Bellamy scoots down beside her, gathering her sweaty body in his arms and holding her against his. “So was the present you were after an orgasm the whole time?”
“I would’ve settled for a kiss.” He smiles, and presses his lips against her hair. “What I really wanted was something that said I’ve been in love with you for six years, please be my girlfriend.” He chokes out a laugh, though his stomach thuds, her words a little too close to the truth. “But I should’ve known you still didn’t know how to take a hint.”
“I haven’t always been this bad.”
“You have,” Clarke argues. “If I hadn’t eventually given up being subtle and thrown myself at you, we never even would’ve gotten together the first time. And then there was the break up.”
He hesitates. “The break up was mutual.”
“Yeah,” Clarke agrees. “But I did mention like six times how hot phone sex was, even though it’s not that hot at all.”
Bellamy swallows, then quickly shifts so he can see her face. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying if you’d told me you wanted to try long distance, I would’ve.”
He groans, his face hot with regret. “So you’re saying we could’ve been together this whole time? We could be married by now.”
He hears her breath hitch, and it’s her turn to blush now, squirming in his arms. He realises it’s the second time he’s mentioned marriage tonight, and if he accidentally brings it up again, he’s probably going to scare her off for good.
“We probably wouldn’t have lasted,” she says, chewing her lip. “We were young and long distance is hard. It’s better this way.”
“You think?”
Clarke nods. “And whenever you want to marry me, that’s fine.”
He laughs, relief coursing through him. “I love you,” he whispers, kissing the tip of her nose. Testing out the words for the first time. He doesn’t think he ever said it out loud back then.
Clarke beams. “I love you.”
He knows his friends are probably going to give him shit for this, but Bellamy couldn’t care less. Clarke makes him happier than he’s ever been. And next International Ex-Girlfriend Day, he’s giving her an engagement ring.