A series of bellarke oneshots

Dare me

Not mine
It starts when they're kids. Just another schoolyard game. Truth or dare. It's a game of whispers beneath blankets at a sleepover–of swapping secrets or spilling lies. Kids dare their friends to drink disgusting concoctions and confess to their crush.
Clarke Griffin has been best friends with Bellamy Blake for eight years. And seven of those years have been spent in a perpetual game of truth or dare.
The game begins at Wells' birthday party. Clarke doesn't even remember who suggests the game when they gather in the Jaha's basement on Wells' 10th birthday party. All of the parents are upstairs so it's fifteen kids left alone to excitement and the power of their own devices.
There's nothing special about the start of the game. Clarke has to lick the bottom of Wells' shoe. Bellamy tries to do a handstand and fails. Wells is forced to sing Celine Dion. It's thirty minutes of easy grins and laughter.
Later on, Bellamy and Clarke are waiting on the swingset in the Jaha's backyard while Wells tries to convince his dad to let them spend the night.
There's mischief in Bellamy's eyes when he turns to her, the metal chain twisting in his hands.
"Truth or dare."
Clarke grins.
"Dare."
"I dare you to jump in the pool with all your clothes on."
It's evening in October, cold and brisk now that dusk has sapped warmth from the air.
She hits the water with a splash, not caring that her mother will be mad if her dress is ruined.
She gets grounded and a cold that makes her stay home from school for three days, but the laugh on Bellamy's lips and the admiration in his eyes when she resurfaces, hair plastered to her head makes it all worth it.
It becomes a habit. Whenever they're alone, whenever it's just the two of them, one of them will say it: truth or dare, and they pick up the game where they left off.
At first, it's just a game–a diversion–a way to stretch minutes into hours when they're bored. Their longest running inside joke.
Then Bellamy's mom dies.
For eight months, Clarke and Wells spend every afternoon in the hospital beside Bellamy.
Octavia and Bellamy's grandmother moves in with them, but she's old and has her hands full helping Aurora in the hospital so Clarke and Wells pitch in.
While Bellamy takes the bus to the hospital after school, Wells and Clarke walk Octavia home. Wells makes mac and cheese while Clarke helps Octavia with her math homework.
Bellamy tries to hide the worst of the effect of the chemo from Octavia.
"She's only nine. She doesn't need to see what dying looks like."
Neither do you, Clarke wants to tell him.
Bellamy spends hours with his mom. He's there from the start of visiting hours until they close. Octavia only comes on good days, when his mom feels up for it, but Bellamy's there every day. He starts falling behind on work so Clarke starts carrying his homework in her backpack. She and Wells try to get Bellamy to work, but it's impossible.
"Who cares about Algebra? My mom has cancer."
And, well, neither one of them have an argument for that.
Wells is at an after school review session the day Bellamy's mom asks him to help her shave her head. Clarke finds him in the bathroom down the hall from her room, red-eyed and choking on sobs. His tears stain her shirt, but she doesn't let go until his breath is even and his shoulders stop shaking.
That night, Wells manages to talk their parents into letting them stay the night even though it's a Wednesday and a school night. The three of them fall asleep on the couch in front of the TV. Cartoons scattering kaleidoscopic colors across the canvas of the room.
Bellamy's been fifteen for less than a month when his mom doesn't wake up. The chemo has taken her hair and now the cancer has taken her life. Bellamy's aunt insists on a closed casket funeral.
"Truth or dare."
Bellamy turns to look at her. They're both dressed in all black. His tie is crooked and her shoes pinch. He's sitting on the roof of his house, as far away from the people milling around in his living room as possible. She crawls out to sit beside him, tucking her dress around her legs.
The noise of the wake still reaches them. People pass out pity and condolences–Poor kids. All alone.–But they're not alone. Not by a long shot.
Bellamy blows out a plume of acrid smoke. Clarke doesn't know where he got the cigarette and she doesn't ask. She just settles beside him on the roof and leans back against her hands, letting the rough texture of the shingles dig into her palms.
"If you dared me to jump off the roof right now, I would."
His voice is too serious and the joke comes out flat. Clarke nudges his shoulder. He sighs.
"Truth."
"What's your favorite memory of your mom?"
Bellamy's shoulders tense and Clarke wonders for a moment if she went too far. But this is how they are with each other. Harsh. Honest. Unapologetically so.
Their game has only two rules:
Never back down from a dare
Always tell the truth
Bellamy takes a drag of his cigarette and chokes on the smoke. He coughs. His voice is hoarse when he starts, but it doesn't take long for the words to start flowing easily. Clarke lets him talk. She listens.
He tells Clarke about the stories his mom used to read to him before bed. Epic Greek tragedies filled with gods and goddesses, monsters and men.
He tells her how his mom would bake cookies every time he got an A on a test.
He starts to tell her about the time Octavia broke her arm jumping off a swing when his voice breaks. The hurt too much and his throat too thick with tears to speak.
Tears drip down his nose. Clarke leans her head against his shoulder. She doesn't say anything. She doesn't tell him she's sorry. She just takes his hand and lets him know she's there. That she'll always be there. He squeezes her fingers and they sit like that for a while.
They stay there–up on that roof–until Bellamy cigarette burns down to the quick. Until the sky is dark and full of stars and both their hands are clammy but neither one of them lets go.
...
She doesn't hear his footsteps come up behind her.
"Truth or dare."
She wants to laugh, but nothing's funny. She turns, her face wet with tears. Bellamy watching her, his hands in his pockets, standing exactly where she needs him. Like he always is.
She's sixteen and her heart's just been broken, but with Bellamy, the hurt feels like less.
The music of the party spills out into the night. The light from the house illuminates the empty beach. It's too early in the season, the only people around are locals. The parents and grandparents of the kids celebrating the start of spring.
Somewhere inside Lexa is laughing and dancing like she didn't just break Clarke's heart.
She wonders if cold hearts still beat.
Clarke kicks her foot in the sand, lets the sound of waves crashing on the shore drown out the thumping beat of the party.
"Dare."
Bellamy steps forward and catches a tear on his thumb.
"I dare you to go skinny dipping with me in the ocean. Tonight."
The dare is so absurd that this time he does startle a laugh out of her. It rings out wrong, but she laughs. Her heart is broken, but Bellamy still knows how to trick her into smiling.
"You're not serious."
Bellamy smirks, ever the troublemaker, forever full of mischief. Just like the day he dared her to jump in the pool.
"Is Clarke Griffin backing down from a dare? Are you finally admitting defeat?"
Her softness turns to steel, "You wish."
The water is cold, but their laughs are loud and Clarke forgets everything but the smile on Bellamy's face when he smiles at her wide and free.
...
She supposes she falls in love with Bellamy the way most things with him happen in her life. She trips into it, halfway to hell before she realizes she even started down the road.
The fall leaves her knees scraped and her palms dirty. But it's like the way she smiles when she rubs her thumb over the scar on her wrist.
Because Clarke doesn't remember the pain of hitting the ground when she fell from the top of the jungle gym in seventh grade. What she remembers is how hard she laughed when Bellamy showed up at her house covered in flour and cake mix. What she remembers is eating the cupcakes he made to apologize for the dare that broke her arm instead of dinner while they watched Nickelodeon and Bellamy drew doodles on her cast.
Because, sometimes, the landing is worth the fall.
...
Bellamy's not her only best friend, but truth or dare is just for them two. It's the handshake only they know. The secret they don't share with anyone but one another.
So Clarke dares him to ride a rollercoaster with her even though he's afraid of heights. (He clutches her hand the whole way.) And they use truth to talk when they really need it.
Over the years, Bellamy's become her anchor, the game her grounding force.
...
"Truth or dare," she says, the buzz in her blood making her feel brave.
She's drunk on rum and cherry coke, feeling warm, so warm. She feels ready to take on the world, or at least the boy that she's been in love with all her life.
Sophomore year of college and somehow she hasn't told him. She figured it might happen when they got to college. Wells was at Stanford, but Clarke and Bellamy had ended up together. She'd hoped something might happen, but, so far nothing had. They were still best friends and she was still hopelessly, helplessly in love with him.
Bellamy glances over at her with a bright smile, the sight makes her breath catch. Alcohol has eased the worry lines in his face. He looks young–he looks his age. At twenty, life has made him far too old.
"Dare."
She bites her lip and for a moment, she almost backs down–she almost let things continue on the way they always have.
Almost.
"I dare you to kiss me."
They're lying on the floor of Bellamy's single, it's late, even for a Friday night, and the rest of their friends have all left.
It's just Clarke, Bellamy, and a million 'what if's between them.
He turns onto his side to face her, wide-eyed. She's known him more than half her life, but she can't read the look on his face.
He leans, eyes gauging every flicker of feeling across her face. He moves slowly, but somehow, she's still totally unprepared when he reaches her lips.
His lips are soft and his mouth tastes like beer and he kisses her. Wet and warm and wonderful.
Her fingers curl into his t-shirt and she pulls him closer, stifling a moan when his thigh presses into the vee of her legs and he slides his tongue into her mouth, deepening the kiss.
When he pulls away, both of them are breathing heavy.
"Truth or dare," he whispers, voice raw.
His eyes are dark and heavy with want. The sight makes her feel like a sparkler on the fourth of July. Gunpowder for Bellamy to ignite.
"Truth."
"Why did you dare me to kiss you?"
Her head hits the ground with a thud and she lets out a laugh, half disbelief, half despair.
How could he not know?
Bellamy starts to pull away, but she catches him with her hands on his shoulders, tugging him back down and sliding a hand up to cup his jaw.
"Because I wanted you to," she brushes a thumb along his brow, "Because I've wanted to kiss you for a long time," she adds her hand falling away.
He's looking at her with his heart in his eyes. Hope and heaven beckon. Bellamy's fingers skim the side of her neck, leaving a trail of goosebumps.
"Truth or dare," she breathes.
"Truth."
Clarke's voice comes out small, shrunk with worry.
"Did you want to kiss me?"
His nose bumps hers, his warm breath brushing her mouth.
"Clarke, I've wanted to kiss you since we were eleven and you poured paint over Michael Gorski's head because he said my mom's cookies were store bought."
"Michael Gorski was a jerk," she mutters, distracted.
Bellamy laughs, "But it was true. The cookies were store bought."
"It wasn't what he said, it was how he said it. Come on, you know–"
He cuts her off with a kiss and Clarke sinks into him, her fingers sliding into his hair. She hums against his mouth.
The next time he pulls away, they're both smiling.
"Please always shut me up with a kiss when I'm rambling," she sighs, her heartbeat loud in her ears.
Bellamy's teeth scrape her chin, breath hot against her throat.
"Is that a dare?"
"Absolutely."