#hoping i can get proper sleep tonight (and that my throat won't wake me up at 2 am again)

[theflyingfeeling]

so I'm finally going to start at my new job tomorrow despite barely having done any planning and idek how dead I'll be by the end of the day (luckily it's just one lesson) because I'm still not quite 100% so pls wish me luck on my first day 😭🙏

[moonylantsovs]

Purely Platonic [ B.B ]

request: Hi! I saw that your requests are open and I wanted to ask for a Bellamy x reader imagine. I was thinking something like you’ve been seeing each other but having defined your relationship. Then you overhear him tell someone that you two are just friends and will never be more. I would love a fluffy ending though :D

pairings: Bellamy Blake x reader

warnings: angst, jealousy, fluffy ending

Ever since your and Bellamy's kiss after the battle in Mount Weather, things have been great. And that went both ways. You two haven't exactly said what you are but you didn't see the need for it, you shared a room in Arkadia and spent most of your free time together.

There hasn't been a proper 'I love you' but you both knew you cared about each other in more ways than platonically and he didn't fail to prove that every night after your guard shifts. 

Your friends didn't know what you were either, but they knew you were hooking up. At least Raven did, and she didn't disappoint in calling you out while the two of you were fixing the Rover.

But now, while you were making your way to the guards meeting room, you figured Monty knew something was up too.

"So what's the deal with you and Y/N. Did you finally get the guts to tell her how you feel?" you heard Monty ask as you walked to the room.

And you, being nosey, decided to hide behind the door to listen.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Bellamy's gruff voice came from inside.

There was a loud snort coming from Miller, "Sure you don't, buddy. Should we just pretend you two haven't been making puppy dog eyes at each other since we landed two months ago?"

"Listen," Bellamy started "I never felt whatever you two think I feel towards Y/N. We're best friends who fool around from time to time. But nothing more. We only share a room because there's no spot left and I didn't want to share a room with my sister and her boyfriend."

You felt your heart sink in your stomach and tears prick in the corners of your eyes. You knew Bellamy wasn't good at expressing his emotions to anyone besides Octavia but that doesn't mean his words hurt any less.

The sadness and hurt soon turned into anger and you turned around to make your way back to your room. 

When you came in you put your gun down and took your guard jacket off to put your usual blue jean jacket on.

You took your hair out of the high ponytail it was in and made your way to the bar outside where you found Raven, Octavia, Lincoln, Wick and Gina sitting around a table.

"There you are!" Raven exclaimed as soon as she saw you walking up to the group.

"Hey, Rae." you grinned at her before looking at the rest of the group, "Everyone."

"Ouch." Wick winced, "I'm truly hurt, gorgeous."

You shook your head with a smile and sat down next to him, "Hello to you too, Kyle."

You knew Bellamy was always kind of jealous of how close you and Wick were. You two were best friends ever since you became an engineer and were basically inseparable back on The Ark. Right now, you also knew you were being petty by planning to flirt with him to get Bellamy mad.

"I thought you had a shift at the gates now?" Octavia asked you with furrowed eyebrows.

"Jones took over earlier so I just came here." you shrugged.

You looked at the drink in front of Wick and reached for it. Wick gave her a playful glare after you drank from his glass and you just stuck out your tongue making him chuckle.

He reached over to ruffle your hair and grabbed the glass from your hold, "I'll go get myself a refill and a glass for you."

"Thanks." you said, watching him walk away.

You turn back around to see Raven narrowing her eyes at you, "Something's wrong. What's wrong? Do I need to beat someone up?"

"Nothing's wrong." you told her innocently, leaning back.

"Maybe she's just sexually frustrated." Gina teased with a wink, "You should talk to Bellamy about that one."

You scoffed but before you had the chance to answer a voice from behind you spoke up, "Talk to Bellamy about what?"

When you turned around you saw Bellamy, who just walked up to the table followed by Miller.

"Just the guard's schedule." you shrugged and gave him a pointed look when he was about to sit down, "Sorry, the seat is taken."

He furrowed his eyebrows and smirked thinking you were just teasing him, "Who could possibly be more important than me?"

"Sorry that would be me." came the voice of Kyle with two glasses of alcohol in his hand.

You gave him a thankful smile once he handed you the glass while sitting down, back next to you.

Bellamy hoped his annoyance wasn't obvious as he sat down in the middle of Octavia and Gina.

Hint: it was very obvious.

Wick gave him an innocent smile while putting his arm on the back of your chair. You smiled at him already knowing he was only doing it to annoy Bellamy, which he made a big habit of.

Raven raised an amused eyebrow at the tension between the two males before clearing her throat, "Before you guys rudely interrupted us, we were discussing the style of the Rover's doors."

"Slide doors, obviously." you perked up at the topic.

"Thank you!" Wick exclaimed, turning towards Raven, "It's much more practical than having it open like normal doors."

"Of course she'd agree with you." Raven muttered, rolling her eyes.

"Duh," you smirked, "Great minds think alike."

"Damn straight." Wick agreed with a proud smirk that made Bellamy clench his jaw in annoyance.

He couldn't help but eye the arm that was basically wrapped around your shoulders. The Blake brother would never admit it out loud, due to his enormous ego, but he was always jealous of how close you and Wick were. The fact that Wick was a natural flirt and a very touchy person didn't help at all.

"You want to get together and work on it tonight?" he heard Wick ask you and watched you gave him a nod of agreement.

The dark haired boy cleared his throat, "Don't we have plans tonight, (Y/N)?"

You looked at his with furrowed eyebrows, "I don't think so, Bell. But don't wait up, I have the room key with me and I'll be careful not to wake you up."

Octavia, Raven, Gina and Miller had to fight the urge to laugh at the look on Bellamy's face. The four finally realized what you were doing and that there was obvious trouble in paradise.

"Yeah, you two have fun. Me and Gina have plans tonight so I won't be able to help." Raven spoke up with a fake apologetic look you almost snorted at.

"Don't worry about it, Reyes."

-

It was almost two in the morning once you finally returned to your and Bellamy's room.

You opened the door, only to find Bellamy sitting on the bed with his arms crossed over his chest and a serious expression on his face.

"Where the hell were you?" he asked, getting up as soon as you shut the door behind you.

"I already told I── "

"No, I mean why the hell are you back here at 2 a.m?" he demanded.

"We got held up, relax." you said shrugging off your jacket and putting it over a chair.

"Relax? You come back to our room at 2 a.m reeking of alcohol and you want me to relax?" he snapped, clenching his jaw.

Your eyes widened, "Can you stop yelling and being overdramatic? You're saying this like it's the first time."

"Well it's the first time you stayed that long after being alone with Kyle, so excuse me if I thought you weren't just working on the Rover." he clenched his jaw, pure anger radiating from him.

"What if we weren't?" you say after a few seconds of silence making his head snap up to look back at you, "What if we were doing something other then fixing the Rover? I'm not your girlfriend, you don't own me, Bellamy. I can do whatever the hell I want."

Bellamy gaped at you in disbelief, "So what? You actually slept with him?"

"No." you crossed your arms over your chest, "But I'm saying that if I wanted to I would have. Especially since you have no romantic feelings for me whatsoever. We're just fooling around, right?"

He blinked in shock as realization hit him, "You heard that." 

You nodded, "Yeah, but it's fine. I'm stupid for thinking Bellamy Blake, the Casanova of the camp that slept with half the girls there, would want to be in a relationship. Not your fault."

"You really think that?" he asked, his voice coming out a lot softer then when you started the conversation, "That I only want to sleep with you and that I don't have feelings for you?"

"That's what you said, didn't you?"

"What if I didn't mean it?"

His question caught you off guard so you furrowed your eyebrows, "Bellamy that doesn't make── "

"I love you, (Y/N)." he cut you off making your eyes widen.

"You what?" you choked out.

"I love you." he repeated, "And you don't have to say it back but I do, I love you. I'm in love with you. What I told Monty and Miller was a complete and absolute lie. I had feelings for you ever since we came down and wanted to be with you ever since."

You didn't know what to say. You were waiting for him to say that for the longest time but now that he finally did you had no idea how to respond.

Noticing your silence, he let out a sad sigh, "And now I probably fucked everything up."

He cleared his throat, snapping you out of your daze, "I can ask Miller to bunk with him tonight, if you're not── "

"No, no." you cut him off "I── you have no idea how long I waited for you to say that."

Before he even had the chance to process your words you wrapped your arms around his neck and pulled him into a kiss. It took him a second to respond but when he did, you smiled into the kiss and felt his arms wrap around your waist to pull you impossibly closer to him.

You pulled apart, panting for air when a huge grin broke on his face, "I guess this means you love me back."

"Yeah." you chuckled, "I love you, Bell."

[whiskeykneat]

One More Saturday Night [2]

CHAPTER TWO

Smoke curls upwards from the cigarette dangling out of Joanna's mouth as she looks Gale up and down. It's near ten o'clock, long after the street lamps have clicked on, and the air outside the carhop smells of oil and grease. Gale has just gotten off his shift at the mine, he's scrubbed and scrubbed at the coal dust in the seams of his hands, but with back to back twelve hour shifts, they'll never be clean.

The letter that came this morning from the capital is burning a hole in his pocket.

He'd taken one look at it sitting forlornly on the kitchen table next to his warm dinner, and when his mother's step had creaked on the bottom stair, Gale didn't have to look past the washtub curtain to know that she'd been crying, he could hear it in her voice.

[[MORE]]

I'm going out, Ma, he'd said, but hadn't stopped her when she'd drawn him tight to her thin body for a fierce hug.

You tell Katniss, Gale. Tell her tonight, Hazelle had whispered, wiping her eyes. And give her my love.

"Katniss?" Joanna purses her red lips, sucking on the cigarette so hard he can imagine what those sinful red lips would look like wrapped around his cock, and Gale gives her a once-over of his own. "She's working. Took my shift." She brushes past him, letting him feel every inch of her pointy brassiere pressing up to his chest. "You're gonna have a hard time prying her from that dump up to Lookout Point tonight." Joanna rolls her eyes, nodding towards the parking lot, full of every warm-blooded teenager in town, as if there's nothing better to do on a Saturday night in 1964, in every house in town a television, on every radio the sound of the devil's music.

For the times they are a-changin’...

"You could come up to Lookout Point with me." Joanna's red nails lightly trail down his forearm, and goosebumps pimple along Gale's skin. She looks up at him from under her lashes, biting down on the tip of her thumb. And he considers it for a moment, he really does, but he's been down that road before: sinking down into her warm wet softness, hearing her mewl as she claws his back, begging him to empty himself inside of her, anything to fill the gaping hole inside them both.

Joanna purrs as she runs a finger up his chest, playing with his collar. "It ain't as pretty, but we can go down to the Slag Heap if you've a mind to get ham-hocked." There's no reason he should refuse her. Thom will be there, after all, and every other man on the crew. Right now, nothing sounds better than drinking so hard he can't see straight, anything except thinking about the letter in his pocket.

Gale looks down at Joanna for a moment, and he hears what she's saying to him, offering him a way out tonight, a way to forget that in two days, he’ll be on a train to his army training, where they'll put a gun in his hands and send him off to the jungle, and there will be no more Saturday nights like this one, where all he has to worry about is which pretty girl he’ll be taking home.

(All of them. None of them. Any of them except the only one he wants, the only one he's ever wanted, the one he can never have at all.)

He fingers the ribbon wrapped around his wrist, threadbare now, but once as sky blue as the bottles that hang from the chinaberry tree outside his mother’s front door -- as if it is what is keeping him tethered to this town, like a candle burning against the darkness. "Nah, not tonight."

"Well, if you want something to take the edge off, you know where to find me." Joanna pouts dramatically, one hand on her hip. She winks, then, and leaves him, a cloud of Chanel in her wake.

As if his body has a mind of its own, Gale finds himself hopping back in the truck, and bringing it around to the parking lot. The carhop is jumping tonight, hormones and energy pumping out of every sleek car, on beat with the music.

Stay… just a little bit longer…

Gale parks in the back, near the tree line, and cuts the engine. The place is full of Townies, all dressed to the nines, the boys with shaggy Beatles hair and the girls in mini skirts and beehives. In his work denim and his button down plaid shirt, Gale feels suddenly old beyond his years and out of place, as though he's peeped into a pinhole camera of an era gone by, one he never belonged to, was never a part of. These boys have never spent twelve hours down in a mining shaft, working every muscle as they lay waste to the mountain. They've never left school to become breaker boys, separating the impurities from the coal. They do not know what it's like to descend down into the darkness, day after day after day, until it is like you have never known the light.

“What would you like?” The voice, a car over, arrests him in his tracks, and Gale feels his whole body shiver with recognition.

It's the voice that's haunted his dreams since the summer of 1961, sleepy afternoons and strawberry kisses. It's the haunting melody of the piano drifting through the dusty air as he makes his way to the mine in the dawnlight, pricking memories long buried: of her in his arms, twirling around in that big, empty gazebo. That slate-tiled gazebo, with the big cupola, with lots of shady corners for stealing kisses. It was where Madge Undersee had her debutante ball, as Gale watched from the shade of the sycamore tree in his ill-fitting suit, and knew he could never be a part of her world.

He'd taken employment in the mine the very next day, and the day he'd turned eighteen he'd gone down in the pit for the first time, the memory of the girl he could never have seared forever on his heart.

•••

Gale hasn't seen Madge Undersee since the morning after the debutante ball, when he'd met her under the sycamore tree just past the edge of the sprawling gardens, where once he'd carved their initials together: M+G.

She'd been wearing white, he recalls: a frothy camisole, so fine he could see the outline of her breasts and feel the answering swell in his denim jeans, and pine green silk pajama pants that hugged her delicate curves. Gale knew that if he touched her, the silk would whisper over her skin, that she'd make a little moan in her throat, and that her lips would be velvety and plush, tasting of clouds and cream as he parted them with the tip of his tongue.

If he kissed her, he'd be unable to finish what he came to do, and that's the one thing that killed him, to take the only thing good and fine in his world, and make what lay between them something cheap.

He thought about her father, and the suitcase of money, money that could have fed his whole family for a year, and bought a new house besides, were he the kind of man who didn't have his pride, the kind of man who didn't know right from wrong. He was seventeen, but he's been a man since he was twelve, the night his father died and mantle of responsibility, of family, came to lay on his shoulders.

Madge smiled up at him, handing him a tiny teacup filled with black coffee, his big, rough working man's hand nearly engulfing her own. For a moment, he let his hand linger on hers, until her cheeks turned pink, and then he took a step back, the space between them thick with words unspoken. There was an eyelash on her cheek, he wanted to blow it off, he wanted to make a wish. But the time had passed for such foolish fancies.

My daughter is not for you, Gale Hawthorne, Mayor Undersee had said gently, the suitcase lying on the table between them like Pandora's Box, the sounds of the party drifting up from below. There was a line of coal smudged along the cuff of Gale's suit jacket, and he tugged at his sleeve, feeling the poorly constructed seams give out just a touch.

The tux belonged to Thom's pa, who was as of a mind as Gale's in that a suit was only for marrying and burying. Not fucking around at a party to impress some high class piece of tail. Gale had never wanted to deck the elderly man more in his entire life.

I wanna hold your hand, crooned Paul McCartney on the record player.

Under the ancient sycamore tree, Madge's eyes were as deep and blue as the Delft china plates in the display case at the five and dime, and the little gold flecks danced like specks of sunlight as she gazed up at him. When he spoke, tears sprung to her eyes, and her teacup fell to the roots of the tree, shattering and spilling like the sound a heart makes when it breaks beyond hope or repair.

High in the tree, a pair of mated bluebirds sang, to usher in the morning.

•••

There she is, Miss Prim and Proper, the Debutante herself: Madge Undersee. And she looks better than ever, if that's possible: golden and slender, with legs that go on forever. Gale can't help but drink every bit of her in, as if he hasn't been able to stop thinking of her since the day they parted, as if he’s never thought about walking up to the front door of her house and asking if she's home. But he heard from Katniss that Madge went up to university in Charlottesville, and he’d thought that after that, she'd never return.

He's heard a rumor that Madge got engaged, that she's marrying Seneca Crane, the son of a senator, the china already picked and the invitations sent out.

If that's the truth, why is Madge working at the carhop? She should be making her wedding trousseau. She should be shopping all over Paris with her Daddy's money, and buying French lingerie for that stuck up rich man, to lie in his big bed with the hundred count sheets, and let him taste her sweetness.

Like clouds and cream. Like strawberries.

"Fuck!" Gale presses his forehead to his hands, which are clenched on the steering wheel.

He should drive out of here right now. He should go home and get a good sleep in his own bed. He should… But he won't. And, catching himself rubbing the satin ribbon around his wrist again, he knows why.

Madge Undersee.

He's halfway out of the car already when he hears her voice again, and this time nothing can stop Gale Hawthorne from getting what he's come back for, from the one person he can't leave behind without saying goodbye.

•••

“Please, please don't.” Madge vainly bats at the hands groping her ass, and for a moment she's back in the frat house, trying to push Seneca off of her as his tongue goes down her throat and his knee forces her legs apart.

You're so frigid, Margreta. Don't be such a goddamned prude.

“You heard the lady. She said no.”

It's like she's imagining things. Gale Hawthorne. Standing between her and Cato Curlew, steel in his tone. His voice ripples with command, and Madge feels a trickle of warmth low in her belly, though she's still angry with him, after all these cold years apart.

Why is he here now, when he's stayed away for so long? Doesn't he know that she no longer needs him, that she stopped waiting for him long ago? “I don't need your help,” Madge informs Gale’s broad shoulders. “Go away.”

She can hear the sneer in Cato’s voice. “That ain't no lady.” He spits a stream of tobacco on the asphalt. “Everyone with half a brain knows that she's been spreading her legs for any Seam bastard who asks since she was sixteen.”

Gale grabs Cato by the shirt, and blood sprays against the mirror on the door. Cato comes out swinging, shaking his head like a bull before he charges at Gale. Madge screams, and they all come running, the boys laying bets, the girls huddled to the side and watching through their fingers, titillated and horrified all at once.

The two men square off on the blacktop, Cato big and square and stocky, Gale tall and broad-shouldered but with a latent strength honed from years swinging a pickaxe. Cato is bleeding from the nose, and his fists are up as he and Gale circle one another. Madge has heard the stories, Cato killed the last man he fought in a brawl, down in Wheeler.

“Don't! Stop!” She tries to dart between them, but Wheatley Mellark grabs her arm, hauling her back.

“You'll just make it worse,” he murmurs in her ear.

“Get him, Cato!” Cato’s friend Marvel cups his hands and lets out a wild yell, and Cato surges forward like he's been shot from a cannon. “Show that Seam bastard what we do to coal miners who think they can touch Town women!”

Madge is pale, she is shaking. “Stop them,” she begs Wheatley and Delly, who has appeared at her other side, a serious look on her face.

Gale and Cato circle one another on the gray, cracked asphalt, dust rising in the air.

“That's right,” Gale taunts, his voice deep and carrying. “These dirty, coal-stained hands have touched Town women… While you're at your office with your secretary, I've been plowing your girlfriends… Your wives… And your momma, Curlew.”

Cato roars, and charges Gale. Gale dodges Cato, turning and socking his fist into Cato’s jaw. Cato spits out blood, lunging for Gale, and then both men are on the asphalt, rolling over and over with the smell of heat and blood in the air.

“Stop it! Gale Hawthorne, stop it right now!” Katniss comes gliding across the pavement, but Peeta Mellark, near the edge of the crowd, catches her arm, his mouth moving in words that Madge cannot make out, even if she wanted to.

She can hear nothing except the thud of flesh on flesh, and then Gale is on top of Cato, punching and punching him, and suddenly the wail of police sirens can be heard coming down the avenue, and Madge snaps out of her coma.

“We have to go!” Madge yanks on Gale’s arm, hard, and he resists her for only a moment before snapping back into focus, his dark gray eyes gone soft as he looks at her. She doesn't want to think about what that means, not right now, not when this could all be taken away in an instant. Cato is Town, and his daddy is a rich man besides. Gale is Seam. A night in jail would be the lightest of sentences Gale could pray for.

So instead, Madge leans forward, cupping Gale’s jaw, and whispers in his ear, “Now,” and Gale, stumbling like a drunk in the dark, doesn't question her when she jumps into the truck beside him and grinds the gears, and they speed off into the night.

•••

“You're an idiot.” Madge presses the damp napkin a little too hard to Gale’s jaw, and he winces, trying to pull away. “You know that?” Her voice is low and furious, and he thinks he's never been more intrigued by her than at this very moment, all her ladylike poise gone, the air between them crackling like lightning about to strike.

“Maybe if you had stayed where you were supposed to be --” Gale growls, turning his jaw from her ministrations. “On your side of town -- Then I wouldn't have had to step in in the first place!”

“I don't see how it's any of your business where I spend my time, or who I spend it with!” Madge pushes on Gale’s chest, and he laughs darkly. “What's your problem?”

“You are! If you had just stayed in your place -- the princess in her tower -- instead of slumming it --” He’d kill any man who touched her without her permission, she has to know that.

Tears spring to the corners of her eyes, and for an instant Gale feels like a monster for wounding her, but -- You deserve this, he reminds himself. She can't know that all he wants to do is to take her in his arms and kiss her tears away. He's already made his choice.

“I…” Madge turns her face away for a moment, composing herself. He wonders if she still sings to herself in her head. He wonders why he can feel the space between their bodies so keenly, why he still wants to pull her close, to open the door they locked so long ago. “I think you should take me home.”

Gale swallows, turning his face to hers. In the moonlight, her profile would look at home stamped on an antique bronze coin, too beautiful to be anything but legendary. Wars have been fought over women like Madge Undersee, in times of old. She's everything that's wrong and right for him, and even though his heart says it's right, his mind whispers that it's wrong, wrong, wrong.

Gale leans toward Madge, who tenses, and as he wraps a finger around single golden curl, she turns her face up to him with a question in her eyes, that indent on her lower lip enchanting him as it did when he was a boy, begging to be explored by his tongue. His hand comes up, and he caresses the line of her jaw, feeling her tremble uncontrollably at his touch. “What are you so afraid of?” Gale whispers huskily, even though he knows the answer.

What he isn't expecting are the next words out of her mouth.

“I don't want Daddy to hear about…” she waves a hand to encompass their surroundings, or maybe the events that have taken place. “...this.”

“I didn't ask for his damned approval.” His laugh is rusty, as though it's been a long time since he's had anything to laugh about. “I bet Daddy approves if he's got cash in his pockets instead of coal.”

Madge reels back, as if she's been slapped. “Fuck you.” Before Gale can process what's happening, the car door slams behind her, and she runs barefoot across the dark parking lot, and straight into the Slag Heap.

“Fuck!” Gale slams his hands on the dashboard, wincing. He leaves the door swinging, and runs after her.

She's standing at the bar when Gale catches up to her, her shoulders heaving, downing a shot of something amber, the heady scent of it already purring on her skin. “What do you want?” She slams the shot glass on the bar with a hiss, and Gale grabs her by the shoulders, unsure of what he intends to do right up until this moment.

“Another shot,” the bartender drawls, and Gale slams it down, and then he's kissing Madge Undersee, his hands cupping that little heart shaped face, his thumbs stroking her jawline, the taste of her as raw and real as though it's been home all along, as if he's never known it until she's back in his arms, pliant and soft, nipping at her bottom lip, his tongue meeting hers, tasting of amber and cream and the mist that rises off the mountains in the morning.

Madge pulls back, and slaps him, hard. “You bastard.” There's a round of shocked applause, led by Joanna, who blows Gale a sultry kiss and a wink, leaning against her pool cue before lining up her shot.

But Gale isn't here for Joanna tonight. “Madge!” Gale bellows, past caring what anyone thinks. His long strides overtake her in the parking lot, and he finds her leaning against the cab of his truck, her shoulders shaking.

“Get me out of here, Gale,” Madge whispers, her voice raw.

He touches her gently, as though she is a wild doe that might startle or frighten, and she surprises him by turning around and falling into his arms, her face pressed to his chest, her heart matching the beat of his own. He lifts her tear streaked face with one finger, and then she stands on tip-toe, and they are kissing again, slow and soft and sure, as if all the time they've spent apart has been leading up to this moment.