Spin The Bottle

"Forget it. Not happening."

Raven rolls her eyes and gently shoves Clarke toward the campsite. "Come on, don't be such a baby. It's just a bottle."

"I'm not kissing those guys," Clarke insists. She cuts a glance over to the bonfire, where a group of about twenty others are sat in a tight circle. A rusty old coke bottle spins under Octavia Blake's fingers.

"You don't have to kiss all of them," says Raven. "Just… whoever the bottle lands on."

Clarke shakes her head, twisting away from Raven's grasp. This is ridiculous. Of all the things to do to pass the time on the ground, of all the things that need to be done - like finding food, for instance, or protecting themselves from the grounders - a game of Spin the Bottle is the last thing Clarke feels inclined to waste her time with. But Raven's iron grip on her wrist tells her she doesn't have much of a choice.

"One spin," Clarke concedes. "One. I mean it. Then will you leave me alone?"

"Yes!" Raven grins, dragging Clarke over to the bonfire. Octavia's arms are wound around the neck of an older boy, whose face betrays his disappointment when she pulls her lips off his. Everyone in the circle cheers - everyone, that is, except Bellamy Blake, who looks like he's about to start throwing punches.

"Wait – Bellamy's playing?" Clarke stops in her tracks, yanking Raven backwards.

"Uh, apparently? So what?"

"I am not–"

"Clarke. Relax. It's just a game, and the odds of you landing on Bellamy are, like, slim to none. So have a little fun, okay?"

Clarke's stomach lurches like she's about to be sick, but she lets Raven guide her back to the circle anyway. Raven's right - it's just a game. She knows that, deep down. But when Clarke's gaze brushes with Bellamy's as they force their way into the circle, she can't ignore the way his face seems to fall.

Oh, God. Please, please don't land on Bellamy.

"Well, would you look who decided to grace the commoners with her presence," one of Bellamy's boys shouts when he catches sight of Clarke. Raven quickly shuts him up with an icy glare.

"Are you really in a position to turn two women away from this sausage-fest, Smartass?" she snaps. "If you wanted an excuse to make out with a bunch of guys, you could have just said so."

His buddies laugh at the jab, and even Bellamy manages to crack a smile at his red-faced friend's expense. Clarke doesn't laugh - she's too busy trying to disappear into thin air.

"Your turn, Jasper," Octavia says with a suggestive wink. She rolls the bottle across the dirt, where it skids to a stop at Jasper's knees.

He spins. It lands on Kassie Watson, who Clarke can only assume has never kissed anyone before by the way she mouths at Jasper's face like a dying fish. Clarke cringes, and says a silent prayer that her turn won't look quite as… wet.

"My turn." Raven reaches for the bottle and tosses it up in the air before catching it again. "It's about to be someone's lucky night."

"Oh, just spin it already," Octavia whines.

Raven narrows her eyes at Octavia as she gives the bottle a rough spin. It whirls around a few times, making crop circles in the dirt, before stopping to point directly at Clarke.

The boys in the circle cheer.

"No way–" Clarke begins to protest, but before she can get the words out, Raven has already grabbed the sides of her face with both hands and plants a firm kiss right on her mouth. She pulls away after a second and laughs at the dumbfounded look on Clarke's face.

"I told you, it's a game. Lighten up."

"You call that a kiss?" one of the boys hollers. Clarke peers around Raven to see all eyes fixed on them, waiting expectantly. Her heart hammers against her chest, but the look in Bellamy's eyes as he watches from across the circle makes Clarke stop for a moment. She can't quite place the expression on his face or what it means, but something deep inside her chest stirs at the idea of giving Bellamy something to react to.

You call that a kiss?

Before she can talk herself out of it, Clarke slides her free hand behind Raven's neck and brings their lips together again - Raven makes a small noise of surprise before returning the kiss, tangling her fingers in Clarke's hair with matched fervor. Clarke's heart pounds - not from the kiss itself, although it's nice, but from the stunned voices of the rest of the 100 egging them on. She manages to open one eye and glance over at Bellamy - though she isn't sure why she does it - and feels an odd smugness at the way his jaw clenches.

She pulls away from Raven, and the circle erupts into cheers again. Bellamy sits motionless, stunned, and Clarke tries hard to fight the smile that tugs at the corners of her lips as she sits back down.

"Where do you think you're going? Now it's your turn." Raven passes the bottle to Clarke with an encouraging smile. The glass bottle is warm from the heat of the bonfire, but it somehow still feels cold against her palms.

It seems to spin forever.

As soon as Clarke lets go of the bottle, she feels her eyes wander around the circle - every eye is fixed on the bottle, curious to see who will have to kiss Clarke, the princess and pariah of the ground. Her stomach lurches again. These people hate her. She knew that. So why did she give in and let Raven talk her into pretending to be one of them? How could she have let her guard down–

The bottle lands on Bellamy.

A moment passes where the circle is utterly and completely still. If it weren't for the roaring fire that serves as the backdrop behind them, the flames still lapping at the night sky, Clarke would have thought that time itself had stopped. Frozen. But then Octavia lets out a loud involuntary snort, and everyone begins to laugh.

Everyone, that is, except for Bellamy and Clarke.

Bellamy's eyes are locked on hers, and for Clarke it feels like a new sensation - of all the times they had argued, of all the times they had looked one another in the eye and screamed until they were blue in the face… Eye contact with Bellamy had never felt quite like this. Personal.

His jaw clenches again. Clarke blinks and forces herself to break eye contact. She reaches for the bottle to spin again–

"Oh no you don't!" Octavia sputters through her laughter. "The bottle has spoken. Those are the rules."

The words come as a punch to the gut to Clarke. She can't kiss Bellamy. She. Can. Not. Kiss. Bellamy. Blake.

Not like this.

She looks over to Raven for support, pleading with her eyes - do something. Please. Raven stares back, wide-eyed and just as baffled.

"What's wrong, princess? Too scared?" Bellamy finally says.

Everyone looks at him. Bellamy stands up from his seat in the circle, brushes the dirt off his pants with the back of his hands. He smirks at Clarke - the arrogant, impersonal smirk that she's all too familiar with. She can't muster her own smirk - she just gapes at him, slack-jawed and trying desperately to make her hands stop shaking.

Bellamy steps toward the center of the circle and Clarke follows, feeling the weight of a dozen eyes on her back, watching her move towards him. It feels like a scene from a movie - a horror movie, she tells herself. She'd almost prefer a horror movie ending right now - where were the grounders when you needed them?

When she reaches Bellamy, he's still smirking - his body towering over her, head bowed down, standing too close. She can feel Bellamy's breath tickle the hair on the top of her head. He takes another step closer to her, so close now that the soft, worn fabric of his t-shirt brushes against her arm. Bellamy smiles, and that's when Clarke realizes what he's doing - he's testing her. Provoking her. Messing with her.

He doesn't think she'll go through with it.

Clarke's blood begins to boil. How many times will Bellamy underestimate her before he realizes she's not the scared little princess he thinks she is?

Clarke stands up on the tips of her toes and presses her lips to Bellamy's. He leans back, caught off guard, and furrows his brows in confusion, which just spurs her on even more. I'm not scared, Clarke thinks to herself as she slides a hand up the length of his stomach to his firm chest. The circle around them gasps and cheers, but she doesn't even hear them - this isn't a game anymore; not to her. This is about her and Bellamy. This is about proving herself, once and for all.

This is war.

It seems that Bellamy's finally caught on, too - he parts his lips, deepening the kiss with unexpected intensity. He hooks his arm around her waist and pulls her body towards his, crushing her against him. Suddenly he's everywhere all at once - one hand tangled in her unbrushed hair, one hand pressed against the small of her back, his fingers dancing on the band of her jeans. He kisses her roughly but gently at the same time, and she feels him start to smile against her lips.

He knows what he's doing.

She tries to get the upper hand - she bites his lip ever-so-slightly and feels him falter for a moment in surprise before kissing her harder. She inhales his scent - leather and firewood and something sweet - and wonders for a moment how the hell Bellamy Blake's embrace can feel quite so warm and safe around her. And before Clarke knows it, she has lost the war - she melts into Bellamy, melts into the strong arms that are wrapped so closely around her, and she instantly hates herself for doing it. Because he's won. Again.

For some reason, even though she knows she's lost, she keeps kissing him.

When Bellamy slowly pulls away from the kiss, he's breathing heavily. He rests his forehead against Clarke's for the tiniest second, his hands still pressed against her skin, and he opens his eyes. He stares at her. She stares at him.

And the look in his eyes tells Clarke that she hasn't really lost after all.