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terapsina · 2 years

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6 Times Bellamy Tried to Forget That He Was in Love With Clarke (+1 Time He Couldn’t Anymore)

(canon compliant UNTIL IT’S NOT)

word count: 13.6k

status: complete

content: some of the bellarke greatest hits, all the seasons except the-one-that-shall-not-be-mentioned, and a happy ending because f*** you jroth.

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ao3

---

The first time Bellamy tried to forget that he was in love with Clarke he wasn’t really even fully there yet.

She was still the Princess, though what he meant when he used that term had changed, it was no longer filled with scorn but layered with just a bit of fondness. She was no longer the privileged daughter of the Ark's councilwoman. No longer the threat to him and Octavia he saw her as in the beginning. She was his partner, the co-leader carrying half the weight of their people. She might even be his friend now, though he was uncomfortably uncertain if she thought of him as hers.

And since Unity Day he’d been just a little bit in love with her. It was hard not to be when someone said they needed you and gave you the forgiveness you'd never deserve. So yeah, he was a bit stupid about her.

It was fine though. It wasn’t that big of a deal, he was quite capable of putting that feeling in the back of his mind to be dealt with later. Once they were finally safe from the Grounders and didn't have to deal with an emergency requiring to choose between three terrible options twice a day. He'd see what to do with it then.

That was the plan and in his opinion, it was a pretty great plan, which worked right up until he found Raven waiting in his tent. “What are you doing in here?”

“They don’t waste time, I’ll give them that,” she said, her voice angry and heartbroken and something in his stomach sank sharply, the thing-he-didn’t-think-about twinged painfully at the back of his head. He held back the flinch but only barely and was not actually certain that Raven didn't notice it anyway because he was pretty sure he stopped breathing for three full heartbeats. His only hope was that she was too distracted by her own bleeding heart to see the slight cut in his. “What’s it been, a day and a half?”

“You’re mistaking me for someone who cares,” he said and inwardly grimaced at the way it came out more bitter than he’d have expected, “time to move on.”

She dropped down on his bed to shuck off her jacket.

“What are you doing?” he asked once Raven’s boots joined it. The question was rather pointless of course, it was pretty clear exactly what she was doing and why.

“Moving on.”

He slept with Raven more for her than himself - at least as far as emotions were concerned, physically he made sure it’d be a pretty even deal. He could see full well that she was hurting far more at the idea of where Clarke and Finn were and what they were doing right now than Bellamy. For him it was not so much jealousy as the persistent itch of disappointment, which was a surprise because he didn't even seriously entertain the idea that Clarke might like him back, there shouldn't have been any hope for her to crush.

But still, it was nowhere near as painful as the other things he'd lived through. It didn't come even close to what he’d felt when his mother was floated. When he’d spent a year unable to see Octavia. When Charlotte jumped. Or when he’d seen the sky burning with three hundred people that died because he was stupid and selfish and unwilling to look past his own fear until it was far too late.

And okay, this was a completely different kind of pain that wasn't really comparable to those other things but it was still clearly lesser and he could have just as well dealt with it by stealing some of Monty's moonshine. He would have been fine.

But Raven's offer was tempting and he did want to help her, - and well, it's not as if he was blind, Raven was gorgeous; it wasn’t exactly a hardship to let her fuck him even if it did end up being some of the most depressing sex he'd ever had.

When they were done and Raven was dressing with a single-mindedness that was almost a bit insulting, - head turned away, and putting on her discarded clothing like being naked was making her skin crawl now.

"Did that help?" he asked, it was more out of having nothing better to say than because he didn't know the answer.

"No," she said one foot already outside the door.

Yeah, he hadn't thought so. It hadn't really helped him forget either, so he wasn’t surprised to hear Raven's heart was as sore as it had been when she’d first thrown down that gauntlet by taking off her shirt. Especially because now that he was alone again his own mind went right back to fruitlessly trying to stuff all those very dangerous feelings - the ones he’d up to now done such a good job suppressing - back into that box to be forgotten again. He was so consumed with it he didn't even feel the half-expected bruise to his ego he might have otherwise been struck with.

When they finally figured out that something was wrong and went off with a search party to look for them - when they realized that Clarke and Finn had decidedly not been spending a romantic getaway away from the Dropship - he and Raven suddenly couldn’t quite manage to look at each other.

Which was beyond stupid, neither Bellamy nor Raven had anything to feel guilty about. And it's not like Clarke would even care.

They found Myles hiding between the roots of some kind of shrub. He was bleeding and barely conscious and as Raven dropped to her knees beside Octavia, trying to free Myles from the foliage covering him, Raven desperately asked after the two still missing. “Where are they? Clarke and Finn? Where are they?”

“Grounders took them,” Myles choked out hoarsely.

Bellamy’s heart stopped. Or at least that’s how it felt like for the next few moments as those words landed square across his chest.

He forced himself to swallow his first reaction back and focused on Myles. He couldn’t think about Clarke and Finn and what might be happening to them - what might already have happened - there was a kid here he could help, so that had to take priority.

“Easy there, we have to take him back to camp,” he said.

“Bell, what about Clarke and Finn?”

He didn’t know what to say to his sister but he looked at Raven and finally accidentally caught her eye. They both slowly got to their feet, still looking at each other, Bellamy felt bile at the back of his throat and by the look on Raven’s face, he wasn’t alone.

“Raven, I’m sorry,” he said and meant more than just Finn being missing.

Raven didn’t answer but there was a look on her face that he was certain was mirrored on his own. And he knew there existed a shared thought at the very front of their minds.

What had happened between them was never going to happen again.

Because God, the idea that Clarke might have been dying while he was in that tent was almost unbearable. The fact she might be dead right now was even more so. And he didn’t need to be able to read Raven’s mind to know she was feeling that same thing about Finn.

And this pain actually did register on that scale he’d been thinking about before.

He wished he could send out a search party like Raven wanted him to. But he knew what Clarke would have wanted, they didn’t have time to look for two people that were already more than likely dead when they were all about to be attacked by Grounders retaliating for their losses on the bridge.

He needed to be a leader right now, he couldn’t afford to be distracted by worry that wasn’t gonna do any good to anyone anyway.

There sounded a commotion by the gates and Bellamy was already running to confront whoever or whatever was waiting for him now - because of course even getting strung up by his neck by Murphy didn’t give him five-minute breathing room - when Miller’s voice echoed through the camp.

“Wait! Hold your fire, it’s Clarke and Finn, open the gates!” Miller screamed from his watch position and relief crashed over Bellamy in a wave.

The first thing he saw as the delinquents pulled aside the sheets of scrap metal to let their two missing people in was Clarke running in front, scraped up but seemingly uninjured. He wished that the relief that overtook him was entirely selfish, that it had to do with the fact that he had his partner back and he wouldn’t have to carry the burden of their people’s lives all by himself. But that was crap.

It was vastly overpowered by the simple joy of seeing that Clarke was alright.

“Hey, we heard an explosion. What happened?” she fired out rapidly as soon as she was in front of him. Face serious and eyes focused entirely on Bellamy, - and it was something that had gotten to be so familiar to him that it almost felt like having her there was akin to getting back a missing limb.

He almost, almost fell to the instinct to pull her into his arms because he was just so damned glad that she was alive that the only thing that saved him was the fact Jasper got there first.

---

The sun was so bright it was somehow almost physically painful. It shouldn't have been so bright and beautiful after they'd killed so many people. People who had helped them, children, who'd had nothing to do with anything.

He wondered if it would be easier walking back to Camp Jaha if the sky was as gray as the emptiness inside Bellamy. If that would somehow help with the sick feeling in the bottom of the stomach that should taste like regret but didn't. He couldn't feel regret for saving his friends. Pulling that lever... he knew it hadn't been the 'right' thing to do but it had been the only thing that was left.

And he couldn't have let Clarke pull it alone.

His eyes slid to his left, Clarke walked like she was in a dream - or a living nightmare - eyes straight ahead and with a faraway glaze to them. He knew he should be angry that she almost let his sister die, and he was, and under any other circumstances he would never have let it go but... these were not any other circumstances.

He looked up from the gate he was holding open for their people when they'd almost all finished walking inside. There were only Clarke and Monty left, exchanging a hug before Monty pulled away and joined the rest of the survivors of this latest adversity. He was pulling his knitted sweater tighter around himself and as he walked past Bellamy, he sent him a look that rattled something inside him. Bellamy's eyes followed Monty inside even as he finally joined Clarke.

"I think we deserve a drink." There was an edge of tension in his voice, an uncertainty he tried to bury but couldn’t quite hide. They’d won, it was over. And yet it felt like the walls they were yet to stand behind, were about to enclose on him.

"Have one for me,” she said and the metal jaws of the trap slammed closed around Bellamy.

"Hey, we can get through this,” he still tried, hoping beyond hope he could find something, anything to say that would stop Clarke from telling him the thing he was afraid to hear.

"I'm not going in.” The words were quiet, gentle, and no less a dagger that pierced his chest.

"Clarke. If you need forgiveness, I'll give that to you. You're forgiven." Desperation was beginning to slip into Bellamy’s voice as he turned to look at Clarke, trying to put as much truth into his eyes as possible. Begging for her to listen. Those words had stopped him once from running, maybe they could stop her too. "Please come inside."

"Take care of them for me." But Clarke seemed to already be beyond his reach, the tears in her eyes blinding her to the way Bellamy was a hair’s breadth away from shattering.

"Clarke-"

"Seeing their faces every day is just going to remind me what I did to get them here.” And what was it going to do to him? To know that she was somewhere out there, alone and vulnerable and dealing with it alone?

"What we did." He’d pulled that lever with her, the blood wasn’t just on her hands, it wasn’t just her burden. "You don't have to do this alone."

She almost looked like she was considering it, letting his words sway her into staying. There was a heartbeat where Bellamy dared to hope, but then her face turned toward their people and he could see her swallow, her eyes filling with a painful kind of strength.

"I bear it so they don't have to,” she said like she was quoting something and he knew he’d failed, no words would sway Clarke now. He’d already lost her.

"Where are you gonna go?"

"I don't know," she said and then moved, pressing her lips against his cheek and making lightning stretch from that spot going inward, wrecking everything in its path. Her arms went around him and he pulled her as close as he could, already afraid of the moment she'd pull back.

"May we meet again," she whispered, her voice and his heart breaking in sync.

When Clarke pulled back it was as if his heart was being ripped from his chest with every inch of space she created between them.

"May we meet again."

The anger didn't come all at once. For the first two weeks, he was too consumed by shock and too busy with taking care of their people to have the time to be alone long enough to know what he actually felt. He was running around the camp making sure everyone had somewhere to sleep, arguing with the new council over the distribution of rations, and basically doing what Clarke had wanted him to do when she left.

The anger was gradual, it built with every person that asked him where Clarke was, with every person that asked when she'd be back.

Eventually what pushed him into letting it loose was Monty. This probably made sense, Monty had been in that room with them, and he was the only person other than Bellamy who had known that Clarke wasn’t going to cross those gates into camp. It’s both what had drawn them into something resembling a real friendship and what made it hard for Bellamy to look at him sometimes because every time they were in a room all Bellamy could think about was Clarke.

“We need to open trade with the Grounders. You have to convince them to listen,” Monty repeated for what felt like the hundredth time. “Clarke would have wanted us to-”

“Well, Clarke’s not here!” Bellamy snapped.

Monty fell quiet, a look in his eyes like he knew exactly what had made Bellamy lose his composure. It was probably sympathy but what it felt like was, pity.

He had no interest in dealing with it or talking about it either way. What would be the point? He already knew what was wrong, and discussing it wouldn’t fix anything. So he stood up and left toward the place in the camp that had been created as the communal dining hall but very quickly turned into an impromptu pub.

He met Gina there that same night. He’d been brooding in a corner for what felt like hours, avoiding the other delinquents and snapping at anyone that tried to start up a conversation, when someone dropped a glass of something in front of his downed head.

“Fuck off,” was all he was willing to say.

There was the pointed sound of a throat clearing and he finally pushed up his face to see which of their kids he’d have to get rid of this time.

It wasn’t one of his friends in their attempts to get Bellamy to stop moping, it was the pretty bartender who somehow kept managing to keep her clients in line despite how rowdy and loud the evenings in the pub got.

She was staring at him, utterly unimpressed.

“Sorry,” some surviving corner of his manners demanded him to say “I’m Bellamy Blake.”

“Don’t be a dick, Bellamy Blake,” she threw back just as quickly, using her finger to slide the glass he was now pretty sure contained water, closer to his face. “I’m Gina Martin.”

He didn’t start dating Gina to get over Clarke. He actually spent quite a lot of effort into making sure that Gina and Clarke would take up completely separate corners of his mind.

He started dating Gina because he liked her. She was sweet and funny and took absolutely no shit from him and he needed that. He dated her because they had fun together and it was right about the only thing that made him feel like he was doing more than just... waiting. She was good for him. Or as Raven liked to point out - often and repeatedly - too good for him.

And he couldn’t exactly say that Raven was wrong.

Because it turned out that when your partner broke your heart and left you behind after you’d both committed genocide, you didn’t come out of it without a few scratches in whatever passed for their souls now.

And Gina helped. So loving Gina was easy.

He just wished it was just as easy to fall in love with her too. Or to fall out of love with the girl whose kiss stung his cheek every time he closed his eyes.

---

Seeing Clarke as he followed Octavia into the room made the ground underneath him quake like it did every time he saw her anew. As if Clarke was the axis on which his world turned.

It hurt so much to know - on some deep, untouched level - that this would always be the case, like it didn’t matter that Clarke had chosen the Grounders over her own people, over him; that it didn’t matter how deep his grief for Gina and how wide his hatred for the people who killed her. His eyes met Clarke’s and his heart shook.

It was simply a law written into the atoms of his universe.

“Go easy on Octavia. I had to beg her to get me into camp.” Clarke looked like a stranger, garbed in dark leather that made her look like one of them. Black coal might no longer be smudged under her eyes as it had been when she’d asked him to leave her behind, but the hair twisted into matted braids still reminded him so much of Lexa’s own regal form, that something ugly coiled through his belly all the same.

“What are you doing here, Clarke?” Bitterness simmered within him and he felt every breath like sharp daggers which scraped against his chest cavity.

“We need to talk.”

Did they? Now that she wanted it but not any of the times he’d tried to? Not when it might have made a difference?

“Oh, you've decided that. The mighty Wanheda. Who chose the Grounders over her own people, who turned her back on us when we came to rescue you? Now you want to talk.” It was so hard, looking at her and seeing two versions of the young woman he loved. The one who begged the Ice Nation prince not to kill him in exchange for compliance. And the one who stood at Lexa’s side like none of the things they’d survived mattered.

“I came here to tell you that the Ice Nation has paid a price.” Clarke’s voice was so even. Like this was a negotiation and Bellamy was just the latest pawn that needed to be moved. “Justice has been served for the attack on Mount Weather. I came here to tell you it's over.”

His lips twisted in some harsh version of amusement. “There it is again. Why do you get to decide it's over?”

“We did our part,” she said, and he felt the last of his calm fraying.

“We?” there hadn’t been a ‘we’ since she’d vanished for months without so much as a word that she was still alive.

“Lexa and I,” she said and he felt the sentiment hit him like barbed wire, ripping into his skin and leaving him bleeding somewhere beneath her notice. “The Ice Queen is dead. The problem was solved and then you let Pike ruin everything.”

He couldn’t listen to her, it was too hard, all he could hear was the roar of the explosion which had killed Gina and so many others. And any ability he’d had to hear Clarke out vanished at yet more proof that Bellamy meant nothing.

“Why are you here, Clarke?” He let go of his crossed arms and narrowed the gulf between them in a few steps. He was so tired. He wanted her to say her piece and leave him be.

“Arkadia needs to make things right or Lexa and the twelve clans will wipe us out.” And yet she still thought that Lexa could be trusted? Even after everything? Or was it just that Clarke cared about the Heda and wanted to protect her from losing face?

He hated how much the idea burned. He hated that he couldn’t even remain loyal to Gina’s memory for a few weeks. That so much of his heart still belonged to Clarke that knowing hers might be Lexa’s ripped into his own with a blow he didn’t know how to patch back together. Or if he even could.

“Let her try.” His voice had gone cold.

“Please tell me that going to war is not what you want.” Now she looked at him like she couldn’t even recognize his face. He turned his head away and then back, letting the silence stretch as for a moment he found himself unable to say anything.

“We've been at war since we landed. At least Pike understands that.” It was an excuse, he knew it was just a meaningless platitude that did nothing to convince even himself when he let himself think on it. And yet he didn’t want Clarke to see his doubt. If she saw his weakness she’d exploit it in a heartbeat.

"Pike is the problem.” She seemed finally to lose her temper. Good. It was easier to remain angry when she was too. “This isn't who you are.”

“You're wrong. This is who I've always been,” he said, memory full of the people who had already been on his conscience long before this latest event had washed him in blood once more. “And I let you and Octavia and Kane convince me that we could trust these people when they have shown over and over who they are and I won't let anyone else die for that mistake.”

“Bellamy, I need you,” he felt the words like a gut punch “and we don't have much time.”

“You need me?” The sheer lie of it felt like an insult all on its own.

“Yes, I do. I need the guy who wouldn't let me pull that lever in Mount Weather by myself.”

“You left me,” he reminded her. “You left everyone.”

“Bellamy-” there were tears in her eyes now but he couldn’t let himself believe them. Not anymore.

“Enough, Clarke!” he snapped, nearly yelling. “You are not in charge here and that's a good thing because people die when you're in charge.”

A part of him couldn’t quite believe what he was saying and yet he couldn’t make himself stop, tears beginning to build in his eyes and his heart stuck in his throat. “And you were willing to let a bomb drop on my sister. Then you made a deal with Lexa who left us in Mount Weather to die and forced us to kill everyone who helped us. People who trusted me.”

“I-”

He turned away from her, unable to look at Clarke just now. Giving himself a moment, just a moment to feel just how betrayed by her he felt.

“I'm sorry.” When he turned around Clarke was sitting, like his words had cut her at the knees. “I'm sorry for leaving. But I knew I could because they had you.”

Her sincerity cut into him just as deeply and he felt himself waver. Her face twisted into agony and he saw her shoulders beginning to shake into quiet sobs.

Going to her, dropping to his knees in front of her wasn’t a choice, her tears sliced into him ruthlessly and Bellamy just couldn’t stand there and watch Clarke cry. He took her arm, running his thumb over her wrist, trying to soothe away her tears.

When she looked at him her eyes shone with faith and for a fraction of a moment Bellamy almost gave in. She smiled and it was like the sun rising across the horizon.

“I know we can fix this.” But her ‘we’ no longer included Bellamy and the reminder shook him loose.

“I'm sorry, too,” he choked out and moved before she had time to do more than blink, handcuffing her to the table.

She made a sound like he’d pierced her with a blade.

“Hey! No, don't, no. Bellamy, don't.“ her voice begged at him through new sobs as he stood, shook off her hold, and left. Buried his heart back under the avalanche of grief and darkness. He couldn’t let Gina’s death mean nothing, and he couldn’t betray her by letting his foolish heart follow someone to whom Bellamy meant so little. It was bad enough he’d never stopped loving Clarke when Gina had still been alive. If he couldn’t do so even now...

He had to.

The realization of exactly how far into the pit of darkness he’d let himself fall because of his rage and guilt made Bellamy certain he’d never see light again. Not that he deserved to, not after what had happened to Lincoln.

He saw Clarke approach from the corner of his eyes, the rest of him still facing the nothingness of the dark water washing against the shore at night, and he struck a preemptive blow out of ugly habit.

“Let me guess, you came here to fix things. Wanheda, the peacemaker.” He said the words but didn’t know if he even meant them anymore. If he’d proven anything it was that she'd been right to stand against him.

“I came to see if you were okay.”

“Well, I don't need your help.” He didn’t deserve her help, he’d all but lost his rights to that when he’d taken her hand and instead of making peace had let his thirst for vengeance - and his jealousy if he was honest at least with himself - make him into an even bigger monster than he’d been already. He looked toward his sister, stalking around the fire like fury incarnate, and felt another piece of himself breaking. “Clarke. I've lost her.”

Clarke’s eyes when she turned to look at him were far kinder than Bellamy had any right to yearn for.

“Give her time, Bellamy,” she said and he wished he could believe that, but he knew his sister too well to truly expect that time alone would do anything but deepen the chasm between them. Octavia had loved Lincoln far too much. He only need imagine how he’d have reacted if Clarke had been the one to die and his sister to blame, to know this would not be something that was easily buried. “There may be blood on your hands but it's not Lincoln's.”

“Some of it is,” there was no escaping that. Bellamy had tried to save him, he had, but without Bellamy’s mistakes, Lincoln would still be alive today.

“Maybe,” she sounded more like she was humoring him than as if she truly agreed. “But you didn't want that to happen. You tried to stop it. Octavia will forgive you eventually. The question is, will you forgive yourself?”

He looked toward his sister again and watched as she fed more wood to the signal fire; could feel her rage even with the distance between them.

“Forgiveness is hard for us,” he admitted and looked at Clarke again, feeling his heart clench in his chest. “I was so angry at you for leaving. I don't want to feel that way anymore.”

It wasn’t Clarke’s fault that he loved her and she didn’t. Or that she’d been unable to share the burden of her pain over what they’d done inside that mountain with him, just because he’d have found it easier with her at his side. It was time to accept things that couldn’t be changed.

His sister might hate him until the day she died. He wasn’t able to turn his feelings for Clarke off despite how hard he tried or how much guilt he felt. And Clarke would never love him as he loved her.

“You know, you're not the only one trying to forgive yourself. Maybe we'll get that someday.” He wiped his eyes free of the tears which were beginning to fall, unable to do anything other than listen to her. “But we need each other, Bellamy. What we're doing now, the only way we're gonna pull this off is together.”

She stared at him for a minute, hesitating in place - like she wasn’t sure she was welcome - and then wrapped her arms around his shoulders like she’d done when she’d left, pressing her chin into his shoulder. He felt his insides twist into a knot and then loosen as he pressed his face into her hair, breathing in her scent and letting it soothe the pain of everything else.

Even his resignation to his injured heart.

---

It was strange how much could change in so little a time. And how little was truly different at all. They were trying to be ready to survive a second global apocalypse and making deals with the Azgeda. But they were also hoping that Raven's brilliant mind could make their desperate plans into reality for the hundredth time. All while Octavia still would not respond with anything other than rage and disgust at his presence.

Bellamy had known that it was unlikely that his sister would forgive him, not ever probably and certainly not so soon, and yet hearing her tell him that she was no longer Octavia at all - that Bellamy had killed her alongside Lincoln - cracked him open; made him hear his mother's disappointed voice somewhere near the back of his head telling him he'd failed in the most important task she'd ever given him.

His sister. His responsibility.

"I'm gonna take the Rover back to camp," he said once he felt Clarke joining him by the bank of the river.

"Octavia?" she guessed as she stood beside him.

"It's pathetic, right? She hates me but I keep coming back for more." When Bellamy wasn't careful he'd still feel her hard blows against his face, feel Octavia's hot tears hitting his split flesh as she sobbed above him, her heart visibly cracked down the middle and bleeding her dry to a point where it became just a calcified shell that had once been a vital organ.

There were moments - the darkest of them - when he thought he'd seen her hovering over the thought of going further, of hitting harder and never stopping.

If Bellamy had the power for it, he'd exchange his life for Lincoln's in a second just so that Octavia would never have had to feel what she'd felt that day. But he could no more do that than he could stop Praimfaya.

“She's your sister. She's blood,” Clarke said clearly trying to reassure him “She'll come around and see how special you are.”

She wasn’t quite looking at him as she said it and that managed to make just a tiny bit of long abandoned hope spark alive inside him. This might be a terrible time for it, but he might never get another chance. And suddenly he just wanted to say it, just once, so that it would finally be out there.

He loved Clarke. Was in love with her, really.

And at this point, he didn’t even really care if she felt the same or if he was simply her best friend, after all his mistakes it was far too much of a miracle that she still cared about him at all for there to be any resentment in him at not being something more to her.

But she deserved to hear the words, to know that there would be someone out there who would love her, with all they had, for as long as they lived.

“Clarke… If I don't see you again…” the confession was on the very tip of his tongue.

“No. You will,” she interrupted him so quickly it was instantly clear she must know what he was about to tell her and didn’t want him to finish.

It felt like she’d seen the doors to his heart slipping open and had responded by slamming them shut in a panic, jamming them closed with a loose pipe so that nothing spilled out.

It was all he could do to stay still and not let any of the pain that had suddenly seared into his veins show up in his eyes.

This time his attempt to forget how he felt was halfhearted at best. And pointless.

Raven had already once - an eternity ago now - taught him that it wouldn’t help. But the world was ending and Clarke still loved Lexa, and it was far too easy to join Jasper in his nihilism, join their party to dance with Bree, and then fuck her in her quarters - her blonde hair lacking the waves he dreamed about but in a shade that was nearly right - to close his eyes and pretend it was what he actually wanted.

When he later learned that Clarke had spent her night putting her life at risk and nearly boiled her own blood in the attempt to become a Nightblood to take the place of Murphy’s girlfriend, - saved only by Abby's love for her daughter - he nearly felt like laughing in self-deprecation.

The more things changed the more they stayed the same.

It wasn’t funny - it was the very opposite of that - but he was sure Raven would have laughed at him too. Laughed and then called him a fucking idiot.

---

Bellamy’s world was bright with hope for the future.

Five years on the Ring waiting for the radiation to become survivable with Clarke and their friends while his sister stayed down in the bunker was nothing. After reaching something nearly like peace with Octavia, a thing he’d been certain would never happen, being parted by something as simple as distance, was a gift.

“So let's go over this again. I figure two months until the algae farm produces enough food to feed us. If we ration the MREs, we should get there.” Clarke was working on the math again, he wanted to remind her that they’d have plenty of time for that later but he knew that she wouldn’t be able to turn off her brain until they were all strapped in and ready for liftoff - probably not even then, still calculating all angles even as they left Earth behind them - so he didn’t even try.

Instead, he stared down at Echo and Emori as they worked to fill their shuttle with all the things they’d be able to carry with them into space.

It was hard to trust them, especially Echo, in whose hands his trust had once killed Gina.

"Grounders in space,” he said, fingers tapping against the metal handrail and a feeling of disquiet heavy within him. He felt Clarke join his side but didn’t yet look at her “it's an oxymoron.”

“Survival's a team sport, especially up there. It was the only choice.” Logically he understood that and even beyond that he didn’t want to slip into the same mindset that Pike had used once to further incite Bellamy into committing an atrocity. But still, it was hard after all the things they’d lived through. “Only choice, also an oxymoron, by the way.”

She smiled at him and as was always the case he felt his own lips pulling up at the corners helplessly.

She looked a mess, exhausted and overworked, her face damp and shiny with sweat that glued her hair to the sides of her face. In a word, beautiful.

“So is cold sweat.” He moved his hand and pushed some of the more stubborn strands a little further away from her eyes. He didn’t even think about it, following the reflex to touch her without facing the familiar flinch of doubt. It was probably that he knew they’d have time to breathe up on the Ark where there would be no enemies for them to fight against anymore. They might even have time to talk if she wanted; if she was ready to listen. But he put those thoughts away for now and grew a little more serious. “Still holding out hope for that nightblood solution.”

If nothing else then maybe they’d be able to come down sooner than five years.

“There was never any solution. ALIE was right about that.” It sounded like she’d surrendered to the failure.

“Our fight is not over,” he said at once, pushing for her to see what he wasn’t saying. He had faith in her.

“My mom had a vision of me dying,” she said and he forced his face into remaining unconcerned even as something inside him turned over in rebellion. That wouldn’t happen so he refused to let even a hint of terror float upward. “Just like the one Raven had that told her there was a rocket here.”

“It is not the same thing,” he said. It wasn’t. There was a difference between leftover code that let Raven access some kind of information storage of ALIE’s and seeing the future.

“Yeah. They were both EMP'd.”

“And Abby will be fine, too. Raven told her how to stop it,” he tried to reassure her.

“That's not what I'm talking about.” Clarke seemed frustrated with him. “If anything happens to me-”

No, he wasn’t listening to this.

“Nothing is happening to you,” he told her before she asked him to promise her something that would utterly destroy him. He stepped away from her, walking back toward the line of computers, hoping she’d get distracted by the preparations again. “Come on. Let's run these water numbers again.”

“Please, Bellamy, I need you to hear this.” Her voice had grown higher and he turned his face away from her, feeling hunted, cornered like an animal that knew any flinch of movement might be its last. But it seemed he was unable to deny Clarke anything anymore, so he breathed in painfully before coming back to face her. Her eyes were filled with something he couldn’t put a name on, or maybe something he didn’t trust himself to name. “We've been through a lot together, you and I. I didn't like you at first - that's no secret - but even then, every stupid thing you did, it was to protect your sister. She didn't always see that, but I did. You've got such a big heart, Bellamy.”

He felt something inside him stagger at that look in her eyes. The heart she was describing suddenly tripping over itself.

“Clarke-”

But she wouldn’t let him interrupt her.

“People follow you. You inspire them because of this,” and she placed her hand on his chest over his heart. He wondered if she could feel it beating against his ribcage so hard he was nearly afraid it would break through, “but the only way to make sure we survive is if you use this, too.”

And her hand moved to his temple, resting there so gently, it hurt.

He shook his head, unable to take in her words, unwilling to entertain even the idea behind what she was suggesting.

“I got you for that,” he said.

But she swallowed, the last traces of her smile vanishing into smoke.

“Raven's premonition came true,” Clarke continued, - nodding even as Bellamy shook his head into denial again, - and looked like there might be more she wanted to say when they were disturbed by the sound of electricity sparking and a startled, pained yell.

“Come on, Clarke,” he whispered, eyes on the doors, trying with every single cell in his body to somehow will Clarke into appearing. He needed her to make it on time, he needed it more than he’d ever needed anything.

He’d written her name onto that terrible paper they’d never ended up needing to use just to avoid a moment like this one. If he was on that list, she was supposed to be right there beside him.

He didn’t want to survive without her.

“Bellamy,” Raven said, her voice heavy with awful meaning. The sand clock was quickly running out of sand and there was no more time. Bellamy felt every metaphorical grain of that sand smashing into his chest like hailstones.

“I know, Raven.”

Just a few more seconds, just a little bit more time.

“The radiation's already affecting the avionics. It's now or never.”

He felt like he was forcing his hand into his own chest, taking his beating heart into a fist, and as he turned around, dropping it on the ground behind him. Like he knew that he couldn’t afford to wait any longer, but that his heart could stay there behind him, marking the way for Clarke. It could wait there, it could wait there as long as it took for Clarke to come back, it could wait there for eternity if it needed to.

But Bellamy had to leave.

The first two years were hell.

Every breath drove spikes into him. He dreamed about Clarke every time he went to sleep, and knew that as soon as his head hit the pillow it was only a matter of time until he could see her.

In his dreams, she came up into space with him. Or he stayed down with her as Praimfaya consumed them both. Sometimes they had time to get back to the bunker. To join his sister and her mother underground.

He didn’t care which dream would come, only that he’d be with her again.

For a little while. Until he had to wake up.

For two years he refused to forget Clarke, to forget a single thing about her. He held on to the sound of her voice, - coarse like she had a cold and she’d just drunk tea with honey in it. He held on to the way she’d sometimes - so rarely it was all the more precious for it - smile like there was sunlight under her skin. To the way it had felt when she pressed her face into his shoulder the first time she’d hugged him, slammed into him from out of his blindspot, and embraced him like holding him was the only thing that had mattered. To how brave she was, always. To the way she never stopped believing in Bellamy, even when he stopped believing in himself.

Memories were all he had left of her, so he refused to forget them.

But she’d given him his orders. He was the head without his heart now and so he did what he had to, to survive.

Instead of waiting all day until he could sleep, he began finding ways to stave it off. Walking the corridors of the Ring like he was still a rookie cadet on a patrol. Training with Echo in hand-to-hand combat until he was too tired for dreams to come. And then later, once another year had passed, he staved off sleep in other ways.

With Echo. It didn’t start out because of any particular feelings, it was just the process of elimination. Not Monty or Harper because they had each other. Not Murphy or Emori because despite the way their relationship had eventually broken in the isolation, Bellamy would rather float himself than get in the middle of that. And not Raven, because that old, shared thought had never wavered between them, they would never go there again.

So it was Echo.

And he did grow to care about her. She, like all the rest of them, became Bellamy’s family. His old hatred just didn’t have enough air to survive up in space now.

But the truth was that the only way he was able to do as Clarke had asked, was by burying his heart in the same grave she rested in. So despite how he came to love Echo, or as close to loving her as he was still capable of - his heart was never hers, it couldn’t be.

So it was two years of hell and then four years that slowly transformed into a paler, lesser version of contentment as they at first waited for the radiation to reach survivable levels and then began working tirelessly to find a way to fix their way down.

In the end, they'd somehow miraculously found a new way. But they did reach Earth again, which was all that mattered.

And then his long-buried heart crashed like a comet back into his chest as the young Grounder girl who’d come out of the darkness killing the men who’d been about to shoot them all, looked up at him with awe and spoke the impossible.

“Bellamy?” she said with a sudden smile that seemed filled with relief “Clarke knew you would come.”

The universe twisted around him as reality overwrote six years of unprocessed grief and then righted. His heart really had been left here behind him, waiting.

“Clarke’s alive?”

---

He’d done a lot of terrible things in his life but as Madi fell back into Gaia’s hold and failed to open her eyes moments later, he wondered if this might end up being the worst of them.

“Clarke woke up right away.“ He stared at the young girl in Gaia’s arms and teetered in place, feeling everything inside him plummeting to the ground. He rushed closer to Madi’s side, falling to one of his knees. “Wh-why-why isn't she waking up?”

"Patience,” Gaia told him in that calming way she had which never failed to remind him of Luna, though this time the tone didn’t do much to assure him or to loosen the stone from its weight on his conscience. If Madi died. If he’d killed her- he shuddered, horrified by the thought. The chip wasn’t meant to hurt her. “The Flame affects every commander differently. Help me.”

He grabbed Madi’s legs and helped Gaia put her atop the altar. Trying to fight off his fear, to ward off the echoes of the pleading and the screams Clarke had thrown at his back when he’d left her behind in the cells.

He wondered if Madi would be right in her words on how Clarke would never forgive him.

”You said you've never done this before.” So how could she be certain that Madi would be fine? Had this really been his only choice? Or had Bellamy fallen once again in thinking himself right when the consequences that followed ended up proving him a fool?

"I haven't, but I've been preparing for it my whole life.” Gaia sounded so certain he tried to grab onto her faith.

She reached for something from beside Madi and lifted her head to enclose it around her neck.

“This collar will protect the Flame.”

Bellamy was staring at the firelight reflecting on Madi’s small face, wishing she’d open her eyes when they were found. Octavia’s men, Miller among them, rushed into the Ascension room, audibly readying their weapons for fire.

“Back away from the child right now,” Miller ordered as Bellamy and Gaia turned to face them, raising their arms in ingrained reflex.

And there Clarke was, moving around the men and freezing in place once her eyes landed on Madi. Then her gaze switched between her daughter and Bellamy while he was forced to see her hope of getting here in time to prevent the Flame from being implanted - and so marking Madi as the new Commander - die in her eyes.

Clarke walked toward Bellamy unsteadily, still staring at him, face twisted into pain, and as soon as she reached him - before Bellamy could say anything; before he could even part his lips for sound - he felt her hand slapping the side of his face so hard his head turned.

And still, she said nothing, just shook her head minutely. As if there were no words in her for him anymore, and never might again.

His heart cracked.

Clarke’s gaze went back to Madi and she rushed forward. “I need to get it out.”

“Clarke, no,” Gaia interrupted at once. “The Flame is bonding with her mind. If you take it out now before it's complete she may never wake up.”

It was then that Octavia entered Bellamy’s sight and despite everything he felt himself breathe out in relief. Monty’s algae hadn’t killed her, he wouldn't have to live with his sister’s blood on his hands.

”Quiet, traitor.” Octavia- Blodreina said, voice harsh. “Do it, Clarke.”

"If you kill this child, you make her a martyr.” Gaia threw back, her voice filling with the first traces of true hatred. “You weaken yourself even more.”

"I can't,” he heard Clarke whisper - voice breaking on the last word - and had to close his eyes to stop himself from looking at her. Inherently knowing that she didn’t want his eyes on her right now.

Octavia’s already stony face hardened.

"Take them to the Rover,” she ordered her guards. “Go.”

"No.” Gaia tried protesting.

"O,” Bellamy said, the old nickname slipping out reflexively and moved toward her hoping to reach the sister within the Red Queen, the guards cocked their guns and his steps faltered.

It was Miller whose gun was pointed straight at Bellamy’s face, expression uncompromising, and he felt a sting of hurt at yet another sign of this change in his old friend.

Another one of the guards carried Madi past Bellamy, Clarke right on their heels. She slowed only for a moment, eyes meeting Bellamy’s for a fraction of a second before she turned her face from him. Leaving him behind to face Blodreina’s justice.

”Arrest the traitors.”

Bellamy couldn’t make himself look at Clarke, it hurt far, far too much. If he’d known that she was alive those entire six years he may have prepared himself to face a Clarke to whom he meant so little that she could leave him to die. Maybe.

He’d at least have been prepared for the vast space which seemed to have grown between them - a space he hadn’t felt at all during that initial moment when their eyes had met for the first time in years when he’d had Madi drive him to negotiate with Diyoza and hostage the lives of two-hundred-and-eighty-three of Diyoza’s people for Clarke. At that moment it hadn’t felt like any time had passed at all for Bellamy.

Or no, he supposed he’d felt every second of those six years where he'd have done anything, absolutely anything, to bring Clarke back. And finding himself only feet apart had meant he’d be willing to fight demons or to become one himself so that he’d be able to bring Clarke home.

He’d felt as if he’d become Orpheus of Thrace, there to make a deal with Hades.

He should have known then to prepare himself for the worst. Making deals with gods had never ended in anything but tragedy, and receiving their gifts always came with the highest of prices.

There came the sound of light footsteps going down the ramp behind him and then Madi walked into the edge of his sight line as she joined him in staring toward the horizon, awaiting his friends.

“You have to forgive her,” Madi told him with the stubbornness inherent in children.

“Now's not the time, Madi,” he said, not wanting to talk about it. He’d rather hide his bruised and battered heart deep within and out of view.

But when had Bellamy ever gotten what he wanted?

“Do you have any idea how much she cares about you?” Madi’s voice filled with a certainty that made Bellamy hurt even more. Which was impressive as he hadn’t thought that even possible.

“So much she left me to die in a fighting pit,” Bellamy turned toward the girl and did his best to keep his voice even. Despite his effort though, there was bitterness dripping acid at the back of his throat and coloring his words.

“That was a mistake,” Madi threw back and there was a sudden glint in her eye which promised him she’d just come up with something clever that was about to disembowel him. “How many mistakes did you make to protect the child you loved?”

The hit landed like a well-aimed Trikru arrow.

“That was different,” Bellamy tried but felt the rigid righteousness of his argument turn into sand which began slipping through his fingers.

He’d committed many, many mistakes to protect Octavia, some that haunted him even to this day. But Octavia was his sister.

And Madi was Clarke’s daughter. If there was a difference did it even lean in Bellamy’s favor?

“Was it?” Madi asked pointedly as if she could read the waver in his conviction “I shouldn't tell you this, but when you were on the ring, she called you on the radio every day for six years.”

He’d been right, his organs seemed to clench like flesh receiving an electric shock and then vanishing. There was a distant thought telling Bellamy that if he were to look down and see them spilled out, rolling across the grass by their feet, he wouldn’t even blink in surprise.

“You didn't know that, did you?”

All Bellamy could do was stare at Madi, lips parting but no sound coming.

And like a compass yearning for the Earth’s magnetic pole, Bellamy’s eyes found Clarke. She’d been looking at him before he turned, he knew because he managed to catch her eye for the second it took before Clarke moved her gaze off.

That second lasted long enough to read her regret though. And her pain.

He’d hurt Clarke. And then she’d hurt him.

And none of that changed anything because his heart, now burning inside his chest with his own guilt, reminded Bellamy that it was still waiting and that the name seared into it was still hers.

---

Being in the same room as Josephine Lightbourne made Bellamy’s insides twist into knots. He breathed deeply, feeling his sanity fraying like a worn rope that was destined to snap in half.

He wanted to let it snap in half.

He wanted to dig his fingers into the back of Clarke’s skull and rip Josephine out, smash her chip under his boot, twist his heel until plastic turned into dust.

“What about the mother and child, will they agree?”

“I’ll handle our people,” he said, feeling like he was running lines in a play. Pantomiming the character he was supposed to be playing while in reality he just wanted to smash all their faces into a bloody paste. “How long will it take to build?”

Bellamy wanted to burn Sanctum to the ground and cut the throats of every Prime.

And the only reason he wasn’t, was because Clarke would want him to protect their people - to protect Madi most of all.

But that was the rational part of him, and that part did not at all want to stay in control when he was in the same room as Clarke’s corpse. A corpse that was walking and talking and breathing the air that was meant to be Clarke’s.

Josephine cleared her throat and he clenched his jaw, fighting off the urge to cross the room, lock his fingers around her throat and squeeze.

“Just a moment, sweetheart,” said Russell Lightbourne, his eyes busy running over the plans they were going through.

Bellamy’s eyes kept falling on and then flinching away from Josephine. Again and again. As his heart longed for one last look at Clarke’s face so that he could memorize her, and then recoiled because it wasn’t Clarke he was looking at.

But then movement caught his gaze and his attention narrowed. He heard Russel say something but the words lost meaning before reaching Bellamy’s ears.

Josephine was tapping her finger against the side of her crossed arms. Short, long. A pause. Short, long, short, short. Pause. Short, short.

He pulled up his notebook. Dots and dashes were scrawled without blinking or looking down, eyes glued to Josephine’s hand. Short, short, short, long. That pause. Short.

“Bellamy!” Russell called out, seeming to notice Bellamy’s distraction. “Bellamy? Are we agreed?”

Adrenaline spiked.

“Yeah,” he said, forcing himself to join the moment again. “We’re good. For now.”

“I’ll order construction to begin,” Russell said, sounding pleased, something that just seconds ago would have made Bellamy clench his hands into fists that would have demanded to be smashed into the man’s face.

“Let’s go,” Bellamy said instead, gesturing at Miller to follow.

They left the Lightbournes behind them and as soon as he and Miller were away from their eyes, he stopped trying to fight off the encroaching euphoria.

“Hey, remember when Pike taught us Morse code?” he asked in a whisper as soon as the doors closed behind them.

Miller blinked rapidly as if Bellamy had just transferred him back in time to some memory of his father asking him if he’d been paying attention in school. “I slept through most of Earth skills so...”

“Okay,” Bellamy nodded not really paying attention. “Josephine was tapping out Morse code on her arm.”

He added letters at the beginning of each string of lines he’d written. Feeling something within him being hit with warm light as the word was spelled out. Alive. He turned the notebook around passing it to Miller.

“What does it mean?”

“It means Clarke’s alive.” It meant he no longer had any intention to follow Murphy’s advice. He would do it bloodlessly if he was able to because it’s what Monty would want of him. But if it took starting a war, or killing every single person who had stolen another person’s life and body like they were trying to steal Clarke’s, he would still do it. “And we’re gonna get her back.”

“Echo,” he said before she could leave the room with the others, “can we talk?”

Echo’s eyes grew brittle and her face went from the thawed expression that occasionally even warmed now, - something that had taken years on the Ring, - to the look that was all frozen tundra of an Azgeda spy.

He waited until they were alone before trying to speak.

“Echo, I-”

“You’re trying to figure out how to break up with me,” she said, she’d never had any patience for Bellamy to find his words when she could read them herself. During their years-long isolation of just seven people in a world of their own, this had felt something like a blessing. There had been very little he’d wanted to say, it had been easier to let Echo just draw her own understanding from the lines of grief that crisscrossed Bellamy’s entire soul.

“I don’t-” But of course he did. He’d already put it off for far longer than he should have. He’d known that it was unfair to keep being with Echo in a universe where Clarke was still alive, but it had been easier to pretend otherwise, to use Echo as something like a shield that might protect Bellamy from feeling his heart breaking yet again. And there had been that promise he’d made Echo, about how nothing would change on the ground. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

That much was true. He cared about her, and would never have started dating her at all if he’d had even a hint of hope that Clarke had survived Praimfaya. If he’d known that the nightblood had worked, or that she’d reached cover before the fire itself could consume her.

But he’d been without hope.

And he’d loved Echo as well as a dead heart could love someone.

“I know. But you’ve always been in love with Clarke,” Echo told him, staring over his shoulder. There was no wetness to her eyes but Bellamy knew that it didn’t actually mean anything. She’d never forgotten her training. “I’ve always known that. We’ve been on borrowed time since the minute you found out she was alive, I’m just surprised it took this long, really.”

“I did love you. I do love you.”

Her eyes flicked to his with a glare and Bellamy closed his mouth. Grimaced at his mistake, despite the sentiment, the words were cruel.

“Nowhere near the way I deserve.” She seemed to agree with his last thought.

“I know,” he repeated “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, just save Clarke,” Echo told him and turned around to leave, their conversation done. She didn’t stay for a hug that might bring them from two people who’d been in a relationship for three years, to two people whose relationship had ended but who were still family in many other ways. No goodbyes, it just wasn’t Echo’s way. “Or what would be the point of any of this?”

Bellamy tested the chains locking him to the cave wall for the tenth time when he felt Josephine’s eyes on him.

“What?” he asked, irritated by that smirk on her face. Hating it because even an expression that small wasn’t quite right. He’d seen Clarke smirk, it had never looked quite that self-important and arrogant when she did it. Her smirks tended to slip into grins or to fade so quickly he thought he’d imagined them.

“My father was a fool for letting you people stay,” she started out with a lilt to her voice that he was beginning to recognize as her preparing to turn long-winded and to say things that would end with Bellamy needing to remind himself that any harm he did to her he’d be doing to Clarke too. “All that time spent building a sanctuary for the human race, and he destroys it because of the most human thing of all - love.”

The implied double meaning landed like a punch to the gut, as was Josephine’s intention he was sure. He turned his head toward her, opening his mouth though uncertain what it was exactly he was planning to say to her.

It’s not like he had any intention to say those words for the first time to the person doing their very best to murder Clarke. Even more so to someone who was wearing Clarke’s body like body-armor.

It turned out though that he didn’t end up needing to say anything, as Bellamy had already learned, Josephine loved hearing herself talk far too much.

"I mean, who can blame him? I am awesome. It's just...well, one look at you, he should have known how this would end,” she clicked her tongue to underline her point and he moved in place, adjusting his sitting. More discomfited than he’d like to be. “Guess I'm just saying all this because I know so much about you now.”

Ah, so there was her game.

“Hmm, you do, huh?” he smiled, knowing it wasn’t reaching his eyes but almost amused in a colder kind of way.

“Mm-hmm,” she smiled too, her eyes carrying a little malicious glint. “Take you and Clarke, for instance. Now that's a weird relationship, isn't it?”

He felt himself freeze in place, rock beginning to dig into his spine. But he didn’t move, somehow aware that it was more important for him to ready his walls for a catapult.

"First you want to kill her to save your own ass, even though it means the genocide of your own people on the Ark, and then you become besties, bonding over the actual genocide at Mount Weather.” It was frightening to know how much Josephine had gleaned from Clarke’s mind now when initially she’d known nothing. He wondered what that meant for Clarke, was she losing her fight with Josephine? How long did Bellamy have to bring her to Gabriel?

“Together,” she mimicked mockingly.

He said nothing, unwilling to give Josephine the pleasure.

"You lock her up, she locks you up, you leave her on Earth, she leaves you to die in the Fighting Pits.” The oxygen around Bellamy seemed to grow thinner with her every word. “I mean, it's exhausting, frankly.”

He stared toward the ceiling and gave in.

“Tell me about it,” Bellamy muttered, feeling every event she’d described as having sunk iron into his bones; like he’d just grown heavier by tons. Then he shook it off and made his own point. “You're wrong about how this ends, by the way.”

He saw her twist Clarke’s head toward him with an expression like she was already rather doubting him.

He hummed.

“First, we get you back into your Mind Drive,” he told her as a foregone conclusion because he wouldn’t be accepting any other way this ended. He’d get Clarke back, “and then I'll use it for a peace deal with your Father.”

“Your belief in yourself is cute,” Josephine said, not sounding like she thought that at all. “But unfortunately, putting aside about a thousand variables, chief among them Clarke's newfound evangelical, do better-ism, making it impossible for her to accept a peace deal with those awful body snatchers, all three of us are gonna die in this cave.”

“Yeah, okay. We'll see,” he scoffed.

"Okay, now your confidence is just pissing me off,” Josephine snapped back.

Bellamy took a quick look at her, staring at the way Clarke’s shoulders rose and fell slightly. He matched it. They were still breathing, so Bellamy still had hope.

Watching Clarke flat-line was unlike anything he’d had to live through before. Well, no, he supposed it wasn’t much different than how it had felt any of the too many other times he’d feared Clarke dead - though maybe not quite as bad as those times when he’d truly thought her so. And if he never had to go through that ever again after this, it would still be too soon.

But what made this different was that Bellamy needed to let it happen. That he had to stand there in Gabriel’s hut and trust the man to sacrifice the person he loved to save the woman who meant very little to him, and everything to Bellamy.

“All right,” Gabriel said, pulling out the mind drive and hurriedly dropping it in a metal dish. “Cover the wound.”

Bellamy followed the instructions, forcing his hands to stay steady as he bandaged the back of Clarke’s neck and then with Octavia’s help turned her onto her back to give Gabriel access.

“We need to restart her heart.”

Bellamy watched the man injecting adrenaline straight into Clarke’s heart and swept his eyes over the screens as soon as the needle was out, trying to catch the moment when the line monitoring her heartbeat would jump back into movement.

But the line stayed still.

Bellamy felt his forced calm begin to abandon him the longer the extended warning sound, which announced that Clarke’s heart was still yet to start beating again, stretched.

“Why isn't she waking up?” Horror was building up inside him again.

Bellamy couldn’t do this again. He couldn’t. The idea that he would have to go back to Sanctum and tell Madi that her mother was dead? Again? To tell Abby? Their friends? And then to return to living some shadowed reflection of life where Clarke was gone again as he’d done for six grueling years?

He refused to accept that.

“I'm sorry, but her brain can no longer support two minds,” was all Gabriel told them and Bellamy went cold, a high-pitched whine beginning to ring in his ears as his chest contracted and froze, stilling despite the pressure he could feel building in his lungs.

“What are you talking about? Do something,” Octavia demanded. “They're both still in there.”

Bellamy’s eyes flicked over his surroundings, hand hovering inches over Clarke’s head and the reality around him going fuzzy. Like if he didn’t have to listen to Gabriel’s words they’d stop mattering.

“Latent neural activity continues for a short time after death, but once the head stops telling the heart to beat, it's over, okay?”

Those words. Bellamy’s entire life narrowed down to those words.

“The heart and the head,” he said to himself.

He just needed to give Clarke time. To keep her heart beating long enough for her mind to catch up. If there was one thing Bellamy knew with everything in him it was that you could always trust Clarke’s mind to start working.

“The heart and the head.” He moved his hands over her chest, pushing Octavia slightly aside, and started compressions.

Clarke stayed still and unmoving under his hands. The seconds stretched as he put more and more weight on his work.

His mind filled out with pictures. Scenes from memory. The time he'd caught her hand and pulled her free of the pit of spikes that awaited her on the bottom. The time she’d sat beside him on the ground with their backs against the tree, for the first time truly his partner. The way she hummed a lullaby as she killed Atom in mercy. The first night after she’d returned from escaping Mount Weather and they’d camped by the fire when they’d gone searching for Finn; when Bellamy had felt something in his heart clench at seeing her asleep for the very first time. Hearing her voice on the hand radio, when he'd gone down to infiltrate the Mountain. Every single time Clarke had ever hugged him and he'd felt warmth suffuse his very being.

“Bell,” his sister said quietly, her hand pressing against his back, attempting comfort.

He ignored her. He didn’t need comfort, he needed Clarke.

"No,” he shook her off. “I'm not losing her again.”

He’d lost her to Mount Weather. And then to her grief over having needed to irradiate that same mountain, killing hundreds. He’d lost her to Wanheda. And then to Praimfaya. To his own stupidity. And then to the Primes. And he wasn’t losing her to Josephine a second time.

“Come on, Clarke.” Oxygen. The brain needed to receive air to continue working. He leaned over her, stopping the compressions long enough to push air into her lungs twice, and with some buried corner of his mind noticed that his tears now wetted her face too.

“Come on! Clarke, Clarke, I need you,” he was begging now, pleading for her to hear him. Mind scrambling for something that might be important enough to make her listen. “Madi needs you. Now wake up!”

“Bellamy she's gone,” Octavia’s voice was tearful and compassionate. But not something he was willing to accept.

“No, she's not!” He yelled in his sister’s face and then turned back to face Clarke a fraction of a second later, momentarily losing focus as he realized he’d stopped the compressions. “Wake up, Clarke! Come on!”

He pulled his hand into a fist and hit her over the heart now. Old, buried lessons reminding him that breaking the ribs just meant that the compressions were actually reaching the heart and so could be dealt with later.

"I'm not letting you go,” he told her, speaking only to Clarke.

"You're a fighter," he reminded her. She'd always been one, he hadn’t recognized it in the very beginning but she'd taught him hadn't she? "Now get up and fight!"

He smashed his hand over her heart once more.

Then moved his lips over Clarke’s, pushing air out of his own lungs and into hers again.

Clarke coughed, choking. It was the most beautiful sound Bellamy had ever heard. He sobbed pulling her up and turning her just slightly to ease pressure on her airways.

"You're okay," he said, crying to himself. He ran hands over the sides of her face, pushing hair away from her eyes and supporting her head as she tried to raise it.

"Just breathe." He couldn't stop looking at her, the way she was finally moving, breathing on her own. "Just breathe."

But finally, a worry that had been irrelevant while Clarke had been failing to wake swam to the surface and Bellamy felt his breath stutter as he began to stare deeper into her eyes. Trying to read her. To see her.

"Clarke?" he asked, needing to make sure it was actually her in his arms now. He didn't know what he'd do if he saw Josephine, only that he would break utterly. But he didn't have to find out because his answer came in the way her eyes wouldn't stray from Bellamy's face, a look filled with years of unspoken words - or maybe words she'd spoken into the radio calls which Bellamy had never had the chance to receive; the contents of which had been haunting him since Madi had told him of them.

It was her. Clarke. His tears ran harder as his heart lurched with familiar relief.

And this time Bellamy just couldn't stop himself. The relief was too great, his heart too full, he pulled her closer and leaned down to catch her lips for the third time that night.

Except this was the only time that really counted because Clarke's lips moved under his own, kissing him back after only a moment during which Bellamy felt like his world might be about to end after all. Her hand went up to squeeze the material of his jacket, seeming to pull him closer.

Bellamy's heart sang as he kissed her, deeper now, beginning to lose himself in the moment and trying to pour every bit of his love into it, suffusing it with all his relief and joy and sheer adoration.

He didn't know if he'd ever have this chance again so he made sure to memorize it. To remember her taste, the way she smelled. Everything. All of it.

Eventually, though, they both needed oxygen and their kiss slowed. Lips parted, as they blew heavy breaths against each other's faces.

"The head and the heart," Clarke whispered, while Bellamy nodded and pulled her closer to him, hugging her tightly to assure both of them that she was alive.

Clarke woke with a start and Bellamy was at her side in moments.

"Hey. You're okay. I'm still here," Bellamy assured her, noticing the way her eyes had jumped around before settling on him and calming.

"Thanks to you," she said, "How long have I been asleep?"

"A few hours," he told her and then felt his face twisting into a pained grimace. The hours he'd spent waiting had brought with them the reminder that it had been Bellamy's fault that this had happened to her in the first place. "I'm so sorry, Clarke. I knew you were a target. I didn't protect you."

"Bellamy, you saved me."

He opened his mouth and then hesitated, suddenly remembering that they weren't exactly alone, turning toward Gabriel who was visibly trying to be unobtrusive and giving them as much privacy as was possible, Bellamy asked “Can you please?-”

"Of course," Gabriel nodded and stood to leave. "Call me if you notice complications."

They waited a few moments until Gabriel had left, Bellamy's stomach falling into a painful swoop filled with disappointment when he noticed the way Clarke’s eyes were beginning to avoid his own.

"Bellamy?" she spoke eventually. "Maybe we shouldn’t-"

But Bellamy was tired of avoiding this conversation. He'd let her silence him more than a few times those years back. And all it had left him with was a sea's worth of what-ifs which had haunted Bellamy for every one of the six years they'd been apart.

"No, I’m not doing that anymore Clarke," he said gently but without backing down, moving her head up with a touch of fingers to her chin to catch her eyes. "This time just- just please let me say this."

She nodded, pulling her hands around herself. Like she needed to protect herself from what Bellamy was about to tell her.

"I love you, Clarke." His voice shook nearly imperceptibly but he knew that Clarke would still catch it, he certainly caught the way her shoulders halted in place for a moment before resuming their natural motion. Her eyes flicked up to his, a startled look in them he couldn’t quite make any sense of. This hadn't exactly been a secret he'd kept very well after all: Kane had known, and so did Abby, Raven, and Monty. Murphy had certainly made himself pretty clear. Diyoza, Roan. Lexa and Niylah. Josephine and- point being, it wasn't like he'd been very subtle. "I’ve loved you for- fuck I don’t even know how many years it’s been now."

They'd been down on the ground for nearly a year before the second wave of radiation had burned everything, he thought. Or was it slightly longer? Then six years on the Ring of course and more than a hundred asleep.

And which of those years counted? He knew that the time he'd thought her gone absolutely did because he'd never stopped. And he felt like his time in cryosleep did too because it certainly felt like he'd loved Clarke for a century.

"And I know you didn’t, that you don’t-" here he stumbled, heart growing heavy again, he'd accepted it, yes, but that didn't mean it hurt any less "and that’s fine Clarke. I get it."

"But-" Clarke finally moved to interrupt him. "Echo."

"I broke up with Echo before we left Sanctum," he told her and then moved quickly ahead, suddenly worried that she'd read some kind of pressure in that. "Which was long overdue and it's probably gonna take a long while before she forgives me for not having done it sooner."

"I-"

"Just- just let me finish, okay?" he swallowed and squeezed his eyes shut, knowing that to get his next words out he'd need all the strength he had. "Clarke. I’m sorry for kissing you right after- I shouldn’t have done that."

She'd just been dead not even a full minute before. He didn't think there even was a more vulnerable moment Bellamy could have found for when to do it.

Which he'd realized after but certainly hadn't even taken a moment to consider at the time.

"It was stupid and wrong of me but you woke up and you were you, Clarke, and I couldn’t- couldn’t-" His jaw locked and he breathed for a moment before continuing. "I'm in love with you, Clarke. And I don’t care if you still hate me for putting the Flame in Madi, or if-"

He was silenced by Clarke's fingers falling over his mouth, fingertips resting gently against his lips and making heat flash through his bones.

"Bellamy. I think now’s my turn,” Clarke said, her eyes filling with tears again.

He felt the alien world around them halting into silence as Bellamy’s fate and heart rested in Clarke’s arms. Which wasn’t really any different than usual but somehow felt a thousand times stronger just now.

“I missed you. After Praimfya it was so hard, and I would have lost myself if I hadn’t found Madi. Talking with you though is what kept me sane, even though you never answered. And then you came back and you were so different, still you, but... not mine anymore. Which was stupid, of course, it’s not like I really expected-”

“I-” she pressed her fingers tighter against his lips, stilling his denial and his apology.

“But I think I hoped. And it hurt when I realized that somewhere up there you’d found a family that I was no longer a part of.”

“You are,” he said before she could interrupt him again, kissing her fingers to take the sting off failing to follow her request for his silence.

“And you’re mine, Bellamy. And I need you to believe me when I say this next bit, okay?” She said and then breathed in heavily, starting to run her hand over the lines of Bellamy’s face, stopping occasionally like she was marking some of the more significant spots. “I love you, Bellamy, I was afraid to, because everyone I love always dies, everyone who loves me always dies. And I couldn’t let you join them.”

He felt years of old pain begin to evaporate and smiled at Clarke, feeling tears on his cheeks again.

Then he felt her hand slipping into his probably gross and sweaty hair to hold the back of his neck, and he only had time to take in a single deep breath before Clarke’s lips slid over Bellamy’s, as she pulled him into herself. She tasted of sunlight, of hope and love, and the kind of happiness Bellamy had thought out of his reach. Suddenly it didn’t matter exactly how long Bellamy had been in love with Clarke, or how long Clarke returned those feelings. All that mattered was that they loved each other right now, at this moment.

And he never wanted to forget it again.

#bellarke #bellarke fic #bellamy blake #clarke griffin #the 100 #the 100 fic #fanfic #otp: the head and the heart #bellarke fanfiction

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justkending · 3 years

Text

Moral of the Story (Prologue)

Series Summary: From childhood friends, to highschool sweethearts, the two naive, young, and lovestruck teens decided the best way to keep a strong relationship during college would be to marry right out of highschool. No one batted an eye at the idea as everyone knew they were soulmates. However, college is a big step in a person’s life. You learn new things about yourself, you make new friends, find new hobbies… And maybe being newly weds and going to different colleges across the states wasn’t the best plan… After a falling out, and a tragic heartbreaking divorce, the two now hold grudges for how the other handled the whole thing in the past. Neither not really knowing both sides of the story. 10 years later, and they both get a call from the lawyers office that settled their divorce. Somehow the papers never went through and the divorce was never completed. So now, the exes, or should we say husband and wife, have to meet back up after all these years to settle their failed marriage once and for all. (This summary will be shorter in other chapters. I just needed to get the full concept out there;)

A/N (repeat): So the other day while I was doing my hair (quite the process), I was playing music and the song Moral of the Story by Ashe came on. Mind you, I’ve heard this song hundreds of times, but for some reason, this time I got a major story idea! Listening to the lyrics brought me to this new series. Of course, the lengthy summary above will give you an idea of what came to my brain, but I recommend you listen to the song still because it plays a big part in my thought process:) (Plus it’s a good song;) Enjoy and please do not hesitate to share your thoughts and comments with me! I love each and every single one<3

(I will release the first chapter at the beginning of next week! That way I can give myself some time to write more chapters before sharing it!)

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Y/N (Modern AU)

Word Count: 1200+

Prologue:

"Melody, have the papers for the Bee's Knees company come in yet?"

"Uh, no. But I can call them again and see if they faxed it or sent over a physical copy though," Melody answered from her desk, already typing away to find the company.

"Perfect. We have a meeting with a recycling plant next week and I want to get everything set before we go in with them," Y/N nodded, coming out from her office with a file in her hands. She turned to her assistant at the front desk who was about 20 emails deep and already finding the issue. "Hey, you're not coming in tomorrow, right?"

"Um, no, no. I am. I rescheduled that date," she answered bashfully as if she had been caught in the act of something.

"Melody..." Y/N drug out, hand on her hip.

"What? I- He understood. He said he was fine moving it to Saturday," the young woman shrugged, never looking back at her boss that was clearly sending her a motherly stare.

"You're already over your 40 hours this week, and you've rescheduled with him, what? 3 times now?" Y/N moved to the front of the desk so the young brunette had to make eye contact with her.

"Yes," she answered hesitantly.

"Is it just nerves or something else?" Y/N smirked.

"I'm not nervous... It's just been a while since I've had time for a date."

"Two things about what you just said in the past minute. One, clearly this guy likes you because he's rescheduled with you this many times and hasn't called it off yet. So if you're nervous about it not going well on his end, I think you're safe," Y/N pointed a finger at her.

"But-," Melody started.

"Second," Y/N cut off with a raised eyebrow. "I'm giving you time to go on a date and you're still not taking it. Work is no longer an excuse."

Melody stopped avoiding eye contact and looked up at the Y/H/C hair woman leaning on her reception desk.

"You've been talking with my mom again, haven't you?" she sighed.

"I promised I'd take care of you. So yes, I have. And though her reasoning for you dating is because she wants grandbabies, I just want you to have fun and live your life. You're 22. Don't waste your young years being scared."

"Ugh, fine. I'll text him now and see if he's still available for tonight," she groaned.

"Perfect!" Y/N grinned in victory as she started to walk back to her office. "I expect the details in the morning," she winked before she walked in.

"Oh, Y/N!" Melody stopped her. "A message came for you while you were in that last meeting."

"Who from?" Y/N quirked an eyebrow, moving back to the desk.

"Uh, I don't really know. Didn't sound familiar, but here's the name and number they said to call back from," she answered, handing her a note.

Y/N took the small paper and looked it over. Her face dropped and her eyes widened.

"You ok? Is it someone you know?" the young assistant asked, noticing what looked like horror on her face.

"Um, yeah. Yeah, an old acquaintance of mine," Y/N tried to quickly brush off. "Um, I'm going to take this. Can you hold any calls and if anyone comes to talk, tell them to just email me?"

"Oh, ok. Yeah, I'll take care of it," Melody nodded.

"Thank you."

Rushing back to her office and quickly shutting her door, she raced to her phone. She read the business name again, not sure if she was dreaming or if it was a hallucination.

Nope. Hammer Attorney was written in Melody's perfect penmanship on the paper with a number that held an area code from New York. A place she never thought she would hear from again and from a town she hadn't visited in almost 10 years._________________

"Buck, did you tell Fury about getting those new water therapy machines?" Steve shouted from his room.

"We're at home, Steve. Why are we talking about work?" Bucky groaned as he slouched on the couch. A beer in hand and a documentary with I Survived stories playing in front of him.

Steve came in from around the corner looking down at his phone in hand before moving his eye line to his roommate.

"Because I just got a call from the night crew saying that the last one that was working, finally went out tonight while they were running it for some test," Steve raised an eyebrow.

"Ugh, you would think that a facility run by a billionaire who literally makes his money on high-tech machines, wouldn't have to ask for those kinds of things," Bucky groaned, grabbing his own phone and going through emails. "Let me check to see if the email went through. He wasn't in office when I went to tell him."

As he was sorting through the hundreds of emails sent back and forth just this week alone, he found the reply message.

"Yeah, management confirmed it. They should be in by Saturday it looks like. Guess Stark was still working out the kinks to a new one and was waiting to send one our way until the last one died to get more time on his newest model."

Steve nodded before walking to the kitchen and typing Bucky's response to the other crew members.

"The man is always finding new ways to upgrade them before he can even send them to us."

Just as Bucky was about to throw his phone to the side again though, it started ringing. Looking at the caller ID, he didn't recognize the unknown number. It was from in-state but in his hometown area of Brooklyn. He pinched his eyebrows together confused at the call, but answered it anyway, thinking it must be someone from home.

"Hello?"

"Hello. Is this Mr. Barnes?" The other voice answered.

"Yes, this is him. Who's this?" he asked, sitting up a little and putting the beer on the end table.

"My name is Matthew Murdock. I work at Nelson and Murdock Law firm," he went on. Bucky shook his head not knowing what that was supposed to mean. "Well, you may actually know us previously as Hammer Attorney. We recently just took over their business after some fraud issues."

Bucky's heart stopped. He knew what that name meant.

"I hate to inform you, but we were going through some of their old files. Ones we were informed could be incomplete or done completely incorrectly due to little care in the actual cases, but more so in taking the money."

"Incomplete cases?" Bucky said softly. His brain was still trying to wrap around the conversation.

"Yes, unfortunately, it looks like a lot of cases having to deal with divorces that the past owners handled, were done strictly in order to launder money. They weren't actually certified, nor trained in handling divorce settlements."

Bucky froze. Eyes wide. Mouth agape.

He stuttered out a response when the man on the other line didn't continue.

"A-And talking about incomplete divorce settlements, you called because..." Bucky knew. He needed to hear it out loud because if he didn't, it wasn't true. It couldn't be.

"I'm so sorry Mr. Barnes, but it looks as though you and your wife, Y/N Y/L/N or sorry, Y/N Barnes, are actually not divorced."

(I will release the first chapter at the beginning of next week! That way I can give myself some time to write more chapters before sharing it!)

Moral of the Story Taglist:

@taylormobley @ximaginx @vicmc624

Marvel Tags:

@thejourneyneverendsx @death-unbecomes-you @heyiamthatbitch @lizzymacy555 @srrymydood @xa-dia @redhairedfeistynerd @morganclaire4 @connie326 @captain-asguard @mollygetssherlockcoffee @teenagedreams-bucky @shower-me-with-roses @pham-tastical

My Lovelies forever:

@natura1phenomenon @lauravicente @kakakatey @traceyaudette @notyourtypicalrose @laneygthememequeen @awesome-badass-cafeteria-sauce @sandlee44 @thorne93 @thefaithfulwriter @essie1876 @greyeyedsmile14 @capsiclehan @xostephanie @averyrogers83 @awesomenursingstudent @gh0stgurl @cs-please @carls1022 @jjlevin @rainbowkisses31 @carls1022 @anise-d-castle6 @deannotmoose @their-bibliophile @kitkatd7 @willowbleedsonpaper @mariaenchanted @snffbeebee @couldabeenamermaid @rebekahdawkins @alyispunk

Bucky Barnes Tags:

@chloe-skywalker @charmedbysarge @jbarness @bellamy-barnes @katiaw2 @aikeia

#bucky barnes x reader au #bucky barnes highschool sweetheart #bucky barnes collge au #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x y/n barnes #bucky barnes x y/n #justkending #new series #new marvel series #marvel au

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commanderfloppy · 2 years

Note

For the gw2 asks may I have 3, 20 and 38 plus a free space for whatever one you'd like to answer! (@uselessidiotsquad)

OK I am going to assume this ask was actually meant for someone else since I reblogged that ask game a year ago (tho if someone is looking through my archive to send me asks I wouldn’t mind that)

But I will answer anyway because why not?

3. How many characters do you have?

Not that many at all, I get really tempted by character slots but have only gotten them a few times/gotten them as part of getting expansions.

Currently I have 8 characters:

Mss Floppy (mesmer)

Tori Dawnmoon (engineer)

Damia Rose (necro)

Skadi Bloodfang (ranger)

Rococcus (Guardian)

Link the Twink (Elementalist)

Sigrun Eldrsal (Thief)

And finally Aleiah Astereae (Warrior) but she’s hardly been played because I made her to be a joint character with my sister who doesn’t play the game much (might play her more soon though)

Oh and if alt accounts count on my EU alt I have Laurence Bellamy (mesmer)

20. How far have you made it in SAB (Super Adventure Box) if you had the chance to play it?

I actually finished Super Adventure Box this last event, I joined lfg groups so I could you know get through it better but I did finish! I was dumb though and didn’t realize there were only 2 worlds so I was so disappointed when I finished world 2 and there was nothing else.

I’ve also been walked through some tribulation mode by insane people who seem to be able to speedrun it.

38. Best memory in guild wars?

My memory is kinda shit and I have a lot of good memories of the game, but I think I am going to go with my first time playing the beta (alpha?) whatever it was.

My mom let me play it on her account, the only character option was human I think since it was just the beginning, that’s when I made Tori and started playing. I remember being really excited that engineers were in the game because I was kinda obsessed with engineer characters from 7-13 or so. I remember it started off with the beginning of the story, and back then you could unlock all the skills for your weapon just as you played with said weapon. I think the beta let me go up to the level 10 story or so, I always laugh thinking about how the model for Petra’s dad hasn’t changed since then, no wonder it’s so out of place.

Also not to keep going on forever but I do have one more memory of gw1, mostly in general. The way I got into the game was that my mom actually played it, and she’d let me stay up late and watch her play the game (while also giving her back rubs for more bribery).

This is why even though I’ve only ever played through the first bit of prophecies I remember a lot of bits and pieces from nightfall and factions and eye of the north.

For my 11th birthday (I think) I got my own copy of the game to play, and I would just stay in pre-searing ascalon and do a lot of the daily Yakington / Nicholas quests with my mom (very fun, but also fuck you Aloe husks, why were you so spread out???)

And for the free space I am going to do 34. Weirdest map chat experience? Because while I think I shared this before It deserves to be seen again.

Ok so I was just having a fairly normal time in WvW, when someone in the map chat angrily asks who pulled the Tractivator at the keep (If you don’t play WvW tractivators are like special things that you pull during an emergency, I think they have a cooldown? Or go once they’re used? I am not sure because I have always been too scared to touch them)

A person in the chat comes forward saying they pulled it, the other responds like ‘why the fuck did you do that?’ for WvW I remember it being a pretty understandable response the person wasn’t being that rude at least for WvW. BUT THEN, the person who pulled the tractivator goes off with this essay in chat, long enough it had to be put in two chat messages and it went as follows:

"I will have you know I paid 20$ for this game. I’ll play what I want, when I want. People like you are harmful to this game and contribute to the cesspool that is toxic male gamers. I feel oppressed that people like you try and tell me what to do in this game. I get enough of toxic masculinity in real life so you don’t need to bring it into a game."

#ask game answers #gw2 #again if this was meant for someone else sorry #but I won't give up an opportunity to answer some asks #Also I think I may make that rant it's own post I want it to become a copypasta

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ofpineapplesanddawns · 3 years

Note

More platonic Phileas + Aziraphale? 😇

Here's a little something from the au, after Phileas finally learns that Aziraphale is an angel and they're on their way to Japan after the island.

This is part of the Let The Adventure Begin au, by the way. This probably won't be in the actual fic, so enjoy this little bonus.

On with the fic!

"So..." Phileas tapped his finger repeatedly against his cup of tea, made perfect, just like Aziraphale always made it.

Was it because he was...?

"I fear," Aziraphale tried to smile, "that the news of my true nature is a bit difficult for you to take in, dear."

"A little, yes." Phileas admitted, licking his dry lips. "An angel? A-and Crowley is a... a demon?"

"Yes." Aziraphale nodded.

They were alone, in Phileas' room on the ship, away from any nosy travel companions or people who didn't need to hear this conversation. Phileas had invited the other man to his room for tea, just hours after everything on the island, after finding out so many truths that it was still rather overwhelming and it made Phileas feel a bit ill.

Passepartout had nearly betrayed him, had actually nearly died try to help him and Abigail, he found out that Bellamy might be trying to kill him, Will was in love with him just as he was in love with the adventurer, and then to discover that his friend and associate were beings of the Lord, and Satan respectfully... it was amazing that Phileas hadn't just laid down and went cathartic for a bit.

"This whole time?" He asked, not sure what else to say.

"Oh yes, I've never been anything other than an angel. Crowley, however, well, he was an angel once." Aziraphale sighed. "And he's also a snake, so, he's a rather confusing person sometimes."

"He was before I found out he was a demon."

"Is it the... the woman thing?" There was worry in Aziraphale's voice. "Or the eyes? I know you saw them by accident, very much not a birth condition now, yes?"

"No, no." Phileas shook his head. "No, it was more of... the near identical thing between him and I."

"Ah, well, the same could be said about Will and I."

Phileas blinked. "I know the others have commented, but I just don't really see it."

The angel looked at him funny. "We have the same face, and eyes, even the same voice, though I feel like Will has a bit more of a Welsh accent going for him."

"But you two seem so different to me." Phileas reasoned. "Even if you two dressed the same or shared the same hair color, I'd just know who was who. I think it's how you both carry yourselves, how you both are around me."

He looked at the cup in front of him, toying with the handle. "I have so many questions, Aziraphale."

"I'm sure you do." The other man nodded. "Ask away."

"As my, uh, my Guardian Angel..." He could see Aziraphale's hands clench into fists, like he knew what Phileas was about to ask. "How come bad things happened on this trip? I'm not complaining, I mean, would you have been able to have done something to help us?"

Aziraphale sighed softly, running a hand through his hair. "I had hoped to, really, and I was able to use a bit of my angelic influence to make sure some things weren't worse for wear. But I got reprimanded by Gabriel, yes, that Gabriel, the tosser, and he had my powers muted for nearly two months!"

He pouted. "It actually was meant to be a month, but I apparently annoyed him with my own strongly worded letter in retaliation over being denied my powers to help you, so there was an extension. I only just got it lifted, but by a bit. The other Archangels think I should be limited, so I need to be careful of what I use. Getting the ship to the island to find you was a big miracle."

Phileas nodded. "And I am forever in your debt for that, my friend."

"No need, Crowley and I did it because care about you and our friends. Though, Crowley will never say it aloud." Aziraphale smiled, winking.

"Heh, yes, well, another thing I'm curious about, and have been for a few days now is... when we left Hong Kong, when I still had the fever, I thought you were in my room with me, I dreamt of you, but you have wings, and a halo behind your head, you were, well, you were like you were when you found us on the island."

Aziraphale looked at him, a bit flustered. "I... you remember that?"

"I do, I don't remember much of being sick, but I remember that so clearly."

"I went into a protective state, I wanted to make sure you would be safe. Sometimes I give into my true nature when like that, luckily you didn't see my true form, you would never be able to comprehend it." Aziraphale noted. "But then again, I feel like you might, just a bit, for a little while, before it would overwhelm you terribly."

"Oh, I see." The human blinked. "Wait, since I know, will I be in trouble with Heaven? This sounds like a bad thing."

"Depends on what you want to do with this information."

"I'd rather just keep it between the six of us."

"Good call!" Aziraphale nodded, before sipping his tea.

Phileas took a drink of his own before setting down the cup. "And what of you and Crowley? An angel and a demon, working together, as friends? Or possibly more...?"

Aziraphale coughed hard at this, his face pink. "W-whatever do you mean, dear boy?"

"I don't know, I've just noticed the way you are around Crowley, and how he is with you. He is always so close, and always quick to be at your side, defending you, and even with those glasses on, it's clear he looks at you with a longing like you look at him with such."

The angel bit his lip, toying with the ring on his finger. "It's... it's complicated, and always has been, but there might be, well, there might be something between the two of us, it's hard to say. And even if there was, our sides don't like the idea of it."

"Society is always like that." Phileas thought of himself and Will, what will happen when they return to England? It was a crime, a mental disorder to love someone of the same gender! And it was already troublesome for Phileas, who already had people eyeing him strangely for his mannerisms, his way of presenting himself when he felt more confident.

People would not want him and Will to be together, and it seemed like the same could be said about Crowley and Aziraphale, except with more Holy Fire and brimstone involved.

"It's hard to win when your heart wants something so wonderful." Aziraphale said quietly.

"That is true. But what of it? What if you just want to... I don't know, cast off the shackles of expectation, of society's norms, and embrace what will truly make you happy?"

Like he had done when starting this adventure, when he listened to Alberto's dreams and interests, when he listened to Jane Digby. Seeing the young groom defy his military duty to marry the woman he loved so dearly, learning that what he thought was supposed to be a good, helpful system was only a dark, dangerous thing that only benefited a small group.

Like when he finally decided to say he was tired of holding back, when he had shared that kiss on the island, when he had opened his heart to his friends about what the trip was really about and why he was the way he was.

Aziraphale looked at him with such kind, knowing eyes. "I think you've learned a lot on this trip."

"And it's not even over yet, there's so much more to see and do." Phileas smiled.

#good omens extended universe #around the world in 80 days #good omens #phileas fogg #aziraphale #john's drabbles #ineffable husbands #adventure husbands #will charity x phileas fogg #because they were implied

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immortalpramheda · 4 years

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Okay, I like Lxa as a character but after having time to process the finale I’m actually very annoyed she came back. We already had closure with her. She died in Clarke’s arms which was tragic and sad, but Clarke held onto the Flame and was constantly thinking about her. She returned in the S3 finale and had a proper send off, and they even added the ‘I love you’ in ADR. We already knew Clarke loved her. And not to mention all the times she’s been mentioned since then just to hammer home how much she meant to Clarke.

For her to come back in the form of an alien who takes the shape of someone Clarke loves didn’t need to happen. I’m sorry, but she was a minor character in S2 and S3 and she didn’t need to be brought back for a big chunk of the series finale.

Bellamy, the male lead of the show, had no closure whatsoever. I don’t wish the alien had been in the shape of him, we already know Clarke loves him and how much she means to him. It should have been Madi, or Abby, or her dad, or even Wells. Heck it shouldn’t have been a big deal who it took the form of because we know all the people Clarke loves.

The problem is that Bellamy wasn’t a minor character - he was the second main character and had been there since the very beginning. He died alone believing everyone hated him at the hands of his best friend. No one really mourned him, he was all but forgotten except for a few throwaway comments that ‘he was right’. No one felt regret about not believing him. No one spoke up and said they wished he could have been here on the beach at the end. He was erased from the narrative and a minor character who died in S3 and whose story had already been wrapped up overshadowed him (and almost everything else that happened in the finale).

Bellamy’s presence should have been felt in the finale, at the least. Instead, the finale removed any essence of him in favour of a fan favourite minor character to appease a certain subset of fans.

#the 100 #the 100 spoilers #7x16 #the 100 series finale #bellamy blake #clarke griffin #people have already said more or less the same thing as this #I just needed to get my thoughts in order #jason's interviews have very much infuriated me #I can't believe this is how it ended #with the heart of the show being erased #my text post #t100recap

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iliumheightnights · 4 years

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Even Now? | Bellamy Blake x Male Reader

Fandom: The 100

Pairing: Bellamy Blake x Male Reader

Summary: Bellamy and (M/N) had been dating on the ark. After (M/N) had been sent to the skybox the two lost contact. Now on the ground the two find each other again.

A/N: I am a hoe for Bellamy Blake and will die for him.

…

(M/N) stepped out of the dropship. He was blinded by the sunlight but let out a laugh as he realized he was on Earth. He was on Earth and he was alive. He looked around and watched as the other delinquents ran around shouting and laughing, pushing each other and having a good time. For the first time in a long time they all got to be kids again.

Walking around their new campsite, (M/N) took in the woods around him. He had always imagined what earth would look like on the ground but never realized it could be so beautiful. Speaking of beautiful, he caught sight of someone he hadn’t seen since he had been put in the skybox. There dressed in his guard uniform was Bellamy Blake, his ex boyfriend.

Bellamy was standing with a group of people talking. He recognized a few as Clarke Griffin, Wells Jaha,and a few others he had known. Among them was also Octavia Blake, Bellamy’s sister who he hadn’t known about until after he had been put into the box. Not wanting to deal with Bellamy he turned and walked the opposite direction of the group.

Sitting down on a fallen log he finally took in the sight on his wrist. There he now has a strange wristband, it wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t literally annoying him. “Ugh. This thing sucks. Why did they put it on us anyways?” He tried to peel it off but it wouldn’t budge, only giving him a bit of a sting. “Hurts like a bitch doesn’t it?” (M/N) turned around and smirked at Murphy. One of the only people he was actually friends with during his time locked up. “Not as bad as choking on a lack of oxygen. Can you get this thing off of me without injuring me?” He held his arm out to Murphy who pulled out a makeshift knife.

Before Murphy could begin to do anything with the band, he found himself being pulled away. “How about you take your knife and keep it away from him?” (M/N) looked at the new person to see Bellamy glaring at Murphy holding his arm. “Hey! Just trying to help my friend out.” Bellamy didn’t loosen his grip, instead making it a big rougher. (M/N) saw how Murphy was starting to feel some pain. “Bellamy! Let him go!” In an instant Bellamy let Murphy go but continued to glare at Murphy. “Go.” He said. Murphy didn’t waste any time and left back to his group of friends. Bellamy turned back to (M/N) who was walking off. “(M/N)! Wait! Please!”

(M/N) ignored him as he continued to walk off. Entering the dropship he found some of the supplies that had been sent down with them, aka a tent. Grabbing the tent he returned to outside the dropship and started setting up his tent. This gained the attention of some of the other delinquents. “Hey! He’s got a tent!” He didn’t stop setting up his tent as they came closer. “Yeah! I do! This is my tent and maybe, just maybe, if you’re nice I’ll share it with you.” That seemed to piss some of them off. “Or we can just kill you and take it for ourselves.” The delinquents moved closer but were stopped by Bellamy. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” That stopped them from moving any closer to (M/N). “Anyone that touches him deals with me!” Bellamy shouted through the camp. That seemed to deter anyone from messing with (M/N). “Can I talk with you?” Bellamy asked and (M/N) motioned to his tent.

The two boys stepped inside. “What did you want to talk about Bellamy?” (M/N) asked, crossing his arms. The tent was nice and large, definitely meant for more than one person. “I was just wanting...I don’t know to just talk to you. I just wanted you to know, I never stopped loving you (M/N).” (M/N) let out a laugh. “That’s rich. If you still loved me then you would have come and visited me while I was locked up. But you didn’t! Why? And don’t say to protect your sister cause that’s no excuse for this.” Bellamy struggled to find the words. “I just...I didn’t want to see you locked up. It broke my heart watching you being lead away and I was afraid of what would happen when you turned 18. I know you probably wouldn’t have been floated but it still scared me.” (M/N) shook. “Well how do you think I felt!? I was locked up with the threat of execution trailing me! I wanted you but you weren’t there for me! You know what...just go!” He pushed Bellamy out of the tent.

As time passed on the ground, Bellamy continued to try and reconnect with (M/N) who was sticking to ignoring him. But then the grounder threat happened and Bellamy practically became the leader of the camp, with Clarke acting as a second leader. For some reason, (M/N) didn’t like the fact that Bellamy and Clarke were spending so much time together. A group was going out to go and hunt for the camp, Bellamy among them and (M/N) decided to go with them. “(M/N) what are you doing here?” Bellamy asked as he joined the group. “Going hunting. What am I supposed to leave it to you imbeciles to catch our food?” Some of the group members grimaced or sneered but Bellamy only smirked at him. “Now let’s go. I’m starving.”

The hunting had been going alright and then of course a cloud of acid fog came their way. Bellamy and (M/N) had gotten separated from the rest of their group and hid in a cave. Luckily the fog wasn’t following them inside. “Well....there goes dinner.” Bellamy laughs and shakes his head. “We almost died and you’re still thinking of food?” (M/N) shrugged. “What? I like food!” Bellamy shakes his head again but reaches into his backpack and throws (M/N) a nutrient bar that he had. “Thanks. Wait...where’d you get this?” (M/N) asked. “It was part of the supply drop with us. They gave us practically nothing but I figured I’d save that.” (M/N) hummed.

It had been a little longer and the fog was still going. “So...you and Clarke seem...nice.” (M/N) said, making Bellamy look at him with a face. “What? Me and the princess? What do you mean?” (M/N) snorted at the name. “I mean, you two seem close. I’m sure you two will be very happy together.” Bellamy’s mouth turned into a large grin. “Oh my god. You’re jealous!” (M/N) blushed and looked away. “I don’t know what you mean. I have nothing to be jealous about.” Bellamy got up and moved to sit beside (M/N). “Just to let you know. There’s nothing going on between me and Clarke. There’s only one person in this camp that has my heart?” (M/N) decided to mess with him. “Your sister?” Bellamy nodded. “Alright two people in the camp.” (M/N) smirked and turned to look Bellamy in the eyes. “Even now? You still love me after everything that’s happened? Why?” Bellamy scooched closer and held his hand. “Because you’re amazing. You’re so smart and talented. You also don’t let anyone fuck with you, which sometimes gets you into more problems than it’s worth. But overall it’s because you’re you, and I love you (M/N).” Bellamy leaned in closer and (M/N) decided to close the gap, pressing their lips together. “I love you too Bellamy.”

The two reunited boyfriends stayed in the cave until the fog cleared. Once cleared they regrouped with the others and returned to the camp. “So...you going to move into my tent or what?” (M/N) asked. “I thought that was without question?” Bellamy grinned pulling him into another kiss in front of everyone else in the camp, making sure everyone knew not to mess with his boyfriend.

“So, ready to be my co-king of earth?”

#the 100 #bellamy blake #bellamy blake x reader #bellamy blake x male reader #bellamy blake x male!reader

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carewyncromwell · 3 years

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“We were dreamers not so long ago, But one by one, we all had to grow up. When it seems the magic’s slipped away, We find it all again on Christmas Day...”

~“Believe,” by Josh Groban

x~x~x~x

The Ravenclaw VS Hufflepuff match was one for the ages. With a final score of 320-10, it was one of the most decisive matches in Hogwarts history, let alone one of Ravenclaw house’s greatest triumphs -- and all of it was because of the combined efforts of Seeker Cho Chang and Ravenclaw’s Chasers, led by their Star Player Robert Bellamy. It put Ravenclaw well on its way to winning the Quidditch Cup for a second time, and it also made Robert once again the talk of Ravenclaw house. People latched onto the idea of him using echolocation to signal to his fellow Chasers where he was on the pitch and began to say he could fly faster than any bat, whether a real one or one from Ballycastle.

And yet, despite all of the praise and fawning he received, just as Cecelia said, Robert shrugged all of it off.

“All of us train more than just our eyes,” he said with a shrug. “And besides, signaling would’ve meant nothing if Roger and Randolph hadn’t been good enough Chasers to toss the Quaffle to me blindly -- and if Roger hadn’t been a good enough Captain to lead our team, to begin with. Not to mention Cho catching the Snitch in the middle of that fog -- that’s infinitely harder than anything we did...”

Atticus @cursebreakerfarrier couldn’t quite understand how Robert could be so determined not to accept praise for his abilities when it was so clearly warranted...but even so, he found himself smiling every time he heard him respond with such modesty. For as flippant, rebellious, and devil-may-care as Robert was, he wasn’t full of himself. It was a rather endearing quality.

When December arrived, the student body got into a predictable tizzy about the upcoming holidays. Atticus, as always, found himself grumpier than usual due to the noise. He’d never really liked Christmas even as a kid, and at Hogwarts the season only served to make him more surly. Atticus recalled, however, that Robert was one of those people who got obnoxious around Christmas -- it had always irritated him before, whenever Robert would sing Christmas carols loudly at the top of his lungs while helping decorate the Ravenclaw common room. And this year was no exception. The Star Chaser helped smuggle a tree up to Ravenclaw Tower, hung garlands and clusters of holly all over the Ravenclaw commonroom, and greeted and said goodbye to absolutely everybody with “Happy Christmas,” and on the morning of December 8th, the very day he no longer had to dress all neatly like Atticus, he pulled out his old red-felt Santa hat and wore it every single day for the rest of term.

Atticus was frankly done, and the holiday break hadn’t even started yet.

“Aw, come on, Lestrange!” said Robert one day after Potions, giving the other boy a light punch to the shoulder. “Lighten up -- it’s Christmas!”

“So you keep reminding me,” Atticus said dully. He tried to bury his nose in his copy of Moste Potente Potions, but Robert wouldn’t drop the line of conversation.

“Well, I wouldn’t keep reminding you if you cheered up a little,” he said with a grin. “Do you always have to be such a Scrooge around this time of year?”

“Do you always have to be so happy about it?” Atticus shot back. “...What’s a ‘Scrooge’ anyway?”

“A character from A Christmas Carol,” Ceci explained with a small, amused smile. “It’s a Muggle book -- it’s a lovely one too: you’d like it, Atticus...”

“Better have Rob read it aloud for you, though,” said Barty with a big grin. “No one reads it like Rob.”

“A Christmas Carol is a masterpiece of literature -- all I do is treat it accordingly,” Robert said offhandedly. He shot Atticus a wry smile over his shoulder. “Though I suppose if it’d help you actually get to sleep at a reasonable hour for once, I could always read it to you as a bedtime story, Lestrange -- ”

“No thank you,” Atticus cut him off crisply.

Her face appearing rather sympathetic, Ceci lightly bumped her arm against Atticus’s as they walked.

“Are you staying here for the holidays again, Atticus?”

Atticus nodded. “The library’s always nice and quiet, over break. It’s a good time to get some extra work done...”

Robert’s light-hearted expression faded -- something almost guilty passed over his face.

“...Mm...”

His black eyes drifted away, off toward the far wall. Barty offered both his best friend and Atticus a smile.

“Well, uh...maybe we can do some work over break together, then, Atticus,” Barty offered.

Atticus stiffened like a startled cat. “Huh?”

“My parents are taking a trip to visit my aunt and cousins in Normandy,” Barty explained sheepishly, “so I was thinking of staying at Hogwarts over break too! Don’t reckon much of anyone else in our year will be, so maybe we can hang out a bit over break, if you’d like...”

Atticus truly couldn’t think of anything he’d want to do less. Knowing it’d be incredibly rude to say so, however, he forced an uncomfortable smile. Ceci, however, jumped on it.

“That’s perfect!” she said. “Maybe you and Atticus can do some extra research, Barty.”

Atticus blinked in confusion. “Research?”

“About our dreams,” said Ceci eagerly.

Barty nodded. “One thing all of our visions have in common is that we all look older, right? You said that the guy in your dreams kind of looks like me, but older -- and Ceci, Rob, and I all see each other looking older too. But when we looked into Divination, all we really got was a lot of vague preaching -- ”

“You mean utter rubbish,” Robert inserted with a smirk.

“So Robert was thinking,” Barty pressed on, “if this is some kind of future sight we’re having, maybe we can find out what’s causing it by studying Time-centric magic.”

“And what better person to help us with researching something in the library than Atticus Lestrange?” Ceci said with satisfaction, taking both of Atticus’s shoulders from behind and giving them a light squeeze.

Atticus, however, didn’t look so sure. “Well, thank you, but...I’ve already read every book in the library about Time Turners -- and I don’t think there’s anything in there that might explain what’s going on...”

“Every book?” prompted Ceci, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes,” said Atticus. “Well, except for the Restricted Section, but...”

He trailed off, noticing the wicked look that Ceci and Robert exchanged before they both glanced at Barty.

“Except for the Restricted Section,” repeated Robert, his lips spread in a broad white smirk.

Barty grinned -- his expression was perfectly angelic compared to his cohorts, and yet it was determined.

“Atticus,” he said in a very soft, but perfectly fearless voice, “mind if I join you on your evening Prefect rounds, over break?”

And that was how Atticus Lestrange got roped into sneaking into the Restricted Section of the Library after dark on Christmas Eve with Barty Gilbert.

Atticus had been very wary when he lingered in the hall outside Ravenclaw Tower as planned, waiting for Barty. He knew his father most assuredly wouldn’t approve of this, and even despite that, he dreaded the thought of willingly spending time with his school rival. It didn’t matter how pleasantly the Gryffindor acted around him, or even how fond Atticus was becoming of his best friend -- Atticus didn’t like Barty, and that was that. And he absolutely hated the thought of getting into trouble just because he was roped into working with him.

Unfortunately Atticus was so uptight and stiff while waiting around that he nearly had a heart attack when Barty’s disembodied voice whispered in his ear.

“Sorry!” Barty whispered quickly. “I’m sorry -- I was really trying not to sneak up on you, but Filch is around that next corner...ack! Here he comes!”

He threw some sort of translucent cloth over Atticus’s head, prompting the other boy to crouch down so it covered both of them.

The crabby Hogwarts caretaker, Argus Filch, rounded the corner, raising his lantern and looking around. His beady eyes glided over where Atticus and Barty were standing, narrowing suspiciously, before he trudged away.

“Andskotans djöful,” Atticus swore under his breath.

He was clutching at his chest and breathing very heavily as he turned to gawk at Barty over his shoulder.

“You have an Invisibility Cloak?”

Barty grinned sheepishly. “My parents own several robe shops. I figured one of their stock going missing wouldn’t be the absolute end of the world...”

He adjusted somewhat so that the fabric wouldn’t drag on the floor.

“Come on -- let’s get to the library.”

Fortunately the two managed to get into the Restricted Section without incident. Once they were positive no one was in the Library to catch them, Barty stood watch under his Cloak by the door, his wand over his chest, while Atticus combed through the shelves of books, his own wand lit and held aloft so he could scan the titles. The two didn’t talk much -- the discomfort congealed between them as Atticus tried to keep his eyes on what he was doing.

“Anything promising?” asked Barty.

“Not yet,” said Atticus shortly.

Silence returned. After another moment, Barty spoke again.

“Atticus...may I ask you something?”

“What?”

“In your dreams...do you see bad things happening?”

Atticus paused. Then he slid another book from the shelf and opened it, flipping through the pages.

“Not really. I don’t see much of anything, I think -- at least, not that I can remember. It’s...feelings, mostly.”

“Feelings like you know something’s wrong? Like, even if you can’t see what happened, you feel so much pain and sorrow that you know it’s bad?”

“Sometimes.”

Barty nodded, turning his focus back out into the blackness of the Library.

“As far back as I can remember,” he said very softly, “I’ve had this dream where I was trying to reach someone. I couldn’t ever see their face clearly, but I just knew, somehow, that the person was in trouble, and that I had to help them. But no matter how fast I tried to run to try to get to that person...my vision would black out and I’d feel like I was frozen still, unable to move at all.”

He bowed his head, his eyes cast into shadow.

“...I would wake up screaming and crying at night, when I was little...all because I couldn’t reach that person in time. Because I knew that, because I didn’t move fast enough...that person was dead.”

Atticus’s hand had stilled on the book he was flipping through. His eyes were wide upon the page, but clearly weren’t taking in any of the words printed there. The memory of his own mother trying to comfort him after he woke up crying about a pair of red eyes and warm arms rippled over his mind.

“When I got to Hogwarts,” Barty said lowly, “my dreams became a little clearer. I still didn’t know where I was or what I was doing...but this person who I’d been running to try to save, my whole life, suddenly had a face. A man with black eyes and curly hair...just like my best friend.”

He looked up at Atticus, his face incredibly serious.

“I don’t know why you’ve seen someone like me in your dreams, Atticus,” said Barty, “and I know you don’t like me...but I could really use your help, in getting to the bottom of all this. Robert is my best friend in the whole world. He’s the first person who became my friend solely because of who I am, rather than who my family is. If I lost him...if anything bad happened to him...”

A dark, miserable shadow passed over his face.

“...I don’t know what I’d do,” he whispered.

Atticus looked up at last. His blue eyes were rather uncertain.

“What about Cecelia?” he asked. “Didn’t she become your friend for who you are?”

Barty’s eyes softened as his face flushed lightly.

“...Ceci means everything to me. We’ve known each other forever. But her family only engaged with mine because we had money...and my parents only let us play together because her parents would bring her over. Our parents encouraged her to play with me because my parents reckoned she’d be a ‘good influence’ on me...might help me come out of my shell some...”

“Well, I suppose they were right,” muttered Atticus. “Now you’re the hot-shot Dueling Champion and Dragon Tamer...Hogwarts’s Golden Boy...”

The last words came out before he could stop himself and he immediately looked away, his insides prickling with discomfort.

Barty, amazingly, only smiled weakly.

“It’s easy to be brave when you know you’re doing the right thing,” he said, “when you’re standing up for somebody or trying to calm an animal that doesn’t know any better. When you’re fighting, or protecting, there isn’t any thought -- you just do. Because it’s the right thing to do.”

He looked down again, his shoulders falling slightly.

“...But when you’re around people...trying to figure out just what to say, to tell people what you mean...or even just how much to say, when you know not everyone means you well...well, that’s not so easy. You feel like the whole world is watching you, and judging you, no matter what you say...even if you say nothing at all. But at least when you’re quiet...people can kind of just see what they want to see...”

Atticus frowned. Barty had always been rather soft-spoken compared to witty, sassy Robert and sociable, amiable Ceci, but he’d never really taken the time to conclude that Barty was actually shy.

“I’ve always envied Robert that way,” admitted Barty, offering Atticus a small smile. “He’s never at a loss of what to say. When you and he go at it, bantering like you do...I can tell you like each other, but there’s just such a charge there -- like the eclectic lamps Professor Burbage has in her Muggle Studies class!” He beamed a bit more broadly. “It’s so cool.”

Atticus stared at Barty for a moment, unsure of what to say. Then, after a moment, he looked back down at the book in his hands.

“...Thanks,” he said at last. He could feel his ears burning again.

Barty, however, only smiled, his blue eyes very understanding and patient as he returned his focus to the dark Library again.

Atticus glanced up at Barty without raising his head, considering him for a moment. Then, with a swallow, he spoke again.

“...I...used to wake up crying too. When I was little.”

Barty looked up, taken aback.

“I used to dream about this person with red eyes,” said Atticus. “He’d be squeezing my shoulders -- almost as if he was afraid to touch me at first, but then gently, purposefully. Then, as he held my shoulders, he would start to laugh...but even though he was laughing, I would hear the sobs. I could tell he was crying...crying in grief and joy and something else altogether...but so much pain. A kind of pain I don’t think I could ever know...”

Just remembering the heartbreaking sound made Atticus’s throat clench and his eyes well up with traces of tears. He wiped them quickly from his eyes with one hand.

“My mother used to comfort me, telling me that it was just a dream, that nothing in it could hurt me,” he said lowly. “But she never needed to say that -- I knew he wouldn’t hurt me. He was the one hurting.”

He swallowed. The lump in his throat was painful.

“...I didn’t have the dream as much, as I got older -- just time to time, around some of the other weird ones. Maybe I just don’t sleep long enough stretches to dream as much anymore,” he added as an afterthought. “But when Bellamy and I got paired for Binns’s oral report...well, that feeling came back, out of nowhere...and again, when you, Ceci, and I were watching the match against Hufflepuff.”

Atticus forced himself to meet Barty’s eyes at last.

“I don’t understand this whole thing at all...but I want to know why I’m feeling these things, and I want to know why you, Ceci, and Bellamy see what you’re seeing, too. If that’s what you want too...well, then it’s only practical that we work together.”

He offered a weak smile of his own. Barty was definitely taken aback, but within seconds, his face had lit up with a warmer, more determined smile and he nodded.

“Mm-hmm.”

From that day on, Barty Gilbert and Atticus Lestrange had made peace.

Unfortunately their night in the Library proved fruitless, research-wise. Not even Dark or restricted magic could explain the kinds of bizarre, fragmented visions the four students were experiencing. And so Atticus returned to his dorm that night feeling very disheartened. He was less so, however, when he awoke out of a restless doze in the Ravenclaw armchair Christmas morning to the feeling of someone holding his shoulder and lightly shaking it.

“Atticus. Atticus.”

Atticus blinked sleepily up at who’d woken him, to see a familiar, shyly smiling face framed by auburn hair.

“Happy Christmas,” Barty greeted gently.

Atticus shook his head rapidly, trying to orient himself.

“W-what? Gilbert, what -- what are you doing in -- ?”

Just behind Barty, Atticus could see both Ceci and Robert grinning from ear to ear.

“Surprise!” said Ceci brightly.

“Happy Christmas, Lestrange,” said Robert, his black eyes dancing with mischief.

Atticus looked around at all three of them, perfectly bewildered. “But -- but you -- you two went home for Christmas -- how did -- ?”

“Rob and I took the Floo back!” Ceci explained.

“It was Rob’s idea,” said Barty. “I thought I’d keep the whole thing quiet, until they got here.”

“I couldn’t change my plans and stay for my whole break, since I have to be at home for Christmas Eve church service,” said Robert, rubbing the back of his neck uncomfortably, “but well, the thought of you being stuck here all alone...”

His eyes drifted up to the ceiling.

“‘The school is not quite deserted,’ said the Ghost,” he recited from memory, “‘A solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still.’”

He returned his gaze to Atticus seriously.

“A Christmas Carol,” he added as explanation. “It’s part of why Scrooge ends up hating Christmas so much -- he wasn’t allowed to go home for the holidays to see his family, so instead he stayed at school all alone, with nothing but his books for company. I know this whole season isn’t your thing and all, but...it just seemed rotten, to leave you and Barty alone.”

Barty beamed at Atticus. Atticus, on the other hand, was too overwhelmed to respond. He felt like his throat had gone very dry, all of the moisture instead moving up toward his eyes.

Robert and Ceci had put their holidays with their families on hold for him. Yes, Robert said it was for him and Barty, but he’d been thinking of Atticus and how lonely he’d be. No one had ever done anything quite so kind for him before, and it made Atticus feel like his heart was flooding.

“...You...” he murmured, “...but...why?”

Ceci laughed. “Why do you think? You’re our friend, Atticus! We wanted to spend Christmas with you!”

Atticus’s heart swelled.

Friend. He was their friend?

He looked from Ceci to Barty to Robert -- his black-haired dormmate smiled, his black eyes sparkling as he nodded in agreement.

The tears that had been prickling at the sides of Atticus’s eyes actually leaked through, escaping down his cheeks, as he smiled back. He quickly wiped them away, his smile gleaming as he looked up at the three of them.

“...Thank you,” he said at last breathily. “I...I don’t know what to say...”

Ceci brought her arms around Atticus in a sideways hug. “Then don’t say anything! We have presents to unwrap! Come on, come on -- Barty, Rob and I put ours under the tree before we woke you...”

Atticus felt a bit guilty that he hadn’t thought to buy any presents for Robert, Barty, and Cecelia, but he honestly hadn’t expected that they’d want to get him anything. But sure enough, all three of them gave marvelous presents -- Barty gave Atticus a book on Dark creatures; Ceci gave him his own leather-bound copy of A Christmas Carol; and Robert gave him a beautiful bookmark carved out of wood into the shape of a Phoenix and painted brilliant shades of red and orange. The card enclosed said,

Ceci helped me paint this for you. Hope this little turkey can keep you company in the Library.

Happy Christmas!

Robert

Atticus was amazed when he learned that Robert had actually carved the bookmark himself by hand. Apparently Robert had used some of the leftover wood from the trunk of the tree he’d smuggled into Ravenclaw Tower to make Atticus’s bookmark -- he’d also used some of the branches he’d had to trim off to make Barty a carved picture frame and Ceci a pretty wooden heart pendant she could wear as a necklace. They were all a little rough around the edges, but the effort showed through, and it warmed Atticus’s heart to think of the amount of work Robert must’ve put in to make his presents.

The whole day put Atticus in such a good mood that he even encouraged Robert to read aloud from his new leather-bound copy of A Christmas Carol, so he could hear it. The request made Robert’s dark eyes light up more brightly than Atticus had ever seen them before...and indeed, when Robert finished reading the beautifully written, emotional novel with such warm sincerity and articulated poetry that evening, Atticus had to admit -- it was a very, very good book.

#golden era #hphl #hogwarts legacy #reincarnation!au #my art #my writing #bartholomew varney #atticus grimsley #cecelia crouch varney #hahaha you've heard of christmas in july?? well now it's only may #but christmas is bat's favorite time of year hands-down #grim's canon relationship with christmas is harder because he initially thought it was 'eh'#then he met bat and he started really enjoying it #but then bat died right before christmas so toward the end of grim's life it only brought back bad memories #and admittedly atticus as his modern self didn't have much fun at home during christmas when he was a young'un #I'm so glad to see barty and grim finally finding some common ground!! :')#also yay for sneaking into the restricted section around christmas LOL

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retromotherfuckers · 4 years

Text

Six Years (Part 3)

Pairing:

Past/Eventual Bellamy Blake x Fem!Kane!Reader, Platonic!Octavia Blake

Summary:

Octavia knew who she was now, but you couldn’t figure out what the hell you’d become.

Warning:

so much mf angst, themes of addiction and depression, self-destructive behavior and a tiny bit of comfort in there

Word Count:

2k (i got a little ~carried away~ lol)

A/N:

IM SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG. i wasn’t happy with the og thing i had down so i literally just rewrote the whole thing in a few hours and it’s sm better than it would’ve been. me holding off posting this did wonders and i’m more confident in it too even tho i kinda think i suck at writing but also kinda don’t idk my self esteem varies wildly

Merry Christmas Eve Eve to those who celebrate ❤️

the gif (and all the other ones) are not mine and i take no credit for them

if you want to be tagged in any of my works, send me a message or an ask and i’ll add you :)

@shipshipshipau

The girl with aqua eyes - although now they were more of a spotted gray - had only seen one moment of weakness from you. It would be the last time Octavia had seen you, and you, her.

“We’re surviving!” She had started shouting, as if she believed that set in a lower tone, her words would be construed as lies. “The human race is surviving! That’s what matters!”

“He wouldn’t be okay with this, and you know it!” Your voice broke involuntarily as it rose to match hers. You shook your head as you tried to desperately stop the ache in your chest as you brought her - probably dead - brother up. Tears clung to your eyelashes, waiting for you to blink so they had permission to fall. Your throat had been closed for a while now, and the rest was merely a weak cry. “If this is the price that we have to pay...maybe we shouldn’t be.”

You’d never know if it was the crack in your demeanor or your choice of words, but either way, her eyes softened when you spoke.

“Look at me.” You did as told and she gripped the back of your neck in one hand, pulling your forehead so close it almost came into contact with hers.

The air changed as Octavia came alive under the monster she wore for armor. Her mask coming off allowed you to let out a breath you didn’t know you’d been holding. You would begin to regret not smashing the helmet to bits while it was off and vulnerable.

“You have to stop listening to them,” She said. “It’ll tear you apart. It’s better they get to live to hate us than die slowly and love us-”

“They don’t deserve this either, O-”

“We bare it, so they don’t have to. You’re the one that told me that. You can’t back out on me, now. I can’t do this without you.”

For so long you were okay with her needing you to do the dirty work. Besides the first time - when you did it together - she’d give the sentence and you’d see it through. Every single time, it felt like it was killing you more than them, but that didn’t matter, did it? If you weren’t going to do it, who would?

It was the last thing Octavia had asked of you and you had no intention of letting her down.

Bellamy didn’t know what he would see when they finally dropped him down into the bunker, but it definitely wasn’t that. Surrounded by more death than he was prepared for, he couldn’t help himself to not move his gaze around the arena. The fences between him and the living reminded him of the cages the Mountain Men held him in. The walls were stained deep with crimson, leaving the dull concrete behind it unrecognizable. He looked to the blonde at his side, and they asked each other the same silent question:

What the hell happened down here?

His whiskey shaded orbs kept moving, albeit reluctantly. They stopped on Marcus Kane, who looked so much older than last time. His hair and beard were inches longer and grayer than the natural brown he used to have. He was so pale, it was unnerving - almost as if he was close to death. They connected eyes briefly and that’s when the younger saw the deadly weapon held to his neck by the hands of-

No.

Your back was facing him, but it didn’t matter how long it had been, he’d never miss you. The locks that adorned your head were longer too, almost to your waist. The natural shade was faded though, like you had aged twenty years instead of six. He watched your shoulders heave and your hands start to shake as Kane talked to you.

He couldn’t pull his eyes from the impure red that dyed your skin and clothes.

While you were distracted, he chose to act, protecting Marcus from his own flesh and blood. He didn’t miss the gears in your head turning as your gaze landed on him. He saw your eyes sink into a trance of recognition and a deep sort of longing overtook your senses. The melancholic need you had tried to numb for half a decade came back in full force and held no mercy.

You remembered how he always smelled of the forest after the sky wept. You remembered how sure but gentle his touch was on your skin. You remembered how his remarkably soft lips would feel when they pushed against yours as they begged for more at every turn. You remembered how it felt to be wrapped in his arms, listening to his heart thump as he assured you everything would be alright, even if he didn’t think it would be.

Was that gone forever, now, too?

Bellamy noticed something else, though; something he didn’t recognize. Something he’d never seen before.

Something that scared him.

It had been hours since and neither of you had bothered to find the other. Getting everyone out was a great distraction for him. Talking to his little sister, whose eyes seemed to hold the same thing yours did, was another. She had explained to him and Clarke that Wonkru had deemed her Bloodreina and you, Ripa. So, no, nothing as special as death from above or the red queen or the commander of death, but death, nonetheless.

People have done well not to forget that.

When Clarke told him you still hadn’t come out and no one had seen you, however, he didn’t have a choice anymore.

The halls were those of nightmares, spirits lurking around every corner and it was cold and empty. He knew the lights were kept low to save power but it felt almost purposeful, like they were meant to scare you. To tell you not to act out or some kind of monster would jump from the shadows and make you pay.

But he didn’t know if it was you or his sister.

A chill slithered up his spine.

If someone told him this wasn’t real, he’d do anything he could to believe them. He wished that he was seconds away from being shaken awake by Raven or Monty, and they would tell him it was just another nightmare. He wished he was still on the Ring, praying ignorantly to anyone that would listen that his family on earth were still okay.

Breaking him from his thoughts, a yellow lamplight caught his attention. At the end of the windowless corridor, it shone out of a slightly ajar door. Using every ounce of strength he possessed to not walk away, he pushed it open. It cried at the motion, diminishing any and all remnants of silence that swallowed the floor.

His eyes found you catching yourself from falling caused by a failed attempt at standing. A half empty bottle of whatever works in one hand, the other one holding you up against the bed frame. The high-pitched creak pulled your attention to the front of the room with a furrowed brow and he allowed himself to take in your appearance.

A wrinkled, cotton shirt sat on your chest and it was a different one than before; faded white and thin, yet cleaner than the other one which was colored with blood. Your hair was damp - the result of taking a shower - but lazily tied back in a half-assed effort to get it out of your face.

You stared at each other for a minute. A million things were hitting your slow-moving thoughts at once, too much for you to even try to comprehend. He finally took one step towards you, parting his lips to say something but no sound came out. He was stumped, hundreds of words flooded his mind but not a single one sounded good enough.

Nothing he could say would make what happened in the arena okay.

It was unbearably painful. There he was, finally right in front of you, and you had no idea what to talk about. No idea what to start with, end with, bring up, discuss, laugh about, cry about, scream about. Nothing was good enough to say to the man that kept you alive for such a long time, such a long time ago.

Too long ago.

You inevitably broke the silence, though your words came out cracked and in a slur. A defensive and humorless scoff left your lips, an effort to cover up the discomfort. Or it was because you were too drunk to shut yourself up. “You gonna say somethin’?”

“I don’t know what to say.”

You didn’t know why, but you hoped he’d sound different. It was childish and irrational, but you hoped that you could say you both changed too much and he would have nothing to hold against you.

Because no matter how far away it seemed, sometimes you could still remember what it felt like to be that innocent seventeen-year-old that hadn’t lived yet; what it felt like to be that girl who still couldn’t stand her father. To be that girl who sprained her ankle within ten minutes of being on earth for the first time. To be that girl who hadn’t made a friend aside from Clarke and Wells in her whole life. That girl who had just kissed a boy for the first time.

The girl who was loved and not lost yet.

“Well, that makes two of us.”

Where the hell did she go?

That made the room spin, and you had to blink a few times to make it stop, taking a seat on the thin mattress. You took a drink, making the liquid slosh from the base to the neck of the bottle and back again. When it settled, you rested your head between your shoulders as you heard him say your name. It bounced off the walls in the room, hitting each one again, and again, and again like it was a bullet waiting to find its target. You had wanted the word to fall from his lips for so long that you’d forgotten what it sounded like. You had forgotten what he sounded like, and you fucking hated yourself for it.

Then you realized he said, “Ripa,” and those four deadly little letters crushed your throat and stole the air from your lungs.

That name hadn’t felt right from the start, but it was what you had been simultaneously promoted to and reduced by. The only person who refused to call you that over the years, was your father. For two thousand days, he made sure to steer clear of it.

That’s not who you are and I know it, even if you don’t.

A sudden and hauntingly raw sob escaped, and you knew his eyes were on you in an instant.

“Don’t call me that,” You begged, meeting his gaze for the first time since he entered. Breath picking up, you were practically terror-stricken at the idea that all you were to him now was a murderer. You vigorously tried to shake the thought away, squeezing your eyes shut as everything that kept you numb seemed to vanish into thin air. “Y-You can’t-Not you too. Please, not you.”

Bellamy’s hand brushed your cheek and tears rained freely. You immediately leaned into the familiar and delicate warmth and you really fucking hoped this wasn’t your mind playing a trick on you.

“It’s okay, Y/N.” When he spoke this time, his words sounded choked too. His other hand cradled the back of your head as he pulled you into his chest and just...held you. “It’s okay.”

It was like you were standing at the edge of a building, teetering the edge before accidentally falling. Only, before you could plummet to your death, someone caught your hand, and it occurred to you that you really wanted them to pull you back up.

“Please don’t leave me again.”

Your voice was just so, so weak. Beaten down and broken.

“Never.” He said it with so much confidence and finality, you almost had to convince yourself it was real and not a dream. “I promise.”

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osleyakomwonkru · 4 years

Text

#takebackthe100 - Day 5: Favourite Quotes

My two favourite quotes are from my two favourite ladies, and they hit on the same notes:

“The sword doesn’t care what you meant, it just cuts.” - Octavia, 4x06

“Doing the right thing the wrong way isn’t doing the right thing.” - Diyoza, 7x07

Basically, both of these quotes summarize what I believe is the underlying message of the show, or at least the lesson that it tries to impart to its characters (to varying degrees of success): The ends don’t justify the means.

This is something that the characters of The 100 struggle with right from the opening minutes of the Pilot - in order for the Ark to survive, they’re ready to risk a large percentage of their youth to both a) see if the Earth is survivable (something their science tells them it won’t be), and b) rid themselves of undesirable elements in order to give more oxygen to everyone else.

For them, the ends (saving what they believed to be what remained of the human race) justified the means (sending 100 teenagers and kids into the toxic unknown). And that’s only the beginning of multiple generations of our characters struggling with these questions.

For the first three seasons, it seems like ends justify the means every time. No one even really questions it that much, until they run into Luna on the rig, and she’s the first to really question that - “You believe to defeat an enemy who will stop at nothing, you must stop at nothing” is what she says to Clarke.

In season 4, people begin to question it some more as they scramble for methods and ways to survive Praimfaya. Jasper and Monty question Clarke’s list. Roan questions Skaikru’s intentions in rebuilding the Ark. Raven and Murphy challenge Abby and Clarke’s testing methods for Nightblood.

It is in this environment in which Octavia states her line from above - she’s speaking to Ilian, and how he didn’t know about Praimfaya, but that doesn’t excuse his destruction of the Ark. It doesn’t matter what he intended with that action, it still had a detrimental effect - and still would have for the people of Skaikru even if there was no Praimfaya, because it was their home.

Octavia is in a really bad place, emotionally, when she speaks this line, but it still cuts through to the root of her convictions - there is no “who we are and who we need to be to survive are two different things” - there is only “we are what we’ve done and what’s been done to us” - as her mind vocalizes in her mindspace two seasons later. And it is this conviction that’s pulling her under in this moment - what she’s done to try and cope with her grief hasn’t been helping, and she’s driving herself further and further from who she wants to be but doesn’t know any way back.

Season 5 is a weird beast. This is a world where Octavia’s now been forced into a situation of needing to believe the ends justify the means, even though that’s deeply against her nature, because otherwise everything collapses - as we see for her in early season 6 as she’s deep in depression and suicidal ideation because she didn’t get the ends that she needed to justify her means. Meanwhile, Bellamy and Monty in particular are talking a good game of peace and the ends not justifying the means - especially as Monty reads Jasper’s letter - but they too dive into those justifications, first with killing Cooper and then poisoning Octavia, believing that doing these means would justify the end.

Season 6 is messy. There’s greater talk from all corners that the ends don’t justify the means, and the beginning of season 7 starts to suggest that if you break it, you have to fix it - but then that all goes out the window when Clarke and friends jump into the Anomaly and fuck off from yet another society they screwed up.

Which brings us through to the middle of season 7, and Diyoza’s line - where she’s talking about her past life as a terrorist/freedom fighter, but it is just as applicable in the world they live in. She knows Hope is raging with hate at Bardo, but despite everything that Bardo took from them, Diyoza is still firm on not exacting the revenge that Hope wants - as she says later in the scene “revenge is a game with no winners, and we’ve lost too much already”. It is what drives her to sacrifice herself to save Bardo and the rest of them, to save Hope’s soul and make her last wish for Hope to be better than she was herself.

This line of Diyoza’s is also particularly applicable to the methods of the Disciples and especially how Bellamy joins them, betraying everyone he cares about for that cause and willing to torture each of them - even Madi - for the goal of transcendence.

Clarke dooms the human race when talking to the Judge in the finale, because she’s still insistent that the ends do justify the means, and doesn’t apologize for it. Sure, the Judge’s race of beings also isn’t the greatest, with making judgment calls on entire species based on one individual, but when you’re dealing with beings who can wipe you out in an instant, you do have to be a bit more humble than Clarke is willing to be (she also acted the same way in 6x03 when talking to the Primes, and their survival on Sanctum hinged on the Primes’ knowledge and skills).

But then Octavia saves them. After Raven demands a do-over, and she and the Judge take a look over Bardo’s battlefield, Octavia reminds all of the people there - Wonkru, prisoners, Disciples alike - that killing each other will just kill everyone. She’s been to war, she knows that it isn’t a means that will justify any end, because it is a cycle that won’t be broken. The only thing that will save humanity is believing in the journey, believing in the means, believing and trusting in each other to build a better world.

Ultimately that does seem to be the journey of the show - what matters isn’t where you get to, it is how you get there.

#the 100 #takebackthe100 #octavia blake #charmaine diyoza #favourite quotes

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sometimesrosy · 4 years

Note

What elements make B/E such an obvious romantic obstacle to B/C, narratively, etc?

A lot really. I mean, first, with that time jump, we needed to see that Bellamy had grown and moved on from the trauma of earth. Who better to show that transformation than the grounder who represented betrayal and brutality and murder and war to him? The one who betrayed him and almost killed his sister and held him captive. To forgive HER means he’s over the s3 bizness where he treated all grounders as the enemy who deserved death just for existing in some cases. We SAW him learn the lessons, but with the time jump and B/E he now INHABITS it. He’s grown from it.

There’s also the parallels between CL and B/E. first alliance, then betrayal, then kidnapping, then working together, then saving from sucide, then forgiveness, then love. I know some people consider CL to be endgame, but my theory here is based on CL being over, for important reasons within the narrative. So to parallel two relationships that are important and transformative, but not endgame, and to show the longer pace of B/E which shows that Bellamy was healthier than Clarke was, is a sign of character development.

Bellamy needed a relationship in order to move forward on the ship, so he wasn’t a wreck. He needed to be a whole person, who COULD live without Clarke, because the Bellarke relationship is a relationship of equals, and it’s NOT codependent. They don’t fill in the holes of the other person. They are not INCOMPLETE without each other, They needed to be shown as complete people on their own. So showing that he’d not been destroyed by her loss meant having him accept love, accept that he deserved love. Therefore, he needed a healthy relationship.

OKAY. This turned out to be A TOTAL EPIC post. And it’s too long so after the jump. STay tuned.

IT COULD NOT BE RAVEN. Wanna know why? Because Raven has her own journey. And she CAN NOT be second choice, because of her problems with finn and clarke in s1. Raven needs someone to be head over heels over her, if she’s going to have anyone. And if Bellamy had been in a relationship with Raven, CLARKE would always be standing between them. And with Clarke’s resurrection, Bellamy’s SOULMATE, Raven would be cast into second place, thus ruining Raven’s character arc, and putting Clarke into the SAME narrative of being the other woman, without any development. This would be a failure of storytelling, lacking growth and transformation which is NECESSARY for this story.

As long as Bellarke is endgame, Br/aven could NOT happen. If Bellarke is NOT endgame, Br/aven is actually the CLEAR AND OBVIOUS choice for Bellamy’s next relationship. They already love and respect and like each other. Raven is a major character. The audience loves and wants them both happy. If Bellarke were not endgame, then Br/aven would have been. If Bellarke were PLATONIC, for real? Then Br/aven should have been developing all this time. But since Bellarke is an endgame romance, Br/aven CAN NOT happen romantically.

THUS they needed a character to be his romance, to show him moving on, but it couldn’t be a character who was TOO essential that we would replace Bellarke with that ship, as would have happened with br/aven. Although it also needed to be a character who was tied to the major issues we’ve been dealing with, someone who maybe reminds him a little of Clarke even. Enter Echo. betrayals, ruthless, sneaky, beautiful, cheated in the conclave, almost killed his sister, does whatever she has to to save her people, loyal.

I’d also like to bring up Echo’s name. And I think her name DOES matter. At first I thought it was because she was an ECHO of CL and that betrayal for Bellamy. The myth of Echo, as the nymph who pined after Narcissus didn’t make sense to me, as Bellamy wasn’t a narcissist in love with his own reflection... UNTIL someone made the point that the classical concept of soulmates was one soul split into two bodies, so a person and their reflection COULD be a metaphor for this soulmate concept. Which made Bellamy in love with his reflection/soullmate Clarke, which now ENTIRELY fit the Echo and Narcissus myth. Echo is in love with Bellamy who is obsessed with his soulmate Clarke (who in s6 was ‘behind the glass’ like a mirror image! huh. Who was it that posted that theory!? that sounds like a confirmation to me.) Now again, Clarke and Bellamy are separated by this distance, and Echo goes in to find him? I hope Echo doesn’t fade away like her namesake did, but it’s possible. But Narcissus also dies at the river, in love with his reflection, becoming flowers, right? This actually fits my spec that Bellarke will “die” but in reality just be separated from their family and live out their lives in pastoral happily ever after. Anyway. The myth of Echo and Narcissus, means Echo is NOT the soulmate.

Also. JR said Clarke and Bellamy were soulmates. And fine, I don’t use commentary in my analysis... but I do if it fits, and this fits. They are SHOWN as being soulmates from season 4 AT LEAST. “you center her.” “you got it backwards.” for an example.

Okay, but now lets get to the narrative. What I told you before is more about storytelling and tropes and character development. Or HOW you tell a story. Now we’ll get to canon evidence. There’s still some storytelling in there. I’m gonna start with s5, because that’s when romantic b/e showed up.

This was the big sign to me of what was going on with Bellarke and B/E.

The first episode of s5 was almost ALL Clarke. We were focused on her survival in the wastes. We were given access to her feelings and thoughts and pov. We were given her monologue. Which was not a monologue.

It was a conversation, one way, with Bellamy. The voiceover of 5.01 was Clarke making her 2199 radio calls. Which is a romantic trope. They were, essentially like a diary, or love letters, or even a prayer, in a way. For that little bit of the story, in fact, huh. We could almost think of that whole episode as being Clarke’s tales of survival, told to Bellamy as a kind of epistolary tale. What we see IS what she said to Bellamy. Hmm. That’s interesting.

ANYWAY. My point was. The audience is put square inside Clarke’s head, and her head is “why haven’t you come home,” and talking to Bellamy and missing him.

THEN we get the scene where Clarke is talking to Madi about them, and missing them and then the camera pan up through the stars to Bellamy looking down on them, unknowingly, at the valley.

THIS IS THE MOST POETIC THE MOST ROMANTIC SHOT IN THE WHOLE SHOW. MAYBE IN EVERY SHOW EVER. It is a poem. She yearns for him, across time, beyond the stars, and he’s looking down on her, thinking she is dead, and the INFERENCE is that he’s yearning for her too, past death.

A love that literally lasts past death time and space. ULTIMATE EPIC LOVE STORY. And they are finally going to be reunited. AH, resolution for their separation and their love.

AND THEN... dun dun dunnnn, the plot thickens.

Out of nowhere, the reveal that Bellamy and Echo ARE LOVERS.

BAM! OBSTACLE. more, ROMANTIC obstacle.

Clarke’s yearning was romantic in nature. We don’t see inside Bellamy’s head, but making the obstacle to their reunion no longer tech, but instead an established romance, means that the narrative has set Bellarke on a romantic path. Because otherwise another romance would not be an obstacle. Heck, Echo is not against Clarke. Even when she was threatening her life she wasn’t really against Clarke. She gets her. As a leader and partner, she gets her. Echo is ONLY an obstacle if the goal is a romantic relationship between Clarke and Bellamy.

That it’s set up this way, as a shock, is part of the romantic narrative.

THIS is on purpose a slap in the face. Because the audience has been set up to want them to come home TO CLARKE, to want a Bellarke reunion and to FEEL that they belong together.

THEN when Echo is sure things will change between them, and Bellamy assures her that nothing will change between them on the ground, this is what’s known as DRAMATIC IRONY. The audience knows that Clarke is alive, they know that the bellarke bond is epic, they know that Clarke is yearning in a romantic way, they know that when Bellamy finds out that Clarke is alive EVERYTHING will change with his relationship with E.

But then, we get a misdirect, or rather, a plot obstacle to B/E. Octavia is not forgiving and she’s scarier than ever.

B/E is set up from the VERY BEGINNING as a romantic obstacle.

Then to prove it, we get

Clarke’s VERY shocked and jealous face when B/E reunites and kiss. That the camera focuses on HER, shows her watching them, and not on THEM means the main emotional weight of the scene is not the lovely reunion between loving partners, (thank god you’re ok i was so worried i’m so glad to see you again love love love,) but rather on clarke. (omg bellamy is kissing someone. bellamy is not mine. heartbreak, jealousy, shock!) See the focus is NOT on the established relationship, the B/E leg of the love triangle, but on CLARKE, the pining one, the one whose love is unrequited. The soulmate.

IF B/E were endgame, the focus would have been on the relief of the reunited lovers. But we’ve just spent like two episodes on the reunited (non-romantic apparently) soulmates, and the CANON relationship can’t even get an infocus shot?

A close up of someone’s face means the narrative wants us to feel their EMOTIONS. We got lots of those when Clarke and Bellamy reunited, when they hugged, when they struggled to regain their connection. But with the B/E reunion. Their faces were obscured, not shown, blurred.

Ok. And YES, Bellamy then moves on to focus on Echo and B/E, and saving her from Octavia, and that is to show that B/E is real. Because no obstacle that is not made real is going to be enough to really scare the audience into worrying that it could stop our heroes from their goal. IT HAS to be real. But even while Bellamy is proving to O that he loves Echo, the focus is NOT really on B/E, but on the Blakes relationship. And on Bellamy and Octavia. This is teaching us who they are now, after 6 years apart.

Then there’s a love scene between B/E, or half a love scene anyway. The beginning. It is cut off in the middle and cuts to CLARKE getting ready to leave.. Oddly, the music for the scene stays the same, which CONNECTS the two scenes. A LOVE SCENE cut with a LEAVING SCENE. An established romance confirmed, a pining soulmate leaving aka giving up. And in the next scene, we get this dynamic reinforced... however, there is a change. The romantic couple is confirmed again, while Clarke watches. HERE we are shown a closeup of her face, tears in her eyes, all about how she feels about their relationship, after the close up of their faces I think, and sadness and love yes. this is real. Then Clarke steps back, straighten her shoulders and accepts it. She won’t interfere. He’s not hers to love. HOWEVER, then Echo LEAVES. The established couple separates. And we turn to Clarke and Bellamy immediately he knew she was there somehow.

While B/E are split up, Bellarke are brought back together, although at this point they are non romantic, with each member choosing Echo for him. And we spend many episodes with them rediscovering their soulmate bond and getting closer and more intimate as they do so. While Echo has her OWN narrative and it has nothing to do with Bellamy or b/E.

This leads to Bellarke making pledges to each other, over her daughter, and he swears to take care of Madi when/if Clarke dies. Bellamy promises to parent his soulmates daughter while his canon girlfriend is off risking her life. They bond as, well, co parents. Making them a family unit, Mother, Father and Daughter, though no romantic or sexual relationship between the two?

Not so fast.

“Another traitor who you love.” Octavia lays out the issue. Bellamy loves Echo. Bellamy loves Clarke. She is comparing Echo and Clarke in his love. This is a ROMANTIC love comparison. She’s goading him. He doesn’t take the bait. Because he has a plan.

Bellamy sacrifices his sister for Clarke’s life. Poisoning her. His sister who has been established as the person who means more to him than anyone else in the world. When it was O or E? He chose O and let E go off on a suicide mission to win a place with wonkru. When it was O or C? He chose C and poisoned O. That is an equation. Bellamy loves these three women. C more than O. O more than E. C>O>E. When compared, Clarke wins over Echo. If Octavia made it clear that the love is romantic, then Bellamy made it clear that his love for Clarke is deeper than his love for Echo, even if he’s not ready to face that or deal with it.

AND THEN SHE LEAVES HIM TO THE PIT. He knew he’d betrayed Clarke, but it is confirmation to him that Clarke does not return his feelings. So, when that’s sorted out, he has a moment where he’s choosing between Clarke and Echo (the earth vs the sword, it’s a heavy handed bit of symbolism so we don’t miss it.) He chooses Echo. It’s the logical choice. Head over heart.

MEANWHILE, Echo and Clarke are having their own life or death convo. In which we find out that Bellamy loves Echo, Echo loves Bellamy, Clarke always cared for Bellamy but thinks him dead at her hand. NOT SO FAST. Bellamy is alive, “oh now you care?” AND THEN, revelation from the past FlameLxa tells her love is not a weakness, she was wrong to betray Clarke (canon love) and Clarke should not do the same thing (betray her love bellamy.) Remember also CL and B/E are paralleled. Remember also all the same players were at MW the original betrayal. L walked away, Echo walked away, Bellamy was under the ground, and Clarke stayed to get to him. it’s just interesting. So in the end, Clarke betrayed ELigius, spares Echo and sends her daughter (another love equation. Clarke canon loved Lxa, but she tells Madi she loves her SO much more than Lxa. Now she risks her greatest love Madi to war in order to save Bellamy. Here’s the equation. Clarke loves Bellamy>Madi>Lxa. We have two equations using actions to prove a primacy in love. Clarke love Bellamy more than all of her other great loves. Bellamy loves Clarke more than all of her great loves.

HOWEVER B/E comes back together to fight. As a couple. It is a couple reunion, but not as romantic as their first reunion, or their goodbye. THEN, they are fighting together and it isn’t romantic. And from there to the end of the season, the B/E romance disappears.

HOWEVER, Bellamy learns that Clarke cares for him so much that she called him every day for six years. That changes his perception of Clarke, and how Clarke feels for him, and when she urges him to come in, he says, broken, I can’t leave them behind. “Not again.” With the understanding that leaving HER behind was the trauma that he can’t do again.

So where did B/E go? It doesn’t matter. It’s literally not important to the narrative. Echo literally goes to sleep. B/E is frozen. What is important. Bellarke’s intimacies of saying goodbye to their families and their connection that is still there. And THEN them waking up TOGETHER and facing the loss of Monty, the revelations, the new world AND the commitment to be better, to be the good guys, together.

Known: B/E is a canon relationship. Clarke loves Bellamy and has been pining for him for six years. Bellamy loves Clarke but has moved on though he cannot ignore his feelings for her. Bellamy CHOSES Echo, but Echo keeps disappearing from his story while he focuses on Clarke and their relationship.

HOW do I know Echo is the romantic obstacle and Bellarke is the endgame rather than Clarke being the romantic obstacle and B/E being endgame?

Because the story focuses on the deepening relationship fo Bellarke, while his attachment to Echo stops it from moving forward. It focuses on the FEELINGS of Clarke about B/E, but not the feelings of Echo about Bellarke. It is never even presented. Her feelings are absent, when if her ship was endgame it would be about her feeligns at least partly. Now we do seem BELLAMY’S feelings, but his feelings which start out as about Echo vs Octavia, who hates Echo, shift and become Clarke vs Echo... evenn though Clarke does NOT hate Echo and accepts her just fine. So what is the conflict?

The conflict is that he can’t have competing feelings fo Clarke if he loves Echo. That means his feelings are ROMANTIC.

YES. He does choose Echo near the end of s5. This is because Clarke leaves him to die. Not because his feelings for her are not as strong (remember C>O>E) but because HER feelings seem to show she doesn’t care about him. UNTIL Madi spills the beans, and then he shifts back to Clarke a bit, even though his choice is STILL Echo.

Bellamy loves Clarke but thinks Clarke doesn’t love him so he chooses Echo.

Clarke thinks Bellamy loves Echo and not her, so she refuses to show him or admit to him that she loves him and she attempts to move on and keep him as her “platonic” soulmate.

Echo loves Bellamy and Bellamy loves Echo but Echo has no idea Bellamy also loves Clarke or that he is deciding between Clarke and herself. She has no say in this narrative. It’s not about her. It’s about Clarke and Bellamy. She thought the problem was Octavia. And while that’s a problem, it doesn’t affect Bellamy’s feelings for her.

Echo has done nothing to make him not love her. Their relationship has remained stable. The only change is that there is another love in the equation. That Clarke’s existence puts B/E into jeopardy means that the Bellarke love is AT LEAST as strong as the B/E love. Possibly more... the love equation says more, but we will get more proof of that in season 6.

When we actually see the love triangle thrown into comparison CONSTANTLY. S5 had Bellarke and B/E separated. We got very few shots of them all together, and when we do, it’s Clarke’s jealousy and dismay on display.

However in s6, right from the beginning, the shots have all three of them in view. With Echo between Bellarke or Clarke between B/E often. Oddly, we also see Echo supporting Clarke. Or not that oddly. They’re a lot alike. She’s not competitive with Clarke, though. Even though there IS a competition. She does’t know about it. We see Bellamy choosing B/E with Clarke on the outside in ep1, but by the time they get to Sanctum, we start to see Bellamy choosing Clarke, or Clarke AND Echo (come look at this echo) with his focus on Clarke not E. We see him REACHING OUT to Clarke. (commiserating about raising their adopted kids without school, then the radio calls conversation which she runs away from because she’s scared.) Even in the eclipse psychosis, he goes after Echo first, but then turns his attention to Clarke. Murphy gets in the way as he always does, but he ignores everyone else.

As time goes on, though, we get a NEW dynamic. He’s starting to argue with Echo. It’s over Octavia mostly, but Clarke and Bellamy use Octavia to speak about their feelings for one another, without admitting them, so is that happening here? He’s using the argument over Octavia to express his feelings of frustration and distance with Echo?

Look. I’ve been showing you the love triangle. It is a CANON love triangle, which means B/E is romantic and requited and Bellarke is romantic although it’s unrequited.

I need to show the love triangle in order for B/E to be A ROMANTIC OBSTACLE.

But just showing the love triangle means it could be B/E that is the endgame and Bellarke that is the love triangle.

How do we know this isn’t the story?

Well aside from the love equations. We see Bellarke get closer while we see B/E bickering constantly over tactics, over octavia, over feelings, in season 6a. Clarke talks to him about her regret over the pit. The making amends scene is actually pivotal in their relationship. In the C/B/E love triangle.

He accepts Clarke’s amends, and her claim that he is so important to her. He didn’t want to talk about it. But she is open and they are intimate. Cut to Clarke being PHYSICALLY intimate with Cillian, and Bellamy looking on with all sorts of emotions in his face. Sorrow, happiness, pining, regret, jealousy, acceptance, longing, who knows? And we IMMEDIATELY get Echo coming up, trying to talk to him about Octavia, and him turning ViCIOUS on her, blaming her for not being human, not being emotional, not being open (which clarke just was and is.) He’s STILL watching Clarke. B/E is falling apart, not because of anything that Echo did, but because of something that Clarke did, again. HER actions are the deciding factor, and HIS emotions are where the choice is coming in. Echo has no control over it. Her emotions don’t matter. Her actions don’t affect it. He is not a character who has agency over this storyline, over her own relationship. This scene leads to Clarke being betrayed at the same time that Bellamy apologizes to Echo and Echo, FINALLY, opens up to Bellamy about her past.

For the first time, Echo has agency in how her relationship goes, and Bellamy admits he’s a dick and commits to Echo. NOW. If this story were ABOUT B/E as endgame, this would be the point where their relationship rises to new heights and becomes stronger.

Instead. Clarke dies. And Bellamy’s attention and emotions go to CLARKE. Even when she’s dead dead, all he can think about is not having Clarke, how it’s not living, Echo comforts him but it goes nowhere. Instead, we see him grieving ALONE. Echo is willing to destroy everyone, but Bellamy chooses what Clarke would do, and keeps everyone safe.

Until he finds out Clarke is alive, and then all bets are off and it’s a race to bring her back, canon, “you only care about Clarke.”

Yeah.

True.

Another pivotal scene. Bellamy leaves Echo to take care of their people and goes with Josephine to save Clarke. Echo says “Go save Clarke,” which is a parallel to Clarke telling Echo to “go save him.” Echo let Bellamy go to Clarke the same way that Clarke let Echo go to Bellamy.

We’ve now switched who the primary relationship is. It’s Bellarke, not B/E. Echo and Clarke made the choice to let the other woman “have him.” They gave up their claim.

Everything we see with Bellamy and Josephine acts as if Bellarke is romantic and the true love in his life. An epic love compared to Josephine and Gabriel DOZENS of times. And Bellamy’s last ditch save her from death scene is GLARINGLY romantic in the way that all the best fairytales are romantic.

There was never anything to compare to this in the B/E story.

The next morning, Bellarke talk about leaving Echo and spacekru behind to save Clarke, and Bellamy still isn’t willing for her to risk her life to save them, although she insists, and they agree to do it for Monty. SO MUCH INTIMACY. And Octavia witnessed it.

Their goodbye is more romantic and more intimate than Bellamy’s reunion with Echo, even though she was STATED as at risk and being in danger. She almost died. And all she got was a hug, much like he’d hugged Harper after the fighting pit.

The hug when Bellarke is reunited, however, is cast in romantic buttery light, with emotional close ups of their faces, and a rather intimate discussion of feelings and pain, with a parallel to their OTHER hug outside Camp Jaha, which was one of the pivotal moments in their relationship.

This in contrast to the pat on the back he gave Echo before this, and how Echo, who is standing right there, disappears from the scene.

The final scene after this Bellarke intimacy, has B/E back together. ExCEPT there is NO initmacy. He’s the leader, she’s the soldier. No feelings. Just defense and tactics.

From the beginning of season 6 to the end, Bellarke and B/E have switched placed. on the non-romantic/romantic scale. Comfort and intimacy goes to Bellarke. Team work goes to B/E.

THE JOURNEY of the love triangle switches from the primary leg being B/E with a side order of Bellarke partnership, to Bellarke with a side order of B/E partnership.

Technically, because we’ve had no time to sort out all these emotional issues with B/E (although we kind of have with Bellarke) B/E is still the canon ship.

But that’s just a matter of dealing with the plot point. Because the NARRATIVE is now about romantic Bellarke, and all that’s left to deal with in regards to the B/E romantic obstacle is how it ends. (And for Echo’s side, she has been focusing on Ash, and her own independence. They have set her up to have a self empowered storyline, which means she does not need and should not have a king anymore. Bellamy is her king, even now. And she needs to be her own person. Which means B/E is doomed even without Bellarke.)

Thus I have shown why C/B/E is a love triangle. Why Bellamy needed a relationship ANY WAY. I take for granted that Clarke was in love with Bellamy and he was her fantasy boyfriend over the time jump. That Bellarke is romantic as is B/E, that the show has created a love equation for both of them. How the love triangle is shown in s6. How B/E fades while Bellarke grows, and that B/E is the romantic obstacle while Bellarke is the soulmate endgame.

I’m so tired now.

#the 100 #bellarke #b/e #love triangle #romantic obstacle #c/b/e #romantic development #romantic tropes

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headstrongblake · 2 years

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OCTAVIA SEES HER BROTHER IN A NEW LIGHT DRABBLE / V. GANGS OF TONDC / @imnobodysson

horror is all that can be described upon octavia’s face as she enters the back warehouse at the mecha garage & junk yard. she didn’t want to believe jasper on the phone, finn’s been stabbed, they’ve got lincoln. hadn’t been willing to see it murphy’s way about her brother until — lincoln’s strung up in front of her, hands tied. she’d freed him from his people’s torture, only to be shoved into her brother’s. “ bellamy, what are you doing? ” she moves forward into the space, shock keeping her steps slow. “octavia, get out of here”, is his only response.

“ i told you he was protecting me, you didn’t have to do this... ” bruises have healed to light shades of green and yellow, some disappeared entirely but her brother’s gaze on her reflects the same rage and despair she’d seen when he’d finally saw her black and blue. but it wasn’t lincoln. wasn’t lincoln’s fault. “yeah and why’s that, o?” her eyes narrow up at her brother, knowing he wants her to admit to what she’s been doing behind his back all summer and now. “doesn’t matter, this isn’t about you, i’m doing this for all of us.”

eyes move to lincoln, head shaking at the blood that coated his face. “ you did that, for all of us? ” brow lifts at her brother. that’s when he begins listing all his reasons for his hatred of the rival gang. all the people who’ve gotten hurt since her brother and murphy began to build an empire. but that’s not on lincoln is all that radiates through her. not his fault. he wants information out of lincoln, closing in on him and it sends her back to the dark room at the warehouse where murphy was tortured. this isn’t them. she’s quick to react though, hands coming up to grip her brother’s wrist, trying to keep him back from lincoln, “ no bellamy, please! ”

“miller, miller get her outta here.” miller rounds on her then, stepping between the two siblings to push her body back and away from her brother’s torture. “ hey, get, get off of me! ” she pushed against miller, disgust shining back in her eyes as she looks to bellamy.

there’s a commotion outside, clarke running in to say the blade lincoln had stabbed finn with had been poisoned. her eyes go wide then, gaze turning to lincoln who stares back at her. “now do you believe me?” her brother shouts her way before demanding to know how to fix this from lincoln. they can handle some stab wounds. especially superficial ones but poison? they weren’t equipped for that. no. she still doesn’t believe bellamy because nothing would have happened to finn if her brother hadn’t sent him and miller into her apartment where lincoln had been since she’d traded nyko for him.

bellamy, the vials. emerald eyes narrow on the small container miller brings forward from lincoln’s belongings. inside were six small vials. some filled with herbs, others looked to be filled with a liquid. her gaze shifts to the poisoned knife clarke casts aside in favor for the vials momentarily but then she’s facing lincoln. one of the vials had to be the antidote and this would all come to an end if he just showed them. eyes and words pleading with him. “ show us which one, please. ” but lincoln doesn’t even answer her.

“i’ll get him to talk,” her brother draws his arm back, fingers rounding into a fist as octavia’s hands circle around his arm, “ bellamy, no! ” trying to yank him back. he moves his arm quickly, anger turned on her. “he wants finn to die! why can’t you see that?”

panic sets in because she doesn’t want finn to die but she’s sure clarke’s interest in protecting lincoln might just be skewed now. quickly, she’s steps back from the whole scene as bellamy creates a new weapon with a seat belt and winds up. she’s just about to reach for her brother but then there’s an awful smack – the seat belt colliding with lincoln’s skin. “ please, just tell them! ” this time her panicked words aren’t meant for anyone else in the room except for lincoln enduring their torture. all he has to do to make this stop is tell them where the antidote was.

again lincoln says nothing, holding strong as she imagined he’d been with his own people. already his body is littered with cuts and all her brother does is add more and cause some of the healed ones to rebleed. she can’t take it, can’t watch as her brother becomes this monster. eyes fall to the floor, hearing another smack of the belt. again and again until the seat belt comes clattering on the concrete ground with a sound of her brother’s frustration. she’s convinced it’s his own frustration with himself that drives him to send a knife through lincoln’s palm.

emerald hues snap to raven coming in, explaining that finn had stopped breathing but she’d helped him, for now. he’s dying. he’s dying and lincoln’s only enduring further pain. what more can they do besides seek real medical attention for finn — she’s ready to tell them that. tell them they’re wasting their time here when raven’s new idea of torture makes octavia’s stomach turn violently as the older girl sparks two live wires. “ no... ” they connect with his skin, octavia gritting her teeth together so hard they cause an ache in her jaw as lincoln yells.

she has to do something. can’t let this go any further or else they’ll kill lincoln! eyes find the poisoned blade and she’s quick to it, picking it up and shouting, “ NO MORE! ”

“octavia what are you...” she doesn’t wait for her brother to finish, digging the knife into flesh and slicing it up her arm. “ he won’t let me die. ” she says with confidence, eyeing the fear in lincoln’s eyes before she drops to her knees behind the spread out vials. “ which one? ” she asks, knife tapping at the different vials. “ this? ” she taps but lincoln doesn’t say anything, so she shakes her head, picking up another and lifting it up towards him. “ this one? ” she watches the wheels in his mind turn before his chin motions to the one by her knee. she drops the vial in her hand, grabbing the other, confirming with lincoln before shoving it at clarke. “ there! ” she says, wrapping a dirty rag against her arm tightly as she watched lincoln. her brother’s hands come to touch her shoulders but she pulls away from him harshly, “ don’t touch me! ”

it isn’t until octavia’s taking the antidote herself, away from the group of them that her brother comes near again. “who we are, and who we need to be to survive are two very different things, o.” he explains to her, as if that’s supposed to make what he’s done here seem right. but it doesn’t. doesn’t explain the person he’s become. murphy’s right. he’s lost his way. “ no, ” she says, head shaking, “ i don’t think that’s true about you anymore... ”

#this took way to long and it's still not even long enough or drawn out enough #but #i watched contents under pressure twice while writing this SO #here we go #also we can change clarke if she's not apart of this --- i wasn't sure with abby being a cop #imnobodysson #v. gangs of tondc || imnobodysson

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blah-de-blah-de-blah · 3 years

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Some thoughts now I’ve finished What Happens On Tour

A while ago I read some advice from an author about what to do if your characters go off on their own paths and start to move away from what you’ve planned for them. Her advice? “Well, you must shut them up.”

Yeah, I wish I knew how to do that.

I can’t remember where or when the inspiration for What Happens On Tour came from. There’s a lot in there, including my own thoughts of “hey, if I had some, or any, musical talent I could have been a rock star”, but it’s an idea that developed over time. Two definite inspirations on it were The Law Of Gravitation (a music AU Doctor Who fic that starts about Bill and Heather but then grows to include just about everyone) and Mix The Bourgeoisie And The Rebel (a Pitch Perfect Bechloe fic where they oscillate between together and not together a lot). Anyway, if you liked What Happens On Tour, then you might well like those too.

The basic idea of the story was simple - put them together in the band, then have them wanting to be together but not being able to because of how their previous relationships had messed up and this was their last chance - and in my head it was going to be roughly six or seven parts, around twenty thousand words or so. They’d meet, they’d pine, they’d hook up, they’d both think that the other thought it was a bad idea, they’d try to keep apart but end up hooking up again, repeat a bit and then they finally get together, announce it in public, everyone’s happy, fun little epilogue, the end.

Best laid plans, eh? Even the epilogue’s changed - I started writing the one I’d had in my head since beginning this, and it just didn’t feel right. As another example, in the rough version I had in my head, chapter one was going to end with Clarke and Lexa waking up together hungover on the couch, a point they eventually reached at the end of chapter six.

There’s always a gap between the story in your head and the story you end up writing, and more often than not it’s because the characters you create refuse to jump through the hoops you’re setting up. I ended up writing more about them because I wanted to know more and explore more of them, but the more I did that the more it took them away from the characters who would have been fine for the more light and breezy version of the story that I’d begun with the intention of writing. They were still following my plan, but much more slowly than I expected and building a much deeper connection. This meant that when they finally got together - in chapter twenty of my initial six or seven - the idea that they’d stay apart because of bad communication just didn’t feel right. I’d thought I could get back to something like the original plan, but any time I tried to write an end to the next chapter where they didn’t talk about it just didn’t feel right. They wouldn’t avoid it, and once they actually talked it over in chapter twenty-two, I realised they weren’t going to keep themselves apart and I didn’t want to write a story where I’d contrive some external forces that would somehow keep them apart.

Looking back over some of it and I think the key line for me in realising that the story wasn’t quite what I’d thought it would be was Clarke’s “when it feels so good you’ll wade through rivers of shit to feel like that” in the very first chapter. That line came out and I realised I knew her and what she’d gone through, and it was a lot more than I thought it would be. I could have deleted it, but something light and breezy in there instead, but it wouldn’t have felt honest. Some people might be able to get their characters to shut up. It seems I’m not one of them. This has become the longest thing I’ve ever written, though I have done stuff getting towards the same length, but it’s been the first thing I’ve written that’s completely driven by character and relationships like this. Other stuff has been in the mould of the old pulp writer’s adage: if you don’t know what to do next, have someone walk in the door with a gun. Because this story was about the characters, I tried to avoid that - and there are definitely no guns in this story - by not throwing random events at them. I.ve been learning along the way but I think I’ve generally kept things in some sort of continuity (the one thing that niggles at me is something Raven does in the first chapter that doesn’t quite fit with how she’s described later, which I doubt anyone else has even noticed) and actually developed the characters. There are things I’d do differently if I was writing it again (starting with the title, which would be Teach Me To Let Go Of My Fears) but I’m generally happy with the way it turned out.

That said, there’s been that interesting pressure of knowing people are waiting for the next chapter to keep me going. I’ve got a lot of stories on my hard drive that I’ve started and then “paused” on half way through to go back and fix things which have never been finished. With this, I just had to strap myself in and keep going to the finish, hoping I would work out. And it did!

The one thing I didn’t do which I partly regret, and people have asked about in the comments, is putting any Raven/Anya relationship stuff in there. I had thought about doing it when I started off but never could find the right time to put a focus on them, especially when I was sticking to my rule of only using Clarke and Lexa as the viewpoint characters. Like I said, first time doing a story like this and managing one relationship was tough enough. That said, I’m fully in agreement with the death of the author and I haven’t put anything in there that explicitly contradicts whatever ideas you might have about what they’re doing in the background. And they will definitely be a feature in at least one of the next stories I’m planning.

Octavia and Lincoln was easier because they were together when she came into the story and the increasingly rough plan I had of where this was going had their engagement and wedding as points in the story. Fun fact: in the extended series of hookups version, that conversation with Bellamy at the wedding would have been the key for Clarke realising she wanted more with Lexa. (Asks are open for any other questions you might have about alternatives, or anything else) Overall, I’ve really enjoyed writing this story and it’s been a real light for me in a pretty dark time for all of us. I’m still amazed that so many people have read it, liked it and wanted more of it, so thank you all for following me on this journey. There are definitely more stories to come from me, so watch this space. There might even be some one-shot follow-ups to this in the future - I’m not promising anything, but I have vague ideas floating around, and I might sometime get the inspiration to turn one of them into a full story.

For now, I’m going to split my attention between two projects (and, you know, the rest of my life). I’m going to go back to Running Back To You, which began as a Clexa Week one-shot, but I’ve now got ideas for taking it forward, even if I don’t quite know where it’s going. My idea there is to balance the quite heavy Clexa story there with a lighter one of Raven and Anya (and where they have their own story, not just a pair the spares). The other is much more action-oriented, as it’s the Highlander fusion plot that dropped into my head. I’ve got a plot for it that’s not just rehashing the film, but I need to work some more on the outline before I start to post it, because I need to get the pacing right before the whole thing turns into a mess.

But all that is for the future, and I hope some of you stick around to read them if and when they appear. Until then, thank you all for reading and everything else that kept me going and for the past six months of writing, it’s been a fantastic experience for me, and I hope you enjoyed the ride.

#what happens on tour #writing #just a few thoughts

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weepingvoidpenguin · 4 years

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I’m Yours

Bellamy Blake x Reader

Summary: Bellamy Blake is an asshole. Of course, you’d always know that. But still, you save his life and he can’t bring himself to speak to you as though you were just anyone anymore. He slowly begins to notice things about you that he hadn’t cared to observe in anyone else and, in good ol’ Bellamy fashion, he doesn’t know what to make of his newfound fondness.

Warning: Mentions of suicide and rape, the scene where Murphy and Bellamy hang are mentioned as well. If any of this upsets you please don’t read it. Also, some unavoidable potty mouth.

Word Count: 20k (I AM SO SORRY, THIS WAS LITERALLY ME TRYING TO KEEP IT SHORT)

It had been all work and no play since landing on the ground. It became quickly apparent that Bellamy would try to take the reign for the 100 of you but Clarke had decided she didn’t quite agree with his methods. And to be blunt, you didn’t either. You’d tried on multiple occasions to reason with the others around you when she publicly went against Bellamy’s orders and for that she’d grown fond of you for your courage to stand up against him. Not that you’d thought you had any courage; you were just speaking your truth and Clarke was the closest to displaying it.

She’d brought you along with her when she went out searching for Jasper as you had been close to him prior to arriving on Earth and basically insisted they dragged you along. You’d quickly made acquaintance with Wells and your distaste for Bellamy and Murphy ignited when they tried to coerce Clarke into removing her wristband on the rescue mission. You didn’t particularly care whether she’d kept hers or not, you’d taken yours off just because it kept getting in your way, but you didn’t appreciate the ultimatum they’d given her.

Enter Finn and his perfect timing. You’d enjoyed his company. It was a nice change from the Alpha behavior Bellamy and Murphy exhibited. He cared and listened and your fondness took root in his kindness. How he’d brought Jasper down from being used as bait and calmed you down after you’d saved Bellamy’s life from the panther. You’d never shot a gun up until that point and despite knowing it was bound to happen, it still frightened you enough to carelessly drop the weapon.

After Finn had composed you enough to convince you to move again, it had been Bellamy that walked by your side on the way back. He let the rest of the group run ahead and fell back to keep you company. He’d glanced down at your trembling hands and took note of your spaced out look. You were stuck in your head. He could relate to that. Especially considering the first time he’d used a gun it’d been to assassinate the Chancellor.

“Hey,” he mumbled, his voice soft and laced with concern, “you saved my life back there.” He instinctively raised his hand to place on your shoulder, remembering how he’d comfort Octavia when she was distressed but he knew about the glares you sent his way when he demanded chaos and violence and decided against it. “I’d have been panther dinner if you hadn’t –” his brain racked around looking for a word other than shot to ease you, “done what you had to do. And now, we have enough food to feed the camp,”

You’d barely taken notice of his presence, only barely listening to his attempt at comforting you. It wasn’t that you were scared per say, just that you knew this wasn’t going to be the last time you’d have to kill something, or rather, someone, and that reality had finally caught up to you.

“Thank you,” Bellamy whispered, effectively pulling you away from your thoughts.

“What?” You asked almost in disbelief that he’d managed to say anything remotely kind.

A small chuckle escaped his lips and you furrowed your eyebrows at the unwelcome feeling that stirred in your stomach, “You gonna make me say it again?” He teased.

You turned your attention back to the crunching leaves underneath your steps and shrugged your shoulders, “You’re welcome,”

“Even though you did steal the gun from me,”

“Ah, there he is,” you’d unintentionally spoken aloud, not that it mattered to you. “I was beginning to worry that you weren’t actually the jerk you’ve been playing,”

His smirk faltered at your words but he shook the words from his head and regained the superior role he was always playing around others. He opened his mouth to reply in what you were sure was a condescending way so you held up your hand to silence him.

“Leave me alone,” you warned, dropping your hand back to your side, “I have Jasper to worry about now and I’m really not up for dealing with your behavior,”

You trudged faster and caught up to the front where Jasper was being dragged to camp. You’d stayed by his side almost the entire time he was recovering and ended up pulling your knife out when Murphy threatened Jasper with death. As if Jasper had chosen to be in so much pain that he couldn’t help but vocalize it.

You’d grown impatient with Clarke and her lack of knowledge but you couldn’t hold it against her. It’s not like you knew much about the problem either. But you had been observant enough to recall that there was a substance on Jasper’s wound, potentially meant to help him. Clarke agreed, recalling seeing the same substance and when she asked you to join them in retrieving said substance, you could hardly say no. You wanted to stay with Jasper and protect him but there was no way they were going to leave without you.

Somehow, you’d managed to get separated from the group. The four of you had run into Grounders and you, stupidly, ran in a different direction from the group hoping that it would be enough to distract them. You knew they needed to get the seaweed to help Jasper and you weren’t going to let anything get in the way of that.

They’d managed to follow you through the trees, their spears always just barely missing you and you fought against the natural instinct to freeze whenever the wooden sticks flew too close to your body. You couldn’t risk them interrupting what Finn, Wells and Clarke had set out to do. If you came back to the camp only to witness Jasper die, you’d never forgive yourself and seeing Monty’s face everyday would only remind you of the mutual best friend you would no longer have to confide in.

When your legs burned with exhaustion and your lungs stung whenever you inhaled, you thought it had been the end. The spears could only miss so many times and you shouted in pain when the sharp object sliced through your side and another grazed your thigh. Your sprint had slowed to a pathetic limp and your hands clung to your bleeding side, the pain not helping with your erratic breathing.

Just when you thought everything was over, the sound of a horn blowing caused the trees to stop moving and the Grounders dispersed, heading in the opposite direction. For a second you feared the horn had something to do with Clarke and the others but when a yellowish fog slithered through the forest coming towards you, you knew the bellowing was a warning of the mist that you assumed had been the cause of the burning sensation in your throat. Not that you could differentiate from the two previous pains but you weren’t going to let the fog encase you to find out.

Your weak legs could barely keep ahead of the fog but you nearly yelped with relief when the opening of a cave came into view and you threw yourself into its mouth, not concerning yourself with the wild animals that may be residing there.

The fog grazed against the entrance of the cave and when it brushed up against your boot you knew you weren’t deep enough in shelter. You lifted yourself onto your elbows and crawled backwards into the darkness, ensuring the fog didn’t follow you. Your elbows scraped against the rock and you flinched whenever a pebble dug into your body.

Your hand flew to the blade at your side and gripped it in the direction a shuffling noise came from. You squirmed over to a large boulder on the side, hoping its shadow provided a bit of protection so you didn’t have to confront whatever was coming towards you.

Your grip on your makeshift blade tightened, the sweat working against you and you feared the liquid would cause the weapon to slip from your grasp. You took a deep breath and hoped your heartbeat was just that loud for you and not audible to the predator heading in your direction.

“B-Blake?” You croaked, taking in the figure approaching the mouth of the cave.

He faced you, his weapon slowly dropping at his side and his eyes widened. “(Y/N)?”

He sheathed his blade as you did the same and he sat on the heels of his feet to meet your level, “What happened? Weren’t you with Clarke?”

You nodded and accepted his hand, standing up to gaze at him, “Grounders,”

“Grounders?” He asked, like he was unaware of their existence.

You just nodded and limped in the direction he came from, “They spotted us but I had to make sure Clarke and the others got what they needed for Jasper,”

“So . . . ?” Bellamy urged, waiting to see where the story ended.

“So, I caused the necessary distraction. They chased me down until they heard the horn blow then they just . . . left,”

“And the fog came,” Bellamy finished.

You nodded and stopped in your place at the sight of a girl – a child – resting on a rock and waiting in anticipation. You’d seen her around camp but never caught her name. You turned towards Bellamy and raised an eyebrow in confusion. Why would he allow a child to join a hunting party? As stubborn and dumb that Bellamy could be, you didn’t take him for the type to let a child experience all of this.

“I-I’m Charlotte,” she spoke up before Bellamy had the chance to explain.

You faced her again, a soft smile plastered on and you limped over to her side, the adrenaline in your system now depleting and making way for you to actually feel the pain of the gashes on your body.

“(Y/N)!” Bellamy stepped alongside you and stretched his arms out to offer help but you dismissed him, waving off his attempted altruism. That didn’t stop him from eyeing the blood seeping through your clothes.

“I’m (Y/N),” you responded, trying not to hiss at the stinging when you tried to sit down.

Bellamy was right there to alleviate your weight and make descending easier. You couldn’t ignore the way his strong arms gripped you and how the warmth emanating from his body caused you some comfort. You shook your head. No way. You weren’t going to let your thoughts wander to the tyrannical leader that was Bellamy Blake.

“How’d you get stuck with him?” You asked Charlotte, adding a teasing tone to your words.

The creases between her eyes softened and she seemed to accept your joke with the slight curving of her lips, “I followed him,”

“Why on earth would you do that?” You quirked up an eyebrow and Bellamy shook his head as if annoyed.

“I-I wanted to hunt. To be strong,” she admitted and you took notice of how she flinched at her own words.

Your eyes scanned over her quickly to make sure she wasn’t injured and nodded before shifting your position, not being able to withhold the gasp of pain that seeped past your teeth. Bellamy sat in front of you and looked at Charlotte.

“I’m gonna need you to be brave right now and help me out, okay?” he softly spoke.

Charlotte nodded and how she trusted in Bellamy brought up that same uninvited feeling that you had the last time you spoke to him. You shoved down the – what was it? Butterflies? You nearly shuddered from the thought. No butterflies. Not for Bellamy. Absolutely not.

“Absolutely not’ what?” Bellamy questioned.

“Hm?” You retorted innocently and shook your head, “Oh, nothing,”

He gave you a side glance before returning to Charlotte and you let out a deep breath in relief. God, you were an idiot.

“I’m gonna need you to distract (Y/N) over here while I bandage her up,” he instructed and Charlotte agreed to her role.

Charlotte faced you as Bellamy sauntered over to his bag up against a wall and stuck his hand in its opening, scouring around for the little cloth he had.

“So, what did you do to get put in the Sky Box?” Charlotte asked and you almost laughed and her childlike ignorance.

Bellamy glanced at you from what he was doing for a second before getting back to it and you gripped your throbbing thigh as everything was beginning to register.

You sighed, “Well, if you must know, I got caught stealing medicine,”

“Why?” She sat up straighter and appeared genuinely interested.

You shook your head at the memory, a sadness pulling at you from the depths of your chest, “Someone I cared about needed help,”

“So you stole for them?”

“Yeah.” You sighed again, “But it was too late. By the time I came back to the room, she was gone,”

Charlotte’s gaze fell and you mimicked the action, fighting the creeping feeling trying to take over.

“Keep going,” Bellamy told Charlotte when he met your side and instructed you to lift your shirt.

“Like hell, Blake,” you scoffed but winced at the pain from the action.

“Exactly,” he said and moved your hands away before beginning to wrap the elastic cloth around the gash.

“So do you like being on the ground?” She asked when she saw you wince again.

“Of course. Don’t you?” Anything to distract from the pain.

She nodded, “It’s . . .”

“Free,” you finished and she weakly smiled. “There’s a field near the camp that a friend showed me. It’s full of these beautiful butterflies that glow in the dark, I’ll show you when we get back to camp, yeah?”

Her eyes lit up at the idea and she nearly clapped her hands in excitement. Bellamy tightened the knot around your wound and your hand shot out to stop the cause of the pain that arose from the action. Your fingers gripped the back of Bellamy’s hand and your thumb caressed his unknowingly. He looked up from your hold and you met his gaze for a split second before retracing your hand.

“Ease up, will ya?” You teased, trying to suppress those damned winged animals in your stomach that threatened to cause a heat to rise up in your cheeks.

“S-Sorry,” he muttered, quickly moving on to the next wound before stopping mid-action, “These come off,” he instructed, pointing at your pants.

You nearly choked on his words, “W-what? No way, Blake. You’re working over those,”

“What’s your favorite color?” Charlotte asked desperately trying to regain your attention.

“(Y/F/C),”

“Favorite animal?”

“(Y/F/A),”

She seemed to have run out of questions that were actually going to distract you when Bellamy spoke up, “Do you miss the Ark?”

You shook your head immediately, knowing that you’d rather take your chances out here than go back up there. “No,”

“Why?” Charlotte spoke up.

“I just wouldn’t want to go back. Yeah, it’s hard down here but it’s beautiful. The smell of the rain, the trees, the rivers. All of it.” You motioned around you as if it were a perfect example, “Besides, there’s no one waiting for me up there,” you whispered under your breath.

Later on in the night after Bellamy had calmed Charlotte from her nightmare and her light snores were audible again, Bellamy went to check on your bandages.

“I’m no Clarke but I think I did damn well,” he joked while making sure you weren’t still bleeding.

You chuckled lightly and nodded, “You’ll be giving Griffin a run for her money soon enough,”

He scoffed with that signature smirk plastered on and he leaned up against the wall across from you, his eyes merely scanning over you again and again. He could feel the words dancing on the tip of his tongue but he wasn’t sure whether or not it was an appropriate question to ask. You hadn’t further elaborated on your arrest and there was probably a good reason for that but he couldn’t help himself, his curiosity won out.

“When you told Charlotte earlier that you’d stolen medicine, you never mentioned who it was for,” Bellamy pointed out.

You tore your gaze from his and focused on your fiddling thumbs, trying to find something – anything else to zone out on.

He could tell you were internally squirming away from the question and he stuttered over his apology before you cut him off.

“My mother,” you stated. “She . . . she was pregnant. Again,”

Bellamy raised his eyebrows at your revelation and he clung on to your words.

“You of all people should know how that would’ve worked out,” you said, entranced by the bit of torn skin around your nail, “She got help from Abby and they handled the situation without, you know, catching any attention because she would’ve gotten in trouble regardless.” You squirmed in your position but finally managed to bring your eyes back up to meet Bellamy’s gaze, “She couldn’t live with what they did. She was put on anti-depressants but there were days where I couldn’t let her out of my sight. She wasn’t depressed. Or at least, her guilt was the root of her depression. No medication would just make her guilt go away on its own,”

Bellamy shifted his position, his arm resting on his raised knee and he leaned in, observing how you shivered from the cold.

“One day, it was bad. Really bad. And she was out of medication so I figured that was the issue. I was a lot younger back then. I stole some medicine for her but when I came back to the room I . . .” your words trailed off as the images surfaced again and you physically moved away from the sight before you. The knot forming in your throat caused your words to come out choked and you cursed yourself for letting the building tear cascade down your face, “I found her hanging in the room. I was caught because I called someone to help her but it was too late.” You brought your sleeve up to your cheek and wiped away the salty tear.

Bellamy was left in silence. For once, he’d been rendered speechless and the regret that overcame him for his selfish curiosities made its presence apparent.

“I’m sor-”

“It’s fine.” You turned away from him and rested on your side, closing your eyes and forcing out the last few tears that had built up.

A few hours later you awoke to find Bellamy’s jacket wrapped around you, keeping you warm from the harsh cold of the night. You ripped the coat off of you and moved to give it back to him when you noticed his shivering form. You cocked your head to the side a bit at the sight.

If he was cold, why give you the jacket?

The gnawing feeling took control of your better judgement and you scooted over to his sleeping body, wrapping the jacket around his shoulders and laying down close enough to have some yourself. Not that you’d need it very much at that point, Bellamy’s body heat alone had been enough to keep you comfortable throughout the night. Which would probably explain why you were practically plastered to him by the time you woke up the next morning.

Two days later you were screaming at Bellamy, pleading with him not to kick the box out from under Murphy’s feet. The sight alone had triggered everything you’d suppressed over the years and despite agreeing that Murphy deserved punishment, this certainly was not it.

Your brain refused to see Murphy’s body; instead, choosing to opt for the image you’d witnessed all those years ago. The contrast of the scene was significant but that didn’t stop you from seeing the bright LED lights above you, illuminating your mother’s dangling body right next to your bed in the plain white room.

You were switching in and out from your memory to your present. LED lights were replaced with torches, Murphy was replaced with your mother, everyone kept coming in and out, Clarke’s screaming personified the panic and terror you were currently drowning in.

“Bellamy, please!” You plead, unaware of the waterfall’s worth of tears on your face. “Don’t do this!”

He ignored your line of vision. He kept his gaze down, his focus on the box under Murphy. But when the crowd began chanting for Murphy’s ‘just’ punishment, he couldn’t ignore his people’s desires. With one quick, hard kick he displaced the box and you screamed in horror at the scene.

Thank the Gods for Finn. Clarke had her arm wrapped around you, her hand patting your hair in an attempt for comfort but all you could focus on was Bellamy’s guilt-ridden expression.

Just days earlier, you’d spared Bellamy the weight of taking Atom out of his misery. That was your cross to bear now and you’d hated that you’d do it again for the monster that stood before you. The Bellamy from just those few hours ago was not the same person standing next to Murphy. The Bellamy from before would never be able to deal with that death on his hands. The Bellamy from before watched as you wept for your mother and the Bellamy before you resurfaced those same painful memories that you’d been stupid enough to share.

You’d been in the tent with Charlotte after her confession and traded glances between the three of them – Finn, Clarke and Charlotte – once you’d managed to get yourself under control. Your jaw tightened when Bellamy addressed you directly but you kept your attention in the opposite direction, not wanting to face him and bring out the anger boiling under the surface.

Later on in the forest once you’d run away from the mob, you’d ran into Bellamy who offered his help. You begrudgingly accepted, knowing that Charlotte should get all the help she could get.

You sauntered around in tense silence, avoiding Murphy’s makeshift mob and kept your eyes peeled for the small blonde. Darkness surrounded you once Murphy passed with all the torches and you were once again ignoring Bellamy as he quietly tried to speak to you.

“Shut up!” You spat at the man behind you.

“(Y/N), please. I’m so sorry, you have to believe me,” he plead.

“I don’t have to believe anything,” you retorted, ignoring how close he was to you.

“I didn’t do it to hurt you or scare you. They made me do it and I had to give them what they wanted or they would’ve killed him themselves,”

“So, you get to kill Murphy for your people but I have to spare Atom for you?” You hissed back, annoyed at his cowardice, “They listen to you! If you and Clarke had been on the same page the riot would’ve stopped instantly! I don’t care what excuses you have, you’re a coward, Blake,”

Bellamy flinched at the mention of Atom but you didn’t regret it. You’d shared the most personal aspect of your life with this man and then days later he managed to do the one thing he knew you couldn’t bear to experience again.

You walked in silence until you’d caught up with Clarke and Finn at the edge of a cliff where you joined them in defending Charlotte. You stood in front of the group, your hand outstretched to keep the trembling child behind you and out of harm’s way. Or so, you thought.

Clarke had managed to get into Murphy’s grasp, his knife digging into the soft flesh of her neck.

“No!” Charlotte cried from behind you, catching your attention. “Please don’t hurt her!”

You spat at Murphy, a hatred you’d never felt brewing inside you for the idiotic man. “She’s a fucking child!”

“No one else is getting hurt for me,” Charlotte mumbled behind you and you twisted to face her again, only to realize she’d taken a few steps backwards towards the edge. “I’m sorry,”

“Charlotte!” You screamed, falling to your knees and hurling over the cliff in an attempt to catch her. Your fingers grazed her flailing her and your desperation caused you to lean too far over the edge, the majority of your weight toppling you over and losing your place on the ground.

“(Y/N)!” You heard your name being called.

You hadn’t understood what was happening until after someone caught you midair, their tight grasp wrapped around your calves. Your heart stopped as the never-ending world expanded below you. You weren’t even able to see Charlotte hit the bottom and you weren’t sure if that was better or worse. On one hand, if you hadn’t seen it then it didn’t really happen. On the other, if you had seen it, you would never be able to unsee it and it would be just another page added to your existing trauma.

You heard yelling erupt from behind you where the others were helping pull you back up over the edge. Your eyes stayed glued to the nonexistent ground below you. Would it really have been so bad to see the bottom? You couldn’t help but wonder.

You winced at the bruises that would surely form under their grasps, acknowledging the pain growing. Acknowledging your continued existence. And also acknowledging the quick second that you wished it had ceased.

You were thrown into strong arms that held you with such ferocity towards his chest. You shivered in Blake’s grasp, letting his comforting coos and petting hand soothe you. You gripped onto his upper arm, your head resting against his chest and your lap in his as he gripped you tightly, double and triple checking that you were truly there with him and he hadn’t lost you to the cliff.

It took you a bit of time to be able to talk to Bellamy again. You still held him accountable for his actions against Murphy and you just needed the time to sort everything out after that eventful evening.

Jasper had been there for you, as usual. But you didn’t understand why he grew tired of the conversation whenever Bellamy’s name was brought up. Blake had been the source of a lot of your pain and there was no denying his pertinence in the group but Jasper’s impatience grew every time the name was brought up.

You concluded that it had been because the topic was more of a ‘girl talk’ kind of topic and luckily, yet not so much, you’d become closer to Octavia and Raven. Raven seemed like she’d dismissed your emotions, especially considering everything going on with her and Finn but Octavia was Bellamy’s sister so of course you couldn’t talk to her.

That was, until you hadn’t spoken to anyone in nearly two days. You’d done your tasks in complete silence, not once complaining about the lack of food and barely acknowledging when you were relieved of your duty with Raven.

“Okay, what’s up?” Octavia confronted you, her arms crossed before her, “What’s going on in that head of yours?”

You side-stepped her and headed towards your tent, “I can’t tell you,” you mumbled.

Octavia reached out and grasped your arm, “(Y/N), you know you can tell me anything, right?”

You eyed her quickly before motioning towards your tent with your head. She followed quietly and you opened the tent for the both of you to enter.

After she took a seat she looked up at you, “Okay, spill,” she demanded.

You sighed, suddenly aware of how alert you were. The hairs on the back of your neck stood up and goosebumps erupted all over your skin. You fought the urge to keep your pain to yourself and told her everything that’s been brewing in your mind for days now. How you shared the darkest part of yourself with her brother only for him to recreate the scene that had you so disturbed all these years later. How his excuses bothered you to your core and how you hated that he was a leader his people wanted rather than needed. How his words had struck a chord with you that you weren’t sure you could forgive. How you toppled over the side of the cliff just to be saved by her brother. How vulnerable you felt in his hold. How confused you were because of the constant shifts between kind to cold and back again. It was all too much for you.

After nearly an hour of crying and wiping tears and choking on your words, Octavia hugged you.

She slowly pulled away from you and attempted to tuck some hair behind your ear, “You know why it bothers you so much, don’t you?”

“Because I was dumb enough to trust him,” you retorted.

A sad smile rose on her lips and she grasped your hands in her own, “(Y/N), you have feelings for-”

“(Y/N)!” Raven called from the other side of your tent and you pulled away from Octavia to open your tent. Raven looked from you to Octavia and back again once registering your red eyes, “Am I interrupting something?”

Octavia stood up and rested her hand on your back, “No, we were just wrapping up,” she said and you threw her a glance that let her know you were thankful for listening.

“Are you sure?” Raven asked, her concern for you genuine but you only nodded in response.

Turns out, she needed some quick help with the radio to the station and you helped to the best of your ability.

“You know you can talk to me too,” Raven spoke up after a while.

You shrugged your shoulders, never prying your gaze off of the machine in front of you, “You have a lot going on,”

“That doesn’t mean I can’t listen to whatever’s bothering you,” she responded, twisting around the screwdriver in her hand. “You’ve been really off these past few days and everyone’s taken notice. They told me what happened with the little girl. How you almost died trying to save her. I know it’s probably a lot and my problems with Finn can be ignored for a few minutes to listen to you or cry with you,”

You nodded, a numbness from earlier returning. “Thanks, Raven, but it’s a little bit more than that. I’ll tell you when I’m ready, okay?”

She hesitated but nodded all the same and you returned to your tent to find Octavia missing. You spun around, fully expecting to see the brunette hanging around your tent, waiting for your return. Minutes passed and you still hadn’t caught sight of her. You tried to suppress the unsettling twisting feeling creeping up from your stomach, knowing Octavia had a tendency to sneak off and do her own thing.

It’d only been when you saw worry etch across Bellamy’s face that you cursed yourself for ignoring your gut feeling.

You joined the search party, not because Bellamy had asked you to but because if O was in trouble, there would be hell to pay for whoever had her. But when you finally came across her, you’d managed to observe the way the Grounder looked at her. A crease between his brow when he registered the injuries on her body, how his eyes scanned over her with concern. Those were not typical signs of an abductor. At least, not a sane one. But then again, who said anything about him being sane?

You got to O before Bellamy did and you helped her stand, shielding her body with yours just in case the Grounder decided to attack. And he did. Finn shoved you out of the way and managed to get himself stabbed in the process.

You picked up Finn by his ankles with the help of O while Bellamy grabbed his torso and brought him back to the camp. You stayed by Raven’s and Clarke’s side when they performed the surgery after Raven had proven her uselessness. She was too shocked, too close to Finn to snap back from her grief fast enough to assist Clarke.

You’d never assisted in any kind of procedure before but somehow seeing Clarke pull the blade out of Finn’s side had caused your stomach to turn exponentially more than when you’d pulled your own knife out of Atom’s neck. Maybe because Atom was supposed to die, Finn wasn’t.

Raven had just finished setting up the radio to the Ark and Abby was helping Clarke through the procedure and you cringed at her voice. It’d been years since you heard her soft tone ring in your ears. She was a good person. She’d tried to get you off the hook about the medication but the Ark’s surveillance had been enough to get you locked up.

The racketeering of the drop ship caused Clarke to take out the blade too quick for comfort but you didn’t nick the artery that Abby had warned you about and that was success enough for you. You’d let Clarke take a break and offered to stitch Finn up, already aware of the sloppy work she’d done on Jasper and you didn’t want the same butchered scar for Finn.

You’d been so caught up in the procedure on Finn, you hadn’t noticed the group building in the upper level of the ship. Octavia was shoved down the ladder and you caught her as she stumbled down just as Clarke and Raven stood up in panic. Something was wrong with Finn. He was foaming at the mouth and seizing. These didn’t seem like the normal symptoms of a stab wound.

You sauntered over to the weapon, grabbing the blade off the counter and held it up to the light, deciding against smelling it as it would only reek of blood.

“It’s been poisoned,” Clarke muttered and you stormed behind her as she made her way up the ladder, pounding on the latch to catch their attention.

Miller opened the door and Clarke didn’t wait for his permission to enter. She swung it open the rest of the way and you followed her only to be stopped in your tracks at the sight before you. So this was what they were trying to protect Octavia from. The ungodly sight before you caused your hand to fly up to your mouth when your body heaved and the little contents in your stomach tried to make their way back up.

Clarke snatched the blade from you, her anger and desperation overcoming her better judgement and you hissed as the weapon sliced through your open palm. Clarke whizzed around, her eyes landing on the fresh wound created from her recklessness.

You looked up at her, a panic that you’d slowly begin to make peace with building. She met your gaze, her mouth open and bottom lip quivered.

“(Y/N) . . .” She took a step towards you but you instinctively took one back despite knowing you had no reason to. “I’m so sorry,”

“What?” Bellamy asked, not understanding the act she just committed. When he was met with silence, he repeated himself only louder, “What?”

Your mouth twitched at the gash but you shook your head and grabbed, what you’d hoped, was a clean rag to tie your hand with. “It doesn’t matter,” you spoke to Clarke, “just get what we came here for,”

She nodded once, not needing anymore convincing before turning to face the Grounder and holding the knife up to his face in display, “Where’s the antidote?” She interrogated.

“Antidote?” Miller spoke up from behind you, delicately grasping your hand to assist in tying off the knot.

“The blade’s poisoned,” you whispered, suddenly aware of Miller and Bellamy’s gaze drilling into the wound on your hand.

That night had been long. Raven was lucky enough to bring Finn back from the brink of death and you ended up hurling when Bellamy drove the screw into the Grounder’s palm. In his defense, he’d given you all the option to leave. Your disgust with him grew after that. You knew Finn needed the antidote as soon as possible and now, depending on how lethal the poison was in doses, you did too. But torturing him was not going to give you the answers everyone desired so you didn’t hold back from yelling at everyone. You didn’t get to finish your rant as the poison made its way through your bloodstream and your vision went hazy, a pain emitting slowly from your center. You held out your hands around you, looking for something to grip onto before collapsing on the floor.

It’d been Bellamy who caught you. You hadn’t found out until after you woke up, the antidote already making its way through your system. You’d been in and out all day. Your company switched from O to Jasper and Monty and if you hadn’t been imagining it, Bellamy himself.

You were aware of his presence when he sat beside you, it was his words that you couldn’t quite make out in the haze of it all. He’d whispered words too quietly to be heard and you almost didn’t want to hear them. Your stance on Bellamy was on the fence and if he spoke confessed anything even remotely kind or humorous you knew you’d be back on his side. Convincing yourself he was just human and he had everyone’s best interest at heart.

You woke up and managed to stay up the next day, the pain of hunger pulling you from your sleep.

“There she is,” Octavia cheered but her tone was laced with hurt.

You opened your eyes as best you could, bringing your hand up over your eyes to cover the blinding light. You didn’t say anything, only sitting up slowly from the uncomfortable floor of the drop ship and shook your head slowly, giving your body time to adjust to everything.

You finally looked back up to Octavia and she furrowed her brows at you, holding out a hand and placing it on your back when she realized your attempt to stand up. “Take it easy,” she warned but you waved her off, stumbling under your weight.

She gave you a look, “I told you. The poison weakens your muscles. It took Finn an hour before he could stand without falling over,”

That would explain your body’s drowsiness. “How is he? Finn?”

O let you lean against her as she led you towards the exit of the dropship. “He’s fine now. Just relaxing.” She shrugged her shoulders.

“Raven? Clarke?” You stopped yourself before you uttered her brother’s name.

She caught the slip, giving you another second before deciding you weren’t going to ask about him, “Clarke and Bellamy are out getting supplies that Jaha said would be around here. Raven’s not doing too well,”

“What happened to Raven?” You asked, your concern for your friend winning out over your curiosity for the potentially life-saving supplies.

“She broke up with Finn. He’d been mumbling Clarke’s name in his sleep after getting the antidote and it – it broke her. She knows she’s not what he wants,”

Your heart dropped for your friend. You hadn’t known Raven long but her strength inspired you and knowing how torn she was going to be over someone she was so in love with – you shuddered at the thought. That was why you could never fall in love. The heartbreak of unrequited love would break you harder than you could imagine.

You were pulled from your thoughts when a manic Jasper crashed into the both of you, “Grounders!” He shouted, his eyes crazed as he pointed to an empty spot on the field, “They’re here!”

You looked up at Octavia, an eyebrow raised at his statement but she was too busy looking over the rest of the camp and you followed her gaze to a zombie-like pack of kids trudging through the dirt with the same crazed expression Jasper had.

“What’s going on?” You muttered to her.

She snatched a bag of nuts from Jasper’s hold and twisted a nut in between her fingers, “I think everyone’s high,”

You returned your gaze to the crowd and nodded. Yeah. Everyone’s definitely high. Some, like Jasper, were on a bad trip while others had far off looks plastered on their faces.

“(Y/N),” Octavia called, pulling your attention back, “I need a favor,”

You didn’t hesitate to agree but you waited at the entrance of the dropship, making sure no prying eyes were curious about what was going on. You jumped at the sound of Octavia landing on the ground and you hesitated for a second before wrapping the Grounders hand up to stop the bleeding and threw an arm around your shoulder. You ignored the eyebrow raised in your direction and trudged to a hidden opening that O had come upon a few days prior. Once he was out of sight, you sighed in relief.

As much as you hated to admit it, O had been right about your body being weak. Helping her escort the Grounder – Lincoln, you’d come to learn – had taken it out of you and you went back to the dropship to relax on the makeshift bed they’d made for you.

When you finally laid down on the sheets, an uproar sprouted from outside but your exhaustion won out and you stayed put, straining your ears to hear the commotion. Bellamy had returned. And Clarke too, of course.

Your curiosity for the commotion going on outside almost convinced you to get up again but you couldn’t even if you wanted to.

“She’s awake,” You heard Octavia mumble from outside and you looked up at the curtained entrance just as Bellamy broke through.

The sight before you caused your breath to catch in your throat. He looked tired. No, not tired. Exhausted. Whatever happened out there had taken it out of him but you weren’t surprised to be met with a fatigued smile from him as he plopped down beside you.

There was a silence that passed between you, a comforting stillness that brought about your own fatigue. Bellamy looked up at you from behind the slight curls in his hair and you restrained yourself from brushing the strands out of his face.

“About time, Sleeping Beauty. I thought we’d lost you there for a second.” Bellamy chuckled, noticing how your fingers inched closer to the hand he’d placed beside you on the ‘bed’.

“It’s gonna take a lot more than a poisoned blade to kill me,” you muttered back, your eyes closing from the intensity of the lights in the dropship.

“I don’t know about that, seems like you’ve had a death wish since getting her,” he joked but the smile never rose to your lips.

“Yeah, I guess so, huh?” You nodded, thinking back on how you’d almost died nearly everyday since landing on the ground but was pulled from your thoughts when you felt fingers brushing lightly against your own. You looked down to see Bellamy’s fingertips barely sprawled over your own. You closed your fingers around the ones Bellamy had rested on your hand and followed the evident veins up his arms, guiltily admiring his physique until your eyes met his expecting ones. “And it’s always you that catches me,”

Bellamy had offered you company in the cave, had pulled you back up from the edge of the cliff and last night, had caught you before you collapsed onto the ground.

This time, you did brush away the strands blocking his eyes but you didn’t allow yourself to linger there, already trying to ignore how your body seemed to liven where you two were touching.

You pulled both your hands back and wrapped them around your legs, trying to rest enough to regain some strength in your muscles. Bellamy shifted in his seat and handed you a gun and you’d been surprised you hadn’t seen him holding it before. It was too big to hide and easily spotted. You’d have to work on your observational skills.

“Take this,” he said, handing you the weapon.

You grabbed the gun and looked at Bellamy confused. Were you supposed to know how to work this thing? He chuckled at your expression and gave you a quick crash course on the gun’s anatomy and its uses.

“Always act as though it were loaded,” Bellamy instructed and you rolled your eyes.

“I know that,” you retorted.

He shrugged his shoulders and observed how you handled the weapon, “It’s never a bad thing to remind someone. I figured you deserved one, you come out on rescue missions and hunts enough to need it,”

You nodded and weakly smiled at him, “Thank you,”

“No problem.” He twisted around, grabbing something out of his back pocket, “I also grabbed this for you,”

He handed you a torn cloth and you raised an eyebrow in confusion, “Am I supposed to know what this-”

“It was Charlotte’s,” He quickly spoke up and the silence returned before you ripped the dirty cloth in half and tied the other half on the handle of the gun, making sure it wouldn’t be getting in the way.

You tied the other part onto your own gun in a different spot as to differentiate between the two and ignored the light squeeze on your thigh, a reassuring touch. A thank you.

Fortunately, or rather not so, the next day was Unity Day and the Chancellor insisted on its celebration on the ground so you didn’t see Bellamy or anyone else for the rest of the day as they all went hunting and gathered supplies for the party tomorrow.

It wasn’t until Finn popped into the dropship that you finally convinced yourself to stand up with his help. You didn’t let him speak, simply holding him in your arms and squeezing him close to you.

“We thought you were a goner,” Finn chuckled and you pulled back to look him in the eyes.

“I was the goner? I don’t think so, bud.” You joked and pulled away completely, bending over to strap the gun Bellamy had given you over your shoulder.

“You need any help?” He offered.

You lightly shrugged a shoulder but nodded. You didn’t need the help but you weren’t going to turn it down just in case. Finn placed a hand on your waist and you let yourself lean on him ever so slightly, allowing him to pick up some of your weight as you tumbled out of the dropship.

“How are the preparations going?” You asked him, letting your eyes roam over the field of scurrying people.

“They’re going. I’m set to go out hunting with Clarke later,”

You bit the inside of your cheek in an attempt to fight off your curiosity but the silence that passed between you was abnormal and tense. Like he knew what was coming. “So . . . you and Raven . . .”

He sighed, tightening his grip on your waist in response. The question made him tense, his discomfort visible enough for you to regret asking but he answered all the same, “Yeah, she – uh – she broke up with me,”

You elbowed him lightly as Clarke came into view and made her way over to Bellamy, “She loves you so she’s willing to let you go.” Your eyes remained glued to the man radiating a confidence that you’d be ashamed to admit was calling out to you, “Just try not to show how relieved you are too quickly, yeah?”

Finn cracked a smile and shook his head, “I’m not the one drooling over people,”

You quirked up an eyebrow and pulled your head away to stare at him in confusion, “What are you talking about?”

He chuckled loud enough to catch Bellamy’s attention and when your gaze met, you smiled at him.

“That’s what I mean,” Finn retorted.

“Oh, so I’m not allowed to smile at people now?” You gripped Finn’s shoulder tightly, feeling a weakness slither up your legs.

His grip on your waist tightened and held you closer to him to allow yourself the chance to relax a bit, “People?” Finn questioned, “You sure he’s just ‘people’?”

You instantly shook your head and rolled your eyes, “What else would he be?”

He held up his free hand in surrender, “Nothing, apparently.”

Finn instinctively loosened his grip on you as Clarke walked over to the both of you, Bellamy at her side.

“Feeling better?” She asked, eyeing the spot where Finn gripped your side.

You weakly nodded, “Barely, my legs are still weak but he basically insisted I get some fresh air,”

Clarke’s gaze fell as did her tense shoulders and you eyed her suspiciously. There’s no way she would think there was something going on between you and Finn. Not after how obvious it was that he would literally die for this girl.

You merely chuckled to yourself and Clarke walked over to your free side, wrapping your arm around her shoulder and lightly lifted you up to ease the pain in your legs. You smiled at her and Finn dropped you from his hold, his shoulders pulled back as Bellamy eyed him up and down.

“Here, let me help,” Bellamy offered, taking Finn’s previous spot but you pulled closer to Clarke.

“Thanks, but I think Clarke’s got it,” you quickly said and wobbled down the ramp.

You’d missed the way Bellamy flinched at your rejection and nodded, pulling Finn aside to discuss something with him.

“Why are you doing that to him?” Clarke croaked up once you’d gained some distance from the men.

“Doing what?” You hunched over slightly as Clarke unzipped Jasper and Monty’s tent.

“Reject him like that.” She moved the makeshift door aside and you stepped in, tipping over the subtle lift on the floor. “You know he’s got eyes for you, don’t you?”

“What? Why does everyone keep saying that?” You harshly retracted your arm from her shoulder and sat on the floor after greeting your friends.

“Jasper!” Clarke nearly shouted and he faced her, “If you had to guess who had a crush on (Y/N), who do you think it would be?”

“Bellamy,” Jasper and Monty answered at the same time.

You shot them both a look and rolled your eyes, “No, he doesn’t, Griffin!” You fought back, resting on Jasper and massaging your leg just for Jasper to take over.

“Yes, he does, (Y/N),” Jasper responded, mimicking your eye roll, “and you like him too,”

“If we don’t stop talking about this right now I’m sacrificing someone to the Grounders,” you threatened, staring daggers at your friends.

Clarke sighed and said her good-byes before stating she was going to leave the camp with Finn and you waved her a meager good-bye. You turned your attention towards the stressed-out boys to find them working on a contraption of some kind.

“What’s this?” You asked.

“We’re making moonshine for Unity Day tomorrow,” Monty spoke up and you stood up slowly with his assistance.

“Can I help?” You offered, “I do happen to know a thing or two about machines,”

They shared a glance but agreed to let you help. Not in the way you had intended though. They were sending you out on scavenger hunt, looking for tools or scrap parts that they needed. At one point, they’d sent you to get something you had never heard of but they insisted that Bellamy would know what they were talking about and he could help you find it.

“Don’t do anything stupid!” Jasper teased as you stepped out of the tent, your legs nearly yours again.

“Does setting your tent on fire count as stupid?” You shouted over your shoulder only to receive a quiet ‘yes’ from a distressed sounding Monty.

You chuckled at them and headed towards Bellamy’s tent. You didn’t call out to him, thinking he’d gone with Clarke and Finn on the hunting trip. You were wrong as hell.

You pulled the tent flap aside and stopped in your tracks at the sight before you. It was strange, really. It was almost like you’d gone deaf for a few seconds as your mind tried to process what you were seeing. You flinched at the unwelcome feeling erupting in the pit of your stomach. It was different than the sensation from before. This one made you want to throw up and runaway rather than run to the source as it had previously.

You flinched again as your presence was noted by the two having sex. Raven hopped off of Bellamy and flew to grab her underwear near the bed. You’d been frozen enough to see more than you were comfortable with and muttered one apology right after the other as Bellamy began to stand up, his thin sheet wrapped around his exposed hips and you lurched away.

You didn’t know where you were going, you just knew that you needed to be completely and utterly alone. No interruptions. No pitiful eyes staring at you as you tried to understand why your chest ached and your stomach twisted hard enough to elicit nausea.

Just. Alone.

You tried to casually make your way out through the crack in the wall, thankful that Octavia had shown it to you previously. You slithered through the opening and waved at the guard on the wall, stating you were sent out to join Clarke and Finn. The guard nodded and you made it passed the trees, letting the dense forest engulf you and provide a solidarity you wouldn’t have had at camp.

You didn’t know how long you walked and you didn’t care. At this point, the fatigue in your legs wasn’t due to the poison. Your feet ached with a throb and once you were sure your screams wouldn’t be heard from camp; you collapsed on the floor and rested your back against the nearest tree.

You hugged your legs to your chest and threw your head back, looking up at the leaves on the tree. The first sob came against your will. Your body racked with the motion and you bit your lip hard enough to break the skin. No. Why are you crying? Stop.

The second sob arrived harder than the first and you let the tear fall with no intention of hiding it. You had nothing to hide. No one to hide from. So you let the third one come at the intensity which it pleased. Your throat constricted in pain as the ache throbbed in your chest and exited through your tear ducts.

Get over yourself. Stop crying. What would that do? Nothing. Not a damn thing.

Your tears wouldn’t stop the vision from haunting your mind, the scene playing over and over again. You wished you hadn’t seen the expression of pleasure he had plastered on his face at the sensation of Raven – well, you know.

Your vision was obscured by all the tears and you weren’t sure when you’d stood up and started punching the tree that provided you such solace mere seconds ago but you didn’t stop until the skin on your knuckles were torn open and the pain from your chest had travelled its way to the blood that you splattered all over nature.

“(Y/N)?” You heard your name being called from behind and you lifted your name at the intrusion, your first still connected with the trunk.

You whipped your head around to see Octavia at Lincoln’s side, the expression of concern on her face apparent. She grabbed Lincoln’s hand and dragged him over to your side where you finally dropped your hand back to your side, letting the blood drip down your fingertips onto the floor.

“What are you doing?” She nearly yelled, grabbing your hand delicately in hers. “What happened?”

You sniffled and dragged your sleeve across your face in a pathetic attempt to dry the tears. “Nothing,” you croaked out.

Lincoln shifted in his place, watching as more blood slithered through your fingers.

“Don’t give me that bullshit, (Y/N). Something happened,” she chastised.

You turned to look away from away, ashamed at the extremity of your actions at the situation, “Nothing important, Octavia.” You tried to pull your hand out of hers but her grip tightened last second and you hissed at the pain.

“Those tears are ones of the heart,” Lincoln uttered and your gaze flicked to his, glaring at his bold truth.

“The heart?” Octavia questioned before a look of understanding shadowed her expression, “What happened?” She further instigated.

You sniffled again and looked down at the wound on your hand, “Raven . . .” there was that scene again that refused not to repeat in your mind.

“Something happened to Raven?”

I wish.

You shook your head at the thought and took the first fulfilling breath in over an hour, “Raven was . . . she was with Bellamy . . . and I caught them-”

Octavia pulled you into her arms before you could finish and a relief washed over you at not having to verbalize your pain. You let her hold you and caress your hair as more sobs racked through you. The three of you stayed like that until you could compose yourself with the setting of the sun.

“We should get back,” you uttered but Octavia shook her head.

“No, we can stay out here with Lincoln if you want,”

You eyed her, “You know they’d send a search party out for us,”

“Good!” She yelled, “Let him worry!” She ran her hands through her hair and shook her head, “God, what an idiot,”

You thanked Lincoln for his patience and grabbed O’s hand, letting her and Lincoln lead the way back and you thankful for their presence because you hadn’t kept track of how to get back. You weren’t even sure where you were.

The sun was nowhere to be seen by the time you guys made it back. Octavia said her good-byes to Lincoln a few miles earlier and the rest of the way was full of consoling. When the light from the camp was visible, you could tell havoc was ensuing and you tensed, preparing yourself to face the consequences.

O led you back in through the crack and you hid amongst the dimly lit walls until you’d both made it her tent where you snuck in and turned on a lamp. Octavia let you lay down in bed with her, her arm wrapped around you and holding you close.

After a few minutes of comforting silence, she spoke up, “You’re probably hoping for the other Blake sibling,”

Despite your numbing pain, you laughed and snuggled closer to her side, “No. You’re the sibling I want right now,”

She smiled down at you and ran her fingers through your hair until a loud shuffling beside her tent alerted her and you two sat up. You quickly wiped at your face just in case and winced at the forgotten gashes on your knuckles.

“(Y/N)?” You heard panic in the tone and you looked up to find a concerned Jasper staring at you.

“Jas, I-I’m sorry. I should’ve told you I was gonna leave but I was so caught up in everything that I didn’t think to stop –”

“What happened to your hands?” He asked, his eyes glued to your fists and you hid them at your side, “They’re here!” He shouted and you shot your attention to Octavia who looked cool as a cucumber. “Bring bandages!”

A stomping hard enough to shake the ground emerged until you could see almost everyone’s head peeking through the entrance of Octavia’s tent. Jasper took a step in when Octavia confirmed it was okay and he stood in front of you, his hands encasing your face momentarily before throwing you into his arms and you were surprised at the weight that lifted at his actions. Maybe you could lean on Jasper more than you had assumed.

Clarke shoved through everyone, a panic set in her features but Octavia grabbed the bandages from her and offered you her hand, waiting for you to willingly place your hand in hers.

You shook your head, “I’m fine,” you whimpered out but submitted all the same at O’s glare.

Your grip on O tightened as the thundering voice that’d calmed you on so many occasions erupted from the crowd. “Back up!” He shouted, making way for Finn and Monty to step through.

“Hey, what happened?” Finn asked, searching in your eyes for answers you were unwilling to give him.

You avoided his gaze and looked up at O, panic set in your features as the lie swirled around in your head.

“We went hunting together,” she coolly said, wrapping the cloth over your hand, “Got back a lot later than we planned,”

Short and sweet. Good.

He didn’t have to speak for you to know he had finally entered the tent and Jasper, Finn and Clarke didn’t miss the way you tensed in Octavia’s hold.

“How’d you get those cuts then?” Bellamy asked but you kept your gaze locked with O, desperate for her to take the reins.

“She . . . fell. Still weak from the poison, it messed her up,”

Your free hand gripped around Jasper’s and he blocked your body from Bellamy’s sight. Your discomfort was evident on your face and if suspected you of lying, which he did, he wasn’t going to drop the subject any time soon.

Jasper wasn’t tall enough to conceal you completely from him and despite him clearing his throat and asking you direct questions, you never once looked up at him. “Give her some space,” he ordered, sending Monty, Finn, Jasper and Clarke out of the tent.

Jasper stood his ground but after Bellamy glared at him, you reassured Jasper it was okay and he begrudgingly left. Then, Raven entered and it wasn’t your grip that tightened but Octavia’s and you winced again.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, loosening her grip and tucking the bandage under itself before motioning for the other hand.

Bellamy didn’t look behind him when Raven spoke up, his eyes scanning you up and down to double check for any other wounds. He knew Octavia had been lying but he also knew the reaction he’d get if he pushed.

“Get out,” Octavia ordered, her tone cold and demanding.

Raven gripped your hand and Octavia pried it from your body. Octavia never minded Raven, she just didn’t particularly like her either.

“O,” You grasped her forearm and pulled her back from her defensive stance against Raven.

She stood still a few seconds more, her glare speaking volumes louder than her words would but eventually brought her attention back to wrapping your hand up.

“(Y/N), I’m so sorry. I didn’t know you liked-”

“Sorry?” You tilted your head to the side slightly but remained focused on the way Octavia worked with your hand. “For what?”

You could feel Raven look up at Bellamy for some kind of backup but his attention was fixated on you. You almost wished he’d look at her, the feeling of his eyes boring into you was beginning to make you uncomfortable.

“What you saw earlier, it’s not what you think. I was just stupidly trying to get over Finn because of everything that happened between us and-”

“Are you over him?” You interrupted, your voice monotone and you let your pain dissipate for a numbness to take over.

“N-No,” she muttered.

“Then I guess it was pretty stupid, huh?”

Octavia nodded, not looking up at either of them, “Seconded,”

Raven flinched at your words but stayed strong in her defense, “(Y/N), please. I’m sorry. If you would have told me you liked Bellamy I wouldn’t have-”

“Why would you think I liked Blake?” You spat, finally snapping your attention to her, ignoring the wounded puppy look Bellamy had plastered on. “Why would you think I felt anything towards him?” This time you faced Bellamy directly but his gaze was enraptured on your shoes, “I couldn’t give less of a fuck about him,”

He glanced up at you through the strands of his hair and you scoffed, mostly at yourself. How could he, in all your rage, still somehow make you want to leap into his arms and let him comfort you?

“(Y/N) –” Bellamy finally spoke again.

You turned your attention back to Octavia who had finished with your hands and you walked over to the exit after thanking her, “You’re both adults who can do whatever you want.” You took one step out of the tent before Octavia offered to let you spend the night with her. You nodded and faced Raven, “I’ll let you get back to getting over Finn,”

Raven’s expression fell and she walked out of the tent without saying another word. And then there were three.

“Run along.” Octavia motioned with her hand and you kept your gaze down to the ground.

“O,” Bellamy warned but she kept her disposition and crossed her arms, “can I just get a minute?”

Octavia looked over at you and against your better judgement, you nodded.

“One minute,” she uttered, leaving the tent and closing it behind her as if that would do anything to provide privacy. “Clock’s ticking,” she shouted.

“What do you want, Blake?” You spat, crossing your arms over your chest and jutting your hip out to the side. A glare on your face fierce enough to scare off the gods.

“I know you don’t want to talk to me right now but please just listen, you don’t have to say anything,” he waited to see if there was any protest on your behalf but after a few seconds of silence he went on, “I’m sorry you saw what you did but you’ve taken it completely out of context. You don’t know what happened,”

“Of course, I do,” you retorted, “Selfless, altruistic, Bellamy Blake had to save a damsel in distress, didn’t he?”

“(Y/N), please,” you flinched at the sound of your name leaving his lips, “it didn’t mean anything,”

“Does it ever with you?” You questioned, “I’m almost convinced your goal is to screw everyone in camp just to boost your ego. Does it make you feel good inside, Blake? Do you feel like top dog with all these women in your bed?” You scoffed. “Or is it just you asserting your superiority over the camp?”

“That’s not-”

“Maybe it’s that you just can’t say no?”

“No, (Y/N), please don’t –”

“Maybe you’re just lonely?”

“(Y/N), don’t-”

“You’re just like everyone else. Pathetic,”

He shook with fury, his hands balled into fists by his sides, “Why do you care?”

“Why do I care?” You shouted back, “Because I . . .” you took a step back from Bellamy and stared down at the bandages around your hands, evidence of the pain you were so desperate to get rid of just a few hours ago, “I- I don’t know. I don’t know why,” you whispered.

Bellamy’s anger disappeared as quickly as it’d come and his expression softened as he held out a hand towards you, “Yes you do,” he responded, closing the space you’d just created, his breath grazing against your cheek. He lifted his hand up and trailed his fingers down the side of your face.

You fought the urge to lean in to his hold and immerse yourself in what was Bellamy Blake. You desired his warmth and words and hold and simply everything he was. The good with the bad and everything in between.

Your hand trailed up his own and you closed your eyes at the feeling. Your grip around his wrist tightened and you opened your eyes to glare daggers at the man above you before chucking his hand to the side. “Leave,” you ordered with venom.

He furrowed his brows at your reaction and lifted his hand up again, “Why? Why can’t you just admit it?”

“Admit what? That I thought you had a soft spot for me just to find you screwing my friend?” you hissed, “Because if that’s it then there you go. You had me fooled, Blake. Good for you. Thanks for fucking with me; now go mess someone else up because I’m done riding this rollercoaster with you.” You turned your back to him and bent over to take your shoes off, an indicator that the conversation had come to a close. “Why would you want me to confess to anything anyway? If I say the words would that end the game? Because I’m tired of playing it,”

“That’s not why I want you to admit it to yourself and you know that!” He shouted.

“Actually, the only thing I’m sure of is that I’m not sure about you.” You turned back around and looked over his shoulder, motioning to the exit, “How about this, you go and figure out what you’re so desperate to hear me say and why you wanna hear it so bad. Then you get back to me when you figure it out. Until then,” you pointed to the entrance.

His expression fell and you really wished you hadn’t looked down at his lips at that moment. You held fast in your stubbornness and watched with a yearning as he let your words sink in and left the tent only for Octavia to enter a few minutes later.

“That was more than a minute,” you complained to her and she smiled sadly.

“You needed it,”

“Did I?” You questioned, throwing your pants off and scooting over in Octavia’s bed to make room for her.

She copied your actions and let her hair loose from its braid before lying next to you and resting her hand on your face where you cupped her hand in yours.

“Yes,” she muttered, “Listen, (Y/N), I know Bellamy’s an idiot but –” she shrugged her shoulders, “I know he likes you,”

“And he’s told you this?” You urged.

Octavia shook her head and you scoffed but she interrupted your self-pity, “He doesn’t have to. It’s how he looks at you. He always asks about you. You should’ve seen him when you were sick, he was a mess,”

“A mess?” You hadn’t realized you’d repeated it back to her.

“Mhmm. If it weren’t for the camp needing food for tomorrow, he never would’ve left your side,”

“That might’ve been better, maybe I wouldn’t have caught him with Raven,” you replied.

“Yeah, I can only defend him for so long,” she joked, looking up at you as you shared a pillow, “I’m not saying you have to forgive him. You can feel whatever you want. I’m just saying he’s clueless and he’s head over heels for you,”

“Then why sleep with Raven?” You asked, as if she were him.

“I don’t know, babe. Raven was trying to get over Finn . . . what if Bellamy was trying to get over you?”

You lied on your back and sighed, “That doesn’t make sense,”

“Not much ever does,” she said, dancing her fingertips along your arm and you faced her again, a small smile plastered to your face, your smile lines deepening with the dim lighting in the room.

“I love you, O,”

She smiled back at you and rolled her eyes, “I love you, too,”

You two talked for hours that night about Lincoln and your life on the ark. You listened to her share the despair at hiding under the floorboards of her room, never getting to leave the room. You understood then how free she must be feeling. Not only does she not have to hide anymore but she practically had no parental supervision. She was free. And in love.

The next day, you’d been stuck to Octavia’s side like glue. Even when you were sent out hunting and Bellamy insisted on going with his sister.

The hunt was tense. No need it to be any quieter than it already was due to all the tension in the air. At one point, Octavia turned around pretending to grip at the air.

“What are you doing?” Bellamy asked.

“Feeling the tension,” she responded and you couldn’t help the snicker.

Bellamy’s eyes flickered to you and the only reason you noticed was because you’d given in to throwing a few glances his way too.

“You got a knife to cut through that tension?” He asked, once realizing the affect her joke had on you.

You flinched at his voice, hating it and still wanting to hear more of it. But you smirked all the same at his words.

“Well, actually –” she brought her blade out from her side, glinting it in the air and she opened her mouth to respond when you shushed her.

She threw you an offended look but you merely held your hand up before bringing a single finger up to your lips and then pointing down at what had caught your attention. Bellamy and Octavia turned their heads in that direction and their eyes widened.

“A deer,” Octavia gasped.

“A doe,” Bellamy corrected and O rolled her eyes.

You threw your gun over your shoulder and grabbed the spear tighter, making sure to stay close to the ground and hope it wasn’t a windy day. Not that you’d paid much attention to that up until that point.

Bellamy had gone to take a step closer but you paced your hand on his chest, catching his attention. Your skin burned where you connected with him and you reluctantly pulled back and motioned to the stick he was about to step on.

You slowly moved closer, careful of your steps. You observed as the animal drank from a stream and you almost felt bad about what was going to occur. But it was that or your people starve. You took a slow, deep breath and raise the spear above your head and threw it with all your force. Octavia shouted as your aim hit its mark and you all made your way over. You couldn’t look at the animal as you retracted your weapon and let Bellamy carry most of the weight back to the camp.

As soon as the doe was dropped onto the ground you dropped your spear and went over to Jasper only to her footsteps erupt from behind you.

A grip on your arm twirled you around and you raised an eyebrow at a red-eyed Raven.

“What?” You asked, too lazy to cross your arms.

And like the doe, you almost felt bad for her. She looked like she had beaten herself up overnight. The dark circles under her eyes highlighting her pain and the weakness in her voice tore a sympathy from you.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I wish you would’ve told me that you liked Bellamy. I wouldn’t have even considered it if I’d known,”

You sighed, looking down at your boots, “D-do you like him?”

She almost chuckled at the question, “Gross,” she drawled out in typical Raven fashion and you felt the familiar tug at your lips.

“Then why?”

She shook her head, “I was in pain, he was in pain. We were just using each other. If anything it only made everything worse,”

You jerked your mouth from side to side but ultimately nodded. She wouldn’t intentionally hurt you. Raven was almost, if not more, loyal than a dog to its companion. You couldn’t hold it against her. She didn’t know. Hell, you still didn’t know.

She sighed in relief and threw her arms over you, holding you tightly to her. “Thank God,”

For the rest of the day you helped everyone set up preparations for the party that night. You ran into Bellamy a few times but looked away and walked the other direction whenever he’d open his mouth to say anything.

“I’ve done it!” Jasper shouted, a cup in his hand.

“WE did it,” Monty corrected and you chuckled.

“What did WE do?” You asked, an eyebrow raised at them.

“Take a sip and find out, Princess.” Jasper handed the glass over to you and you brought it up to your nose to take a whiff, “I wouldn’t do that, just take a swig,”

You rolled your eyes but tipped the glass over once the firepit had been ignited and you gagged at the taste. “That’s disgusting,” you retched but fought to swallow the liquid anyway.

“Maybe. But it’ll get the job done,” Jasper said, wiggling his eyebrows and he refilled your cup before announcing to the camp at the miraculous concoction.

The camp erupted in screams of excitement and they made their way over to the tent to get their share. You knew Octavia had planned to hang out with Lincoln tonight, not giving a damn about Unity Day and all. You just wished you could’ve gone with her. This party felt forced but maybe that was necessary. Everyone was stressed with adjusting to the new lifestyle so maybe getting drunk and just acting like kids was exactly what people needed.

You walked over towards the fire, entranced how the flames danced. Jasper took his place beside you and grabbed your hand with his free hand.

“Wanna dance?” He asked and you quirked an eyebrow.

“Really?”

He nodded, “Raven connected the radio to the Ark’s system so we’ve got the entire playlist at our disposal,”

You laughed and nodded as Jasper motioned for Raven to start the music. You finished your cup and set it down before joining Jasper around the fire and let the music move through you. There was nothing sensual about the dance, it was a lot of head banging and moving in circles, screaming the lyrics out with Jasper. You were laughing too hard half the time to actually be saying the words and after you downed your third cup, things began to go fuzzy.

“This rocks!” You motioned to the drink and threw Jasper a thumbs up as he feigned jazz hands.

“I know!” He shouted over the music, the light of the fire glistening off the sweat on his face.

You raised your cup in the air, the alcohol giving you a bravery you didn’t know you could attain. You moved your hips to the beat of the song, the music slithering through you and you closed your eyes, letting it consume you. The heat from the fire struck your face but you didn’t mind the warmth, you welcomed it. It was as though you and the flame were one, your strength, luminosity and heat flaring up for everyone to witness. And boy, were they witnessing.

You’d earned a few hoots from the crowd and laughed at their crass or, rather, yours. You didn’t care who watched you move sensually. The music had controlled you and the liquid in your body let the music do as it pleased. So much so that you didn’t stop when you felt a body pressed against your back and ass. You glanced behind you and noticed a boy you’d seen from around camp. You’d never spoken to him before but he was cute enough so you threw your arm over your shoulder and led his head to your neck, letting the little butterfly kisses peppering down your shoulders excite you.

He handed you another drink and the heat from the fire and his body made you thirsty so you were downing them faster than you probably should have. You rested your head on his shoulder behind you and closed your eyes, your body coming alive for the first time since the Ark. When was the last time you’d been touched? You could barely remember. All you knew was that you weren’t opposed to how his hands slithered around your waist and rested on your lower stomach, his hands inching slowly towards his goal.

You opened your eyes as the hands were ripped from your side and the presence of his body was yanked away. You turned around abruptly, tumbling slightly as you tried to process what you were seeing. Bellamy had the blonde boy by the collar and he was seething, barking orders at the poor boy to resume his position on the wall for guard duty.

Bellamy faced you, his anger evident but you just laughed, finishing your cup and stumbling over to Jasper for more. He’d tapped out of dancing a long time ago and you sat on the ground beside him in his makeshift circle alongside Raven, Monty, Clarke, Finn, Harper and Miller.

“Having fun?” Raven teased, watching you sway in your seat to the music.

“I feel so good.” You nodded and they all laughed at your boldness.

“What are we doing here?”

“Playing a game. You wanna join?” Monty offered and you nodded.

“Please,” you jumbled out.

“Alright, then you’re up,” Monty said just as a presence sat down beside you, “Truth or dare?”

“Dare,” you answered instantly, your eyes partially closed.

“I dare you to pirouette to the fire and back,” he was starting you off easy and you groggily got up, stumbling over yourself.

“Easy.” You raised your hand above your head and spun around, heading towards the fire.

“You’re not spinning!” Miller shouted after you and you stopped in your tracks.

“Are you sure?” You hollered back, looking around you, “Because everything’s spinning for me,”

Everyone erupted with laughter but you finished your dare, needing a break midway as you fought the feeling of bile coming up.

“Who’s next?” You asked, leaning on Jasper until the world stopped spinning.

“Truth or dare?” Finn asked Bellamy.

Bellamy looked up at him and shook his head, “I’m only here to watch,”

“Then you’ve gotta leave the circle, only participants are allowed,” Clarke chastised, fake guilt plastered on.

“Fine. Dare,”

Bellamy completed his idiotic dare and despite his attempted straight-faced expression, you could tell he was enjoying himself. He was living the childhood he should have had. One care-free full of idiocy that would eventually become something to laugh about later.

“Truth or dare?” You asked Jasper and he smiled.

“Truth,” he responded.

“Have you ever had a crush on me?” You asked bluntly.

Jasper laughed but nodded, “Right before we became best friends,”

“Aww, Jas. I wish you would’ve told me,” you teased.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Truth or dare?” He asked you.

“Truth,”

“If you had to date someone here, who would it be?”

You could feel Bellamy tense beside you but your drunken state paid no mind to it, “Myself!” You responded, “No one’s gonna treat me better or worse than I will,” you joked and Jasper rolled his eyes.

An hour passed of your idiocy and you went from drunk to just buzzed and excused yourself from the circle to go back to the fireplace and you stood in place just admiring the flame. You took a sip from your cup and closed your eyes, the slower music now playing causing you to sway your hips ever so slightly before stumbling and hitting a warm surface.

You looked up to see Bellamy looking down at you, concern etched in his features. “You okay there?” He asked and you nodded. “Well, don’t let me stop you,”

You straightened up and smiled at him, grabbing him by the hand and pulling him against you as you gently swayed to the music. He tensed in your hold but managed to relax when you rested your head against his chest.

“You smell good,” you muttered more to yourself than him.

His chest rumbled when he chuckled and you snuggled closer to him, letting him wrap his arms around your waist as you rested your arms around his neck.

“You really are drunk, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” you responded curtly, nodding your head in an exaggerated manner.

You two let the silence linger, its comforting ambiance enveloping you in all it had to offer. Bellamy eventually rested his head against yours and held your hand to his chest, swaying to the soft background noise of the crackling fire.

You hadn’t noticed everyone had turned in for the night so you and Bellamy were the only ones outside, except for the guards, of course.

“(Y/N),” Bellamy spoke up, his whispering voice breaking the silence.

“Hmmm?” You asked, not quite strong enough to open your eyes.

“Please don’t hate me,”

You stopped abruptly and stood there, processing his shaky words. You pulled your head up and stared groggily in his eyes. “What?”

He fought the instinct to look away from your gaze. There was something about it that always made his knees go weak and don’t get him started on your smile. He’d caught himself fantasizing about that smile that was burned into his mind on multiple occasions.

“I just – I wouldn’t be able to handle if you hated me right now,” he confessed and your gaze softened, whether it was because of the alcohol or the warmth building in your chest, you didn’t know.

“I don’t hate you,” you admitted, “I don’t particularly like you right now but I don’t hate you,”

Bellamy smirked at the teasing glint in your eye and he shook his head, pulling you back into him and enveloping you again.

“Have you figured out what you want to hear me say so badly?” You asked after a few seconds.

“Have you figured out what you don’t want to tell me?”

“You mean that I can’t look at you without seeing you screwing Raven?” You hissed as the memory resurfaced that dull ache you’d drank away.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

You shrugged, “I don’t see why you would be. It’s not like we’re dating,”

“I guess not, huh . . .”

“Nope,” you said and pulled away from Bellamy, nearly tripping over your own footing. “I think I should get to bed,”

You didn’t give him the chance to reject the idea, you merely turned away from him and stumbled towards your tent, your hands stretched out in front of you prepared to catch you in case you stumbled again.

“At least let me carry you there,” He offered but you ignored his hand.

You lost your footfall and prepared to hit the ground but the impact never came and you felt your body get lifted into strong arms. You huffed, looking over at Bellamy who kept his eyes forward as if he wasn’t carrying you to your tent right now.

After the short trek, he ducked inside your tent and placed you on your makeshift bed and took off your shoes.

“You don’t have to do that,” you slurred out, watching him as he placed your shoes at the foot of the bed.

“No, but I want to,”

“You want to undress me?” You asked, a scoff at the end.

He winced and shook his head, “Not necessarily. But I would do anything to get you to stop ignoring me,”

“Well it’s gonna take a lot more than that to get me to start talking, buddy,” you said and slowly sat up, “Hey,” you tapped Bellamy on the shoulder and he looked up to see your panicked expression and how your body began to retch.

He quickly shot up and lifted you up before running outside your tent and holding back your hair. Had you not been so drunk, you might have felt embarrassed. He rubbed your back until you were done and helped you back into bed, spreading the sheet over your body and making his way towards the exit.

“Bellamy?” You called out, stopping him in his tracks. “Thank you,”

Bellamy stood there, a small smirk dancing on his features.

“What?” You asked.

“That’s the first time you’ve said my name,”

You smiled and let your eyes close for the final time that night.

It’d been difficult to face Bellamy after that. When you awoke the next morning the memories of the previous nights affairs hit you harder than a truck and you cringed at your actions. You beat yourself up at feeling him hold your hair back while you threw up the alcohol in your system. God, he’d never let you forget it. If you even spoke to him again. What were you thinking dancing with him? You looked down at your hand, a small smile forming on your lips at the remnants of how his hand felt encasing yours.

No. You were mad at Bellamy and dancing with him that way was the exact reason you were so upset. He’d led you on for so long, led you to believe he had interests other than the ones he’d showed to a few other females when you’d first landed. He didn’t stop you from fantasizing about his lips pressed against yours and the desperation and longing that you’d feel radiating off of him.

Maybe, just maybe, he truly didn’t know he’d been leading you on. That would be better than him willingly stringing you along.

You couldn’t stay in your tent for the rest of the day so you threw on your shoes and unzipped the flap on your tent.

“Ah! (Y/N), my good lady, how are you feeling?” Jasper’s voice boomed and he threw his arm over your shoulder.

You squinted at the harsh light of the day, “Like I just deep-throated the sun,”

Jasper raised his eyebrow, “You sure it wasn’t someone else you were deepthroating last night?” He motioned to Bellamy who was sauntering towards you.

You lightly elbowed him and rolled your eyes, “I’m not interested in him like that,”

“Sure, and the sun doesn’t rise in the west,”

“It doesn’t.” You chuckled at his confusion.

“It doesn’t?”

You shook your head and looked over to the figure who had cleared his throat. You both faced Bellamy who eyed you nervously and handed you a cup of water.

“For the hangover,” He explained and you tight-lined your lips and nodded in thanks.

Bellamy eyed Jasper, an expectant look on his face.

“I think I should go . . . anywhere but here, really,” Jasper said and you argued with him to stay but you pried his arm off of you and shrugged, “Meet me in the upper level of the dropship when you’re done,”

“Jasper!” You shouted as he abandoned you to the lion’s den.

I’m sorry, he mouthed.

You sighed and faced Bellamy, “So,” you started, waiting to see where he wanted to take the conversation.

“So,” he responded back, “how are you? Headache?”

You shook your head and hesitantly brought the cup up to your lips, “Nope, just the burn of the sun and a dry mouth.” You held up the cup to display the solution to one of your problems.

He nodded and you two stood there for what seemed like ages before he spoke again. “Listen (Y/N) –”

“No,” you interjected, holding up your hand, “I actually wanna say something,”

Bellamy appeared taken aback but agreed all the same and waited.

“I’m sorry,”

“What?”

“Yeah, it was dumb to be upset about what happened. I know you don’t really care about anyone other than Octavia so thinking that you might-” you bit your lip, trying to look for a better word but realizing there probably was none, “like me was stupid. It’s just that everyone was telling me that you were interested in me but I think I was under a different impression when it came to what kind of interested you were.” You shrugged your shoulders and looked up at Bellamy whose furrowed eyebrows indicated he didn’t understand what was happening.

“What are you talking about?” He stopped walking and stood in front of you.

“I’ve just kind of realized that you don’t really notice when you flirt and that mislead me to think you liked me but that’s kind of my own fault,”

“I know when I’m interested in someone,” he retorted, crossing his arms.

“Yeah but you treat everyone the same way. There’s always teasing or flirting when you talk. That’s just how you are Bellamy and it’s ok. I just didn’t know that yet,”

“No, (Y/N), that’s not what-”

“I think I’m gonna go help, Jasper,” you said and brushed past him, making your way to the dropship.

“So, how’d it go?” Jasper’s teasing voice erupted once you’d closed the latch behind you.

“How’d what go?”

You didn’t have to see him to know he rolled his eyes, “Fine, act like nothing happened between you and the chief last night,”

“It didn’t,” your voice fell flat and you sat next to him to help.

“Dude, we all saw you guys dancing together.” You tensed at the memory and he sighed, “I know what he did was messed up and I’m not gonna defend him-”

“Good then don’t,” you huffed.

“But all guys are idiots. Raven straight up told you she was using him to get over Finn, it hasn’t crossed your mind that Bellamy might have tried to do the same with you?”

“Nope.” You handed him a rag and avoided his gaze, “It doesn’t make sense, I never rejected him,”

“Never to his face,”

“What?” You placed your hand on your hip.

“He doesn’t get how close we are. We touch all the time, we laugh all the time, we’re best friends. He might not get that,” Jasper tried to reason, “Plus, Finn has a tendency to be touching you a lot too,”

“You had me and then you lost me,” you admitted, watching as Jasper stopped what he was doing and dropped his hands at his sides.

“When you were sick, you walked out of the dropship in Finn’s arms. Even Clarke was jealous enough to take you away from him,”

“Jealous?”

Jasper scoffed and resumed his actions, “You can’t seriously be this naïve,”

“Jasper, you’ve known me my whole life. Yes, I can seriously be this naïve.” You both chuckled and he threw the rag back at you.

“I’m just saying, he probably thinks you don’t like him. Especially now that you keep blowing him off.” Jasper stood up and placed his hands on his hips, looking over his work and nodding his head in approval, “Alright, we’re done here. Let’s go get some food,”

You smiled and cleaned your hands with the rag, placing it back on the chair once you were done using it. Jasper slowly opened the latch and descended down the stairs and just as you began to descend, you felt a hand on your ass.

You looked down with curse words on the tip of your tongue and found Jasper staring at a suspicious looking Murphy.

“Go back up,” Jasper whispered to you and your gaze flickered to Murphy’s feet where a corpse now lay.

A soft cry escaped your lips and you grabbed the bar above you but Murphy aimed the gun at you and you froze, shaking your arm in fear as you held it up and landed next to Jasper just for him to slowly make his way towards the door.

“Let her go, she doesn’t know what’s happening here,”

Murphy scoffed and the sound shook you to your core, “We both know that’s bullshit. He deserved it,” he tried to reason and you shook your head in scared agreement. “He hung me,”

“Murphy,” Jasper held one hand out in front of him and motioned for Murphy to drop the gun, “it’s okay. He deserved it,” Jasper repeated.

Murphy wanted to believe him, you could see it cross his face for a split second but he shook his head, “No, you know what’ll happen to me if Bellamy finds out,”

“If Bellamy finds out what?” Bellamy’s voice erupted over the walkie Jasper had hidden in his pocket.

“Give me the radio,” Murphy threatened and took a step towards Jasper but you instinctively did the same and he raised the weapon at you again.

You felt pathetic as the tears found their way down your face. You didn’t want Murphy to know you were terrified, he would indulge in it. But the way the barrel of the gun stared down at you caused you whimper.

Jasper took the opportunity to bring the radio up to his lips and inform Bellamy of what was happening in the dropship. Your eyes widened as Murphy hit Jasper across the face with the gun and threw you onto the floor when he made his way to the button that would effectively hold you both hostage.

You flew to Jasper’s side and held him in your lap. Murphy kept the gun aimed at the both of you as he spoke into the walkie. You’d spaced out his words, unable to pry your tearful gaze from the barrel centered on you.

Murphy looked you up and down sadistically, his sly grin worrying you further. Minutes later, Murphy pressed the button to open the drop ship then grabbed you by your hair, yanking you up to your feet. The cold of the metal pressed against your cheek made you bite your lip to prevent from shaking.

Jasper stood still in his place, unable to leave you behind but you nodded. If either of you was going to die today, it wasn’t going to be Jasper. He hesitated still but when Murphy pressed the barrel deeper into your cheek he walked out and Bellamy walked in, alerted at the sight before him.

“Let her go, Murphy,” Bellamy warned, a venom in his voice that he couldn’t possibly back up.

“She stays,” he replied and tightened his hold on your hair causing you to hiss in pain.

Bellamy held up his hands, showing he was no threat, “Okay, okay,”

“You son of a bitch,” you huffed and Murphy chuckled.

“Bellamy was right, you’re a feisty one.” Murphy whipped you around, his malicious grin plastered wide, “Too bad such a dirty mouth is attached to such a pretty face,”

You weren’t sure where your bravery arose from but you hacked up everything you could and spat it directly into his face.

Murphy closed his eyes and shook his head. The pain erupted beside your eye and you were thrown onto the floor from the impact of the gun.

“Murphy!” Bellamy shouted, “I’m the one you want, let her go!”

You brought your hand up to the source of the red liquid dripping down your face and flinched at the sensitivity. That was definitely gonna need some tending to.

You weren’t ready for the second blow to your face but the sting on your nose from Murphy’s boot threw your head back and you laid there immobile. You didn’t pay any mind when the blood pooled in your mouth, only attempting to hold your nose to try and calm the fire burning there.

Murphy lifted his hand at you when you went to wipe the blood and you flinched away from him, earning a chuckle.

“I swear to God I’m gonna fucking kill you,” Bellamy seethed.

Murphy cocked the gun to your fetal positioned body, “You think so?”

Bellamy tensed, “What do you want?” He yelled and you swayed your attention to him from the ground.

Bellamy glanced at you, noticing your slight movement but his eyes told you to stay down. He wouldn’t be able to control himself if Murphy laid another hand on you and you both knew that wasn’t the smartest move currently.

Murphy motioned towards the belt on the ground, “Pick it up.” Bellamy kept his eyes on him as he did, “Now tie it,”

Your vision was hazy from the initial wound on your head but when you could finally make sense of what you were seeing, you whimpered.

“Bellamy,” you cried but he didn’t tear his eyes from Murphy.

“Don’t move,” Bellamy instructed but you sat up against the wall of the ship just for Murphy to threaten you.

“I would listen to him, Princess,”

You glared at him through the blood but stayed seated on the floor.

“Now throw it over the bar,”

Bellamy did as told and you slid your leg up quietly, making sure not to catch any attention.

“Now let her go. She has nothing to do with this,”

Murphy chuckled, “Oh but she does, Bells! You care about her; therefore, she’s of complete use to me in this little predicament of yours.” Murphy glanced over his shoulder at you then grabbed your arm and yanked you up, squeezing your cheeks in his hold and showing you off to Bellamy, “How could you deny yourself this, Blake?” He mumbled, pressing his nose to your neck and taking a deep whiff, “I can barely do it myself,”

Your eyes widened at his insinuation. Murphy was a murderer but surely he wasn’t a rapist. Right? Please be right. The sob racked you before you could stop it.

“That is, of course, unless you do everything I say,” Murphy muttered, letting his lips graze your skin ever so lightly.

Bellamy’s jaw ticked but he didn’t hesitate to step onto the box at his feet and hang the noose around his neck.

“Good.” Murphy tossed you towards Bellamy, “Now you tie that around his hands,”

You looked at the rope at your feet and picked it up, looking at Bellamy through your tears. “No,” you whispered, shaking your head. “I can’t,”

“You will,” Murphy urged and at this point your sobs were uncontrollable.

Bellamy looked down at you and nodded his head, “Hey, it’s okay. It’s okay, I promise. Just do as he says,”

“Bells, I can’t,” You could barely force yourself to keep looking at Bellamy with that rope around his neck and all its implications. How did you get here? Why would Bellamy agree to be put in this position? And you would have to participate in Murphy’s sadistic ways. No. You wouldn’t. You couldn’t.

“You can,” Bellamy whispered, his eyes red and brimming with tears.

“Hurry it up!” Murphy yelled.

“Go fuck yourself, Murphy!” You shouted.

The bullet shot through your abdomen and you fell hard.

“(Y/N)!” You heard your name shouted but failed to register much of anything else.

Bellamy moved to take the rope off but Murphy was quicker and kicked the box out from under Bellamy’s feet. Bell fought against the rope, twitching and twisting, grabbing the rope from under his neck but the lack of oxygen weakened him and his body flailed just as a loud noise erupted from behind you and gunfire ensued.

Stomps vibrated past your head and you heard a scream just as your head was lifted off the ground.

“(Y/N)!” Jasper shouted through a horrified sob, “Stay with me!”

You were hazing in and out, barely registering the soft smacks hitting your cheeks. People were racing up the ladder but Clarke shoved through them all and yelled at everyone to leave the ship so she could attend to your wounds. The chaos drowned out her words and Jasper lifted you up into his lap, pressing against your wound to keep from bleeding out but his touch was difficult to register against you. It didn’t hurt. It didn’t feel like anything.

“B-Bell,” you muttered, groggily moving your head in the direction you’d last seen him and weakly pointed. You had to make sure he was okay. You couldn’t let the last time you’d see him be him hanging.

“He’s fine,” Jasper responded, petting your hair and drawing your attention back to him. His eyes filled with tears and you meekly smiled at him.

“I love you, Jas,”

“No. No, no, no, no, no,” he begged, cradling you against him. “Don’t say that,”

“Octavia, get everyone out of here!” Clarke yelled over the commotion then faced Jasper, “I need you to move out of the way, Jasper,”

“No!” He shouted, tightening his grip on you and your quiet grunt caught his attention. He looked down at you then back to Clarke before nodding and dropping you slowly onto the floor.

You were lifted up again and the shift pulled a shout of pain from your lips.

“Gentle, Bellamy!” Octavia hissed and you smiled despite the stinging in your stomach.

“Bell?” You asked through hooded eyes.

Bellamy sniffed but nodded down at you, “I’m here, (Y/N),”

“You’re okay . . .” you smiled up at him and coughed from the warm liquid building up in the back of your throat.

Bellamy shot Clarke a look and placed you delicately on the same table Finn had been operated on a few weeks prior. Clarke ran to your side and lifted your shirt up, her hands feeling around your back.

“There’s no exit wound,” she mumbled and Bellamy’s hand gripped yours tightly.

“Which means?” Jasper asked from over her shoulder.

“We have to get the bullet out.” Clarke whirled around and looked at Jasper, “If you’re gonna stick around, make yourself useful and get my supplies from upstairs. Pour alcohol on them first,”

Jasper nodded and shot up the ladder. Clarke faced you again and glanced at Bellamy.

“I’m not leaving her side,” Bellamy erupted as Clarke opened her mouth.

“Then you’re gonna have to hold her down for this,”

“O, keep everyone under control,” Bellamy instructed and she left the ship not a second later.

The sound of Jasper’s boots hitting the metallic floor when he jumped off the ladder made your head spin. He dragged over a table and placed Clarke’s tools on it.

“All sanitized,”

Clarke grabbed an instrument off her makeshift tray and centered her attention on your paling complexion, “I’m sorry about this,”

She motioned to Bellamy who positioned himself above you and held down your arms while Jasper did the same to your legs. Clarke dug her instrument into your body and the invasion erupted a blood-curling scream from you.

“Clarke!” Bellamy yelled.

“She’s bleeding too much, it’s impossible to see!”

The instrument scavenged for the bullet and your body ignited with a searing and unusual pain. Your hips arose to try and escape the source of the torture and you thrashed about, the screams clawing their way through your throat. Jasper jumped onto the table and pinned your hips down, using all of his weight to assist Clarke.

Your hazy vision blacked at the edges and you fought against the instinct to close your eyes. You didn’t want it to be the last time. It had become an arduous task mere seconds later and your body lacked the strength to continue.

“(Y/N)! (Y/N), stay with me!” Bellamy shouted from above you, his voice cracking, “You can’t leave yet. Not yet,”

You wanted to agree. Not yet. This couldn’t be the end for you. You had so many things left to do, a whole life ahead of you that was yours for the taking. But then you slumped in their hold and let unconsciousness overcome you.

“Bellamy . . .” Clarke whispered, taking her hands away from your body and she looked up at the boy with tear-filled eyes.

He never took his eyes off you, the weight of the earth crashing onto him, “No.” He shook his head with your hand held up to his lips, “NO!” He slammed his hand down next your head and glared up at Clarke, “Do something!”

“Bellamy, she’s –”

“Do something, Griffin!” He shouted over her and the stream of tears down Bellamy’s face caused her to nod.

She returned her hands to your body and within seconds pulled the bullet from where it was lodged. She discarded the metal to the side and cleaned you up, taking a peek into the wound.

“Doesn’t look like any organs were hit.” She grabbed the needle and thread and plunged it into your skin, pulling it out and through until the wound was sealed and the bleeding stopped.

Clarke collapsed onto the floor and Jasper crawled off your body to sit next to her. He hadn’t really done anything but exhaustion overcame him still. Bellamy stayed perfectly still for nearly hours, your hand placed gently upon his lips.

Eventually, after Clarke and Jasper had left to bring back some food only to find out Raven had been hit as well, Octavia crawled into the ship and sat beside her brother.

Silence filled the room and she sat there quietly, waiting for him to be ready.

“I hurt her,” Bellamy whispered, his eyes glued to your sickly features.

She placed a hand on his shoulder, “No, Bells. She knew –”

“Don’t lie to me, O.” He sniffled and his distant look made his sister uneasy. “I know she cried to you. Why else would you be so mad at me?”

O sighed but nodded, “She-she was heartbroken,”

He barely nodded, “That’s the last real memory she has of me. Of me hurting her,”

Octavia didn’t know what to say, how to comfort her brother. So, she let the silence encompass them again.

“It was stupid. Sleeping with Raven, I mean. She needed to get over Finn, I needed to get over (Y/N). I didn’t think twice about it. I just knew I had to stop obsessing over her and I-I thought sleeping with someone else would do that. I figured I just needed a lay, that that was the reason she was stuck in my head,”

Octavia let her brother confess his sins to her, maybe it’d help him feel better.

“But then-” a dry chuckle escaped Bellamy’s lips, “-then she saw us and just the look she had on her face.” He shook his head and the sob racked through his body, “I fucked up!” He shouted down at (Y/N), “I’m sorry! I fucked up, I know! Please, please just come back and I’ll let you move on. I’ll leave you alone, I’ll do whatever you want but you have to wake up!”

“Bellamy, I don’t think she’s gonna –”

He whipped around and stared down at his sister, “She’s gonna wake up,” he hissed but Octavia knew it was a reassurance intended for himself and nodded.

“I was actually going to say that she wouldn’t want you to let her move on. She wanted-” Octavia flinched at her word, “-wants you.” She stood up and began walked towards the exit, “Don’t let the chance pass you by if you get another one,”

He didn’t see his sister after that. He knew she was with Lincoln and for once, he was happy about that. It’d been two days since the botched operation. Everyone had tried to convince Bellamy that you were more trouble than you were worth at this point, with the threat of Grounders constant but it became quickly apparent that anyone who spoke against you would feel Bellamy’s wraith.

The looks of pity sent his way were worse. He’d much prefer judgement than pity. Pity meant he had lost something and he hadn’t. Your body hadn’t gotten cold and although weak, he could see the rise and fall of your chest. That was all he needed to fight for you.

He returned to the dropship to find Jasper sat beside you, his head hung down. At the sound of Bellamy entering, he lifted his head and rolled his eyes at him.

“Don’t you have an army to train?” Jasper hissed.

Usually, Bellamy wouldn’t let such simple word bother him but he flinched at the accusatory tone held in Jasper’s tone. “They’re fine without me,”

Bellamy took his usual place beside you and grabbed your hand again, letting the soft touch bring him some comfort.

“It’s your fault, ya know,” No question about it, Jasper was informing Bellamy.

“I know,”

The answer took Jasper aback but his gaze remained hard, “If you hadn’t messed up so hard she wouldn’t have come to me to talk about you,”

Bellamy took the beating, knowing he deserved it. “You don’t think I know that? Like that’s not what’s been eating me alive since this happened?” The memory of Murphy with his hands all over (Y/N) ignited his anger all over again. “I would’ve gladly taken that bullet,” he hissed, “she doesn’t deserve this. Any of this,”

Jasper eyed him suspiciously but upon recognizing the pain hidden behind Bellamy’s eyes, his tone softened, “Well, you couldn’t really have known. Besides, I’m the one that told her to meet me here.” Jasper’s eyes scanned your body up and down, “She didn’t know she liked you. It was obvious enough but she was in denial,”

“Denial?”

Jasper nodded, “She couldn’t admit she liked you. That’s why you bothered her so much. That’s why what you did hurt so much. I think that’s when she realized how she felt about you. When did you know?”

“Know what?”

“That you love her,”

Bellamy let Jasper’s words sink in and it was a while before he spoke up, “The night she was poisoned,” he admitted, “She cares with everything she has. Everyone should be a little more like that,”

Jasper’s defenses fell and he nodded, “Caring has gotten her in trouble on multiple occasions,”

Bellamy nodded, remembering how (Y/N) had stolen to save her mother and how she nearly killed herself trying to save Charlotte.

“You know, if you’d just said something about how you felt then-”

Bellamy shushed Jasper and his eyebrows rose in offense. He opened his mouth to speak again but Bellamy waved him off and stared at the hand he was holding, hoping to whoever was up there that he hadn’t imagined what he felt.

Your finger twitched in his hold and Bellamy’s eyes widened, squeezing your hand back just for you to reciprocate the action. Jasper followed his line of sight and he stood up in shock when he witnessed your response.

“Clarke!” Jasper shouted, running from the ship to come back with a cup of water.

Bellamy smiled, watching as you stirred for the first time in days and the weight that had been on his shoulders lifted piece by piece. He could see your eyes shift under your eyelids and his heart stopped when you finally opened them.

“B-Bellamy?” You croaked.

Bellamy threw himself into your arms, tears streaming down his face at the sound of your voice. “(Y/N), you’re awake.” He ran a hand down your cheek and studied how your weak gaze focused on him.

You noted how his cheeks were stained with tears and you tried raising your hand to his face to find it in his hand. You gripped his hand lightly and smiled at the disheveled looking man.

“How long have I been out?”

“Two days,” he responded.

“That explains the hunger,” you joked and Bellamy stood up swiftly.

“I can get you some food.” You tightened your grip on him as he attempted to walk away.

“Stay. Please.” You tried not to look away from Bellamy’s gaze and he slowly took his place again, nodding. “How do you feel?”

He chuckled, “How do I feel? You’re the one with a gunshot wound,”

You retracted your hand and placed it on your chest before looking up at the ceiling, “I saw you hanging, Bellamy. I was so scared,” you admitted, tears beginning to build up. “I thought you were going to die,”

Bellamy shook his head and the memory of the pressure around his neck caused him to flinch, “I’m fine, no serious damage. Just some bruising. I promise I’m okay,”

You turned your attention back to him and a tug pulled at your lip, “I thought I’d lost you,”

“Never.” Bellamy gazed down at you, his words holding a finality about them.

“Promise?” You choked out and he grabbed at your hand again.

“If you stay then so will I,”

Clarke had told you to take it easy for the rest of the day and Miller caught you up on all the issues with the Grounders. You’d spaced out after that. You couldn’t defend yourself, let alone anyone else. You’d be a liability in this upcoming situation.

Days later, you were up and working again. Or, whatever Bellamy passed as working. He’d given you the easy job of inventory at your insistence that he at least let you do something. The job barely took an hour to do each day and that was all the criteria you had to meet. You wanted to help with hunting but Bellamy always had someone watching over you to make sure you weren’t doing something you weren’t supposed to.

Eventually, when Bellamy denied you another simple task, you snapped.

“You can’t control me forever!” You yelled, your impatience reaching its peak.

Bellamy snapped his attention back towards you, “Like hell I can’t! Clarke gave clear instructions to take it easy and that’s what you’re going to do!”

“I can do more! I’m needed on watch or for hunting and I feel decent enough to do it!”

“Decent isn’t good. It’s mediocre and not good enough. You’re not going on another hunt for a long time,”

“WHY?” You shouted.

“Because!”

“Because what, Blake?”

His frustration grew evident on his face, “Because-Because . . .” his loud tone further riled you. “Because I can’t lose you,”

You froze, all the building anger completely dissipated at once. “What?”

Bellamy screamed in anger, throwing a useless bullet across the room and you jumped, watching as it hit the wall.

He ran a hand through his tangled hair and dropped his head, “I can’t lose you. Not after what happened,”

Despite feeling roots take place in your spot, you trudged out of place and walked over to Bellamy’s distraught figure and placed a hand on his shoulder only for him to grab your hand and bring you against him.

“Just stay here. You’re safest here,” he tried to reason, his hand coming up to your head and petting your hair.

“Bellamy, I’ll be fine,”

“Please don’t argue with me on this. You’re not fully healed yet, you need to get better before you get out there again,”

You brought your arms up and wrapped them around his torso, pulling him closer against you. His warmth had been something you missed since all those days ago in the cave. It was welcoming and brought a comfort you couldn’t deny yourself any longer. No stubbornness could cease you from allowing yourself what he had to offer.

“I know what happened was scary,” you started and despite feeling him tense, you continued, “but this is part of our new life. Hunting, fighting, death. We’re too busy to really live, just surviving day by day. And I have to help,”

“No,” Bellamy said and pulled away.

“Bellamy,”

“No!” Bellamy whipped around but you’d already seen the tears on his face.

You grabbed him by the arm and turned him around, “It’s not a big deal-”

“I love you, (Y/N)!” He shouted, “And I cannot lose you!”

You were planted in your spot, his words sinking deep into you until they absorbed into your very being. “Bellamy,”

“Don’t. I don’t wanna hear about how you wanna throw yourself into the front lines even though you just escaped it!” He shook his head, “I don’t know if you have a death wish or something but –”

“Kiss me,”

Bellamy stopped mid-rant and glanced down at you, bewildered. He scanned your face hesitantly then closed the space between you, his hand snaking around your back and the other resting on your jawline. He pulled you into him and you ignited when your chest pressed into his, his warmth radiating a comfort and safety you immersed in.

He gazed down at you, his hand guiding your chin up slightly parallel to his face. “Say it again,”

“Kiss me.” You whispered against his lips.

He leaned down and hovered his lips above yours, taking in everything you were, and pressed his lips against your own. Your body livened at the contact and you sighed out. His plump lips trailed along yours, twisting and adjusting as you pushed further into it, wrapping your hand up to grasp his and bringing the other behind his neck to engross him further.

They were strangely soft, his lips; not the chapped mess you’d thought they would be. You danced in sync with his motions, the two of you pulling at each other as though the worst would happen if you were to pry apart. So, you stayed like that, melting into each other, your desperation and longing transmitting through the place of contact.

When you two finally did pull away, it was by millimeters and the only thing you could hear was both your breathing. Bellamy had a broad smile crawling onto his face, his teeth fully exposed and his eyes closed, like he was stuck in the previous moment.

“I love you.” He panted out again and you mirrored his smile before placing a delicate peck on his lips.

“And what exactly does that mean?” You challenged.

“It means, I’m yours.” His thumb grazed across your bottom lip. “If you’ll have me, that is,”

You could roll your eyes at this womanizer but decided to relish in the moment instead, “I don’t like to share, Bellamy,” you warned, ignoring the quick pang of memory from before.

“Neither do I,”

“Then it’s settled,”

“Wow, you’re so romantic.” Bellamy chuckled and this time you did roll your eyes.

“I’m yours,” you tried again, feeding him the romance he desired and judging by the twinkle in his eyes, he’d eaten it up.

“And I’m yours,”