[ bellamy thinks it's weird with its choice of people and its rules, but he finds that the fact there's no group to fight, no threat in the shape of grounders or mountain men trying to harm them in the worst possible way, that's the weird part of it all. he's so used to fighting someone that, now, when he's slowed down and stopped moving, he's not so sure of what to do with himself. ]
[ his fingers slow as he thinks, almost an unconscious act on his part that he continues to work at her foot. ] Have you ever spoken to Samantha?
[ he shrugs. he approaches what he's about to say so casually, ] Yeah, well, if I end up leaving again without saying goodbye, there's a good chance I pissed her off and she lied to my face.
[ "we're not full of shit" is something kane would tell him, parroted by jaha, even said by abby griffin. he thinks they'd try and say it in a condescending manner, and although it'd been over text, bellamy has a feeling samantha's keen for him to learn by himself eudio is a safe city, whereas those on the council would tell him it is while providing no proof. he'd thought to call a spade a spade with her, but maybe the eudio representatives are buckets instead. ]
[ he figures he owes her that, just in case. he doesn't know why he hadn't come to see her before he'd left, but, bellamy sometimes doesn't know himself. ]
[Leaving? There's an almost instant feeling of rejection inside her at the possibility, for so many reasons. He's actually relaxed here, not scared or angry or fighting for his life. And him being here means her having an ally - a friend- that gets where she's coming from without the need for hours of background story. And also -- also, Octavia, or something?
She frowns, and pulls her foot out of his grip, pushing herself up to sit; the wince is there, but dulled by the fact that her right leg feels pretty great right now.]
[ does bellamy want to piss samantha off? yes, he does — he wants to push her until she breaks, showing him that this place is bullshit. he wants to eradicate it then, saving all these people from their bullshit deals that will never be fulfilled. it's all he can do, even though he doubts he'll ever make up for the fact he cost three hundred of his people their lives, that he'd acted too slowly and lost more of their own inside a mountain. ]
[ — and no. he doesn't want this to be some crappy deal he made, risking coming here when he could be back at camp jaha trying to fix things. selfishly, he hasn't minded being here. some of the people are cool, some of them are actually nice, and most of them ... he feels like he's twenty again, a year before everything had gone to shit with that one choice that had ruined everything for his family. ]
[ all he can think about is mount weather, of how he'd wanted to pit everyone inside of it as the enemy, but had found an ally in the most unlikely of girls. it's hard to come back from that, losing maya, losing her family and their friends. if he'd been quicker, maybe abby and raven wouldn't have been drilled into, but then he's not the only person who had cards to play that day. ]
[ he shifts on the couch, no longer preoccupied with her foot. he presses his hands against his jeans and frowns, looking down at the space of the couch beside him rather than at her. ] I just don't believe this place is as black and white as it claims to be. Nothing is as perfect as this.
[Call her whatever you want to call her, but she thinks after years of things sucking, coming to Eudio and growing to like some of the people here, getting to like living is not perfection, but a right they should have.
It rattles her a little, that he's giving her the warning. He's going to poke -- and yeah, it's cool, it's okay to poke, but what kind of people have they turned out to be if literally nothing that seems good is unsuspicious to them? She can handle this sort of bitterness from herself, but not from others.]
What, because the people here are either good or evil? [She makes a gesture between the two of them like look at us.] That's the whole point - it's not black and white.
You agreed to this, Bellamy. You - you came here because you needed something and Eudio could give it, and if you don't want it anymore they'll send you back. What do you think is going to happen?
You'll dig and poke around, and some dirt will finally creep up to the surface? And then what? Save everyone? How?
[ bellamy leans his arms on his legs and bows his head into his hands while she talks — or speaks at him or lectures him or whatever the hell this is meant to be. he shouldn't be surprised raven's playing this role, wanting to talk him out of a decision, wanting to talk him into one like how clarke had tried to lift him from his defeated state before everything had been toasted. he rubs hard at his eyes, finding he feels as tired as he'd been on the walk back from mount weather. he hasn't slept well, unable to really close his eyes for a long period of time without seeing all of their faces and hearing her screams. ]
[ he lifts his head, but remains hunched over. his voice sounds rough, but there's no conviction in his voice. ] Yeah. I'll save everyone.
[ he sits up and looks at her. his voice isn't loud, but he's exasperated, irritated by everything — eudio trying to wash away the regret he feels, the guilt he holds, and attempting to be a better place for them, appetising enough that good people like raven would want to say. ] It's better to know the truth than to believe in some lie, Raven. You're just going to take them on their word? Believe that they're going to hold up their end of the deal because you said yes and I promise? [ he shakes his head. it hadn't worked with clarke, not when it seemed as though she had lexa in her pocket. it'd been the other way around. he'd seen how she'd changed, moving further away from leaning on him and instead looking to lexa for guidance. he'd become less of her co-leader and more of her soldier. ]
[ he thinks of how comfortable jasper had been with those from mount weather. there's no way in hell their people wouldn't have tried to escape unless they were given some incentive, wrapped neatly and tightly in a pretty package. clarke had been able to unravel it, and with that same suspicion, maybe bellamy can untangle eudio if it's as full of shit as the mountain men and the grounders. ]
People like us don't get second chances like this. People like you don't get to walk away. People like Clarke don't get to run. [ and people like bellamy? they lose everything, either way. ]
[She's already jumping to her feet even before he says that - people like you don't get to walk away - and though her stomach drops (no, no, Clarke said - she doesn't die, at least) she pushes forward on exhasperation and fumes alone.]
They did hold up their end of the deal with me! [Blurted out, sudden and loud enough that it echoes in the apartment and silences him. The next thing out of her mouth is one heavy exhale, like saying that took whatever energy and calmness was in her.]
Or - [Quiet as her voice may be, it's tense and angrier by the minute.] Maybe you're going to tell me I'm not a big enough sort of character that it's my end of the deal that got everyone -- [She presses her lips together, bites them both to keep quiet, because she doesn't brag, she just fixes things.
Then forces the rest out,] Everytime I talk to someone from our world they tell me our people get out safely out of Mount Weather and I think -- [She scrunches up her face, then forces the air out of her lungs, fast.]
We're not some dumb heroes in some dumb mythology book, if I want a second chance, I'll fucking make one for myself, so -- yes, I said yes, and I said I promised, but at least I got what I wanted out of it. I'm proof.
[ he keeps his gaze on her, letting his attention flicker to her leg for only a brief moment. if she's not going to flinch or even cry out from any weight she abruptly places on it, then she mustn't have hurt it at all. but he remains sitting, finding he doesn't have the drive to stand and stand over her in the hope to intimidate her. ]
[ she can take her opportunity to flee, running as far from something he gets. but all bellamy can think about is how she's too quick to write herself off as not being integral at all. if it wasn't for raven, he knows he'd be dead at the hands of the mountain men personally or by having blow himself to bits in the acid fog room. no deal would ensure the lives of their people. they're not the heroes of the greek myths, but the people found within the stories that do their best to survive. ]
Or — [ emphasising it means he's being a jackass, and bellamy does it on purpose. ] — maybe I'm going to tell you that without you, we wouldn't have gotten our people out. Did you ever think about that, Raven? [ he doubts it. out of all the people to convince her to stay, it had been him. when raven reyes wanted to run away from their very first camp, bellamy blake had been the one to convince her to let her roots settle into the earth there and not leave. she doesn't brag, but she has no self-awareness, either. ]
[ but he finds he doesn't think about the eudio incentives now. all he can think about is placing his trust in someone who deserves it. the representatives of this city haven't earned it from him yet. lincoln had and bellamy's not so sure if he's found it within himself to forgive him yet for abandoning him. he doesn't know if he has it in himself to truly look past clarke saying together with her fingers crossed behind her back. ] Without that alliance, I'd be dead. [ his voice cracks, ] Without you, I'd be dead. [ he looks away from her as his voice becomes tense and hot with anger, thinking of lincoln abandoning him at the underground entrance. a foolproof plan hadn't quite taken into account the fool bellamy had been. ] I had a damn good plan to get our people out, I had people on my side, and you know what? It didn't go to plan!
[What does she knows about her usefulness to their people? Almost used for patsy by the Grounders looking to break that fragile alliance days after it ended. She knows that eventually they figure it out, that Raven wasn't lying when she said that poison wasn't hers, but how much does that weigh in the face of her protests falling on deaf ears in the first place? All she wanted -- all she wants -- was somewhere to be as far away from Clarke as possible, somewhere she could allow herself to admit Finn wasn't coming back, and what she got was this.
The recrimination that she can't just not go back. At least Clarke has the decency of being so scared of igniting the fire in Raven's soul that she told her to just do what made her happy.
Not Bellamy, though. That's the second time now; he tells her she's necessary, vital, and then she'll stay because she's an idiot and she'll bleed and it'll be her fault for being a sucker for someone calling her worth.
This settles it, doesn't it? If the outcome of her not returning would be his death, then there's no way she'll stay. For a second, she can almost hate him for this.]
What happens? [He can't just dump it on her like that and expect her not to dig. He thinks she doesn't dig? She is good at turning a blind eye -- turned a blind eye to an uncaring mother for years instead of denouncing her -- but when it really suits her, she'll dig right down to the marrow. He's already dropped hints once, and though she said before that she didn't want to know -- she'd lied.] How did you get them out?
[ bellamy grits his teeth, jaw tense. he refuses to look at her. he looks at the floor, at his shoes lying there, a display of how comfortable he had been. he doesn't feel it now, but bellamy's too stiff to even make a move to slip them on. raven's apartment had been safe — safe from feeling like he's locked in a cage, safe from any of the voices in his head, safe from the memories that linger in the shadows of his own place. she'd guided him inside of mount weather, and some part of him thought that, maybe, she'd guide him here, too. ]
[ he's stony before her, refusing to move, refusing to breathe. he doesn't think to tell her. she hadn't asked clarke for specifics for a reason. although he doesn't know what that reason is, he suspects it may have been fear. ]
[ looking at her from the corner of his eye, he finds himself locked in a brand new cage. she doesn't want to know, yet she does — and bellamy isn't so sure if he wants to tell her at all. it'd all been a slip, one large hiccup in a perfectly good evening, and while he knows there's no returning to that moment of serenity, he refuses to move forward, too. he doesn't want to deal with his failures and miscalculations. ]
[Again, same frustrating answer, same frustrating silence, and she knows that at some point in the past three minutes someone -- both of them -- fucked up magnificently. If the warm mood from before became a chill, if he's looking around the place like it's locking him in.
She squeezes her fists together, and then unfurls her fingers with a huff,] You're so -- [She'll give him space, only because she wants to run away right now, all over again. She turns around and puts space between them, brace not entirely silent as it touches the floor with each step. Her eyes burn, but her cheeks stay miraculously wet - that's frustration and defeat for you.]
You can't just - tell me you need me. You can't. How do you walk out of there with all our people? You said -- you said, people like me don't just get to walk away. You said people Clarke doesn't get to run.
What happens to us? [Why does it always happen to us? She's so tired of it -- she's nineteen fucking years old and she's tired of that shitty life, of clawing her way up from the ground constantly, of the nagging feeling that no matter what happens she's set for pain.]
[ he's well-aware it isn't fair he sits on this landmine she wants to set off. he knows it isn't fair at all he keeps saying things, but he can't help it. she toes the line of the bomb in the ground, the one he keeps trying to shove her away from, but she insists on being a pain in his ass by pushing him. he wants to protect her from something — the truth, maybe, the devastation she's picked on once more along with all of them. maybe he just wants her to feel like it's all done and dusted for them after she's accused of poisoning lexa. ]
[ he doesn't raise his voice at all. he doesn't lift his gaze from where he settles it on the floor. he almost sounds robotic, like he's reading from one of the big books she's studied from. ] They want on the ground. We're on the ground. [ it's simple basic math, but it requires her to know something she's not the expert at. maybe if it was about technology, how things work, like radios and dams and freaking acid fogs, raven would be able to piece it all together. but this is clarke's domain, and if she was more medically inclined, she'd figure it out. ] We're immune. They want our immunity.
[ he thinks to leave it there, but it doesn't really encompass what happens to us? what happens to monty and jasper, miller and harper is what appears like the dream. what had clarke so suspicious is what has bellamy questioning the sincerity of eudio's claims. what happens to raven and her boyfriend is a good plan gone wrong. but what happens to him and lincoln — he wishes he had an answer that was a hell of a lot easier than we got fucked. ]
[ his tone sounds bitter, and his face pinches as though he's sucked a lemon. he looks at her then, not over her shoulder, not at her leg, not even at the top of her hair. he looks at her because maybe she'll piece it together or ask a better question that isn't so broad. ] So, you know what they do? They invite you into the dollhouse. Give you a bed and food, maybe a few promises of security, I don't fucking know. [ he's not jasper, he's not clarke, he's not monty. he doesn't know how it works from the other side. he'd never thought to ask clarke. ] You go in as a Sky Person, you get the dream. [ he doesn't need jasper telling him how well he'd been kept. he can figure it out by his clean clothes and clean face and the room they shared. ]
[ he pauses, thinking to leave it at that, and he does for a few moments. what happens to them? they get tricked, they get screwed over by some deal, they get treated like their cattle. but being told a sky person gets to live the good life doesn't really give her much of an indication of how shitty it can be. his gaze drops to settle hard on her shoulder. ] You go in like a Grounder and it's a nightmare.
[She always did like a big explosion. Even if it meant setting it off herself. With clue laid out before her like this, it's inevitable that she'll want to piece them together, inevitable that she will.
Immunity -- she's not a doctor, she has no medical preparation, but she knows the basics from all the vaccinations on the Ark. You want immunity, you gotta get pricked with something. And that something, in this case, she has a terrible feeling that it's them. Sky people. Their people. The kids locked up in Mount Weather in that dollhouse he just mentioned. Given all the good stuff -- like Eudio. All the good stuff.
She's looking at him now, too. Watches the way his gaze drop to the side, and it jolts her.] Did you -- [No, it's not a question, is it? She knows this strategy, it's familiar: get a man inside, or a woman under the dropship, dismantle from within. It didn't work, he's suggested, so...] You went in as a Grounder, didn't you?
[ the thing he has always liked about raven is that she's not dumb. but the thing he doesn't like about her right now is that she isn't oblivious or ignorant, with her head so far up her own ass she can't really see past the fact that she got the hell out of dodge way before it got rough for her. he'd been relying on her own wish to not hear anything beyond the moment she accepted her deal with eudio, but bellamy finds that, along with her curiousity, he's fracturing at the seams of keeping a lid on it. ]
[ he's quiet for a long time, and maybe that's her answer right there. ]
[ he looks down but doesn't see the floor. he sighs. ] Yeah. [ he looks at her and it's without mirth in his smile or voice, ] I wouldn't recommend it.
[The silence more than answers her on its own. The longer he stays quiet, the more horrors she finds she's capable of coming up with. And yet somehow, he says she got him out of Mount Weather?
Now she gets it. Torture is hard to get back from - it took her that long to get back from the fear of it - and she wishes she could piece together everything back to the way it was twenty minutes ago. Back to laughing and joking, not her making him relive it.
She hesitates, then takes one step. Another one. Walks over to the couch, and lets herself drop back into it.]
[ resting his arms on his legs, bellamy remains hunched over instead of relaxing into the cushions or even letting them swallow him whole. ]
[ he inhales deeply to only release it, finding that it doesn't alleviate him of the tension coiling itself around his bones. she may sit beside him, the couch dipping under her weight, but he doesn't look at her, not even from the corner of his eye. ]
I don't know what to think. [ and that's the part he doesn't like, not knowing. if it hadn't been for maya knowing her way through mount weather, he'd have been too lost to locate jasper and get their own plan in action. he knows he's the one with the plans, the leader, the one who is meant to know what to do, but bellamy finds himself at a loss in eudio. he's taken a beating from mount weather, from kane, from clarke herself, and his own confidence in his leadership is in the tatters it had been in when they'd lost finn and clarke before the first batch of grounders were toasted. ]
[ he doesn't look at her head on, but turns his head slightly, focusing on her legs instead. he doesn't want to see her face, any of the potential pity that may pinch her features. he wants to go back to joking, too. but he sounds like he's had rope wrapped around his throat, and maybe he has. ] I just know I don't want to make the mistake they did. Blindly trusting people because they're nice to you almost got us all killed.
[For a few moments, she curls and uncurls her fingers, like they're itching to move forward and touch him, like she is. He's held her, when Finn died, she remembers him catching her and she remembers his grip being solid and anchoring. She wants to give that back, but she threw him down this road with her arguments, so it doesn't feel like she has the right.
Her hands stay firmly in her lap.
And then she lets out a laugh, short and brittle.] Sorry - I just...I tried to picture a world where either of us would trust someone blindly, and I can't. [Does that help? She doesn't think they'd run that risk. She doesn't feel in danger here, but she hasn't asked for an upgrade on her leg for a reason. There are people who could more than burn this place to the ground, but that doesn't mean the people who invited them here wouldn't put up a fight too.
She doesn't trust blindly, but by knowing what she's up against. Three months is long enough to know what she's up against.]
[ he remains unaware of her own plight when it comes to touching him. truthfully, for now, he doesn't want to be touched, not when he can look down at his hands and see lovejoy's neck between his fingers and feel them crushing his windpipe. it's the very reason he doesn't think he can do this, reverting back to thinking himself a monster for not only taking a proud little boy's father from him but for not being able to protect someone like maya. ]
[ she laughs, and it breaks where he wanders, even if the sound is mirthless. he looks at her bemusedly before she thinks to explain, understanding smoothing out the furrow of his brows and soothing his raised hackles some more. he does crack the tiniest of short lived smiles, knowing there's to be something funny in that. but he does believe raven truly deserves to have that, somewhere that makes her feel safe without question. ]
Sorry. [ he lets his eyes drop to her hands, but he just thinks she wishes to fix something, or keep busy, pulling apart radios. ] I know you wanted this place to be something good for you.
[ and he's waltzed right in and ruined it. maybe that's why he left before. maybe he had felt himself so close to bursting he had chosen to leave so clarke would have her wish and raven would find her peace. ]
[She turns her hands over, palms facing upwards and open, on top of her knees. It's not an offer, not quite, but it's a possibility; his own choice, she doesn't care. She doesn't care.
He misses her short-lived amusement looking down, but oh well.] Hey, you know. Made you remember traumatic events in your life -- let's say we're even.
[She goes silent for a while, in deep thought.] Bellamy - what happens if you dig and find nothing? What will you do if Eudio is clean?
[ it's hard to imagine this place being clean. nothing is — he imagines jasper and monty had thought that of mount weather, or at least jasper had thought maya represented a portion of mount weather he had clung to so desperately when clarke had opted to escape, leaving their people behind. it's hard to comprehend that any place comes without its cons, but if eudio is clean, if the only negative of this world is that he has to consider being physically affectionate with people when he can't remember how to do that anymore, then he supposes he'll live a life that's boring without its dangerous adventures. ]
[ he looks at her hands, and it's so easy for him to ignore it. he's never asked for help in a day of his life, earning his invitation onto the guard because mom did. the representatives had approached him. the guard had approached him. he'd taken what murphy had tried to create with the militia on the ground and had claimed it as his own. he can't remember the last time he asked for help — and he knows that this is an offer of it, even though bellamy doubts a hand will change anything at all. ]
[ it's on purpose, even though he tries to pretend it isn't, wanting to fool even himself, that he looks away when he reaches out for her hand. his fingers don't slip between the spaces of her own. his fingers wrap around her fingers, as if trying to trap them together. he wonders if anyone had held her hand when he'd been locked up in the ark with murphy. he wonders if things would've been better if he had had someone's hand to hold rather than running around mount weather blind until maya had found him. ]
[ he's quiet for a while, wondering what he'd do if this place ended up clean, if the only dirt he'd find is on the bottom of his own shoes. his deal will never change from wanting to protect octavia — my sister, my responsibility — but he thinks, maybe, if he can, he'd extend its reach, protecting her from more than just the dangers of a world that wants to kill them all. from grief and loss and losing more of herself than she can hold onto, maybe he can fix their own family by righting a wrong done by the council that had seen them torn apart in the first place. ]
Change my deal. [ it's as simple as that; he'd make the eudio representatives work for his help. the delinquents never had to. he looks at her then before he drops his gaze to where his fingers grip her own, not too tightly, but not so soft that it's as though he's not holding onto her at all. ]
[Bring everyone here, is what crosses Raven's mind as the only really important deal. They could split responsibility - each take half of their people's invitations or something of the sort. It could work. If Eudio isn't the dollhouse he fears, what better place to escape their world anyway?
She curls her fingers over his and leaves the grip at that.]
You'll have to play along. [Low, serious; this part isn't just because to her the city has helped, this part is real.] Or at the very least show them you're making some sort of effort. If they think you don't want to be here...you'd leave [unintentionally, she tightens her grip on his hand, thumb digging into the back of his palm] before you figure it out.
[ and maybe that's the problem — bellamy doesn't want to act, not as he had in mount weather, pretending to be one of them in what he thinks to be a truly poor performance. he doesn't even know if he had been convincing as a guard in the mountain, given he was more like a ghost than any tangible being. ]
[ her grip isn't lost on him, given it draws his gaze to their hands before he thinks to look up at her. ]
Apparently our files magically automatically update. [ that sounds like a double negative, but, it's true — they magically and automatically update, if what samantha said is to be true. he frowns, ] How the hell am I meant to convince something I don't understand? [ he wants the benefits of eudio, but he doesn't want to earn it by giving his trust to people who may backstab him — or whom he may let down once more. ]
[ this is just another plan of bellamy blake's that's beginning to fall to pieces. ]
I'm pretty sure this is updating your file right now. [She lets the matter drop into his lap, casual and pretending not to give it importance. Not to say something like 'touch the people you trust', because she doesn't think he's so stupid that he would force himself into something he doesn't want. Eudio would pick up on it, she's pretty sure.
And they haven't exactly been on top of each other today, but there has been contact. There has been intimacy; it counts as such, as far as Raven goes.]
We fought the Grounders even before we understood them.
Sometimes I wish we never did. [ it's just a quiet admission he knows isn't completely true. getting to know the grounders made things less black and white but more grey. lexa had made things complicated for them, just as lincoln had been a breath of fresh air for bellamy, knowing if anything's to happen to him octavia had someone to watch her back, even if she didn't need it most of the time. echo's no one to him, but he remembers what she'd done for him in mount weather — it's not something he can easily brush aside, calling her a savage and nothing more. ]
[ for bellamy, he thinks this is enough. it's not his hand in hers, but the meaning of it — trusting someone to not stab him in the back, forcing him to hang himself ... he wouldn't have taken her silently spoken offer, one that he had wondered if he had misconstrued the moment he acted on impulse, if he hadn't felt himself grow a little closer to her. o hasn't heard anything of what had occurred in mount weather to him and he hopes she never does. ]
I don't think holding hands is going to get us anywhere close to getting what we want. [ but at least it's a start. he's not quite the hopeless cause he'd suspected himself to be. ]
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[ his fingers slow as he thinks, almost an unconscious act on his part that he continues to work at her foot. ] Have you ever spoken to Samantha?
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[ "we're not full of shit" is something kane would tell him, parroted by jaha, even said by abby griffin. he thinks they'd try and say it in a condescending manner, and although it'd been over text, bellamy has a feeling samantha's keen for him to learn by himself eudio is a safe city, whereas those on the council would tell him it is while providing no proof. he'd thought to call a spade a spade with her, but maybe the eudio representatives are buckets instead. ]
[ he figures he owes her that, just in case. he doesn't know why he hadn't come to see her before he'd left, but, bellamy sometimes doesn't know himself. ]
Just in case it happens again, at least you know.
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She frowns, and pulls her foot out of his grip, pushing herself up to sit; the wince is there, but dulled by the fact that her right leg feels pretty great right now.]
Do you want to piss her off?
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[ — and no. he doesn't want this to be some crappy deal he made, risking coming here when he could be back at camp jaha trying to fix things. selfishly, he hasn't minded being here. some of the people are cool, some of them are actually nice, and most of them ... he feels like he's twenty again, a year before everything had gone to shit with that one choice that had ruined everything for his family. ]
[ all he can think about is mount weather, of how he'd wanted to pit everyone inside of it as the enemy, but had found an ally in the most unlikely of girls. it's hard to come back from that, losing maya, losing her family and their friends. if he'd been quicker, maybe abby and raven wouldn't have been drilled into, but then he's not the only person who had cards to play that day. ]
[ he shifts on the couch, no longer preoccupied with her foot. he presses his hands against his jeans and frowns, looking down at the space of the couch beside him rather than at her. ] I just don't believe this place is as black and white as it claims to be. Nothing is as perfect as this.
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It rattles her a little, that he's giving her the warning. He's going to poke -- and yeah, it's cool, it's okay to poke, but what kind of people have they turned out to be if literally nothing that seems good is unsuspicious to them? She can handle this sort of bitterness from herself, but not from others.]
What, because the people here are either good or evil? [She makes a gesture between the two of them like look at us.] That's the whole point - it's not black and white.
You agreed to this, Bellamy. You - you came here because you needed something and Eudio could give it, and if you don't want it anymore they'll send you back. What do you think is going to happen?
You'll dig and poke around, and some dirt will finally creep up to the surface? And then what? Save everyone? How?
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[ he lifts his head, but remains hunched over. his voice sounds rough, but there's no conviction in his voice. ] Yeah. I'll save everyone.
[ he sits up and looks at her. his voice isn't loud, but he's exasperated, irritated by everything — eudio trying to wash away the regret he feels, the guilt he holds, and attempting to be a better place for them, appetising enough that good people like raven would want to say. ] It's better to know the truth than to believe in some lie, Raven. You're just going to take them on their word? Believe that they're going to hold up their end of the deal because you said yes and I promise? [ he shakes his head. it hadn't worked with clarke, not when it seemed as though she had lexa in her pocket. it'd been the other way around. he'd seen how she'd changed, moving further away from leaning on him and instead looking to lexa for guidance. he'd become less of her co-leader and more of her soldier. ]
[ he thinks of how comfortable jasper had been with those from mount weather. there's no way in hell their people wouldn't have tried to escape unless they were given some incentive, wrapped neatly and tightly in a pretty package. clarke had been able to unravel it, and with that same suspicion, maybe bellamy can untangle eudio if it's as full of shit as the mountain men and the grounders. ]
People like us don't get second chances like this. People like you don't get to walk away. People like Clarke don't get to run. [ and people like bellamy? they lose everything, either way. ]
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They did hold up their end of the deal with me! [Blurted out, sudden and loud enough that it echoes in the apartment and silences him. The next thing out of her mouth is one heavy exhale, like saying that took whatever energy and calmness was in her.]
Or - [Quiet as her voice may be, it's tense and angrier by the minute.] Maybe you're going to tell me I'm not a big enough sort of character that it's my end of the deal that got everyone -- [She presses her lips together, bites them both to keep quiet, because she doesn't brag, she just fixes things.
Then forces the rest out,] Everytime I talk to someone from our world they tell me our people get out safely out of Mount Weather and I think -- [She scrunches up her face, then forces the air out of her lungs, fast.]
We're not some dumb heroes in some dumb mythology book, if I want a second chance, I'll fucking make one for myself, so -- yes, I said yes, and I said I promised, but at least I got what I wanted out of it. I'm proof.
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[ she can take her opportunity to flee, running as far from something he gets. but all bellamy can think about is how she's too quick to write herself off as not being integral at all. if it wasn't for raven, he knows he'd be dead at the hands of the mountain men personally or by having blow himself to bits in the acid fog room. no deal would ensure the lives of their people. they're not the heroes of the greek myths, but the people found within the stories that do their best to survive. ]
Or — [ emphasising it means he's being a jackass, and bellamy does it on purpose. ] — maybe I'm going to tell you that without you, we wouldn't have gotten our people out. Did you ever think about that, Raven? [ he doubts it. out of all the people to convince her to stay, it had been him. when raven reyes wanted to run away from their very first camp, bellamy blake had been the one to convince her to let her roots settle into the earth there and not leave. she doesn't brag, but she has no self-awareness, either. ]
[ but he finds he doesn't think about the eudio incentives now. all he can think about is placing his trust in someone who deserves it. the representatives of this city haven't earned it from him yet. lincoln had and bellamy's not so sure if he's found it within himself to forgive him yet for abandoning him. he doesn't know if he has it in himself to truly look past clarke saying together with her fingers crossed behind her back. ] Without that alliance, I'd be dead. [ his voice cracks, ] Without you, I'd be dead. [ he looks away from her as his voice becomes tense and hot with anger, thinking of lincoln abandoning him at the underground entrance. a foolproof plan hadn't quite taken into account the fool bellamy had been. ] I had a damn good plan to get our people out, I had people on my side, and you know what? It didn't go to plan!
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The recrimination that she can't just not go back. At least Clarke has the decency of being so scared of igniting the fire in Raven's soul that she told her to just do what made her happy.
Not Bellamy, though. That's the second time now; he tells her she's necessary, vital, and then she'll stay because she's an idiot and she'll bleed and it'll be her fault for being a sucker for someone calling her worth.
This settles it, doesn't it? If the outcome of her not returning would be his death, then there's no way she'll stay. For a second, she can almost hate him for this.]
What happens? [He can't just dump it on her like that and expect her not to dig. He thinks she doesn't dig? She is good at turning a blind eye -- turned a blind eye to an uncaring mother for years instead of denouncing her -- but when it really suits her, she'll dig right down to the marrow. He's already dropped hints once, and though she said before that she didn't want to know -- she'd lied.] How did you get them out?
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[ he's stony before her, refusing to move, refusing to breathe. he doesn't think to tell her. she hadn't asked clarke for specifics for a reason. although he doesn't know what that reason is, he suspects it may have been fear. ]
[ looking at her from the corner of his eye, he finds himself locked in a brand new cage. she doesn't want to know, yet she does — and bellamy isn't so sure if he wants to tell her at all. it'd all been a slip, one large hiccup in a perfectly good evening, and while he knows there's no returning to that moment of serenity, he refuses to move forward, too. he doesn't want to deal with his failures and miscalculations. ]
[ his tone is clipped, ] Walked out.
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She squeezes her fists together, and then unfurls her fingers with a huff,] You're so -- [She'll give him space, only because she wants to run away right now, all over again. She turns around and puts space between them, brace not entirely silent as it touches the floor with each step. Her eyes burn, but her cheeks stay miraculously wet - that's frustration and defeat for you.]
You can't just - tell me you need me. You can't. How do you walk out of there with all our people? You said -- you said, people like me don't just get to walk away. You said people Clarke doesn't get to run.
What happens to us? [Why does it always happen to us? She's so tired of it -- she's nineteen fucking years old and she's tired of that shitty life, of clawing her way up from the ground constantly, of the nagging feeling that no matter what happens she's set for pain.]
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[ he doesn't raise his voice at all. he doesn't lift his gaze from where he settles it on the floor. he almost sounds robotic, like he's reading from one of the big books she's studied from. ] They want on the ground. We're on the ground. [ it's simple basic math, but it requires her to know something she's not the expert at. maybe if it was about technology, how things work, like radios and dams and freaking acid fogs, raven would be able to piece it all together. but this is clarke's domain, and if she was more medically inclined, she'd figure it out. ] We're immune. They want our immunity.
[ he thinks to leave it there, but it doesn't really encompass what happens to us? what happens to monty and jasper, miller and harper is what appears like the dream. what had clarke so suspicious is what has bellamy questioning the sincerity of eudio's claims. what happens to raven and her boyfriend is a good plan gone wrong. but what happens to him and lincoln — he wishes he had an answer that was a hell of a lot easier than we got fucked. ]
[ his tone sounds bitter, and his face pinches as though he's sucked a lemon. he looks at her then, not over her shoulder, not at her leg, not even at the top of her hair. he looks at her because maybe she'll piece it together or ask a better question that isn't so broad. ] So, you know what they do? They invite you into the dollhouse. Give you a bed and food, maybe a few promises of security, I don't fucking know. [ he's not jasper, he's not clarke, he's not monty. he doesn't know how it works from the other side. he'd never thought to ask clarke. ] You go in as a Sky Person, you get the dream. [ he doesn't need jasper telling him how well he'd been kept. he can figure it out by his clean clothes and clean face and the room they shared. ]
[ he pauses, thinking to leave it at that, and he does for a few moments. what happens to them? they get tricked, they get screwed over by some deal, they get treated like their cattle. but being told a sky person gets to live the good life doesn't really give her much of an indication of how shitty it can be. his gaze drops to settle hard on her shoulder. ] You go in like a Grounder and it's a nightmare.
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Immunity -- she's not a doctor, she has no medical preparation, but she knows the basics from all the vaccinations on the Ark. You want immunity, you gotta get pricked with something. And that something, in this case, she has a terrible feeling that it's them. Sky people. Their people. The kids locked up in Mount Weather in that dollhouse he just mentioned. Given all the good stuff -- like Eudio. All the good stuff.
She's looking at him now, too. Watches the way his gaze drop to the side, and it jolts her.] Did you -- [No, it's not a question, is it? She knows this strategy, it's familiar: get a man inside, or a woman under the dropship, dismantle from within. It didn't work, he's suggested, so...] You went in as a Grounder, didn't you?
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[ he's quiet for a long time, and maybe that's her answer right there. ]
[ he looks down but doesn't see the floor. he sighs. ] Yeah. [ he looks at her and it's without mirth in his smile or voice, ] I wouldn't recommend it.
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Now she gets it. Torture is hard to get back from - it took her that long to get back from the fear of it - and she wishes she could piece together everything back to the way it was twenty minutes ago. Back to laughing and joking, not her making him relive it.
She hesitates, then takes one step. Another one. Walks over to the couch, and lets herself drop back into it.]
You think we're in the dollhouse.
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[ he inhales deeply to only release it, finding that it doesn't alleviate him of the tension coiling itself around his bones. she may sit beside him, the couch dipping under her weight, but he doesn't look at her, not even from the corner of his eye. ]
I don't know what to think. [ and that's the part he doesn't like, not knowing. if it hadn't been for maya knowing her way through mount weather, he'd have been too lost to locate jasper and get their own plan in action. he knows he's the one with the plans, the leader, the one who is meant to know what to do, but bellamy finds himself at a loss in eudio. he's taken a beating from mount weather, from kane, from clarke herself, and his own confidence in his leadership is in the tatters it had been in when they'd lost finn and clarke before the first batch of grounders were toasted. ]
[ he doesn't look at her head on, but turns his head slightly, focusing on her legs instead. he doesn't want to see her face, any of the potential pity that may pinch her features. he wants to go back to joking, too. but he sounds like he's had rope wrapped around his throat, and maybe he has. ] I just know I don't want to make the mistake they did. Blindly trusting people because they're nice to you almost got us all killed.
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Her hands stay firmly in her lap.
And then she lets out a laugh, short and brittle.] Sorry - I just...I tried to picture a world where either of us would trust someone blindly, and I can't. [Does that help? She doesn't think they'd run that risk. She doesn't feel in danger here, but she hasn't asked for an upgrade on her leg for a reason. There are people who could more than burn this place to the ground, but that doesn't mean the people who invited them here wouldn't put up a fight too.
She doesn't trust blindly, but by knowing what she's up against. Three months is long enough to know what she's up against.]
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[ she laughs, and it breaks where he wanders, even if the sound is mirthless. he looks at her bemusedly before she thinks to explain, understanding smoothing out the furrow of his brows and soothing his raised hackles some more. he does crack the tiniest of short lived smiles, knowing there's to be something funny in that. but he does believe raven truly deserves to have that, somewhere that makes her feel safe without question. ]
Sorry. [ he lets his eyes drop to her hands, but he just thinks she wishes to fix something, or keep busy, pulling apart radios. ] I know you wanted this place to be something good for you.
[ and he's waltzed right in and ruined it. maybe that's why he left before. maybe he had felt himself so close to bursting he had chosen to leave so clarke would have her wish and raven would find her peace. ]
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He misses her short-lived amusement looking down, but oh well.] Hey, you know. Made you remember traumatic events in your life -- let's say we're even.
[She goes silent for a while, in deep thought.] Bellamy - what happens if you dig and find nothing? What will you do if Eudio is clean?
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[ he looks at her hands, and it's so easy for him to ignore it. he's never asked for help in a day of his life, earning his invitation onto the guard because mom did. the representatives had approached him. the guard had approached him. he'd taken what murphy had tried to create with the militia on the ground and had claimed it as his own. he can't remember the last time he asked for help — and he knows that this is an offer of it, even though bellamy doubts a hand will change anything at all. ]
[ it's on purpose, even though he tries to pretend it isn't, wanting to fool even himself, that he looks away when he reaches out for her hand. his fingers don't slip between the spaces of her own. his fingers wrap around her fingers, as if trying to trap them together. he wonders if anyone had held her hand when he'd been locked up in the ark with murphy. he wonders if things would've been better if he had had someone's hand to hold rather than running around mount weather blind until maya had found him. ]
[ he's quiet for a while, wondering what he'd do if this place ended up clean, if the only dirt he'd find is on the bottom of his own shoes. his deal will never change from wanting to protect octavia — my sister, my responsibility — but he thinks, maybe, if he can, he'd extend its reach, protecting her from more than just the dangers of a world that wants to kill them all. from grief and loss and losing more of herself than she can hold onto, maybe he can fix their own family by righting a wrong done by the council that had seen them torn apart in the first place. ]
Change my deal. [ it's as simple as that; he'd make the eudio representatives work for his help. the delinquents never had to. he looks at her then before he drops his gaze to where his fingers grip her own, not too tightly, but not so soft that it's as though he's not holding onto her at all. ]
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She curls her fingers over his and leaves the grip at that.]
You'll have to play along. [Low, serious; this part isn't just because to her the city has helped, this part is real.] Or at the very least show them you're making some sort of effort. If they think you don't want to be here...you'd leave [unintentionally, she tightens her grip on his hand, thumb digging into the back of his palm] before you figure it out.
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[ her grip isn't lost on him, given it draws his gaze to their hands before he thinks to look up at her. ]
Apparently our files magically automatically update. [ that sounds like a double negative, but, it's true — they magically and automatically update, if what samantha said is to be true. he frowns, ] How the hell am I meant to convince something I don't understand? [ he wants the benefits of eudio, but he doesn't want to earn it by giving his trust to people who may backstab him — or whom he may let down once more. ]
[ this is just another plan of bellamy blake's that's beginning to fall to pieces. ]
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And they haven't exactly been on top of each other today, but there has been contact. There has been intimacy; it counts as such, as far as Raven goes.]
We fought the Grounders even before we understood them.
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[ for bellamy, he thinks this is enough. it's not his hand in hers, but the meaning of it — trusting someone to not stab him in the back, forcing him to hang himself ... he wouldn't have taken her silently spoken offer, one that he had wondered if he had misconstrued the moment he acted on impulse, if he hadn't felt himself grow a little closer to her. o hasn't heard anything of what had occurred in mount weather to him and he hopes she never does. ]
I don't think holding hands is going to get us anywhere close to getting what we want. [ but at least it's a start. he's not quite the hopeless cause he'd suspected himself to be. ]
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