( yeah, i'd rather be a lover than a fighter )

[baring]

who: bellamy blake (baring), clarke griffin (skaikru), her adopted people, and YOU! | ( 3 open prompts, 1 semi-closed )
when: mid may, post-party
where: various locations
summary: there's no getting around the fact that clarke's been here for months. there's also no getting around bellamy's refusal to leave her side. time to face the damn music and figure out a new normal.
warnings: blanket warning for the 100's everything. nothing graphic or violent planned but the meta of both bellamy and clarke will probably go to some dark and unfortunate places. feel free to opt-out here on his permissions post.

I'M IN NEED OF A SAVIOR, BUT I'M NOT ASKING FOR FAVORS. | clarke griffin + bellamy blake ( VARIOUS LOCATIONS, SEMI-OPEN TO EVERYONE BUT EBALON AND LA PLUMA 🙃 )

( friends, enemies, casual acquaintances, neighbors, and begrudging allies — you've all met clarke griffin, right? 5'5", blonde, best described as fucking reckless and angry, but like, with a purpose. she's been here since the beginning, jumped off the serena eterna and very publicly died against the side of pirate jenny's galleon. got her arm chopped off in the televised battle royale, and recently took a pair of lobster crackers to the captain's head while sitting in his lap in the middle of a party. basically always looks like she's about to cry, punch someone in the face, or grind her teeth so hard they crack under the pressure of all her anxieties. bleeds black blood, still looks a little crispy from maybe-dying in a nuclear apocalypse. exudes an air of forlorn loneliness, and begrudgingly started making friends. only really gets excited about antibiotics and chocolate cake. doesn't wash her clothes enough, has been the doomsday caller on the corner insisting they were all going to die from day one...

well guess what, you're about to start see her smiling. a lot.

small, still-sad smiles; like tragic inside jokes are being passed back and forth between her and the young man who arrived just recently, and seemingly immediately glued himself to her side. and her to his.

catch them walking through the hallways together, oddly mirrored images of emaciated, battle weary youths. or spot them sitting in a corner table of the dining halls, her picking at a sparse plate of meat whilst he hunches over a bowl of soup. or maybe you see the two of them out on deck, clarke gesturing all about like a tour guide — look, that's where pirate jenny swelled from the sea and almost drowned us all; that's the direction the skiff from the island returned from; there's no fish in the sea; that's the bridge up there; here are the most strategic points i've found in the event of an on-board war, etc — while bellamy takes it all in with a perpetual air of disbelieving acceptance. they're probably also found in all and sundries, clarke shoving bottled water, prepackaged snacks, and soap into his arms before giving him the rundown on how to "check out", despite no actual money being necessary. or maybe at the mouth of the newly erected tommy bahama's, neither complaining about the gaudy patterns all that much — still not quite over the novelty of new and clean.

anywhere along the ship, those few who have become friends and confidants may be flagged down by clarke with an almost unnatural air of enthusiasm. anyone else who approaches will be politely greeted, and introduced to — )

This is Bellamy.

( unless it's ebalon or la pluma, in which case clarke's immediately clamming up, and putting hands on bellamy to usher him away. )

MY WHOLE LIFE I'VE FELT LIKE A BURDEN. I THINK TOO MUCH AND I HATE IT. | LIBRARY, OPEN.

( if there were any informational texts to be found, clarke would already have them stashed and earmarked. that isn't good enough. what purpose does a library have, if not to help people educate themselves?

bellamy has to see the library with his own eyes and make his own judgment call on whether it's useless. he trusts clarke; this isn't about that. it's about books. actual physical copies of books were limited on the ark, rarities in the form of personal collections that either passed hand-to-hand or were kept aside, criminally untouched in private collections. most texts were accessible via tablet, presuming you had the credentials. classes were generally lectured from flawed memory, arbitrarily passed to the next generation by word-of-mouth. he runs his freshly scrubbed fingers over the spines, skimming titles and authors in quiet wonderment. is this what people on earth had, before? stories that weren't crumbling to pieces, water or fire-damaged, missing pages?

he pulls several in his rummaging, opening them to thumb through the pages, puzzling over the binding on hardcover copies.

up and down a ladder, he inspects the uppermost shelves as well, probably with a goofy smile on his face.

just wait until he tells octavia ab—

expression darkening, he closes that particular book in a snap and stows it away where he found it. eventually, less sulkily, he winds up cross-legged on the floor with a semi-circle of books around him. the running theme seems to be shakespeare and any roman-themed ( greek will suffice ) fiction he can find.

when he isn't surveilling the ship, collecting supplies like a retriever and/or following clarke like a menacing shadow, he can be found descending down the literary hole with tunnel vision. he's either startled out of his reverie with a, ) Did you say something?

( or more inquisitively, disturbing another reader to ask, )

Fifty shades of what now? ( SQUINT ) But there aren't that many.

( please humor the man. he is clearly handicapped by a lack of taste, what with that shirt, those socks and really impractical khaki pants that are too tight and without nearly enough pockets. )

I'M SO USED TO BEING IN THE WRONG, I'M TIRED OF CARING. | TUAVA ( BUT CAN BE TWEAKED TO WHATEVER BAR ), OPEN.

( you ever have one of those nights where you can't stand anyone or anything? you can't sleep because you're too exhausted but too alert to give yourself permission to rest? can't eat it away, can't shower it away? in a hopeless attempt to cross everything off the list, he even tries jogging in start-and-stop laps around the sports deck. the runner's high gives him a head rush stronger than any deprivation while an alarm was blaring in space. all it does is make him miss raven and echo, and being knocked flat on his back repeatedly. so naturally, he runs that much harder to steal the wind from his own lungs. bellamy exercises until his hands are on his knees and he's a heaving mess, concerned he's about to lean over the railing and hurl up his soup from dinner earlier.

the edginess lingers after his second shower of the day, doesn't go swirling down the drain with his shampoo like he wishes it would.

he wanders the many shops and entertainment without any real direction in mind, giving clarke her first real solitude since his arrival and allowing himself to shake out the feelings he's been bottling up on purpose.

his feet lead him to a whiskey bar of all places. he stands in the entry for a whopping thirty seconds—don't do this, you don't do this—and then he shrugs off the little voice in his head that reminds him incessantly of his responsibilities ( how clarke needs him to be strong, how their people are probably waiting for them to come home ). but for the next hour, bellamy wants to sit slouched in a loveseat with a leg drawn up, bent at the knee but preoccupying the entire piece of furniture with how he's spread out. a half-full glass rests on his thigh with his hand over it. if anyone happens to look up or moves to sit across from him, he'll raise his glass in answer. but, he doesn't have much to say.

he's spent the last six months playing clue in his head, wondering who would kill who with what and where, if he didn't unplug the oxygenator first because they could all be so aggravating in close quarters. only, for tonight, he misses them. because for the first time without octavia in his life, he still had a family. there were these people around him constantly, filling a wound in him.

lamely and without more than a tired smile, he tilts his head to the side and gestures with his free hand. )

Can I buy you a drink? ( sorry, friend, he's running on empty. )

LOVING NEVER GAVE ME A HOME, SO I'LL SIT HERE IN THE SILENCE. | ADULT POOL, OPEN.

( reasons why we do not drink in our ripe old age: The Hangover. The Hangover, different than a hangover ( lowercase ), finds you, cracks you over the head with the nearest blunt object ( a flamingo-shaped bookend ) and plays some god awful bubblegum pop song on a loop until you die. maybe that latter part is more the serena eterna than bellamy, but he can't be sure this song wasn't on maya's ipod that jasper inherited. was it? is this hell?

when he accomplishes crawling ( yes ) out of bed and finding a pair of shorts, he blearily stumbles to the pool deck for some much needed sunshine with some weird sandals and chunky pink, plastic sunglasses. his curls may or may not be defying gravity in whatever manner they please. the towel around his shoulders like a cape is the closet bellamy gets to locating a shirt in his zombie shuffle to one of the beach chairs.

forty-five minutes later and this man is staring at the water like an uninterested cat, nodding off in his chair. this is what the kids are calling suntanning, right? unintentionally falling asleep and gaining more freckles? okay, cool.

except every time he almost falls asleep the umph tiss umph tiss starts up and he jumps, heart-racing, panic! at the pool, party of one. )

This is not what dreams are made of. I've got to get out of here.

( ABORT PLAN!!!! ABORT!!! it's too late, he's standing at an unfortunate time, rising as someone approaches to sit next to him and now here they are, nose-to-nose(ish) - height differences, you know. someone flails, there's grabbing, a teeter-totter effect and then maybe this ends in a meet-cute and not murder. that happens, doesn't it? surely, two people can plummet into a beach chair and not go to battle. )

Comments

so far from a savior

[thinkfirst]

[ It's so very odd to see Clarke looking actively happy that Flynn, sweaty from one of his early-morning training sessions, stops dead in his tracks as soon as Clarke raises her hand. He looks kind of a sight with his hair a sweaty shoved-back mess and his ostentatious leather sword belt strapped around a t-shirt with the Serena Eterna's logo on it, and as soon as Clarke says this is Bellamy he becomes suddenly and painfully aware of that fact, snaps practically upright to attention like a good soldier. ]

I hadn't realized—

[ Well, no, of course you haven't. Flynn shoves the thought away, smiles, and presses his hand to his heart (and the damn logo) to incline his head in a bow. ]

Bellamy, it's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Flynn. It's wrong to say "welcome aboard" but I haven't yet figured out an appropriate alternative.

[baring]

( in the encyclopedia next to the word filthy, there isn’t a picture of this guy. he’s not even ranked top five. he does appear to be tightly wound but maybe that’s the proprietary that goes right over his head. people deferring to clarke isn’t unusual because she walks like a leader and makes moves like a survivor. though he can’t be sure if this has anything to do with her presence on board or just whatever it is that flynn has going for him.

bellamy nods in response, not one-hundred on the etiquette, and not prepared to bow in turn. he’s trying this time. )

I don’t think there is one. Whatever you come up with, it’s going to sound like empty pleasantries. But I appreciate the effort. ( he doesn’t force a smile, but he does look at clarke as if to say, see? i can behave. ) And I guess you don't want to paralyze the newcomers by asking about their interpretation of hell.

[skaikru]

( bellamy's picked an excellent point in the introduction gauntlet to start trying — less snap judgement, dulled prickly exterior, mildly conversational — and some of the tension clarke'd held in her shoulders starts to melt. though really, honorable, idealistic flynn scifo shouldn't ruffle nearly as many feathers as obsessively intrusive mizuki or stoic, unwavering (cold) natsuno yuuki.

flynn's bowing, bellamy's behaving, and clarke gives an approximation of a soft, appreciative smile before peeling herself from bellamy's side and sliding a foot or so closer to the sweaty blond man.

much like she's been dictating a tour of the ship, it's time for another round of summing up each passengers highlights like a catalogue of who was useful, who was dangerous, and who didn't deem a second look — with flynn belonging in the first category. )

Flynn comes from a world where magic exists, is treated like science ( at least that's her take away from rita mordio. ) and is channeled through gemstones called blastia. He's also the one who ran unarmed into the middle of a supernatural hurricane, and talked an enraged storm goddess out of drowning us all in her quest to get at the Captain.

( and it's that admirable, bellamy? diplomacy, a peaceful resolution — a much better track record than either of them holds. later she'd also include that flynn's optimism and sense of duty left him paralyzed in the face of hard choices sometimes, but that it didn't detract from how easy he felt to align ones self with. )

and then jordan emerged from vermont-based hibernation

[thinkfirst]

If I'd taken my sword she hardly would have taken me seriously. Brokering peace with a weapon ended terribly for me once.

[ Sure, that was because he'd been double-crossed, but still! His point stands. Something about Clarke's words—about her softness, rarely-seen this far into the journey (actually, possibly never seen, because Flynn and Clarke have had sort of an intense journey so far)—makes him smile, a little sheepish to be summed up so neatly and accurately. ]

We'll see if it was luck soon enough, most likely. It may be hell, but welcome all the same. Sometimes it's less horrible. There are pools, and they're nice.

slowly emerges from plague-based absence

[baring]

( he’s going to count it as a point in growth that he doesn’t stare at both of them like they’re mutated animals on earth. bellamy’s trying to store the influx of details that clarke bulletpoints at him about all the people she’s met, wondering how he’s going to remember all of this trivia. the distinctions of magic in each world and how it’s weaponized. bellamy’s eyes do take in flynn more considerably, impressed by the sheer stupidity and/or the described courage, depending on how he turns his head. you would have to be some kind of stupid to make requests of a god.

it’s better than he and clarke have ever done. their diplomacy is better marked by graveyards than handshakes. )

You must have said something right. ( luck is too rare a commodity to rely on. striking a chord of empathy, while complex with hardened warriors isn’t as improbable. ) That’s your takeaway? We’re in hell but the water’s warm?

( a partial nitpick but not coarsely done. there’s a chuckle of disbelief, soft, confused and light. )

You didn't tell me there was swimming. ( must have slipped clarke's mind. wonder why? couldn't have anything to do with her inability to drop her responsibilities for a moment of fun. )

vocalizes w/ prince of egypt vibes

[skaikru]

( pick the right god, with the right motives, and it's really not so hard to bend them to the will of mere mortals. most cared for humanity, even long after they'd forgotten themselves.

clarke doesn't expect the aside. her main aspiration for facilitating introductions was to push two people she cared about (or decided to care about, for the cause) together and hopefully watch new relationships flourish. selfishly, oh so selfishly, she wants to introduce bellamy to the best versions of the people on board this ship, hoping that he'd feel more at ease knowing he was surrounded by people ready to fight for their survival. that was the comfort zone, and she wants him to meet the flynn scifo that was willing to die in order to offer a god comfort, not the one who she'd first met — dressed head to toe in ancient armor, wielding a sword more than half her height, and still too hung up on ideals to help her break down a door.

but, of course, bellamy undermines her ideals with some level of sass, and clarke has to fire back. )

Do you want to go swimming? ( sarcasm, loosely disguised as rapid-blinking shock. it's one step from eyerolling in one direction, and a step from a sort of war-forged inside joke in the other direction. absolutely ridiculous, not something to concern ones self over, ridiculously indulgent when there's a brand new threat hanging over their heads.

...as if any of the original hundred hadn't dipped into the river, or a lake or pond just to experience what being surrounded by water felt like for once in their lives. )

The pool's right over there.

we're all doin our best over here

[thinkfirst]

If there must be a silver lining, and I think there must be considering we do all have to live here in the details of days, then I think it should be pools.

[ Listen all he has is his optimism and floaties in pools and also morning training routines, do not take this from him. ]

That they're accessible all the time and by everyone is... nice.

[ And not exactly something Flynn is used to, easy access to small luxuries. It's a veneer, certainly, to lull them into some kind of comfort, but Flynn's been here long enough to at least appreciate the sugar with the poison. ]

Also, they're wonderful for exercise.