Title: i can see the end (but it hasn't happened yet)
Pairing: Clarke/Raven, Lincoln/Octavia (brief), slight Clarke/Lexa, mentions of Finn/Raven and Finn/Clarke.
Rating: M (only because the rating decision freaks me out and i threw in that certain four letter 'f' word and a few other things).
Disclaimer: I do not own The 100 or the lyrics in the title (and very first italic paragraph right below). They belong to rightful owners.
Authors Note: Honestly, I have no clue what this is (or if it will even make since). I just sat down and kind of let it go where the flow seemed to be leading me. It follows canon as much as it does not. You'll figure out what I'm talking about. Have fun and review, or whatever. :).
...
I'm the blade, you're the knife. I'm the weight, you're the kite. They were right when they said, we were breathing underwater, out of place all the time, in a world that wasn't mine to take.
- Breathing Underwater by Metric
...
Raven tastes like regrets. A romance turned two-timing and a knife sunk in a heart; her forgiveness a lot stronger than a punch to the jaw - not stronger than the horrible truth afterwards.
Still, maybe it was her ruthless honesty, that has you drinking up the pain in her lungs so she won't have to drown in the memories that immense from them. You tangle a hand in her hair, ruining the traditional ponytail, and let her shove you back into the nearest tree.
It might be one of your biggest mistakes.
She pushes harder into your mouth to stop the questioning.
...
Raven isn't Octavia pretty - all perfectly sculpted jawline and striking eyes, but goddamn, if she isn't the right amount of beautiful that could stop your breathing and make you want to meld souls together.
You ache in sadness for her. Because, she gets colder with time. Her eyes become duller, expressions more stony, and she's more willing to give up her life instead of the remnants of her heart. Some of it, no clarity needed, is entirely your fault - even if she does come to peace with what transpired having the certainty to be much worse.
Raven, for the most part though, from the moment her feet touched the dirt and you had witnessed the wide, astonishing smile she wore when asking 'is this rain?', is a much more solid force of nature than the hundreds and hundreds of Earths armies wish they could be.
...
She leaves after stealing your breath, which she does with purpose and roughness. She walks back to the others, head held high, not once looking back. You stare at the stars between the gaps of tree limbs - they aren't their home anymore, but up there - blissfully unaware - it felt safer.
You aren't ready for another heart to collide with yours, but you can't seem to get the tingling to leave your lips.
...
That happens, insanity hits the fan.
When you next see Raven, she won't look your way. It stings, because you didn't start this and kiss her first. That was all her, and you let her have it. You let her take what she wanted. She can't avoid you forever.
Then sometime later, like a well deserved kick to the gut, Lexa kisses you and it strikes something in your chest.
Somewhere, between trying to lead and trying to live, you make the unfortunate comparison with the three hearts that have been playing a not-so-nice game with yours.
With Finn there were less truths and more heartbreak, but he was your first real love and with that comes the honor of holding a great standard - to falling with no real thought, no holding back, is the purest type of all.
It had been the truth when you told Lexa it wasn't the right time for a them, not yet. But, you would lying if you didn't admit - even just to yourself - that between the differences and similarities, a tugging from the universe had been pulling you in the direction of the vulnerably open chest she lies bare for you in tiny, eye-opening moments.
With Raven - With Raven there's a riptide going down your spine to your feet, and it seems to ground you. You feel like the two of you could make it together, if that is what was wanted - if the rest of you could make to live another decade.
Hell, your head is such a spinning mess.
...
After the catastrophe that was Mount Weather, when saying goodbye to Bellamy was painful in its own way - he'll be a large, important ration of your life for eternity - there was one more thing needing to be done.
She's barely awake when you go see her; from experience you have a feeling, she won't sleep peacefully for awhile - if ever. You haven't. But, she also has more physical damage than you.
Wick had carried her away. You remind yourself to thank him for that at some point. Death has been trying to get her since the sky.
You sit beside her, relief rushing over you as she lets you take her hand. With the other one, you touch lightly to her increasingly marked skin. "You get hurt too easily," you tell her, quietly.
She manages a weak nod."Yeah," She holds your gaze, for the first time, since before the kiss. "We do."
Her words cut worse than any blade.
She must know what is coming.
You wait 'til she falls asleep. You leave.
...
You've been gone long enough to lose track of exactly how many days it has been since you've left, months have probably passed. You have guilt weighing down your chest, and you try to use it in fueling the anger of a betrayal. It isn't easy, there was a possible someday whenever Lexa had been near, and now an empty void is managing to take hold of what might be left of you.
You don't really know which way is up and down anymore, right and wrong, and if you could make the choice that lies within your near future. The number of lives you have taken doesn't need another number - it's Lexa. But you think of what saving her people meant for yours, what it meant for the strong connection that had been there and unfolded with a tenderness too unlike a Commander, and nobody - their people, your people - was supposed to decrease in the rapidly way it has. It all has built up - deaths and lies and the ways of this world, the sky.
The dedication to the Grounders than a truce hurts worse than realizing Raven held a place in Finn's heart long before you.
- Raven.
When you sleep, you dream, well actually there are more nightmares than anything, but with each one has an underlining illusion of spacewalkers - (she told you the story when there was solid understanding between them, and she was just sad and mad and tired).
When you wake, too tired but too restless, you wonder how many times you will attack the images behind Raven's eyelids, then trudge forward anyways.
There are more important things to be focusing on.
...
They find you.
The trail you fought so desperately to not leave behind has nothing on the years of hunting experience Lincoln has gathered. It's not surprising, when Raven is right behind them. She usually has been able to find a solution to things, and this time she isn't letting someone leave her again.
Octavia is there too. She may hate you, but not a single part of her would ever let Raven make the risky journey herself. By fault, neither would Lincoln.
Seeing them, seeing her, makes you want to run and cry and want, want, want things to cease the madness. You aren't who you once were content in being. But, Raven won't let you go this time. Neither of you have the right to give up.
"I couldn't have done what you have."
She means stabbing Finn, leading where rules have already been written and a lot is unknown. That's because Raven has morals, and self-truths, and determinedly writes her own path. With you, an uncomfortable feeling takes hold, you're starting to feel so far from your body, so out of place with the world not near enough for your reach. You had a little piece of the earth in your hands, whether you had searched for it or not, but it was never yours to take, to lead. This role you have in the world, certainly, isn't your destiny.
At least, you were hoping.
You swallow. "That doesn't make me better than you." You hate how the words come out of your mouth - all cracked and bleeding.
"That wasn't a challenge," She tells you, hoping the force of her words can somehow do what she does best and fix something - for you. "In this world, we don't get to decide if anybody is really better than the next."
...
You get better. By that, you mean healthy - physically, anyways. Lincoln brings you food, Octavia leaves you with water, and Raven uses what she has learned about basic first-aid from you, and your mother, to clean any wounds with silence and steady hands.
She even counters a few remarks Octavia throws your way.
Its confusing, because Octavia is still cold towards you, her loyalties still lie elsewhere - you can't stand that you're the reason she won't be friends again. But, she curses the first couple of days you refuse to touch the water near your feet, and threatens to take away your food if you wouldn't at least drink something. Raven wouldn't let her get away with that happening, but you pick it up and take a greedy sip.
It will take more than this situation to get Octavia to side with forgiveness, if you even can, yet you'll do what you can and hope one day her hatred dwindles. You want to push away knowing how your own actions from the bombing is close to the devastation of Mount Weather.
It isn't enough.
You're struggling to fight being a monster.
...
She lets you, let her, fuck you senseless. You focus on her unsteady breathing, the pressure of her body, and you think perhaps she can feel you brush the damaged skin of her lower back, because she falters for just a second, before continuing. She's probably choosing to ignore it. Just like you choose to ignore the faults in this not working.
You struggle with how much you actually seem to need her. But she's terribly stunning, and outstandingly good at this. So, you get what easiness you can from this happening.
And - briefly - you wonder if Finn had ever seen the same blue lights of calming, magical mystery, behind close eyelids whenever Raven sinks through layers of skin and tissue and bone. Maybe he felt her completely dismantle and reassemble each part of who he was, too.
That thought makes it become way too much.
She kisses the dip of your chin. You try not to have her see you cry.
...
"We might not survive this," you say.
"Considering all obstacles," Raven doesn't remove herself from your tangled limbs. When you had whispered it, you thought she was asleep. "You're probably right."
That should have been expected, but Raven has always been persistent for the ones still breathing to keep it that way. She's smart and with that comes logic - reality. It doesn't help though; the glaring truth. Your mind starts racing.
She leans up on an elbow, kisses you firmly, thumb tracing your cheek, and mumbles against your lips, "We've made it this far."
Your heart expands and your mind yields.
She doesn't take away the meaning, or the self-hatred, of lives lost along the way. Just the same as you can't take away the fact that Raven will go the rest of her life mourning the boy that kept her alive. But, she kisses the skin of your shoulder, so carefully, and you are absolutely sure that healing goes both ways. And that you are doing it together.
...
Neither of you have said those three certain words yet, because they seem so tainted already. Because you feel something, but you think it could still be too soon.
Instead, you both stop short a couple of feet behind Octavia and Lincoln - you're going back, finally heading home - and Raven's grip is tight in your hand as she tries to lean up against the nearest tree and play it off as if it had nothing to do with her leg.
The story seems to go like this; your downfall happens to lie in decisions and bloodshed and a questioning of morals - what it takes to keep the rest alive- but the demons of Raven are the ones that she can't just clean from her hands and repress away- she'll always have rougher scars than you.
She takes a deep breath and lets you rub a hand along her shoulder. She stands up straight.
"You're incredible," you say, because you can, because it's true, and it sounds a little like 'i love you' but more like the 'i'd pick you first' from so, so long ago.
She shrugs. "I figured that out forever ago."
There's a smug smile on her face, but traces of life's toll is almost visible underneath - in her eyes, on her shoulders, in her heart - and she seems to have aged millenniums. The girl with just one piece of family and a grand intelligence, has transformed into the strongest person you might have ever known. Then again, that is something you assume she always has been.
You lift her hand and kiss the back of it.
"Will you two come the fuck on?" Octavia stares, one eyebrow raised sharp and challenging. She is so important to you, she still has some understandable anger towards you, but her eyes don't burn into your skin so much anymore when she looks your way.
Raven rolls her eyes. Lincoln slides his hand along Octavia's and gently tugs her away, and you know that together - or apart - they will be a force this world, new and old, has yet to see. They could never exist again without the other.
You flick your eyes back to Raven. She looks at them like that is what she wants, then turns to you, nodding her head towards camp. "After you." She says, with a crooked sure smile.
A surge runs through your being, and you think, just maybe, you both could have it; do have it.
...
Raven tastes like redemption. A tether to a re-do starting line that happened with a kiss against a tree and a loyalty amongst respect; a forgiveness of the decisions made within chaos.
The battle scars, so deep, they leave unreachable marks on their insides - she had asked once if you could teach her to paint effectively over them. She is there though, and this time, it isn't you trying to heal her or her trying to fix you. No, this time, there is an equality in saving each other.
It becomes one of the things you could never regret.
You lean in. She meets you halfway.