A/N: Still not okay.
Spoilers for 4x07, Gimme Shelter.
Post 4x07, Gimme Shelter.
Companion piece to Hollow Lungs.
Rated T for dark themes, some self harm-ish.
000
There is a swelling storm
And I'm caught up in the middle of it all
And it takes control
Of the person that I thought I was
The boy I used to know
But there is a light
In the dark
And I feel its warmth
In my hands
In my heart
Why can't I hold on?
000
It doesn't feel like the last time. An ache, all encompassing, like he's being split in two, shredded to ribbons and left in the winds. Fire, ice, burrowing from his chest and radiating outward through his veins, a screaming deep in his lungs so loud in his head no amount of sobbing could release the tension.
There's no panic, no freight train of scattered emotion, no onslaught so heavy his own legs can't hold him up anymore.
There's just...
Emptiness.
The bursts of activity around him don't register to his sightless gaze, voices reduced to mindless buzzing in his ears. He feels weighted, tethered to the earth, yet also lost, disjointed, foundation-less. Skin is too tight for his frame, a shell too small to contain whatever it is that writhes inside him, snuffing out. Dying.
But it's not like it was before. It's dull, distant, small and large, light and heavy all at once.
And an itch sprouting over his mind, his neck, his arms, incessant. It's all he can feel for a fleeting moment before the nothing returns to swallow him whole.
Nothing and everything.
An itch.
"Bellamy."
Dark, warm eyes nestled below black bangs, sorrow stirring in hesitant movements, pity.
"You're going to hurt yourself."
A pause, and he blinks, confusion only adding to his drifting thoughts. The warm gaze darts down and he follows the line of sight until he sees red.
Dark and glistening in the low lights of what is left of the Ark, smeared across his forearm in small ditches.
You're going to hurt yourself.
As if he hasn't already.
But he stops himself, stilling the impulse to scratch until the nothing and everything goes away by locking his hands together, bloody fingertips digging into tendon and bone.
The warmth shifts from in front of him to his right, so close its knee knocks against his.
"...Can I take a look at that?"
He swallows the stone in his throat, twitching against the urge to just get up and leave, pace the room full of bodies until the itch and the nothing and the everything melts away, to just leave the camp and never come back, let the universe decide what should or shouldn't happen to him.
Warm fingers brush against his arm and he flinches at the contact but doesn't pull away. Questions bore into his skull, burning, but he doesn't meet them. Instead he just lets the fingers encircle his wrist and lift, twisted but not painfully so Monty can get a better look at the damage.
He wonders if there's any part of him Monty can see that isn't damaged.
"Kane said the rain got through your suit?" More questions, still burning, but he gives Monty the courtesy of nodding. "Your fingernails did more damage than the rain. I think you'll be okay."
He nods again, free hand curling into a fist, the itch crawling further up the limb he hadn't gotten to relieve yet. Blood is cleansing. Blood stains. A paradox that he doesn't want to explore.
The warmth of Monty disappears and leaves him chilled, goosebumps trailing down his spine until he shivers. He drops his gaze back to his arm, watching the red as it beads on the angry marks and drips down, collecting for a moment before dropping to the floor.
He wonders what Clarke is doing right now.
And the warmth suddenly returns to his side, gentle hands taking his arm once again, this time with wrappings brushing against his skin. A canteen, his arm pulled further away from his body, and water washing away the red to reveal each and every rut that follows his veins.
He put them there.
Blood is cleansing.
The bandages are soft and thin as they cover his moment of weakness, hidden from the world that doesn't care.
Blood stains.
Maybe every moment for him is a moment of weakness.
"You'll be okay, Bellamy," Monty repeats, and Bellamy knows he's not just talking about his arm.
And he discovers that is what does hurt. Everything else is numb, tingly, itching, but not that.
He'll be okay.
While Octavia is dead or suffering alone.
And he's supposed to be okay with that? The sting slowly blooming over his chest begs to differ. He pulls his arm close to the pain, listening to the slow and steady breathing of the body next to his.
He doesn't know who he is if he's not Octavia's brother. He's never had to be anything else.
My sister, my responsibility. The very air he breathes.
Is that why every breath feels like water, thick and heavy to inhale, sloshing around in his lungs and burning as they leave?
If there wasn't a looming apocalypse, if every able body wasn't necessary for their potential survival, he could just-
No.
He shoves that twisted, selfish thought into the dark recesses of his mind for another time when he can actually afford to think it.
The warmth moves away as Monty suddenly stands, hovering close by but wanting to leave. When Bellamy sees Harper huddled between the cots with her head in her hands, he knows why.
"Monty," he says, ignoring the way his voice creaks like a rusted door on its hinges. The warm eyes meet his, clear, kind, without judgment. As always.
Monty is one of the reasons why he'll stay.
"Thanks."
A smile tugs at the corner of Monty's young face, a rarity these days. "We should be the ones thanking you. For keeping us alive as long as you have."
Thank you. For keeping me alive.
He looks at the floor, throat working.
I can't protect anyone.
"...I'm not the only one who's done that," is all he can say, words dropping from his tongue like lead. He thinks of eyes glistening like the sun on the ocean, hair lighter and more golden than the sand.
"I know... But there would be a lot less of us still breathing right now without you." And with that, Monty disappears into the quiet motion of the people, finding Harper at the center and joining her on the floor.
Monty is one of the many reasons why he'll stay.
"Bellamy."
He glances up, to the radio station and the man sitting next to it. Kane's face is soft but contemplative; he's still thinking about what Bellamy said to him.
You floated my mother.
He doesn't know if he regrets saying it or not.
"It's Clarke."
A second of his thoughts running into each other, the world slowing down as his heart speeds up, mouth going dry, fingers trembling-
The radio in Kane's hand is proffered in his direction. He blinks, confusion once again clouding his head, but then he understands and he's pushing himself to his feet and nearly stumbling over as the blood rushes from his face.
Kane makes a move to grab him, but hesitates, thinking better of it and opting just to stand there, stiff as a board. Bellamy almost feels sorry for him. But he's too tired to feel much of anything other than the itch and the nothing and the everything.
"Thanks," he says once again, making sure he meets Kane's eyes when he says it. Kane just nods, eyes still sad like they always are, and offers the seat to Bellamy. He takes it and the radio.
He gives himself a few moments to just sit there, elbow planted on the table and hand over his eyes, breaths washing in and out of his lungs.
"Hello?" crackles over the line and he instinctively lifts the radio to his mouth, finger already pressing down on the button.
A breath.
"Yeah, I'm here."
"Bellamy." Her relief slips through the speaker and falls like a blanket over him, muscles he didn't even realize were bunched tight loosening. "Are you okay?"
You'll be okay, Bellamy.
The muscles tense again, and his arms itch.
"Can we... talk about what's going on over there?"
He knows she can hear the unspoken please ringing in his words, even through a radio.
It's pathetic, right?
"Uh, yeah. Of course," she says after a pause, and he can hear her glancing around, thinking of the different things she has to talk about. A beat, then her voice again. "Did you know Murphy can cook?"
His eyebrows tick up at that. "What?"
"Yeah, and he can read too."
A genuine smile cracks open his lips. "Good for him," he says, and he means it.
He hears a faint 'hey Bellamy' and a small huff of laughter from Clarke. "He says 'hey'."
"Hey Murphy," he replies, smile still stuck to his face. "You guys staying out of trouble?"
"...As much as we ever can down here," she says, but she took too long to respond and his smile has already vanished, replaced by pinched brows and his fingers twitching for something other than the radio to cling to. "We're okay."
Good.
That's good.
He swallows and nods at no one, free hand tapping the table absently, anxiety tempered but still there.
"They have showers here."
He breathes a stuttering laugh at that, imagining water warmed by electricity, shining chrome, actual soap, shampoo, a hot spray of water against his back.
"What was that like?"
"Heavenly," she answers, smile audible in the static. It's contagious. "They also have actual beds. Mine has like ten pillows on it."
'Don't forget the pool' rings faintly in the background and his eyebrows raise once again.
"There's a pool?" he says, not bothering to hide his incredulity.
"Yeah, there's a pool."
"Sounds like you guys got all the fun toys," he pipes, going for levity but finds his gaze wandering the cavernous room and the hurting people scattered throughout it, the image of a pool and showers and beds clashing with the raw misery around him.
"You'll have to get over here and see it for yourself," her voice breaks through the line like water over rocks but quieter, the sentiment of her words clogging his throat.
I wish you were here.
He wishes he was there too.
But as always, his people, and the world, need him here, doing whatever he can do to save everyone.
As always.
He suddenly feels very very tired and just lets gravity hunch him further in his seat, breath seeping slowly out of his lungs, the only thing keeping his head up being his hand braced against his forehead. Every drop of sweat stings, every smear of mud a burning imprint searing his mind, every ache and pain gathered in the past who knows how long flaring and making themselves known, no longer content to be ignored.
His eyelids feel heavier than eyelids should feel.
"You did good, Bellamy," she whispers, strong and sure and quiet like she always is. She's only human, he knows, but sometimes she seems unshakable. He needs her strength like he needs air, yet he's too tired to actually want it.
All I've done so far is not get killed.
He stares at the bandage around his arm, studying the blossoms of red on the white.
Keep doing that.
He's not sure he wants to.
He's not sure what he wants.
He presses his fingertips against his eyelids until stars pop like flares across the blackness, hating the heat of moisture there, hating the strangled feeling rising in the back of his throat.
"Bellamy?"
"I'm still here," he rasps, thin, taking his finger off the button to clear his throat.
Silent seconds crawl by. Then the radio flares, her breathing slightly labored. She moved somewhere else. Away from the others.
"You can talk to me, Bellamy."
You don't have to do this alone.
A bitter pang in his heart that he chose not to feel in his head. Those words he gave to her long ago were like the very air being torn from his lungs, blood taken from his veins as an offering to help, and she dismissed them without a second thought.
I don't want to feel that way anymore.
He forgave her. Of course he forgave her. His heart is just slow to tackle what his head takes in stride.
"I know," he finally says, no other response forthcoming.
"Kane told me what happened." A pause, but her finger holds the button down for it. "He's worried about you."
Pained eyes, stiff movements unsteady in the mud. I'm sorry.
"I know."
People like you always are.
Maybe he and Kane weren't that different.
Maybe none of them were that different.
"Talk to me," she says, voice hushed and... pained.
"There's nothing to say, Clarke."
The itch is back, scratching and pulling at his arms, up his neck, behind his eyes.
"Say that you'll stay safe. Say that you'll stay alive."
He picks at the unmarred skin of his left arm and ignores the tremble rippling through each finger as he does so.
You can't save someone who doesn't want to be saved.
He thinks of Monty's kind eyes in the face of tragedy, Harper breaking in the shadows, Peter choking on his last breaths through the rain, Kane falling apart each time he can't put them back together. He thinks of Jasper, of Bryan, Miller, Raven, Murphy. He thinks of all the faceless people he never bothered to learn the names of yet would still die for without blinking.
He thinks of Clarke, hands clutched around a radio somewhere on an island, worried about him when two—maybe three—people died because he couldn't reach them.
His people.
He can't keep living just for them. Living for people he can't save.
But without O, he doesn't have anything other than these people to live for.
How can he care about nothing and everything all at once?
A paradox that he doesn't want to explore.
"I'll stay alive," he promises.
Whether he's deceiving her or himself, he doesn't know.
Kane's words sing like a mantra in his head, haunting, clinging to him, a second skin.
Nothing and everything.
You can't save someone who doesn't want to be saved.
An itch.
No. You can't.
000
And freedom
And falling
The feeling I thought was set in stone
It slips through my fingers
Trying hard to let go
It comes and goes in waves
It comes and goes in waves
And carries us away
Through the wind
Down to the place we used to lay when we were kids
Memories of a stolen place
Caught in the silence
An echo lost in space
000
A/N: Still still not okay. Bob Morley and Bellamy Blake once again destroyed me. I'm glad Bell is hopefully letting go of Octavia, but like... he better not see himself as one of the people who can't/won't be saved. Clarke Griffin, Marcus Kane, and many delinquents will be coming for you, Blake, if that's the case.