A/N: This is set directly after the Raven/Bellamy sex scene of season 1 and deviates from season 2 canon completely. Enjoy!
When you're scorned by the boy you love, you don't stop loving him, she thinks, as she pulls her pants up over her hips and tightens them at the waist. She cinches herself in as hard as possible, wants to feel hurt in a place other than her chest because that's becoming just a little bit unbearable.
"Did that help?"
She'd almost forgotten he was there.
"No," she says honestly.
Forgetting a boy you've just fucked is still in the room while you ponder another one you love kind of implies the answer to that question.
.
See here's the thing, when you're scorned by the boy you love you still see other boys. You're still capable of tracing the line of sweat that runs down their cheek as they do something laborious, all muscles clenching and perfect straight teeth gritting.
If she wasn't scorned maybe it'd be about something else. Bellamy is smart, the alpha male, the king of the castle, the freedom fighter who got away, etcetera, etcetera. She's sure he can be charming too, witty even.
But she is scorned, so she really doesn't care about anything beyond what she can see.
.
When you're scorned by the boy you love you want to blow absolute caution to the wind and fuck boys like Bellamy Blake and walk out of their tent like it doesn't mean a thing to you.
Because it doesn't.
She does it more than once. Turns up with next to no warning and kicks off her shoes like this is all business. She wonders sometimes if he's going to say no this time, wouldn't matter to her if he did. She's sure there are other Bellamy Blake's in the camp who are less infamous, waiting to be approached.
But he doesn't, which is convenient really, because she's really come to enjoy him proving himself as something more than just a pretty face with a knack for bossing people around.
(And he does prove himself exceptionally well).
.
But see the boy you don't love who didn't scorn you hasn't loved someone like this before, so he doesn't quite get it. Doesn't quite see it for what it is.
He's happy to oblige her to begin with. He's had plenty of random sex with plenty of random people and what's one more really in the grand scheme of things?
He does start to notice her more than the others though. Probably a product of the fact that she's more useful than anyone else in the camp, Clarke and himself included. He tries to tell himself that anyway.
Nothing wrong with respecting someone who's useful, Bellamy.
"You have rough hands," he notes, after yet another incidence of her letting herself into his tent. Her hand is on his bare chest, using it for support as she fiddles to pull on one of her socks.
She likes pulling on her socks first, for some reason. It's another thing he notes but he doesn't say that one out load.
"Mechanic, remember?" she says pointedly, doesn't bother to glance back as she pulls on the other sock. When she stands he chances a look at the line of her naked body, all the way down to her ankles where her socks start.
Stops himself from saying other things out loud.
.
Because quite a few other things have started to accumulate, you see.
Like the fact that she never smiles much. He figures it could be the whole pummeling-to-Earth-in-a-metal-box-only-to-find-out-the-love-of-your-life-has-run-off-with-someone-else-after-ten-days thing, but he's not so sure. Raven seems so intensely invested in whatever she's doing it seems like she doesn't think she has time or reason to smile at every opportunity she's given. It's something he likes about her, because he never did quite understand the whole smiling thing himself.
She never wears her hair out either (except when, you know). It's always tied up and braided back (he's watched her do it a few times, nimble fingers pulling through it in a matter of minutes). Sometimes he wonders if maybe she wouldn't prefer leaving it tied up when she visits his tent because he's noticed her getting frustrated with her hair falling in her face while she moves on top of him.
(He's pushed it back with both hands every time, sat up and kissed her until the crease between her eyebrows has smoothed).
She eats faster than he can fathom anyone eating without choking. In fact, she does most things at a speed most people are incapable of, her eyes narrowing in telltale frustration when someone else slows her down, resenting having to stop her mind whirring away with whatever one hundred things she wants to get done that day.
She's also beautiful, all sharp angles, clear eyes and olive skin. Sometimes he wonders why she was the one to get in a metal box for Finn when, clearly, if he had any sense, he would have dedicated as much time to fixing the drop ship to fly in the opposite direction back to her.
If he had any sense.
.
She gets drunk one night, which is not something he has the right to say is out of character but he has his suspicions. She pulls into his tent and starts her usual shoe removal routine but this time she's talking.
"Couldn't take him making eyes at her anymore."
He's a bit tired and a bit short. "Why do you even care anymore? He's an arsehole. Move on."
She leans back up from pulling off her shoes and fixes him with her best steely glare.
"Ten days, Bellamy. After seventeen years it took him ten days to forget about me."
"You weren't together for 17 years," Bellamy mutters, "and if you're going to get drunk and rant at someone about this, it should be him, not me."
Her face drops and he regrets what he says instantly, wishing he'd ignored it instead. Shut up and provided like he has for weeks. He thinks he knows what she's going to do next, storm out and never speak to him again.
A tear rolls down her cheek instead.
"He was my family. I thought he was my family."
She bounces her knees and bites her lip, brushes the tear away determinedly. "You're right, he's an arsehole. It's over. I should get over it."
She goes to reach for her shoe but misses it. It makes her more frustrated and her teeth dig into her lip harder, another tear leaking out of the corner of her eye.
"Raven, I'm sorry."
She shakes her head to ward off his apology. Struggling with the laces she begins to sob in earnest.
He puts his hand over hers, stilling her fingers as they attempt to pull through the knots. She looks up at him through glassy eyes.
"Stay," he says softly, against his better judgment. He thinks everything about this should have him running in the opposite direction. But he knows that feeling she's feeling – he knows the kind of grief gnawing at her insides, reminding her over and over that she is completely alone in the universe, destined to fight her own battles and lose.
She nods with a sniff, leaning back into him and resting her head against his chest. When he puts his arms around her it feels off compared to how their interactions usually go, but he does it anyway, with the sorry knowledge that it will only put a dent in the universe sized truth that is her grief.
Her muscles never relax, even with the alcohol and the steady passing of the night. She never unfolds into him completely, only stops crying and eventually sobers up enough to remember where she is and that she needs to put her shoes back on.
"I've got to help Monty with the radios, they keep glitching," she offers as explanation.
.
"What's going on with you and Raven?"
He's not surprised Clarke is the first to notice.
"Why? Jealous?"
She snorts. "Don't flatter yourself, Bellamy. I'm just worried she's going to get hurt is all."
"I think you and Finn did a pretty good job of that already," he says, more coldly than he means to.
She's surprised where he thinks she should be indignant or angry. A blonde eyebrow raises before the corners of her mouth lift into a grin.
"What?" he snaps.
"Nothing, just… Maybe I've got it around the wrong way."
With that she walks off, shaking her head as the grin pulls into a proper smile.
What the fuck does that mean, he thinks.
What. The. Fuck. Does that mean?
.
She's still coming to his tent. Still taking her shoes off first and finishing by putting them back on. Still agitatedly blowing her hair out of her face when she's on top of him.
He sits up, changing the angle. He raises his hands up and pushes her hair aside, moving to kiss her.
"Don't look at me like that," she says, turning her head from the kiss.
"Like what?" he asks breathlessly, he's so damn close.
"Like…" she stops, shaking her head. She takes his left hand from her face and his right one from her breast where it's trailed and carefully pushes herself off him, settling beside him, hand running through her hair as she stares at the ceiling of the tent.
"What the hell…?" he starts, trying to catch his breath.
"It really puts me off when you look at me like that," she says quickly, breathing quickly.
"Like what? I swear to God, Raven, I was just moving your hair out of your face-"
"No you weren't, Bellamy, you were… You know what? Forget it."
She sits up, blanket pulled close to her chest. "I don't think we should do this anymore."
"What, because I looked at you?" he asks exasperated, hands gesticulating to accentuate how ridiculous she's being. He tries to make a feeble joke, "Fuck, if it bothers you so much we can just try a different position."
"Why don't you try a different position with someone else instead?" she asks distractedly, pulling her clothes on in entirely the wrong order. In fact she doesn't even bother pulling on her socks, just picks them up with her boots and goes to march out the door.
"I'm sorry looking at my face ruins the fantasy that you're with Finn," he spits out bluntly. He hates it, he sounds jealous, petty and pathetic but he says it anyway, hoping he can get the same emotional response from her that she can induce from him. Hoping he can enact his own walk out with just the right strike of words.
She shakes her head. "You're wrong. That look ruined the fantasy that I wasn't with Finn."
She walks out then, the tent opening flapping behind her.
.
When you're scorned by the girl you love you keep waiting for what you think must be the inevitable moment that she realises she feels the same way.
He watches her when he thinks he can afford to, when he might just be asking her a question about what she's fixing or inventing today. She always answers curtly, the same way she always did before. Eyes impatient to get back to what she's working on, thoughts whirring, limbs bouncing.
The only time he catches her not focused on something mechanical is when she pretends not to be watching Finn from across the camp.
He thinks maybe he could watch her overtly, stand right in front of her and watch, waiting, just waiting and she still wouldn't notice him in her efforts to watch Finn (waiting, just waiting).
.
When you're scorned by the girl you love sometimes you don't even realise you love her.
It sneaks up on him suddenly, like the hooded figure of death. He's out hunting and she's tagged along with him and the others because the last time they went somewhere without someone who was the least bit mechanical it all went to hell and the death toll went up a couple of names.
She's marching through the woods quickly (nothing unusual) when she slips and screams. Not as dramatic as the grounders emerging on them with arrows but the scream stops him dead. Clarke pounces quickly, assessing the situation.
"Is it your ankle? Do you think you can walk?"
"Shit! Yeah, maybe, can you help me?" she scrambles to her feet, hand on Clarke's shoulder, wincing when she attempts to put weight on her ankle.
"Shit!" she exclaims.
"I'll take her back to camp," Bellamy says, finally having found his voice.
"Chris can take her back," Clarke says quickly, "We've only got a few more hours left before the sun goes down and we need you to-"
"I'm taking her back to camp."
Clarke's eyes narrow. "If you take her back to camp we lose someone who knows how to fix the radios and well… We lose you, too."
"It's fine, Bellamy, I'll take her," Chris interjects, looking to Clarke for affirmation.
"You reckon you can carry her five miles, Chris?" Bellamy says, irony saturating his voice.
Raven glares at him. "No one's carrying me anywhere, I can limp and if I need to I can hop back all by myself."
"I'll take her," Clarke finally interjects, "if you don't trust Chris to get her back."
"And leave everyone without someone who can fix them up if they get hurt?"
"Better than leaving them without their fearless leader," Clarke bounces back.
"You know, in the time you two have spent arguing I could have already got back to camp by myself."
"I'm taking her, and if that means you finish up hunting and come back with us early then so be it," he says in a low voice, eyes fixated on Clarke. "Have everyone's starvation on your conscience, Princess, I'll sleep just fine."
She shakes her head and mutters a low, "You're unbelievable." She heads into the woods though, argument lost, gesturing the others to follow her.
Bellamy watches her go before finally turning his gaze to Raven who's supporting herself on the trunk of a tree.
"What the hell was that?" she demands.
He inhales slowly and honestly can't think of an answer. On exhalation still has nothing to tell her that could pass as an explanation. He clenches and unclenches his fists. There's a tight feeling in his chest, the one he usually associates with locking Octavia in a hole beneath the floor, trapping any sign of evidence of her existence underneath his foot and pressing hard.
"Let's just… Get back to camp," he approaches her quickly, offering her his arm. She takes it, still glaring, arm folding around his waist to support her leg. He takes her weight and the pressure in his chest appeases ever so slightly.
They stumble the five miles in silence, except for the occasional wince from Raven when she accidentally moves her ankle the wrong way. He'd offer to carry her if he thought for a second she'd let him.
When they get back to camp Finn spots her immediately.
"What happened?" he exclaims, approaching them. Raven releases Bellamy's waist and balances herself.
"I twisted my ankle, it's fine."
She tries to sound cold, Bellamy notes. Totally stuffs it by tacking on an extra note of bitterness in her insistence that it's fine.
"You should get it bandaged," Finn says, his face contorting in concern.
No shit, Bellamy thinks, goes to say as much too when Raven speaks.
"Yeah I'm just about to do that, Finn, thanks."
She hops away from them then, determination etched in her sharp features.
He tries not to re-imagine that sentence with his name inserted instead of Finn's but fails. And it occurs to him all at once that he wants her to say his name with the same amount of bitterness that she uses to say Finn's because it would imply she feels something at all for it.
.
See, when you're scorned by the girl you love, you don't stop loving her, though you wish a thousand times a day that you would.
He visits her that night, pushes through the flap of her tent to see if her ankle is feeling any better.
She trades confusion for awkwardness when she sees that it's him who's come to visit her. She pointedly looks away, directs her gaze to her feet.
"How's it feeling?"
"Sore," she says simply.
He lets that answer settle for a moment. Pushes back as his body tries to pull him away from her hostility and out into the cold again.
"I'm sorry about today," he says thickly, "If you thought I was being a dick, I'm sorry."
"You were," she says bluntly, finally meeting his gaze defiantly before looking away again.
"Right," he says, more to himself than anything, goes to leave when she finally starts to speak again.
"I didn't mean for this to happen, so I guess I should be sorry too."
"For what to happen?" he asks, swallowing a lump in his throat. He doesn't really want her to answer but he knows she will. The truth has a funny way of needing to be heard, regardless of the fall out, he thinks.
"I'm still in love with him, Bellamy," she says hollowly. "And I don't know how to make it stop. I thought with you it might help, but it didn't. It hasn't."
Right…
He doesn't respond. Wants to tell her it's fine, I understand, I always understood, I always knew what the deal was, that I couldn't give you what you were after, that I wasn't the guy who was going to talk you down or just tell you that you're upset…
"Maybe…" she starts and he knows that some kind of consolation is coming, "Maybe if I had time and space from Finn…? Maybe I could feel differently about things."
He knows what she's saying. Because there won't be a time when she has time and space from Finn. Not in the near future. Not unless one of them dies, and he doesn't see how that will fix the solution any either. And even if it weren't for Finn, there's nothing in her apology to suggest that she could feel something for him, not really. In fact, all she's giving him is something to hold onto in the face of feeling bitter. Some scraps of comfort from her table so he can walk out of the tent and keep his head held high.
"You should keep that elevated," he says, pointing to her ankle. "Clarke said it'll help with the swelling."
And he does walk out of the tent with his head held high. Because sometimes when the girl you love scorns you by being brutally and unbearably honest about the fact she's in love with someone else, all you have left to do is walk away.
She probably learned that lesson around the same time she turned up in his tent looking for a distraction, he thinks, because it's an awful lesson to have to learn.