AN: Valentine prompt week I turned into a drabble series (cause that's what I do)
List of prompts: 1. Ark Flashbacks! 2. AU Settings! 3. Lost Love, Pining From Afar, and Broken Hearts! 4. Dealer's Choice 5. Valentine's Day at Arkadia! 6. Rom-Com Plot Devices! 7. The Kabby Kiss!
edits for each drabble on my tumblr: akachankami
I. The wall
No one knows who started it, probably some lovesick teen from the first generation, but everybody knows about it.
There were no trees to engrave on the Ark, so someone decided to make do and take a knife to the metal bulkhead of section fourteen with a heart and a name. A childish act of vandalism that went undiscovered for months, and by then several other love-filled young rebels had added their own declaration of undying devotion, and so on through the years, till the whole wall was covered in scribbles.
Abby wonders if Marcus ever committed to a name.
II. Megara
If this were a fairytale, Abby would be a princess on a mission for the wrong god to steal the good guy's soul, only to make it up to the hero in the end and live happily ever after.
Unfortunately, Jake is not a half-god and when Thelonious floats him out an airlock she feels her soul slipping out into the void as well.
She fears she'll never love again, till the martyr crossing the river Styx to save her is Marcus Kane. She still has a hard time hoping they'll get any happy ending when they crash on Earth.
III. Jagged
She scratches her daughter's name on the dropship and the motion feels familiar enough that she wonders if section fourteen survived the crash landing.
She knows the first cut is the deepest when he drops the pin on her table.
It would have been easier to go with him, to be able to outstretch that hand that kept him from staying in space and prevent him from running into a self-sacrificing mission; to find Clarke, together. Instead she looks on as he steps out of the gates and leaves her behind because that's her penance: to scar her own heart.
IV. Undefined
"I used to have friends," she mutters one day, "before I was Chancellor."
Marcus smirks. "You have me," he says faking offense. She must hesitate a beat longer, making him doubtful, because he diverts then: "If you had to choose, which job would you pick?"
She reasons she'll never stop being a doctor. He reminds her she's never been very good at following someone else's rules either. "I don't have to decide just now, right?"
He shakes his head and chuckles, and she hopes he knows she resents the word friend for describing so inadequately what he is to her.
V. Ave atque Vale
Abby thinks she's probably the only one mourning the love wall, single evidence of her shelved first blushes, for they have a whole forest to engrave with beloved ones' names now, and flowers and food and moonshine to share.
It used to be like that with Jake: bold and open and happily flaunted, like the bustle that takes Arkadia just after the ides of February.
Marcus clinks his glass to hers at lunch and smiles sheepishly, like he knows about the weeping willow by the river with the carved hole in the trunk, inside which she whispered his name once.
VI. Stitches
She knows about the poll and the bets and the drinking game that run around their unspoken thing, but she can't resolve herself on how to react. It's mildly annoying to think every move she makes in his presence will be dissected and analyzed by the rest of the camp to determine if they already tangled sheets.
It is even more infuriating to realize she's been thinking about it way more than she ought to, and she still doesn't know if he, too, dwells upon kissing her.
Mostly she's afraid to find out that's a wound she cannot stitch close.
VII. Deinde centum
He doesn't bring her flowers, nor she gives him chocolate, they barely see each other after lunch, and when dinner time comes and goes without much fuss, she reasons it couldn't possibly be any different.
As he bids her goodnight in front of her door she stops him mid-sentence: "Who would you want to win the bet, Raven or Miller?"
He looks at her quizzically, because neither of them knows what the kids bet on.
"Whoever bet on me making a fool of myself," he says tentatively brushing his lips against hers.
"Then I win," she chuckles kissing him back.
AN2: notes for V.
- Title from Catullus 101
- the ides of february are the 13th
- In the old days, if someone had a secret they didn't want to share… you know what they did? They went up a mountain, found a tree, carved a hole in it, and whispered the secret into the hole. Then they covered it with mud. And leave the secret there forever. [In the mood for love, by Wong Kar Wai, 2000]
AN3: notes for VII.
- title from Catullus 5 (again) cause ! just read it.
- in Japan valentine day is that time of the year when girls gift chocolate to their crushes (hence the chocolate line)