They'd only spoken once the whole day. She'd pulled him into a hug he'd barely felt, the ghost of her whisper on his neck.
"Oh thank god," she'd said. But he'd barely heard her. Everything was buzzing, and he felt like his skin was on all wrong, it was too tight, and too cold, and there were too many people, and he pulled away almost as soon as her hands clasped together behind his neck.
She'd looked up at him, an apology in her eyes, and he needed to stop it before it came out. So he'd repeated himself from what seemed like a lifetime ago.
"Had to be done," he said. Then he'd pulled himself away, and walked past her.
It was like living in a dream.
The ground felt all wrong beneath his feet. Too solid. Too squishy. Shifting, warm. His legs felt too long, like they'd been stretched out and he was miles from the ground, and couldn't see anything anymore. Not the trees or the grass or the dirt, or the rocks. Not the people. All he could see was the sky and it was slowly draining itself of color.
Even the air felt different. Like it was pressing in around him. Like his absence had formed a whole that it had filled, and now that he was back there wasn't enough room for him to squeeze back in.
There was too much air but he felt like he was suffocating.
His new tent was next to Clarke's.
He slipped in and out of it when he knew she wouldn't stop him. When she was sleeping, when she was in the med bay, when she was with Raven. When she wasn't there.
And while he felt his breath escape in a sigh of relief every time he slipped past the open flap of her tent without hearing her call out to him, he felt like a new pebble was being dropped into his stomach each time. It weighed him down a little more each time, kept him grounded, made sure he wouldn't float away.
He wasn't sure he wanted to be grounded anymore.
The nightmares weren't a surprise.
They came in waves, big ones, close together, washing over him, pushing him down, pinning him under them, blocking out everything else.
And then there'd be a breath.
And then they'd come back
Everything would go black and he'd feel himself as he was in the cage, sitting and waiting. Vulnerable. Exposed. And the sweat would trickle down his skin, it would be a new layer over his whole body, it would coat in him in fear.
And his hands would shake against cold metal bars. And the metal would dig into his skin, and he still couldn't see anything but there it would be, piercing and biting and ripping him open.
And the rattling. His hands on the bars, the metal cage, his heart his chest his scream. Always rattling, rattling, rattling.
He wanted to see her, which is exactly why he couldn't.
He stayed away from the med bay, he snuck past Raven working when he knew she'd be there, he waited until she was asleep to go back to his tent.
He ignored the rope knotted in the pit of his stomach that had been pulling him back to her since the first step he took toward Mount Weather. It scraped and tugged and rubbed him raw, but he ignored it, he pushed it aside and he walked the opposite direction of its pull.
He used it as a reminder. Where ever it tugs, turn the opposite way. Where ever it leads you: run.
He thought she was already asleep.
He was restless in his tent. Tossing back and forth and back and forth because he could feel them reaching out for him, he could feel their hands on his skin, their cold gloves, their sharp needles, their thick chains. He could feel it all wrapping around his skin and maybe if he just moved a little to the right they wouldn't be able to grab him.
The hand didn't grab him, it reached out and brushed his hair off of his forehead, and rested there a moment. And it was warm, warmer than he could remember feeling and suddenly a heat rushed through his body.
He woke up in a sweat, jolting up, a hand of his own reaching up and colliding with the soft warm hand still resting above his brow. He grabbed it and pulled it away from his face, to stop it, stop the touch, stop the fire, stop it all.
"Hey," he heard it say. "Hey, it's okay. It's only me."
"No," he mumbled. No, no, no. It wasn't okay.
"Bellamy—"
"No."
The tent felt cold again as the flap was pulled open and shut and he was left alone.
It happened three more times until he went to her before she could get to him.
She was already asleep. A blanket was thrown over her legs haphazardly, not covering her feet or even her left calf. Her face was scrunched, pushed into the pillow.
He sat down next to her, just breathing. In and out. In and out. He already felt a bit warmer. A bit closer to the ground. Like he could breathe a bit more.
His knees were pulled up into his chest, his arms wrapped around them. He could feel his body. It was there, it was in front of him, it was him, and he could feel it. He curled his toes and felt the pressure in his feet. He squeezed his legs closer and felt a push on his ribs. He clutched his hands harder around his legs and felt his fingers digging into his skin.
He could feel it, it was his body, and it was there. He could feel it.
He fell asleep before she rolled over and woke up, his head dipped down onto his knees. She dragged the blanket off her thighs and draped it over his shoulders, before she sat up next to him, mirroring his position, wrapping her arms around her legs.
She wanted to reach her hand out and brush away the hair from his eyes, but she felt his cold touch from nights before push her away, so she tangled her fingers together and sat with her shoulder mere inches from him until the nightmares came.
He laid down the next night.
He still waited until she was asleep, and he still didn't reach out to touch her, but he unfurled his body next to hers and let himself take a bit of the blanket.
He still curled his toes and squeezed his legs and clenched his fists and checked to make sure it was there, that he was there, and that he could feel it. He was still cold, so cold but warmer in her tent, and he could feel his body, he knew it was there, so he stayed, and he forced his eyes closed and waited for morning to come so he could slip away before she even opened her eyes.
It became routine.
It was a routine that scared him. The last routine he had was still on repeat in the back of his mind, clouding his vision, wearing down his muscles. But it was a new thing, he reminded himself. It wasn't dangerous to be in her tent next to her. He was going to be okay. It wasn't dangerous for him to be there.
You know that's not true, a soft voice hissed behind his ear, but he shoved it away and pulled the blanket over his head.
It wasn't water, it wasn't acid, it wasn't chemicals that washed over him at the pressure on his chest. It was fire.
He woke up with a fire blazing over his skin, coursing through his veins. His lungs grappled for air and the pressure left and he was left icy cold.
"Clarke?" he gasped out, his hand pawing at the thin fabric of his t-shirt.
"I'm here," she said softly. He looked over at her, pushing the cold walls of Mount Weather out of his mind, and focused on her, on her eyes, big and wide and blue. He focused on them, taking deep breaths.
"Clarke," he whispered again.
Her arm moved down from where it was hovering above him, and she rested her hand on his shoulder.
"I'm right here," she said again.
He nodded and focused on her hand on his shoulder. He could feel it, it was there. She was there. He was there. He nodded again and then leaned out of her touch as he slipped back down onto his pillow, pulling the blanket back up over his shoulders.
"I'm okay," he said. "I'm okay."
One night, she rolled over, her face looking into his back. His breathing was leveled out and she probably though he was sleeping because she reached a hand out softy, so softly he wouldn't have felt it if it didn't leave a spark on his t-shirt, and brushed the pads of her fingers over his shoulder blades.
She drew her hand back as quickly as she had reached it out and she rolled back over onto her back.
He squeezed his eyes shut and willed himself to stay as he was.
"I'm sorry," she heard him whisper, and then she rolled herself away with a tug of the blanket.
He barely slept without hearing her whisper slip in and out of his mind. He didn't want it, he didn't want her apology. He couldn't stand hearing those two little words over and over and over no matter where he went, no matter who he talked to or what he did. Anytime he clenched his fists or curled his toes or rested his hand on his chest, just to make sure he could still feel it, he heard them. I'm sorry.
When he woke from a nightmare. I'm sorry.
When a shiver ran through his spine or he felt like a cold metal casing had locked itself around his ankles.
I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry.
He wasn't.
He wasn't sorry.
He wasn't sorry she had told him to go, he wasn't sorry for the pain in his chest when she said it, he wasn't sorry for the scars on his ankles or his wrists or his chest. He wasn't sorry for the big purple bruises that painted his arms and his back.
He wasn't sorry that he was painted red and black and blue while Jasper and Monty and Miller were still clean, still blank canvases, still whole. He wasn't sorry that when he was strung upside down and the world would start to go black around him, he'd hear Clarke's voice and it would whisper in his ear. I need you. I can't lose you too. It's worth the risk. He wasn't sorry that her words were a sharp reminder, a bucket of ice cold water dumped over his head, dripping coolly down his spine, each droplet reminding him why he was there.
He wasn't sorry because he did what had to be done and he did it because she asked and he knew that she could ask again, that she would ask again, and so long as he could curl his toes and clench his fists and feel his body respond around him, he would look her in the eye and ignore the way his ribs dug into his lungs and his heart when she asked, and he would do it again.
The dreams didn't come as frequently.
It was just endless black, empty darkness, and he'd open his eyes and he'd be shivering and sweating, his teeth chattering violently up and down and up and down and upanddown, but there was nothing he had seen, nothing to see, he just felt it all around him. He was cold.
She'd sit silently next to him when he would wake up gasping, she'd watch as he rubbed his hands up and down his arms just to get a little warmth back in them, but he was still cold, he felt like his body was freezing from the inside out and he didn't know how to get warm, he didn't know what he should do.
"Clarke," he croaked through his teeth. He leaned his head into where she was sitting. She was still for a moment, afraid or unsure, he didn't know, but she reached her hand out and she rubbed it up and down his arm and he felt a fire pool in his stomach and he sighed leaning his forehead down on her shoulder.
"Please," he sighed.
She took both her hands and ran them along his arms. Then one slipped under the back of his shirt and traced its way along his bare back, and he gasped in shock and she tried to pull away, but he leaned in closer to her.
"No," he said. "Please. I need you to—just, please don't stop."
It was her skin on his and he felt alive. He felt his whole body heat, he felt the ice around him melt and drip down, turning to sweat as it trickled down his forehead, his neck, his chest. She was a furnace, she would light him on fire, but after spending so long locked away in a freezer, so long with veins like icy tubes under his goose bump ridden skin, he wanted to crawl inside her and turn himself to ash.
It was her hands first. Rubbing life back into his arms. His back, his chest, his cheeks. Leaving waves of heat to wash over him. To spread from his arms to his hands, from his chest to his stomach, from his back to his legs.
She was a blanket and he clutched her tightly to him to keep out the cold.
Her hands weren't enough though.
He took his own and started searching her, started reaching for her when her hands weren't enough. He'd pull her close, he'd slip his hands along her arms, under her shirt to her stomach and her back.
He wanted more, he needed more.
He could feel everything. His hands, his legs, his toes, his arms. He could feel it all and it was buzzing and he wasn't miles from the ground, he was small, so small, smaller than he'd ever been, but she could see him so it was okay, and he needed more and more and more.
When her shirt came off with his and her bare chest pressed against his own he felt like the air had stopped suffocating him and he was slowly slipping back into the cavern he'd left behind for himself. Felt like he wasn't being pushed out anymore, but pulled in. Pulled in and in and in until she completely covered him; her hands on his hands, her chest on his chest, her mouth on his mouth.
She stopped mumbling I'm sorry's into his chest when she felt how they made his hands run cold, and she started mumbling I missed you's instead and gripped onto his hands tighter to make sure they didn't shake, and didn't feel the cold metal bars scraping against them, that all they could feel was her.
He woke up before she did.
The air was cool against his skin. Not too cold, he wasn't freezing again. He was thawing, still. He looked down next to him and saw her head tucked next to his shoulder and he wanted to pull her close, wanted to wrap himself up in her like he had the night before, wanted to stay there and never go back to anything else.
Her fingers stretched against his chest and he shivered at the contact. It could have been the wind rustling against the tent, the one whispering into his ear, but the whisper sounded a lot like Clarke. It sounded like her voice over and over and over again.
I need you. I can't lose you too.
It's worth the risk.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
But he wasn't.
He slid over, out of her touch, slowly easing her hand onto his pillow instead of his chest. He heard a groan, muffled and laced with sleep, but she didn't wake.
Each step was slow and quiet and sharp. Each step put a drop of ice cold water back into his lungs, filling them slowly, and he could have stopped, he should have stopped, but it was all he could hear.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
He felt like he was choking on apologies, drowning in her plea for forgiveness, but he couldn't give it. He saw her face when she looked at him and it was relief and it was pain and it was fear and he couldn't change her because when he looked at her he felt it all a hundred times over, but he wasn't sorry. And she was.
He slipped out of the tent, and felt a rush of cold air cutting into his skin as the flap of her tent fell back, closing behind him.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.