I'm having a The 100 rewatch and I'm at "His sister's keeper" (1X6) and you know what I noticed? Marcus is sad, Abby is sad… They could be sad together XD So this is kind of a (AUish) missing scene that takes place after Marcus has his breakdown with Vera but before the Council meeting where Diana takes Abby's seat.
Thanks to Akachankami for the beta reading and beware of smut!
One Day
The knocks on the door were unexpected and Marcus ignored them, staring at the bottom of his cup of moonshine.
The next Council meeting wasn't due until later that evening and he was in no rush to watch Diana Sydney get appointed in Abby's place. He wasn't in any mood to deal with anything either. Offering water to the Eden Tree hadn't helped attenuate his guilt or cleanse him, as his mother had put it – neither had crying on her shoulder for almost an hour.
Maybe booze would work where everything else had failed.
Maybe…
Three hundred and twenty people were a lot of souls to have on one's conscience.
The knocks echoed again, short and impatient. He closed his eyes and pressed the back of his head against the wall, taking a sip of the awful stuff he had confiscated months earlier. He didn't like the taste. Callie loved it. Callie. Another dead person to add to his kill count, a dead person he had a close relationship with and had refused to make an exception for out of a misplaced sense of duty. Like Jake Griffin.
What good was duty when it got people killed?
This time, it wasn't so much knocking as hammering. "Kane, open the damn door! I know you're in there!"
The familiar voice made him frown because Abby Griffin was the last person he expected to visit his quarters. He almost got up to answer the door but couldn't find the will to move. The moonshine had done its job and he was pleasantly buzzed. It didn't stop the memories and it did nothing to reduce the pain in his chest but it was enough of an excuse not to move.
"It's not locked!" he called back, wondering what she wanted, what she would do when she would find him sitting on the floor, with his back to the wall, despite the other more comfortable options at his disposal.
Maybe she would gloat.
He would let her, he decided in the second it took her to action the mechanism that opened the door and shut it again behind her. He would let her gloat because she had been right all along and he had almost floated her for it.
A near-miss on his impressive list of victims.
She didn't spot him at once and, for a second, he watched confusion flash on her face. Then her eyes fell on him, darted to the cup in his hand and the bottle next to him, and her eyebrows rose high.
"Any reason you chose to sit on the floor?" she asked, as if it was a perfectly common question.
It was a valid one probably and he almost told her the truth: he wanted to be as uncomfortable as possible, to suffer because he deserved it.
"What are you doing here?" he deflected, noting the medical bag she was carrying. "Tell me you're not stealing supplies again."
She wasn't amused by the comment and it was a poor joke anyway. She abruptly placed the bag on the table and folded her arms over her chest, staring down at him, studying him.
"I was told there was an incident earlier with some of the workers." she informed him. "I was told you were pushed."
He frowned a little, trying to figure out who would tell her that and why exactly she was supposed to care. Not Jaha because Jaha wasn't his biggest fan right now – and he wasn't going to blame the Chancellor for it. He took a sip of moonshine and shrugged. "I wasn't injured, Jaha rescued me."
She must have picked up on the bitterness because suddenly she was frowning too. "You're drunk."
It was an accusation he couldn't quite deny. "A bit."
"I could turn you in for having illegal moonshine in your possession." she pointed out although they all had illegal moonshine in their possession. Jaha had a nice collection of century old hard liquor.
"You could." he nodded.
For a second she looked tempted to do just that. Then she let out a long tired sigh. "Can I have some?"
He offered the bottle, thinking she would grab herself a glass and a chair but she surprised him by sitting on the floor next to him instead. She mirrored his position, legs bent at the knees, back against the wall, head resting against the cold metal…
"Hard day?" he asked when she snatched the bottle from his hand and took a long swallow.
"It's not like you to get drunk sitting on the floor." she eluded.
"It's not like you either." he retorted, feeling the same spark of annoyance he often did in her presence. She had a gift for pushing his buttons. "Who sent you?"
She actually snorted before taking another mouthful. "Your mother. She thinks we should bury the hatchet and be friends again because we could both use one."
"She likes to meddle." he commented with more fondness than he had felt for his mother in years. He had put distance between himself and his past, thinking his origins were making him weak. Stupid. Like everything else he had done. Stupid.
"She did say you were ready to let yourself get mauled by angry people." Abby added. "And that you had been hurt."
"I told you. Jaha rescued me before it could get serious." he shrugged.
"He tends to do that." she agreed, taking another sip before passing him the bottle. "So… That nearly unanimous vote… Are you disappointed you didn't get to float me this time either?"
He finished his cup before bringing the bottle to his lips. He didn't drink though. He was trying to find the right words. In the end, he lowered the bottle without tasting a drop of liquor. "I never wanted you dead, Abby. You gave me no choice."
"There's always a choice." she snapped.
"So you keep saying." he breathed out, closing his eyes again, bumping his head a couple of times against the wall. "And now I believe you." She seemed surprised by that. She stole the bottle from his grip. He heard the soft splashing that meant she was probably drinking some more but he didn't open his eyes to confirm it. He licked his lips. "I can't discuss Council matters with people who aren't on the Council."
"Thanks for the reminder." she scoffed.
"It wasn't me." he said before she could get angry. He was tired of her being angry at him. They had been friends before Jake got floated. Friends who argued about politics and didn't often agree on the best way to do things, true, but friends nonetheless. It had almost felt like a game of chess with the Ark for a board, she played her pieces, he played his, moves and countermoves… Had he thought his life would have been easier without her? Yes, many times. Had he ever wished her ill? No, never. "I did vote for you to be released from the Council because the way you do things… I don't think it's the right way. But I didn't vote for you to be floated. That was Fuji."
"Fuji." she repeated and he could see she was storing the information for later.
"I never wanted you dead." he insisted.
"I know." Her admission was quiet and he opened his eyes, turning his head to look at her. She didn't look at him, she kept her eyes straight ahead, the forgotten bottle dangling from her fingers. "You were doing what you thought was best for the Ark."
"I was so sure…" he whispered, not bothering to hide the pain in his voice. "And I was so wrong…"
"I know." she said again, blindly reaching for his hand. And he believed her.
They remained like that for a while, she stared straight ahead and he stared at her, their sides pressed together. It wasn't weird or uncomfortable. It felt like being companions in misery. It was obvious to him that she was upset for some reason – nothing else would have driven her to sit on the floor with him to drink.
"Did you hear who Jaha nominated to replace you?" he asked eventually, thinking that might have been the cause of her silent sorrow.
She blinked and extracted herself from her thoughts, bringing the bottle to her lips with her free hand. The left one remained in his. "I'm not going to like it, am I?"
It sounded ironical and he found himself snorting. "Diana."
She turned her head toward him, watching with open disbelief. "Diana Sydney?"
He nodded. "It was the only way to avoid a riot."
"I don't trust her." Abby declared. "What do you think?"
He lifted his eyebrows and looked down. "I don't think I should be making decisions anymore."
She squeezed his hand and he forced himself to brave her eyes again. They were sitting close and with her head turned in his direction, he could see every detail of her face.
"You thought it was the best way." she told him. "You thought you were sparing lives. You thought it was the only way we would survive."
"But it wasn't." he simply countered. "And if I had listened to you…"
"And if I had listened to Jake…" she cut him off, letting her sentence trail off. Her face crumpled in pain and she gave a small shrug, making an obvious effort to swallow back her tears. "We can't afford to think this way now, Marcus. We need to focus on saving our people. Everything else… Everything else can be dealt with later."
How do we do that?, he wanted to ask but he found himself running his thumb along the length of hers instead.
"I don't remember the last time you called me Marcus." he confessed.
"Well, to be fair, you've been a pain in my ass." she laughed. It was a broken laugh, there were still tears in her eyes.
"Only because you've made it your life's mission to be a pain in mine. You know. To be fair." he accused with a small smile. She didn't deny it. They stared at each other for a moment. The air was charged with something he wasn't sure he should blame the moonshine for. He was buzzed but not drunk and she hadn't had enough to be more than slightly tipsy. "Why aren't you on the radio?" he asked eventually. She lowered her eyes and he frowned. "Abby?"
"She knows." she whispered. "Clarke. She knows I'm the one who turned her father in." He entwined their fingers without thought, only thinking afterward that maybe she wouldn't welcome it. She held tight to his hand, though, looking up at him, a plea in her eyes. "She hates me."
"She'll come around." he promised. "She'll understand."
"You don't know that." she protested, shaking her head. "You don't know…"
"Yes, I do." he countered firmly, letting go of her hand to brush a strand that had gotten loose from her braid away from her face. "Griffin women are astonishingly good at forgiving. Even the unforgivable."
"I'm not so sure it's that easy." she sighed.
She leaned forward until their foreheads were pressed together. His hand lingered on her cheek, unsure of what he was supposed to do. It was intimate, more intimate than anything he had ever shared with her, more intimate than anything he felt he deserved to share with her. He had hurt her and her family more times than he could count. She closed her eyes and he felt the flutter of her eyelashes against his skin, it made a surge of want erupt in his groin.
"Abby…" he murmured. He had meant it to sound chiding, maybe reproachful, but he only came out pleading. He tried to take his hand away from her cheek but she covered it with hers, held it in place.
"I can't stop thinking about her voice…" she confessed. "I can't stop thinking about Jake's face when he understood I… I can't stop thinking."
"I can't stop thinking about the bodies." he offered, in a low tone. "I can't stop thinking it's my fault and I should be dead…"
Jaha had planned on sacrificing himself. It had never occurred to him to offer the same thing. Not when he had been writing the Reducing Population Plan. Not when he had convinced the Council. Not when he had brought the final review to Thelonious. Never. He wasn't the sort of men who sacrificed himself for others. And it probably meant he wasn't a good man, not the man he had thought he was, not the man he wanted to be.
"Then maybe it's time we stop thinking." she hummed.
Her hand drifted from his to the crook of his elbow to his shoulder.
"Abby…" It was his only attempt at protesting and it came out anything but that.
Her lips brushed his, a bit uncertain. The second time was more confident. By the third he had lost all hope of controlling himself or to be the noble man it appeared he wasn't by remarking they had both been drinking and were both upset.
Religion hadn't made him feel better, crying hadn't made him feel better, booze hadn't made him feel better…
Sex was the next logical step.
His kiss was hard and demanding, their lips locked in something that felt more like war than love. He buried his fingers in her braid, tilting her head to deepen the kiss as she rose to her knees to face him. Her tongue licked his bottom lip but he didn't allow her entrance, not until he had tugged on her thigh to make her straddle him. She gasped when she felt him already half hard for her and he took full advantage of it to push his tongue in her mouth.
A thrill ran down his spine when she started rocking against him, the kiss dirty in all the right ways. His hands found her ass, urging her even closer. The quicker she rubbed against him, the messier the kisses became, until he stopped her with a firm grip on her hips.
She groaned against his mouth – in disappointment or frustration.
"If you go on like that, it'll be over before we start." he warned her. But maybe that was what she wanted. Maybe he was asking for more than she was willing to give. Coming in their pants would hardly be the same as…
She nipped at his bottom lip, short-circuiting his train of thought by kissing him again. He could have sworn there were sparks every time they kissed. It was like a rush of blood to the head – except the blood was rushing south. It was a perfect paradox he would be happy to drown in forever.
She drew back and he was breathless, completely drunk this time. Drunk on her. On the two of them together.
"Do something about it, then." she commanded.
It was on the tip of his tongue to remind her he was still on the Council and she wasn't, that he didn't have to obey her orders, that she had no power over him. That would have been a lie however… She had some power over him. She was one of the very rare people who could make him lose patience and calm in a second when he was usually so cold and collected with everyone else.
She had the power he granted her.
She had the power he was unable to deny her.
And so he wrapped his right arm around her and blindly felt around for the bookshelf to his left, using it as leverage to prop the both of them up. She wrapped her legs around his waist and they stumbled a bit, her back hit the bookshelf that wobbled a little, some books and trinkets fell over. Not that Marcus cared because he was too busy kissing her again.
It would be just like her to make sure his painfully ordered and organized quarters ended up in chaos. Hurricane Abby, turning his life upside down once more, in every possible way.
He felt her tugging at his shirt and he stopped kissing her, lifting his arms so she could slip it off, pinning her to the bookshelf with his hips so she wouldn't fall. The bookshelf dangerously wobbled again and she giggled. The sound was so girlish and unexpected, it shocked him. Her eyes were clouded with lust and the smile on her face was radiant. She was as high on this as he was.
"This bookshelf is going to fall." she whispered in his ear, before biting down on his earlobe. Her mouth went to his neck. She liked to use teeth and he groaned as she chewed on the nerves at the junction of his neck and shoulder, her hands roaming on his back, on his side, exploring…
He pushed them off the shelf and staggered to the sleeping area, distracted by the fingers she suddenly tangled in his hair. She tugged a little, pulling his head back to kiss him again.
He wasn't sure how they managed to reach the bed without breaking their neck.
She unlocked her legs from his waist but she didn't stop kissing him. It was alright with him. Now that he knew what it felt like, he never wanted to stop. She pulled her own shirt over her head and unclasped her bra and she stood there, her chin high, unapologetic, unashamed, and it was the biggest turn on he had ever felt. There was a small spark of insecurity in her eyes but it disappeared as soon as he licked his lips.
Then it was all lust, and blood curling want, and in a second they were kissing again, tearing off the rest of their clothes. He didn't know who pushed the other on the bed. He only knew next it was all fingers digging hard into flesh, mouth exploring on newly uncovered skin, tasting, testing, learning… She pulled him on her and he didn't resist, he wasn't in any condition to resist or to ask if she was one hundred percent sure she wanted this because they were about to pass a point of no return.
"Please…" she begged in his ear.
It was his undoing. He hooked an arm around her leg and thrust into her in response. Watching her arch her neck, a hiss of pleasure escaping her throat.
"How…" he hesitated.
"Fast." she demanded. "Hard."
Punishing, she meant, he figured, because this had started as a way to forget their respective crimes.
And once more, he obeyed her.
Maybe he had found his true calling, he mused, as he pounded into her, watching with fascination as she crumpled the sheets in her fists, as she pressed her lips to swallow back her moans. Maybe following her lead was his best bet.
He buried his face in her neck, sucking the sweat off her skin, leaving a mark on her collarbone just because he could. She coiled her hand around his nape, her other hand found his ass. She squeezed both at random, her breathing quickening fast, the soft muffled noises increasing… He sneaked a hand between their bodies despite the awkward angle but waited until he was close too to apply pressure.
She exploded in a raw stifled cry that triggered his own release.
It took so long for the blood to stop pounding in his ears that he thought maybe having sex when oxygen wasn't at one hundred percent capacity wasn't exactly the best idea they ever had.
She was still panting when he rolled off her and to his side, still a bit short of breath himself. Air levels hadn't been on full capacity for a while now. Exercising always left everyone a bit light headed. It was a common consequence nowadays and not a fun one.
"Having sex on Earth must be great." he mumbled. He could picture it. Not feeling like your heart was about to burst just because…
"It's good to know you have your priorities straight, Kane." she mocked, between two gulps of air.
The feeling of contentment vanished and he closed off.
"Kane." he spat, disappointed and bitter all at once.
"Don't be like that." she snapped, sitting up. She grabbed the sheets and pulled them to her chest as if there was anything he hadn't seen yet. As if he could forget. As if he could…
He was stupid.
Whatever just happened, it wasn't going to erase the last year. It wasn't going to erase anything.
He waited for her to snatch her underwear from the floor, get dressed and flee, but she surprised him – of course, she surprised him, when had Abby Griffin not surprised him? – by lying back down, offering the sheets to share. She did the whole thing tentatively, as if she wasn't completely sure it was okay for her to presume that much.
It wasn't really warm and his sweaty skin was making him shiver, he pulled the sheets up and cushioned his head on his bent arm, leaving her the only pillow.
She rolled on her stomach, and slipped her arms under the pillow, her cheek pressed against it, studying him. She looked guarded.
His fingers were shaking a little when he carefully brushed her half undone braid back, softly running his knuckles on her shoulder.
There was a question in her eyes, a question he was certain was reflected in his own gaze, but neither of them seemed willing to ask it.
So he let his imagination run wild because he certainly didn't deserve to have her in his bed but she was there nonetheless and she had made the impossible happen, she had distracted him enough from his guilt that it wasn't threatening to suffocate him anymore… So he imagined. He imagined he found ways of earning his redemption, he imagined it was ordinary for them to go to bed together, he imagined in time…
"What now?" she asked softly, her eyes searching his.
His eyes darted to the alarm clock next to the bed. "There's a Council meeting in two hours."
"And I have to go back to Earth Monitoring Station in case the kids make contact again." she answered with a touch of annoyance. "I wasn't asking what was on your agenda, Marcus."
Her tone was harsh and it was only the use of his first name that prevented him from responding in kind. They weren't enemies, no matter how often they behaved like it. He couldn't let himself forget that.
He didn't seem to be able to stop touching her either.
He was still absentmindedly brushing his knuckles on her shoulder.
She wouldn't let him shy away from her gaze, she stared straight at him. Always so stubborn…
"I know what you're asking." he admitted. "I'm just not sure what to say."
She huffed and rolled on her side to face him, making sure the sheets were secured around her chest. "You can say it was a mistake."
"It wasn't." he said quickly, and then frowned. "Do you think it was a mistake?"
She watched him for a second and then rolled on her back and he couldn't help but wonder if she was always that fidgety in bed. "I've wanted it for a while." She sounded almost ashamed to admit it – and why wouldn't she be? They had been at each other's throat for months.
And it was just the thing, wasn't it? They had been pushing each other's buttons for months. The tension… He had been aware there was a tension. He just hadn't realized it was sexual. Or rather, he hadn't let himself think that way because she was Abby and, not only did she loathe him now, but she was also the widow of one of his best friends – a friend he had had a hand in floating. It was all so complicated, it had always given him a headache the rare times he had let himself think about it.
The truth was the only answer he could offer. "I've wanted it too."
There was a moment of hesitation on both of their part.
"But it's not the right time." she said softly, almost regretfully.
Privately, he wondered if there would be a right time for them. Not up here on the Ark. He couldn't see it. And Earth… Earth was the dream. And, for now, it was still out of reach. Soon, maybe. But now…
"It should be right." he said, leaning in to rest his forehead against her on the pillow. "You and me… I would want to get it right because… Believe it or not, I care about you, Abby. Right now, it wouldn't be."
"I agree." she breathed out.
It wasn't every day they agreed on something. Hell was probably freezing over somewhere.
He brushed his mouth against hers and she rolled on her side to kiss him properly, pushing him on his back and snuggling against him, propped on her elbow.
"I needed this." she confessed between two kisses.
"Me too." he mumbled, not willing to stop kissing her long enough to talk.
"I need to go…" she said.
"No." His growl was instinctive, just as instinctive as the way his arms closed around her, pulling her on his chest.
She didn't look angry though, just amused and a bit impatient. "You just said…"
"Two more hours." he bargained. "Two more hours of no thinking. Please."
If she left, he would be alone with his demons again. And it was a more frightening thought than he could bear.
He saw the same weariness in her eyes that he felt deep inside.
Going back to Earth Monitoring Station meant facing her daughter and she wasn't any more ready for that than he was ready to go see Diana Sydney settle in her seat.
"Two hours." she granted, resting her head on his shoulder, curling up against his side. A short respite before reality sucked them in its harsh vortex again.
He held her tight, his nose in her hair, committing everything to memory.
One day, maybe, there wouldn't be a ticking clock counting the seconds until they had to part for who knew how long.
One day.