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27. (the 100) our house is crumbling under me;
our house is crumbling under me part two.
It's a good thing the Grounders hadn't thought to cut her deeply. He doubts it'd really matter, in the scheme of things, but it'd still suck if they'd chosen to slice in so deep they hit bone.
Clarke lingers by the door, watching Abby wipe a piece of cloth over Raven's wounds. The feasting table's still laid out with food on it. Even though Raven's taken a bite out of an apple, declaring it not to be poisoned at all, she's followed Abby's lead and sets up shop on it. He sits on the edge just as Abby does, Raven lying between them as he rests his feet on the bench and looks at his hands.
All Abby's doing is smearing blood all over her abdomen, but he guesses that's good, too. Being a janitor taught him that if the spill slips and slides along the floor, it's a good thing — even if it means it makes more of a mess. It can be cleaned up, since it's not dried and sticking to the ground like some reminder. It won't scar, Abby says, over and over, but Raven doesn't respond to her after she says it the first two times. He doesn't realise it until later that she'd been saying it to him.
"They're getting the funeral pyre ready," Clarke says from the doorway. She's shrouded in darkness, if he's to look up at her. He does once, but he keeps his gaze on Raven, lying flat against the table. He sits on the edge of it by her head. "They're going to say goodbye to Gustus."
"Hope he burns in hell," Raven bites out, wincing against the sting of alcohol seeping into her cuts. Bellamy's brows knit as he watches Abby treat her delicately, as if she's afraid her hands will tear her apart. "Son of a bitch."
Bellamy looks up at Clarke, noticing how her expression is pinched. She leans against the doorframe in a manner that looks like she's swaying, uncertain if she wants to ground herself there or if she wants to move toward them. He knows she wants to help, hold Raven's hand or give her mother a break, but Raven's so much as laced the threshold of the feasting hall with poison that Clarke will begin to choke if she thinks to step one foot inside.
He shakes his head. "I'm not coming."
Clarke swallows, looking down then. "Okay," she mutters, but he thinks her resignation isn't because of him. It's being unable to fix what she's broken that makes it such a pungent scent he wonders if it'll stick to his skin like the dirt and grime of living on this damn earth has.
She looks up, her eyes remaining on him, before they flicker over toward Raven. Raven doesn't notice Clarke looking, wincing as she grits her teeth and looks up at the ceiling — or at him. Clarke nods and turns to leave, her steps slow, echoing within the inside chambers of Tondc. He hadn't noticed how it echoes in here until everyone had vacated it, leaving it to be as hollow as he thinks this alliance to be.
"You should go," Raven's voice sounds strained. Abby's not even touching her, keeping her hands away from her with the bloodied rag. Bellamy thinks to offer tearing a piece of his shirt, but he knows Raven would refuse, and following her cue, Abby will pretend like the dark colour of the fabric means she can't see if she's cleaning her cuts properly. "Be the Princess' knight in shining whatever the hell you wear."
When he looks down at her, he notices she's looking up at him, her brows raised challengingly.
"I'm no one's knight," he says. He shifts on the table, leaning away from her. Raven begins to lift herself onto her elbows and twist her body, mouth open to probably protest him even moving, but all he does is pull himself on the table, legs folded underneath him. He moves toward her, taking advantage of her sitting up slightly, to shuffle closer to her.
Her lips spread into a wide smile. "Oh, I see," she says. Her voice has a croak to it, like she's had a noose wrapped tightly around it. "You want to be mine, huh. Never thought I'd see the day a janitor —"
"I'm cleaning up a mess," he says. Peering down at her pointedly, he raises his brows, mimicking her own expression. Bellamy rolls his eyes, lips curving upward despite his attempt to feign exasperation the best he can. "You're a mess."
Raven opens her mouth, but instead of bitching him out, she closes it with a smile. He thinks it can be one of pride, as if she regards herself being as messy as her work tent is something to preen beneath. If he wants to misinterpret it, he'd think it'd be one that a girl would wear if she was blushing. But Raven looks a little too pale to be considered a blushing princess, or a damsel in distress, even if she looks like she's gone to hell and back with how she's cut up and bloodied from the last few days.
He expects her to be stubborn, to remain on her elbows as they dig into the wood of the table and eventually cut at the skin of the bone. Looking up at Abby, he removes the smile from his face and the challenging arch to his brows as she looks at him somewhat knowingly. It reminds him of Aurora when she'd catch him and O looking through the papers she'd written of what she could remember of the stories of the Greeks. He remembers how the poems of Hades and Persephone had been O's favourites, wanting to believe that, one day, Persephone would refuse to resurface when the summer called for her to linger in her garden with her mother.
But his gaze is drawn back down to his lap when he feels Raven rest her head against his lower leg. She's looking at Abby, shifting her body upward so she can use him as a pillow. Tilting her head back, she looks up at him, "This doesn't mean anything."
Bellamy rolls his eyes.
Abby grins, pouring the alcohol onto the damp and bloodied rag. "I think it means something," she says. She doesn't look at Raven when she whips her head around to her, eyes narrowed, brows knitted, as if she's trying to decipher her speaking Mom. Bellamy isn't so sure if he gets what Abby's talking about, either. Abby looks at Raven, her eyes flicking up to him before setting on her. "It means you're not alone," she says. The smile doesn't remain on her face to paint it as if it's something it isn't, but he can hear the warmth in her voice, a layer of surprise in it as she peers up at him.
Bellamy watches her, witnessing her expression fall. Abby Griffin is sometimes so subtle he thinks those around her miss her tells, but he's seen it before. Aurora postured as an abrasive and strong woman, untouched by the hand life had given her, but he'd seen her wilt in their own home. Abby's shoulders may not be hunched like his mother's had been when she didn't think he was looking, but he recognises the expression she wears like Hades' helm. Her lips curve downward and her eyes seem determined to focus on anything but either of them.
Abby looks to the rag once more, leaving it in her hand to allow it become soaked in the alcohol as she places the large bottle on the table beside her. Picking up where she left off, she clarifies, "That's a good thing. We can all use someone to look out for us right about now."
He watches as she looks to the doorframe Clarke's vacated, a familiar longing in her gaze, before she pulls herself together with a purse of her lips and her shoulders pushed back. "This is going to sting," she says as she looks at Raven.
He looks away, not frightened by blood or Abby pressing alcohol into open wounds, but to memorise the shadows and the way the hall looks, just in case he needs it for later. The Grounders are weird with how they seem so reverent of the locations that seem to be charred on the inside as they are on the outside, but he supposes even they've been forced to find beauty in rubble.
Raven groans, "Tell me something I don't know." He feels her shoulder jerk against him.
Bellamy doesn't know what possesses him to do it. Maybe it's the rock interior of the hall, or maybe it's him simply thinking about Mom, but he finds his mouth opening and words trickling out that belong to Octavia and Octavia alone. "You know, this princess was once chained to a rock in the middle of the sea. She was meant to be sacrificed to please the sea monster, Cetus, because her mother, Queen Cassiopeia, decided to boast that her daughter was more beautiful than the Nereids."
He turns his gaze back to Abby, noticing her staring at him. He knows he looks startled, like a two-headed deer caught in the middle of grazing by a predator, but he isn't frightened by her as he should be. He doesn't know if she sees something in his expression that causes her to nod, but she does, and she presses the cloth against the wound against Raven's abdomen, just above her left leg.
Raven inhales sharply, eyes closing for a mere moment. He doesn't think she's paying attention, but he hears her pained voice, "What the hell's a Nereid?"
"They're sea nymphs, the daughters of the sea god Nereus." He can see her from the corner of his eye, looking up at him. Bellamy refuses to look at her, watching Abby wipe the cloth over Raven's wound, smearing blood along her torso before trying to clean that up. "Poseidon's the god of the sea. He's the one at the top of the food chain, the sea god to rule over every other sea god. He was rightfully pissed about it, so he decided to punish Cassiopeia's people instead."
Raven breathes out, "Dick."
He tries not to smile. "King Cepheus, Andromeda's father, sought out a way to save his kingdom. Poseidon set the monster to devour the city, but Cepheus chose to sacrifice his daughter. Andromeda was stripped and chained to a rock out in the middle of the sea as a sacrifice to Cetus."
Raven hisses, drawing in her bottom lip between her teeth as Abby presses the wet cloth against her wound. He imagines she's trying to disinfect it the best she can, that maybe his own story is getting lost in the sting of it. But he feels Raven throw her arm back toward him, tapping his knee with the back of her hand. "What happened?"
Her hand goes slack against his leg as he looks down at her instead of watching Abby clean one of her many wounds. "The hero Perseus saved her. He killed Cetus while wearing Hades' helm, which made him invisible. He freed her from the rock and married her."
Raven's brows knit together. "Who the hell is Hades?"
Bellamy laughs, shaking his head. "The god of the dead."
If she's currently lost in his attempt to weave a story together for her, she doesn't show it. If she's trying to figure out why he's treating her as if she's being operated on without anesthesia, he doesn't have an answer for her. Alcohol on an open cut stings like a bitch, but she's not screaming while attempting not to writhe with a scalpel deep in her lower back.
Her brows knit, but that's as far as she goes with showing any signs of confusion — if it's confusion at all. "Did Andromeda get a say?" She tilts her head to look along the length of herself, watching Abby wipe the rag over the cuts on her abdomen as blood seems to pool around it once more with her shifting.
"Probably," he says. He lifts his shoulders in a shrug when she tilts her head back into the makeshift pillow of his lower legs. "I guess so."
She arches a brow. "A princess gets sacrificed to a sea monster for her mother boasting about her beauty and you don't know if she gets a say in the guy she gets to marry?"
Bellamy laughs softly, "I never said the story was perfect."
She looks at him pointedly from her position on his legs. Even though he's hovering over her, it feels like she's the one casting her shadow over him instead with how pointed her look is. "You never said you knew any stories," she says. Raven tilts her chin down to look at Abby. "Did you think he knew any stories?"
Abby grins, her gaze flicking from him to Raven. "People can surprise you, Raven." And Bellamy thinks, maybe, Abby's trying to soften Raven's own anger toward Clarke. But it doesn't feel right within the moment. She can be a mother and a leader and a doctor, but he doubts Abby likes to let her love for Clarke, her desire to protect her and guide her, bleed in with the roles she plays to the Sky People. Or Raven. What lingers between them is something more than his relationship with Kane. Abby smiles, "That's life. Keeping you on your toes."
"Or chaining you to rocks to sacrifice you for something you never did," Raven says, her voice lighter, devoid of its sharpness he thinks she'd inject into it if the other Griffin was in the room. Abby may be Clarke's mother, the woman who will always stand beside her and support her, but Bellamy sometimes thinks she's one to Raven, too.
"I'll have to look at your arms now," Abby says, voice warm, rather than cold and detached like he'd always thought she'd be. Sometimes he wonders if his mother had been wrong about her, believing Abby Griffin never would've helped her with prenatal care or even delivering Octavia. Sometimes, Bellamy thinks Aurora was so guarded not even a sea monster had any hopes of devouring her, even though he thinks one did, in the end.
Raven sighs. She leans forward, pulling herself up to sit awkwardly. He thinks the movement aggravates her abdomen wounds as Abby presses the cloth against them to wipe away the blood. "It'll stop," Abby says, folding the cloth to wipe it over where her wound splits open once more. "Just give it time. If it continues to bleed, I'll stitch it once we return to camp."
He knows Raven hears her, even if her nod gets lost in her fingers hooking into the hem of her shirt. With her back no longer supported against the wood of the table, she begins to pull it over her head. She doesn't get very far, and it's instinct that Bellamy grips the back of it, helping her pull it over her shoulders and her head.
Rather than press it against her chest, she drops it into his lap, possibly aiming for his legs. He doubts bone is as comfortable to rest her head against as it is to try and cut skin to reach.
She wears a black bra, it stained with her blood, but Raven doesn't seem to care. Even though it isn't necessary, she lies her head back into his lap, her shirt now a proper pillow to soften the hardness of his legs. He wonders if she feels queasy, but he doubts it, not with the way she'd tried to fight him and Abby when they'd been leading her around the group and down the stairs to the feasting hall. It's not the most sanitary place, but it's better than the outside where there's critters and mud and observers who'd come to congregate around them.
She holds out her arm to Abby, wincing the moment she wipes the rag over the cut on her upper arm. "Think I could cut the bitch with the wire in this?" She looks up at him, like he's meant to know, but he knows she's only gazing at him since it's easier with how she seems to rest her neck against him, too. Abby laughs, shaking her head, as he watches her clean Raven's arm of blood and dirt.
"You could try," Abby says, and he guesses that's as far as she'll go with condoning any acts of revenge. "But I wouldn't sacrifice a good bra for petty revenge, Raven."
She purses her lips, looking at Abby, "This shit is so uncomfortable at times." She shifts against him, as if she's trying to wiggle and have it be comfortable against her ribs. A part of him wonders if she'll go that one step further and unclasp it, but her arms don't reach behind her nor does she even try to pull it over her head or down her legs.
Bellamy knows he shouldn't be comfortable. He knows, maybe, Raven would do this at some other time to try and seduce him as she had in his tent. It feels like it happened an age ago, in a different life, at a different time, between two different people. But he doubts himself to be all that different to who he had been then, studying her face, waiting for her to break as she stood before him half-naked and determined to have her way. He hadn't so much as swayed toward her that night until she had tilted her head just a little higher, as though he was as dumb as she sometimes jokes him to be, and had stepped into him instead.
He isn't daft. He's not Murphy, who'd make an inappropriate joke about her trying to seduce him. He's not Finn, looking away from her as if he hasn't seen her naked before. Maybe that reaction is better than any other, but Bellamy opts for not even acknowledging she's removed her shirt at all. He acts like this is an every day occurrence, like her stripping herself of bloodied clothing and baring a little more flesh than usual is something he sees every day.
He can feel Abby look up at him, as if waiting for him to vacate the hall, as if he's some teenage boy incapable of controlling his hormones around a pretty half-naked girl. But he looks up at her and meets her stare to see her drop her eyes instead.
When he looks at her chest, it's to see her cuts, little scratches up the length of her. On her side, beneath the strap of her bra, he thinks he can see a dark bruise, but he doesn't reach out to touch it nor does he even think to speak of it, simply remembering it for later to make sure he's more careful if he's to act as her crutch she begrudgingly accepts.
He shifts his gaze to study the slope of her nose. Belatedly, he thinks to say, "Try having your big head on your legs."
Raven's smile is small, but he sees it wilt as she peers down the length of her. Abby's own expression becomes guarded for a moment, her hands continuing to wipe at Raven's arm. "One day," Raven says, her voice sounding so determined. She looks at her legs as if she's going to will them into working again, into feeling how they did before Murphy had shot her because of him. "One day, I'm going to bitch about your head making my legs fall asleep, Bellamy." When he looks down, she's peering up at him.
"I'm sure it'll be soon," he says, finding himself smiling, even if he thinks it to be forced. "I'm a bit clumsy."
"Over a goddamn cliffside," she rolls her eyes. Before he can even retort, correcting her, informing her it had been the right thing to do, to pause in searching for Finn and helping their own by risking his own life, she barrels by him, as quick as she'd be on two good legs instead of writing herself off as a girl who can't even run with only one. "You're a big fat hero, Blake. Who knew a janitor could even be a knight?"
"Think you mean a stable boy."
She presses her lips together, shaking her head. "No, I mean the chamber pot cleaner." Peering up at him, she arches her brow, lips curving into a slow smile before she winces and hisses at the touch of fresh alcohol on her long cut. "I may not know the shit you're talking about most of the time when it comes to Andromeda and her shitty mother, but I know that. I used to read stories about princesses and princes."
"And I used to tell them," Abby smiles softly, peering up at her. She focuses once more on placing Raven's arm gently on the table before reaching for her other one.
Raven winces once more when the alcohol seeps into her fresh wound, but she doesn't let it deter her from speaking. "But don't go throwing yourself off of cliffs so you can be between my legs again," she says, peering up at him. Bellamy doesn't want to look at Abby in this moment, but he can't feel her staring at him as he can believe her to be slightly amused. He stares down at Raven as she peers up at him, lips curved into a sly smile. "I'll remove the wire from my perfectly blood-soaked bra and cut your throat with it if you think about it."
Abby's laugh is soft and throaty, a mother amused by two children if he's to remember the sound at all. He tries not to, but it warms him, anyway, to hear it again, even if it's slightly haunting. When he looks to Abby, her hands are busy on Raven's arm, but she's looking at the two of them with a curve to her lips. "I'm pretty sure princesses were a little nicer to their knights, Raven."
With a scoff, Raven looks to Abby with her brows furrowing. "Who the hell said I'd be a princess?" She drops her head back into his lap as she looks up at him. "I'm this one's knight in a shining spacesuit."
Pursing his lips, he nods, conceding to her, if only to see her mouth widen into a bright smile rather than turn downward. She may wince once more at Abby literally rubbing alcohol into her wounds, but she seems more upbeat against him than she had before, like this is all she needed, even if it's a temporary suture she's about to rip out when she feels like drowning beneath remembering her pain and refusing to let herself have a moment of respite.
"It might be a good idea if you washed your shirt," Abby says, pulling back from Raven's arm. She lets the cloth pool beside her, a pile of red and a dark, mossy green by her leg. Her hands remain in her lap as she peers at her, and Bellamy wonders if she's speaking to her as a doctor or a mother. "But I know you, and you won't. If you find yourself bleeding too much, you tell me straight away."
Her gaze flicks up to him, her look pointed. In this moment, Bellamy realises that she thinks he's going to be the one to shadow Raven, even though he thinks Raven's big enough to be her own shadow at times.
Raven shakes her head. "No, it doesn't matter." With how long they've been on the ground, a bloodied shirt is better than having nothing to stave off the chill of some of the nights. Sometimes he thinks the adults don't get that, that the Ark had a closet with a few more options when it came to shirts when the ground offers nothing at all in terms of selection.
She begins to pull herself up, sitting in between them. She throws her legs over the edge of the table, but remains there, her head bowed before she looks to Abby. "I don't want to go out there," she says quietly.
Extending her arm, Abby curls her fingers around Raven's leg. "We'll stay in here until you're ready."
Raven nods her head, a small movement he wouldn't have noticed if he hadn't been watching her unblinkingly. He unfolds his legs slowly, holding her shirt in his hands, before throwing them over the side of the table to rest his feet against the seat. "And they won't bother us," he says. "We may be in Grounder territory, but it's about time they show us we can trust them." And he thinks that can be established if Lexa's people leave them alone, even if they're inside their own political office. The people of the Ark don't owe them anything, but he figures if the alliance is to work, then they'll give them this small reprieve until the sun sets and the next day begins once more.
She looks to him, her gaze unreadable, before she turns to Abby once more. Her voice is quiet, "What if I'm never ready?"
Abby's hand remains on her leg, her bad one. He sees Raven look down belatedly, as if she hadn't sensed Abby's touch. But he doubts all the nerves are dead, just sensitive or out of reach for now — Raven may be all bravado at times, a loud voice that summons a pounding to his temples on the rare occasion when she's too annoying for him to stand to be near, but she hadn't kicked her leg away from her or even flinched from her reaching out to touch a leg she deems to be dead and useless.
He thinks, maybe, Raven lets her touch her bad leg as a sign of trust, like Abby will somehow figure out a way to return feeling to her leg. Or maybe she's just so damn tired she doesn't want to push away the one person who has every reason to side with a girl who Bellamy thinks is making all the wrong decisions for good reasons.
Bellamy doesn't get it, but it doesn't matter to him if he does — it's important Raven sees herself flanked on either side in her moment of weakness. There's a sea monster outside the feasting hall that wants to devour her, but Perseus doesn't come to save her when he knows she can save herself. But it doesn't mean he can't lend her moral support as she breaks from her own chains.
It's a good thing the Grounders hadn't thought to cut her deeply. He doubts it'd really matter, in the scheme of things, but it'd still suck if they'd chosen to slice in so deep they hit bone.
Clarke lingers by the door, watching Abby wipe a piece of cloth over Raven's wounds. The feasting table's still laid out with food on it. Even though Raven's taken a bite out of an apple, declaring it not to be poisoned at all, she's followed Abby's lead and sets up shop on it. He sits on the edge just as Abby does, Raven lying between them as he rests his feet on the bench and looks at his hands.
All Abby's doing is smearing blood all over her abdomen, but he guesses that's good, too. Being a janitor taught him that if the spill slips and slides along the floor, it's a good thing — even if it means it makes more of a mess. It can be cleaned up, since it's not dried and sticking to the ground like some reminder. It won't scar, Abby says, over and over, but Raven doesn't respond to her after she says it the first two times. He doesn't realise it until later that she'd been saying it to him.
"They're getting the funeral pyre ready," Clarke says from the doorway. She's shrouded in darkness, if he's to look up at her. He does once, but he keeps his gaze on Raven, lying flat against the table. He sits on the edge of it by her head. "They're going to say goodbye to Gustus."
"Hope he burns in hell," Raven bites out, wincing against the sting of alcohol seeping into her cuts. Bellamy's brows knit as he watches Abby treat her delicately, as if she's afraid her hands will tear her apart. "Son of a bitch."
Bellamy looks up at Clarke, noticing how her expression is pinched. She leans against the doorframe in a manner that looks like she's swaying, uncertain if she wants to ground herself there or if she wants to move toward them. He knows she wants to help, hold Raven's hand or give her mother a break, but Raven's so much as laced the threshold of the feasting hall with poison that Clarke will begin to choke if she thinks to step one foot inside.
He shakes his head. "I'm not coming."
Clarke swallows, looking down then. "Okay," she mutters, but he thinks her resignation isn't because of him. It's being unable to fix what she's broken that makes it such a pungent scent he wonders if it'll stick to his skin like the dirt and grime of living on this damn earth has.
She looks up, her eyes remaining on him, before they flicker over toward Raven. Raven doesn't notice Clarke looking, wincing as she grits her teeth and looks up at the ceiling — or at him. Clarke nods and turns to leave, her steps slow, echoing within the inside chambers of Tondc. He hadn't noticed how it echoes in here until everyone had vacated it, leaving it to be as hollow as he thinks this alliance to be.
"You should go," Raven's voice sounds strained. Abby's not even touching her, keeping her hands away from her with the bloodied rag. Bellamy thinks to offer tearing a piece of his shirt, but he knows Raven would refuse, and following her cue, Abby will pretend like the dark colour of the fabric means she can't see if she's cleaning her cuts properly. "Be the Princess' knight in shining whatever the hell you wear."
When he looks down at her, he notices she's looking up at him, her brows raised challengingly.
"I'm no one's knight," he says. He shifts on the table, leaning away from her. Raven begins to lift herself onto her elbows and twist her body, mouth open to probably protest him even moving, but all he does is pull himself on the table, legs folded underneath him. He moves toward her, taking advantage of her sitting up slightly, to shuffle closer to her.
Her lips spread into a wide smile. "Oh, I see," she says. Her voice has a croak to it, like she's had a noose wrapped tightly around it. "You want to be mine, huh. Never thought I'd see the day a janitor —"
"I'm cleaning up a mess," he says. Peering down at her pointedly, he raises his brows, mimicking her own expression. Bellamy rolls his eyes, lips curving upward despite his attempt to feign exasperation the best he can. "You're a mess."
Raven opens her mouth, but instead of bitching him out, she closes it with a smile. He thinks it can be one of pride, as if she regards herself being as messy as her work tent is something to preen beneath. If he wants to misinterpret it, he'd think it'd be one that a girl would wear if she was blushing. But Raven looks a little too pale to be considered a blushing princess, or a damsel in distress, even if she looks like she's gone to hell and back with how she's cut up and bloodied from the last few days.
He expects her to be stubborn, to remain on her elbows as they dig into the wood of the table and eventually cut at the skin of the bone. Looking up at Abby, he removes the smile from his face and the challenging arch to his brows as she looks at him somewhat knowingly. It reminds him of Aurora when she'd catch him and O looking through the papers she'd written of what she could remember of the stories of the Greeks. He remembers how the poems of Hades and Persephone had been O's favourites, wanting to believe that, one day, Persephone would refuse to resurface when the summer called for her to linger in her garden with her mother.
But his gaze is drawn back down to his lap when he feels Raven rest her head against his lower leg. She's looking at Abby, shifting her body upward so she can use him as a pillow. Tilting her head back, she looks up at him, "This doesn't mean anything."
Bellamy rolls his eyes.
Abby grins, pouring the alcohol onto the damp and bloodied rag. "I think it means something," she says. She doesn't look at Raven when she whips her head around to her, eyes narrowed, brows knitted, as if she's trying to decipher her speaking Mom. Bellamy isn't so sure if he gets what Abby's talking about, either. Abby looks at Raven, her eyes flicking up to him before setting on her. "It means you're not alone," she says. The smile doesn't remain on her face to paint it as if it's something it isn't, but he can hear the warmth in her voice, a layer of surprise in it as she peers up at him.
Bellamy watches her, witnessing her expression fall. Abby Griffin is sometimes so subtle he thinks those around her miss her tells, but he's seen it before. Aurora postured as an abrasive and strong woman, untouched by the hand life had given her, but he'd seen her wilt in their own home. Abby's shoulders may not be hunched like his mother's had been when she didn't think he was looking, but he recognises the expression she wears like Hades' helm. Her lips curve downward and her eyes seem determined to focus on anything but either of them.
Abby looks to the rag once more, leaving it in her hand to allow it become soaked in the alcohol as she places the large bottle on the table beside her. Picking up where she left off, she clarifies, "That's a good thing. We can all use someone to look out for us right about now."
He watches as she looks to the doorframe Clarke's vacated, a familiar longing in her gaze, before she pulls herself together with a purse of her lips and her shoulders pushed back. "This is going to sting," she says as she looks at Raven.
He looks away, not frightened by blood or Abby pressing alcohol into open wounds, but to memorise the shadows and the way the hall looks, just in case he needs it for later. The Grounders are weird with how they seem so reverent of the locations that seem to be charred on the inside as they are on the outside, but he supposes even they've been forced to find beauty in rubble.
Raven groans, "Tell me something I don't know." He feels her shoulder jerk against him.
Bellamy doesn't know what possesses him to do it. Maybe it's the rock interior of the hall, or maybe it's him simply thinking about Mom, but he finds his mouth opening and words trickling out that belong to Octavia and Octavia alone. "You know, this princess was once chained to a rock in the middle of the sea. She was meant to be sacrificed to please the sea monster, Cetus, because her mother, Queen Cassiopeia, decided to boast that her daughter was more beautiful than the Nereids."
He turns his gaze back to Abby, noticing her staring at him. He knows he looks startled, like a two-headed deer caught in the middle of grazing by a predator, but he isn't frightened by her as he should be. He doesn't know if she sees something in his expression that causes her to nod, but she does, and she presses the cloth against the wound against Raven's abdomen, just above her left leg.
Raven inhales sharply, eyes closing for a mere moment. He doesn't think she's paying attention, but he hears her pained voice, "What the hell's a Nereid?"
"They're sea nymphs, the daughters of the sea god Nereus." He can see her from the corner of his eye, looking up at him. Bellamy refuses to look at her, watching Abby wipe the cloth over Raven's wound, smearing blood along her torso before trying to clean that up. "Poseidon's the god of the sea. He's the one at the top of the food chain, the sea god to rule over every other sea god. He was rightfully pissed about it, so he decided to punish Cassiopeia's people instead."
Raven breathes out, "Dick."
He tries not to smile. "King Cepheus, Andromeda's father, sought out a way to save his kingdom. Poseidon set the monster to devour the city, but Cepheus chose to sacrifice his daughter. Andromeda was stripped and chained to a rock out in the middle of the sea as a sacrifice to Cetus."
Raven hisses, drawing in her bottom lip between her teeth as Abby presses the wet cloth against her wound. He imagines she's trying to disinfect it the best she can, that maybe his own story is getting lost in the sting of it. But he feels Raven throw her arm back toward him, tapping his knee with the back of her hand. "What happened?"
Her hand goes slack against his leg as he looks down at her instead of watching Abby clean one of her many wounds. "The hero Perseus saved her. He killed Cetus while wearing Hades' helm, which made him invisible. He freed her from the rock and married her."
Raven's brows knit together. "Who the hell is Hades?"
Bellamy laughs, shaking his head. "The god of the dead."
If she's currently lost in his attempt to weave a story together for her, she doesn't show it. If she's trying to figure out why he's treating her as if she's being operated on without anesthesia, he doesn't have an answer for her. Alcohol on an open cut stings like a bitch, but she's not screaming while attempting not to writhe with a scalpel deep in her lower back.
Her brows knit, but that's as far as she goes with showing any signs of confusion — if it's confusion at all. "Did Andromeda get a say?" She tilts her head to look along the length of herself, watching Abby wipe the rag over the cuts on her abdomen as blood seems to pool around it once more with her shifting.
"Probably," he says. He lifts his shoulders in a shrug when she tilts her head back into the makeshift pillow of his lower legs. "I guess so."
She arches a brow. "A princess gets sacrificed to a sea monster for her mother boasting about her beauty and you don't know if she gets a say in the guy she gets to marry?"
Bellamy laughs softly, "I never said the story was perfect."
She looks at him pointedly from her position on his legs. Even though he's hovering over her, it feels like she's the one casting her shadow over him instead with how pointed her look is. "You never said you knew any stories," she says. Raven tilts her chin down to look at Abby. "Did you think he knew any stories?"
Abby grins, her gaze flicking from him to Raven. "People can surprise you, Raven." And Bellamy thinks, maybe, Abby's trying to soften Raven's own anger toward Clarke. But it doesn't feel right within the moment. She can be a mother and a leader and a doctor, but he doubts Abby likes to let her love for Clarke, her desire to protect her and guide her, bleed in with the roles she plays to the Sky People. Or Raven. What lingers between them is something more than his relationship with Kane. Abby smiles, "That's life. Keeping you on your toes."
"Or chaining you to rocks to sacrifice you for something you never did," Raven says, her voice lighter, devoid of its sharpness he thinks she'd inject into it if the other Griffin was in the room. Abby may be Clarke's mother, the woman who will always stand beside her and support her, but Bellamy sometimes thinks she's one to Raven, too.
"I'll have to look at your arms now," Abby says, voice warm, rather than cold and detached like he'd always thought she'd be. Sometimes he wonders if his mother had been wrong about her, believing Abby Griffin never would've helped her with prenatal care or even delivering Octavia. Sometimes, Bellamy thinks Aurora was so guarded not even a sea monster had any hopes of devouring her, even though he thinks one did, in the end.
Raven sighs. She leans forward, pulling herself up to sit awkwardly. He thinks the movement aggravates her abdomen wounds as Abby presses the cloth against them to wipe away the blood. "It'll stop," Abby says, folding the cloth to wipe it over where her wound splits open once more. "Just give it time. If it continues to bleed, I'll stitch it once we return to camp."
He knows Raven hears her, even if her nod gets lost in her fingers hooking into the hem of her shirt. With her back no longer supported against the wood of the table, she begins to pull it over her head. She doesn't get very far, and it's instinct that Bellamy grips the back of it, helping her pull it over her shoulders and her head.
Rather than press it against her chest, she drops it into his lap, possibly aiming for his legs. He doubts bone is as comfortable to rest her head against as it is to try and cut skin to reach.
She wears a black bra, it stained with her blood, but Raven doesn't seem to care. Even though it isn't necessary, she lies her head back into his lap, her shirt now a proper pillow to soften the hardness of his legs. He wonders if she feels queasy, but he doubts it, not with the way she'd tried to fight him and Abby when they'd been leading her around the group and down the stairs to the feasting hall. It's not the most sanitary place, but it's better than the outside where there's critters and mud and observers who'd come to congregate around them.
She holds out her arm to Abby, wincing the moment she wipes the rag over the cut on her upper arm. "Think I could cut the bitch with the wire in this?" She looks up at him, like he's meant to know, but he knows she's only gazing at him since it's easier with how she seems to rest her neck against him, too. Abby laughs, shaking her head, as he watches her clean Raven's arm of blood and dirt.
"You could try," Abby says, and he guesses that's as far as she'll go with condoning any acts of revenge. "But I wouldn't sacrifice a good bra for petty revenge, Raven."
She purses her lips, looking at Abby, "This shit is so uncomfortable at times." She shifts against him, as if she's trying to wiggle and have it be comfortable against her ribs. A part of him wonders if she'll go that one step further and unclasp it, but her arms don't reach behind her nor does she even try to pull it over her head or down her legs.
Bellamy knows he shouldn't be comfortable. He knows, maybe, Raven would do this at some other time to try and seduce him as she had in his tent. It feels like it happened an age ago, in a different life, at a different time, between two different people. But he doubts himself to be all that different to who he had been then, studying her face, waiting for her to break as she stood before him half-naked and determined to have her way. He hadn't so much as swayed toward her that night until she had tilted her head just a little higher, as though he was as dumb as she sometimes jokes him to be, and had stepped into him instead.
He isn't daft. He's not Murphy, who'd make an inappropriate joke about her trying to seduce him. He's not Finn, looking away from her as if he hasn't seen her naked before. Maybe that reaction is better than any other, but Bellamy opts for not even acknowledging she's removed her shirt at all. He acts like this is an every day occurrence, like her stripping herself of bloodied clothing and baring a little more flesh than usual is something he sees every day.
He can feel Abby look up at him, as if waiting for him to vacate the hall, as if he's some teenage boy incapable of controlling his hormones around a pretty half-naked girl. But he looks up at her and meets her stare to see her drop her eyes instead.
When he looks at her chest, it's to see her cuts, little scratches up the length of her. On her side, beneath the strap of her bra, he thinks he can see a dark bruise, but he doesn't reach out to touch it nor does he even think to speak of it, simply remembering it for later to make sure he's more careful if he's to act as her crutch she begrudgingly accepts.
He shifts his gaze to study the slope of her nose. Belatedly, he thinks to say, "Try having your big head on your legs."
Raven's smile is small, but he sees it wilt as she peers down the length of her. Abby's own expression becomes guarded for a moment, her hands continuing to wipe at Raven's arm. "One day," Raven says, her voice sounding so determined. She looks at her legs as if she's going to will them into working again, into feeling how they did before Murphy had shot her because of him. "One day, I'm going to bitch about your head making my legs fall asleep, Bellamy." When he looks down, she's peering up at him.
"I'm sure it'll be soon," he says, finding himself smiling, even if he thinks it to be forced. "I'm a bit clumsy."
"Over a goddamn cliffside," she rolls her eyes. Before he can even retort, correcting her, informing her it had been the right thing to do, to pause in searching for Finn and helping their own by risking his own life, she barrels by him, as quick as she'd be on two good legs instead of writing herself off as a girl who can't even run with only one. "You're a big fat hero, Blake. Who knew a janitor could even be a knight?"
"Think you mean a stable boy."
She presses her lips together, shaking her head. "No, I mean the chamber pot cleaner." Peering up at him, she arches her brow, lips curving into a slow smile before she winces and hisses at the touch of fresh alcohol on her long cut. "I may not know the shit you're talking about most of the time when it comes to Andromeda and her shitty mother, but I know that. I used to read stories about princesses and princes."
"And I used to tell them," Abby smiles softly, peering up at her. She focuses once more on placing Raven's arm gently on the table before reaching for her other one.
Raven winces once more when the alcohol seeps into her fresh wound, but she doesn't let it deter her from speaking. "But don't go throwing yourself off of cliffs so you can be between my legs again," she says, peering up at him. Bellamy doesn't want to look at Abby in this moment, but he can't feel her staring at him as he can believe her to be slightly amused. He stares down at Raven as she peers up at him, lips curved into a sly smile. "I'll remove the wire from my perfectly blood-soaked bra and cut your throat with it if you think about it."
Abby's laugh is soft and throaty, a mother amused by two children if he's to remember the sound at all. He tries not to, but it warms him, anyway, to hear it again, even if it's slightly haunting. When he looks to Abby, her hands are busy on Raven's arm, but she's looking at the two of them with a curve to her lips. "I'm pretty sure princesses were a little nicer to their knights, Raven."
With a scoff, Raven looks to Abby with her brows furrowing. "Who the hell said I'd be a princess?" She drops her head back into his lap as she looks up at him. "I'm this one's knight in a shining spacesuit."
Pursing his lips, he nods, conceding to her, if only to see her mouth widen into a bright smile rather than turn downward. She may wince once more at Abby literally rubbing alcohol into her wounds, but she seems more upbeat against him than she had before, like this is all she needed, even if it's a temporary suture she's about to rip out when she feels like drowning beneath remembering her pain and refusing to let herself have a moment of respite.
"It might be a good idea if you washed your shirt," Abby says, pulling back from Raven's arm. She lets the cloth pool beside her, a pile of red and a dark, mossy green by her leg. Her hands remain in her lap as she peers at her, and Bellamy wonders if she's speaking to her as a doctor or a mother. "But I know you, and you won't. If you find yourself bleeding too much, you tell me straight away."
Her gaze flicks up to him, her look pointed. In this moment, Bellamy realises that she thinks he's going to be the one to shadow Raven, even though he thinks Raven's big enough to be her own shadow at times.
Raven shakes her head. "No, it doesn't matter." With how long they've been on the ground, a bloodied shirt is better than having nothing to stave off the chill of some of the nights. Sometimes he thinks the adults don't get that, that the Ark had a closet with a few more options when it came to shirts when the ground offers nothing at all in terms of selection.
She begins to pull herself up, sitting in between them. She throws her legs over the edge of the table, but remains there, her head bowed before she looks to Abby. "I don't want to go out there," she says quietly.
Extending her arm, Abby curls her fingers around Raven's leg. "We'll stay in here until you're ready."
Raven nods her head, a small movement he wouldn't have noticed if he hadn't been watching her unblinkingly. He unfolds his legs slowly, holding her shirt in his hands, before throwing them over the side of the table to rest his feet against the seat. "And they won't bother us," he says. "We may be in Grounder territory, but it's about time they show us we can trust them." And he thinks that can be established if Lexa's people leave them alone, even if they're inside their own political office. The people of the Ark don't owe them anything, but he figures if the alliance is to work, then they'll give them this small reprieve until the sun sets and the next day begins once more.
She looks to him, her gaze unreadable, before she turns to Abby once more. Her voice is quiet, "What if I'm never ready?"
Abby's hand remains on her leg, her bad one. He sees Raven look down belatedly, as if she hadn't sensed Abby's touch. But he doubts all the nerves are dead, just sensitive or out of reach for now — Raven may be all bravado at times, a loud voice that summons a pounding to his temples on the rare occasion when she's too annoying for him to stand to be near, but she hadn't kicked her leg away from her or even flinched from her reaching out to touch a leg she deems to be dead and useless.
He thinks, maybe, Raven lets her touch her bad leg as a sign of trust, like Abby will somehow figure out a way to return feeling to her leg. Or maybe she's just so damn tired she doesn't want to push away the one person who has every reason to side with a girl who Bellamy thinks is making all the wrong decisions for good reasons.
Bellamy doesn't get it, but it doesn't matter to him if he does — it's important Raven sees herself flanked on either side in her moment of weakness. There's a sea monster outside the feasting hall that wants to devour her, but Perseus doesn't come to save her when he knows she can save herself. But it doesn't mean he can't lend her moral support as she breaks from her own chains.