▌│█║▌║▌║ open post ║▌║▌║█│▌

[gidge]

PICK YOUR POISON
PIC PROMPTS / TFLN / RANDOM SCENARIO
HAN SOLO velocities	BETTY MCRAE bombsheller	RIVER TAM subsulcus	RIVER TAM (AU) comprehender
SIMON TAM vest	BRIA THAREN exulted	NADINE CROSS bridaled	GU JUN-PYO toddler
available on special request: veronica sawyer, benjamin linus, imani, maria deluca, mushu, poseidon, niccolò machiavelli, malik al-sayf, chloe

Comments

[unburdening]

Getting to Octavia isn't easy.

Skaikru was taken out of the bunker by force; they might've been able to avoid a slaughter by opening the doors, but the Grounders aren't feeling too charitable about the Sky People making themselves at home during the conclave. 100 beds per clan means exactly 100, and while it's harsh it's fair. No peoples have to die out because of Praimfaya. They will all get the chance to rebuild once the planet's habitable.

Assuming they all make it that long. But they have to deal with each problem as it comes, and right now? Choosing Skaikru's survivors and saving Raven take priority.

Bellamy has to bang on the doors for a full minute before any guards deign to open, glaring hard when they do. "No Skaikru inside until you decide," one says, and Bellamy puts on a scowl to match. He tells them he has to talk to Octavia, points out that she's his sister, and has to keep himself from trying to bodily shove past them. Tensions are high, and the last thing anyone needs is for him to risk inciting a fight.

(They're Trikru. He knows enough to distinguish some of the clans now, and one reacts to his name with a look that tells Bellamy he had a brother, or a sister, or a parent, or a child in Trikru's lost army. Bellamy gets dragged to Indra with some more force than strictly necessary, and he can't quite blame them.)

He makes it, at least, sharing a look with Indra before she directs him to where Octavia sits, momentarily alone.

"Your welcoming committee could use some work," he says by way of hello, sitting next to her.

[throudon]

She's tense. She's exhausted, but she can't relax. Since the conclave everything has been either a narrowly avoided disaster or discussions she feels are far over her head about what to do once Skaikru is done with their culling.

What to do for the next five years.

It's all overwhelming, like she's back to that first day on the ground being drug underwater by something bigger than she would ever be, but hearing Bellamy has the strange effect of both soothing her nerves and putting her on alert.

"What happened?"

Not that she isn't glad to see him or anything. Octavia had told her guards before that he was supposed to have free passage as long as the doors were clear of other Skaikru that might try to sneak past. (Another thing she has to worry about, and it kind of turns her stomach if she thinks about it for too long.) It's just that her first thought for why he'd come instead of doing his own leader duties is that something went wrong.

[unburdening]

"Raven's still at Becca's lab," he says without preamble. "I'm gonna go get her before it's too late."

Because there's no question that Raven is important, that they'll be needing her. Lottery or no lottery, Raven Reyes is sure to keep them alive through the tests to come.

"Clarke volunteered to come. We'll be taking radiation suits and one of the rovers. And we'll keep radio contact the whole time, in case of any problems."

On either end, so he doesn't bother clarifying. They're just as likely to find trouble outside the bunker as in.

[throudon]

Okay, screw soothing. That news is the opposite of soothing.

Getting Raven is important. Raven is important. They'd all have been dead ten times over if not for her, but why does it always have to be Bellamy running off to do these things? Especially now, because now Octavia knows with painful clarity that she's going to need him here.

"Did you even give someone else a chance to go? Other than Clarke?" It isn't said gently, and Clarke's name in particular is spat a little more than it's said.

[unburdening]

"If it were up to me, Clarke wouldn't be coming," he says harshly.

Much more harshly, honestly, than he usually is when it comes to her. But after being literally kidnapped into the bunker, shocklashed, chained in a spare room, and shot at -- he's not feeling too forgiving. All of which he could let go more easily if her actions wouldn't have killed Octavia, not to mention Kane, Raven, and literally the entire population of Grounders aside from Niylah. He's not surprised Jaha had a big hand in this. It's a move that reminds him so much of the Ark that he could be that angry person who came down on the dropship again, despising every member of the Ark's elite for what they condoned doing to his mother, his sister.

"And right now, the people I trust most down here are Kane, Abby, and you. You're all needed right now."

[throudon]

She has to bite her tongue from saying anything else about Clarke, or about him going. Of course he's going to go, and there's nothing she can say to stop him. And of course Clarke is going, because why would she ever want to stay behind and fix the mess she made? If this time were going to be the first, it would be a big one, and Octavia isn't holding her breath.

Knowing all that, even accepting most of it, doesn't keep her mouth from pursing into a small thin frown.

"You and Raven are needed, too, so you better get back fast."

[unburdening]

He says, "Hey," and puts a hand over one of hers.

"We'll get back as soon as we can. Neither of us is gonna be on the wrong side when that door closes for good."

None of them, really; he's not so angry, nor so cold-hearted, as to have any intention of leaving Clarke out there either. But this is what he fought for: Octavia and Raven the rest of their people safely in here, the Grounders having an even chance to survive. His days of wanting to be out in the radiation because of his guilt are past.

"You've just gotta hold down the fort until then, and that I know you can do."

[throudon]

There's a moment just after Bellamy puts his hand on hers where she tenses. Every wall, every layer of apathy and self-hate she'd constructed the last few months to isolate herself from him shoots up on reflex. Then, as soon as they came up, they crumble.

"Thanks," is her initial tepid response, said as she glances over her shoulder at the guards and Indra. None are paying close attention to them, apparently thoroughly chastised about keeping him out as long as they had.

When Octavia looks back at him, she's the girl from under the floor all over again, tenacious but more than a little bit terrified.

"Because I have no idea what I'm doing."

He needs to come back. Not because of her, or at least not just because of her. But because there's no way she'll know how to lead all these people on her own. Leading is what Bellamy does, what he lives and breathes, and there's a subtle thrum of panic in the back of her mind at the prospect of facing this without him in her corner.

[unburdening]

There's a part of him that expects her to pull away. To draw back, to reject the contact just like she's rejected every other form of contact for the last few months. Maybe this still isn't okay, even after he got the doors open, after they hugged, after she swore the others to keep a seat for him in the bunker. Octavia isn't the only one who tenses, and he almost draws his hand back.

But the moment passes.

"Yes, you do." He speaks firmly, eyebrows lifting emphatically. "You've been leading them since the conclave, O. Not because of what you did, but because of who you are. That's what they responded to, and that's what they're still responding to."

[throudon]

"I gave a speech," she replies, hushed and just on the edge of keening. "That's not gonna last down here. You know that."

What they need down here, for five years, is a leader that knows what they're doing. Knows what people need, negotiates and coaxes and knows how to keep everyone fed and working. She doesn't know how to do any of that. Throwing her weight around can work for now, for a week, a month--but after that? For years?

She looks over at the guards again, straightens her spine and tries to compose herself.

"Just make it fast."