[ Seated in one of the lobby chairs, Bellamy hunches forward, elbows propped on his knees. The hotel still makes him feel uneasy: he'd hadn't had the time, inside Mount Weather, to indulge in any of the small comforts that true civilization had to offer. (There's irony there, and he knows it: Mount Weather being true civilization, with what they're been doing to the Grounders and to their people, his people, from the drop ship.)
Even still, it feels like a snare ready to close around him. The Ark had never been this comfortable. This comfortable feels dangerous. ]
We're too spread out. If we keep up like we are, they're gonna be able to pick us off before we can even take stock of how many we've got. We need to organize.
[ He focuses on staying simple and direct because he knows better than to try and evangelize Clarke right now. Without them, the war is going to be in bad shape: as long as they're here, they need to stay focused on getting back to that. ]
[ The chairs are too bulky and too big for Clarke to be bothered to drag hers around to face him, but she's sitting at something of an awkward angle, fixing Bellamy with her most intent of intent stares and patiently listen to his worries. They're not old concerns, however; there'd been four of them here thinking mostly the same, with Raven being the most vocal of the lot and Lexa the most aggressive. They'd spent a month thus far worrying themselves to premature grey hairs and wrinkles, and come to little to no conclusion on how to get out or assure their safety. And it sucked.
So Clarke was trying her hardest to be patient with Bellamy. But she could feel them talking well into the same circles the rest of them had tried. And that wasn't going to get them anywhere. Forgive her if there's trace irritation around the corners of her mouth, and a hard set to her eyes, when she responds; hands out, palms up, practically begging the ceiling for answers. ]
What do you suggest, then? We've tried staying in the same room, Raven and Lexa nearly killed each other.
[ And don't suggest they leave Lexa out of this, because she just about fought Raven (well, they did come to blows) and she will fight you too. She did not kill Finn for their alliance to fall through on the technicality that they weren't in a war anymore. ]
I don't think we're going to be picked off. No one has yet, for what that's worth.
[ The clarification comes cynically. From his perspective, there's no point to looping a bunch of frightened people into one corral unless you had use of them. Keep them in the dark, and get what you want out of them: that's what he would do. He likes to believe that what would Bellamy do is a good measure of how screwed they all are. ]
No one's dropping their guard yet. Keep people here long enough with someone they know, and it'll happen.
[ His eyebrows raise, an implicit remember carried in them. The Mountain Men had done the same. ]
[ Thus far in her experience, people with ill will seldom waited to launch attacks on their targets. Sure, they might regroup and reassess their tactics, but if whomever it was that'd brought them here was committed enough to commit some sort of mass kidnapping, you'd think they were capable and ready of much more.
So what was stopping them? ]
And then what? They're going to storm in through the front door?
[ The absent, nonexistent front door. But not for him to be left thinking she's making fun of him — ]
Not everyone here has friends from home with them too. And I don't know about you, but I've forgotten what it's like to not have my guard up. Being here doesn't change that.
They didn't put us in here without having a way in themselves.
[ Reason, flat and raspy, counters her snark. For a long time, Bellamy was all in favor of charging in headfirst and believed others to consistently plan for the same. War was, as he saw it, upfront. Direct. That's not the war they've been fighting with the Mountain Men, though. It's tactics, subterfuge—it's a false sense of security, followed by cannibalism. People making brutal, lawless choices in the name of survival. ]
We don't need to trust each other, but if we want to survive, we need to at least work together. If you're right, and there are people alone, it's all the more reason. [ A simple shrug fills the beat of silence that precedes his explanation, ] Someone needs to look out for them.
[ Call her incredibly suspicious and downright unmotivated to try to make new friends after endangering/losing/killing half of the ones she'd had back home, but — ]
You want to adopt all the people here? [ But color her skeptical. Skeptical and leaning back in her chair, giving Bellamy a wary once over while she runs through a list of all the people she'd met so far. An expectant father to be whose call for help had sounded weirdly well rehearsed, crude humored skeptics, faceless individuals who talked in code, and people (not people?) who hung children off bannisters with sheets. (And admittedly, some really nice, understanding people. But her point remains —) ]
We don't know who any of them really are. I don't think everyone here's really even human.
[ Admittedly. He'll give her that wiggle room, but there's an emphatic nod of his head all the same. For all his gruff and violent exterior, for all that he believes himself an irredeemable monster, a human wrecking ball, he can't help the instinct to look out for them. ]
Some of these people are in the same position we are, Clarke. For now, they'd make good allies. And those who wouldn't need someone to protect them. [ That used to be what she was about, once. Protecting the people who Bellamy's group would use for target practice. He's learned this compassion from her. ]
That once seems like a long time ago sometimes. Clarke tries, she tries, but it seems to take all her energy to care for and preserve what few friends she has here — especially when those friends ("friends", it's questionable with lexa) vanish, or are at each others throats with their teeth barred. There's not a lot of effort left to go around to the stragglers around the hotel.
Rubbing a hand across tired, sleep deprived eyes, Clarke sighs. She doesn't want to fight with him, not over something quiet so trivial. Not when — ]
[ Taking that as some kind of concession, Bellamy offers a grim but understanding smile. There's genuine warmth there—he's glad to see her too, and he's even more glad that she's relented even somewhat on the point. He reaches out to clap one hand on her shoulder, squeezing. ]
Likewise, Princess. [ And it's true, even with the truth that he knows now about Octavia. What Raven told him doesn't change how important Clarke is, even if it makes it sting to look at her. ]
I don't know what I'm going to do about Raven and the Commander, [ she confides, stopping herself just short of leaning into his touch. Her face remains set in the mixture of irritability and exhaustion (edged with deep sorrow around the eyes) that she always seems to sport now a days, and Clarke sighs.
She'd just spent half a week in a bathtub with the two of them, it had been incredibly tense — almost painfully so — and a selfish part of her wants to know if he'll divide and conquer that gap with her, tackle one front while she tackles the other. ]
[ He tries to keep his voice from sounding hard when he admits it, doesn't want to express the tension that his conversations with Raven have reflected over his relationship with Clarke. They're talking more than Clarke might like them too: that's the truth of it.
Clarke had her reasons, he's sure, for lying to him. He can't, won't hold that against her. ]
The Commander handles things differently than we do. Have you thought about asking her? Raven has a grudge she wants to get out: the Grounders seem to know how to deal with that kind of thing pretty well. If you ask me, she's earned the outlet. [ He's not saying let them go a few rounds, but ……… ]
(Go a couple rounds or go a couple rounds? Be honest with what you're suggesting, Bellamy.)
And Clarke is totally shaking her head. ]
I don't want — either of them getting hurt. I don't want — [ anyone else to die, because she doesn't trust the two of them to keep their cools yet. It's been a month, and while Lexa may seem over the initial outrage of the massacre, neither Raven nor Clarke were anywhere near over Finn's death.
The thought (her ineptitude, at keeping her friends safe) has her falling into a hard silence, and not completely able to keep his gaze. ]
[ Which is what Raven may well resort to. Lexa, Clarke would say, has too much honor for that. Bellamy knows it.
But Raven is cut from his same cloth, and it's what he'd do if she had taken someone from him the way he'd taken Finn from Raven. If it had been Octavia, if it had been Clarke, Lexa wouldn't still be breathing. ]
They either get it out of their system, or it eats them alive.
[ If "fine" consists of not sleeping, and seeing Finn Collins' face in various reflective surfaces and out of the corner of her eyes. But Clarke puts up a pretty good front, and channels her deep-seeded trauma into anxiety. ]
I'm going a little stir crazy here. I can't do anything. [ For anyone. For her friends in Mount Weather. For her friends here. ]
You can keep Raven and the Commander from killing one another. [ Reason and comfort rarely intersect, so he makes note of where they can. ] That has to count for something. We can't fight an enemy if we're busy fighting our friends. [ The "has to" makes it all too apparent that he feels equally listless, useless even, but he struggles through it to try and find something usable. ] We should try taking watch shifts by the dining hall, see if we can catch a glimpse of who's going in there.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hotel setting to get jazzed ???
hella jazzed!!!
So Clarke was trying her hardest to be patient with Bellamy. But she could feel them talking well into the same circles the rest of them had tried. And that wasn't going to get them anywhere. Forgive her if there's trace irritation around the corners of her mouth, and a hard set to her eyes, when she responds; hands out, palms up, practically begging the ceiling for answers. ]
What do you suggest, then? We've tried staying in the same room, Raven and Lexa nearly killed each other.
[ And don't suggest they leave Lexa out of this, because she just about fought Raven (well, they did come to blows) and she will fight you too. She did not kill Finn for their alliance to fall through on the technicality that they weren't in a war anymore. ]
I don't think we're going to be picked off. No one has yet, for what that's worth.
no subject
[ The clarification comes cynically. From his perspective, there's no point to looping a bunch of frightened people into one corral unless you had use of them. Keep them in the dark, and get what you want out of them: that's what he would do. He likes to believe that what would Bellamy do is a good measure of how screwed they all are. ]
No one's dropping their guard yet. Keep people here long enough with someone they know, and it'll happen.
[ His eyebrows raise, an implicit remember carried in them. The Mountain Men had done the same. ]
no subject
So what was stopping them? ]
And then what? They're going to storm in through the front door?
[ The absent, nonexistent front door. But not for him to be left thinking she's making fun of him — ]
Not everyone here has friends from home with them too. And I don't know about you, but I've forgotten what it's like to not have my guard up. Being here doesn't change that.
no subject
[ Reason, flat and raspy, counters her snark. For a long time, Bellamy was all in favor of charging in headfirst and believed others to consistently plan for the same. War was, as he saw it, upfront. Direct. That's not the war they've been fighting with the Mountain Men, though. It's tactics, subterfuge—it's a false sense of security, followed by cannibalism. People making brutal, lawless choices in the name of survival. ]
We don't need to trust each other, but if we want to survive, we need to at least work together. If you're right, and there are people alone, it's all the more reason. [ A simple shrug fills the beat of silence that precedes his explanation, ] Someone needs to look out for them.
no subject
You want to adopt all the people here? [ But color her skeptical. Skeptical and leaning back in her chair, giving Bellamy a wary once over while she runs through a list of all the people she'd met so far. An expectant father to be whose call for help had sounded weirdly well rehearsed, crude humored skeptics, faceless individuals who talked in code, and people (not people?) who hung children off bannisters with sheets. (And admittedly, some really nice, understanding people. But her point remains —) ]
We don't know who any of them really are. I don't think everyone here's really even human.
no subject
[ Admittedly. He'll give her that wiggle room, but there's an emphatic nod of his head all the same. For all his gruff and violent exterior, for all that he believes himself an irredeemable monster, a human wrecking ball, he can't help the instinct to look out for them. ]
Some of these people are in the same position we are, Clarke. For now, they'd make good allies. And those who wouldn't need someone to protect them. [ That used to be what she was about, once. Protecting the people who Bellamy's group would use for target practice. He's learned this compassion from her. ]
no subject
That once seems like a long time ago sometimes. Clarke tries, she tries, but it seems to take all her energy to care for and preserve what few friends she has here — especially when those friends ("friends", it's questionable with lexa) vanish, or are at each others throats with their teeth barred. There's not a lot of effort left to go around to the stragglers around the hotel.
Rubbing a hand across tired, sleep deprived eyes, Clarke sighs. She doesn't want to fight with him, not over something quiet so trivial. Not when — ]
I'm happy you're here, Bellamy.
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Likewise, Princess. [ And it's true, even with the truth that he knows now about Octavia. What Raven told him doesn't change how important Clarke is, even if it makes it sting to look at her. ]
no subject
She'd just spent half a week in a bathtub with the two of them, it had been incredibly tense — almost painfully so — and a selfish part of her wants to know if he'll divide and conquer that gap with her, tackle one front while she tackles the other. ]
Have you talked to either of them yet?
no subject
[ He tries to keep his voice from sounding hard when he admits it, doesn't want to express the tension that his conversations with Raven have reflected over his relationship with Clarke. They're talking more than Clarke might like them too: that's the truth of it.
Clarke had her reasons, he's sure, for lying to him. He can't, won't hold that against her. ]
The Commander handles things differently than we do. Have you thought about asking her? Raven has a grudge she wants to get out: the Grounders seem to know how to deal with that kind of thing pretty well. If you ask me, she's earned the outlet. [ He's not saying let them go a few rounds, but ……… ]
no subject
(Go a couple rounds or go a couple rounds? Be honest with what you're suggesting, Bellamy.)
And Clarke is totally shaking her head. ]
I don't want — either of them getting hurt. I don't want — [ anyone else to die, because she doesn't trust the two of them to keep their cools yet. It's been a month, and while Lexa may seem over the initial outrage of the massacre, neither Raven nor Clarke were anywhere near over Finn's death.
The thought (her ineptitude, at keeping her friends safe) has her falling into a hard silence, and not completely able to keep his gaze. ]
no subject
[ Which is what Raven may well resort to. Lexa, Clarke would say, has too much honor for that. Bellamy knows it.
But Raven is cut from his same cloth, and it's what he'd do if she had taken someone from him the way he'd taken Finn from Raven. If it had been Octavia, if it had been Clarke, Lexa wouldn't still be breathing. ]
They either get it out of their system, or it eats them alive.
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Then you can intermediate.
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I'll handle it.
[ This can only end poorly. ]
You okay?
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I'm fine.
[ If "fine" consists of not sleeping, and seeing Finn Collins' face in various reflective surfaces and out of the corner of her eyes. But Clarke puts up a pretty good front, and channels her deep-seeded trauma into anxiety. ]
I'm going a little stir crazy here. I can't do anything. [ For anyone. For her friends in Mount Weather. For her friends here. ]
no subject