As with most of her terrible life choices, Clarke’s decision to enroll at Ark Academy’s summer programme is mostly spontaneous.
Her decision to go in Roan’s place, though— considering their all boy status— is entirely calculated.
“Not to encourage you or anything,” Raven points out, her voice crackling down the line, “but if you pull this off, I’m buying you your weight’s worth in tequila.”
She snorts, wrangling her phone out from under her shoulder up to her ear. It’s almost impossible to ease the door to her dorm room open with an armful of boxes and her phone in hand, but she manages somehow. “And here I thought the ultimate prize was your respect,” she says wryly.
“You already have it. Most of the time, anyway.”
“That’s reassuring of you,” Clarke mutters, her attention already shifting to the room before her. It’s small and cramped and smells overwhelmingly of lingering cigarette smoke, but it’s nothing she can’t handle. Distantly, she notes the placard hanging above the joined desks, Griffin and Blake under it in bold font. The mysterious roommate, apparently. “Have you considered going into motivational speaking? Because you really should.”
Raven huffs out a laugh at that. “It’s an option, but don’t change the subject. Are you there yet?”
She flops down onto the nearest bed before she answers, taking the one facing the window. She should really change the sheets first, or get to unpacking, but it’s hard to summon the energy to considering her two hour drive over to campus. “Yup.”
“Oh c’mon, that’s all you’re going to give me? A one word response?” The irritation is plain in her voice, and she finds herself suppressing a smirk at the thought of it. “I want details. Like, of the how-the-fuck-are-you-pulling-it-off variety.”
“Well, to start,” Clarke says dryly, ticking off her fingers. “There’s my name. Then came the hair cut, and the baggy clothes, and my mom fudging some papers for me because no one can know that my stepbrother bailed on something yet again, so—”
“You’re posing as a guy in a prestigious all boys academy,” Raven cuts in. “Got it. Any other impossible feat you wanna try out? Stealing Luna’s herbal tea? Challenging Anya to a knife fight?”
“I’m posing as a guy in a prestigious all boy academy for the summer,” she bites out, propping herself up on her elbows. “For a few art classes. I’ll be fine.”
“Says the girl with a roommate.”
“Who’s not going to catch on,” she says reflexively, the rest of her argument dying in her throat at the sound of a pointed cough.
She stills, her gaze landing on the figure hovering by the door. From where she’s sitting, he seems intimidatingly large, taking up the space of the room without even being in it— all bronzed skin and dark, messy hair and grumpy scowl.
(Under ordinary circumstances, she’ll definitely be checking him out, but with everything that’s going on, well. She’s not going to chance it.)
“Hi,” she croaks, jabbing at her phone screen to end the call. Raven’s going to kill her for that, but it’s a better option than exposing herself on the first day. “You must be my roommate.”
He doesn’t say anything to that, just studies her, his expression unreadable. “The one and only,” he says finally, shouldering his pack higher up against his shoulder. Then, with an almost imperceptible dip of his chin, “I’m Bellamy.”
“Clarke,” she replies, sitting up to offer him her hand. “Clarke Griffin.”
i feel we're close enough (i wanna lock in your love)
*click through to read on ao3
written by: Emily / @prosciuttoe
prompt: a canonverse fic set in s5: "Bellamy has a weird reaction to Clarke's bob haircut and she doesn't know what the deal with her hair being a few inches shorter is" for anonymous
word count: 3491
But he’s not looking out in the distance, or at the trees. He’s looking at her, his gaze tracking the movement of her fingers through her hair, the heat in it sending a frisson of anticipation surging down her spine.
She could be wrong, but if the way he’s staring is any indication, it’s almost as if he likes it.
Or: three times Clarke catches Bellamy staring at her new hair, and one time she does something about it.
(1)
The next time she sees Bellamy Blake— a whole six years after, without a galaxy between them— he’s bleeding out in a prison cell.
There’s a moment of disorientation, of disbelief and shock and overwhelming, overwhelming relief before Clarke’s moving, fitting her stolen keys into the lock and twisting. He’s on his side, his face half hidden in shadows, but there’s no mistaking the familiar curve of his jaw, the tousled mess of curls.
(It’s the face she’s spent the last six years perfecting in the pages of her sketchbook, the face she’s pieced together carefully for Madi, rebuilding him from stories and memories and everything he’s ever told her. She couldn’t forget it even if she tried.)
He groans when she eases him on his back, and she tries not to wince at the mess of blood by his temple. It’s not deep, but he’ll definitely need stitches, at some point.
“Figures,” she murmurs, her voice hitching on a watery laugh as she rips at the edge of her shirt, wrapping it deftly over the wound. There’s a hysterical edge to it, gleeful, almost, and she has to tamp down on the sudden hope surging in her chest. “Getting into trouble the second you get back down onto the ground. You never make it easy for me, do you?”
The last thing she’s expecting is a response, considering his less than conscious state, so she gives a little jump when his eyelids flutter open a second after, his lips forming her name. “Clarke?”
She stills, one hand on his cheek and the other still knotting at the ends of the bandage. “Bellamy?”
He manages a strangled sound of acknowledgment at that, the rise and fall of his chest evening out to a low, steady beat. “Present,” he murmurs, looking at her through half-lidded eyes. She can feel the heat of his gaze sweeping over her face, the rifle strapped to her chest. The blood coating the edges of her sleeves, her hair hanging loose.
Congratulations @prosciuttoe on winning our October Fic Spotlight for Well, I'll Be Your Partner In Crime! You’ve won a spot in our sidebar until the next spotlight and your fic will be reviewed by a member of our Features Team.
Well, I'll Be Your Partner In Crime
wc: 11402; rating: M; status: 1/1, complete
summary: “Are you telling me you deprived me of my makeover montage?” He cuts in, clearly amused. “Clarke, come on. It’s practically a requirement for all the nineties movies.”
She wrinkles her nose at him, exasperated. “You can’t seriously be comparing this to a nineties movie.”
“Why not? We’re pretending to date,” he points out, ticking off his fingers. “You’re popular while I’m not. Oh, and we’re also complete opposites when it comes to everything else. Honestly, we just need a makeover scene to round things out. Give it color.”
Or: Apparently, the first step to restoring Clarke Griffin’s celebrity status is to date someone completely outside her stratosphere. Namely, Bellamy Blake. She’s not entirely convinced that it’s a good idea.
Well, I’ll Be Your Partner In Crime by @prosciuttoe
wc: 11402; rating: M; status: 1/1, complete
summary: “Are you telling me you deprived me of my makeover montage?” He cuts in, clearly amused. “Clarke, come on. It’s practically a requirement for all the nineties movies.”
She wrinkles her nose at him, exasperated. “You can’t seriously be comparing this to a nineties movie.”
“Why not? We’re pretending to date,” he points out, ticking off his fingers. “You’re popular while I’m not. Oh, and we’re also complete opposites when it comes to everything else. Honestly, we just need a makeover scene to round things out. Give it color.”
Or: Apparently, the first step to restoring Clarke Griffin’s celebrity status is to date someone completely outside her stratosphere. Namely, Bellamy Blake. She’s not entirely convinced that it’s a good idea.
reviewed by: Inge | @textsfromumbridge
First of all, I’d like to thank the gods for letting me review my absolute favorite trope: fake relationship. Second of all, I’d like to thank the voters for picking such an excellent example of this particular genre.
The summary immediately sets the tone for the fic - Bellamy is complaining about not getting his makeover montage. We’ve all seen the before and after in the movies - and let’s be real, we love it. Prosciuttoe is aware we’ve seen this trope before, and she plays it to perfection.
The premise is simple, yet fun: Clarke is a singer who’s gone off the rails a bit after breaking up with Lexa, and Bellamy is the refreshingly normal best friend. Being seen with Bellamy is the only way to rehabilitate Clarke’s image, no matter what agent Anya may think of his hair. (You are wrong Anya, wrong!) And that’s how we get to the fake dating aspect of it all - best friends who would do anything for each other (say it with me: awwww) even if it means playing boyfriend and girlfriend in front of the press.
“You can’t seriously be comparing this to a nineties movie.”
“Why not? We’re pretending to date,” he points out, ticking off his fingers. “You’re popular while I’m not. Oh, and we’re also complete opposites when it comes to everything else. Honestly, we just need a makeover scene to round things out. Give it color.”
“I’d put some mascara on you, but I would prefer if you didn’t outshine me,” she snarks, reaching past him to grab her purse.
See? Eat your heart out Melissa Joan Hart! (Drive me crazy, look it up!)
The devil is in the details with this fic - every small thing from Bellamy’s silly socks to his focus on the fake dating narrative making sense, it all adds to the world. These are the things that make this story more than the sum of its tropes. The fic hits all the right beats - Pining! Formal wear! Sexual tension! Comedy! And that much awaited and always appreciated happy ending.
Everything you could ever want from a fake relationship fic can be found in this story. And when you finally exit out after reading it again for the millionth time, the fuzzy feelings will remain.
You Steal the Air out of My Lungs (You Make Me Feel It)
*click through to read on ao3
written by: Emily | @prosciuttoe
prompt: ‘I know that you think I hate you but I swear to God I didn’t mean to hit you with my car.‘
word count: 2815
The funny thing is, under entirely different circumstances, Clarke’s pretty sure that she and Bellamy Blake could have been friends.
The first time she meets him, Kane is introducing them and he’s supposed to be showing her the ropes, since it’s her first day at the bookstore. He has a well-worn copy of Howl’s Moving Castle sticking out of his bag, freckles, and dark, messy curls that Clarke really wants to run her fingers through. (She’s... pretty intrigued, if she’s being entirely honest.)
But then he opens his big, stupid mouth, and suddenly all of her feelings of goodwill go up in smoke, because Bellamy Blake is, undoubtedly, a massive asshole.
He won’t stop calling her Princess, for one, and makes a face every time she so much as asks a question about the cash register. The constant jibes about her having gotten the job due to nepotism (so their boss may also be her mom’s fiancé, sue her) certainly don’t help either, and he actually laughs when a book display falls on her foot.
Suffice to say, he is definitely not her favorite person. On particularly bad days, she entertains a fantasy or two of shoving him down a flight of stairs. On worse ones, she dreams of pushing him down a manhole.
Still, murderous tendencies aside, Clarke doesn’t mean to actually run him over with her car.
“Oh my god, Bellamy,” she breathes, dropping down onto the ground next to him. She can already feel her brain going into overdrive trying to assess the situation before her, all while holding back the urge to empty the contents of her stomach on the street. There’s no blood, from what she can tell, but the sickening crunch of him landing on her windshield still rings in her ears. “Are you okay? Where does it hurt?”
He groans, his head falling back with an audible thump. “Everywhere.”
“That’s — not helpful, if I’m being honest.”
That actually pulls a scowl out of him, which Clarke takes as a promising sign that he’s not grievously injured. “You ran me over with your car , Princess. Forgive me if I’m not exactly in the most accommodating of moods.”
She can’t quite help her scoff at that. “My bad,” she snaps, throwing up her hands frustratedly, “I just assumed asshole was your default setting.”
“Only for you, Princess,” he says dryly, his expression morphing into a wince as he pulls himself up by his elbows, waving away her yelps for him to keep still, “Now, if we’re done here, I believe we have a shift that starts in fifteen.”
“Work,” she gapes, “I just ran you over with my car, and you want to go in for work.”
Bellamy gives an unimpressed sniff at that. “Well, not all of us have trust funds to live off now, don’t we?”
And just like that, all the residual sympathy and worry she has for Bellamy Blake evaporates into non-existence. “You know what?” she scoffs, stomping after him, “Consider this a lesson learned. The next time I run you over with my car, I’ll —”
He doubles over in pain then, effectively ending her tirade as she rushes forward to steady him.
“Is it your ribs?” she demands, pressing her fingers tentatively against his side, making him hiss in pain. “Shit. Okay, I’m taking you to the hospital.”
“I’m fine,” he says mulishly, gingerly lifting at the edge of his shirt. A dark, shapeless bruise stares back at her, wide enough to cover the expanse of his stomach. “See? No blood, no foul.”
Biting back a snappy retort, she sighs instead, assumes the most pleading expression she can muster under the circumstances. (To be fair, it’s not that hard. She hates the guy, but it’s not like she wants him dead.) “Bellamy, please. It’ll make me feel a lot better if you’d just let me take you to the hospital to get it looked at.”
He narrows his eyes over at her, sizing her up. “Aren’t you pre-med?” he shoots back, “Shouldn’t you be able to tell if I require medical assistance?”
It’s hard to keep her surprise from showing at that, considering she didn’t think that he was paying attention in the first place. He remembered. (She’s not sure what to make of this, really.) “Used to be,” she says instead. “I dropped out to do art.”
He makes a small, noncommittal noise in response. “So, that’s why you’re working at a bookstore? Because you’re in some sort of Eat, Pray, Love phase where you think you need a change from your usual humdrum life to get over yourself?”
“That’s— no.” She frowns, shaking her head. Then, with barely concealed impatience, “Look, that’s not the point. Will you please just get in so I can take you to the hospital?”
“Fine,” he says after a beat, hobbling over to the passenger side all while muttering lowly under his breath. “That is, if you can get us there without running over someone else.”
She slams the door shut behind him, hard enough to make the windows rattle. Dick.
+
Bellamy’s not much of a talker, so she’s expecting the ride to the hospital to be in sullen, albeit much welcome , silence.
What she doesn’t expect is for him to reach into his bag and pull out a pair of glasses, breathing a sigh of relief as he slides them onto his face.
“What?” he snarls, when he catches her staring.
She flushes involuntarily, turning away to keep him from spotting it. Objectively, glasses are a good look on him, but she’d rather put splints under her nails than say that to his face . “Nothing. I just didn’t think you wore those.”
The tip of his ears go a little red at that. “I wear contacts, normally,” he says gruffly, turning his face away from her. “But then again, I didn’t really think I was going to get run over on the one day I decided to wear my glasses out.”
“They’re fine!”
“Only because I had the foresight to take them off when I was getting off the bus,” he huffs, resting his forehead against the window pane. “I honestly thought the worst thing that could happen to me was fogged up lenses.”
“So that’s why you just stumbled onto the road out of nowhere,” she says, with a pointed shake of her head, “because someone didn’t have their glasses on.”
The noise he makes is distinctly disbelieving. “How is this my fault now?”
“Because you walked out onto the open road, half-blind,” she retorts, hitting at her blinker with more force than necessary. “I get that you hate me, but trying to get me to commit vehicular manslaughter? That’s a whole new level, buddy.”
It’s a pathetic attempt at riling him up, really, but Clarke never claimed to be the bigger person in this situation anyway. Strangely enough, he doesn’t rise to the bait, just says in a odd-sounding voice, “I don’t hate you.”
She can’t hold back on her snort at that. “Could have fooled me.”
“I don’t,” Bellamy insists, glaring over at her. “What I do hate, though, is that you pretty much sauntered in here and got a job without even trying. The rest of us don’t share the same privilege, Princess. Some of us—”
“I did the interviews and tests, just like you did,” she interrupts, working to keep her voice steady. “And not that it matters, but I didn’t even realize Kane was running this store when I submitted my application. He might have taken me in, but not as a favor to my mom considering she’s the one who cut me off in the first place.”
He looks like he wants to say something to that, but she keeps going instead. “I need this job just as much as you do, okay? I’m trying my fucking best to keep myself afloat here, and you making my life a living hell every single day doesn’t help things.”
That seems to stun him into silence, at least. Satisfied, she turns away, keeping her gaze fixed on the road ahead. A few more minutes and he’ll be out of her hair, hopefully, and then she could forget that any of this ever happened.
Ten minutes stretch out to fifteen, and he finally breaks the silence just as she’s turning into the hospital’s driveway. “Milk.”
She rubs at her ears, casting him a searching gaze. Maybe Bellamy acquired a concussion, and he’s only showing the effects now. Still, the right thing to do would be to humor him, right? “What?”
“Milk,” he repeats, slouching lower in his seat. “It’s why your cappuccino’s don’t foam up whenever you’re on coffee duty. You don’t put enough of it.”
Clarke gapes, only manages to regain her composure a few minutes after. “Oh.”
He nods, dropping his gaze back to his lap.
She throws the car into park, holds out for another two minutes before she tells him, tart, “Atonement really shouldn’t be sorted under Historical Fiction when it’s clearly a romance.”
The corners of his mouth twitch at that, as if holding back on a smile. “So you think tragic, doomed relationships are considered romance?”
“God, it is just like you to say that.”
+
(They have an… understanding, after that, which is strange to say the least, but she supposes that’s what happens after you’ve spent four consecutive hours sitting with someone in a hospital waiting room, fighting over the legitimacy of health pamphlets. She wins, but only because he gets grossed out by the pictures of ticks on page six.)
+
Three months post truce, it’s almost too easy to fall into a friendship with Bellamy Blake.
She discovers that they have differing tastes in literature, for one, so she ends up spending an inordinate amount of time trying to convince him into reading her favorites. He likes thrillers and mythology and basically anything that looks as if it had been printed in size six Times New Roman (ugh) but she gets him to try out Austenland, which he admits to liking after much prodding on her part. She tries out The Odyssey, too, at his insistence, and has to spend the rest of the day after, listening to him grouch about it. (It’s hard to mind, though, considering how he’s pretty cutewhen he’s agitated.)
She learns that he’s a history major, that he prefers tea to coffee, and that he likes taking caring of people. Scratch that, he loves it. He is a big brother through and through, and it shows in the way he nags at her whenever she skips lunch, or how he brings in extra umbrellas to work every time it rains because he doesn’t want anyone else getting wet.
“That’s not even the worse of it,” Miller points out, after he catches sight of the numerous protein bars Bellamy had left by her station accompanied with a post-it note reminding her to eat, Princess. “One time, I told him I got a C for a paper that I didn’t really care for, and he proceeded to give me a rousing, forty-five minute long speech on how grades really meant nothing anyway.”
“Yeah,” she manages, sneaking a surreptitious peek over at him. He’s sitting cross-legged by the Children’s section, engrossed in a game of Tic Tac Toe with one of the kids, and she has to bite back a smile at the sight of it. “Sounds like him.”
(It’s unrealistic, at this point, not to have any feelings for him whatsoever, but she’s just— actively trying not to think about it, really.)
The sound Miller makes is distinctly disparaging. “Wow. You have it bad, don’t you?”
“Shut up,” she hisses, swatting at him as he ducks nimbly out of the way, sniggering. “Don’t you have better things to do? Like your job?”
“How am I supposed to when you’re still here?” he retorts, grabbing at his nametag before fixing it onto his shirt with a grimace. “Get going, Griffin. The stockroom is calling your name.”
Scowling, she pockets the protein bars, flipping him off as she goes. Everyone hated stock-keeping and spending hours in the musty, too-small space of the storeroom, but it was a necessary evil that they all had to go through at some point.
Clarke didn’t hate it, really. Kane didn’t mind whenever she got the radio going, and besides, it was nice to be alone with her thoughts for a few hours.
She’s fixing price stickers onto their latest shipment of dictionaries when she hears it— the beat of a familiar tune, punctuated by a crackle of static or two. Laughing, she throws her hands up, shaking to the beat as she reaches over to turn the volume up. She used to dance to this song with her dad all the time, to the point where he had to buy the vinyl for it.
Shimmying her hips, she hums along as she grabs at the price gun once more, spinning on her heel—
Only to collide straight into someone, making her shriek in surprise.
“Jesus,” she gasps, and she would have lost her balance if two hands didn’t catch at her elbows, hauling her back upright once more. “What the— Bellamy.”
He grins down at her, shaking his head. “Watch where you’re going, Princess.”
“You’re the one that came in out of nowhere,” she huffs, arms winding around his neck instinctively as she sways on the spot. “What are you doing here?”
“Thought you could use a little pick me up.” He shrugs, jerking his chin towards the brown bag on the shelf. “Croissants and coffee. But you know,” his lips quirk up into a smirk, then, making her flush, “I got a little distracted by the view.”
She sniffs, grazing a hand against his chest. “Please. I’m a great dancer. Better than you, probably.”
“If you say so, Princess.”
“Well, I recognize a challenge when I hear one,” she says, backing up slightly and tossing her hair exaggeratedly, making him laugh. “C’mon, Blake. Show me your moves.”
He gives a mock-solemn nod of his head at that, sighing, “You know, I’m not sure if you’re ready for my moves, Clarke.”
“Chicken.”
The next song starts up, a faster one, and she bursts out into giggles when he begins to dance, twirling clumsily and nearly knocking over a shelf in his haste. She grabs onto his shoulders to steady him before he can fall over, his hands going to her waist as she laughs, pressing their foreheads together.
“I think I would have warmed to you a lot sooner if you’d just danced at me like this the first time we met.”
He chuckles at that, his breath warm on her face. “And embarrassed myself further? No thanks.”
It takes a few seconds for the words to sink in, and she frowns, arching a brow over at him quizzically. “Further?”
He glances up at her from between a dark fan of lashes, his expression inscrutable. “Yeah,” he says tightly, his fingers twitching slightly at her waist. “Look, I may have hated your guts, but I respected you, okay? I thought you were fucking smart and determined and gorgeous and I guess— I don’t know. I just didn’t want to make more of an ass of myself than I already did.”
It’s near impossible to hear anything over the wild thumping of her pulse, her breath catching when he meets her gaze. “Oh,” she says stupidly, biting at her lip.
He manages a nonchalant shrug in response, shooting her an easy, half-smile. It feels like he’s trying to give her an out, somehow, already drawing back as the song comes to an end—
She tightens her grip on him instead, keeping him close. “Do you still feel the same?”
He blinks over at her, throat bobbing as he regards her. (It’s possibly the longest minute of her life.)
“I couldn’t help it if I tried,” he says finally, his voice breaking slightly on the word, and it’s all she needs to push up on her toes and kiss him, twisting her fingers in his hair and sighing into his mouth when he returns it with equal fervor, his hand coming up to cup at her cheek.
She pulls away when the need to breathe gets too much, leaning into his touch.
“So,” she laughs, twisting her neck slightly to kiss at his palm.
“So,” he parrots, bumping his nose against hers affectionately. He’s smiling so much. “That was something.”
She groans, swatting at his chest playfully. “Well, suffice to say, I’m glad we don’t hate each other more.”
He makes a impatient noise at that, the sound a laugh more than anything, making warmth bloom in her chest. “For the last time, Princess,” he murmurs, before leaning over to kiss her senseless once more. “I never hated you.”
prompt: prompt for you! season one vibes where bellamy or clarke gets really sick or injured and assumes they’re dying like the dramatic hoes they are, so they have to make a deathbed love confession... but then oops they don’t die for anonymous
word count: 1914
It only occurs to her that something’s wrong when she hears the gates pull open two hours too early.
She throws Monty a quick, panicked glance. “It can’t be them, right?”
He frowns. “They just left,” he insists, as if that would make a difference, somehow. “They wouldn’t be back so soon. Not unless—”
The screaming starts up before he can finish that sentence, and Clarke’s moving before she can think about it, barrelling towards the chaos. Distantly, she’s aware of Monty calling for her, his own stumbling gait following behind, but all she can really focus on is the rising pitch of voices, the rapidly forming crowd.
It’s Finn that comes into view first.
Not her first choice, but he’ll have to do. Shoving past a ring of gawkers, she draws up before him, breathing hard. “What’s wrong?” she demands, searching the sea of faces for someone familiar, for—
(She forces her thoughts to a grinding halt, shaking her head to clear it. Her reliance on him is getting instinctual, at this point, and she kind of hates herself for it.)
Finn meets her gaze then, his expression solemn. “It’s Bellamy,” he says, and just like that, she feels her heart stop.
“I’m sorry, what? ”
He opens his mouth, as if to explain, and that’s when she catches sight of the blood on his hands.
The ground doesn’t open up beneath her, but it’s a near thing. It feels like it, at any rate. “What did you do, Finn?”
prompt: ‘Could you write season 5 reunion/ maybe a little after, where the miners got there months before Bellamy and one of them is very interested in Clarke and Bellamy gets jealous...?’ for anonymous
word count: 3142
It’s obvious and annoying and above all, inconvenient. Sure, it’s been six years, but he and Clarke have always been a unit of sorts. The thought of someone else— someone he actively dislikes— trying to fit himself into their space chafes against him.
“Relax tiger,” Madi smirks, handing him a skewer of charred, unidentifiable meat. “She still likes you best, you know.”
He snaps out of his reverie, scowling. From here, he can just make out Clarke standing by the bonfire, lost in animated conversation with he-who-must-not-be-named. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Or: Clarke acquires a new shadow when Eligius lands down on earth. Bellamy handles it spectacularly well, naturally.
Excerpt:
The second time Bellamy comes back down to earth, it’s to considerably more fanfare than he expects.
He senses it, before anything else— the shift in the air when he steps out of the pod, the familiar click of multiple weapons being loaded. There’s barely any time for him to react before there’s a gun trained right at him, the luminescent glow flaring bright against his chest.
(For a second, it’s all he can do not to stare, because right there, just through the trees, are people. People other than Murphy and Raven and the same faces of the past six years. They’re here. They exist.
They’re also about three seconds away from putting a bullet through him, but still.)
“Bellamy? What’s going on?”
Swearing, he reaches for his radio with exaggerated slowness, making sure to keep one arm raised above his head in what he hopes passes as a conciliatory gesture. “Stay in the pod, Harper.”
“But—”
He flicks the dial, switching it off. Distantly, he thinks he can make out someone emerging from the trees, their footfalls gaining in volume with each second. Reflexively, he tenses, bracing himself—
Just as the figure comes into view, and his breath catches instinctively at the glint of gold, at a familiar stance because it can’t be, it’s not possible, and yet there’s no mistaking it.
