I hate and avoid fics with multiple ship tags especially when its a rare ship and then there another ship tag with that person its one confusing and definitely drives me away from the fic because its very possible that my ship won't even happen or it ends up being one-sided or just alluded to. It one clouds up the ship tag for no reason and it's worse when it's an unfinished story of one chapter with like 500 words.
It really irks me because most of this really affects rare ships or hated ships in the fandom (becho) and its just so annoying i don't think anyone should be allowed to tag like 100+ tags i don't think everything in the story/plot needs a tag.
And this sprial was caused by looking through the Alicole tag on ao3 which barely has any standalone fics about them, and Rhea and Daemon (that one is a little more understandable tho). But they tag these ships just for them to appear/be mentioned once in the story before never being mentioned or seen again.
The thing with unbeta’d stuff, is that I feel compelled to go back and tinker with it every now and then.... Here’s a small sneak-peek of chapter 3, the rest, you can find on AO3 (the first 7 chapters have already been edited)
*****
The bone marrow seems to be working.
Bellamy isn't even sure if he did the procedure right. The disembodied voice of Becca's computer and the surveillance videos walked him through most of the process.
Raven would have done it better, huffs the ever-present voice in the back of his head.
He tries to ignore it as he checks on the spy's ulcers. She looks healthier, and the knot in his stomach loosens a little.
Clarke would know if she's healing properly.
The chair beside Echo's sickbed is comfortable as he slumps into it, picks up the book he left on the bedside table. Becca's lab is vast; it has a small kitchen, a pantry stacked with unopened boxes of stale rations, two bedrooms, and a big library full of pre-bombs books. The tome he found is a collection of fairytales. Bellamy knew them by heart, once. He would curl beside Octavia on his small cot and tell them until she fell asleep. Now, opening the book, breathing the sweet scent of yellowed paper, tracing the familiar shapes of words, he feels somewhat grounded. The crack of his voice in the asphyxiating silence keeps the monster and darkness at bay.
"When they arrived in the middle of the woods, the father said, "You children gather some wood, and I will make a fire so you won't freeze."
Hansel and Gretel gathered together some twigs, a pile as high as a small mountain. The twigs were set afire, and when the flames were burning well, the woman said, "Lie down by the fire and rest. We will go into the woods to cut wood. When we are finished, we will come back and get you." Hansel and Gretel sat by the fire. When midday came, each one ate his little piece of bread. Because they could hear the blows of an ax, they thought that the father was nearby. However, it was not an ax. It was a branch that he had tied to a dead tree and that the wind was beating back and forth. After they had sat there a long time, their eyes grew weary and closed, and they fell sound sleep."
On the bed, Echo shifts. She is watching him, her honey-colored eyes still blood-shot, but clearer than they have been in weeks.
Bellamy feels like a mouse caught in the stare of a dangerous viper, like a child hiding behind his mother's legs, his fingers tighten around the hard edges of the book. His heart pounds harshly against his ribs as he continues to read. His voice is unbearably loud in the judgemental silence.
"Now, all their cares were at an end, and they lived happily together."
"Ai nou dig in disha sontaim," Echo says, her voice small and shaky. The unfamiliar words scrape against the silence, making him look up from the worn page.
The spy has turned her bald head away, curled into herself like Octavia used to do when she was frightened her emaciated body looks so small. Under the thin blanket, her shoulders shake slightly.
"I can leave if you if you want."
She curls into a tighter ball. "Nou ban ai soulou." That, he understands. Bellamy settles back into the uncomfortable chair and turns the page. "Shall we try another tale?"
Without turning, or peeking from under the blanket, he sees her nod her head. "Ait."
a Becho rewrite of THAT ONE Clintasha scene in Endgame because pain :)
(ao3)
Echo can’t remember having a family before she had them. There had been duty and loyalty – a people, even, and a purpose – but never family. She’d once thought herself incapable of it. The hands that had shaped her in their image had trimmed her of anything they’d deemed weeds – and love and family had been the most damning weeds of all.
And yet somehow, she’d found them anyways. She’d let the weeds grow untamed until they consumed her and birthed something new and alive in her.
She loves all of them more than she loves herself – and Bellamy, the man who had seen something worth saving in her and reached out his hand in offering rather than violence, she loves most of all. She loves his smile and the way it crinkles the skin of his cheeks. She loves the shape of his eyes and the way they shine. She loves the well-worn skin of his hands and the softness of his heart.
Bellamy Blake is a treasure the world cannot lose. So when the stonekeeper tells them there must be a sacrifice, there isn’t a single drop of doubt in her mind of what she must do.
“So I guess we know who it needs to be,” Bellamy says, and the truth of his words sinks heavy in her soul, and she grounds herself again in purpose and certainty. She has never been more scared – but she has never been more sure, either.
“I guess so,” she says, taking in his features. She tries to capture his face in her mind, so that she can hold it with her the entire way down, never forgetting a detail for a second. Her eyes trace his jaw, his eyebrows, the shape of his nose. She memorizes his hair, remembers the feeling of carding her fingers through it on lazy nights. She pulls his hands into her own and savors the roughness of them, the bumps and dips of scars and years.
Bellamy squeezes her hands back gently, then looks down at them, and she watches the realization come over his face. When he looks back up at her, his brow is furrowed and his beautiful eyes troubled. “I’m starting to think we mean other people.”
“You’re a fool if you think I’m letting you over that cliff, Bellamy,” she insists, sharp as the sword at her side.
“Echo,” he says, voice trembling under the weight of fear and anger, “There’s no way I’m letting you do it.”
She drops his hands so she can grab his face, stroke her thumbs across his cheeks, smoothing over his scratchy beard. Then she pulls him close to her and kisses him forcefully, as if she can push every last drop of love and affection into it – as if when she’s gone, the bruise of her lips could linger there forever.
He surprises her when he pushes her backwards into the dirt. For the briefest moment, she lays there startled, struck still with shock as she watches him sprint towards the cliff’s edge, watches his foot catch the edge and push, watches him leap out into open air.
And then she moves.
She doesn’t think. She doesn’t have the time. Luckily, her body is trained for moments like this, and it moves like a well-oiled machine as she runs, as she takes her bow in hand and selects the arrow she needs, as she leaps after him into the open air, as she fires a line back into the cliffside to anchor herself and then drops the bow to grab onto Bellamy, wrap her arms tight around him.
They jerk to a halt, slamming into the side of the cliff, and Echo takes advantage of Bellamy’s shock to tie the line holding them tightly around his waist and knot it securely. He looks at it in with grim understanding, tugging at it wildly, but her knot holds tight. And it will until he cuts it – they both know it.
When he looks at her his eyes are glistening with tears. There are stars in them. It’s the most beautiful thing she could choose as the last thing she sees, and she feels content with it. Her family will live. Bellamy will live. She would die a thousand deaths to make that true.
“Echo, no,” he pleads. “Please, no."
“I love you,” she tells him, pouring every ‘I love you’ she’ll never have again into it.
She pulls her knife free and cuts the line secured at her hip, but she only falls the briefest distance before she’s jerked to a halt again, Bellamy’s hand around hers. His fingers dig into the skin of her wrist, bruising and rough.
Echo smiles up at him. “It’s okay." He shakes his head wildly and tries to pull her up but gravity is determined to claim her and it fights back. “Let me go.”
She pushes herself away from him, kicking off the wall to gain traction. Gravity wins. Her hand slips free.
She keeps the picture of his face in her mind the entire way down.
this is coming from a hardcore bellarke shipper, so please strap in because this is a bumpy ride.
during my rewatch of the series amid all the excitement for s6, I of course found myself wrapped up in the epic love story unfolding between Bellamy and Clarke and I have a lot of feelings I've been unpacking. as usual, I ate up all 5 seasons within a month. not a smart move on my part, considering there's still a good two months before s6 begins airing and if I know the writers like I think I do, the first episode still won't have quite enough to satisfy my hunger for content. that being said, I tried my hand at finally writing some bellarke fic to feed myself instead. and that's where the crisis begins.
above all else in the show, I care the most about Bellamy, who has enticed me in a way I never expected. his character development is some of the best I've ever had the pleasure of witnessing, and I know I'm not alone in saying he etched himself into my heart over these last 5 seasons. so my love for his character, paired with my obsession with following as closely to canon as possible for any fic writing, made it impossible to write for bellarke without first attempting a believable becho breakup.
I played around with a few drafts for a while, tweaking here and there until I felt satisfied with the way I portrayed his character and his relationship with spacekru and, specifically, with echo. i kept hitting a wall, and the frustration was eating away at me. I found myself rewatching s5 with my mom, and this time I attempted to push aside my distaste for becho and really see the relationship through Bellamy's eyes. what I discovered was unfortunate, but something I can't ignore and that's that BELLAMY LOVES ECHO.
to some of you, this may seem obvious. to me, it was very hard to swallow. now I still believe that Bellamy loves Clarke, and I still think bellarke is a love story being told throughout the show in subtle ways that will eventually be the things we look back on and say "see, I TOLD you they were falling in love". but I can't ignore who Bellamy is as a character. Bob is a fantastic actor, which is why I always trust that the Bellamy we see is exactly the Bellamy the writers intend for us to see. the Bellamy I know and love would never hurt Echo to be with Clarke. and the Bellamy I know and love would never be with Echo if she wasn't someone who had earned his trust. now I still hate the writers for not showing us her redemption, and I definitely hope we get something in s6 that makes it easier to trust her without having to depend on looking through Bellamy's perspective, but all things considered, if Bellamy trusts her, I trust her. I have to. and even if Bellamy now knows Clarke is alive, it won't change that he is in love with Echo for now. ultimately, all of this is why I've decided to also try shipping* becho a little more than I have been (tolerating*) and why, as much as I want to, I will not be expecting or actively rooting for canon Bellarke in s6. (fingers crossed for love triangle drama though, because Bellamy may have found someone else for now, but Clarke certainly hasn't, and if they're leading together, there's bound to be some bellarke content coming our way) let's give our babies time to reconnect and rediscover the love they were exploring before praimfaya, and let's give a little love to Echo for providing comfort for Bellamy. I, for one, am grateful he wasn't alone.
tl;dr: Bellamy loves Echo so suck it up. you can't love his character and hate his decision to be with who he wants at the same time. fellow bellarke shippers, my heart goes out to you. may we all find the strength to get though the becho era. together.
my apologies for the formatting, I'm on the app and have no control.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The 100 (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Echo
Characters: Bellamy Blake, Echo (The 100)
Summary:
Sometimes you chose one thing for the best of reasons, and then you force a second chance to get it right.
(A/N: Best to assume this is antibellarke and anti-Clarke and read at your own risk if any negativity at all toward either might upset you.)
I was inspired by all the lovely becho valentine exchanges I think - and this strange little story landed in my head and demanded to be set down. So here it is.
