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He stares, listlessly, out the cloudy window. The sky is red. Sure, the end of the world is coming, but no one ever says it’d actually be so apocalyptic the sky would be red. He practically expects ash to rain from the sky instead of acid rain, expects the ground to crumble underneath him instead of gusts of radioactivity. It feels… majestic.
He’s so caught up in the view. Jobi tea held in a quivering hand, he considers it, smells it, really smells it, and exhales. That’s what death smells like? Smells good. It’s about time, too- the party is all about over, and people are beginning to join in packs, huddles, nursing their own cups. He had gotten away because, honestly, as much as he was enjoying the partying and the nihilism, he still felt an inexplicable tug.
Live life like it’s the end of the world, right? So why was he hesitating? From here on out, itches and welts would become painful, and his throat would become even more constricted. The sweat beading on his face from the lack of fresh air would only worsen.
The tremble in his hand worsens. The cup splashes liquid all over, and he swears under his breath, because the scalding liquid makes him feel pain in an acute way he hasn’t felt in a slight while now. It’s all been ebbing and flowing, moistening behind his eyes, wishing he could die kind of pain. Not physical, not mostly.
Before he knows it, a hand is pressing over his, in a radiation suit- oh- and the tea is removed from his grip. Jasper doesn’t even have time to fight it as he’s wrapped into a tight hug.
Quiet sobs are all he hears. He’s handed another suit.
-
He sees her corpse on the way out. He doesn’t know why he went along with it, wore the clunky radiation suit when he was just dancing in the rain earlier. But the pit in his gut only deepens, and he realizes quite acutely that he killed Harper, killed all of these people. All of these people- people he had formed a morbid camaraderie with, people that he emboldened with his carelessness. Sure, life was futile, but there was something about the deathly quiet of a room full of life that brings tears to his eyes. He thinks of Mount Weather. He thinks of Maya. Clarke killed them- but was he any better? He just convinced all of these people to commit suicide.
He doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t think there’s anything he can say to be forgiven. He’s dragged out into the storm, into a rover, to meet up with the others.
-
He follows Monty like a puppy, because why wouldn’t he? Everyone scrambles to do their jobs to escape Earth as fast as possible, and Jasper mindlessly works. Before Monty can so much as remove a glove, Jasper does it first, because the guilt eats at him. He’s killed Harper. He can’t kill Monty, too.
His hands burn. They burn, and he passes out while carrying the machine. He wakes up to everyone around him, Bellamy helping him up as Monty and Murphy continue to carry the machine back. He feels numb. All he causes is pain, even when he wants to help.
-
Part of Jasper thinks he doesn’t belong in this small rocket, seated beside Monty, beside Bellamy, beside Murphy, beside Emori and Echo and Raven. Part of Jasper thinks he should have been the one to stay on Earth instead of Clarke, to burn up in Praimfaya’s glorious destruction. At least Clarke wanted to live- and now, she was dead, and they were flying to space.
-
He’s mostly quiet for the first handful of months. Monty, too. They coexist largely in the same space but they can hardly speak to each other- mostly, Jasper thinks, because he shouldn’t be the one here. If Harper was here—
If Harper was here, she would be able to comfort Monty, to be alive, motivated, and caring. All he was was a shrivelled husk of a human being.
-
He works with Monty in the algae farms, though. Even if it’s not his specialty, it feels better than bumming out with Murphy, and he got kind of tired of the squabbles Emori and him got into. It made him resentful, it made him upset. It made him feel ugly, made him remember Maya, and wonder if they ever would have fought like that. Would they have? She was an angel.
One day, as they ladle up their measly, disgusting produce into a pot, he says ‘sorry’. Monty looks up at him, and offers a tight smile.
They eat in a separate room, and Jasper covers Monty in so many apologies and so much self-deprecating talk that he cracks, yells at Jasper, and the room goes silent.
-
“You’re alive, and safe now. We’re not on Earth anymore- no more pain, no more suffering. So why are you still acting like that?”
“Like what, Monty? Like what?”
“Like—like you don’t care if you just drop dead today or tomorrow!”
Jasper chuckles dryly. “Because I don’t. And I should have. If I was dead and Harper was alive—“
He’s shocked by the punch to the face, knocking him down on the ground. Monty’s face is screwed up so far that the tears are slipping down the curves and wrinkles, catching around his nose and falling off.
“You’re right! Harper is dead! Harper is dead, and I—I loved her, Jasper. I really did. But if you died—“
Monty’s voice breaks. Jasper realizes, acutely, that he’s crying too. When did he start crying? His face hurts- it’s throbbing and he wonders if his nose is broken.
“You’re my best friend. You’ve been my best friend my whole life, Jasper. And yeah, you’ve been a total dick for a long time now, but—damnit, don’t you think it’d kill me inside if you died?”
“I…”
He’s lost for words. Jasper swallows. He lost Maya, and his entire world fell into pieces. Monty lost Harper, and here he was, producing algae like it was nothing, like he hadn’t shot his own mother down before knowing there was another way.
“I love you too, man.”
Monty snorts, and they both laugh through their tears.
-
Maybe things can be okay again. Never normal, but okay. Jasper’s hair is growing now, and it sticks up every which way. Monty tells him it’s unfair that he has stubble without him, so they shave together, and Jasper looks at himself in the mirror and realizes, despite everything he’s been through, he somehow still looks like a sixteen year old boy.
He awkwardly pipes up at mealtimes more, and learns more about mechanics through Raven, but he spends the most time with Monty. Most of the time, they sit around in their room and listen to the music on Maya’s iPod, learning the words and occasionally making their own songs. Jasper belts out the lyrics, and Monty is quieter, but he still chimes in. They stare out the starboard windows like they used to, daydream about deathly planets more habitable and more utopian than Earth, and when Monty figures out how to get herbs rolling, they get high. It’s always rather late when they do, though, so Jasper doesn’t get in the way of Monty’s need to be hyperproductive. He understands a little more why his best friend needs to do these things. They keep his mind off of Harper, off of his mom, off of the deaths and pain they’d suffered. Jasper realizes, bit by bit, that it helps him as well. And if he makes his goal to make Monty’s life easier, it makes his life easier to live, as well. It gives his life meaning.
They lounge about on Jasper’s bed, laughing and talking about nonsense, before the conversation gets deathly serious. The topics range from how Octavia is doing in the bunker, to a quiet memoriam of Clarke (Jasper hates her less and less the more and more time goes on, the more they laud her a hero), and onward. Jasper always lays his head on Monty’s stomach, staring at the ceiling and enjoying the low reverberations as he speaks. He realizes, acutely, that as much as he respected Bellamy and the others, they always felt too superhuman to him. Monty is easier to read, easier to understand, easier to relate to. And it feels safe—Monty feels safe.
Jasper sleeps easiest those nights, the nights where they fall asleep in a stoned pile, even if they aren’t under blankets.
-
Having a best friend is one thing, but Jasper misses Maya. He misses the way her smile made butterflies flutter in his stomach, misses her gentle kiss, misses her sensitivity and understanding. He misses those gentle times before it all went to hell, before his last sight of her was bloated and destroyed by radiation. He wakes up in a sweat most nights, from nightmares of that very sight. He has nightmares of being the one to pull the switch, has nightmares of watching Harper die, has nightmares about being alone aboard the space station. One night, he has a dream that Harper lived instead of him, and Monty was happy, and smiling, and didn’t miss him. He wakes up sobbing, and realizes he was sleeping on Monty, and Monty wakes up tired and confused.
“Sorry, uh, I just, I’ll just—“
“C’mere.”
Monty doesn’t miss a beat, half-asleep voice crooning to him as his arms wrap around Jasper and pull him back down to the bed. Jasper blinks back tears and lets himself burrow into Monty’s chest, and Monty holds him tight, all the while muttering half-asleep platitudes.
-
It’s embarrassing, Jasper thinks, that he’s so touch-starved he wants Monty to hold him. After that night, he daydreams about it more and more, wrapping his own arms around his skinny body to substitute. He wants to hold Monty too, hold him through his pain, but he stamps down his own selfish wants, still not sure how to handle wanting something after being such a colossal asshole for all that time. The least he can do now is support his best friend, and not be such a mess.
So he smiles a bit more, laughs a bit harder, and Monty notices. He checks in with him privately as they’re ladling dinner into the pot, after cracking jokes about putting herbs in there to get everyone high and how they predicted everyone would be high.
Jasper laughs it off, and Monty offers a worried gaze.
-
Jasper tries to pretend it’s only natural that they get high almost every night now, that they lay side pressed into side, only short of holding hands. He suspects Monty knows his selfish wants, to have a warm body by his side as he slept, to wake up and be comforted instantly. But Monty never brings it up, and Jasper lives in tentative selfishness.
-
“Why—why don’t you ever talk about what bothers you?”
“I could say the same thing.”
It’s a staring contest. Jasper relents first.
“I… I want to support you. You’ve been through so much horrible shit—and I figured if I wasn’t complaining all of the time that you’d maybe bring it up and—“
Monty shakes his head. “Jasper, you’ve been through it all too. We both lost people we loved on Earth, seen and done horrific things we shouldn’t have had to. You’re allowed to suffer. The only reason I was mad at you was because—because you just gave up. You didn’t let any of us help you, and just—“
“Oh, haha, that’s rich,” Jasper snorts, cringing internally as he speaks. “As far as I remember, the moment I started being sad, no one wanted to hang around me or even talk. You just ended up hanging and boning with Harper all the time, and—“
“Shut up.”
Jasper realizes what he’s said, and stops. “… Sorry.”
Monty relents after what feels like forever, and apologizes in kind. “… me too. I guess I just didn’t know how to deal with it. I know you partly blamed me for… for Mount Weather, and I figured it’d just make you mad if I hung around.”
“I was being a total dick,” Jasper offers, before his tone sobers again. “I shouldn’t have put it all on you like that. There was no way I would have managed to kill Cage in time. It was us or them. I just wish…”
Monty purses his lips, nods a little bit. “I’m sorry, too. I know how you felt about Maya, and… I wasn’t really there when you needed me the most.”
The silence grows between them, but it’s not completely awkward. In fact, Jasper feels lighter than he ever did, despite the heavy conversation.
-
They’re practically conjoined, Echo comments one day as they enter the dining area with the pot of Green’s Green Goop, and Jasper laughs. Monty does, too, and it’s all but embarrassing. The gang jokes around about how married the two of them are, jokes about so many things, and Jasper realizes that they’ve all lived on the same, painful, torturous, beautiful Earth at the same time and yet, they were all still laughing and smiling.
Maybe being alive is worth it.
-
Maybe it comes as no surprise that one day, while they’re both high out of their minds, Jasper gently presses a kiss to Monty’s lips. Maybe it’s no surprise that Monty kisses back, and that they simply do that; they kiss and hold each other close, and Jasper falls asleep to the ultimate comfort of gentle fingers combing through his growing, unruly locks.
The next morning is slightly awkward. They both exchange lots of small looks, and Jasper wonders if it’d be okay to kiss Monty sober, and before he knows it they’re making out in the algae farm, Jasper pressing Monty to the wall and both of them laughing and crying a little bit as they hold each other.
-
They are both vehemently against returning to Earth when the opportunity presents itself. Jasper feels a dread creep over them as the discussion regarding the Eligius ship becomes a serious possibility, and realizes they’ll be back on the ground, the painful, warring, apocalyptic ground. A wave of shame creeps over him, and he and Monty hold each other so hard that night that Jasper wonders if this bliss will end.
-
It feels unreal to touch ground again. Jasper inhales, crisp clean air entering his lungs, and he coughs awkwardly on exhale, to which Monty squeezes his hand before refocusing his grip on his bag. It’s the middle of the night, and it’s cold, and Jasper feels panic strike the moment strangers and guns are up and the sounds of gunshots make sweat bead his brow.
But what shocks him the most is the fact that Clarke is alive.
-
Jasper wonders if history will repeat, as he and Monty hold Clarke briefly in their arms for a hug, as he watches the Eligius crewmembers with paranoid fear. Will they all fight? Will there be meaningless deaths? What will those in the bunker have done to survive?
Holding Monty’s hand, he tries to hope that it won’t. He tries to hope that maybe Earth is a kinder place after this second apocalypse. Maybe it is. Maybe good things can come from this.
At least the hope is a start, Jasper reckons.
He stares, alert, out into the vast horizon. The sky is blue.