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Clarke could feel the dents in the bench, fingers pressed till the tips were white from the pressure. The easiest way to not throw a punch (or an item of pottery) was to keep your hands busy whilst you screamed.
“I was fine! Nothing was going to happen.”
“Nothing was going to happen? Yeah, that grounder was just pulling your pants off you while you were drugged off your ass to help you, what, go to the fucking bathroom!” Bellamy, hands curled into fists, paced the room like a caged panther; all coiled anger and restrained physical rage.
“Am I the only one here who doesn’t shoot people for kicks? Is ‘get off her’ not acceptable anymore, we’ve decided to just go full tilt into killing people now. Fantastic.” Clarke locked her jaw, chin out and eyes blazing. “For all you know, I could have been totally willing.”
“Yeah, because I find that ‘totally willing’, tends to go hand in hand with some hallucinogenic drug that made you see dancing rainbow horses.” Bellamy’s fingernails made half moon imprints on his hands as he clenched them. She was so stupid sometimes, looking for the better side, giving second chances. Some random grounder tries to screw her in the woods while she can barely remember her own name and it’s all ‘I could have been totally up for that’. He shoots the guy, after a punch to the face, and yells didn’t get the message across, and he’s the bad guy.
“I’m not saying I was, I’m just saying, ERGH.” Clarke huffed out an angry breath. It was true she hadn’t known what was happening after she’d shared in the ‘drink of spring’ with the grounder tribe they’d made a trade agreement with, but that’s why she’d brought Bellamy, as backup. She was disgusted and a little scared that some random grounder had tried to take advantage of her, but he hadn’t needed to shoot the man. “I’m not your sister, ok. There’s no need to play older brother with me, because I am an adult who can deal with her own problems.”
Bellamy ran a hand down his face; teeth clenched, and muttered something behind his hand.
“What comment have you got to make now? Something about how reckless I am, or stupid.” She couldn’t look past the fact, that yes, he had saved her from what could have been sexual assault, but he hadn’t needed to be so over the top about it.
Bellamy sighed as he looked down; hands loose, but body still tense.
“I said I couldn’t do it again. Couldn’t pick the torn clothing off the floor and hand it back to someone I love and try and put them back together again.” His gaze locked with Clarke’s, eyes saying all the things he wouldn’t speak.
He swallowed, throat bobbing with repressed frustration. This was the first time he had even come close to speaking of the day he had walked in, only twelve, a boy in the eyes of any but himself, to see his mother’s clothing flung across the room. Octavia, thank the lord, at seven, could still sleep like dead, and had heard not a thing. Aurora never spoke of it, but Bellamy knew what handprints looked like as bruises, and had seen the marks on the arm of the guard she bribed monthly with her body to tell of ‘surprise’ inspections and to keep his mouth shut about the oddities that occurred within the walls of their tiny apartment.
The price his mother paid for each breath Octavia took was too high, but they both paid it anyway, in blood and body and terrors that shook them awake at night.
“Bellamy.” Clarke’s voice was softer now, apologetic as she walked to close the distance between them, hand reaching out to touch his shoulder. He let her, for a minute, comfort him, before he stepped back.
“It’s nothing. Don’t. Just, be careful, ok? I pulled myself apart to put her back together, and I don’t know if I can do that again. Not for you, and not for anyone.” He took one of the rough-hewn seats that occupied the planning room they shared off the main wooden hall and straddled it backwards. “They’ll castrate him, you know, and that’s enough of a punishment for me.”
“Aluka explained it to me, this morning. She said if he’d gotten any further, I’d have the right to brand him across the chest with his indiscretion.” A weak smile crossed her face. “I don’t think I’d be that vindictive.”
“I am.” Bellamy set his chin on his crossed forearms, leaning on the back of the chair, and blew an errant curl from his face. “You’re ok? About the whole thing? For our seriously fucked up version of ok, I mean?”
“I don’t remember it, and whilst that sounds like it should be worse, it’s like a dream that someone told about, like it didn’t happen to me.” Clarke took the second chair, and propped a knee up so she could lean her chin on it.
“I’d pull myself apart to put you back together, you know that, right? You start hitting the freak out, you come find me, ok? We’ll work it out.” He fiddled with the fraying edge of his jacket sleeve, not making eye contact.
“I wouldn’t ask you to do that.” Clarke looked at Bellamy, tan cheek visible between the dark fabric of his jacket collar and his tousled curls.
“You wouldn’t need to.” Bellamy rolled his lips together, mouthing the edge of one sleeve.
“I hope you know I’d do the same for you. Put you back together even if I had to tear apart myself to do it. It’s what partnership is.”
“Yeah, I know. I wouldn’t ask you to do it either.”
“You wouldn’t need to.”