Work Text:
when your voice became vibrations from the satellite mind-
it sounded like mine.
(metric)
satellite mind
The ice cube sweats in her hand as she crosses from the Ark to his tent, chilly tendrils slipping between the cracks of her closed fist and dripping into the dirt.
Summer on Earth is fucking hot. And the humidity? The textbooks don’t do it justice. Up in space, the worry was always about maintaining a livable humidity level.
Raven could give a fucking class on humidifying systems.
If only there was a way to create one for all of Earth. Manage it like they do on the Ark, because she may as well be swimming her way to Bellamy’s tent.
Their people mostly lived in the Ark, now. Thanks to her and Sinclair, the regulatory systems had been fixed, and everyone who chose to live inside reaped the benefits of their hard work. (She never received a proper ‘thank you’ for making their shelter livable. Typical.)
They returned from Mount Weather as autumn was dying, when it seemed like everyone that came back might just wilt away right along with it.
They aren’t days she likes to think of.
Most of the adults who came down on Alpha, stayed in Alpha. The remaining of the 100 resisted the metal trap for as long as they could, even when that meant shivering and huddling together for warmth instead of sleeping.
No one talked about why.
But the freezing temperatures and blizzards eventually became too much, and slowly they started trickling in. Raven never really felt like she was tethered one way or the other. A lot of kids would and did make room for her, if she wanted to sleep outside. Most times, she’d just hole up in her workshop with all her plans and works in progress and some semblance of control.
The winter even broke Bellamy—he’d been the last one to come in, but he still came in.
He was also the first one out, when the spring weather became barely tolerable.
She respects his desire to reside outside of Alpha Station. She hates the Ark and a lot of the memories she has of it, but she’d always had an escape—her studies, her workshop, her job. Finn. If she didn’t fiddle with machines or fix gadgets in her shop when she couldn’t sleep, then she might have tried to stay outside, too.
Plus, this heat. And the humidity. It was a lot to handle.
Their territory is always bustling with activity as they keep trying to survive this place, but no one can deny how good it feels to come out of the hot sun.
Even Bellamy will take his breaks in her shop.
Absently, she rubs the cool water on the back of her neck. For just a second, the relief from the heat overwhelms all her other hurts.
She wonders if either of them, if any of them, can be classified as ‘okay’ yet.
Maybe not, but she’d like to think they’re at least better.
The flap to his tent is open, as always, probably in some half-hearted attempt for some air flow. She’s close enough that she can see him sitting at his desk, framed by the entryway.
All the books mysteriously ended up inside his tent, the ones found when groups from the Ark gutted Mount Weather. He’s told her that she’s free to read whatever she wants, but she’s never taken him up on it. She doesn’t want to be jealous of fictional people who lived in a version of the world she’ll never get to see, to fully understand.
She doesn’t find the same joy that Bellamy does in trying to piece the past together.
She prefers broken things she can mend with her hands.
As she crosses the threshold, she can’t help but think that summer suits Bellamy. His skin has browned to a glorious color, one that had been unattainable up on the Ark.
And while everyone had leaned out during the winter, when food had to be rationed, spring had brought the animals back, and between hunting, building, and exploring the area, Bellamy looks—
She’ll say: Bellamy is doing everyone a favor by choosing to walk around shirtless 24/7. She certainly appreciates it.
She creeps up behind him now, where he sits with his back turned to her, engrossed in whatever the council’s got him writing up and thinking about. It’s stuffy in his tent, and there’s a light sheen of sweat on the back of his neck.
He doesn’t notice her. She applauds herself on her stealth.
Barely suppressing her grin, her hand darts out and presses the ice to the back of his neck.
“Fuck!” he hisses, automatically shrinking down while paradoxically clamping a hand over hers.
A thrum runs through her body, one that she’s had a lot of practice ignoring.
She spends a moment watching the water run down the strong column of his spine, remembering the time where she was able to touch him however she wanted, and how at that time, she hadn’t truly wanted.
(Now, though. Now, she has the fleeting fantasy of pressing herself as close as possible to his back, until she escapes into the sheltered surroundings of his ribcage.
She thinks that, just maybe, she could be safe there.
It’s a stupid thought.)
For a second, he allows his head to tilt back further into her hand. The initial shock of the freezing cold against his neck has worn off, and she can see the way he savors the sensation.
He smiles up at her lazily.
“Cute,” he lobbies back, exactly like she’d counted on when she chipped the piece of ice off in the first place.
But he does it wrong, somehow, with the back of his head gently pressed against her stomach, with her hand cupping his neck, with the way the planes of his face just—soften as he opens his eyes to gaze up at her.
The tone was right, and yet.
She doesn’t like thinking about the pangs of longing, but they’re there. For a while, now, they’ve been there.
Raven doesn’t know why she’s being so cautious—never a word she’d formerly associate with herself, but.
She squirms, unused to not just going for what she wants, unused to hesitating when all she wants to do is roughly claim his mouth. She thinks he would let her, let her do whatever she wanted. Maybe.
His thumb twitches, as if suppressing some sort of movement (moving away or to stroke her hand, she’ll never know) and it reminds her that this moment has lasted long enough.
She withdraws her hand, and he lets her go, easily.
Bellamy never pushes.
Sometimes she wonders if she wants him to.
He swivels in his chair to face her, straddling the backrest. Raven watches as he notices the small pack on her back.
“Where are you off to?”
The question is casual, and it’s the little things, with Bellamy. From anyone else, that question would make her bristle, spit needles from her teeth. From Bellamy, she can almost hear his unspoken: wish I could come too.
He looks better than he did in the fall.
Before, she would take his question to mean that he was too scared to let her go off by herself, too afraid he would lose her, or something.
“Oh, you know,” she shrugs, “out to that cliff I like. The one with the stream at the bottom.”
He pauses, scratching the back of his neck. For a second, she thinks he might ask if she wants him to go too—not to watch her back, or be there in case her legs start acting up, but if she wants him—but they’ve never been that bold about pursuing what they might have, could have, together.
He settles on a small grin.
“Well I’m stuck doing this god awful scheduling for the guards, so. Have fun for us both.”
She smirks.
“Will do,” she smirks, lobbing the remainder of the quickly melting ice cube at his face.
Raven feels great as she passes the last few markers left before her destination.
She and Octavia had discovered the area just as it became warm again, and it quickly became her favorite spot.
She reaches the end of the thinning trees, and suddenly a whole valley swallows her sight.
Raven never thought that anything could rival the beauty of space, but the novelty of actually being on Earth does strike her on occasion.
Growing up, she never thought she could be sitting in the dirt amongst trees, looking out at the expansive, living, breathing landscape surrounding her.
It’s surreal.
Raven struggles with appreciating Earth. She figures a lot of them do.
Although the Ark was restrictive, full of limited spaces with nowhere to run, at least there, they knew the rules. They knew the people. They knew what to expect.
And Raven. Well. A lot of things had been shitty for Raven on the Ark. But on the Ark, she was able to float among the stars, weightless.
Earth has been nothing like they could’ve expected.
Hell, they expected to be the only ones down here. Look how that turned out.
Raven’s been fighting since she got down on the ground. Really, she feels like she’s been fighting since she was born. At least, down here, there’s more opportunity.
As long as you don’t end up dead.
Raven tries to clear her head… spiraling down that path is never good, especially when she’s alone.
She leans back on her hands, trying to coach her mind into appreciating the view once more. She feels her fingers squish something—as she looks at her fingers, they’re stained a deep purple. Raven looks back at where her hands were- there's the culprit, a smushed berry of some sort. She doesn't recognize it.
She doesn’t think they look like blueberries… or blackberries.
Are there… are purple-berries a thing? Raven feels stupid wondering, but purple-berry fits the ‘color + berry’ pattern, and it’s not like they got much, if any, fruit in her station up on the Ark. Purple-berry sounds dumb... but strawberry sounds dumber.
And strawberries don’t even match the ‘color + berry’ pattern.
Fuck this. There’s a few of them sitting on what looks like a snapped twig, and she scans her surroundings, trying to spot where they came from. She’s never seen anything like it, but damn they look delicious.
Agro was never her strong suit, but she’s hungry, and they just look so good.
Berries that look that good should not be poisonous.
Besides, the level of toxicity in just one can’t be enough to kill her.
If Bellamy had come with her, well. He’d probably go into condescending leader mode and strongly advise her against it. Make her sit through a lecture about safety or some other shit.
Well, out here no one, not even Bellamy, not the adults who still push for the old way of the Ark, could tell her what to do.
She pops the berry in her mouth.
It’s juicy, and honestly? It tastes wonderful. See, Raven Reyes can do more than fix broken gadgets. She can fucking forage, too.
With a contented sigh, she leans back against the tree trunk. Despite her usual vigilance, she falls asleep.
Though she chides herself for letting her guard down long enough out of camp, alone, to sleep, she wakes from her nap refreshed.
Raven can’t find any more of the berries to bring back to Bellamy—she would want to see him roll his eyes as she bragged about her foraging, food-providing skills.
It’ll just be her secret, then.
The trip back to camp is pleasant—pleasant for her standards. In the winter, she spent her spare time between ‘official’ projects building herself a better brace than anyone else could create. Bellamy, although hopeless with any and all things mechanically inclined, spent most of his free time reading recovered books in her workshop.
There certainly must’ve been better, quieter places to read—Raven’s way of screaming is putting a hammer to metal, and enough people constantly barged in to ask her questions or demand she fix something else—but he was always there, lounging on a work bench close enough that she could hear him breathing as he thumbed through the pages.
They never talked about why.
(It’s not like she wanted him to leave.)
Kick-ass brace aside, she still can’t move as easily as everyone else. Certainly not as well as Bellamy, whose physicality is the first thing anyone notices about him. Sometimes she wonders if that bothers him, that most people just see him as big—strong shoulders and big hands with quick reflexes.
Not enough people recognize how smart he is, she thinks.
Does that bother him? Raven knows, without a doubt, it would bother her.
But no one looks at her and thinks ‘physical force’, not like they do when they see Octavia, who’s not big like her brother but is just as strong.
People see her bum leg, broken heart, brittle edges. And her brain. She’s not sure what stands out first.
She quietly sighs in relief as the gate to camp comes into sight. Although her brace is better, she still gets sore.
The camp is still fenced by electric wire, but the paranoia of the adult leadership has calmed enough that they only have it running during the night. Instead, during the day, there’s various guards on duty around the perimeter.
She watches as the two posted guards notice her. She puts her head down, hands grabbing at the straps of her backpack as she tries to eliminate any semblance of a limp.
“There’s Reyes. She’s so hot, but honestly she’s a little scary,” one of the guards says as she gets closer.
At her name, her head snaps up, eyes trained right on him. He looks a little nervous, and glances at the guard on the other side of the gate.
“I hope her leg is alright. She was out there for a long time.”
Raven glares at them, thinking them pretty fucking bold to say that shit when she could hear it.
There’s a small part of her, though, sounding the warning bells. While she hadn’t been paying them that much attention, Raven doesn’t remember seeing their mouths move.
She tries to shake it off, annoyed at her paranoia.
She settles for shooting them murderous looks as she passes, committing their faces to memory.
Who the fuck did they think they were, anyway.
Raven stumbles across Monty on her way back to her room. He’s by the outskirts of camp, roaming alone. Raven still worries about Monty—he retreated so far into himself after Mount Weather. She likes to think that he’s been healing, or moving on, too, but she can’t help but worry. He doesn’t come to tinker with things in her workshop nearly enough.
She makes her way over to where he stands, facing away from her, and as she nears she can hear him mumbling to himself.
(That’s not a good sign.)
“Maybe Harper’s right, maybe I should just go for it… if she can see it then I must not be making up signs just because I want them to be there… “
He must be muttering about Miller. The connection those two have, everyone can see it. Who the hell else does Miller smile normally around?
Raven rolls her eyes. “Jesus, Monty. Don’t be so melodramatic.”
Monty jumps like he got shocked while wiring, turning to face her. His eyes widen in confusion.
How did she… I swear I wasn’t talking to myself I was not talking out loud oh my god was I talking out loud to myself?
Raven’s one second from asking Monty if he’s going insane until she makes one very important and life-altering observation: Monty’s mouth had not moved a single millimeter.
What the fuck.
She heads straight to her workshop, because in that space she is queen, she is in charge, receiving requests in her throne room. It’s the place where she works everything out, and this? Whatever the hell’s happening to her today?
Is this what happens when someone experiences a psychotic break? There’s no way in hell that she's going to Abby Griffin with this.
She hears Miller before she sees him, because he’s yelling.
Raven snaps out of her daze, noticing Miller barreling down the hall headed her way.
Again, he’s not moving his mouth, his lips just settle into his signature scowl. It doesn’t even look like he’s noticed her, either, all his attention focused inward to whatever fight he’s having with himself because, well. She doesn’t really understand what he’s saying.
(Raven ignores the fact that she’s hearing someone’s thoughts, again.)
Miller’s cursing himself out in French—well, she thinks he is, the tone of his… the tone of his thoughts (fuck, that’s weird) indicates that he’s berating himself about something. Before the mountain, before being shot, before hurtling through space, Raven had made it a point to familiarize herself with as many swears possible in any language she overheard on the Ark.
Until now, she didn’t even know that Miller spoke French.
Everyone on the Ark officially operates in English—and an American version, at that—because. Well, because shitty politics and power plays. Typical Ark stuff. (Bellamy could rant about this for ages, if she mentioned it to him.)
Memories of her mother are entwined with all the Spanish she knows.
She doesn’t like the think of her mom, either, but whatever this shit is has got her frazzled and she’s losing her control.
Miller smacks straight into her, and she’s sent reeling towards the wall of the corridor.
“Fuck!” she and Miller say.
“Fuck, sorry Raven, I didn’t see you!”
She can hear the panic behind his earnest expression.
I.. shit, I hope I didn’t hit her leg or anything, she’s still leaning against the wall fuck I am a fuck-up she looks really upset.
It renders her speechless
She’s not saying anything, why isn’t she saying anything, fuck is she going to kill me, if I hurt her Bellamy will murder me, accident or not, god Nathan you are so fucking stupid, is she okay? She looks really out of it, it looks like she might cry—
And that—
She doesn’t want to hear that. No matter how hard she tries, it’s all people see her for.
A busted leg.
A fucking mess.
Miller reaches a hand out, to do what, she doesn’t know, and it spurs her back into motion.
Raven bats his hand away, mumbling some version of ‘I’m fine’ as she turns around and starts walking back the way she came, trying to find some way to drown out Miller’s frantic thoughts.
Her feet guide her outside, a part of her thinking that if she just gets some fresh air, she’ll feel better, but—
It’s just—
So. Loud.
She tries to pretend that all the voices she hears are just the spoken chatter of the people taking a break from the work, getting water, going about their day, but Raven’s never been good at deluding herself, at least not for long. People walk past her, frozen-lipped, and she can hear them, hear what they’re thinking. Sometimes when they pass her, a brief thought about her, of noticing her, noting her and her brace, Raven Reyes, the sharp girl who still finds a way to carry on, fly unwanted into her head.
It’s horrible.
She sees Wick heading towards her, and it’s the final straw. Not one part of her wants to hear what he thinks about when he sees her now, after their horrible ending back during the first frost.
He had enough biting to say voluntarily, right to her, and she doesn’t think he’s over it now, because he’d been petty from the start.
She can’t take it. She doesn’t want to hear what he thinks about her, especially not now.
For a moment, she feels like she can just hear the tone of his voice crystallizing over the din, and then, she’s in motion, moving away. Anywhere but near him.
She’s staggering under the weight of the noise as her feet shuffle, the direction a muscle memory since she can not think with all the sound.
Will she never have quiet again? How will she be able to work?
She feels dizzy, like she’s spiraling, as she reaches her destination.
There is less traffic around Bellamy’s tent at this hour, less noise, and there’s just a lantern—one that she wired—on lighting the space.
She stumbles through the closed flap barely aware of her surroundings, with little thought to whether Bellamy would be alone or awake or—
Raven shouldn’t be surprised that she ended up going to Bellamy—but she’s currently having a hard time feeling anything except panic and dread.
Bellamy’s reclined on his bed, squinting at a book open on his lap. She must be making a lot of noise—her chest aches like she’s breathing hard, or not breathing enough, because he immediately sits up, staring right at her.
“Raven,” he says, and with that one word, just her name dripping in concern, she realizes it’s all she hears.
It’s silence in the tent as he swings his legs out from the bed, silence as he stands up and puts big hands on her shoulders. The weight of them, for a fleeting second, they ground her.
Just for a second. She stills feels like she’s going to explode, combust with all that’s wrong with her.
She’s hearing other people’s thoughts, but somehow she isn’t hearing Bellamy. Does that mean she was hallucinating earlier? Or is Bellamy just different? Is she really going to have to accept that mind-reading is possible?
She can’t wrap her mind around it. Each question she thinks of just leads to more questions with solutions she can’t get to the bottom of. She barely remembers she’s standing there in Bellamy’s tent, his hands may as well not be holding her because she can’t feel them. It’s Bellamy, so he’s probably saying something, but the words just wash right over her, just a mess of sounds that her brain is too fried to organize into recognizable words and phrases.
Her heartbeat is the loudest thing in the room, her breaths rattle in and out of her throat.
She thinks Bellamy must have guided her to his bed, because all of a sudden she’s sitting there, staring at the tent flap she closed when she stumbled in.
She thinks Bellamy’s sitting next to her, thinks he’s still talking to her, trying to get her to talk.
Her face feels hot, eyes burning.
She thinks she might be crying. Her inhales are hiccupping gasps.
The one thing she could always count on was her brain. They could break anything else, but her mind, she would always have that.
Is her brain, is it broken?
What the fuck is happening to her.
Bellamy must have moved behind her, because suddenly he seems to be everywhere, surrounding her, legs fitting on the outside of hers, her back hitting his chest.
She shudders into him, curling into herself as his arms encircle her, reaching down for the buckles on her brace. It feels familiar.
He’s stopped asking questions, she thinks.
He just holds her together as he takes her brace apart.
She wakes up slowly, knowing that Bellamy is still there with her if only for the heat of him.
She clenches her eyes shut—she was a mess last night. Yesterday.
Even though it was in front of Bellamy, well. She can’t help the shame she feels.
His arms aren’t around her, not anymore, like they were when she fell asleep, but she knows he’s close. She can feel his fingers gently tangling in the ends of her hair, and the gentleness. Bellamy Blake’s gentleness, just.
It’s overwhelming to her, sometimes. Most of the time.
Raven rolls onto her back when she can’t take it anymore. He stops touching her.
When she opens her eyes, he’s already looking at her.
For a brief moment, she’s hit with the desperate hope that yesterday was just some weird dream. That she isn’t suddenly capable of reading minds. That she didn’t get this ability from eating one fucking berry from this fucked up radiation soaked planet.
One. Fucking. Berry.
But as a few people walk past his tent, she can hear them. Their thoughts.
He’s waiting. She knows the distress is probably playing across her face.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
She could say no.
She could say no, and wouldn’t have to risk Bellamy thinking she’s certifiably insane, too crazy to look at or occasionally touch.
She could say no, and Bellamy wouldn’t push her.
But Raven… Raven doesn’t think she can get perspective on this one. She read no textbooks about this. She can’t saw open her skull and tighten up the loose screws herself.
So, despite her reluctance, she takes a deep breath and decides to start.
He’s patient as she explains everything to him. It’s to his credit that, despite the outrageousness of what’s happening, his expression only falters a few times into an amused sort of skepticism. Hell, if Bellamy ever tried to tell her that he could suddenly read minds, well.
Which is why she waits, anxious, when she finishes. He hasn’t said anything yet.
She sounds crazy. She feels crazy.
He purses his lips for a second, still trying to wrap his mind around it.
“Huh. So you can hear everyone’s thoughts.”
“But not yours.”
“But not mine.”
“Thank god,” she adds, snidely, when really. She’s so fucking relieved that around her, he still has his privacy. That whatever he gives her is his choice.
Bellamy rolls his eyes at her while wearing a soft smile, knowing it, knowing her. If she was the type to blush, she would.
“Yeah, thank god,” he echoes.
Just looking at his face, she can almost tune out the other voices she hears.
He shifts a little more onto his side, his free hand coming up to fit the side of her face.
“It’ll be okay, Raven,” and she knows he knows that she hates when people say that, but somehow, right now, he’s making her believe it.
His thumb strokes her cheek once, twice. Their eyes are locked on each other, and, for once, when the tears start to well she doesn’t turn away.
“Maybe it was something you ate. Maybe it will pass. We’ll figure it out.”
His fingers comb a bit into her hair. “Okay?”
Raven bites her lip.
Nods.
Bellamy releases a breath, like he’d been waiting for that nod since she showed up last night.
“Okay,” he responds. His hand slips from her face as he settles down on his back.
The loss of contact echoes through her sharply. Her hand quickly latches onto his, locks their fingers together.
He stiffens for a moment, head shifting minutely to quickly face her. Then he squeezes her hand.
It feels like, somehow, he’d reached in and squeezed her heart. Later, she’ll use that to explain the lack of fear she felt at raising his hand to her lips, pressing a gentle kiss.
She never knew that looking into someone’s eyes could feel like floating through space.
She isn’t sure if anyone has looked at her quite like that before.
She can’t read his thoughts, but she has an idea what they might say.
-/-/-/
“Okay, but if this keeps up, can I make you my assistant?”
“Bellamy.”
“After meetings you can give me full reports on what those slimy politicians actually think so I know who to press for what.”
“Bellamy you are now one of those slimy politicians.”
“This gives us some sort of advantage, though, you know it does.”
“Bellamy, shut the fuck up.”