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„Do you know what I don’t get?” Clarke asks and gets comfortable on the blankets on the floor.
They’re staying in an abandoned Grounder village for the night and Bellamy is pretty sure that drinking and eating their food hadn’t been a good idea.
The water might have been poisoned. It was at least alcoholic because they’re both drunk. Or buzzed. He’s feeling pretty good. Kind of sad and not sure about the world but also good, like he might be able to forget all his problems if he just drinks more.
“Hm?” he says because Clarke has stopped talking.
He looks over to her, bleached out hair and tanned skin, with sunburn so bad that she’s got a few blisters on her nose and cheeks.
They’re both in dire need of a shower but Bellamy is thankful for that because the longer they don’t shower the later he’ll be able to smell her Omega scent again and it won’t remind him of Murphy that bad. Not that everything isn’t reminding him. But he thinks it might be worse when they’re both clean.
“Like you show up at my hideout-“ He doesn’t tell her that he doesn’t think a cave counts as a good hideout. “And the only thing you do is cry over a boy. Don’t get me wrong, it’s amazing that you can talk about your feelings and all.”
She stops and Bellamy blinks slowly. He’s not sure where exactly she’s going with this, hell she probably doesn’t know what her point is.
“And then you drag me out of there and convince me to go back and all but it’s Murphy. I mean Murphy.” She emphasizes and Bellamy knits his eyebrows.
He knows that he’s being a bit pathetic. That she may have expected him to come back for her and not because he’s being a coward and running away from his problems.
“Fucking Murphy,” she says again. “He looks like a frilled-neck lizard.”
“A what?”
Clarke looks at him like he’s stupid. She raises her hands to her neck and tries to make some kind of gesture but he’s not sure he can follow her. Maybe they’re both too drunk for this.
“A frilled-neck lizard? It has skin around its neck and whenever it gets attacked or it has to scare another animal away it spills out its frill and hisses and…” She trails off, still making small hissing noises.
“Are you making this up?” he asks and props himself up on his arms. He takes another sip from his drink – and they really need to stop drinking.
She does the same and rolls her eyes. “It’s a thing. Or used to be. You know.”
No he doesn’t. But Clarke doesn’t care.
“So Murphy looks like a frilled-neck lizard,” she starts again. “And you’re … more or less handsome.”
“Thank you very much, Clarke.”
She shushes him. “So what I don’t get… is… wait… I think I lost my thought. There: What do you see in him?”
Bellamy huffs.
She continues talking before he can say anything. “Like I would get it if he was really handsome. If he had a really nice jawline and an amazing mouth…” She sighs and trails off.
“And war paint and braids I guess?” He offers and it gets him an angry look from her.
“We’re not talking about me.”
They are so talking about her.
“So like… if Murphy was really hot, I’d understand that you could overlook him being a horrible person. But he’s not.”
“He’s hot,” Bellamy objects and Clarke rolls her eyes. She takes another sip from her bowl.
“He looks like a lizard, Bellamy,” she says very slowly as if he hadn’t understood her the first time.
“How the fuck can you even look like a lizard?”
“High cheekbones, that nose alone and then those eyes…”
“What’s wrong with his eyes?” he asks because he’ll be honest, he has never thought of Murphy as ugly. As a pain in the ass, a psychopath, a traitor and a murderer but never as ugly. Maybe that’s Murphy’s pheromones attracting him.
“They’re too far apart? Like extremely far apart.”
Bellamy leans back. Thinks about it for a second but comes up with nothing. “I don’t see it.”
She sighs and pats him. “Of course you don’t, you’re too much into him.”
“I’m not-“ he tries to protest but even half-drunk Clarke can still give off a look that makes him stop talking.
“You’re heartbroken because he likes someone else. Which brings me back to my point.”
“You had a point?” He is so done with this conversation. He just wants to forget ever feeling anything.
“Of course. So why are you, a young kind of handsome Alpha-guy-person crying over that lizard like asshole who murdered two of our people?”
“I don’t know why haven’t you said Lexa’s name once since I’ve been here?”
She flinches. Her fingers clench around the bowl.
“I’m sorry, that wasn’t-“
But she raises her hand and shakes her head. He can see her trying to calm her breathing down and he feels bad. He went too far because he doesn’t want to think about his own problems.
They’re silent for a few minutes and when she opens her mouth again they both have put their drinks down because it’s been enough alcohol.
“How did you do it?” she asks, her voice strained and shaky at the same time. He feels sober all of sudden.
“Do what?”
“How did you… How can you be so okay with having feelings for him even though he did all these terrible things? I mean what kind of person can be okay with that?"
She doesn’t look at him and he’s pretty sure that if she would he could see that she’s crying. He debates for a moment and then scoots over to her and puts an arm around her shoulder.
“Having feelings for someone who did terrible things doesn’t make you a terrible person, Clarke.”
She laughs bitter.
“For me… it was a lot that I could understand where he was coming from and I was still pretty pissed then but… then he tried to help us multiple times and that was probably the moment I realised that it’s okay to like someone who did horrible things.”
“But how?” she asks and Bellamy sighs. He doesn’t know how to explain it to her because Clarke has always been someone who liked to believe that she’s the one who’s right.
“Clarke, we’re not good people. We try to survive and we try to save the people we care about and we can’t judge someone for doing the same. We can feel hurt about it but we have to realise that in the end we might have even done the same.”
She chuckles. “Now this is definitely not about Murphy.”
He grins. “No it isn’t.”
They remain silent for a few minutes until Clarke sniffs and rubs the back of her hand over her nose.
“I miss her. Which is ridiculous because I didn’t even know her that long.”
Bellamy shrugs. “Look at Lincoln and Octavia. I think time becomes relative when you know that every day could be the last.”
She smiles. “So you’re not gonna tell me that … Lexa is an awful person who I should never talk to again?”
“Oh hell no, I’ll punch her in the face the next time I see her. Doesn’t mean you can’t kiss it better.”
She laughs at that and boxes him in the ribs with her elbow. “What are we gonna do about your issue?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. I’ll pine and hope that Miller dies a sudden death.”
“Don’t do that, I like Miller.”
“Yeah me too.” Which makes the whole thing even worse because he can’t even blame Miller. He can blame himself for making Murphy help him and maybe even Murphy for going along with it – but not a lot he knows because he didn’t really leave him a choice.
“I think I wanna go home,” Clarke says and Bellamy nods.
“Now?”
She shakes her head. “Tomorrow, I’m starting to get a headache.”
He yawns and withdraws back to where he has been sitting before. “Tomorrow sounds good.”
“Yeah you’re gonna need some time to practice what you’re going to say to Murphy.”
He snorts. “Yeah sure. I’ll make you a deal. If I talk to Murphy about this, you’ll get your ass to Polis and talk to Lexa.”
Clarke grins at him, aware that neither is going to happen. “Deal.”
