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bombshellsandbluebells · 5 years

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Memori Season 5 WIP

Here’s half of an unfinished Memori WIP set in-between 5x08 and 5x09 where Vinson the Creepy Serial Killer takes an interest in Emori. Feat. the Eligius Camp Squad and an abandoned plot about Emori being a con artist.

This will likely never get finished. Fair warning, it ends suddenly in the middle of scene.

“That’s a very interesting hand.”

Emori turns to see a man dressed in the Eligius uniform, but collared just like her. He’s so tall she has to crane her neck up to stare him in the eyes, and there’s something in them she can’t quite place, but makes her skin crawl all the same. The hair on the back of her neck stands on end. She sees Echo tense from where she sits beside her, and, across from her, Raven sits up straighter, her expression steeling at the sight of him.

“Yes,” Emori says, for lack of anything better to say, and resists the urge to tuck her hand behind her back – it wouldn’t do any good. He’s seen it already. Still, she can’t help clenching it into as much of a fist as she can, as if she can fold it down into something not quite so big and awkward and eye-catching.

The man smiles at her. It’s a soft smile – a polite smile, even – but something about it sends a bolt of panic down her spine. She feels like a rabbit cornered by a wolf, staring down an open pair of jaws lined with fangs. She wants to run, but the collar is heavy around her throat and the doors are guarded.

“May I have a closer look at it?”

Emori swallows her fear. It catches in her throat.

“That’s awfully rude,” Echo cuts in. Her voice is thin – there’s a threat in it. Emori has no doubt that if this man makes a move for her, Echo will strike, collar be damned. Raven says nothing, but Emori can practically feel the heat of her glare as she stares the man down.

“No,” Emori says, feeling safer with her friends at her side.

There’s a shift in the man’s expression, though she couldn’t say what it was if asked – something about the way his eyebrows pinch, or his mouth twitches – something small and indescribable, like the way the weather shifts before a storm.

“You heard her – she said no.” Even after everything, relief washes over her at the sound of John’s voice.

He’s at least a foot shorter than the man, but he stares up at him like he’s looking down on him. The fire in him burns hotter than ever; beneath her fear and her hurt and her distrust of him – despite her quiet, certain no in the forest – she revels in it. A spark catches in her chest.

“So, you should leave,” John adds, in a low growl.

The man raises his hands in a placating gesture. “I don’t want to start a fight,” he tells them in a soft-spoken manner that sets Emori on edge. “I’ll leave you alone.” He gives her one last look before he walks away. She wants to wash it off of her.

Raven grimaces. “That guy gives me the creeps.”

John hasn’t moved to sit down with them. He stays turned towards the man, eyes locked on him as he walks away. “Who is he?”

“Serial killer,” Raven says. “Kept the hands and feet of his victims.”

“Lovely,” Echo scoffs.

Emori feels sick. She holds her hand up, unclenching it so she can study it in all its stretched and twisted glory. “Guess that’s why he’s interested in me,” she says, dryly, as if making her voice as unbothered as possible with help her shake her fear. “It is one-of-a-kind.”

John turns to look at her and opens his mouth to say something, but Raven beats him to it. “We’re not going to let him hurt you, Emori.” Echo nods, placing a hand on her shoulder. It’s a weak promise – and one that neither of them have any power to keep – but she appreciates it all the same.

“I won’t,” John adds, and she doesn’t miss the emphasis on the first word, but she doesn’t have the energy to think about that. She knows he loves her still – knows it now in a way she wasn’t certain of before they talked in the rocket – but she will not budge on what she told him. A promise to protect her from an outside threat doesn’t mean that once all of this is over, he’ll still protect her from himself.

“He has a collar,” Echo points out. “Diyoza must not trust him.”

“I wouldn’t,” Raven snorts.

John finally takes a seat beside them. After one final glance back at the man, he leans in closer to the three of them and lowers his voice. “Any idea who has the remote to it?” he asks Raven. She shakes her head in the negative. John gestures towards the far side of the room where Shaw sits by himself. “Would your boy toy know?”

Raven glares at him. “I told you not to call him that.” And then her expression softens, considering. She glances back at Shaw. “I don’t know. I’ll ask him.”

“Think he’ll tell you?” John asks.

Raven shrugs. “He’s been helpful so far. And he doesn’t like Vinson any more than we do. But later.” She turns back to look at John. “What did Diyoza want with you?”

Emori tunes them out as he answers. She tries to pay attention, because Diyoza requesting to see him had twisted her stomach into knots – but John looks fine, and she can’t shake the encounter with Vinson from her head. She stares down at her hand, clenching and unclenching it absentmindedly, watching the shapes it makes as it moves. She’s studied her hand like this often throughout her life – memorizing the differences, the places it twisted where normal hands did not.

Echo notices. “You okay?” she asks, lowering her voice so they don’t interrupt the discussion on the other side of the table.

Emori nods, eyes locked on her hand. “It’s just – I’ve always been in danger because of my hand.” She looks up at Echo then, lowering it back to the table, and catches the guilty look that Echo tries to hide. She remembers those first few, uneasy months on the Ring, when Echo regurgitated every single belief the twelve clans held about mutants. But Echo has long since apologized for that – long since seen her differently than her clan taught her to – and Emori won’t hold the past against her when her friendship means so much.

“I wish I had kept it covered,” Emori whispers, even though the thought of going back to that place of fear and shame and secrecy makes her sick.

“You shouldn’t have to,” Echo says, voice steely with conviction.

“No, I shouldn’t,” Emori agrees, opening her hand back up to its full size again. When she looks up, she locks eyes with Vinson from across the room. He looks hungry. Emori feels like prey. “But sometimes it’s safer.”

Shaw doesn’t know who has the remote to Vinson’s collar. Emori’s not really sure it would have helped even if he did – she doubts any of the Eligius members would value her over one of their own, no matter how unstable and terrifying that man is. But John takes the news hard, slamming a fist against the table with a curse when Raven tells them, and Emori realizes he must have held onto that as their solution.

“We’ll just make sure one of us is with her at all times,” Echo says. Emori would be insulted at the suggestion that she couldn’t protect herself, if she wasn’t also so scared. Being a prisoner in a camp of enemies with a shock collar around her neck was already the worst situation she could think of – now she’s being targeted by someone even their enemies don’t trust.

“Maybe just stay within sight of the guards,” Raven suggests. “I mean,” she glances around at them as she asks, “do you think Diyoza would stop him if he got too violent?”

Emori scoffs. “Do you mean, do I think Diyoza would save the serial killer on her side or me?” She rolls her eyes. “Definitely the serial killer.”

Echo shakes her head. “We don’t know that. He could be a complication for her. If he gets too violent, it means she can’t control him.”

“Yeah, that’s why he has the collar,” John argues. “It doesn’t mean she’s going to kill him for Emori’s sake.”

“I didn’t say that,” Echo argues back. “But Emori could have useful information. Diyoza might value that – “

“I don’t know anything you don’t,” Emori interrupts her, shaking her head. “If she has the rest of you, I’m not that important.”

“Then make yourself important,” Echo orders, rounding on her.

“How?” Emori snaps, trying to control the anger in her voice – it isn’t really meant for Echo, anyways. “Raven knows more about machines than I do, so she doesn’t need me if she has her. And she doesn’t need a thief in her camp. What other skills do I have?”

Echo grins. “Knowledge. You know more about this world than anyone. I’ve barely traveled outside of Polis or my clan’s territory – and that’s the same for most of these prisoners. You know this world better than any of us.”

“Before Praimfiya maybe,” Emori argues. “No use knowing trade routes when all the traders are dead – or where to hunt or fish or anything that would be useful to her. The forests have all burned, and the land has changed. I don’t know it any better than you now.” She looks around at the others. Echo accepts her argument with a resigned sigh. Raven worries at her lip with her teeth. John is lost in thought. “We can’t rely on me being important enough to Diyoza to be protected. I’ll just have to stay away from him.”

“Fake Baylis,” John pipes up suddenly, and Emori almost gets whiplash from turning back to stare at him so suddenly. Hearing that name again for the first time in years stings like he’s slapped her.

“What?”

John locks eyes with her. She sees the fire in them and tries to ignore the way she feels warmed from the inside out. “The con with fake Baylis,” he says with certainty, and it clicks. She’s already filling in the pieces of his plan before he explains it. “You don’t have to actually be valuable to Diyoza – you just have to make her think you are.”

“You’re a con artist?” Diyoza asks. A smile pulls on her lips.

Emori nods. She feels like she’s being dissected as the older woman studies her. Diyoza’s eyes are sharp as knives, and she wonders if a lie will even hold under this kind of scrutiny. But like John reminded her, she’s good at this – lying. Even with a hundred new skills learned in space, this is still what she’s best at. Emori holds her expression still.

Diyoza leans back in her chair. There’s a weight to every movement she makes, some kind of great importance to every gesture – she holds a presence Emori hasn’t seen in another person since Luna, and as much as she hates to admit even in the security of her own mind, it intimidates her. She feels herself studying Diyoza back, tearing apart every movement for a meaning or a clue to the other woman’s thoughts.

This has to work, or else she’s revealed her hand and made herself a threat. This has to work, or else she’s unimportant and defenseless against the man who watches her like a wild, hungry animal.

“You wouldn’t tell me that unless you had an angle,” Diyoza points out, still sounding amused by the whole exchange.

“I do,” Emori confirms. “Survival.” Diyoza raises an eyebrow. There’s weight even in that gesture. “Echo told me she defected from Wonkru to join you. She’s my friend, and I trust her judgement – and I have no loyalty to Wonkru. I want a place here, so I’m telling you how I can be useful to you.”

Diyoza hums. She taps her fingers gently against the armrest of her chair. She looks as if she hasn’t a care in the world, but Emori’s familiar enough with acts to recognize one, even one as good as Diyoza’s. There are bags under her eyes. Her hair is falling lose from its ponytail. Her eyes are calculating, but there’s something like worry buried there too. The situation with McCreary is taking its toll on her.

“And why would I need a con artist?” Diyoza asks.

“Because I can help you take out McCreary,” Emori says confidently, and even if she hadn’t already been sure it was the right card to play, the way Diyoza’s eyes light up confirms it.

She shifts, leaning closer towards Emori. Her grin shifts from easy amusement into something slightly feral. “Congratulations, you have my attention,” she says. “Now tell me how you can do that.”

No one escorts her back to the church. The Eligius crew members clearly don’t consider any of them a threat while collared and weaponless, and Emori’s allowed to roam freely through the camp with only a few careful gazes accompanying her. They all know what would happen if she broke the perimeter, after all. The ugly burns on both John and Raven’s necks serve as good reminders.

Diyoza’s given them all long enough leashes to feel like they have some freedom, but short enough they’ll choke on them if they try to run.

She’s anxious to tell the others how her meeting with Diyoza went. Her heart is still settling down from it. Sitting across from Diyoza in a closed room felt a lot like being trapped with a mountain lion. McCreary had scared her too – in the way Baylis always had, because he was a force of pure violence and hatred – but Diyoza was something else entirely.

She’s almost back to the church when a hand grabs her wrist and holds her in place. She jerks her head to find Vinson and thinks suddenly that if Diyoza was like a mountain lion, Vinson was a boar - far less predictable and even more ferocious. The terror she’d felt earlier in the room doesn’t even come close to what she feels being touched by this man. His eyes flick down to her hand before returning to her face, and she wants to vomit.

“Where are you going?” he asks, still in that almost polite, quiet voice that sends chills down her spine purely because of how wrong it sounds.

“Back to the church,” she replies, keeping her voice even. It won’t help her to let the predator know how scared of him she is.

“Alone? Have your friends all been given jobs in the camp?” Are they coming for you, she hears easily, and she doesn’t know if they have or not, if they will come or not, but she grasps desperately for a lie.

“I have also. Diyoza gave me one,” she settles on, because if there’s any connection she could use as a threat, it’d be that one. Maybe if he thinks taking her out will make Diyoza upset, he’ll back off. “I’m heading to it now.”

“Are you? Do you need help getting there?”

“Emori! There you are!”

Emori has never been happier to hear Raven’s voice in her life. She and Vinson both turn to see Raven striding towards them as quickly as she can, her face hard with anger. “I’ve been looking all over for you.” She levels a cold stare at Vinson as she comes to a stop beside them. “Sorry to interrupt your conversation,” she says dryly, not even trying to disguise the lie. “She’s helping me with some machines Diyoza wanted, and I need to take her.”

Vinson only smiles. Emori wants to claw it off his face. “Looks like you don’t need my help.”

“No. She’s good,” Raven snaps.

Vinson removes his hand and nods at both of them before leaving, and it’s not until he turns a corner around one of the buildings that Emori feels like she can breathe again. Raven lays a hand on her arm. When Emori turns to look at her, her face is soft again with concern. “You alright?” she asks.

“I’m fine.”

“Come on. Let’s get back to the church,” Raven suggests. Emori’s quick to agree.

It turns out that John has been given a job in the camp. Raven’s off the hook after repurposing the sonic cannon for medical use – until Diyoza finds another use for her, of course, as she’s quick to point out – and both Echo and Emori are allowed to roam freely to use the skills they both told Diyoza about, but John is assigned a job and expected to work a shift alongside the other prisoners – or defectors, they’re all the same really.

Emori finds him in the main clearing outside of the Eligius ship, splitting logs with an axe. He’s clearly been at it for a while, perhaps the entire morning, even; there’s a pile of already split logs beside him, and the back of his shirt is drenched through with sweat. She watches his arms as he lifts the axe high and swings down forcefully, eyeing the way the muscles bulge with the effort, the way they shine with sweat, and wishes want didn’t heat her insides through at the sight. It’s not fair that she should still be so stupidly attracted to him after all he’s put her through.

“This is the job Diyoza assigned you?” Emori asks as she approaches. John’s taken a break between swings, wiping at the sweat dripping down his forehead with little success. He turns to face her at the sound of her voice.

“Yup,” he says with false enthusiasm. “Guess she saw how strong and manly I am.”

Emori can’t contain the snort that bursts out of her.

John frowns at her. “Hey,” he says, voice flat.

She smiles at him innocently, before the moment catches up with her, and she suddenly feels strange laughing and grinning at him like everything’s okay and he didn’t take her heart firmly between his hands and crush it slowly over the course of several years. The moment feels wrong. It feels like something that should stay only in the past. Emori’s grin falls off; she grows somber, awkward and unsure how to proceed. John mirrors her.

Emori sighs and looks out at the camp. There are two Eligius members eyeing them carefully. “I don’t like being here, John,” she says softly.

She wants to watch John’s expression, but not as much as she wants to avoid it completely, so she doesn’t know how he reacts to that. He surprises her when he asks, “Did he come up to you again?”

Emori nods. She doesn’t trust her voice not to reveal her terror if she speaks, and it feels strange to share that kind of vulnerability with him now.

“I think it’s time to make our exit then.”

It sounds so easy when he says it like that, but she feels like an animal caught in a trap, defenseless and just as scared. “How?” she hisses quietly, wary of people overhearing them. She turns back to face him so she can lower her voice even further. “John, there are always guards in the church watching us, and there’s no place in there to hide. There’s always people out here. If we go a couple yards outside the camp perimeter, we get electrocuted. And now I need to get four collars off fast enough that we don’t get caught.”

John’s face falls with each point she makes, and then he grows defensive, bristling as he argues, “Alright, I’m an idiot and now we’re going to die – is that what you want to hear?”

“That’s not what I said! I’m saying the plan failed and we need a new one – “

“Because your plan would be so much better, right?” he snaps.

“I agreed!” she nearly shouts, before she forces herself lower her voice. “We were both desperate enough to try it, but it failed, and we can’t just stick with it – that’s not a survivor’s move, John.”

He tightens his grip on the axe, then swings heavily down on the logs with a loud, angry grunt. Emori stiffens as a guard turns to watch them, only relaxing when he loses interest.

Aaaaaaand that’s where it ends, guys, sorry. Thanks for reading! Sorry there’s no real conclusion.

#memori #memori fic #my stories

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clarkegriffintitties · 6 years

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okay so it’s one of THOSE nights where I’m very emotional about bellarke and I just need in literally any capacity for one of them to ask the other to stay. they’ve left and walked away from each other so many times, the universe always pulling them apart, i just need one simple little “stay.” ITS ALL I WANT. - hc anon

my hand slipped im sorry

read on ao3

God, how did everything go so wrong? One second, she was content. It was just her, Madi, and that stupid radio holding her memories of Bellamy afloat. Within the blink of an eye, all that she had fought for, the home she had built, and the peace she had acquired vanished quietly, yet chaotically, into the night.

It was too much to take in, too much to process. Monty and Harper had stayed behind to keep watch of Earth. If only they had known it was never coming back; if only they had known it’d take them too long to crack the Eligius III file. And now, they were gone. Dead. This was the final straw. They really screwed it up this time. She screwed it up. It was her fault. After all, if she had just killed McCreary when she had the chance, none of this would have happened. Her hesitation led to the end of the world, again, and the death of two of her closest friends. They were never coming back and that was thanks to her. Now, their dying wish was to throw her back into a position of power, placing their child’s future in the palm of her hands. Well, not just hers, Bellamy’s too.

Oh, Bellamy. They used to understand exactly what the other was thinking with just one look. One glance, one touch, one word, and they were taking on the world, shoulder to shoulder. She couldn’t have made it through all those days without him. From the moment she set foot on the ground, she was alone. That was, until her and Bellamy decided to lead alongside each other. Everything made sense. They were their most rational selves when together. Over the months, something changed between them. Hell if she knew at the time, but now, it was all so obvious. How ignorant had she been to push those feelings away, to reason that there wasn’t time for such niceties. She would give anything to go back and risk it all for the sweet release of those three words on her lips.

However, the world was a cruel place, now more than ever. It wanted to tear them apart. Six years ago she would have said the universe had a way of bringing them together despite all forces. Fast forward 131 years and they were more like strangers than the partners they had grown so used to. Since Bellamy returning to the ground, they only drifted farther apart. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. She had imagined every possible scenario, and this was not one of them. They were supposed to finally have the chance to be one, breathing life into one another with every beat of their hearts, not on opposite sides of the ocean, playing a game of tug of war with the tide.

She can’t blame him; she knows this. But in times like these, after everything Jordan just dumped on her, she can’t help but feel the resent rattle through her bones, sneaking into the darkest corners of her mind. So instead, she sits, off in a secluded corner of the ship, lost in her own pity.

She has numbed herself enough over the years that the tears no longer fall, rather awaiting their final judgement behind the curtains of her eyes. She is leaning against a barren wall, marveled that her fingers who, in the past, would have itched to dance across the cement with a piece of charcoal, are now seeking a much more physical relief found in the impact of naked knuckles against still walls.

Her shoulders tense at the sound of incoming footsteps, already knowing who it is with the weight of his gate. She thought that over the six years she’d forget his every detail, but she was foolishly mistaken. Those same memories preyed upon her vulnerable state each day.

He walks into the room, suspecting it to be vacant. Clarke remains silent, watching the way his body contorts into one of a small, fearful boy. Both of his hands lift to thread into his damp curls, still just barely chilled from the frozen chamber he had slept in. His face twists into one of agony, then disbelief, before finally settling into anger. He crouches down, running sweaty palms over his tired face, lifting his eyes to greet Clarke’s. They stay there for a tentative moment, captive.

“Shit,” he immediately jumps up. “Uh, sorry. Didn’t mean to barge in on you there.”

Clarke doesn’t say anything, just holds his gaze. She always knew she’d meet him again, whether it be in another lifetime or in her dreams, but not like this; not here. He came thundering down from the sky, her crystalized wish. Now, they had returned to the cursed clouds through failure alone, and were expected to sink back into the rhythm they had long lost.

When Clarke doesn’t respond, Bellamy turns to leave. “I’m just going to…” he points his finger in the direction of the door, holding her stare for a beat longer, contemplating, then shakes his head in defeat.

But maybe she could still hope, if only for a moment.

“Wait, Bellamy,” He looks back at her, and for a brief second, she could have sworn she saw a glimmer of something she couldn’t quite place in him. “Stay.” She tries to sound less broken than she actually is. It didn’t work.

Bellamy’s entire form relaxes, along with a staggered breath. With a tight-lipped smile, he walks over to her.

Clarke feels like a trapped rabbit, Bellamy, the predator just out of reach as he closes the distance between them. What was it about him that made her feel so scared, so little? Or was it herself that she was terrified of, the possibility of slipping into unwarranted territory with him?

He lowers himself next to her, close enough that their shoulders are touching. He nudges his arm against hers, almost playfully.

“Hey, we can do this.” he whispers, his eyes searching hers for a response, anything.

The combination of the heat radiating between them and his voice so close, just like how it used to be in her nightmares, is too much to bear.

Clarke could usually keep her composure around others, but for some reason, a reason she now understands, with Bellamy, even her best attempts would fail. After all this time, he still knew when she was faking it.

As her sobs take over, as she let the grief wash away her impurities, Bellamy wraps his arm around her for the second time that day. Clarke leans into his touch, this time turning into him, allowing herself to truly be held for the first time in who knows how long, nestling her own arm around his torso.

The minutes wear on. She knew her tears must be soaking through Bellamy’s shirt, so she tries to unfold herself from his embrace, but instead, he only brings a hand to her hair, keeping her still.

“Shh, it’s okay, Clarke,” he soothes with his lips pressed to the top of her head. “I know.”

She sinks into him, melting against him and hoping it would be enough to disappear. The world was trying to separate them, tear the bonds they held to each other, and reasonably so. They didn’t belong to each other, not really. He found a home somewhere else along the way while she was still searching in him for one for six years. She couldn’t anymore. It wasn’t right and she had to live with that, accept it.

They may not have eternity as she had hoped, but they still have this one, fleeting escape of reality that she will hold onto until her lungs are weak, helplessly searching for that final goodnight’s kiss.

#bellamy blake #clarke griffin #bellarke #bellamy x clarke #the 100 #bellarke headcanons #bellake drabble #bellarke oneshot #bellarke fanfiction #the 100 fanfiction #the 100 headcanons #hc nonnie #my writing #Anonymous #answered

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