Title: i’m just a crisis that doesn’t want to be solved
Fandom: the 100
Rating: mature
Length: ~1k
Author notes: blood and gore, cannibalism, season 5, non-linear

She is no longer the girl that lives beneath the floors. She is the leader, the uniter, of her people. She is the reason they are not starving, the reason they continue to survive. She’s become so much more than she ever dared to dream of.

She is no longer the girl that hides beneath the floors- but still, there is no sun in the bunker.

.

Octavia has always been in love with the earth, everyone on the ark was. Indoctrinated really, with all the most common prayers about the eventual return to the ground. She didn’t believe Bellamy when he told her about the little tree that wasted water every day in the name of religion. (Her mother verified it was true, their little piece of earth.) How many times did she sleep under the floor, dreaming of the day Bellamy opened the door and sunlight streamed in? The smell of grass and foliage, of life all around her. To no longer breathe recycled air, to be free.

It’s only natural that she should be drawn to the earth’s embodiment, to the lush and precious Gaia.

Gaia has taken her mother’s spot at her right side. It feels like a convoluted game of theft. Octavia steals Gaia’s abandoned position, Gaia steals Indra’s position, Gaia steals what cannot be stolen again.

(Her thrice damned heart, a mystery that it still beats.)

.

She likes the taste.

Octavia wishes she could trick herself better. Blame it on the bland, mostly water vegetable broth that accompanies it. Blame it on the fact that the meat has more flavor than anything else she’s eaten in years. Blame it on how long they’ve been doing this, that they were bound to become desensitized to it eventually.

Through the teeth and over the gums.

All of me for all of us.

(Sometimes when her mouth is full of Gaia’s pussy, she imagines biting down. Imagines the taste.)

.

She remembers reading about the effect of deficient sunlight on humans. Higher chances of depression, slower metabolism, heart problems, bones aching, a weaker immune system, sleep issues.

None of which convinced her mother she needed to spend more time near the ark’s windows, star gazing. The non-artificial always enchanted her.

Bell brought her more books instead, and she read them all a dozen times over. Even the boring non-fiction books; anything to escape for a little while.

.

“I’ll still support a Nightblood first,” Gaia says, and Octavia can’t decide if she’s more amused or impressed by the woman’s faith. That she’s so certain more Nightbloods are out there, hidden and surviving. She’s felt the tin before when undressing Gaia, knows where she keeps the Flame. (Is it arrogance or weakening faith or trust?)

Octavia doesn’t bother voicing such thoughts, they don’t matter. They very well may never return to the surface. There’s no point in stressing over statistical improbabilities.

No point in doing anything besides surviving; hoarding what happiness can be scraped up. (She kisses Gaia, steals the very breath from her lungs.)

.

She used to play a game on the ark. Counting each of her heartbeats, eyes shut tight. 87 reasons to stay hidden, 104 stolen moments, 138 unsanctioned beats.

Ear pressed to her chest, she counts Gaia’s heartbeats as she softly snores. 56 reasons to stay alive, 92 stolen touches, 127 steadying beats.

For a priestess without a commander, she sleeps rather easily. Then again, perhaps it is easier to guard a small chip than a sentient person. Perhaps it is easier to sleep with faith, to know you are doing right by your gods.

Gaia is safe to love.

Gaia cannot be killed, it would ruin everything, from her status with the devout Wonkru to staying in this bunker. (There is no need to escape into the remaining books, to pretend this isn’t her life. They’ve all done horrible things- some more than others- escaping feels not dishonorable, but still, insulting somehow.)

Gaia is the safest bet, that’s all. Her own feelings, while nice, are irrelevant.

.

Sometimes Octavia misses the ark. The simplicity, the mundanity. Her mother and Bell being her whole world. Empty longing that never came to anything. There was a fear of death, but no understanding of it. Certainly none of the carnal knowledge she can’t forget.

Her mother would be horrified at what she’s become.

Bell would understand.

(Right?)

.

Blood reigns, and Octavia stands before the mirror, about to make her morning cut. She’s done it enough times to know precisely how shallow and long to cut, to not have a drop of blood wasted and the quickest healing time. A whole new way to be intimate with her own body, and gods, she’s become far too knowing of anatomy. Of how deep to slit a throat without risking decapitation but ensuring death, of how to slice the right-

“Use my blood,” Gaia murmurs, voice still thick with sleep.

Octavia’s fingers tremble, nearly drop the knife. “I wouldn’t shed your blood so needlessly.”

Because Gaia is important politically. Anything else would be weakness, isn’t applicable.

Gaia chuckles, bones cracking as she stretches. Half-naked, her pert breasts rise up high and O nearly scolds her for the blatant distraction- they need to get to the fighting pits soon. Gaia walks behind her in the mirror, as if the shadow, a parody of reality- and she takes her hand, slips it into her undergarments.

“It sheds itself.”

(They are late. Not that anyone says anything. Octavia’s face shines with blood, her chin and cheeks and mouth soaked with it.)

.

She’s happy.

It feels blasphemous to think, much less to imagine saying it. There’s suffering all around her, they’re eating people for fuck’s sake, nothing should be alright.

She’s happy.

Gaia is intertwined with her every night, as they trade stories and saliva and sympathies.

(She would do atrocious things to live like this forever. Namely: she would live like this forever.)

.

Bellamy breaks open their ceiling, sunlight streaming in with him.

She can taste change in the fresh air, could choke on it.

What is a queen without her kingdom?

(She will never again be the girl under the floors.)