Taming Chaos // J.M // The 100

Chapter 7

It was like dominos.

Wells fell, and just like the start of a big picture, the remaining tiles fell with him.

It had been a long week since the incident. Bellamy thinks the grounders found Wells alone on watch and seized the chance to mess with them. Clarke is, understandably, heartbroken. She tells Ethan that she'd finally fixed things with Wells, about how they were friends once more, about how her own mother outed her father and was the reason he got floated, not Wells.

It's terrible timing. And it explains why she's starting to lose that spark in her fading smile.

And Ethan? He doesn't know how much longer going with the flow is going to last.

Harper McIntyre smiles when he approaches, the grin on his face looking a bit crooked with the fading bruises. "Hey, Harper. My best buddy, my go-to girl,"

They'd met parading around a campfire - with Bellamy's declared whatever the hell we want thrumming through their bones. Jamming with the rest of the hundred trying, and failing, to make music. It was the thought that counted, because the younger kids happened to find it hilarious. Their dancing as well as the off-beat drums.

She might seem outwardly shy, but Ethan can see the determination in her eyes, the urge to run wild.

Harper rolls her eyes, good-naturedly, "What's up, Ethan?"

"Where did you possibly find any hair-ties?" He eyes the lackeys around her wrist with an arched brow.

"Sorry, we already divided them up between us. Tyesha's trying to make some more." She tilts her head, the shy smile on her face growing, "I'll tell you what, if you can braid my hair then I'll let you keep my second one."

He parts his lips.

But she cuts him off before he can say anything, "And I've seen you do it, so don't try lying."

Ethan huffs a laugh. "The price of a hair-tie is my labour. I'll take it."

While Harper is someone he definitely gets along with, he still has trouble understanding how a friendship begins. As awkward as teenagers are, they struggle to keep a conversation going when he sits her down in the dropship.

Instead, he rambles to fill the silence. 

It was his mother, Lorelai, who taught him how to recycle fabric into clothing, how to fix rips and tears and how to braid. Small things, but it was enough to make him feel useful.

There's a fondness he feels for the repetitive criss-cross motion, something so meagre but, for some, a couple of minutes to look forward to.

And Harper was a brilliant way to get back into it.

"What station were you from again?" She asks.

He gently tugs another strand into his fingers, "Mum worked in Factory Station. I was gonna join her, but, well," He scoffs, "We all saw how that went."

Harper smiles tightly, "Yeah, me too."

"Nice. I wonder if we were neighbours."

He receives a small laugh out of her and in a beat, Harper shifts in her chair, "What'd they catch you for?"

Ethan's fingers waver. He stares forward at the wall, lips parted but no words making their way out until he notices she's frozen as well, hands curling anxiously into fists. 

"Funny story, actually," He begins, blinking himself out of it, "There were these guards playing games in the cafeteria. I wanted a pack of playing cards. The rest can tell itself."