go float yourself | murphy | the 100

chapter two

you absentmindedly sharpen a stick with your makeshift knife, the shavings going all over your mud caked shoes. you decide to take what you think is a well deserved break, chucking your stick onto the pile of others you had previously completed. standing up, you take a look around the camp. you still couldn’t quite believe you were here. on earth. you hadn’t really decided if you liked it yet. sure, you liked the smell, the air, the sense of freedom you never really had in the ark, but you weren’t particularly fond of the danger. of the grounders. of the constant, dull aching in your joints. 

you walk around your pile of sticks, now set on finding clarke to tell her how amazing you were; when you hear the faint hum of her voice coming from your left. you jog over to the sound and lean against a tree, a few meters away from where people were gathering to see what was going on. she was speaking to the group about going to find the sacred mount weather. wells pipes up about something and you roll your eyes. wells infuriated you. it’s fair to say you disliked him, but so did everyone else in this shithole. he’s the counsellors son. why wouldn’t you hate him?

you raise an eyebrow when murphy pushes wells with his shoulder, just like he did to you yesterday. although you note that he did it a lot lighter to you. “alright, counsellor of earth”

“you think that’s funny?” wells questions. you can sense that it’s about to get good, so you leave your space by the tree and plant yourself next to clarke, giving her a confused look. your eyes shoot back to the scene when you hear wells’ body hit the floor with a large thump. clarke yells out to stop, but a boy holds her back, much to her distaste. you push yourself past the boy and raise an unimpressed eyebrow at the scene that’s unfolding out in front of you.

“you’re outta luck, wells” murphy smirks, and you glare at the back of his head. fuck this whole soulmate thing. no way. no fucking way. 

“alright” murphy shrugs as wells stands up, his hands balled in fists in front of him. murphy lunges at wells and your heart stops as you push someone out the way so you too, are in the fight. you put a hand on wells’ shoulder and look over at murphy. whatever you were going to say now was tattooed on murphy’s wrist in thick, black ink, forever. part of you wanted to say something ridiculous like, ‘i like big dicks’ but another part of you realised that this was serious, and that you could have just witnessed murphy beat somebody half to death.

you settle on, “have you ever tried not being a dick?” and turn away sharpish so you can’t see his reaction. you look over at clarke and then back at wells “clarke will help you with your leg.”

“thank you” wells stutters out

“this doesn’t make us friends.” you say dismissively. you just didn't want to see someone get killed, already. unity was essential right now, you told yourself.

“back to your posts, everyone” bellamy’s voice echoes throughout the forest and the crowd disperses.

“why are you here?” you turn around to face murphy and raise an eyebrow

“what do you mean?”

“why did they send you down here?”

“i made a bet. i lost it.” you shrug, not wanting to expand on the still raw betrayal. “it’s as simple as that. what about you?”

murphy looks you up and down “the government didn’t give me a choice” he looks down at the ground, kicking the dirt beneath him

you walk over to him, and before you can stop yourself, you take his wrist, examining the thick black ink. and sure enough, the eight words you had just said sat calmly on his wrist. ‘have you ever tried not being a dick?’

“that’s a life lesson right there. you should make a note of that.” you joke, and to your surprise he chuckles and takes your wrist in his hand. you note how gentle he’s being, almost as if he’s scared to break you or scare you off. he runs a finger across your tattoo, looking up at you after a while “i guess i could have said something nicer”

you raise your eyebrows and take your wrist back “how were you to know?”

a few seconds of silence fill the deep forest before you gather the confidence say something. “i don’t like you” you manage to get out.

he looks a bit taken back, frowning over at you “why?”, as if he was shocked that anyone could not like him.

“you’re a dick. i don’t care what our damn tattoos say.”

he looks at you for a few moments, obviously trying to process what had just happened. “not soulmates?” he says after a while, holding out a hand for you to shake.

“not soulmates.” you agree, taking his hand in yours, ignoring the pit in your stomach and the soft whispering in your head telling you otherwise.