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chapter three!
HEART OF DARKNESS
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WHEN BLAKE LEAVES in the middle of the night to God-knows-where, Ares doesn't question it. He simply rises from his claimed cot inside of his very own tent and quietly tiptoes into the open air.

He has to admit that it's strange not having to share everything with Nate anymore. They'd each managed to snag tents of their own (and it totally wasn't because Ares impulsively grabbed one for him, or anything) so now they're merely neighbors instead of roommates.

As Ares creeps past Nate's new living quarters, he doesn't need to have x-ray vision to know what he's doing. Nate suffers from insomnia. He's likely staring at the canvas ceiling with his hands folded on his stomach, thinking either of his father or his boyfriend.

Sometimes, when Nate couldn't sleep, he'd pass the time by talking and keep both of them up. Ares didn't mean to actually pay attention to his hours of rambling. However, he soon realized he couldn't help himself and now knows more about David Miller and Bryan than he knows about literally anyone else. And he hasn't even met the two people.

Ares continues his careful voyage toward Blake's tent. Because he doesn't know when their unofficial leader will return, he uses his lanky legs to his advantage by bounding across the soil. It luckily absorbs his footfalls due to its soft sponginess. Not that many people are awake anymore— it must be well past midnight at this hour. Only a handful of kids mill aimlessly around or sit around the numerous campfires scattered throughout their territory.

Normally, he'd mentally run through all of the tips he'd learned about stealing. Be quiet. Don't look suspicious-- make it look like you're supposed to be where you are and people will be less skeptical. Complete your task and go. But now, this list only runs through his mind out of sheer habit. He wants to be caught this time.

The boy finally reaches the tent he knows to be Blake's and immediately gets to work unscrewing the poles from the ground. They'd spent the majority of yesterday setting up the poorly-made living quarters after Ares had discovered them in the dropship. Some kids had preferred to sleep in the spacecraft. Even so, it seems that they're one step closer to establishing some sort of society down here.

And it'll all go to hell if Blake's whatever the hell we want bullshit actually sticks.

Ares can't help but grin to himself as he works on nimbly separating each piece of the tent's frame. Clarke will shit her pants once she returns. Another name for the blonde-haired girl might be Control Freak-- take the steering wheel away from her and she doesn't know how to operate anymore. Oh, he'll have a field day whenever she comes back to see what happened while she was gone.

He feels a pinprick on the back of his neck and turns around to see a young girl watching him. He recognizes her as one of the girls who'd chosen to get her wristband taken off— Fox, he thinks he'd heard someone call her. Her large, doe eyes observe his actions carefully as he continues to dismantle the tent even though he's been caught. She has her hands tucked into the sleeves of her coat protectively. Warily. Of what he's doing, but also of him in general.

Great. A fifteen-year-old girl is terrified of him, too.

Ignoring the girl peering at him from behind a tree, he wipes the now-dried mud on his hands from the earlier downfall onto the canvas. The poles are tucked beneath his left arm as he drapes the fabric over them. He gives Fox a flash of his teeth and chuckles as she scurries away. Carelessly whistling a meaningless tune, he heads back toward his own tent with Blake's dismantled one in his arms.

Ares tosses the poles and canvas onto his floor carelessly. The metal clangs together noisily, likely loud enough to wake up anyone sleeping within a twenty-foot radius of him. Then, he removes his jacket so he's just in his green hoodie and flops onto his cot. The next step is to wait.

A few moments later, his gaze snags onto a shadow growing along the wall, signaling that someone is coming closer. It can't be Blake already, can it?

As the figure pushes the entrance flap aside and pokes their head in, Ares confirms that it is, in fact, not the black-haired guard who's paying him a visit. It's Nate. The dark-skinned boy glances at the poles and crumpled-up canvas to the right of his cot before trailing his gaze toward Ares. He doesn't look surprised, just mildly incredulous. "Why."

"Blake is going to get us all killed with his 'Whatever the hell we want' mindset," Ares replies simply as he tucks his hands under his head as a makeshift pillow. "I intend to prove to him how shitty of an idea it is."

Nate invites himself in and sits cross-legged on the floor, raising an eyebrow at his former cellmate. "He's going to hang you by your bootlaces on the nearest tree, dude."

"And I can stab him for it." Ares reaches into the back pocket of his black denim pants and presents a small knife crafted from dropship metal. "And stab him again." He sits up and feels along his sock before presenting another knife he'd kept hidden in his boot. "Don't you see? It's an endless cycle of shit. No conflicts will be solved. There's no order, no rules, no reason for anyone to stay in check."

Yes, Ares thrives off of chaos, but at a moderate level. This is what he meant when he said they'd be killed by their own idiocy within a week. No laws regulating their new society will undoubtedly cause the extinction of the small remainder of the human race. And he'll keep causing a ruckus while he can.

Instead of responding to his rationalization, Nate squints and puckers his lips, a sign he's deep in thought. Finally, he asks, "How many knives do you have?"

"Five."

"Jesus." He blows a puff of air out of his mouth that might be a laugh. "So that's why you were nowhere to be found after building your own tent— you left to go make some weapons? Why am I even surprised at this point?"

Ares tosses one on the ground near Nate and slides the other back into his boot. "Murphy has some. I don't trust that kid."

"Who does?"

"Good point."

Nate hesitates a moment before leaning forward and picking the dropship knife up from the ground. The handle has been rounded to lessen the chance of injury, then wrapped in some green twine Ares had found in a random drawer. It seems that, when the dropship was stocked with supplies, the people in charge had just tossed random shit in there that wasn't needed on the Ark anymore. Despite that fact, he's glad he found it, because his former cellmate gives him an appreciative nod.

"You might wanna leave," Ares suggests, not angrily but in a rare moment of looking out for Nate's best interest. "I don't know when Blake's coming back, but when he does, someone's going to rat me out and it won't be fun. You don't need to be roped in it, too."

Nate stares at him for a moment. Then, slowly, a grin works its way onto his face. "Aww, Res, I knew there was a part of you that gave a shit about me."

"Stay here any longer and it might go away," Ares half-threatens with a sarcastic quirk of his lip.

"I'm shaking in my boots," Nate replies dryly, standing up and brushing invisible dirt off the backside of his jeans. "See ya, man. Hope you don't get killed overnight. I kinda like having you around."

Ares' smile stretches as he watches the boy leave and close the flap behind him. Out of all of the people he'll be forced to spend time with, he'll probably choose to be around Nate. Seeing a familiar face keeps him grounded. It's a firm reminder that, despite all of the judgmental stares he receives throughout the day, someone knows the truth about him.

His eyelids are heavy, he realizes after a few moments of pointlessly staring at the ceiling of his circular tent. Blake will wake him up when he discovers his missing tent and he's inevitably ratted out, but in the meantime, he can get some well-deserved sleep.

So Ares closes his eyes and tumbles into his first slumber on Earth.

════ ⋆★⋆ ════

He's confused when he opens his eyes and doesn't have a few missing fingers or toes. In fact, when he groggily turns his gaze to his right, he discovers that the wadded-up canvas and discarded poles are lying on the floor untouched. His eyebrows crease together as he pushes himself up into a sitting position. How had Blake not noticed?

Judging by the light filtering inside of his tent, tinting everything a ghastly shade of yellow, it's early morning or something close to it. Time for another day on this hectic planet— another day of fooling around and serving Blake's ass to him on a silver platter.

Ares rises and shrugs his jacket back on. The tent had provided at least a little bit of insulation to protect him from the cool outside air, but it would still be useful to have some blankets to keep him even warmer. Of course the stockers of the dropship could remember freaking twine but not a single blanket. Because some thick yarn is exactly what they'll need on Earth. Never mind freezing to death.

He pokes his head out of his tent and blinks against the sunlight already bathing their makeshift camp in a warm glow. Some of last night's fires are still burning, but barely, trailing more smoke into the air than flame. Others seem to have just been started. It's crisp and cool and smells barely acrid enough to irritate his nose. It twitches in response to the scent of smoke, which he's obviously not used to yet.

Nobody looks at him any differently than they had yesterday. He realizes this after fully emerging into the open forest and shaking the sleep out of his long legs, taking his sweet, sweet time in doing so. Nothing.

Suspicious.

Ares glances at Nate's tent to discover the flap half-open, meaning he's already awake and nowhere to be seen. He twists his mouth to the side. This seems too easy to get away with. Had Fox actually kept her trap shut?

"Hey, asshole!"

Ah, here it comes.

Any remaining traces of slumber vanish from Ares' system as soon as he turns around and locks eyes with an enraged John Murphy. The boy's mousey brown hair hangs in his sadistic blue eyes like he's trying to make himself look more frightening. It doesn't work— although Ares is wary of Murphy, he's a far cry from being afraid of him.

A smirk adorns his face as he mentally goes through the list of weapons on his body and casually slides a hand into his jacket pocket. "Actually, the name's Ares, but hey, they both start with 'A', so I understand the confusion of a shit-for-brains like yourself."

He's referencing the fact that yesterday, Murphy had written a threat for Wells on the dropship with his knife, but only succeeded in embarrassing himself by misspelling a word. First son, first to dye is not very intimidating.

"Cut the shit," Murphy sneers in a voice like a whip, crackling through the cool air enough that they quickly have a silent audience of bystanders. The boy stomps on the soil until he's close enough to shove Ares back. "You think you can just get away with stealing what isn't yours?"

"I'm sorry, I thought we didn't have rules." Ares curls his hand. He'd let Murphy push him, let him think he'd had the upper hand for a moment. "Unless that only applies to you and Blake."

With a snarl, Murphy yanks a knife out of his back pocket. It's the same one he'd had yesterday— created out of dropship metal, made familiar by the yellow stripes along the bent handle. Ares' devilish grin widens as he flicks his wrist out of his pocket and brandishes his own knife. A fair fight... for the most part.

The younger boy pounces first. Moving out of pure rage and seemingly without a plan of attack, he lunges with the knife out to impale him in the chest. Ares dodges his blow with ease and quickly side-steps so they've switched positions. Before Murphy can realize what's happening, Ares grabs him by the front of his coat and shoves him backward— right into the ditch he'd strategically placed his tent near. Only things don't go completely as planned. Murphy reaches out blindly and grabs onto his arm, yanking them both down onto lower ground in a series of painful rolls and tumbles. Stones and tree roots jab into his back as the world somersaults around him.

Ares lands on his back with an audible "Oof." He'd dropped his knife sometime during the fall. He reaches into his back pocket to retrieve another one, realizing a second too late that he'd given that one to Nate last night. Curse his rare moment of civility; it may cost him his life.

He instinctively hurtles into a roll on the dirt when he senses Murphy approaching. A blade swings where his back had been moments ago. Popping back up to his feet, he leans back and jerks himself side-to-side to avoid the kid's violent swings. But in the end, it's not the knife that knocks him down. It's Murphy's fist.

Ares hears the crack before he feels the pain. In fact, it doesn't hurt, not even when he slams to his knees and receives a slash to the cheek while he's down. He just sees the blood dripping onto the soil as he swipes his leg out and sends Murphy crashing to the ground.

His eyes water from the pain, but not enough to obscure his vision. Blood. Blood, red and slippery and red and red and—

"Stop!" Wells' voice yells from somewhere behind him, but it sounds muffled to his ears as if he's listening to a low-quality video. So Ares ignores him and brings a hand up to his face to wipe the liquid gushing from his nose, only to recoil at the burst of white-hot agony at the gentle contact.

The kid is starting to get up. Ares slips another hidden knife out of the waistband of his jeans, a rather dull blade so it doesn't slice his skin open while it's concealed against his bare skin. He moves quickly in spite of the splintering pain in his nose and sends a powerful kick into Murphy's side. The boy cries out in response and curls up into a ball in an attempt to protect himself.

Oh, fighting. How he'd missed it.

"Ares!" Wells' desperate shouting is a bit clearer now. In fact, it almost sounds like it's—

The fighting instincts cause Ares to whirl around and lift the point of the knife to Wells' chin just as he tries to intervene. The Chancellor's son raises his hands in innocence, holding Ares' gaze with simmering rage in his brown eyes. He applies just enough pressure so the knife nudges the skin of his neck to the side without tearing it.

"This doesn't involve you, Jaha," Ares says in a deadly calm voice. He's fully aware of what he must look like right now— blood still gushing from his aching nose and likely staining his teeth as he raises a challenging eyebrow. More blood dripping from the stinging laceration on his cheek. "Back away and you won't get hurt."

Wells sets his jaw and holds his stare for a few more seconds before wisely taking a retreating step. When he moves, Ares catches a glimpse of Blake standing on higher ground above the ditch. There's an amused smirk on his face. Ares' sinister grin fades into a foul frown at the sight.

The taller boy turns back toward Murphy, who's finally starting to rise to his feet again. But they're interrupted by an entirely new set of voices before one of them can pounce into an attack.

"Stop!"

It's distinctly female, and Ares almost can't place it until he looks in that direction and sees a familiar group of people returning from their trip to Mount Weather: Clarke, Collins, Octavia, and Goggle Kid's friend. But no sign of Goggle Kid. They had brought him with them, hadn't they?

Blake instantly comes to the aid of his sister, who's being half-carried by Goggle Kid's friend in the maroon sweatshirt. She's limping heavily and grimaces in pain as her brother helps her sit on a nearby log. Collins plops onto a separate one with his chest heaving. Clarke has a distinctly haunted expression on her usually guarded face. He notices that her hair is messier than it had been before she'd left, sections of it falling out of the pins securing the front strands behind her head. From running.

Something had gone wrong.

Blake, seemingly oblivious to this fact, glances at Clarke expectantly. "Where's the food?"

"We didn't make it to Mount Weather," Collins reports through a heavy sigh.

Blake blinks, the movement containing both outrage and confusion. "What the hell happened out there?"

"We were attacked," Clarke replies, the stark fear in her voice enough to pique Ares' interest.

"Attacked?" Wells repeats. "By what?"

"Not what— who." Ares' gaze switches to Collins, who shifts his weight on the wood and leans forward until his elbows are resting on his knees. "Turns out, when the last man from the Ground died on the Ark, he wasn't the last Grounder."

Clarke nods, her mouth pressed into a grim line as she addresses the wider berth of people surrounding them. "It's true. Everything we thought we knew about the Ground is wrong. There are people here; survivors. The good news is that means we can survive. Radiation won't kill us."

"Yeah, but the bad news is that the Grounders will," Collins grumbles lowly, effectively killing the mood.

Ares feels the tension crackling in the air, dancing along his skin and raising the hairs on his arms like he's been struck by static electricity. The rest of the people are silent. Nobody else seems to have noticed the Goggle kid's disappearance. Either that, or they're too afraid of the answer to ask.

So he does, feeling a burst of sharp pain from his nose as he does so. "What happened to Goggle Kid?"

He notices his friend in the maroon sweatshirt wince at the inquiry, as if someone else realizing his absence makes the situation more real. Ares knows the feeling. When his mom left, he'd asked his father where she'd gone and seen the sadness flare in his eyes. That would prompt him to reach for another bottle. Even as a kid, Ares came to recognize that flood of emotion and knew to turn away. Old habits must die hard; the instant he detects that same rush of despondency in the kid's friend, he quickly averts his gaze.

If Clarke had noticed the movement of his eyes, she doesn't show it. She anxiously shifts her weight from foot to foot before she finally answers, "Jasper was hit. They took him." Her gaze turns toward the dirt, but snags on something else in the process. Her hand shoots out to grasp Wells firmly by the wrist— his bare wrist. "What happened to your wristband?"

Ares' eyes come back into focus enough to notice that she's right. The thick, metal bracelet that had previously been clamped onto his arm is gone. His face pinches in confusion; he hadn't removed it last night.

Wells shrugs her grip off and glares daggers in Blake's direction, jaw set. "Ask him."

Ares hadn't noticed before due to his preoccupation with battling Murphy, but Blake's hair is no longer slicked back with that ungodly amount of gel. As a result, it tumbles down in messy, black curls. He's also gotten rid of that stupid guard uniform and wears only a royal blue t-shirt. Ares wonders if it's his attempt to fit in with the crowd now that he's established some sort of dominance.

Clarke's own face turns to ice as she regards the older man. "How many?"

"Twenty-four and counting," Murphy replies smugly. He'd stood up at some unknown point during the exchange, now cleaning underneath his nails with the point of his knife. Ares notices with a flare of satisfaction that his eye is swelling up. His ribs will probably start to look the same.

"You idiots," Clarke spits with her eyebrows drawn in as if she can't comprehend why they would do such a thing, "Life support on the Ark is failing. That's why they brought us down here. They need to know the Ground is survivable again, and we need their help against whoever is out there. If you take off your wristbands, you're not just killing them, you're killing us."

The Ark? Failing? Now it makes sense why they'd been sent down here so randomly. With humanity's ship starting to sink, who better to test a supposedly inhabitable planet than a hundred delinquent teens?

"We're stronger than you think," Blake counters after a pause. "Don't listen to her, she's one of the Privileged. If they come down, she'll have it good. How many of you can say the same?" Some of the kids look down at the question. "We can take care of ourselves. That wristband on your arm? It makes you a prisoner. We are not prisoners anymore! They say they'll forgive your crimes. I say you're not criminals— you're fighters, survivors. The Grounders should worry about us!"

Ares smirks as the crowd of teenagers responds with a clamorous uproar. Blake has won this round, and Clarke knows it. Her mouth twists in a frown before she turns on her heel and starts to walk toward the dropship. However, her eyes flicker toward him and she stops dead in her tracks. "What happened to your nose?"

He jerks his head in Murphy's general direction. "Same thing that happened to his eye."

Clarke rolls her eyes as if she's not surprised by his answer. She steps forward and gingerly raises a hand up toward his face to inspect the injury. Ares recoils, catching her by surprise so her arm hovers mid-air for a second and she blinks her blue-gray eyes at him.

"I don't need your help, Griffin," he sneers.

"God, can't you try to be civil for five minutes?" she questions, voice laced with frustration. Her hand falls with a smack on her thigh.

Ares lifts his left wrist as if he's checking a watch, but also to flash the fact that his wristband is gone. "Not really. My record is two and a half minutes, actually."

Clarke tilts her head to the side, unimpressed. "You're going to want my help when it heals crooked and you get an infection. I'm trying to prevent that from happening." When he huffs through his nose and immediately releases a yelp at the sharp pain that shoots through his head, she smirks. "Come with me."

He puckers his mouth into a frown before trudging after her. Placing his hands in the pockets of his jacket, he tilts his head up as to make it look less like he's inclined to obey orders like this. However, as soon as he does, Clarke calls back to him, "Pinch your nose and tilt your head down. Not back– that'll make you swallow blood."

Ares ticks his jaw in annoyance but ultimately obeys, sending anybody who dares to look at him a death glare.

Now that the adrenaline from the fight is starting to wear off, he can feel the effects of the fight. It's been a while, so his arm is a bit sore from the punch he'd bestowed on Murphy. There will probably be bruises on his back from landing on so many stones and roots. Along with the throbbing pain in his nose, the cut on his right cheek still stings down to his toes.

He looks down at his hands and is slightly shocked at what he sees. Blood blood blood blood—

Ares' vision turns at the sight of it. Ever since that day, even the color red had made him nauseous enough that he'd given every crimson piece of clothing he'd been given to Nate. In turn, the boy had given Ares his cool-toned shirts. It was a wordless thing at first. Before Nate knew the truth of his crime, Ares had a meltdown upon seeing the red sweater given to him by a guard. Nate had taken it instead without question.

Suddenly, his hands look very far away. His breathing becomes labored, chest tight as if his lungs are shrinking, sounds muffled to his ears. He's scarcely aware of Clarke obliviously walking ahead of him. Where is he even going? Why is he here?

Blood blood blood—

"What do we do now?"

He's snapped out of his thoughts by the voice of Goggle Kid's friend, who falls into step with Clarke, hands stuffed into the pockets of his maroon hoodie. His silky, straight black hair is practically falling into his eyes. Ares doesn't know how that's comfortable.

Speaking of hair... He reaches up and pats his curly head. He hadn't even bothered to fix it before he'd exited his tent. It's probably a tornado, chocolate brown strands going in every direction. Oh well, he'll find a comb somewhere.

"Now we find Jasper," Clarke answers the kid in a determined voice. "And we will, Monty. He's out there somewhere— I know it."

Ares can't help but be surprised at the sympathy in her voice. When they'd left, they'd barely been more than a group of strangers thrown together. But that raw feeling in Clarke's voice, the abrupt softness in her tone that he's not used to hearing... they'd already become more than strangers.

"I'm taking care of Ortega's nose," Clarke continues. The sound of his name causes Ares' head to snap up; he instantly regrets that decision. "It's probably broken."

Awesome. Second day down and already a broken nose.

The thin kid — Monty, he now knows — gives Ares a backward glance filled with wariness. Ares smirks in response and waves with a wink. Monty merely pinches his eyebrows and faces forward again, making Ares drop his expression back into its default scowl.

Clarke leads them to the dropship, dragging a seat over and ordering Ares to sit in it. Someone had ripped it from the wall for an unknown reason, so the seatbelts are still intact. Ares moves them out of the way before plopping into the seat. The movement makes every part of him ache at once, causing him to screw up his face in a wince and release a grunt.

The blonde girl had disappeared without stating where she was going, but Ares presumes that she's grabbing supplies. That leaves Monty awkwardly standing to the side with his hands still stuffed into his pockets. He rocks on his heels, eyes gazing far away and mouth puckered into a frown. He's a boy of few words. Normally, Ares would make some sort of sarcastic comment about him being so glum, but one of their fellow delinquents is missing, his nose hurts like a bitch, and he's not that much of an asshole. So, for once, he keeps his mouth shut.

Clarke returns with several objects in her arms. One Ares recognizes as medical tape, another as bandages. She crouches in front of him and carefully places them in her lap. Then, looking at him unwaveringly, she says, "I'm going to have to touch your nose to see how bad the damage is. It's going to hurt, obviously. Does it hurt to breathe?"

Ares tests this by inhaling and exhaling through his nose. "Not... badly."

"So it does hurt."

"Not badly."

"Answer the damn question."

"Christ, okay. Yes, it hurts a little bit."

Clarke rolls her eyes at his smartass remarks, utterly done with his bullshit. She asks him a few more questions about the state of his nose before announcing that he has to let her poke at it for a bit.

Ares' entire body goes tense as she settles closer and lifts a newly-cleaned hand up toward his face. His fingers curl around the disconnected seatbelts to prevent himself from smacking her away, which is what his instincts are roaring at him to do. He finally pinches his eyes shut so he can't anticipate when the touch will come. But that ends up being worse; he's totally unprepared for the burst of pain that travels from his face to his toes and back up again in a straight line of fiery agony. He inhales sharply through his mouth at her feather-light touch, scrunching his face up involuntarily and promptly letting out another gasp.

"Stop doing that," Clarke orders, holding his face still by grabbing his chin. Ares blinks his eyes open to see her grabbing the cloth and unscrewing the cap from the canteen. After dribbling a bit of water onto it, she holds the cloth up. "I need to clean of all that blood off of your face in order to see what I can do."

"Just do it, Griffin," Ares says shortly, earning a frown in return.

The cleaning of his face isn't any easier, Clarke having to hold him still numerous times. He's not used to someone helping him. In the Underground, taking care of your injuries was your own problem— unless you had ones bad enough to warrant a visit to Medical. To prevent such a thing, the club had several "nurses" who were really just men who knew how to create makeshift casts and set bones back into place. For Ares, it had never gotten that bad. Mostly because he didn't allow it to.

Once his face is clean and Clarke can focus on the task of "packing" his nose from the outside, or whatever, he realizes that Monty is leaning against the door of the dropship and mutely staring at their makeshift camp. It's as if he's tuning them out entirely. The look in his brown eyes is despondent, as if someone had unplugged his life support, leaving him a shell of his true self.

Ares has never had a friend like that.

If he'd chosen to run away while on his walk into the woods yesterday, nobody would have missed him. Not like this. Most might even have been relieved. No more psycho Ares Ortega to worry about, no more eyeing him from afar to see if he'll start attacking someone with a knife. Maybe Nate would have missed him, but only for a little while. He'd eventually fade into the back of his former cellmate's mind before disappearing altogether, a boy that may have never even existed among them, for all they care.

Quietly enough so Monty might not hear, he inquires, "What exactly happened to Goggle Kid?"

Clarke looks up at him as if she's surprised at his question. The shock is gone just as quickly, though, and she averts her gaze back down to the medical tape in her hands. "We were at Mount Weather, crossing a river with a rope swing. Jasper went across first. It was supposed to be Finn, but Jasper wanted to impress Octavia, or something— I don't know." As if realizing she's babbling, she inhales and releases a breath to steady herself. "Anyway, he was holding up the Mount Weather sign when he was suddenly speared in the chest. We ran, but we heard him scream and came back. When we did... he was gone."

Ares slips into deep thought while she finishes patching him up. A Grounder with aim accurate enough to hit a kid in the chest with a spear from across a river?

Shit. They're in such deep, total shit.

_____

a/n:

bellamy: *walks out with his curly hair*

ares: *gay panic*

i feel like every interaction i write between ares and another character makes me love his dynamic with them even more. miller?? clarke?? i had so much fun writing their banter (and ares looking out for miller!!!)

i made some gifs of raven and ares because i'm so emo over them already and they haven't even MET yet ugh

—kristyn

( word count: 5.4k )