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chapter eight!
REPERCUSSIONS
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━━━━━━ ◦ ❖ ◦ ━━━━━━

ARES NEEDS TO FIND Blake before he can look for Nate. If he disappears now, he'll have to explain himself and give away Nate's involvement in the escape pod adventure, and they'll need that upper hand in the future. Besides— he can examine Blake and determine whether or not Nate is still in the clear. It's better not to bring him up until he has to.

Still, as they trample through the woods with the help of Collins' tracking skills, Ares is distracted. If the long-haired boy notices two sets of tracks leaving the landing site, he doesn't say anything about it. Ares looks anyway. He doesn't see a single leaf out of place except for the minuscule signs Blake left in his mad dash to dispose of the radio. Either Nate is better than he'd thought at covering his tracks, or Ares just has shit eyesight.

"Ortega!" Collins calls, causing Ares' attention to snap forward. He'd been looking down the opposite path for any sign of his former cellmate. Collins' gaze is wary, brown eyes squinted in slight suspicion as he says, "Tracks are this way."

"Just checking to make sure there isn't anything you missed, O Expert One," Ares says sarcastically in an attempt to distract him with his usual snarky remarks. If Collins is mad at him, he'll be less focused on how weird he's acting. Anger is better than suspicion.

In response, Collins raises an eyebrow and jams his finger ahead of them. Ares follows his motion to see a familiar figure storming through the trees. Stiff posture, hand on his hatchet— that's Blake, alright. And Clarke is already chasing after him.

"I don't miss," Collins replies before running after her.

Raven scrunches her eyebrows. "Who is that?"

"A dick," Ares answers shortly. "That's all you need to know. C'mon."

They jog after the blonde and brunette, Ares being careful to keep his footfalls silent and stay hidden behind tree trunks. He can use the element of surprise to his advantage. If Blake starts denying his involvement, he can catch him in a lie.

"Bellamy!" Ares hears Collins exclaim. He peers around the trunk of a tree to see him shove the older man back with surprising strength. "Where's the radio?"

Blake pushes him back with even more force, a dark sneer turning his features sinister as he gets in Collins' face. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Wanna try that again?" Ares questions as he emerges from behind the tree, leaning against it and nonchalantly picking at his nails as he crosses one foot over the other. A single eyebrow shoots up his forehead as he waits for a response.

Blake gives him a glare harsh enough to burn down the forest, but doesn't reply. It only makes Ares smirk. Gotcha.

"Bellamy Blake?" Raven asks, eyeing the man from head to toe. "They're looking everywhere for you."

"Shut up," Blake retorts. The words are harsh, but too quick, too eager to cut her off. Ares' ears prick up— he's hiding something. And how does Raven know his name?

Clarke gives the man a spare glance as if calculating the risk of asking the question they all have. In the end, she decides it's worth it, addressing Raven with urgency. "Looking for him why?"

"He shot Chancellor Jaha."

It's shocking enough that Ares lifts his shoulder from the tree trunk, straightening up and scrutinizing Blake with new eyes. That's why he'd looked so afraid when the pod came down— he hadn't wanted anyone to arrest him.

His stomach twists. And if that's why he took Raven's radio, then it's also why he'd approached Ares. Blake had played into his fears of being treated differently by the rest of the Ark. He'd manipulated him like a puppet to save his own ass— and Ares, thinking he had someone on his side for once, willingly helped him out.

Now people are going to die for it.

Is his father going to be one of the ones sacrificed for the good of the population? He hasn't worked in years, and unless he'd gotten his shit together after Ares was arrested, he isn't making much of a contribution to society. He's the perfect candidate for something like that.

Clarke's eyes clear with the same realization as him. She turns toward Blake angrily. "That's why you took the wristbands. Needed everyone to think we're dead."

"And all that 'Whatever the hell we want'? You just care about saving your own skin." Collins' voice isn't filled with the same obvious rage as Clarke's— his tone is flat, disappointed, even. He doesn't need to be loud in order to deliver the blow.

Blake doesn't say a word in response. His eyes are dark with anger and mouth twisted into a scowl, assessing the four others gathered around him and realizing he's outnumbered. Then, like the coward he is, he decides to make a run for it.

Raven jumps after him as soon as he moves, turning abruptly so she cuts him off in his tracks. "Hey, Shooter! Where's my radio?"

"Get out of my way," Blake orders dismissively like she's merely an annoying fly buzzing around his head.

"Where is it?"

"I should've killed you when I had the chance."

"Really?" Raven's eyes glitter with a challenge as she tilts her head to the side and takes a step closer. "Well, I'm right here."

Three things happen at once. Blake wastes no time in grabbing her by the throat and slamming her against the trunk of the nearest tree. Collins cracks into motion to defend her, but in the same instant, Ares hears the familiar shink of a pocket knife coming out of its sheath. Raven has the blade aimed at Blake's face before he can even make another move to throttle her.

Her eyes have lost their amusement— now they're blazing with anger. "Where's my radio?"

"Okay, stop it," Clarke orders, anxious to regain some order and prevent them from killing each other. It takes a beat for Blake to release his grip on Raven's throat.

"Jaha deserved to die. You all know that," Blake reasons as he continues walking away.

"Yeah, he's not my favorite person either," Raven quips as she straightens up, getting air back into her lungs now that he doesn't have his hand wrapped around her neck. "But he isn't dead."

Blake pauses, drinking in this new information. He turns back toward them in disbelief. "What?"

Raven seems amused that he's shocked by this revelation— that all of his work has mostly been for nothing. Her voice is tinged with laughter as she says, "You're a lousy shot."

"Bellamy," Clarke says, approaching him with her backpack bouncing along with her. "Don't you see what this means? You're not a murderer. You always did what you had to do to protect your sister— that's who you are. And you can do it again by protecting three hundred of your people. Where's the radio?"

Blake is quiet for a moment as he turns over her words in his head. Ares steps toward them during this moment of tension, wanting a better vantage point of whatever goes on. He stops beside Collins and tucks his hands into his pockets to wrap a hand around his go-to knife. Just in case.

But Blake's words aren't malicious. They're civil — maybe even regretful. "It's too late. I threw it in the river."

Ares chuckles dryly, causing Blake to shoot him his infamous glare. "Of course you did. Nothing's ever easy around here, is it?"

Clarke regards him for a moment before turning back to Blake. "We'll round up a team to scout the area. Hope isn't lost yet, okay?"

Blake nods. Ares is amazed at how calm Clarke is acting, even though her emotions must be bubbling up on the inside. All of that violence, all of that chaos— just so Blake could protect himself and Octavia. He'd always had their best interest in mind instead of the others'.

Clarke may be skilled at putting aside her anger for the sake of the greater good.

Too bad Ares wasn't taught the same thing.

════ ⋆★⋆ ════

They briefly stop by camp in order to gather together a small team to hunt for the radio. It consists of their original group of five, Jones, a girl named Monroe, Kiernan, and a few other people Ares doesn't bother learning the names of. There isn't time for introductions when they have a vital piece of equipment to find— if it's even salvageable at this point.

Ares pushes this flicker of doubt down, buries it under his ribs. It can't have been in the water for very long. They'll dry out its components because they have to. Their entire journey thus far should have been impossible. They survived a crash-landing onto a radiation-soaked planet and survived, Jasper should have died, Raven beat the odds by sending herself in a pod. There's no way their luck will run out now.

He and Kiernan are sluggishly looking through the water, which is ankle-deep and impenetrable to their waterproof boots. The blond boy nearly trips more than once, unused to the balance that one requires when moving through water. He curses in Spanish the second time he nearly falls flat on his ass from the uneven rocks on the ground.

Ares finds his gaze flickering toward Raven to gauge her reaction of her first encounter with water. Whatever joy she feels is hidden by her concentrated frown, eyebrows pinched and shoulders tense as she scours the shallow river. It makes him even angrier. If Blake hadn't been a selfish prick, they wouldn't even be doing this. They could have spent the day communicating with the Ark.

"Res!"

He snaps out of his half-daze and shifts his gaze to the direction of the familiar voice. Nathan Miller rushes toward him, brown eyes flickering around the scene at the river in confusion, not a scratch on his face or a flicker of pain in his expression. Something blossoms in Ares' chest. It takes him a moment to realize that it's relief.

The boy slowly wades into the water, mesmerized at the pull of the current and stumbling toward them. He cartwheels his arms to keep himself on his feet. "What's going on?"

"Blake ruined everything, as per usual," Ares answers bitterly, concealing his glee at seeing his friend alive through a frown.

"That's Raven Reyes." Kiernan points to the brunette girl, Nate's eyes immediately finding her because of her bright red jacket. "She came in that pod we saw last night. Bellamy snuck out of camp, found the pod, cut the radio out, and threw it in this river." He gives the water a kick. "That's what's going on."

Nate's eyes widen in realization as he glances at Ares. Beyond that, his expression doesn't betray the fact that he was also at the pod, nor that he even knows about Ares' involvement. Kiernan thinks only Ares went— and it's going to stay that way.

"I'm sorry, who are you?" Nate asks, shaking his head.

"Kiernan Adams," the boy replies. "You're Nathan Miller, right?"

A shadow passes over Nate's face. Most of the delinquents know his name because of his father's occupation— he'd likely arrested half of the kids on the dropship. Even so, he nods.

But there's nothing hostile in Kiernan's blue-eyed gaze. He merely gives Nate a friendly clap on the shoulder and a friendly grin. "Nice to meet ya." His hand slides off and he glances around at their small scouting group. "Well, someone has to keep doing the work around here, huh?"

He turns around to keep searching for the radio. At that moment, Nate looks at Ares and quirks an eyebrow, a smirk pulling up one side of his mouth. Ares recognizes his teasing expression immediately and shoves him to the side. Nate has to backpedal in order to keep his balance, but he's laughing.

"Kiernan Adams, huh?" he asks as he continues to wiggle his brows. "I don't think I've ever seen you warm up to someone so quickly." He pretends to gasp, placing a hand to his heart. "Do you have a crush?"

Ares levels him with a murderous look. "Don't make me use my knives on you."

"Damn, Res, I didn't think you'd be that kinky, but hey, if that's what you're into..."

Ares finds a smirk working its way onto his face in spite of himself. He mutters, "Idiota."

"You're going to have to get more creative than that. Even a non-Spanish-speaking person like me can easily translate that insult."

"Que te folle un pez."

Nate scratches his ear. "Okay, yeah, you got me there. I don't know what that means."

Ares smirks triumphantly and finds his eye wandering to a certain red jacket for the umpteenth time. Nate turns around, following his gaze, and when he faces forward again, his expression is knowing.

"Ah. I got the crush wrong."

Without looking, Ares slips the knife out of his jacket pocket and brandishes it at Nate, who rolls his eyes and raises his hands in surrender. He tucks the weapon back into its proper place and ticks his jaw in annoyance after scanning the rest of their surroundings. Collins is talking to Clarke, who is stiff and pointedly continuing her search for the radio. The rest of them are doing their jobs— all except Blake, who is crouched near the shoreline with his elbows resting on his knees, hands wringing together.

Anger flares up in the teenage boy like a bonfire being lit in his soul. Unbelievable. Why are they fixing his mess while he sits back and watches? Why isn't he helping them?

Ares isn't fond of manipulation. He'd experienced it enough as a kid when the Privileged had convinced him he wasn't worth a single ration credit, when they made him feel useless in order to better their own lives. Blake had thought he'd struck a gold mine when he got someone like Ares to side with him. In reality, he's unleashed hell.

"Res?" Nate questions, recognizing the emotion smoldering in his eyes.

Ares' voice comes out dark and twisted with wrath. "Be right back."

He stomps through the shallow water quickly and forcefully enough that it splashes upward, splattering onto his jeans. He doesn't care. Not when he's had enough of this utter bullshit.

Blake doesn't even seem to notice his approach. His eyes are distant, not seeming to look at something that Ares can see. His awakening is rude when Ares shouts, "You're a lot of things, Blake, but I never pegged you as lazy."

That snaps him out of his daze immediately. Blake hardens before Ares' eyes, becoming all sharp edges and angles once more. He pushes himself into a standing position as Ares steps onto shore and comes face-to-face with him.

"You trying to tell me you didn't go to the pod to do the exact same thing I did?" Blake questions dismissively.

"No, because I'm not a selfish asshole." Ares' words are only half true— sometimes he really can be a selfish asshole, but not this time. "Don't act like you've got me all figured out, because you couldn't be further from the truth. You're a coward, Blake."

Blake's eyes light up with amusement, which is not exactly the emotion Ares was going for when he fired that jab. "I'm a coward? I guess we have that in common, then. You didn't want them to come down, either. You were the first to take off your wristband."

Ares isn't sure if he truly doesn't get it or he's pushing his remorse onto others to make himself feel better about his mistakes. But he doesn't really care, not when the shock of being called a coward makes him go silent and still. He's said it before: Ares Ortega is not a coward.

When he speaks again, his voice isn't loud. It's level, steady, which somehow makes his words even more scathing than they would have been if he'd been screaming.

"Yeah, I did. Because I wanted a better life for me, for the rest of us, free from the sneers of an unforgiving, biased society that I didn't think would welcome us back as easily as they claimed they would. That same society sent us down here to die. I thought we deserved better than the shit they've always given us. But now —" His words break off in his throat, and he's quick to cover up his pain with a shake of his head. "Now people are going to die. My people. Your people. Our people. They're going to suffocate because we fucked up. No matter the reasons, we both definitely fucked up— there's no going around that. But I'm going to make it better. Are you?"

Ares turns around and leaves Blake to consider his question, hopping down from the grass and back into the water with a small splash. It's that moment when Jones' voice rings out from the group. "Hey, I found it!"

He bends down, picking up a piece of equipment from the river and shaking it out, sending water droplets flying. Raven races over to retrieve it from him. Everybody gathers around her, and even Ares finds himself walking closer to see the thing in her hands.

On first glance, he knows it's bad. The cables are soaked, and they're lucky if the panels inside aren't ruined beyond repair as well. Not to mention the speaker or microphone. If they can't even understand each other, the whole thing will be useless.

"Can you fix it?" Clarke questions half-hopefully.

"Maybe," Raven answers as she turns the radio over in her hands, studying it with a furrowed brow as the gears turn in her head. "But it'll take half a day just to dry out the components to see what's broken."

Ares is surprised to hear Blake's voice coming from behind him. "Like I said, it's too late."

He sounds emotionally detached on the surface, but there's something in his words that doesn't seem right— almost like he's talking just to talk, just to keep up his mask.

Clarke's calm disposition twists into a fearsome expression of wrath as she storms closer to her co-leader. "Do you have any idea what you did? Do you even care?"

Blake's face is expressionless, a stark contrast to the blonde's. His voice is just as blank. "You asked me to help. I helped."

"Last time I checked, telling us you threw the radio in the river and then sitting on your ass while we look for it isn't very helpful," Ares fires back with his arms crossed over his chest.

"Three hundred people are gonna die today because of you!" Clarke adds.

"Hold up," Raven says, drawing the attention back to her, expression thoughtful. "We don't have to talk to the Ark, we just have to let them know we're down here, right?"

"Yeah, but how do we do that with no radio?" Collins asks.

In response, Raven nearly gives him a smile, and Ares' brain races to figure out what she means. No speaking, just letting them know they're alive? What are they gonna do, write "S.O.S" in giant patterns of rocks on the ground?

════ ⋆★⋆ ════

Ares doesn't know how he hadn't considered the possibility of solar flares. Well, maybe he should give himself a little more credit; until now, they haven't had the extra fuel needed to send the flares up into the sky, anyway, and Ares' brain is still functioning on a head injury and insufficient amount of sleep. It's a miracle he's even able to lift as much as he currently is. Sure, his temple aches when he moves too suddenly, but he isn't going to pull a Blake and sit back while everyone does the work.

The area around Raven's escape pod is chaos, and he's sure that camp isn't any better now that they're pillaging the dropship for supplies as well. Ares sets down a piece of sheet metal gingerly so he doesn't slice his hand open. Just as he tosses it into the pile going back to their landing site, a voice calls his name.

"Ortega!" Raven says, causing him to straighten and tilt his head to the side.

"Reyes," he greets. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

She doesn't look impressed. "A special someone told me you're smarter than most people give you credit for." She holds out a wrench and some pliers. "Think you can get those firing circuits out from that panel?"

Ares isn't sure if he should be taking her words as an insult or compliment, but either way, he knows who the culprit is immediately. Damn you, Griffin.

He takes the tools from her with a coy smirk. "I thought you'd never ask."

He bends down to the panel in question, loosening the bolts at the four corners with some difficulty. Nearly a century's worth of grime and rust have made them even more difficult to handle. However, he manages to get the first one out, then the next, and soon he's wrenching the panel from the pod's outer shell.

"Make sure you get them out in one piece or they won't work," Raven reminds him.

"Yeah, yeah." He pretends to wave her off with the wrench in his left hand. He taps his still-aching temple with his right one. "Smarter than I look, remember?"

She doesn't verbally reply, but he's fairly certain that she shakes her head before telling Collins to carry a control panel back to camp.

Ares focuses on the task at hand and grips the pliers until his hand is perfectly steady. For a moment, he allows himself to wonder if this is what he would have been doing if he hadn't been arrested. He would have traded the nitty-gritty fighting life of the Underground for a slightly normal routine. He's always been gifted at science. He likes having something in his hand, whether it's a knife, wrench, blowtorch, or cables.

Luckily, all of the pod's components have cooled down since the landing, or else they'd all be in deeper shit. Ares is able to reach his hand inside without burning a layer of skin off. The circuits are easily located, but the trouble will be getting them out without damaging any of their pieces.

He has to bend at awkward angles to get the pliers to cut in the exact places he wants them to. In the end, even that's not enough, and the end of one of the wires grazes the exposed skin of his knuckle, making him curse and yank his hand back. Apparently some parts are still hot.

"Careful," Raven says teasingly as she walks past, and Ares smoothly gives her a crude gesture that makes her roll her eyes.

He does get the circuits out in one piece. And the cables that Raven orders him to get next, and the piece after that. It reaches a point that Ares wonders if she's giving him increasingly difficult tasks just to see if he'll mess up, and aside from the burn on his finger, he's proud to say he hasn't. It seems that spending a year and a half in prison hadn't robbed him of the only thing he seems to be good at aside from fighting.

The realization makes him almost giddy. He must look like a madman, holding the wrench and loosening bolts with glee in his eyes, but he doesn't care what others think for once. Let them see a side of him they'd never even considered. Because when someone like him exists in the world — someone everyone thinks they have figured out — they become one-dimensional, incapable of possessing more than the trait that makes them "bad."

When people see Ares, they see murderer. Not engineer, not teenager, not star pupil, not fighter.

His words to Blake had been right. Everyone thinks they know him, but they're all laughably wrong.

It takes the now-hundred of them until dusk to get the flares ready for launch. When they all gather back at camp, things really start buckling down. The flares are set up inside of their respective, hand-crafted holders that are secured to the ground. Raven triple-checks the formulas inside of them. Ares is put in charge of the control panel. He sits on a barrel in front of it, tapping his left hand against his leg anxiously as he waits for the final piece to be brought to him. The camp is alive as everyone rushes to meet a common goal. It's weirdly beautiful in a way— to see everyone working together. Still chaos, but one that makes the place feel warm.

"One special order for Ares Or—"

Before Nate can even finish his sentence, Ares turns and rips the final circuits out of his hands and gets to work setting them up. Nate freezes and blinks for a second.

"Wow. Thanks."

Ares doesn't reply, merely waiting for the signal to do his job. Nate reaches over and ruffles his hair. Ares flinches back in response, taming his curls as Nate cackles and walks away.

"Ortega!" Raven calls over the sounds of bonfires roaring, people shouting, and metal clanking. "It's a go for the control board."

Ares turns the dial at the top and begins flicking up the row of red switches in the center of the board. A few more buttons at the bottom begin blinking. He presses them, then hovers just in case something goes wrong and he has to shut it all down.

But it's working. By some miracle, their plan is working. And as the hundred delinquents gather in a crowd to watch the flares launch, Ares feels something like hope in his chest.

He stands up, craning his neck to watch them take to the skies with near-deafening whistles and booms. The first three flares soar up into the night sky and seem to momentarily pause before exploding, shooting into the heavens with dazzling streaks of purple and pink light. A cheer rises up after them. Ares doesn't join in, but he follows their trails of color until he can't see them anymore. They're so bright that their afterimages are burned into his eyelids when he blinks. It's a small price to pay for the consequences of his actions that led him here.

The next set of flares shoots off. Ares stares at them until his eyes burn, afraid that if he closes them for even a nanosecond, he'll miss out on their beauty. He's never seen such vibrant colors in his life. The navy blue backdrop of the twilight sky enhances them even further until they're practically neon. He stares until there are tears in his eyes from how badly his eyes sting, until a rogue tear escapes down the side of his face and he wipes it away before anyone can detect the movement.

Hope. It's a rare thing for him to feel, but he allows it to fill him up just this once, because this event — this idea is too brilliant not to work.

_______

a/n:

and as we all know, it doesn't! ouch!

sorry for the slight wait, but i lost some inspiration for writing in general and tried not to force it to come. i decided to wait and am proud of myself for finishing this chapter! sometimes it's the little things.

what character would you like to see ares interact with more? depending on the answers, i may or may not be able to make some of them work. i'm just curious to know what you guys would like to see!

also: hnnngg benjamin wadsworth announced that his fiancée is pregnant and i'm happy if he's happy but homeboy is 19 so color me slightly concerned for his early introduction to fatherhood. it's weird for me to think that ares' faceclaim is now a baby daddy lmAo

TRANSLATIONS:

Idiota: Idiot

Que te folle un pez: I hope you get fucked by a fish (Screw you)

—kristyn

( word count: 4.7k )