“It's almost poetic,” Murphy says as he sits down next to Bellamy, but the older man really doesn't want to know what Murphy finds poetic about the situation. He doesn't want to talk to Murphy at all. All he really wants is to be alone.
A handful of minutes ago, Clarke told him going to Mount Weather was worth the risk, was worth risking him, and he's allowed himself at least a half-hour to feel like shit about his life. He knows Octavia is trying to talk Lincoln out of going, because without him, there would be no chance of the mission succeeding and she knows that Bellamy is never going to say no to Clarke.
He doesn't know when he lost the ability to do that.
“What's poetic?” he asks, because he knows Murphy isn't going to leave until he says what's on his mind and he really, really wants Murphy to leave.
“The first man to love her killed for her, and now the second man to love her is going to die for her.” Murphy's voice is quiet, solemn. He says it like it's an indisputable fact of life, and Bellamy wants to tell him to fuck off, that he's got it all wrong, but he can’t because what Murphy's said is true, all of it.
“Go float yourself, Murphy.”
His voice is quiet too, but Murphy doesn't get the hint. “You should complete the symmetry,” the younger man continues. “For the irony, if nothing else.” With that, Murphy gets up and leaves.
It takes him a few moments, but Bellamy gets up, too. He makes his way to Clarke's tent, and he stops outside the flap to say, just loudly enough to be heard, “Knock, knock,” because they still haven't figured out a way to create an equivalent to knocking.
“Come in,” Clarke answers, though the end of the invitation is pitched like a question, like she's confused.
He ducks in under the flap and finds her sitting up in her bed, and there's just enough light filtering in through the fabric of the tent that he can see how the redness of her eyes contrasts the glittering blues of her irises. That's poetry, he thinks, but he doesn't say anything.
There isn't anything for him to say. So, silently, he crosses the space between them and leans down to kiss her gently. Her lips are soft under his, and after a moment of complete unresponsiveness, she slides a hand around the back of his neck and pulls him in closer.
He tries to stop the moan that threatens to escape him at the contact, but then she bites his bottom lip, and he's gone. He stops caring about if people know he's with her. He's not going to be around to deal with the repercussions.
“We shouldn't,” she whispers, even as she's pulling him closer, up onto the bed.
“Stop thinking, princess,” he whispers right back, because he can't bear to stop now, not when he's had a taste. He wants her so badly, and he knows that if she tells him to stop, that if she so much as tenses under his touch, he'll walk away, because he refuses to hurt her. She's been through too much, and he won't add to it. He won't. “Just feel it. Just let yourself feel for a little while.”
He's poised over her now, trailing kisses down her neck as she slips her hands up under his shirt. She pulls, and he takes a moment to pull it off while she mimics the gesture with her own shirt.
And he thinks it's very possible that he'll never make it to Mount Weather, because he's seeing the woman he loves naked for the first time, and it's enough to make his chest ache. He's seen women naked before, more than a few, but those experiences pale in comparison to this. He takes a moment to run his fingertips over her body, touching her reverently, pausing to pinch lightly at a nipple and watch as she twists and writhes underneath him.
She pulls him back down, and their mouths clash together, biting and licking. He starts to lose himself in the friction between their bodies, touching her everywhere he can because god knows that even if he does manage to make it back alive, she's never going to let him have this again, and he needs to memorize every piece of her than he can. He needs to remember the sound of her breath catching when his hands skate over her thighs and his tongue flicks over her clit. He needs to remember the sigh that escapes her when he slides into her for the first time. He needs to remember the look on her face when she comes, how her eyes snap open to stare at the ceiling of the tent, and how happy she looks when she murmurs, “Finn,” because even if it's not him she's thinking about, he can pretend that the look on her face, the one so filled with love, a perfect mirror of his own, is actually meant for him.
He burns every image, every sound, directly into his core, so that when he takes his last breath he can remember her and her happiness and be okay with letting go.
He puts his clothes back on as soon as he's caught his breath, and this time, he doesn't turn to look at her, because he doesn't want to remember her looking guilty or regretful or anything other than happy and pleasured, because his resolve will break if he does. He'll remember that he's not the one she wants, and he'll falter.
“Lincoln and I are leaving at first light,” he says as he pulls on his shirt.
He leaves the tent immediately after, wishing he could bottle her scent and the light of her eyes to take with him.
Later, when all the blood in his body is rushing down towards his head and out of the hole in his chest, left there courtesy of the Mountain Men, he wonders if Clarke will cry when she finds out he's gone, if she'll murmur his name under her breath when they find his body. And maybe, as the world is growing dark around the edges and each breath he draws is becoming too much of an effort, he hopes that she won't, because those things are reserved for the people she loves, and Clark Griffin never loved him.