AMNESIA - BELLAMY BLAKE

꧁Chapter Eight.꧂

❝I went to bed I was thinking about you,

Ain't the same since I'm living without you.

All the memories are getting colder,

All the things that I wanna do over.❞

— Don't wake me - Skillet.

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The camp seemed to spin in circles, as Phoenix stood in a secluded corner, placing his cup of Monty’s moonshine to his lips. The frothy liquid splashing out of the sides of the cup, down his arm but he didn't care. He relished in the feeling of numbness, it was Unity day and he'd be damned if he remembered his childhood today of all days. Phoenix's body lurched forward like it had a mind of his own, his footsteps heavy as he tried to keep himself upright, but he needed more alcohol. His eyes were too focused on the ground in front of him as if the very thing was trying to trip him, instead of that being entirely his own doing. The world continued to spin, Phoenix lost his balance and would have hit the ground if it weren't for strong arms that pulled him upright.

“Oh,” Phoenix breathed, the smell of alcohol prominent even to him. “Bellamy Blake, our.. our.. hic.. our leader. Did you need something?” He asked, as if he wasn't the one to run into Bellamy. His mouth hung open slightly as he tried but failed to hold eye contact.

“Come on,” Bellamy stated simply, wrapping his arm around Phoenix's wrist to gently lead him towards a safer area. “You need to rest and I'll get you some water.”

“What.. what do I need.. need water for? Hic...” Phoenix cocked his head to the side in confusion, nearly falling backwards before he settled himself on the ground, knees pulled up to his chest in a sitting position. The emotions behind his drunken state desperately trying to peak through, his heart hurt. Everything hurt. “Stupid.. I'm an idiot,” he mumbled to himself, seeming to forget Bellamy still stood there, watching him. “My father.. my father.. hic.. does drugs and what do I do? I.. hic.. I get drunk. Maybe I am just like him,” his voice dropped low on the last part.

“Phoenix...” Bellamy started and it pained Phoenix to hear the sadness in the tone. “I—”

“Don't,” Phoenix interrupted. He doesn't want to hear the pity behind the words. All he wanted was to not feel a thing and yet everything he tried to run from, came back with a vengeance in front of someone Phoenix didn't want to see this. “I just wanted to not feel. Just... just for a little while.”

Phoenix looked at the softened features of Bellamy, his eyes falling towards his lips. “Make me feel something,” Phoenix whispered so softly it was almost lost in the wind, but he could see the man going through options in his head.

His heart felt like it was going to stop beating at any second. His breath hitched in his throat as Bellamy tentatively placed a hand underneath his chin. One moment. One moment was all it took before Bellamy placed his lips on his. His lips were soft and smooth as Phoenix leaned in to the kiss, warmth igniting his body. It was dizzying and electrifying all at once. All of a sudden, without warning, Phoenix realized what it meant to make a home out of a person.

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The memory hit Phoenix hard, he gripped the table in Octavia's throne room in order to keep himself upright. He waved their questioning stares away, as he clenched his eyes shut for a few minutes. His heart felt warm at the memory despite the pain behind his eyes. It took every ounce of self control he had to stay put and not rush out of the room to search for him. To tell him what, he didn't know. Instead, he opened his eyes and focused on Diyoza’s message that Octavia was busy playing for them again. He listened to her as she told them all that Diyoza may be the one saying it, but Kane had given her the words. It was plausible and it made sense, but Phoenix failed to see the problem in it.

His perspective had changed the minute Bellamy got the bunker open. He was weary of Octavia's rule. He knew that somewhere along the lines, Octavia had lost her peace, had become someone Phoenix could hardly recognize. The biggest disappointment to him, had to be Miller. He followed Octavia because he firmly believed he was doing the right thing. Phoenix couldn't fault him for that, but he wished more than anything that he had someone on his side. Someone who felt the way he did about it.

“He knows where we're vulnerable and he's sharing it with the enemy,” Miller noted, stepping away from the speaker and turning towards them as he spoke.

“We need to assume others will be willing to do the same,” Kara said, her gaze set on Octavia. “In the arena, Kane openly defied you to stir dissent, and dissent spreads like any virus.”

Phoenix could hardly believe his ears as he turned to stare incredulously at Kara. “You'd know all about that, wouldn't you?” He muttered before he could stop himself.

“Careful, Phoenix,” Octavia muttered lowly. “Keep talking like that and ill have no choice but to deem you a traitor and my enemy.” She warned him, before turning back to the others. “I want patrols along the perimeter around the clock. When that ship comes back, anyone caught beyond the ruins —”

The door to the room opened Clarke leading the charge as Bellamy, Monty and Harper followed in after her. Phoenix's heart skipped a beat at the sight of him, but didn't move. Miller told them it was a private meeting, but Octavia waved it away by telling him the intrusion was fine. Miller shook his head with an irritated sigh but moved away from Clarke, the blonde turning to address Octavia.

“We all have people in that Valley that need our help,” Clarke stressed, trying to get the point across to Octavia.

“If you're talking about your mother,” Octavia stated harshly. “I am not interested in rescuing traitors. I'm trying to prevent more of them.”

“Your people are hungry,” Bellamy started incredulously. “And you're worried about defectors? We should stop wasting time looking for enemies in Polis, and we should start trying to find a way back to that valley.”

Phoenix shuffled his feet, turning to look at all of them. “Even if we want to, how could we? Diyoza has an eye on our every move,” he noticed Octavia's nod of approval, but he didn't care about that. He wasn't doing it for her, not anymore.

“That's where Monty comes in,” the girl, Harper told them, her tone was soft amidst the others.

Monty took hesitant steps toward where Octavia and Phoenix stood, holding out a walkie-talkie radio. “Lazer-comm. Its dialed right into their mothership. All I need is a relay tower on the ground that we build out of scrap and a computer. I should be able to blind the eye from right here.”

Phoenix was flabbergasted that Miller's only takeaway from that was so they could attack. The only living valley on Earth and they want to fight a war on it. Phoenix's mouth hung open in surprise at Octavia relented, ordering him and Miller to set Monty up, but that wasn't what surprised him. How set in stone she sounded when she ordered Kara to shoot anyone who dared to defect.

“This way, Monty,” Phoenix muttered dejectedly, following the others out of the door, but heading off to a completely different direction than the others. We’ll talk later, Bellamy. I'll make sure of it, Phoenix thought as he led Monty down the corridors.