motivation | AD ASTRA 🚀 INBOX

Been a while since I've had the luxury to.

[ he doesn't sound chiding, just— wearily resigned. life feels like it's gone a long, long way from 'whatever the hell we want.' but bellamy watches, bemused, as dutch leans right over the bar and grabs the drinks for them. he lifts the glass after she slides it to him, tilting it back-and-forth, eyeing the strange bright translucence of the liquid. he remembers moonshine run off from old engines, cooked up from vegetation on the ground, or made from algae back on the ark. strong enough that it was practically blinding. ]

Least we can serve ourselves instead of needing to argue with a robot bartender or the ship AI or something. Alright. Bottoms up.

[ he clinks the glass against hers — hopefully they've got toasts, wherever she's from — and doesn't hesitate before taking the jump and taking a deep drain of his drink.

and it slams into him like a truck, with a burn that sears and warms on its way down. and. it's good. for one, it's actually a real bottle and real vintage (even if an alien one) and not the cheap, half-toxic concoctions he's had most of his life. marveling: ]

Shit— Somebody had good taste.

[ dutch knows that sentiment —the weary resignation. she's felt that way more than once. she's tried to drown that feeling in alcohol and in sex, but what's kept her going more than anything over the years has been johnny. d'avin, too, and lucy, all the people she's come to care about against her better judgment, in spite of every lesson khlyen's tried to teach her, but mostly johnny. he's what's always kept her getting up again.

he isn't here now. he's been gone before, but then d'avin had been there and he isn't here, either, and —

dutch downs her glass in one go the moment after he's clinked his against hers. they have toasts where she's from, but she's not inclined to echo his, she'd much rather act on it.

it burns, but it's the good kind of burn and she licks her lips after, chasing the taste. ]

Lucky for us.

[ she pours herself another glass. this one, she won't down completely. ]

Does the sad statement have anything to do with those stories you were going to tell me?

[ after dutch refills her drink, bellamy follows suit. another sip, waiting for that heat to warm him from the inside out, and knowing that the deeper they get into this bottle, the looser he'll get and the easier the words can trip off his tongue for what comes next. ]

Yep.

[ it takes him a moment, before he decides to go ahead and just tell the goddamn story already. it happened a couple years ago now, and he's not exactly tight-lipped to begin with; the man tends to wear his heart on his sleeve. and besides, part of him is still astounded at finally, finally talking to someone new for the first time in ages, rather than pacing in endless predictable circles with the same six people. that frisson of anticipation, unfamiliarity, not hearing the same stories over and over and knowing what she's like, what she'll say, how she'll react to him. humans are social animals. he's hungry for conversation. ]

So you said people got infected by these... hullen, and they were under the aliens' control?

We had computer chips. They interfaced with people's brains, took them over, put them under an artificial intelligence's control. People took the chip because it took away their pain, just stripped it all away. But it wiped out their memories too. Meant they couldn't remember the good that came with the bad. And then they'd do anything if that AI said jump: they'd hurt themselves and wouldn't give a shit, cut themselves, dislocated their own shoulder, ripped open their wounds trying to get away.

[ his dark eyes glance up to the ceiling of the room; he wonders, vaguely, if perseus can hear this.

bellamy still remembers that haunting sound of raven screaming and bucking against her restraints, her voice like a sawblade down his spine. kicking and thrashing in his arms like an out-of-control animal before they could pin her down, sedate her. jasper's initial warning: raven isn't raven anymore. ]

We never really found a surefire way of checking if someone was chipped besides checking for memories. Asking them about people they'd lost, see if there were any suspicious gaps.

Long story short: I think I get you, with the hullen.

[ dutch listens. dutch listens and halfway through the story, she's downed the second glass as well despite the fact that she'd meant to take her time with it.

time for another refill.

(time to push thoughts of johnny turned hullen down, time to focus on anything but that.

they got him back, that's what matters in the end.) ]

Sounds like it. [ that's dark, low. dutch isn't good at connecting with others, not like johnny who wears his heart on his sleeve and befriends everyone, who lets his big heart lead.

she's not good at it, but —there's some common ground here, shared pain for all that the circumstances are different.

(some hullen are part of a hivemind. some hullen control the hivemind. it's not that different.) ]

Drink up.

[ when in doubt (or pain, or anything), dutch's go to coping mechanism is drowning it in alcohol. and sex, at times, and so her gaze finds bellamy's again, then drops to his shoulders, his hands, considering for a moment. ]

[ and bellamy does drink up, keeping pace with her because he can't not (although he might regret it in a few, once he realises just how high her tolerance is). ]

Y'know, I've been stuck with fermented algae for a couple years. I really don't recommend it. This is better.

[ elbows propped against the bar and sinking into an affable conversation again, this almost feels... normal? the danaë's bar reminds him of arkadia's mess hall, a space built and populated by people, getting to see faces he doesn't recognise. and as her gaze drinks him up, he has that distant sense that she's cataloguing him, even while he eyes her back: that confident slouch to her shoulders, the cant of her hips as she leans against the bar.

he sizes her up over the edge of his drink. dutch clearly isn't a talker, but also doesn't seem to hate that he's here. so there's questions and curiosity building up behind his tongue, a balm for that half-desperate loneliness he's been keeping at bay for months. it's been a while since he's met new people, even longer since they haven't had some kind of calamity to outrun, and he could just get to know someone.

so bellamy clears his throat. ]

What'd you do back home, Dutch?

[ her tolerance is ridiculous and he'd do well not to even try keeping pace with her, but he'll figure that out soon enough. for now, his only indication is the way she shrugs, lips pulling into a slow smirk. ] Guess your algae brew's worse than what we've got in the quad. It's not so bad.

[ if given the choice, she prefers hog most days, but sometimes she'll reach for the algae brew instead. the wine and beer equivalents of the quad, really, not that she knows that. ] But this stuff's pretty nice, I'll give you that.

[ she doesn't hate that he's here. she doesn't hate that he's here at all and she can talk a lot without saying anything if need be, but she doesn't feel that need with him. there's something to be said for the tentative thread of understanding, the shared experience. there's something to be said, too, for not ruining that with words because dutch knows that her tongue's almost as sharp as her knives sometimes, that it's another weapon in her arsenal.

when you get turned into a weapon, the same is true for every part of you, isn't it? ]

I'm a RAC agent. [ she pulls a considering face for a moment. that probably doesn't mean much to him. ] Bounty hunters.

[ it's nowhere near the full story, not by a long shot, but it's a start and true enough. ]

[ he arches an eyebrow, surprised by the answer. now that intrigues him. the job isn't something that ever existed on the ark, and sounds like something out of the adventure stories from the past: all swashbuckling cops and robbers, wanted posters pinned up across the wild west. clarke had had a bounty on her head for a while, but however the grounders handled those matters, bellamy hasn't been exposed to the logistics. ]

Huh. You hunted, what, criminals? Fugitives? Runaways?

[ now when he looks at her, he looks a little closer. he still instinctively pictures a giant burly man doing that sort of thing, but dutch carries herself with enough self-assurance that he has a feeling there's more lurking beneath that pretty face than he immediately realised.

after all, he knows enough women who could hand his ass to him in a hand-to-hand fight. echo. his own little sister. he's starting to suspect this one's much the same. ]

[ in the quad, reclamation agents are as powerful as law enforcement, as free as mercenaries, and make more money than soldiers could ever dream of. ]

Whatever or whoever someone's put a warrant on.

[ she's taken down giant burly men doing this sort of thing. the self-assurance that she carries herself with is backed up by a lot of skill. (khlyen saw to that. some days, she still hates him for it. some days, she's almost grateful.) ]

[ bellamy's continued to loosen up as he works his way through the glass, the drink warming him from the inside out. half-joking, he admits: ]

Sounds like you've probably got some colourful work anecdotes you could share. Me, I was a janitor.

[ true, he was, but that doesn't really encompass the whole truth of it. once they hit the ground it wasn't cashing a paycheck anymore; it was survival, plain and desperate and simple. and— like some old and rusty instinct humming to life, he realises he'd rather not look like a fool in front of this woman. so he amends a moment later: ]

For a little while, anyway, thanks to a demotion. Worked security before and after that.

[ close enough. ]

[ dutch's lips quirk up. ]

More than one. [ although in recent times, there's been a lot fewer fun heists and a lot more dealing with the invasion of the alien neuroparasites intent on replacing humanity. that's put a bit of a dampener on the fun stories.

and maybe she likes that he seems to realise, after a moment, that he wants to impress her a little or at least not look like a fool. ]

Security, huh? Are you any good?

Good enough to stay alive through a few different wars, anyway.

[ that line between security or guard cadet versus soldier has blurred uncomfortably these days. that slippery muddy slope that drags you from protecting your own people to attacking and killing others instead; to leaving enemies dead in your wake because it's simpler, easier, than leaving them alive to potentially sabotage your plans later. he's hoping his days of making decisions like that are far behind him.

bellamy's own lips quirk; twist into a rueful smile. he sounds... tired, more than someone of his age probably ought to. but he pivots it pretty quick back to something more dryly tongue-in-cheek: ]

Which is pretty much all that matters most, I guess.

You a good bounty hunter?

[ dutch has been too angry to be tired for most of recent history, but there are things she's tired of, things she's sick of, things she figures she deserves a break from. things she figured she wouldn't get a break from, but —she's here. it's not what she'd have chosen for herself because she didn't choose at all and she's sick of not getting to do that, of not getting choices, too, but —

well. she's still here and there's alcohol and a cute guy's lips twisting like that. her own curl upward in response, not rueful in the least but with well-practiced cockiness. ]

The best.

Got a pretty high opinion of yourself, don't you.

[ bellamy doesn't sound chiding about it, though: just amused, half-pleased, while he takes another sip of that strange alien liquor. he's still shaking off the dust, trying to remember what it felt like to grin at gina over a table in the arkadia mess hall, what it's like to be friendly and flirt instead of just focus on the day-to-day logistics of survival. the woman beside him is radiating self-assurance, cockiness, and god help him but that's the kind of attitude he always enjoys most. women who give as good as they get, who refuse to back down. ]

That what you always wanted to do, back where you came from?

[ he'd always wanted to be a guard; had grown up pushing himself hard, training day-in and day-out to accomplish it, before it was all ripped away from him and he'd gone plummeting back down, knocked right off that pedestal. ]

[ she considers that for a moment, lips curling upward again. ] Not too high. [ the confidence is well-deserved. and it's a pleasure to let herself fall into it again, because it isn't something she's felt a lot of lately, between d'avin leaving and getting herself locked in a cryo-pod by her mother/grandmother/it's-complicated, all the shit that's gone down as of late. it's a pleasure to hear that note of dry amusement in his tone. ]

No. [ she shrugs. ] I wanted to be a princess.

[ that's not actually a lie, although she'd wanted to marry a prince mainly to get out of the harem, to get away from khlyen. really, she'd wanted to be a child. maybe a dancer.

so she shrugs, after a moment. ] Or a dancer.

[ princess. that one word, that accidental reminder, is somehow the last thing he expected to hear and it's like raw voltage plugged into his nerves. bellamy's face flickers in surprise. looking to you, princess.

and then dutch's second answer makes another one of the bricks in the metaphorical wall tumble away, accidentally shaking something loose. there's a flash of vulnerability in bellamy's face, and those dark thoughtful eyes which always reveal a bit too much. ]

My sister likes— liked— dancing. Me, I'm kinda shit at it.

[ his gaze drops down to his drink for another moment, before lingering on the restrained strength in dutch's movements, the effortless way she carries herself. it's a nice distraction. she's a pretty nice distraction. ]

You look like you'd be a pretty good one, though. Dancer or princess, either/or.

[ his eyes are dark like her own and, for a moment, vulnerable. dutch doesn't want to see that vulnerability there, doesn't want the reminder of how deeply other people feel. it either drags up sympathetic memories of her own vulnerabilities or makes her feel --defective for the way that khlyen taught her to turn her emotions of, hardened her, turned her into the weapon she is today.

it doesn't last, at least. (it still tugs at her, making her itch for --something. a distraction, maybe.) ]

Never made it as a dancer, but I was queen for a day.

[ she studies him for a moment, letting her gaze linger, letting her lips curl up. she's a pretty nice distraction; so is he. could be even nicer, though. ]

How shit are you, then?

[ he's better at biting back his reaction this time, letting it just bounce off him. he thinks back to one of those last parties at arkadia: pounding bass through his bones and jasper drinking and bellamy standing warily at the edge of all the festivities, holding himself apart from the others even while a girl tried to drape herself over him, asking him to dance. his stiff reluctance before he finally joined them in the drinking, at least.

so he laughs, shakes his head in answer. ]

Really shit. You'd have to get me a hell of a lot drunker than this to show off my moves. Someday, though, maybe.

[ it's not entirely a shutdown, instead something of a promise, and he raises his glass in another toast before draining the rest of the drink. ]

What was it like being queen for a day? I was king of a pack of idiots for, like, a few weeks. Not the same at all.

[ it's strange thinking back on it, the power he'd once wielded, the nickname he'd accidentally picked up from murphy. i think the princess is dead, but i know the king's about to die, so who's really going to lead these people, huh? ]

Pretty sure there's at least one more bottle of whatever this is behind the bar. [ but the quip is just that, accompanied by a grin that's all teasing. she's not going to push him to dance if he doesn't want to —and maybe it's better if they don't. dancing is more intimate than sex, as far as dutch is concerned. ]

Well, I wore a pretty, pretty dress.

[ and then her husband had promptly gotten himself murdered, their wedding his death sentence, and she'd run away in the spaceship that'd been her wedding gift together with the thief who'd been trying to steal the ship at the time, who'd become her moral compass and her gravity. ]

Sounds like it comes with territory. How about a crown?

[ his closest concept of actual royalty, apart from reading old stories, is grounder society: the tangled teeth and bone and antlers of roan's crown. ]

Only for a little while.

[ it had been closer to the royalty of old stories than to that of grounder society, but it had ended quickly and with blood. ]

[ he's set his drink down on the bar without quite realising it, his fingers restlessly turning the glass, fidgeting just to have something to do with his hands. he obviously doesn't know dutch well enough yet, but there's something to her clipped responses that makes him wonder. like how other certain subjects are bound to make him clam up and go tight-lipped (his mother, his sister, the blood on his hands). ]

We can talk about something else, by the way. If this topic isn't great.

[ it's a sore subject. it isn't great. but the suggestion that it isn't, the fact that she's been obvious enough for him to pick up on it, that doesn't quite sit right with dutch, either. (if people find weaknesses, if people know about these things, what's to stop them from abusing them? from turning her weaknesses against her, using them as weapons?

it's a dark way to look at the world, maybe, but it's what khlyen taught her. johnny's proof that not everyone will use her soft spots against her, but then, she doesn't know bellamy like she knows johnny.)

she shrugs. ] It was because of an arranged marriage that didn't last long.

[ both of those statements are true. neither of those statements really capture why the memory still hurts to this day. ]

[ it had been a small thing, not a huge tell: just dutch's answers getting shorter, shearing off the words, doling out the bare minimum. bellamy might be all heart and less brain, but that means he's used to watching other people, listening to them, walking on eggshells around the ark's law enforcement and watching for the volatile shifts of their moods.

and he knows what it's like to have details in your history you don't want others to dig into. and so he doesn't pry; just nods, accepting, and refills their drinks. ]

Tell me about your favourite bounty instead.

[ a blunt segue, maybe, but it's the best he's got when his tongue's already loose on this inhumanly-bright liquor. and so the conversation shifts back to safer territory: RAC (mis)adventures, swapping stories, bellamy drinking up dutch's tales like he's listening to a penny dreadful from the holovids.

it's a good enough way to spend an hour on a ship headed to nowhere, talking and drinking and whiling away the time and getting to know each other. ]

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