Hi i saw your request for more requests and i have one.
Bellamy Blake x reader inspired by the song whatever it takes by imagine dragons. I don’t care what the plot is. I just NEED it to be like soul crushingly sad like so so so so sad. I need my chest to physically hurt. I need to suffer, ugly crying into my pillow. Please.
⋆‧°𓏲ּ𝄢 whatever it takes.
pair: bellamy blake x fem!reader
warnings: angst angst angst!! / established relationship / reader is implied feminine / slow death / illness / possible inconsistencies
authors: i think this submission was sent to me like a year ago im SO sorry it took me so long... guys i'm gonna take a break from writing for avatar for a bit because im SOOOOO bored of it. maybe not avatar *entirely* but im considering taking a break from my neteyam series and maybe writing more for ao'nung and tsireya because theyre my favies. anyways i've been getting back into the 100 recently so u can all thank lola for this fic for sending me all the clurphy and bellarke edits!! also sorry for any inconsistencies i rlly need to rewatch the 100 its been prob like 2 years....
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The first sign was the tremor.
It was so faint you almost missed it. You were both on a supply run, scouting the dense forest at the edge of the new territory. The sun was warm, filtering through the thick canopy in shifting patterns on the forest floor. Bellamy was ahead of you, hacking through thick vines with a machete, his back slick with sweat under the thin fabric of his shirt. He stopped, turning to hold out a canteen of water.
"Here," he said, his voice a little breathless. "Drink up. We're not stopping until we hit the ridge."
You reached for the canteen, your fingers brushing against his. That's when you saw it. A slight, almost imperceptible shiver in his hand, a vibration that traveled up his arm before he tucked it into his pocket with a casualness that didn't quite reach his eyes.
"You okay?" you asked, your gaze fixed on his now-hidden hand.
He forced a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Just tired. Didn't sleep well. Miller's snoring could wake the dead."
You wanted to press him, to ask what was really wrong, but a shout from Jasper cut you off. He'd found an old, rusted-out pickup truck half-swallowed by gnarled tree roots, its windows shattered, its frame a skeleton of a forgotten world. The discovery shifted the group's focus, a small victory in the vast wilderness, and the moment was forgotten. But the image of that slight, betraying tremor lodged itself in your mind like a splinter, tiny but sharp.
The second sign was the cough.
It started about a week later. A dry, hacking sound that ripped through his chest in the dead of night, violent enough to shake the thin frame of your shared cot. You'd lie awake in the darkness, listening to him try to muffle it in his pillow, his body tensing beside you with each painful spasm. You'd place a cool hand on his back, feeling the muscles knot and release under your touch.
"Bellamy?" you'd whisper into the thick, heavy air.
"Go back to sleep," he'd rasp back, his voice strained and thin. "It's just the dust. I'm fine."
But it wasn't just the dust, and you both knew it. You were living on a radiated planet, breathing air that was still a question mark. The Grounders had survived, but their bodies were different. Hardened by generations of exposure. Yours were still soft, still vulnerable, still carrying the genetic blueprint of a life lived in a metal cage in the sky.
The third sign was the fever.
You discovered it by accident one evening, a week after the cough started. He'd been quiet all day, his usual restless energy replaced by a heavy stillness. You found him sitting by the central fire, staring into the flames as if they held the answers to the universe. You sat next to him, your shoulder brushing his, and reached out to brush the dark, damp hair back from his forehead. It was a simple, intimate gesture you'd done a thousand times.
His skin burned under your touch, far too hot.
"You're burning up," you said, your voice tight with a fear you could no longer contain.
He flinched away from your hand, pulling back like he'd been struck. "It's nothing," he insisted, his voice rough. "Just a cold. I'm fine."
But he wasn't fine. And deep down, in a place he was desperately trying to ignore, he knew it too. You saw it in the flicker of panic in his eyes before he masked it with irritation.
That night, you went to Clarke. Your heart pounded a frantic, painful rhythm against your ribs as you pushed open the flap of the medical tent. She was there, her back to you, organizing meager supplies by the light of a flickering lantern. The air inside smelled of antiseptic and dried herbs.
"Something's wrong with Bellamy," you said, the words tumbling out in a desperate rush. "He's really sick."
Clarke turned, her expression immediately serious, her doctor's mask sliding into place. "What are his symptoms?"
You listed them, your voice trembling as you spoke—the persistent tremors in his hands, the deep, wracking cough, the fever that seemed to be getting worse. As you spoke, you watched her face, saw the clinical detachment descend over her features. She listened patiently, her eyes focused, her movements precise.
"I need to see him," she said finally, her voice leaving no room for argument.
The examination was quiet and tense. Bellamy sat on the edge of a crude cot, his shirt off, his skin slick with a cold sweat while Clarke moved around him with methodical efficiency. She ran her hands over the swollen glands in his neck and under his arms, listened to his breathing with a makeshift stethoscope fashioned from old tubing and a horn from a Grounder's mask. You stood by the flap of the tent, your arms wrapped tightly around yourself, a knot of dread tightening in your stomach until you could barely breathe.
When she was done, she turned to you, her eyes holding a compassion that was more terrifying than any anger.
"Can I talk to you outside?" she asked, her voice soft.
The world tilted on its axis. The air outside the tent felt thin and cold against your skin. The moon was a sliver in the inky black sky, and the sounds of the camp—the crackling of fires, the distant murmur of voices—seemed a world away.
"It's radiation sickness," Clarke said, her voice low and steady, each word a hammer blow to your soul. "The kind we can't fight. The kind that... it gets in the bones. It's systemic."
"No," you whispered, the word a denial, a prayer. "No, that's not possible. We're all fine. The radiation levels are safe. You said so yourself."
"Some people have a... a predisposition," she explained gently, her hand resting on your arm in a gesture of comfort. "A sensitivity. A genetic marker that makes them more susceptible. The landing must have triggered it. The exposure, even the minimal amount we got... it was enough to start the chain reaction."
"Can you fix it?" you asked, your voice barely audible, a child's desperate plea. "There has to be something. A treatment. A cure. Something the Grounders use."
Clarke's silence was your answer. It stretched on, heavy and suffocating. She looked at you with an expression of profound sadness, of helplessness, and that was what broke you.
"There's nothing," she said finally, her voice barely above a whisper. "I'm sorry. The progression is... it's usually quick. A few weeks. Maybe a month if he's strong. If he rests."
A month. The words echoed in the sudden, roaring silence of your mind. A month. You had a month left with the person you loved more than life itself. The man who had held your hand through the terror of re-entry, who had promised you a future on this green, beautiful, deadly Earth.
The next day, Bellamy became a man possessed. The fever, the cough, the tremors—they didn't disappear, but they were pushed aside, buried under a mountain of sheer will. He was on his feet before the sun was up, his movements driven by a frantic, desperate energy that was both inspiring and terrifying to witness.
"We're not giving up," he declared to you and Clarke that morning, his eyes burning with a feverish intensity that had nothing to do with his illness. "There has to be something out there. A plant. A natural spring. The Grounders have survived here for a century. They know things we don't. We just have to find it."
It was an all-consuming obsession that took over the entire camp. Bellamy, with Clarke and a small team of volunteers, mapped out expeditions into uncharted territory. He poured over every piece of salvageable text from the Ark, searching for any mention of medicinal plants, any folklore about healing waters, any scientific theory about radiation neutralization. He neglected his duties as a leader, alienated Miller with his single-minded focus, and snapped at anyone who suggested he should be resting.
"Resting is giving up!" he'd roar at them, his face flushed with fever and fury. "I'm not giving up. Not now. Not ever."
You watched him waste away, his energy burning bright and fast like a dying star. His face grew gaunt, his cheekbones sharp angles under fever-flushed skin. The coughing fits became more violent, leaving him doubled over, gasping for air, his body wracked with tremors that he could no longer hide. But he never stopped. He pushed himself harder, further, driven by the promise he'd made to you, to himself. Whatever it takes.
The camp started to whisper. They saw his decline, his erratic behavior. They saw you, always at his side, forcing water down his throat, trying to coax him into eating broth, your face a mask of desperate hope that was beginning to crack.
One evening, after he'd collapsed from exhaustion during a council meeting, you found him sitting by the fire, staring into the flames as if they held the secrets of the universe. You sat beside him, not speaking, just offering your presence, your unwavering support.
"I'm scaring them, aren't I?" he asked, his voice a rough whisper, his eyes still fixed on the fire.
"They're worried," you corrected gently. "We all are."
"I'm trying," he said, turning to look at you, and the raw agony in his eyes broke your heart all over again.
"I swear to you, I am trying every goddamn thing I can think of."
"I know," you whispered, your hand finding his. It was clammy, trembling slightly even at rest. "I know you are."
The breaking point came three weeks into his desperate search. He led an expedition deep into a territory Lincoln had explicitly warned them was dangerous, a place known as "The Dead Zone." They were looking for a specific plant, a rare night-blooming moonpetal mentioned in an old botany text as a potential radiation purifier. The text was ancient, a relic from before the bombs, but it was the only lead he had.
They came back two days later, empty-handed and broken. Bellamy was carried back to camp on a makeshift stretcher, his body wracked with violent tremors, his breathing shallow and ragged. You ran to him as they carried him to the medical tent, your heart seizing in your chest.
He was delirious, his words a jumbled mess of commands and pleas. He grabbed your hand as you leaned over him, his grip surprisingly strong for a man so close to the edge.
"Shhh," you soothed, brushing his damp hair back from his forehead. "It's okay. You're safe now. You're home."
But he wasn't safe. He was dying. And you finally had to accept it.
The final week was a descent into hell. Bellamy was confined to the medical tent, his body betraying him in every way imaginable. The fever raged, a fire that no amount of cool water could quench. He was skeletal, the sharp planes of his face a stark reminder of the vibrant man he had been just weeks before.
The coughing fits were relentless, violent convulsions that left him weak and gasping, each one a fresh torture. You never left his side, sleeping in fits and starts in a chair beside his cot, your hand never leaving his.
He drifted in and out of consciousness, his ramblings a painful mix of reality and fever dreams.
Sometimes he thought he was back on the Ark, shouting at Octavia to get back under the floor.
Other times he was leading a charge against an invisible enemy, his voice hoarse with commands. And sometimes, in the rare, lucid moments, he was just Bellamy, your Bellamy, and the pain of those moments was almost unbearable.
"You have to eat something," you pleaded, holding a spoon to his lips. It was just broth, but even that was a struggle.
He turned his head away, his eyes closed. "Can't."
"Please, Bellamy. For me."
A tear escaped from the corner of his eye, tracing a path through the grime on his temple. "I'm so sorry," he whispered. "I'm trying to be strong. I'm trying.."
"You are strong," you choked out, your own tears flowing freely now. "You're the strongest person I've ever known."
The end came on a Tuesday. It was quiet, unremarkable. The sun was shining, the birds were singing. It was a beautiful day, and you hated it. Hated the world for continuing to turn when yours was ending.
He woke up just after dawn. His eyes were clear, focused. The fever seemed to have broken, and for a heart-stopping moment, a wave of insane, desperate hope washed over you. Maybe Clarke was wrong. Maybe he was beating it.
"Hey," he said, his voice surprisingly strong.
"Hey," you replied, your hand tightening on his. "How are you feeling?"
He didn't answer. He just looked at you, really looked at you, his eyes tracing every feature of your face as if he was trying to memorize it.
"I love you," he said, his voice steady, sure. "I want you to know that. I've always loved you. From the moment I first saw you."
You shook your head slowly, tears beginning to brim. You knew what he was doing. "Don't," you begged, your voice breaking. "Don't talk like that. You're going to be okay. You have to be."
He shook his head slowly, a faint, sad smile on his lips. "No," he said softly. "I'm not."
And that's when you broke. That's when the last shred of your composure shattered into a million pieces.
"No," you sobbed, collapsing onto his chest, your body shaking with the force of your grief. "Please, Bellamy, please don't leave me. You can't leave me."
You were babbling, a torrent of desperate, nonsensical pleas, your words muffled by the thin fabric of his shirt. You felt his hand, weak and trembling, come to rest on your head, stroking your hair in a slow, rhythmic motion.
"Look at me," he whispered.
You shook your head, refusing to lift your head, refusing to see the finality in his eyes.
"Look at me," he said again, his voice a little stronger.
You slowly lifted your head, your vision blurred by tears. His face was pale, but his eyes were clear, full of a love so profound it took your breath away.
"You have to be strong," he said, his voice barely a whisper. "For me. For them. You have to live."
"I can't," you cried. "I don't want to."
"You can," he insisted, his gaze unwavering. "You're the strongest person I know."
And then he started to cough. It was a deep, wet, rattling sound that seemed to come from the very depths of his being. You watched in horror as a small trickle of blood escaped from the corner of his mouth, a bright, shocking red against his pale skin.
It was happening. It was really happening.
"Bellamy," you whispered, your voice trembling with a terror so profound it was almost paralyzing.
His eyes found yours again, and in them, you saw it. The acceptance. The peace. He was ready.
"I love you," he said, his voice a thin, fragile thread. "Whatever it takes..."
His eyes fluttered closed. His chest stilled. The last breath left his lips in a soft, final sigh.
And then there was silence.
A terrible, suffocating silence that pressed down on you, crushing you, stealing the air from your lungs. You stared at his face, at the man you loved, at the empty shell of the person who had been your entire world.
"No," you whispered, the sound lost in the vast, overwhelming emptiness of the room. "No, no, no, no, no."
You shook his shoulders, your movements frantic, desperate. "Bellamy, wake up. Wake up! You can't do this to me. You can't leave me. Please, God, please. Wake up."
But he didn't wake up. He was gone.
A raw, guttural scream tore from your throat, a sound of pure, unadulterated agony, a sound that held all the pain, all the grief, all the rage of a world without him in it. It was a sound that ripped through the quiet of the camp, a sound that would haunt the dreams of everyone who heard it for the rest of their lives.
You collapsed onto his chest, your body wracked with sobs so violent they felt like seizures. You clung to him, your fingers digging into his shirt, refusing to let go, as if you could hold him here, as if your love alone could bring him back. But it was no use. He was gone. And you were alone.
Truly, completely, utterly alone.
And the pain of that realization was a physical thing, a gaping, bleeding wound in your soul that would never, ever heal.
The tent flap was thrown back with a violent rustle. Clarke stood there, her face pale, her eyes wide with a horror that mirrored your own. Behind her, Miller's silhouette was a rigid block of pain. They had heard your scream. Everyone had heard your scream.
"No," Clarke whispered, taking a step inside, her medical training forgotten, her friend's mask crumbling. "No..."
You didn't look at them. You couldn't. Your world had shrunk to the cold, still body beneath you. You buried your face in his chest, inhaling his scent one last time, a scent that was already fading, already being replaced by the sterile smell of death.
"He's just sleeping," you babbled, your words muffled by the fabric of his shirt. "He's just tired. He fought so hard. He just needs to rest. We just need to let him rest. He'll wake up. He always wakes up."
Hands were on you then, gentle but firm. "Hey," Miller's voice was rough, thick with unshed tears. "Come on. Let's... let's give him some peace."
"Get off me!" you shrieked, your head snapping up, your eyes wild with a feral, manic fury. You lashed out, your nails raking down his arm, making him recoil. "Don't touch him! Don't you dare touch him! He's not dead! He's not!"
You turned back to Bellamy, your hands frantically patting his cheeks, your touch desperate. "Bellamy? Bellamy, wake up." You weep, balling his shirt into your fist.
"They're trying to take you away. You have to wake up and tell them to go. You have to tell them you're okay. Please, baby. Please. Just open your fucking eyes!"
His eyes remained closed, his face a peaceful, terrible mask. The silence from him was the loudest sound you had ever heard.
"We have to get her out of here," Clarke said, her voice cracking.
More people were crowding into the small space now, drawn by the commotion. You saw their faces through a blur of tears—Monty, his mouth agape in shock; Raven, her hand covering her mouth, her shoulders shaking.
"This is my fault.." Your voice is barely above a whisper, head shaking as you wipe your nose. "I should have tried harder! I should have found something to save him!"
"You did everything," Clarke soothed, trying to get closer, to wrap her arms around you. "He knew you did."
"I didn't!" you wailed, thrashing in her grip. "I let him die! I just watched him die!"
Then, a figure pushed through the crowd, her movements sharp and frantic. Octavia. She took in the scene—Bell's still form, your hysterical grief, the crowded tent—and a sound like a wounded animal escaped her lips. She stumbled forward, her hands flying to her mouth, her eyes fixed on her brother's face.
"No," she choked out, the word a desperate, broken prayer. "Bell. No."
She collapsed to her knees on the other side of the cot, her body folding in on itself. Her sobs were different from yours, quieter, but somehow deeper, a well of pain so vast it seemed to have no bottom. She reached out a trembling hand, her fingers barely brushing his arm before snatching back, as if the coldness of his skin had burned her.
Seeing her, seeing her grief, broke something in you all over again. It made it real. It made it final.
"He can't be gone," you whispered to her, your voice suddenly calm, a terrifyingly calm. "He promised. He promised he wouldn't leave us."
Octavia just shook her head, her body shaking with the force of her tears, unable to speak.
That's when Jasper stepped forward. His face was a mess of tears and snot, his usual goofy charm completely erased by a profound, soul-crushing sadness. He didn't hesitate. He moved behind you, his arms wrapping around your waist, pulling you back with a strength you didn't know he possessed.
"NO!" you screamed, your body going rigid, fighting him with every ounce of strength you had left. "No! Let me go! I have to stay with him! I can't leave him! He'll be scared! He'll be alone!"
"He's not alone," Jasper's voice was a ragged whisper in your ear, his own tears falling into your hair. "He's not alone anymore. But you have to let him go. You have to let him go, or this will kill you too."
"I don't care!" you shrieked, kicking and struggling, your nails clawing at his arms.
He held on, his grip like iron, pulling you backward, inch by agonizing inch, away from the cot, away from Bellamy. Your fingers scrabbled at the edge of the cot, trying to hold on, trying to anchor yourself to him.
"I love you!" you screamed, your voice breaking, the words torn from the very depths of your soul.
Jasper finally managed to pull you through the flap of the tent, into the blinding light of the day. The sun was shining. The world was beautiful. And it was the most disgusting, obscene thing you had ever seen. You collapsed in his arms, a dead weight, your body finally giving out, the fight draining away, leaving only a hollow, screaming emptiness.
You were pulled away, carried to your own empty tent, your sobs the only sound you could hear. They left you there, a broken, shattered thing on the floor of a space that was suddenly too big, too quiet, too empty. You were alone. Truly, completely, utterly alone. And the pain of that realization was a physical thing, a gaping, bleeding wound in your soul that would never, ever heal.