The last couple of weeks had been full of so much bullshit. People were being attacked in the streets by vampires on the loose, and even one of their own had somehow been turned (turned back?) into a blood sucker that probably enjoyed using severed heads as bowling balls. Vampires really weren’t Octavia’s thing, but it was part of the job. When the other vampire had been set on the loose by COS several months ago, she’d told Becker that she believed killing him was the right move instead of trying to “save” him. Ultimately it wasn’t her call, but she still had the same thoughts this time around too only this time she didn’t share her opinion.
Not only were they dealing with vampires and curfews, but a lot of people had left Atlantis recently. People like Cappie. The two of them weren’t as close lately as they were six months ago, and there had been plenty of awkwardness the last time they’d run into one another, but she still considered him one of her best friends. He knew her better than a lot of people did, and knowing that they’d never figure out a way to get back to the way things were was a tough pill to swallow. So, Octavia did what she did best when she needed to work through something and going out for a drink wasn’t an option. She trained.
Already working up a sweat, Octavia spun around to kick the dummy in the chest and jumped back to land on her feet. Her breath wasn’t labored yet, but she paused to take a breather and a sip of water from the bottle inside her bag across the room. When she looked up, she saw someone pass by the doorway and then turn back to step into the training room - her brother.
“Hey,” she said to him as he walked over. “What’s up?”
Bellamy wasn’t sure he was ever going to entirely adjust to being in Atlantis - there was always something new to take in, always some new bullshit, always some new danger. Of course, he was plenty used to a life of uncertainty and outrageous scenarios - but Atlantis had thrown all of its might at him since he’d shown up. First, it had been a major adjustment to be here and not have Echo - let alone Monty or any of the others. It was weird to think about Echo not being here, even now, five years was a long time to spend with the same very small group of people trapped on a space station just sort of waiting. Then, of course, Raven had left but you know he’d dealt with that. It had been a comfort to have her here but he wasn’t going to get mopey over her being gone. And then there was the real punch to the gut; having to go back there. Mount Weather was the last place Bellamy had ever wanted to go back to so to say that it had put him in a less than great place, well, that was an understatement. Plus the whole holiday season thing and all of that. Atlantis had been a hell of a thing to adjust to - but he kinda felt like he’d finally come around on all that.
Of course, now there were vampires and that made Bellamy pretty damn sure he wasn’t ever going to fully adjust to this - but that didn’t mean he hadn’t rounded the corner on dealing with it being weird at least. His mood had definitely been improved the last few weeks and with all of the departures he’d seen a small promotion to actually leading him and Porthos’ team now. It wasn’t expected, but at least it wasn’t like he had no experience and he liked Porthos - so in the end, it didn’t really feel like anything but a formality anyway.
For now, he’d just been looking to get a little work out in. He didn’t do well being cooped up because of the whole Strigoi thing and it meant he had some energy he’d wanted to work off. Stepping inside he heard O’s voice almost immediately and looked over, giving her the sort of affectionate smile only she really ever got out of him. “Hey, O.” He responded, meeting her halfway. “Oh you know, just looking to punch a few things to cope with being inside too much.” Bellamy joked.
Octavia let out a short laugh and motioned to where she'd just been working out. "Join the club." That wasn’t the only reason she was here, but it was a big part of it. The other reasons were ones she didn't want to talk about or didn't feel like she could without making a mess of all of the jumbled memories in her head of her two different lives. Well, three really at this point since she'd been here for so long. Home, Atlantis, and Breck. She'd managed to become a different version of herself in all three of them.
"The last report I read showed the teams still trying to locate the vampires, but they've been hard to track. I haven't heard much yet about the other guy who showed his crazy." Killing them still felt like the best plan, the safest plan for the rest of Atlantis, but she already knew that idea would be shot down before it was ever considered.
"I end up down here a lot in the mornings or when I have a break during the day. It's the one one downfall of not being a regular agent - no scheduled training and workouts." She liked her job, but there would always be parts she didn't like or would pass onto someone else if she could. Like the mission reports. So many mission reports.
"Want to spar with your little sister?" She asked with a grin. This wasn't something that they'd really ever done at least from a training aspect, so she was curious to see how how they fought against one another.
Bellamy was more than happy to let a chuckle out at O’s little joke. It was nice to see her happy, or as happy as he could imagine she might be given the situation. He’d gone years without seeing her happy and years feeling like he’d failed her, but she was really thriving here. She legitimately seemed happy and that… well, it was probably enough on its own to put him in a better mood than he had been in… awhile. And if he was honest with himself, it wasn’t the only reason he was here either. Bellamy didn’t do good when he wasn’t keeping busy and being sequestered like they had been because of the vampires running about only sort of made it worse. The older of the Blake siblings had never done good with containment and he wasn’t sure if that was because of knowing what it had done to his sister, or something else entirely. But it was what it was. “I’m damn sure we could rouse up a pretty good membership.” He teased back, with another smile.
Arching an eyebrow, “Oh that Stefan guy?” He probably should have taken that one more seriously, but he hadn’t and hey - he’d gotten over to base okay and he had made it up to the gym okay so he figured with all of the extra security and the escorts that he was probably out of the woods - even with that asshole’s threats. “He was definitely off his damn rocker.” Understatement, possibly. But of course Bellamy didn’t even know the half of how bad Stefan was without his humanity when he’d been a vampire and that was… well, probably for the best right now.
“I don’t think I’ve ever worked out this consistently.” It wasn’t like she didn’t know, at least, except for his years back up on the arc after the second Praimfaya. He’d definitely worked out more than he used to then - for fuck all reason beyond lack of anything else to do. “But I think I might be willing to take you up on the challenge.” Bellamy said with a smirk.
"You'd be right about that," Octavia said. She was hardly one to talk, but there were a lot of people in Atlantis that dealt better with shit going on with their fists instead of, you know, actually dealing with it. She understood that better than most, and it obviously ran in the family.
"Yeah, him," she replied about Stefan. "He's different than the other ones on the loose." Different worlds, different vampires all at the same time. "I don't know the guy well when he's not acting crazy, but I've seen him around here and there. He's a lot different... this way. Vampires aren't really my thing, but based off of the information we have, the first vampires need magic to fix them, and Stefan needs to flip some kind of humanity switch in his mind. The second doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but apparently he doesn't feel anything about anything when he's like this." If she was truly honest with herself, Octavia might have been a tad jealous. How many times had she wished she didn't have to feel anything for a while?
He accepted the challenge, so Octavia positioned herself in a ready stance while he got himself ready. She stretched her neck and flexed her hands in and out of fists a couple of times. There was the hint of a challenging smirk to match his when they stood toe-to-toe, and she let loose with a couple light punches that he'd easily been able to block. She'd always been the one that had worked on her training more when they were on the ground, but it had technically been six years since they'd seen one another. Even with the other versions of her brother showing up, their relationship had still been off each time. One had been way behind her in time from shortly after they landed on the ground, and the other she'd just had trouble connecting with as long as he'd been around. The banter and familiarity between them now felt nice.
"How's the team going?" She asked. He'd been assigned to one of Sharon's teams, so there hadn't been a lot of overlap so far other than the mission they'd been to back home.
That may have been a thing they shared, even if the little bit of Bellamy that would admit it quietly in the back of his mind would have to be reduced to almost no other options to reveal it outloud - sharing that part of them that just… wanted to not feel something for awhile. It was probably well represented enough that they’d both managed to end up here. They both had managed to end up here because they were both survivors and they burned on flourished on an instinct that meant not standing still. Neither Bellamy or Octavia was ever going to be the type of person who took any situation sitting down - whether it meant going to the gym or actually going out into the field. He knew that neither of them had that just wait it out mentality. They’d both survived, thrived, been through too much for that. So he was glad she was here, he needed more time around her. He needed more time to learn who O was now - to learn who Atlantis had helped her grow to be.
He had to admit he was happy to see her… content, maybe even actually happy. She really seemed to be doing good here and it mad Bellamy smile at moments he wouldn’t admit to. “Yeah, that was some weird shit.” Bellamy admitted, giving his sister a little look, “The stories about the other ones seemed like weird horror movies. Attackings, injuries, bitings or whatever. But Stefan just seemed… to completely to have his whatever, personality, anything removed from him. It was creepy as hell.” The supernatural aspects of things around Atlantis were definitely something he was still adjusting to.
Either way, he was glad to be here - positioning himself in a defensive stance across from his sister as he ran over more than a few things in his mind he wouldn’t let come forth to his consciousness. They’d never really trained together, fought alongside each other sure, but they’d never been able to do this. Have these type of moments. Their paths had diverged so much over the years and it gave Bellamy an appreciate for those punches that he easily blocked. He wasn’t too busy off causing problems or staying disconnected from the Grounders here. Here they were fighting on the same side, the same goals, the same tactics. It was different - good different. Bellamy switched up his stance and moved on O with a few tactical positional changes, all of which lead up to a light jab or two. Nothing serious, just enough to keep someone on their toes.
“I like Porthos, he seems like good people.” He answered honestly.
"He was a dick," she said with a shrug. "He acted similar when we were all stuck in our fake lives a few months ago. Minus the part where he enjoyed killing people." It made more sense now, she guessed, the fact that his persona in Breck had acted like he did. "But yeah... horror movies. Those happen here more often than you might think." She stepped back just as another hit came her way and spun around to level a kick at him. It connected, but it wasn't hard enough to knock him over since he'd managed to avoid the direct hit.
"You've trained," she said as an observation. "More than just training here, I mean." Octavia knew that Bellamy could fight, but there was more precision in his moves than she remembered from the last time she'd seen him. More so than he would have developed in his relatively short stay in Atlantis so far.
The idea that he had more training only made her go a little harder. She moved faster and with more precision. Octavia had been a strong fighter on the ground, but there was a different type of training she'd received here than from her experiences with Lincoln, Indra, and any others.
Bellamy arched an eyebrow, “More often than I might think? Hell of a way to not sell the island.” He said jokingly as he couldn’t help but chuckle at his sister - even amongst the footwork and the jabs, she had a bite and a spirit he’d missed in the last few years. Sure, Echo and Raven were similar to O in that way - but there was no denying that even though Raven was one of his best friends and Echo was… well, he wasn’t really sure what Echo was to him now that he’d been here so long… either way, there was never going to be anyone who could fill the part of his heart that O did. And while he hadn’t spent nearly enough time with her in the relatively short (at least compared to how long she’d been here) time he’d been here, he was glad she was here. Glad she could still be herself. He didn’t want to know how long that had taken and he wasn’t going to ask.
Which sort of only made her next comment sting more than it should have. He’d been pretty okay with dodging a lot of bullets when it came to not talking about what he knew about and what she didn’t and he wasn’t about to spill the beans on that, no way no fucking how. But the question still stung - thankfully, Bellamy was damn good at holding that back and he just smirked instead, “When all you have to do for five years is work out, eat algae, and drink Monty’s shitty moonshine - you tend to get a few extra practice sessions in.” It was said like a joke, even if it tugged at him - because there was just no damn way he was letting O see that it did.
Octavia came close to actually getting a few solid jabs in - she was faster, she always would be. But Bellamy had gotten pretty damn good at blocking what he couldn’t dodge. Echo had helped a lot there - she’d had a lot of training like Octavia had. That Grounder mentality and that reliance on yourself and only yourself (always be prepared for a fist fight sort of thinking, you never know when you won’t have your knife or your bow or run out of arrows) can hold you up. But deep down it wasn’t like Bellamy thought this little spar was about winning - no, it was about something else. Not that either Blake sibling was the sort to admit that much.
Octavia shrugged. “Real life versions of them showed up about a year after I’d been here. A friend and I got chased down the streets by a guy wielding a fucking chainsaw wearing skin on his face.” She made a face just thinking about it. After that had happened, she’d actually made the mistake and watched one of the movies that had involved the guy. Ever since she’d been in Atlantis and had been exposed to the old movies and stories from Earth, Octavia discovered that she kind of liked horror movies most of the time. Just not the ones that had come to life and literally chased her down the street. “We kicked his ass though.”
The memory made her mood turn back dark briefly. That had been around the time she and Cappie had started becoming better friends. And now he was gone. She shoved that to the back of her mind, though, and focused instead on what Bell was saying. The mention of Monty made her heart ache a little. He’d been one of the people she’d missed the most in the bunker, and he’d been someone that hadn’t shown up in Atlantis. It felt like a decade since she’d seen him and Harper. Between the years in Atlantis, memories, and memories from fake lives, it practically had been.
After she’d landed a hit that had been blocked, Octavia spun around and ducked to dodge one in return. She’d sparred with plenty of people while in Atlantis. Becker, Rose, Clarke, and dozens of others, but this spar with Bellamy felt different. Familiar. Her mind was a little distracted as the next hit came and Bellamy managed to knock her off her feet, and her back hit the mat. She looked up at her brother with a small smirk. “I guess those extra sessions paid off.”
She may not have been entirely selling staying in Atlantis to him, but it wasn’t like Bellamy was going to leave. He wouldn’t have done that voluntarily to O or Clarke. He knew what it felt like to be without people, the unknown. Bellamy had had very little way of knowing what the hell had gone on on Earth in those five years and he wasn’t going to suffer either of two of the most important women in his life to not knowing what a return trip home meant for him. The whole ‘no apocalypses’ thing was also pretty great too, if he was entirely honest - and he did tend to be these days. He grimaced, “Chased down the street with a chainsaw?” He asked. Clearly he needed to watch some of these old movies, even if just to better prepare himself for what might happen. “You might get stuck giving me a few pop culture lessons, O.” Bellamy said, half honest suggest - half joke.
Bellamy could sense a little change in the way she was holding her face, just something about it. He didn’t know if it was talking about another death defying stunt she’d had to pull to stay safe on Atlantis or if it had triggered some other memory and as much as he wanted to be there for his sister? He wasn’t about to pry into that. No, it wouldn’t have been right. Or maybe it would have been. Maybe it would have been right to question it - but he just wouldn’t. The reality was that it could have for his own sake just as much as hers.
He’d been genuinely surprised to land that hit. Maybe he had gotten in more practice than he’d thought. With a smirk he leaned down - offering his sister his hand. “Hey, gotta take any little advantage I can get, right?” Bellamy joked.
"It was better than being terrorized by a fucking clown," Octavia said with a grimace. She didn't have a fear of clowns as she'd never been exposed to them very much, but they still did give off the creepy vibe, especially this one based on what she'd heard. "The pop culture thing is weird since apparently we're living around some of the biggest part of it." Not that either Blake would have known much about any old movies or history there except maybe a vague recollection. Their family had a collection of more classical novels and stories, but nothing like a psycho wielding a chainsaw.
"Yeah, well, those don't come around often," she quipped about advantages she may or may not have thrown his way. That hadn't been all of it. She still believed she was better than him in a fight, of course, but he'd definitely upped his game during the five or six years he'd spent up in space with little to do other than train and stare out the window back at a scorched earth.
"Let's go find something to eat." Octavia grabbed her towel and rubbed down her face and around the back of her neck. "You won, so I'll even buy." She'd planned to pick up something quick on her way home anyway, but a quick dinner out with her brother didn't sound like the worst thing.