F O R T Y F O U R

Everything happened so quickly. One minute, she was flirting with Murphy, curling her hair around her fingertips and the next the entire food tent was up in flames with the four of them stood outside looking up at it in disbelief, despite it being inevitable.

And they sung to her in her mother's voice: positively mellifluous. Simply wonderful to the ears and it only made Althea want to dance with the flames, allow her body to sway in time with their flickering movements and to feel the power of their roar in her veins, but she did not move.

She let the nefarious flames spin their tune and absorbed every word of it, letting the memory of her mother's voice drift between her ears. And it was absolute serendipity. The food was burned and the flames only seemed to be curling higher and higher into the sky, their heat only growing, but the voice of the only one who had ever understood her curse seemed to revive her, even if just a little. It was still enough to dust the feathers clean.

And, in a sudden epiphany of true love, the voice simplified and she soaked up every utterance.

"Mother," She whispered, the flames reflections in her eyes.

"Althea, my beloved daughter, you have grown so much. Your aura pulses with power and... strength against what threatens to swallow you whole. The boy... you must be weary of the boy. His anger swells, it swells like the rivers long ago. Be careful and be smart, darling. Do not let the heart compel you," Her mother's voice said, drifting through the evening air. If she could bottle it up, she would. Althea never wanted to forget her voice: not if it meant letting go.

"I will be who I need to be," Althea breathed, her fingers curling into her palms.

But there was no reply. The flames lurched, bending and struggling as if there were a force tugging on its very being.

And Althea swore she could see her mother's face in the flames, but it was gone as quickly as it appeared. It was briefly soothing, but, as soon as the image dissipated, the ache swelled once more.

There wasn't time to cry.

Not as Murphy launched himself at Del, shouting at him with anger that could compare to the grieving flames as they wailed into the night. Althea's lips parted, but no words could escape her. They choked her: getting caught in her throat and seemed to burn into her flesh the longer they lingered as if they were fighting to be released.

"This is all your fault! We told you it was too much wood!" Murphy shouts, pushing Del back and snapping Althea out of her enraptured state.

The euphoria was dismissed in seconds, which in a sense she was thankful for because the urge to walk into the flames to her mother was growing within herself. Whilst she was aware of it, there was little she could do to control the compulsion. She was corrupt, but a part of her still fought fiercely.

"Get the hell away from me!" Del calls out, trying to push Murphy away, but it took Bellamy stepping in to separate them, telling them to save it for the grounders. It was the look on Murphy's face that scared her more than the formidable grounders.

That was what thawed her, allowing her muscles to move as she jogged after the unstable teen. She could see his fists were clenched and his stance was stiff as he walked away from the scene, striding into an abandoned tent.

Althea followed him into the tent, pushing what her mother said from her mind. If she was going to help, she couldn't just watch from the side lines.

"Thea?" She hears his voice and steps forward, her ravenous desire to aid driving her. But there was more than the want to help pulling her into that tent.

When he sees her stood there, confirming his conclusion, he laughs lowly and shakes his head. Althea shuffles on her feet, unsure.

"Bellamy's not going to believe me, is he?" He asks, but it seems like he already knows his answer. Althea breathes in and walks right over to him, taking both of his hands in hers. She doesn't let herself look up at him. Instead, she stares down at his hands. They were bruised, damaged and tortured: a fraction of the pain he knew too well.

"It depends what Octavia tells him," Althea replies and he rips his hands from hers, pushing them through his hair as he turns away from her.

"It always is, isn't it?" He laughs again, but there is no humour in his expression. He looked torn apart. Piecing him together again when Althea herself wasn't even complete was near impossible. "No one ever believes me."

His anger has not calmed. Murphy was angrier than he had been before, it seemed, and Althea didn't know how to quench it. Trying to keep herself together, she takes a seat on the makeshift bed and drags a hand through her hair, tucking it behind her ear.

"Murphy, you need to calm down," Althea tells him gently, trying not to provoke him further. He was easily stirred with his short fuse.

"Before what? Before I do something stupid again?" He questions, whirling around to face her. Althea winces.

"Yes, before you do something stupid again," She replies quietly, looking down at her hands and all their fine lines as he sighs, sinking down to sit beside her. "You made me a promise, Murphy, but I don't think you really intend on keeping it." Although her eyes did not well with tears, her body ached with disappointment, a familiar feeling.

"Thea," He breathes, tilting his head to look at her. When she finally turns her eyes to him, she wished she hadn't. It made the pain worse.

"I don't want to be left behind again," She says with the wind wrapping itself around her words, sending chills rushing down Murphy's spine. Those words were more than past bad luck with relationships, it came from a girl who had lost everything she had ever held close. Her mother and her father ripped from her grasp and thrown into the void of space, leaving her a hollow corpse with crows singing in her lungs and spiders spinning webs in the abandoned hole of her heart. "Not again."

Murphy could see the emotions etched across her face and could only hope that he was just as transparent as she was. He lifts his ruined fingers to her cheek, wiping away a tear she hadn't even known was there, and sliding them around to cup her jaw.

She doesn't lean into his touch, her eyes still awaiting a reply.

"I promised I wouldn't leave you." Her eyes flicker across his face, searching for the bad news. "And that's a promise I intend to keep."

And, ever so softly, his lips were on hers. Althea felt a surge in her veins as she kisses him back. He must've felt her responding, because he deepened the kiss and she felt the anger being channelled into her. Grateful for his affection, she let her mouth part to allow his entrance.

No one made her feel like he did. He electrified her, enlivening her from the depths of her despair. She craved his touch, missing him when he was gone. The skin of her neck sparked as Murphy's lips moved against her, trailing down her neck in a bombardment of divine. Perhaps, despite her mother's warnings about him, he was exactly what she needed to sweep away the cobwebs and to feel complete again. He would give her something to fight for.

Her fingers knit through his hair, a soft moan fluttering from her as they lie back on the bed, Murphy hovering above her. He draws back, looking down at her with a beam upon his, now reddened, lips.

"How could I ever leave you behind, Thea?" He breathes, brushing a curl of hair from her face. Althea giggles, sitting up to reconnect their lips and only pulling away to let him fumble her shirt off and to sweep his off.

She didn't care about anything else in that moment. Not what was coming, not what had already happened. Definitely not when all that was between them was undergarments. In fact, he was all she wanted to care about.

Althea, although not a virgin, had never felt such a way during intimacy. Rasping moans, lusting to kiss every inch of each other and a sense of passion that was irreplaceable. No one else could compare to the tidal wave of pleasure she felt.

It was rough and yet gentle all at once: frantic, but loving. A yearning being fulfilled at last as they reached their highs together, her fingers curling into his back and his face pressing into her neck as the wave of raw euphoria burst through their veins.

-

In the aftermath, Althea rests her head against Murphy's chest as he traces circles upon the skin of her back wondering. Just wondering how he became so invested in a girl who talked to the crows as if they were old friends, a girl who saw death in her dreamscape, the girl who cried even though she told herself not to. He was invested in Althea Barnes with more than promises and sexual attraction. He cared.

As he kisses her forehead, letting his eyes close, he wondered just how invested in him she was.

-

1602 words
im dead because malthea sex
I didn't write it graphically though, so hopefully it won't need gallons of holy water, although you all asked for it so...