one; A WALK THROUGH THE UNKNOWN

He flinched in pain as his fingers accidentally grazed the rather large bruise that took over most of his cheek and he carefully sat up as a beeping noise echoed from just outside of his cell, grimacing as the pain from his ribs being kicked earlier in the week finally caught up with him.

The familiar sound of his cell door sliding open caused the teenager to look up at the guards entering his cell and he eyed then with an unhidden curiosity because he knew that it was nowhere near dinner as they'd come in with breakfast only an hour ago and the guards only ever entered his cell twice a day.

"Are you guys lost?" He asked, faking an air of  confusion, "Because the screaming is coming from Mbege's cell, not mine."

"I'm really not in the mood for any of your games, Archer." The female guard spat.

Archer raised his arms in defence.

"What games?" He asked innocently, "I was merely commenting on the well-known fact that Mbege is a lunatic."

"Stand up and hold out your right arm." The male guard grunted as he placed a tin box on the small table at the edge of the male's cell leaving Archer to send the man a rather sardonic grin.

"Sorry, but you're not really my type," He responded.

The female guard sighed, her exasperation increasing tenfold, "Now, Archer."

Archer grunted as he got to his feet, wincing as his ribs screamed their protest but he suppressed his pain and instead, shot a wide grin at the guards as he raised his arm for them in a rather mocking way.

"Thank you." The guard told him.

Archer winked at him.

"Anything for you, Grant." He drawled out, his expression anything but sincere.

✦❀✦

Reckless behaviour and fighting were what put Archer in Solitary Confinement in the first place so he wasn't surprised when the guards led him directly to what appeared to be a ship, while the teenagers around him were merely being watched closely and pushed roughly if they so much as breathed the wrong way.

He also wasn't surprised when he heard the whispers of the other the delinquents as he was led past them toward a ladder that he just barely managed to get up the with little assistance from the guards who stood beneath him forced him up with his hands encased in cuffs but he finally got to the top and the two guards with him dragged him over to a seat that Grant quickly shoved him into it.

"That's not very nice," Archer told the older male with a grin as Liza began securing his seat belts, leaving Grant to scoff at the young male before he turned on his heel and walked off without so much as a backward glance.

"Nice bloke," Archer commented sarcastically.

Liza gave him a look that the teenager couldn't decipher.

"Good luck, kid." She said before she followed her partner.

Before Archer had time to ponder what the guard meant, others were being secured to their chairs and he came face-to-face with someone he hadn't seen in almost two years.

"So, this is why you stopped visiting me." He mused, rather surprised to see the male who was being seated across from him.

Henry Masen's eyes went wide and a grin spread across his face.

"Archer!" He exclaimed happily.

"How the hell did the son of a high-profile guard get his ass arrested?" He asked, his eyebrows raised.

Henry smiled rather sheepishly.

"Miller and I were busted for stealing some moonshine." He answered, looking rather embarrassed because out of all the lockup worthy things he had done in his life, it was stealing some moonshine that got him a ticket to the skybox.

Archer chuckled, the sound startling those who sat around them.

"Bet your father was thrilled." He commented.

"I don't think he's ever been happier that I share Mom's surname and not his," Henry replied.

Archer smirked at his old friend as a rumble echoed through the ship, effectively ceasing any and all chatter, leaving the male to look around the ship in confusion as he heard the sound of heavy machinery outside of the ship that they were in.

"I heard that we're going to Earth." He heard a girl whisper before, very suddenly, the mechanical sound stopped and they were falling as the ship started whirring to life leaving him to wonder if Earth was even a possibility.

Archer thought that there was supposed to be at least two more generations before they could go home again and before he could think it over any longer, the screens around the ship came to life and Archer was looking at the man who had falsely convicted him and ruined his life.

His eyes shined with hatred as his lip curled into a snarl.

"Prisoner's of the Ark." Jaha began after a brief moment, "Hear me now. You've been given a second chance, and as your Chancellor, it is my hope that you see this as not just a chance for you, but a chance for all of us, indeed for mankind itself. We have no idea what is waiting for you down there. If the odds of survival were better, we would have sent others. Frankly, we're sending you because your crimes have made you expendable."

Archer glared darkly at the screen, his lips curling into a deep scowl once his eyes found Wells Jaha strapped into one of the seats next to Clarke Griffin.

"Your Dad is a dick, Wells." He shouted over the chatter and laughter erupted around the level and the boy's face hardened as he looked for the source of the shouting, Clarke, however, saw the smug smirk that had replaced his earlier scowl and proceeded to glare darkly at him.

The male delinquent tipped his head at her in greeting as the arrogant smirk stayed planted across his features.

Henry whistled, his face alight with amusement.

"Those crimes will be forgiven, your records wiped clean." Jaha continued calmly.

Archer snorted.

"Yeah." He muttered, "Right."

Henry rolled his eyes.

"The drop site has been chosen carefully. Before the last war, Mount Weather was a military base built within a mountain." The Chancellor announced calmly, "It was to be stocked with enough non-perishables to sustain three hundred people for up to two years."

"Spacewalk bandit strikes again." A voice called.

Archer turned his attention from the screen in time to see Finn Collins float passed him, sending him an overly bright grin.

"Hey, Archer." He greeted, and the male winked at him in response.

"Go, Finn!" A girl shouted.

"Check it out." Finn's voice echoed around the ship, "Your dad floated me, after all."

Archer shook his head with a grin as Henry laughed loudly at the floating male.

"You should strap in before the parachutes deploy," Wells ordered.

Archer turned to his left just in time to see the teenager in the seat next to him unbuckle his belt and join Finn and another delinquent in the air and he rolled his eyes at their stupidity.

"Hey, you two, stay put if you want to live." He heard Clarke yell out.

"Mount Weather is life." Jaha preached, "You must locate those supplies immediately."

Henry tilted his head towards one of the many screens that displayed the Chancellor.

"Is he done?"

"Your one responsibility is to stay alive."

"Apparently not," Archer replied just as the ship jolted violently.

"Woah," Henry exclaimed as the lights flickered and the screens cut out.

A scream pierced the air as a crash echoed throughout the ship.

Lights flickered on and off rapidly, some of them smashing, the sparks raining over the delinquents and causing mass chaos.

The three boys who were floating were sent across the ship and Archer watched as one of the boy's head made contact with the ladder and his body, that was previously flailing in an attempt to grasp onto anything to stop his fast paced movement, went entirely limp.

Shouts echoed around the ship, people calling for friends, pleading for family members, some just screaming in pure terror, but it all echoed through Archer's head and he squeezed his eyes shut and gripped his seatbelt in his calloused hands as tightly as he could, tilting his head down in order to drown out the anarchy around him.

And then, the screams died out.

He let out the breath he didn't realise that he'd been holding as he cracked an eye open and glanced around before he opened his other one.

He let go of the belt and slowly lifted his head and looked around.

The engines whirling slowly became faster in its pace before it stopped and all that could be heard throughout the ship was the shallow breathing of the delinquents.

The silence was then broken by a boy who was strapped to the wall of the ship.

"Listen." He said quietly, though everyone heard him, "No machine hum."

The boy next to him chuckled.

"That's a first."

Archer heard the sound of buckles clicking and he looked down to see that he'd been released from the confines of his seat.

He took a quick glance at Henry before he made his way over to the ladder, not bothering to check on the boys who had left their seats before they hit the atmosphere, he knew that they were dead so he instead focused on prying open the latch to the door before he glanced down the hole, only seeing a few teenagers getting out of their seats on the lower level.

His eyes wandered to the second latch and he quickly made his way down the ladder and walked over to the latch, before opening it and peering down.

His eyes caught sight of what he was looking for and he grinned widely.

"The outer door is down on the lower level." He called out, loud enough for the people in the top level to hear him.

"Let's go!" A male voice shouted.

Not wanting to get caught in the mess, Archer quickly scurried down the ladder as footsteps pounded in his direction from all different places on the ship.

"No, we can't just open the doors." He heard someone yell.

Archer ignored the voice as he moved away from the ladder so he wouldn't have someone jump on him in their eagerness to see Earth.

When Archer looked back to the door, he saw a man in a guard's uniform and he observed the male both warily and suspiciously, his eyes narrowing at him.

"Surely the guard would not be stupid enough to send one of their own down into the unknown to die," Archer commented, just loud enough for the man to hear.

His lip quirked upward in an amused fashion.

"Nice observation." His voice was deep and Archer found that he quite liked it.

Before he had the chance to speak again, the level was crowded with delinquents all trying to get to the front.

"That's Archer." He heard a whisper.

"No way." Another said, "I thought you were making him up."

"I thought he was some legend the council created!"

Archer ignored them in favour of checking out the man who clearly wasn't a member of the guard.

"Hey, just back it up, guys." He called out in a vain attempt to stop the delinquents from pushing and shoving one another while arguing and shouting over all the other noise.

Archer rolled his eyes at the weak attempt.

"Shut up." He roared.

All chatter ceased.

Archer looked over his shoulder and smirked at the impressed looking man who then turned back to the lever that he was previously looking at when Archer had stopped him.

"Stop!" A voice ordered, "The air could be toxic."

Archer turned in time to see Clarke push her way to the front of the crowd.

"If the air is toxic, we're all dead, anyway." The 'guard' retorted.

"Bellamy?" A new voice asked.

Archer glanced over at the ladder to see Octavia Blake jumping from one of last few rungs, a look of pure shock on her face as she stared at the man, before quickly making her way towards him.

"My God." 'Bellamy' breathed once Octavia had stopped a few feet in front of him, "Look how big you are."

"What the hell are you wearing, a guard's uniform?" The younger girl asked, staring at the uniform in disgust.

"I borrowed it." Bellamy answered with a grin, "To get onto the dropship. Someone has got to keep an eye on you."

"Where's your wristband?" Clarke interrupted.

Archer rolled his eyes because clearly, the blonde was still as nosy as he remembered.

"Do you mind? I haven't seen my brother in a year." Octavia replied curtly.

"No one has a brother." A voice from the crowd of teenage criminals yelled.

"That's Octavia Blake, the girl they found hidden in the floor." A female voice shouted as though the majority of them hadn't been in an Earth Skills class with her in the weeks before.

The look that crossed Octavia's face as she launched herself toward the source of the voice sent Archer into an unwelcome flashback.

"I-I-I heard what s-sounded like wet s-s-sloshing"

"A-Angelo was begging Logan for mercy but he just laughed...Oh god..."

"I should have known that he was going to hurt someone,"

"YOU SET ME UP!"

"YOU KILLED MY FATHER AND YOU'RE LETTING ME TAKE THE FALL."

Archer snapped out of his trance when the sound of a strange, unfamiliar hissing filled the ship and he shook his head and looked up only to begin blinking rapidly when a bright light filled his retinas and once his eyes adjusted to his new surroundings, he got his first look at the ground.

The sight before him was wondrous.

Everything was green, but not just one shade of green, various shades of the colour filled his gaze and stretched out farther than he could see. Archer inhaled sharply and instead of the air tasting stale on his tongue, it tasted fresh and real and amazing.

His nose twitched as diverse smells assaulted his senses, each more unique than the next.

He heard the flapping of wings and birds singing somewhere in the distance and he saw bushes and trees and soil and he was in complete and utter awe at the sight of is all.

The sound of someone moving caused Archer to turn his vision to the entrance of the ship just in time to see Octavia Blake become the first person to set foot on the ground in ninety-seven years.

The girl gazed at her surroundings for a moment and in a flash, her arms with raised victoriously.

"We're back, bitches!" She screamed.

Archer was one of the first off the ship.

✦❀✦

He was staring around at the ground below his boots in awe when a voice snapped him out of his thoughts.

"Archer?"

He looked up and a smirk found a way onto his lips.

"Murphy." He responded.

The two stared at each other for a moment before Murphy walked forward a few steps and, for the first time in three years, Archer was hugging his best friend.

"It's good to see you," Murphy mumbled, his mind flashing to the last time he had seen his best friend, when the guards had hauled him away for defending him against Pike and Archer nodded, the two let go of one another as his gaze trailed to delinquents milling behind him.

"You have a fan club." He commented.

Murphy shrugged with a smirk as he looked over his shoulder at the small group before his gaze caught something causing him to turn back to look at his friend as the familiar look of mischief entered his eyes.

"Watch this." He told him.

Archer followed Murphy and the small group from a distance as they made their way over to Wells Jaha who had grabbed ahold of Jasper Jordan.

"Hey, hey, hey." Murphy called, "Hands off of him, he's with us."

Archer crossed his arms over his chest as he watched with curious eyes as the scene before him play out.

"Relax." Wells answered, the calm yet arrogant edge to his voice making Archer want to strangle him as it only reminded him of the Chancellor himself, "We're just trying to figure out where we are."

"We're on the ground," Bellamy called out, loud enough for everyone to hear.

"Is that not enough to satisfy you?" Archer questioned tightly.

Wells looked between the two warily before he began speaking, "We need to find Mount Weather, you heard my father's message. That has to be out first priority."

"Screw your father." Octavia immediately responded, "What, you think you're in charge here, you and your little princess?"

Amusement shone in Archer's eyes as he watched the exchange.

"Do you think we care who's in charge?" Clarke suddenly asked, "We need to get to Mount Weather, not because the Chancellor said so but because the longer we wait, the hungrier we'll get and the harder this'll be. How long do you think we'll last without those supplies? We're looking at a twenty-mile trek, okay? So if we want to get there before dark, we need to leave. Now."

Archer had to admit, very grudgingly, that what the girl said actually made sense and he figured that she'd gotten to the delinquent then Bellamy opened his mouth.

"I've got a better idea. You two go, find it for us." He spoke coldly, "Let the privileged do the hard work for a change."

"Yeah." A majority of the delinquents yelled, Archer, being one of them as so many things had gone wrong for him in order to make the children from Phoenix happy.

"You're not listening." Wells said angrily, "We all need to go."

He was suddenly shoved and Archer watched on as Murphy grinned.

"Look at this, everybody." He called out rather mockingly, "The Chancellor of Earth."

Archer chuckled.

"Think that's funny?" Wells demanded.

Murphy's foot connected with the Chancellor's sons leg causing him to crumble.

"No, but that was." He replied with a smirk.

Laughter filled the air as Wells shakily got to his feet and an arrogant grin swept across Murphy's face as he feinted a lunge that caused Wells to flinch rather violently.

"All right."

Archer shook his head at his friend's ludicrous behaviour.

Just as he was sure that his friend was actually going to throw a punch, a body landed between the two teenagers causing all noise to halt.

"Kids got one leg." Finn told Murphy, "How about you wait until it's a fair fight."

A tense silence filled the air until it was effectively broken as Octavia Blake strutted over to the trio.

"Hey, Spacewalker." She called out.

Finn's gaze traveled to the girl, his eyebrow quirking to show her that he was listening.

"Rescue me next." She told him flirtatiously causing Finn to flash her a rather cheeky grin.

"What exactly was I supposed to be watching just now?" Archer questioned in mock curiosity as Murphy stormed passed him.

"Dick."

Archer shook his head with an amused grin.

"Archer?"

He glanced to his left to see Finn Collins staring at him.

"What?" He asked.

"You up for a walk?" He questioned.

Archer stared at him for a moment before nodding and making his way over to him.

"Three of you." Wells amended.

Finn spun on his heel and grabbed to boys by their collars before turning back to the Chancellor's son.

"Five of us," Finn said.

"Can we go now?" Archer inquired, an edge to his voice as he didn't want to be a part of their conversation any longer.

As Clarke started to nod, a new voice interupted.

"Sounds like a party." Octavia commented brightly, "Make it six."

Bellamy came up behind his sister and grabbed her arm, "Hey, what the hell are you doing?"

"Going for a walk." Octavia answered as though it were obvious.

Archer chuckled quietly, causing Bellamy's gaze to snap to his and a glare to form on his attractive features.

"Hey! Were you trying to take this off?!" Clarke asked suddenly as she grabbed Finn's arm.

"Yeah. So?"

Archer rolled his eyes and tuned out their conversation until he heard Clarke ask Finn if he wanted his loved ones to think he was dead.

He pondered that questioned for a moment before he decided that if he ever saw his mother again, it would be too soon. He was completely fine with the Ark thinking that he was dead.

He snapped out of his thoughts when he noticed the group beginning to walk away and he quickly followed after them.

"Before you get any ideas, Finn's mine!" He heard Octavia warn as he strode passed the two girls.

"Before you get any ideas." Clarke repeated, "I don't care."

Archer chuckled quietly.

"Something funny?" Octavia called after him.

He looked over his shoulder and smirked at the brunette.

"Nah, there's no problem. Spacewalker just isn't my type." He answered before turning his attention away from the girls and quickening his pace.

══════════════════

murphy and archer are my ultimate brOTP and that's the tea.

thanks for reading!

~r