[closed]

[adamance]

CHARACTERS: Lexa and Murphy
WHERE: The Station—specifically wherever Murphy rests his head..
WHEN: DAY :010.
SUMMARY: Lexa and Murphy need to get on the same wavelength. According to Lexa. Who thinks she can tell people what to do.
WARNINGS: None for now. Will update.

[As a politician and military leader, Lexa has to view the world in a broader sense. The issue is that in sticking to this behavior, she is no longer allowed to be disconnected from those around her. She cannot wear a blindfold to the emotions of the people in her life, and she can't pretend she is above those things. Therefore, she has to take action and use it as her weapon, allowing it to guide her day in and day out.

Her choice to wait on approaching Murphy is complicated by the fact that she has a lot to arrange now that she's awake again. It isn't avoidance or fear of the conversation that takes her away. It's the fact that she needs specific set pieces in place before she approaches him. It's as simple as that. Having a plan set in place to move forward to keep him in line—read: to prevent him from encouraging Bellamy down an unfortunate path—will help. Besides, she assumes that he'll assume that she'll have an agenda when she approaches. And she does. There are few that Lexa doesn't have an agenda with, even if she's fond of them. Her mind is too trained toward commanding a direction.

When she shows up beside wherever Murphy is sleeping and sits down like she belongs there to wait for him to awaken and notice her, she knows that she's crossing a boundary, that she's stepping across a line to make him uncomfortable. That she's taken so long after the poor nature of her conversation is telling. She wants it to be clear that she isn't hiding from the amount of days it's taken. She does assume he'll be awake soon, between his tendency toward survival (he is still alive somehow) and the fact that he can be considered among the "very new" to this symbiote business.]

Comments

[wrackful]

[It's the second time Lexa has grabbed him to stop him leaving. The first time, she'd been in the right, and he'd known it. This is different, and he bets that a majority of it is the idea of someone walking away before she's done talking.

He was right to try walking away, though. All she has to say is more bullshit. It isn't her attempt to insult him that makes him stay. It's how she keeps talking like what she's doing is going to save anyone - Bellamy, or the people back home.]

All you're making sure of is that they'll be dead already when we get there. But sure, keep sitting on your ass and calling it "smart" if that makes you feel better.

[Not that she'd ever acknowledge a feeling, and he pauses in turning to the door again, a sharp smile like something funny has just occurred to him.]

You know what I really keep thinking? At least Finn went looking for her. [Even if it had made him crazy. At least it wasn't doing nothing.] Maybe she wouldn't have cried over you so much if she'd known you were a coward.

[adamance]

Let me make one thing clear, John Murphy. [It's her anger that he meant to incite, and he accomplishes it many times over. Lexa only abstains from violence because she knows that he would view it as satisfying in some way—as a victory that he sought to obtain from this interaction. As much as she knows that any other conversation like this one would have ended in violence, she refuses to give that to him.

Some part of her knows that it's an odd way to think of it, and yet—that decision is the one thing that grounds her.]

You will not use Clarke as a weapon against me again. It's clear that it's beyond you to think of anyone but yourself, but thankfully, there are others who are capable of doing that for you. You've made it clear today that you have no intention of changing that.

[Oddly enough, it's not the mention of Clarke that wounds her. It's mentioning Finn's actions as if they are something to be celebrated; if she had done that following Costia's death, it would've been unwise. That isn't how she does things, and she won't tear apart her world just because of her love for Clarke.

And she knows Clarke would never, in a million years, do the same in return. Trying to weaponize their love for one another as if they don't share that understanding is a mistake.

Then again, it's not so different from what Titus had tried.]

[wrackful]

Still not my commander, Commander.

[It's an insult in his mouth, absolutely. If there's anyone here except Bellamy who listens to her, he hasn't heard them. He won't be joining Bellamy in doing what she says, and he definitely doesn't need anyone thinking for him.]

Besides, the only way Clarke could be a weapon is if you actually cared, right?

[adamance]

[There is a sensation of her sharply withdrawing mentally, all burning anger pulled away and sucked dry from the atmosphere. All that remains is just a cool, unreadable expression.]

No matter what happens after today, I was the one who attempted to make an alliance between us.

[Lexa knows how he'll read that: as a threat, as a sign that he's now her enemy. Perhaps he'll even see it as coming from some pedestal she views herself on. Some of that is even true.

But in reality, it had been an attempt to help offer him an ally for Bellamy and Clarke's sakes, while trying to protect the former of the two from Murphy's actions.]

[wrackful]

[She retreats, pulls her mind back, and it's almost tempting to chase after it. Release the tourniquet wrapped tight in his own head, let the screaming agony his symbiote has been since Kate and Remus fell away bleed out into the space between them. It's an urge he ignores.]

What, were you about to feel something? [Other than anger: that was a given with any grounder.] Yeah, better wrap that back up. Can't let anyone know you experience actual emotions.

[It reminds him of Ilde, for a moment, who'd taken human as an insult. Murphy could barely get through one conversation without having a reflecting emotion pulled up out of himself. The level of self-denial necessary to avoid that had to be immense, but of course, she probably just thought it made her strong.]

And I'm sure the alliance where you don't care what I want and I don't care what you want would've really worked out.

[adamance]

[Lexa chooses not to acknowledge the statement about "actual emotions." To accuse her of not caring enough about Clarke and then proceed to suggest that she wouldn't want to be seen experiencing anything is a contradiction in her mind. Not only that, it feels desperate, as if he can't find any other flaw to play with, to bat at like a wounded animal trying to get one more strike in.]

Alliances are about seeking a common goal, and doing it in a way that benefits both of us. The fact that you can't see the commonality between us is a failing on your part.

[It's a failing on his part, not hers. She refuses to claim blame when he has been nothing but defensive (from her perspective) for the entirety of their conversation, too honed in on what he wants her to say, rather than the reality of it. It tells her that he's working with limited knowledge, but prefers to keep it that way so that he can remain mired in his view of the world.

Which is fine. But it means that she refuses to be caught up in it, to be beholden to it, and she'll have to make sure that it's the same for Bellamy.]

[wrackful]

[No answer. Of course not. He smiles.]

Actually, they're about being worth something to the other person.

[And commonality didn't mean anything when the difference was too vast. The enemy she'd wanted him to recall had attacked him in the throne room, surrounded by the people she claimed to want to keep safe. There was no keeping them from being caught up. The enemy were already there.]

You think I'm stupid, and I know it makes no difference to me if you're awake or asleep, so...

[He steps back from the doorway, holds an open hand out towards it. He'd been walking away, but she'd stopped him. And it was past time for her to leave.]

[adamance]

Games of semantics will win you no favors. [Because that's what it seems this is. From her perspective, Murphy is knee-deep in his beliefs, too stubborn to drag himself away from the decisions he's already made regarding the relationship they share. She supposes that it's not surprising, considering; her people did torture him. But things change.

Or revert back to where they were before.

She decides those will be her final words as she leaves his room, head high, without giving him a final glance.]