[open]

[wrackful]

CHARACTERS: Murphy & OPEN
WHERE: Various around the Station.
WHEN: DAY :042 - :045 (see headers for specifics).
SUMMARY: Some misc downtime stuff and nightmares.
WARNINGS: Nightmares/memories of violence, death, gore.

( SCAVENGE | DAY :042 )

[The ship they'd stolen to get off of Shril looks out of place in the Station's hangar. It isn't elegant or sleek, or has any of the geometric lines which would put it in keeping with the honeycomb textures around it. Dark, aged and patched in places with newer metal, the bulbous shape of it more resembles a vegetable than anything else. It didn't match the store it had been built into, either, but the links were all too clear if examined for a moment. People coming to a new place, building a business and a life out of the shell of what they'd been before, but still keeping it. Remembering it.

Murphy doesn't think about it. If he did, he'd have to think about how that family were destroyed now, torn apart by Murphy and the group he'd led through their store, through them, to this ship. To survive, he tells himself, but that stopped making it less bitter to swallow a while ago.

It doesn't make him feel bad about searching the innards of the ship. Thievery had been easy, and he'd rather make what they'd done worth it than leave what might be useful stuff to rot over some misguided idea like respect. The ship is full of stuff, alien items varied from the bizarre to the mundane, and it turns out "useful" doesn't apply to a lot of it. Hunting through definitely isn't boring, though, and he's been at it for a few hours by now, the odd clatter or crash echoing out from the ship's open door. There's a slowly growing stack of items by the door: a small pile of books, two pairs of boots with a stray solitary companion, an embroidered case holding rows of tiny silver balls, and a large framed painting of a six-limbed alien reclining on a green-sanded beach.

The last is balanced pride of place, and almost definitely there to screw with people.]

( COOK | DAY :043 )

[He still hasn't dug through the whole of the ship, but he's rescued every book he's come across so far. Most of them don't interest him on first look, set aside to probably be dropped on Bellamy at some point, but two had been recipes. Pictures of food. He'd flicked through idly just to see what the meals looked like, but after stopping at a few, realised the instructions hadn't sounded that difficult. Simple stages to follow, point A to B to C, and a decent reward at the end.

The ingredients he'd found in the kitchens hadn't been exactly the same as what was pictured, but they seemed close enough. There's something soothing in the process: cut things up, combine, apply heat. What's simmering on the hob right now isn't quite the same colour as the dish in the book, but it smells good. It tastes good, too, when he stops to check, and the low sense of surprise spreading outwards from him isn't because it's all alien. It's at his own success.]

( RUN | DAY :044, MORNING )

[Running laps is not Murphy's idea of a good time. The opposite, really. But as much as he'd dug his heels in when Annie and Bellamy had first pushed it on him, the logic behind it was sound. Train now, survive later.

That still doesn't mean he enjoys it, and this morning Bellamy's tolerance for his constant mental complaining has worn out. He's opted for a checkpoint system, timing how long it takes Murphy to do each loop through the corridors and past him. It doesn't work to inspire, though, and right now Murphy's taking a breath. Hands braced on his knees, he's dripping sweat, chest heaving, totally unfit and looking it. Feeling it, too, and what had truly been intended as just a breath abruptly turns into a full break.]

Screw this.

[He spits, and then drops, ungainly, to sprawl out on his back on the floor. Bellamy will come looking, eventually. Right now he doesn't care at all.]

( DREAM | DAY :042 - :045, NIGHT )

[Awake, Murphy's control is strong. It has been from the start, some kind of intrinsic understanding regarding his own mind and how to keep it removed from others. Memory and emotion pierce that, often, closeness with some leeching through in smaller ways.

Nights are different. Especially since Shril. His nightmares are the same from the ground, following him here, but they bleed outwards now. Pain, fear, loss, death. Dark trees with warpainted warriors stalking amongst them, sickness spitting blood from a dozen young faces, stifling desert heat and the stomach-knotting tension of death waiting underfoot, a cloaked priest with raised fists, a woman splattered with black blood sat on a throne with a child's head in her hand. The visions mix, blur, sometimes don't come to shape at all. But they come every night. There's never been any freedom from them.]

[[NOTE: I haven't written up set specific nightmare scenes for this one, but I can craft something more solid for anyone who tags in on it!]]

Comments

[adamance]

[There's a certain irony in bringing up Titus' emotions as if she had failed to recognize them, when it was Titus himself who tried to suppress the part of her that cared for others and acted upon her feelings. She debates telling him about her last conversation with Titus, the one before she was with Clarke, and before she ended up here. Her understanding of her life remains certain: if she hadn't come here, she would've died one way or the other. It just would have been a different party killing her.

But she chooses not to in the end, because while she might be frustrating, she doesn't care to open up to him simply to prove that she has some management over her emotions. She doesn't care to tell him that Titus' lack of faith in her and pressure to suppress her side of her had led to the contrast in opinions and her eventual death. He knows enough to create a fairly coherent narrative of her life and death; she sees no need to offer him more, even if it might clarify things.]

I recognize that Bellamy cares for you, [is what she decides to go with in the end.] He insists that the feeling is mutual. But you aren't like just another member of this Nest. [He isn't just another Host. Their lives overlap, like it or not, and she refuses to act as if they don't.]

[wrackful]

[There it is. She shuts down, doesn't respond on what he's said, and of course her apparent ability to listen for once was going to be short-lived. He wonders if any of it would stick, or if she'd just use whatever time until she ambushed him again to dissect and dismiss everything he's said.

It's a dry, bitter spark of amusement, and it's much easier to hold onto than let himself react to Bellamy caring for him. Terms he'd never put it in, but then, he tended to avoid trying to define his and Bellamy's relationship at any time. Especially not for Lexa's benefit.]

So that means I get these little 'prove yourself' interrogations whenever you feel like it.

[Part of him is almost resigned to it. Used to it. But he'd left Camp Jaha because he was sick of it, refused to go back for the same reason, and it doesn't matter what sentiment or motivation she puts behind it. He'll never bow to it, and his defiance is sharp and cold.]

I still don't answer to you. I never will. But you just can't wrap your head around that, can you?

[adamance]

Why is it so difficult for you to understand that I'm not here as Bellamy's Commander? [Lexa knows that her words can easily be twisted against her. She knows that he'll point out that she's no one's Commander. She steels herself for that pointless remark, because it has no place here.]

Bellamy will continue to put your needs ahead of his regardless of what I advise. Coming to a point where we can trust each other may only help him in the long term. The issue is that one of is accustomed to compromising their needs, while the other is not. [This is a way of instigating a reaction out of him. Lexa wants to agitate and antagonize him, so she pulls this out to see precisely how he can act.

She's far from willing to give up, as she did before, as she thought she did coming here. But something drives her to ensure that they can at least tolerate one another. It probably doesn't help that she's felt Bellamy's unconditional love for him. It's difficult to throw that aside easily.

Lexa doubts that Murphy believes she can experience any emotions and sympathize with them. She's not about to pull the veil off his eyes if he can't realize that yet.]

[wrackful]

[There's no doubt in Murphy's mind that she means him. That he isn't accustomed to compromising his needs, and she is. Maybe the last part is even true, though he can't help but think she's probably compromised a hell of a lot more on the needs of her people than her own. Like the kids Jaha had left in the mountain. Craig, thrown overboard to feed a monster.

There's no way she can know he's been forced to compromise on his needs since the day his father was taken to an airlock. How much he's had to fight for just the one, core and basic: survival. But he isn't going to tell her any of that, explain himself, all things she seems to totally fail to understand about who he is. It's just another link in the same chain with her, the push she's been making the whole time for him to prove himself, for Bellamy's sake or just to pass under her judgement.

He doesn't need to pass it. He doesn't answer to her, commander or not. His mouth tugs down at the corners, and he nods, eyes flat.]

Yeah, you seriously have no idea.

[Dry, distant, and very much finished with this chat.]

I think we're done here. [He moves to walk past her, finally.] Nice talk, again.

[adamance]

[Agitation—no, fury—rips through her for a brief, blinding moment, before she snuffs it out through the grind of her teeth and a sharp breath taken in. After all, Lexa is not so far removed from the person who would kill someone for speaking to her that way, and her loyalty to Clarke and Bellamy does little to completely remove that desire. Murphy will be able to sense the anger, as well as the fragility of the walls that she maintains; her feelings aren't for show here. She can only keep them fortified when she can refrain from moments like these.

Visibly, she closes her eyes while she tries to reel herself in, and it takes longer than she'd like. But she does. She has no choice.

She sends a single statement to Bellamy as she opens her eyes to reveal Murphy's back, a sign of her attempt:] ( I tried. ) [To her mind, she hadn't even come here to try, at least consciously. But try she did.

In her own way.]