[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

[deployed]

I know that.

[ Seviilia isn't the first host to have raised this issue. Bellamy doesn't feel the need to detail the arguments between Ren and Rey, though those had been closer to brawls. It felt less controlled than what he had been attempting with Seviilia. Bellamy had known going in that she wouldn't hold back; his job had been to survive until she knocked herself out. It was a risky proposition, but it felt like something necessary. Something that would help all of them, including Murphy.

Bellamy isn't raising that point either. Not yet, at least. ]

It was supposed to help her. And the symbiote was a safeguard against her losing control.

[ Which Bellamy had expected. But a calculated approach doesn't seem to be something Murphy considers soothing. ]

[wrackful]

She wanted to kill you.

[Because of Murphy. Because of what she'd seen in his head. Because they were brood. The symbiote would have stopped her, but that didn't matter. She would have gone as far as she could before it knocked her out. Murphy knows. He felt it all.

His hand on the wall clenches to a fist, pressing hard, frustrated at the medbay, at Bellamy, at everything he's stuck having to deal with.]

Do you not get that, or do you just not care?

[About himself. About Murphy on the other side. Or maybe that's what this was, everything Lexa had said about Bellamy every time she appeared to interrogate him, the suspicion of it curling sick and heavy in his chest.]

[deployed]

[ He hadn't understood it at the time, when he'd offered himself to Seviilia the first time. He understood it now, after having heard the furious argument between them. But even without understanding how personal it was, Bellamy can't deny that he knew she would try to kill him. It hadn't deterred him. ]

She wasn't going to be able to.

[ It's the only protest Bellamy has, murmured as he steps closer. ]

It doesn't matter what she wants.

[wrackful]

It matters. [Turning on him again, the snap hard in his voice.] She's mine.

[It isn't possessiveness. It's fact. It's brood. Seviilia is his the same way he is Seviilia's, linked, tied together deeper than they could be to anyone else. Her hunger is his hunger. Her feeding is his feeding.]

You knew that. But you still went ahead and did this.

[And he would have done it again, if Murphy hadn't done what he'd done. This argument isn't going to go anywhere. It's going to circle around and around, because Bellamy's never going to realise what he did, what he'd forced Murphy to do. He can't stay stuck in this room with it. He needs to finish this and get out.

Which leaves him only one option, and the fury in his eyes dulls, suddenly, unfocussed as his mind reaches, turns elsewhere.]

[deployed]

[ It's a revealing statement, one that fills Bellamy with worry that completely overrides whatever pain he's in. As closely wound as Bellamy is with his brood, he still draws back. The idea that Murphy couldn't, or wouldn't, is another fear to set alongside the others.

I'm sorry lingers between them, but it goes unspoken. Bellamy doesn't think Murphy wants to hear it. Instead he's left to stand, unsettled and quiet, while Murphy's face goes blank. Bellamy's mind nudges hard at the edge of Murphy's consciousness, and pulls back upon sensing a connection. ]

Murphy?

[ After a moment, questioning, and selfishly wanting to draw him back to the present. ]

[wrackful]

[It's a matter of moments, but it feels like more. Far more. Murphy reaches to Cathaway, asks for what he needs, and whether it's the irritation and impatience behind his manner or it's just a good day, she doesn't mess him around. The flood of information - memory - is overwhelming for an instant, too much to make any sense of (he regrets, for an instant, a pulse of it almost disrupting the press but then- gone), but then it begins to take shape and pattern, following channels furrowed down by her direction, repetition. The pieces find space and settle where he can reach them, know them.

His eyes refocus on Bellamy. Bellamy who's said his name, looks concerned, now. Murphy just turns away, moving to press his hand against a place on the wall. In response, the station provides an examination table, sliding smoothly out from the wall.]

Lie down.

[A gesture at the table, moving to open up another panel, fetch out the tools from inside it. He doesn't explain himself.

Cathaway stays, lingering in the back of his mind.]

[deployed]

[ Instinct demands he grab on to Murphy and shake him, try to dispel the flat, disconnected expression that had settled over his face as he'd gone away from himself. Even with Murphy's renewed attention, Bellamy can't shake his worry and discomfort. He watches Murphy's back, jaw set, before he slowly levers himself onto the table.

It's a little hypocritical. Bellamy had opened up his mind and allowed Cathaway to layer in experience. Maybe he had looked exactly the same as Murphy had a moment ago. But Bellamy doesn't think on that. All he's concerned with is Murphy's anger fragmented between them and the way he'd felt Murphy's mind slip away from their connection. He hangs on all the tighter when Murphy returns, dragging like a lodestone as Murphy rummages. ]

What are you going to do?

[ This wasn't like any medication he's familiar with. He would still prefer to go back to his room and sleep. Whatever bruises and pain blossomed in the wake of this fight would be easy enough to weather. ]

[wrackful]

[Murphy comes back with a long metal rod, one that takes only a gentle application of pressure to split into two pieces lengthwise in his hands. He touches the side of the examination table, inserting the rods into the arms which slide out in response; one above, one below.]

It's a scan.

[Certainty and confidence in what he's doing in his mind, dulling out all the rest for the moment. The echo of other hands, other times, other patients, all of it ringing with a same steady tone as Cathaway's presence often had. But Bellamy is demanding, pulling on him, dragging irritation up again, everything else that knotted into it.]

Why, worried I'll do something Mount Weather? [It's a cruel shot, jabbing right where he knows Bellamy has to be feeling it the most right now, giving him a thin, flat smile.] Because of course you're more scared of that than getting the crap kicked out of you.

[He presses a point on the side of the table, and the arms start to smoothly slide alone, carrying the rods down over the length of Bellamy's body and back up again.]

[deployed]

[ There's a split second where Bellamy can appreciate the ease with which Murphy handles the equipment. It reminds him of the kitchen and how Murphy had moved between the stove and the table without hesitation. But it's only a moment.

The jab about Mount Weather lands. It stirs up the memories Murphy must have seen, because Bellamy hadn't been able to keep anything inside. Bellamy's heartbeat still stutters at the mention of it, recalling the series of events: harvested, scalded, shackled and caged before he was hung upside down and drained. The moment the rods pass, Bellamy sits up, expression hard. ]

Screw you.

[ The tone is vicious. Of course Bellamy heals. As far as he's concerned, he's survived worse than Seviilia. At least Seviilia wouldn't have killed him. That's more than Bellamy could have said for any of the other altercations he'd scraped through. ]

I'm not afraid. I'm tired. And I don't need medical attention.

[ Ignoring whatever Murphy's scan comes up with, obviously. ]

[wrackful]

[It's always a thing of conflict, when one of Murphy's insults lands right. Bellamy's tone and mind spill anger, and there's a sharp satisfaction in stirring him to that; one that dissipates, almost immediately, turning into no satisfaction at all.

It doesn't slow him. Riles him more, if anything, because if he's this angry, feeling this exposed, twisted through vulnerability and fear, then it's only right that Bellamy should too. That's what the feeling churning in him demands, meeting Bellamy's gaze, expression just as hard.]

That's right, I forgot. [His mouth tugs sharp, brittle.] You're always right and I'm always wrong.

[Bellamy didn't need medical attention. Didn't need Murphy interrupting his and Seviilia's fight. Didn't need Murphy's involvement at all, just like Murphy hadn't needed the disturbance, the whole mess to deal with.

He gestures towards the door, but everything in his expression is a challenge.]

So why don't you leave already? Save us both wasting more time.

[On any of this. Being allies. Friends. Whatever they'd fallen into being, not thinking about how it clearly never worked.]

[deployed]

[ Murphy's twisting his meaning. Bellamy's anger spikes in response. All his walls had come down somewhere along the way, baring his reactions in full to Murphy. He's angry, but his impulse is to dig his heels in. The discomfort propelling him to get up off the table is still very much present, but Bellamy's had a lot of practice in facing off against conflict in spite of every instinct pushing him to turn away from it. ]

I'm not leaving.

[ That much is simple. There's something uglier and pettier going unsaid. Bellamy swallows down the urge to accuse, and stays seated in spite of his own discomfort. ]

I didn't think you'd feel it. I thought you blocked her out.

[ Each statement is clipped, though Bellamy's defensive anger still colors every word. It's not an apology. Bellamy still can't quite understand the root of Murphy's discontent. He won't let himself. But it's becoming inevitable, even with the distraction of Murphy's barbed insults between them. ]

[wrackful]

[It sounds like an accusation. A tactic that Murphy knows all too well, that the best defence is a good offence. It fits into the rhythms of things, with Bellamy - he's better than Murphy, always, so of course this would be Murphy's fault. He nods, once, the corners of his mouth pressing downwards.]

Yeah, well, I can't. [Gaze flat, but he doesn't shy from owning his faults. He never has.] She's my brood.

[All of it, the last piece of it, and he wasn't strong enough against that. Against the draw of it, against the screaming pain his symbiote had fallen into when the others had sheered away, the edges of those wounds still pulsing raw if touched for too long. He takes a step back, reaching to hit a place on the wall, not bothering to tell Bellamy to stand before the table starts retracting back into the wall.]

Maybe when you're down to one, you can see how well this thing lets you block any of it out.

[deployed]

[ Apologies don't come easily to Bellamy. They aren't something he vocalizes, they're something he acts on. But there's no way to act here, wrong-footed and aching in the medical bay, his own anger so close at hand. ]

You should have told me.

[ Even though that's an unrealistic thing to expect. If their positions were reversed, Bellamy can't be sure how he would even begin to explain being so bound up in the Nest. It's what they had both been determined to avoid. ]

I thought it would help. All of us can feel how hungry she is.

[ And by that logic, Murphy must have felt it the most. Parceling out motivation is likely not going to help, but Bellamy talks anyway. His discomfort in their setting is still obvious, impossible to ignore after Murphy's pinpointed it in such incisive terms. ]

[wrackful]

Right. Should've told you how I get to feel my undead elf broodmate's endless cursed hunger all the time.

[Dry, easily emphasising how ridiculous it sounds, both in itself and in the implication he should be telling Bellamy crap like this anyway. Not to touch how he didn't want to acknowledge it himself, the constant gnaw of it at the back of his head, the rise and fall of it when Seviilia got riled or got it under control.

He reaches to take the rods out of the arm, now stood alone with the table gone. He clips them back together, separates them again. White strands of light pull from between them, spilling and looping out as he slides them back into their places on the arm.]

How about how I also get to feel when she eats? All the tiny gory details. [He turns to look Bellamy dead in the eye again. Behind him, the strands continue coalescing into the shape of Bellamy's body, laid out as he had been on the table.] Do you want those too?

[deployed]

[ What Murphy's doing with the medical equipment should be impressive. Bellamy can't fully ignore the spectacle of it. The recreation of his body on the table registers with muted shock, but his focus on Murphy doesn't waver. ]

I didn't want you to feel that.

[ Except it's more complicated, or so Bellamy thinks. It's bigger than him being hurt, and Murphy feeling as if it were at his hands. Bellamy has been hurt at Murphy's hands. And he's hurt Murphy, more than once. The territory between them is fraught with the damage they've done to each other. Foolishly, Bellamy had thought Murphy's walls were stronger than his own. He'd expected Murphy to have blocked out whatever happened between him and Seviilia. ]

I thought it would give you a break if she got to eat.

[ All benefit, without any of the consequence. When he says it aloud, it sounds ridiculous. ]

[wrackful]

And I was supposed to just be good with that anyway.

[Whether he felt it or not. Of course he was supposed to be good with it. John Murphy, selfish bastard, should have been happy that he'd gotten a break from Seviilia's hunger. Maybe even happy that it was Bellamy being beaten up for it, the way Seviilia thought he would be. He can't even pretend like there isn't a part of him questioning it, wondering why the hell he'd gotten involved, stopped it, denied both he and Seviilia the benefits.

But that's what has him feeling so exposed right now, anger curling defensively over the spaces cracked open by the actions he'd taken instinctively. There hadn't been thought in it. In the moment, only the option to protect Bellamy had occurred.

Stupid, and apparently worth just as little as it had been back at the camp in those early days. Because even for all of the talk about knowing Murphy was better, Bellamy had still expected the worse.]

[deployed]

[ It's not selfish. Bellamy would bleed for any of the people he cared about. It felt like such a small thing to do, to give Murphy some relief from Seviilia's hunger. ]

I wanted to help. [ Bellamy repeats, hands clenching and unclenching uselessly. ] There wasn't any other way to help either of you.

[ And he hadn't thought ahead to the aftermath, what Murphy would make of him while he was healing. It hadn't felt important. He hadn't realized it would feel like this afterwards, with Murphy hunched over, raw with anger. Bellamy's betrayed him again. It's not the first time, but Bellamy had wanted to do something good, rather than cause a different kind of pain. ]

[wrackful]

Then don't.

[Lexa was right. The thought comes unwelcome, but Murphy has no room to deny it. Here was Bellamy, doing something stupid, putting his life at risk for Murphy, the way Murphy had been sure he never would. And Murphy, rushing in to put himself between him and a threat without a single second thought.

The revelation doesn't feel good. It feels like the bottom of his stomach dropping out, like a chasm opening up beneath both of them. He doesn't know how it's happened. He doesn't know how to stop it. In the moment all he has is frustration, anger, hopelessness, resentment at Lexa being right hardening it all the edges. Resentment at Bellamy being such an idiot that this has happened at all.]

Just how hard is it for you to get this through your head? If your only way is volunteering to get beaten to a pulp, then you don't do it.

[deployed]

And just let you suffer?

[ Unknowingly proving Lexa's point, though this shouldn't come as a shock. Not if Murphy had been there for Mount Weather, to watch as Bellamy took on a suicide mission because no one could see another way to give their people the advantage they needed. His voice is rising in spite of himself, defensive even as he feels Murphy's trepidation and resentment crash into his awareness. ]

Let you live with that when I know there's a way to fix it?

[wrackful]

Fix it. [Repeated flat, shooting straight past incredulity and into sheer disbelief.] You were a five minute snack, Bellamy, what were you going to do, go back to her every day?

[Except he knows the answer as soon as it's out of his mouth. Of course Bellamy would. It only highlights how absolutely ridiculous the whole situation is, that Murphy can lay out a totally moronic course of action like that and it be the one Bellamy was going to take. He has to laugh, the sound short, grim and dry, one hand lifting to rub the ridge of his thumb over his nose.]

Well, you don't get to. [Turning away, turning back to the glowing reconstruction of Bellamy's body.] You don't get to switch my suffering out for yours. [Playing martyr, again.] She isn't going to touch you again.

[He's made sure of it. Seviilia, at least, he can trust to listen to him.]

[deployed]

[ There's something very final about that statement. Bellamy understands what Murphy had brokered with Seviilia. He understood why. But inaction has never sat well with him. He likes it even less now, with Murphy wedging it between them like a condemnation. He looks past Murphy to the shimmering duplicate of his body, frustrated objections swimming in his mind before he comes up with something to say. ]

Well? Is anything wrong with me?

[ It's nothing worse than what he's lived through on Earth, what he'd slept off on Concordia. Bellamy's patience for allowing Murphy to play doctor has stretched to the breaking point. ]

[wrackful]

You mean except your total lack of survival instinct?

[Bellamy leaving an opening like that made it almost too easy, but that didn't mean Murphy was going to let it pass by. Not that he waits for any kind of reaction before he starts answering seriously, reaching to touch fingers gently to some of the strands making up the scan's arm, exerting enough pressure to turn the scan sideways and then back over the other way. Cathaway is a shift in the back of his mind, murmurs of memory rising, a running translation taking what he's seeing and turning it to understanding.]

Bruising. Ribs and trachea are the worst, but there's a ton of others. [He turns to look at Bellamy again.] You'll be sore, but your symbiote'll have it cleaned up in a day or two.

[A couple of days which would likely be more comfortable with his ribs wrapped, but Murphy doesn't bother suggesting it. He already knows Bellamy will say no, even if he could currently stand to stick around long enough for it.]

[deployed]

So like I said, nothing serious.

[ Bellamy's tone is flat. There'd been a point, possibly before Murphy had invoked Mount Weather, where Bellamy would have capitulated to more than just a scan. But the aftermath of the argument and the bristling tension between them shunts Bellamy's mood into stubborn reticence. His arms cross as he watches Murphy inspect the scan; he's ignored the ache in his body since he picked himself up off the training room floor. A few more days is nothing. ]

I'm going to lie down.

[ Which is clearly a signal that the conversation is over. Bellamy doesn't wait for a response before he starts moving towards the door. ]