Work detail sucked. Murphy nearly considered going back to Camp Jaha, if only to escape his godawful shift. Sure, Monroe and her posse would probably drag his sorry ass back, but it’d be worth it. He was sick of reinforcing the outer wall, and he was sick of spending his day caked with dirt. Hell, he honestly didn’t think his shift could get any shittier, but nope – some idiot kid proved Murphy wrong when they nearly impaled him on some serrated scrap metal. Their stuttered apology fell on deaf ears; Murphy threw them to the ground out of spite, and then clutched his own chest. Damn it. His wound was short and deep, and bled darkly.
Spurred on by an early dismissal from work, Murphy staggered into the stakru’s impromptu medical tent and fumbled around for something to stop the bleeding. He grabbed handfuls of nearby fabric, bunching it up and pressing it to his dripping chest. A dull, throbbing pain pervaded the entire front of his body, and in that moment, he wanted nothing more than to kill the kid responsible for his injury.
The tent flap opened; the sound of a newfound presence barely registered before Murphy spun around, glaring. He’d expected that stupid kid to come crawling back with a pathetic apology. Instead, his gaze fell upon another Arker. Huh. Murphy had seen him around before, but had never talked to him.
“That kid stab you too?”
Murphy felt sick to the stomach as Clarke gathered the citizens of Camp Jaha and informed them of the proposed truce. Stageda, it was called, and took the form of a traitorous ultimatum. Most of the crowd were quiet and entranced, though careful not to say anything. Some clapped or cheered on the leaders who stood at the head of the sombre procession, and still others looked upon them with utter disgust. A nearby Arker spat upon the ground and muttered something cynical.
Murphy, on the other hand, was furious. It was so fucking unfair. Murphy had tried so hard to be good. Immediately after being permitted back into camp – following an invaluable lesson – Murphy had signed up for the job roster, and climbed his way through shitty tasks like a drowning man, gulping for air and recognition. And now – well, here he was, surrounded by cowards. He wanted to pull a Finn and shoot everything in sight.
Oh, but that wasn’t the end of it – of course not. Worse still was the news of Bellamy’s proposed trial – at Grounder hands. Murphy held his tongue for two whole days, until finally the burden of it was too much to bare. He pushed his way into Bellamy’s tent just as the sun had begun its slow descent behind the Ark’s skeleton: it would be dark soon, and no one would disturb them.
“This is bullshit,” Murphy spat in lieu of a greeting. The ire that now gripped him made coherent thought impossible. “You can’t seriously agree with this.”
Sexual Healing - flashback
Murphy was still half-asleep when the Grounder couple ushered him off to the Healer. It was, he supposed, a good idea to be checked out. He had traveled through the Dead Zone twice without medical attention, and Abby had scarcely looked at him following his initial return. He still fostered a litany of minor injuries. Perhaps a foreign eye could come in handy, since he wasn’t in the mood for dying just yet.
The sun rose lazily over Gona: a smear of sulphur across the green horizon. Murphy approached the healer’s tent with a tight grip on his backpack, now filled to the brim with fresh meat; he felt a sense of triumph, of worthiness. Before he could think about it, Murphy peered his head inside the tent without so much as knocking.
“Hello?”
Murphy swung wide the door of the Workshop, slipped inside, and took in the smell of plastic and metal, the zest of running currents, the tang of rust. There was only one person inside, standing at the far end of the room. Murphy bristled and froze by the entrance. It was Raven. Shit, he’d hoped to see Wick; at least he hadn’t put a bullet in that smarmy jackass.
He was in the workshop for a reason. Prior to leaving the Lighthouse, he managed to grab some non-essential items – one of which was device that read books aloud. Murphy loved it all at once. The first book he listened to was Lord of the Flies. Mostly because it had a cool title, but then it turned out to be about being wild and angry and afraid and far away from fucking everything. He laughed at the irony of it and listened to it over and over until he had to leave the Lighthouse.
It came as no surprise to Murphy that the device didn’t survive the trip back to Camp: the Dead Zone wasn’t particularly forgiving. However, he’d hoped to rectify that – he wanted the damn thing to work, and he hoped that one of the brainiacs would fix it for him.
With a fair share of fresh game stuffed in his bag, beneath the weight of his gun, Murphy mock-saluted Octavia and started at a jog up the hill; she had dropped him a short walk from the camp. He immediately felt an intense need to get inside, and he was aware, somewhere in the very forefront of his mind that he could be shot at any second. By the time he’d gone twenty feet, his neck bubbled with sweat.
Camp Jaha sat like a collapsed lung at the top of the knoll. Its winking lights were like a dozen angry eyes. You have been seen. Murphy’s gut twisted, and he moved quicker. His pack felt suddenly insubstantial, and the reality of his actions finally sunk in. He’d left camp. Fuck, he didn’t even wait a day before leaving the safe confides and seeking out Mbege’s stupid, stupid, stupid memorial stone. Bellamy had trusted him (I believed in you) and Murphy had left camp and encountered Grounders and trekked his sorry, sore ass to a foreign village in the middle of nowhere, and now he’d have to deal with the repercussions.
It came as a surprise to Murphy that Bellamy didn’t greet him at the gates with his usual scolding: Murphy was able to slink right up to the camp without so much as a glimpse of him. However, there were armed guards waiting behind the barrier, though thankfully none of them thought to shoot him. Yet.
He was begrudgingly dragged inside and subjected to a through look-over. He smirked, sweat drying, as they checked his eyes for disease: like he was a fucking weapon all over again. Some childish part of him still wanted to turn around and run to the end of the earth and over the edge into oblivion or whatever awaited the soul of a foolish asshole like himself – if only to avoid the inevitable confrontation with Bellamy.
( jasonthespartan )
He arrived at the misshaped rock just as the sun had begun its slow descent behind the western hills. It would be dark soon, which was a cause for concern on Murphy’s part. He didn’t want to be shot by the trigger-happy guards upon his return. However, he still felt compelled to do this, Bellamy’s rules be damned. Murphy unsheathed his knife and started carving away at the stone’s brittle face, just below where he and Mbege had carved their twin initials back when the drop ship first landed. Murphy didn’t even hear the other’s approach before it was much too late.
John Murphy cut through the forest with bleary eyes and a stolen machete. He had returned to the woods that very same morning – he took several hours to blink away the dust of the Dead Zone. The Lighthouse was far behind him, a faded point along the narrow path of his history – and between each image laid a thousand shades of human life and death.
Murphy stopped by a brook and refilled his canisters, all depleted from his journey, then stored them away in his backpack. He stole it from the Lighthouse: it was frayed from trek through the Dead Zone and patched with various skins. Suddenly, Murphy saw a flicker of movement from his peripherals. He shot up, firearm in hand, and walked to the edge of the brook. He stood listened, working his toes into the worn soles of his shoes, and strained to make out fading footsteps. Huh. Well, that didn’t take long. His mouth drew into a tight line; he grabbed his stuff and idly followed in the general direction.
Little did he know that the footsteps belonged to a skittish
sky person, who immediately sprinted back to Camp and grabbed Bellamy’s
attention. “It’s Murphy,” she insisted,
feeling somewhat delirious. Most people assumed that Murphy was dead. “I saw
him. Only him—not the others. He’s back.”
