ataraxionlogs | letting the days go by, into silent water [open]

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letting the days go by, into silent water [open]

CHARACTERS: Murphy Pendleton and you.
LOCATION: Anywhere. This is pretty much a free-for-all of CR.
WARNINGS: Insert the usual Silent Hill disclaimer here.
SUMMARY: Insomnia hits. Friendly neighborhood convict takes a little stroll.

He couldn't sleep.

Granted, this was nothing new and exciting. If nothing else, it was fucking tedious. His brief spell of excessive sleeping habits died real fast after the jump wired Murphy up all over again.

It wasn't always this bad. In fact, he used to sleep a fair bit. There wasn't much else to do during his alone time in prison, so it had been the only resort next to going stir-crazy with boredom.

Even with Anne in the same room these days, Murphy still felt the nagging urge to escape the closing walls of his ~~cell~~ bedroom. Unlike Ryall, he could at least work off his restlessness by stretching his legs. There were still places that he hadn't yet seen, grounds that he hadn't yet covered. He could scratch this itch. He could.

So he just wandered for awhile. Aimlessly, as usual. He almost felt dazed. But it was good to be out. Not free, not safe, though close enough to settle on the fact that his present situation proved to be more favorable than where he had been coming from, in ways.

That was just sad.

Murphy, this is your life right now. Take a good long look at it.

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When Heather couldn't sleep, she ran.

It was a new thing. Before the ship, she'd joked that she would never run unless something was chasing her. And then things had chased her, strange and horrifying things that were thankfully stupid enough to forget anything that ran straight past them and kept going until it was out of sight. But here the things that chased people were smarter and less inclined to give up, and even though she'd carefully rationed the sleeping pills that came with her, the little bottle was nearly empty. So now she ran the hallways until she couldn't, rode out the endorphin rush afterward and knocked herself out that way.

Two birds, one stone.

So when she spotted Murphy, she was flushed, sweaty, and frankly gross. Honestly, she was pleased for the excuse to stop.

"Hey, Murph!"

She slowed to a jog and she drew up to him, jerked her head in greeting. If he gave her a second to catch her breath she might manage a more polite greeting.

Maybe.

Edited 2012-08-14 10:17 (UTC)

Murphy had just about enough of running for awhile. As if most of his time spent in a town that was actively trying to sabotage him in a variety of ways had been bad enough, Strela had him worked. If nothing else, however, it had saved him the trouble of getting caught -- capture being something which Murphy had been determined to avoid.

Others hadn't been so lucky, however. There had been Alex and Annie... Murphy didn't know who else. But there were a handful of those he met down there that were at risk of that. This was why it was such a great relief to him when Heather's familiar voice shot down the halls, and the rest of her jogged beside him. There was no use in attempting to mask the visible mollification; the tenseness of his shoulders sunk.

He was tired. Murphy had been walking for some time. Back and forth, back and forth -- between the oxygen garden and rooms for additional materials. One would think that a break would be in order at this point.

"Ah, Heather... Hey." Murphy nodded. Clearly, he wasn't any more graceful with his style of greeting, so he wasn't one to say anything about hers.

"Been looking for you."

Okay, that polite greeting? Apparently wasn't coming. Neither was a delicate segue into asking him for a favor, because she saw that unbunching motion of his shoulders and wasn't afraid to use it. It was for the good of the ship, right? She shook out, didn't quite wait for her breath to get back to normal before she jumped right in.

"You need a job? We need someone to drive the carts to take produce from the gardens to the passenger decks. Only Mattie's gone, and... I saw the chapel. It's..." --pause for tact-- " looking good. I figure you're pretty handy, maybe you could make sure they're running okay and stuff as well?"

Murphy didn't respond to that immediately. His eyebrows just lift slightly, his expression alone practically reading Oh really? all over.

Then Heather elaborated on why she had been looking for him. An amused look crossed his face. Even when he felt like he could find ways to keep himself busy, he was always looking for work. It was part of the reason why he signed up for support staff in the first place -- the better to keep his options open that way.

"Think I can pencil in some more work on my schedule, sure." He was going to need it, once he felt the chapel was actually complete. "I'd be happy to."

"Cool, thanks." Well, that was easy. "Let me know when you're free, I'll take you up and show you where we keep 'em and everything."

Heather smiled, nodded, and managed about two jogged steps away before she stopped and turned back to him. There wasn't really such thing as day or night here, but most people seemed to have fallen into an accepted rhythm to replace them. Going by that rhythm it was late, and despite being up and about Murphy looked exhausted rather than his usual just-plain-tired.

"Are you-" no, not are you okay, she wouldn't be asking if she thought he was and it was too easy to brush off with a fine. "How're you doing? Kinda late for a stroll."

"Aside from my, uh... project, that I've got goin' in my free time, I can't say I'm terribly busy at the moment." Murphy had sincerely hoped that people would come by and give him something to do, sooner or later. It was part of the reason he had signed up on the support staff for.

Murphy, who had been just walking the entire time, finally did stop when Heather popped that question. Something that was normally easy to dismiss out of sheer habit.

Instead, he tried to answer lightly: "I could ask the same thing about you, y'know." He then shrugged, rattling about a more honest response. "Just been havin' some trouble with sleep. No big deal."

"Yeah, but I'm barely out of my teens. I'm supposed to be making irresponsible choices about my well-being. You old farts are supposed to know better."

But he'd given her a straight answer; she owed him one in return.

"Place'll do that to you, huh? Of course, some days I think going without is better than the nightmares."

Murphy scoffed at that. "Hardly."

He was totally the kind of idiot that would stick his hand over the stove to check if it was on, get burned, and keep repeating the same mistake long afterward.

"Mn... You, too, huh? Guess I shouldn't be surprised." Even though Murphy felt regrettably sympathetic that Heather would share a similar shadow that often plagued in sleep. He couldn't even remember the last time he had a decent night's rest.

"I've got --" she paused, wondering if she ought to be giving them away, or if she was just making herself sound like a nutcase, but oh well -- "I've got sleeping pills. If you wanted to just get a solid night. I mean, they suck for the nightmares 'cause you can't really just wake yourself up, but sometimes a whole night's sleep just makes everything a bit more bearable, you know?"

Well, there it was. And if he ate up her stash... well, she was getting better with medbay anyway.

"Sleeping pills?" Murphy gave Heather a curious look.

Not bad. It didn't sound bad. Though actually getting to sleep was never so much an issue, as it was what he dealt with during and after waking up. It didn't help with the paranoia that he might not wake up in the same place where he went to sleep, or that there might be a slim chances that things might -- change. Surely he wasn't the only one.

Eventually, he just gesticulated dismissively with his hand. "Thanks, uh. I appreciate the offer, but... I've got other ways to help when it gets bad." Even if the aforementioned options involved copious amounts of alcohol until he managed to pass out... It was better than nothing.

"Well, if you change your mind, you know where to find me. There are way too many exciting and horrifying ways to die around here without resorting to lack of sleep."

Fair enough. She hadn't exactly given them the hard sell. Heather huffed, tugging at her wristbands.

"Is it weird that's the thing that makes me miss Kitten the most? I guess I just got so used to her that just having her in the room made it easier to sleep."

Well, that and the fact that when she had a nightmare, Kitten would climb into bed with her all hush now lovey in that accent until Heather fell back to sleep, but there wasn't really a way to bring that up that didn't sound weird.

Edited 2012-08-23 10:57 (UTC)

"Tch, I've come a long way without lettin' myself die a horrible death. Doubt that insomnia's gonna be the end of me."

Though Murphy was starting to get a little bit unnerved by people getting on his case about that kind of thing. More specifically, Anne, but still.

Murphy shook his head, glancing at Heather in earnest. "Doesn't sound weird to me at all, no. Think it's been better at least... bein' able to wake up knowin' that there's someone nearby." He kind of laughed pathetically. "Only thing I worry about is if I still snore..."

Room sharing sure didn't change the nightmares, or his sleep patterns. But it was different. He hadn't shared space with anyone since he'd been married, and it wasn't like he'd ever had a cellmate at Ryall. Which was for the best, probably.

And then Heather was so busy staring at Murphy with an expression of shocked delight that she listed to the side and bumped off the wall.

Whatever, this news was way too important for her to be embarrassed.

"Murphy," she said, narrowly managing to avoid adding you sly dog. "You got a roomie?"

At first it didn't occur to Murphy that he'd said anything that warranted that reaction. Even when he glanced at her, he kind of wondered about it.

Clueless as usual.

"Er, yeah. I do. Just recently." What of it? "Like you said, it's, uh... easier."

She was trying really really hard not to let that grin turn into a leer, okay? She deserved a little credit.

Hopefully that credit would be provided in the form of Murphy not getting all awkward and refusing to answer.

"Is it Anne, by any chance?"

Please please please let it be Anne. Murphy seemed so sad so much of the time, and Heather had barely met Anne but she'd liked her. And more importantly, she'd gotten the impression that Anne was not a woman who'd put up with a lot of shit. It could work!

Murphy turned his head towards Heather again with a look just then. Why would she--?

"Er, yeah. Why...?" He had only to think about it for a second before he shook his head, and added: "We're just friends."

Try to stumble less on the F-word there, Murph. It totally didn't help that his relationship, or whatever you wanted to call it, with Anne was far from a simple one. But he trusted her more than he trusted most people, so their rooming situation just made sense. That was all, nothing more.

Except not really.

What the fuck ever, Pendleton. But she raised her hands, palms open, her expression as close to innocent as it ever got.

"Hey, I'm just glad, is all. When someone's important to you it's nice to have them close. I remember you being kind of --" she's not going to say hurr durr what are friends no matter how much she might want to -- "iffy about the whole deal when we first talked. So it's nice that got sorted."

And it's super cute the way you just stuttered there. You're not even fooling yourself.

Innocent.

Right.

Heather was just about as innocent-looking as a grinning hyena at the moment, but Murphy wasn't about to say anything, at the risk of adding fuel to the fire. He couldn't even bring himself to say It's not what you think, when not even Murphy knew what he thought. And that was just sad.

"Well, it was a... a weird situation back then." It's a weird situation now. "...She's the daughter of my correction's officer. Only I, uh. I didn't really know that, 'till after we crashed, and then... that town happened..."

There, he said it. It wasn't like he had any reason to act discreet about it, not with Heather, and not here.

"Oooh, yeah, ouch. That's gotta be awkward."

She wasn't even faking her lack of concern over why Murphy might have had a corrections officer. Best man she knew on the ship had been on death row. Hell, her own father technically sort of kidnapped her. For all that she tended to come down hard on one side or the other of any given situation, she was way past believing anything was ever black and white.

"You're good now though, right? I mean, I'm guessing she's not just trying to pick up where her dad left off."

There, you get it now? was basically the silent message Murphy made when he just nodded his head at first. Yeah, it was awkward. Awkward being an understatement.

"We're good. I mean, I think we're good, since she's stopped puttin' a gun to my head." Despite the subject matter, he smirked slightly, like it was some kind of lame joke. Oh, the good old days. "Her father was a good person. So is she. I don't wanna fuck things up any more than I have for her."

Not after everything she had to deal with. Back then, he was so confused why she hated him so much. Death threats wasn't anything new and exciting for him, but this was different. Her hate was personal. He should have known.

Being on the Tranquility, in a way, seemed like a chance to try and pick up some of the broken pieces he had left scattered. He was afraid of slipping. Making it worse than it already was, like he always seemed to do.

Lame or not, Heather laughed at the gun-to-head comment. Hey, after what they'd all been through, they could be excused a few moments of dark humor, right? The laughter turned into a mock-scornful snort when he continued.

"Murphy." Deadpan. Serious business. "She's been abducted onto a spaceship filled with endless corridors, labyrinths, killer dog-things and a smileyface with a hitlist. What could you possibly do to fuck her life up even more?"

And it really wasn't her place to comment, but... Heather had never really been great at knowing her place.

"Listen, I'm not saying you guys are into each other or whatever -" yeah she is -"but if you were, it would so not be the worst thing either of you had to deal with."

The fact that Heather found humor in the comment to laugh like that reminded Murphy of the kind of company he was in. It wasn't normally his style to just throw off-handed comments about what his trip in Silent Hill was really like. The monsters were bad, sure. There was more to it than that.

Heather, though... it felt safe. She got it, at a messed up expense.

"Hey, with my track record, you never know." He waved a hand, and the smile faded into something a bit more sincere now. "In any case, it's not... really dealin' with what's on the ship that worries me. It's what's gonna happen to us if we ever make it back. It's messed up, but sometimes I think it'd be better if we could just... I dunno, stay where we're at."

Whether the end involved some time distortion or whatever technobabble logic that Murphy only ever saw in sci-fi flicks, he had no idea what was going to happen. Or if they were ever going to make it back home, or somewhere else entirely. Or if there were even going to make it at all.

That realization brought a pang. "Is it selfish that I'd... that I'd rather risk the dangers of bein' here than to have to run anymore?" He almost visibly winced. "I mean, I think I've felt like I could do more here than I ever did when I was tryin' to catch a few hours of sleep under an overpass."

Wow, Murphy, when you put it that way...

"Nope." She didn't even have to think about it; she'd had the same thoughts herself, more than once. "Back home, I've got a dead-end job, an apartment I share with a cactus, a therapist I have to lie to, and that's it. I mean, it's no overpass, but it's not a lot to want to go back to. I know people here and I don't have to worry that one day everyone'll figure out how messed up I am, 'cause..." she shrugged, and her smile wasn't quite as apologetic as it ought to have been. "Well, you guys are all messed-up too."

She wanted to hug him, really. But she was sweaty and gross, he was frequently awkward, and if there had been a moment there it had passed. She reached out and nudged his shoulder instead.

"At least here we know here we stand. Even if where we stand is somewhere crappy."

Heather didn't have to say anymore, Murphy already understood.

Coming back from that place they all knew, it was hard to think of what a normal life was supposed to be like. Hell, he was still trying to get the hang of dealing with anyone who wasn't an inmate or a prison guard. Hence the slight reaction when Heather pushed him, but only slight. It was progress.

"Mn, think I'd take my chances dealin' with the unknown here than the life I already know that's waitin' for me. You have any idea how nice it was to actually sleep in a bed again, or bein' able to pick what I eat, or just...?"

It was obvious that there were plenty of simple things in life that Murphy appreciated.

Like being able to reach out to someone and ruffle his hand over someone's hair. Which he was doing right now.

"I dunno. Beats fuckin' therapy somehow, that's for sure."

Progress.

Progress indeed. Last time someone had ruffled Heather's hair on the ship, she'd ducked away so hard she walked into a doorframe. What Murphy got was the kind of scrunched up face that was supposed to mean Da~ad, you're embarrassing me and didn't make a very good job of covering up the fact that actually? She kinda liked it.

"I think so," she said, making an essentially useless effort at settling her hair into some kind of order. God, she needed to do something about it soon. "Sometimes it doesn't really matter how bad your options are, the important thing's that you can choose. Not that I've ever had to deal with that the same way you have, but..." she shrugged. "Well, I don't think the psychiatric help around here is too fancy, anyways."

Edited 2012-08-25 06:29 (UTC)

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