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

[yardbird]

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.

Comments

[unsoldiered]

Alex bows his head, listening, deathly quiet, horrified and sympathetic and honored all at once that he's being told things like this. He almost wants to stop him, make sure he said it for himself, not for anything else...

Even if he's shared gems of his own, it feels wrong, to have him spill his heart in front of an altar and a tired fake soldier, with nothing in return but the quiet—maybe it's just the way this place is. Maybe it's how faith and god and places of worship were supposed to work. He's never sat in one long enough to feel much of anything. But what he did know is this actually gave enough of a damn to tell him these things. And in return, Alex was willing to tell him the same.

So, Alex. You have a friend. Not the kind with air quotes around it.

He's quiet for a while, and he doubts Murphy really notices how much time passes. Or maybe he does and doesn't care.

"I..."

It's just a sad, brief sound, more like a breath, and his stomach knots.

"... When the curse came to the town, my mom and dad were taken by the cult. I was... standing there, next to her, y'know? She was as the same distance you are right now—and I couldn't do anything but lay there on the floor and watch them take her."

Alex Shepherd, always the one left behind. The Shepherd kid. The sheriff's boy.

"The next time I saw her, she was... the same distance again, just that far away, strapped into some—some machine, and I couldn't get her loose. She was begging for me to kill her because it was hurting so much, so I..." He trails off, clenching his teeth, looking down. He eventually shakes his head. "And then... when my dad died, I just stood there and watched it happen. I don't know why, but I just froze. Every time someone needed me, I just froze."

He slides his hand over his leg as it aches sharply, like it was listening. He knows that's stupid. It's just an old, healed wound whining in the middle of the night. He pauses, squeezing his thigh.

"... I don't want to be the person left standing anymore. Not because I was too weak to protect them. I can't do that anymore, either. I know it's impossible to save everyone, but I can't... I can't do that shit again, either, man. I killed so many people to get to Joshua--"

No. He snaps his mouth shut. That's sacred territory he's scared to tread into. How would he ever explain that—and to someone who lost their son? That he caused the death of a child, because he was a reckless, bitter man? He killed the most important person to him. He can't admit it aloud yet. He just can't. Maybe he deserves disgust or shame from Murphy and anyone else he comes to know. But maybe it's better if he let it fester and rip him apart in silence. He rakes his hand across his face, swallowing hard, finally looking at Murphy with a desperate look in his eyes.

"I can't do that shit again."

[yardbird]

Maybe this was the part where things went really wrong before. Weeks upon weeks he had spent in someone's office, him and his wife, trying to pick up the pieces despite it all being too far shattered to pull back together. First it was just him and Carol.

Then it was just Murphy, alone. Because there was nothing left. No love, just anger. More counseling, more money forked over just to be told the same thing every week: It's not your fault, it's not and then--

You destroyed everything I had left...

It almost seemed impossible. Any hope for control crumbled in the mouth of the hatred that devoured all love that he had left. Carol was still gone, Charlie was still dead, and the monster that ruined everything was still alive. There was no other way, and no one had given him a better option. Every session, there had always been something missing.

Flash forward to now, and maybe, he figured, this was it. Hitting rock bottom, fallen to a place where others could be met. Alex, Anne, Heather -- maybe Annie, if he could ever hope to do a damn thing for her. But it wasn't just a matter of dragging himself up from that hole he's fallen through anymore. It was about helping those who were stuck down here with him to that same place. Back up.

"I know..." Murphy listened, he thought, and for a moment, remembered how it felt to be trapped inside of head again; in the four-walled cage that separated him from the rest of the world. He grounded himself from that, though, back to the current. "I know what it's like, to be right there when someone needs you, and... all you can do is watch. I couldn't do anything but watch..."

He thought of Frank's bloodied face, and the sickly feeling that weighed in on his chest when Murphy had learned that the man wasn't dead yet. Not dead at all. Worse.

"It was my fault. If I hadn't..."

If he hadn't... what? What good was that going to do him now?

When Murphy felt his focus come to, he stared down at the back of his hands. He flipped them over, and a muffled, joyless laugh came out.

"Shit, listen to us. Maybe we really are just a couple of damned bastards, talkin' in a place like this..." At the same time, it was fitting, too, wasn't it? He didn't know if God heard, or if God even gave a crap. But Murphy did. Which was why he had to keep going. "But hey, for what it's worth... I think you've done alright since you got here. So... just keep doin' that, and you'll be okay."

Murphy knew he wasn't the only one who'd been doing the carrying this entire time.

[unsoldiered]

"... It's gotta be worth something..." He's accomplished things. Small little milestones, like actively leaving his room, looking for people to talk to, to help. He's better off than the guy dumped off on the floor over a month ago. Which is more than he foresaw, anyway. "Or else why the fuck are we still here, right?"

If that was just all their was to it, why would they be here? Why would they have survived that town in the first place? Is it really just dumb luck, or were they given a chance to be something above the misery and pain? He has to tell himself that yes, yes that's absolutely it. Because the alternative is sad as shit.

He stands up, wavering on his leg for a moment. He'd been planning on hitting up the medical bay before this spiraled into a conversation-turned-confessional (ha, how about that?), and he hisses softly between his teeth before adjusting his posture, back turned to Murphy still. Should probably take care of that getting-pain-killers thing, lest he has a random night where it aches him out of sleep.

"Guess we'll see what happens."

[yardbird]

"Mn. Right." It helped a great deal that he had more going for him here than he did on the other side of his life. But it was different now. It didn't seem all hopeless.

Murphy thought about this as he glanced to Alex, and to the altar when he stood up shortly after the other guy did. Hope seemed to be such a strange thing to think about, something he never thought he deserved to have again. What he did here and now offered a little piece of that thing that had been missing for a long time.

"Well, if it's one thing I've learned, there will always be somethin'..." He stretched his arms, rolling his head over his shoulders as he thought: "You gonna be alright?"

[unsoldiered]

Huh? He's in the middle of another thought and catches the more literal meaning of the question—because obviously, mental alright-ness is the last thing they worry about. Looking down and tapping his toe on the ground to test the jarring of weight, he mumbles absently, casually, "Sure, it's not like it lasts forever... I'll get some pills, maybe."

Or something. Whatever the ship dishes out to people around here. It just needs a big, beautiful orange bottle. He's crossing his fingers for some Vicodin, because he remembers chugging plenty of those down when he got back from Alchemilla all that time ago. Slept like a baby.

[yardbird]

Of course, he already had an idea as to what the answer to their mental states were. With Alex not seemingly like he was on the road to self-destruction at the moment (those last three words being the magic phrase here), Murphy wasn't too concerned about that.

They both had their share of getting pretty banged up. Unlike Murphy now, though, Alex didn't have an overly concerned roommate to keep him in check when he let things get too bad.

"Good. Doubt they've got any shortage of those at the medbay here." With any luck, they'd probably have something even better in stock -- future technology and all.

[unsoldiered]

The dramatic term 'I'd kill for this or that' is hard to say nowadays. So he just leaves that out altogether.

"They better not. What kind of advanced crazy sci-fi ship would this be if it didn't at least have a decent cabinet of pain killers?" It would be only the worst giant shuttle ship thing in the history of ships. "Hell, maybe I'll stock up extra. In case something tries to blow up the med bay."

You never fuckin' know.

[yardbird]

"Around here? I wouldn't be surprised if somethin' like that ever happens. It's why I keep a extra kit in my room, just in case." He paused. "Though I... I'm not sure if hoarding that kinda stuff is allowed."

Murphy may or may not have taken it while none of the medical staff was looking, the last time he visited the medbay. Because, yeah. You never do know what crazy shit was bound to happen. Silent Hill survival instincts at work, right there. And maybe also Murphy's answer to a very simple moral quandary -- it's permissible if no one notices what's missing.

[unsoldiered]

The pain in his leg is already receding at last when Murphy replies, and he snorts in amusement. "If they were that strict, they would've booked you for vandalism. What with your artistic birds and all."

Yeah, and like the time you wrote crazy words into the walls and he had to scratch them back out. The things he does for weird convicts, man.

[yardbird]

"Point taken."

Murphy dropped his head down, his arms hanging at his sides. Alex had to go and bring that up again, huh?

"Can't blame a guy for doin' what he can to keep himself from going stir-crazy with boredom sometimes." It might've also been a little tick that he had picked up after awhile, from lack of anything better to do for a very, very long period of time.

Convicts.

[unsoldiered]

"Hey, we did say we were gonna practice art when I was dragging you around the halls... Unless I just imagined that part." He wouldn't exactly be shocked, all things considered.

He stuffs his hands into his pockets, dog tags jingling quietly as always. "Maybe I'll take it up, scribble drawings all over the ship."

[yardbird]

"You didn't, but I did almost forget about it." Actually, he didn't. Murphy tried to humor the thought, though. He shifted his eyes at that familiar jingle noise he just heard. "We should get right on that sometime."

It'd probably be better than some of the more... crude drawings he had seen scribbled on the walls here and there. Murphy was pretty sure he didn't do those, unless if he was in a worse mental state than he initially thought.

Here's to hoping that Alex didn't assume that all of the wall drawings were Murphy's doing...

[unsoldiered]

Oh, you mean those crude drawings? Mission Accepted. He'll turn them into innocent works of art in no time. But until then, he's turning on his heel, smiling a little. In good enough spirits--which was weird, wasn't it? Bringing up depressing shit, telling people your innermost feelings, it's not supposed to feel this liberating... is it?

He wouldn't really know, having done it so sparingly in his life.

"Until then, I'm gonna go pilfer the med bay before it gets any worse. If you don't hear from me, they threw me out the airlock for stealing."

[yardbird]

Actually, it did feel a lot better. In his head, everything was self-deprecating and abysmal. Out loud, shared with someone who he trusted well enough to not treat him like a charity case of pity, it was different.

Everything about his life was just different -- and it wasn't just because he was on a spaceship these days.

Murphy scoffed. It was humor in poor taste, considering that this was Alex and Murphy involved here. Something about that just made it all the more ironic.

"Sure. Just don't get caught."

That was his motto, usually. The exception being, of course, if you were actually intending to get caught. In which case, don't do that, Alex.

[unsoldiered]

He raises his eyebrows, humming, walking toward the direction the lift would be in. But he offers one last jab before he goes.

"And you don't throw out your back carrying crap around."

A pretty simple request, Murphy, because if shit goes down and you've got a crick in your back, he'll laugh at you regardless of how doomed they all are. On the bright side, he's left this conversation with a few details he hadn't affirmed before. One of which being that Murphy Pendleton was most definitely a friend. A friend with a hideous sense of humor.