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

[insufferableprick]

Dave shifts so that he can sit with his back to the wall instead of to the hall and gives Murphy his full attention.

"Actually, it wasn't too bad. Who cares if you're surrounded by assholes whose eyes have gone white and are still bleeding from slit throats or stab wounds? The point is that they're dead, and nothing worse can happen to a person who's already gone. Fact is, if I were having those dreams still? It might be nice to see them again."

He's smiling something sad and calm and horrifying all at once. Then, almost as if catching himself, he smooths out his expression, lets his eyes slide shut and his head fall back until it leans against the wall.

"Sorry, bet I sound like a one hell of a morbid motherfucker right now. Just... I haven't been having those dreams lately." No dream bubbles, no horrorterrors to open the gates to the afterlife here. "I've been having that prophetic dream again, just that one on repeat, and it's not the version I got used to."

When his eyes open, they're kind of glassy and vacant, but when he flicks them back to Murphy, they refocus, warm and kind of sad.

"So, still think your dreams aren't worth talking about?"

[yardbird]

Reoccurring and vicious dreams had been Murphy's daily bread, every time he closed his eyes. It was like a horror movie on instant replay, and the back of his lids was the gritty projector.

So yeah, he may have known a thing or two about having an uncontrollable subconscious. His mind was practically programmed in ways that felt almost irreversible.

"No, don't... Tch, it's nothin' you gotta apologize for, kid." Murphy just shook his head, failing to see any reason for Dave to be remotely sorry, especially right now.

Murphy was the one who felt useless here. His feet shuffled in reverse, pressing his back up against the opposite wall. He faced the floor again.

"Sometimes, they're about my son..." The dryness collected in his mouth, and that didn't help him muster up the words that were tongue-tied on the tip of clarity. "It's funny... I think he would've maybe been around your age by now, give or take. But a long time ago, he didn't come home from school. We spent days, lookin' for him, but he was..."

At the bottom of the lake, wrapped up in a bag.

There were times that Murphy could still hear him, calling for help. Hear his cries of pain from that lake that no one else heard.

And there were the other voices as well. The screams and cries the the pleas for a man who knew he was going to die.

"...I know it's not necessarily the same, but sometimes, I... have dreams about the dead, too."

[insufferableprick]

Dave watches Murphy, at first a little numb on what to say next. Kids shouldn't kick the bucket before their parents is what people always say. At least Dave had managed to do that much for his brother--no, wait, technically, he died first, but that was a doomed Dave anyway, did Bro even know about that one? Wait, that's not the point: the point is that, right now, Dave has successfully managed to outlive the man who raised him. Pendleton's kid didn't get the same chance.

Murphy might be worried about expressing too much concern or sympathy, but Dave isn't.

"Must be rough." This isn't a pissing contest for whose dreams are more miserable, as far as this teen is concerned. This is two sleepless assholes stuck in a hall together, being morose as fuck.

I know it's not necessarily the same, he says. Of course it's not the same, never will be either. As far as Dave is concerned, he won't live long enough to be a parent, so he'll never know what it's like to lose a child. But he does know what it's like to lose everything else. Does that earn him a ticket to the Commiseration Olympics?

"So, how d'you deal with it?" Dave pauses, lets his eyes survey the situation. "I mean, aside from the obvious insomnia."

He's not necessarily looking for life advice on dealing with the deaths of everyone you know and love, but hey, everything little bit of Doctor Phil-ing helps.

[yardbird]

"Yeah, well... it only goes downhill from there."

Dave was just a kid, but considering where they were... Murphy had yet to meet a normal child on this ship. Talking to them like such, lying to them, was counterproductive for everyone involved.

It also didn't help Charlie, either.

Which was why, when Dave asked him that particular question, Murphy felt his throat hitch.

"Look, I... I might not be the best guy to go to for life tips..."

Most of his coping mechanisms involved lots of alcohol. When things got really messed up and out of control, he stole a police car so he could get himself locked up.

But he couldn't just leave it at that. His shoulders slacked, wracking his brain for a better response. "Mn... I guess, uh... I try to keep busy. Somehow. I try to help out when I can. It's easier not to think about your own issues when you can help someone else with theirs. I can at least go to bed feelin' a little bit better about myself."

Thinking of it that way, it seemed less altruistic than it seemed on the tin, didn't it?

[insufferableprick]

Dave turns it over in his mind: keep busy, help others. What do you do when your main method of helping others has been taken behind the universe's outhouse and shot? Find a new way. That makes sense, right? Right.

Murphy might not think that's good advice, but sometimes, lame advice is just the kind of cheese a teen needs. He smirks a little, offers Murphy a fist for bumpings.

"Y'mean if you can get to bed, right?" He shakes his head, expression still soft. "Thanks for the advice. It might suck donkey balls, but it also might work."

[yardbird]

He never felt like he was the one to go to for advice, or for much of anything. Though when Dave's expression changed, so did Murphy's.

Hopefully he wasn't being a complete screw-up at this.

For once, it would be a nice change.

"Hey, no problem. And, good luck with it." Murphy may be a bit of a doofus at times, but he knew enough to fist-bump on cue. And a little less awkward this time, no less.