Pain. Hate. Envy. Those are the ABCs of me. (bygones) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2016-07-04 19:21:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, jonathan murphy, neal cassidy (baelfire) |
Who: Neal and Murphy
What: Murphy has a bad dream, wakes up worse for wear.
When: Before the plot, July 29th
Where: The Ranch
Ratings/Warning: Teen. Well, Murphy gets beat up and hanged, so that.
Status: Complete
It had started when Clarke had approached him and accused him of murdering Wells, which was </i>stupid</i> because everyone knew that Wells had been killed by grounders one night. But no, Murphy didn’t like Wells. Murphy had threatened Wells, had even gotten into a knife fight with him. Apparently they’d found his knife, which he’d been looking for, near some of Wells’s severed fingers. Clearly Murphy </i>had to be the murderer. As if he’d be stupid enough to leave behind the knife he’d written his own initials on.
But he wasn’t. No one wanted to listen to the truth though. They were after blood. And so he’d been beaten by a mob until someone had the bright idea to float him - to put him to death. After all, that’s how they did things on the Arc.
And so they’d tied his hands behind his back, gagged him, and strung him up from a tree with a seat belt from the dropship. And then the one person Murphy had thought was his friend, too cowardly to stand against the mob, had kicked the crate out from under him.
Clarke had cut him down once the little bitch who’d actually confessed Wells confessed, but they weren’t willing to punish her. Murphy and a handful of other boys had tried to get justice, for Wells and Murphy both, and then they’d banished him to wander the wilds by himself, away from the safety of the group.
Murphy woke up, every part of his body in pain and unable to breath. Panic, he clawed at his neck and loosened the noose around his neck. Then he pulled the gag from his mouth and took a deep breath, glad he could breathe again. It took him a while to reach for his phone and call in sick to work, and even longer to finally roll out of bed.
When he looked in the mirror, he found that he was covered in blood from the beating in his dream, the bruises on his face and body were already turning purple, and the line circling his neck from where he’d been hanged was black. He needed a shower, so he grabbed his supplies and started to head down the hall to the showers. Luckily for him, the halls were almost empty, minus a twelve-year-old kid who stared at him in horror. “What the hell are you looking at?” Murphy snapped at the kid, and the kid turned and ran - Murphy didn’t know it, but the kid went to go get help.
Once he got to the shower, he slid to the floor, letting the warm water wash away the blood and some of the ache. It didn’t help much with the pain, but Murphy stayed there until the water ran cold before he finally pulled himself to his feet and got out.
Neal had arrived at the ranch early that morning, but then again, he always did. There was fencing work to be done, along with plans for new trail construction - he also had a few interviews slated, to fill last-minute summer jobs as well as a couple of year-round ones. Cooks and housekeepers, mostly - those were scheduled for about an hour from now, so he was in his office doing paperwork ‘til then. Luckily, the kid who came from the boys dorms to get help was a quick one - and word traveled fast, that assistance was needed.
To the boys dorms Neal headed, with a first aid kit and since this was no doubt a dream injury, he had a couple healing potions tucked into his jean pockets as well. Regina made them, he knew she’d been crafting different types with Max, so he was sure they would work like a charm. When he got there, he found Murphy in the showers looking worse for the wear, beaten to a bruised pulp - it made Neal wince, but he quickly handed the kid a towel to dry off.
“Looks like it was one hell of a night,” he said, because he knew that Murphy was having dreams, had seen posts on the network. “But here, come meet me back in your room. I’ve got a few things to help with that.”
Shit. Neal was the last person that Murphy wanted to see just now. Well, the last person after his probation officer and his social worker, but he had no doubt that now that Neal had seen everything that word would reach other ears soon enough.
Murphy took the towel Neal silently, though with a look of suspicion. He had to dab the moisture off of him; anything more was painful. Even after the shower, the towel still came away spotted with blood, though Murphy was beyond caring about something like bloody towels.
Once he was relatively dressed, he threw on his pants and headed back to his room. “I had nothing to do it,” he said when he caught sight of Neal in his room. He wasn’t entirely sure why he bothered. No one ever believed him, not in his dreams and not in real life. But he didn’t want to go back to juvie because of what everyone would no doubt assume was some kind of fight.
“Hey, relax,” was the first thing Neal said, motioning Murphy over to take a seat on the mattress - which had been stripped clean already, because the sheets were kind of bloody and yeah, Neal would make sure he got new ones. No one wanted to sleep on bedding that looked like it had been the site for a murder. “I don’t even know what went on, but you look kinda bad so come here and I’ll fix you up. It was dream stuff, right? What happened?”
The medical kit was opened, and the initial thing he did was take out a small packet of ibuprofen tablets, setting that and a bottle of water on the bedside table. “Two of those, they’ll help with the pain and swelling.”
Murphy hesitated in the doorway, but he did relax a little when Neal mentioned the dreams, and then he made his way to the bed. It was, well, kind of a relief that he didn’t need to make up some story with Neal so he didn’t sound insane. He took the ibuprofen tablets and knocked them back with the glass of water.
“I got to see mob justice first hand,” Murphy said bitterly. His throat was still sore from where the seatbelt had been tied, so he finished off the rest of the water before continuing. “In my dreams, I was sent to earth with a bunch of other delinquents. They thought I had killed someone, so they strung me up from a tree. And then when the little bitch who actually did it confessed, no one wanted to punish her.” It was fucking bullshit is what it was.
No stories necessary, Neal had seen and heard it all - at least, it sure fucking felt like it by this point. “I have the dreams too - I mean, I did, but they ended awhile ago,” he shared, which was true. Except for those random ones that were chock full of info about life ‘beyond,’ after death, also the attempt to convince Emma not to bring their son into the Underworld. It hadn’t gone so well. “So I know that sometimes the injuries carry over.” Or worse - there was death too, but that was a whole other conversation.
He assessed the rest of the injuries, pouring some antiseptic from the kit onto a cloth to dab at the wounds on Murphy’s face - it might sting a little, but he would look less like human pulp when it was done, and infection wouldn’t set in. Always a positive. The black mark around his neck, apparently the result of ‘mob justice,’ looked to be the worst of all - but he had something to take care of that too.
“Doesn’t seem fair,” he said. “But even if no one wanted to punish her then, usually karma comes back around. It just doesn’t sound safe, for anyone, in a world like that.”
It was a relief to learn that Neal had dreamed too. At the very least, it meant he might be able to help Murphy out when it came to explaining to his government watchers why he was so bruised and bloody. And it was a relief to learn that they ended. He was thinking of the implications of that when Neal dabbed his face. Murphy hissed and reflexively pulled away from, but he grit his teeth and forced himself to remain still. He wasn’t a child anymore, he could handle a little sting.
Murphy swiped his nose with his finger. “She jumped off a cliff so yeah, I’d say karma made its rounds,” Murphy said. Honestly, he felt a little bad that he’d driven her to it; that hadn’t been his intention. But, well, she had it coming.
“What do you dream about?” Murphy asked, despite the part of him - quieter than Murphy would have expected - that told him he really didn’t care. Not talking anymore about his own dreams seemed ideal. He didn’t want to get into his whole banishment thing, or how he was going to survive on his own in the wilds armed only with a small knife.
The explaining was always the tough part - if you found doctors who dreamed as well, then it was a lot easier. But Neal had to come up with a story for his gunshot wound, he had to come up with stories on behalf of other people whose own dreams had beaten or broken them - but they all stuck together, in a sense. If you lived in the OC and dreamed, then you got it.
“Me? I dream of kind of a fairytale world - where the stories are all real, and they find their way to the modern world and have to build a life there,” he explained. “It started off that they didn’t remember who they once were, because they were cursed, but when the curse was broken then everything started to come back.” Kind of like here, sort of, he pondered as he gently cleaned more of those wounds. “I was always an outsider though - son of Rumpelstiltskin, he abandoned me when I was fourteen so I only indirectly got caught up in that curse business. Turns out the woman I fell in love with, and had a son with, was meant to break the curse. A whole bunch of other shit happened and eventually I...didn’t make it.”
He’d died, and he had also come to terms with it. Because he was alive here and he had so much - moping about the past would prevent him from fully living in the moment, where it counted.
“But speaking of magic and shit, here - “ He uncorked a bottle made of dark glass and offered it. “I have a friend who makes healing potions. This should help, especially with that mark on your neck.” If it had damaged the larynx or whatever, anything internally.
‘Rumplestiltskin? You mean, ‘weave straw into gold, and give me your firstborn’ Rumplestiltskin?” Murphy asked incredulously. It didn’t sound likely, but on the other hand, he had just woken up feeling like he’d been hit by a freight train because of a dream. “Too bad about not making it in the dreams, but at least you don’t die in real life.” Murphy had no intention of dying any time soon, but he figured that the seven of the delinquents that had already died had no intention of doing that either.
Healing potions? “Really?” Murphy asked, taking the bottle with an eyebrow raised. He peered at it. “Sounds like a videogame.” After a couple of heartbeats, Murphy decided that there was no reason to not trust Neal right now. Besides, it wasn’t like Neal had come up with some long elaborate story just so he could poison Murphy. He knocked back the contents of the small bottle. Despite not thinking that he was drinking poison, he hadn’t actually expected the healing potion to work, and was genuinely surprised at the relief he felt as the cool liquid slid down his throat.
“Yeah, that’s him,” Neal chuckled roughly - he didn’t have fond memories of his father, either in dreams or in the present day. “He’s a slippery fucker. It was touch and go for a little, here, when I dreamed of my own death. But I made it through, so, guess it wasn’t my time to go. Still got a lot ahead of me.”
He knew firsthand how well the healing potions worked since he’d taken a few in his day. And he also knew how batshit insane it sounded at first, but he was glad Murphy decided to suspend any notions of disbelief for the time being. It would be healthier in the long run - already, that mark on his neck was looking better.
“I’d suggest some rest and nothing too heavy to eat for today, but how are you feeling otherwise?”
Murphy couldn’t help but wonder what exactly Rumpelstiltskin would be like in the real world when he wasn’t kidnapping people’s children. “These dreams are so weird,” Murphy muttered to himself. Near death experiences, fairytale dreams. It would all seem like some kind of sick joke if he wasn’t sitting on his bed drinking magical healing potions.
“Fine,” Murphy said. It wasn’t necessarily true. He was angrier, and angrier still that his rage was directed at a bunch of people who, as far as Murphy knew, didn’t actually exist. But no point in complaining about that.
Well, fine from a kid like Murphy wasn’t very convincing, but Neal wouldn’t push it. He saw a lot of potential in him and, one day, maybe he’d let go of all that anger which simmered inside of him - he was too young for it, and life was too short; besides, Neal wanted the best for all the ruffians who had their stays at the ranch. It was rewarding in so many ways when they managed to make positive changes in their lives, and put themselves on a better path.
“I can leave you alone?” he said, closing the first aid kit. “But if you ever want to talk or anything, just come find me. I’m usually around here somewhere. And if you have more shitty dreams, definitely send me a text.” That way he could help with the wounds, making sure they didn’t get worse.
Sheets, right. He wasn’t going to forget those either. “Oh, and I’ll drop off some new bedding for you too.”
“Yeah,” Murphy said. Being alone was probably best. Maybe laying completely still on his bed so things stopped hurting. Though really, since he drank that potion that Neal had given him, everything had faded to a kind of dull ache instead of the pain that he’d been in when he woke up.
“Thanks, Neal” he said after a moment. Because Neal hadn’t had to help clean up his wounds like some sort of concerned parental figure, and he sure as hell didn’t need to share his magic juice supply with him. “I’ll do that.”