Who: Murphy and Caleb What: Murphy (and Caleb) are down with the sickness When: Today! Where: The Ranch Warnings/Ratings: Lots of bleeding eyes and vomitting blood and all that other delightful stuff. Introspection about dream torture Status: Complete!
It had been almost a month since Murphy's last dream, when he had woken up beat to a pulp and hanged, and he found that a relief. With the help of Neal’s healing potion, he was nearly as good as new after a couple of days.
Murphy’s new dream wasn’t any better than his old one. He’d been on his own in his banishment for only a few days before he’d been taken by the grounders, and then they’d tortured him. Despite his disdain for everyone who’d come down on the dropship, he’d tried to keep the information to himself, but after three days of the torture, he spilled everything he knew about the dropship. But they seemed to care less about him after he’d told them what he knew. They’d left him without a guard, with his cage unlocked, and Murphy took his chance to escape.
When he woke up in his own bed at the Ranch, he was worried for a moment. But other than some muscle soreness, he wasn’t bad. He still had his fingernails, and there wasn’t so much as a bruise on him. With a sigh of relief, he got out of bed, got dressed, and headed outside.
He and Caleb weren’t close, could probably barely be called friends. But Murphy had seen him a few times at the Ranch, and he didn’t dislike the guy. He actually kind of enjoyed talking to him sometimes, so when he saw Caleb outside, Murphy headed toward him.
“Caleb, hey. How’s it going?”
“Hey,” Caleb greeted with a nod. He had decided to stop by the ranch for a but this morning. There were a few people there that he knew, plus now that Neal had a little one Caleb hadn’t seen him quite as much as he used to. Although he hd stopped by the house to visit Niko a few times.
“Pretty good,” he replied to Murphy’s question. “I’ve had a break from the dreams,” ever since they found out who A was. Hopefully it was a permanent break but it didn’t feel over like others had said theirs had. “What about you?”
“Must be nice. I just finished a break from the dreams,” Murphy said. “Got right back into the swing of things last night though with dreams of getting tortured.” While there wasn’t much emotion that came into Murphy’s voice, he wasn’t too upset about the whole thing. Realizing his injuries hadn’t carried over had taken some of the sting out of the whole thing.
“Tortured?” Caleb was perfectly aware torture could happen in dreams. To teenagers. Hanna and her friends were proof of that it still came as a bit of a shock to him that it happened for Murphy. He had just assumed all the teenagers running around by themselves on Earth would spend the entire time fucking and partying. That’s what he would do at least. “So I’m going to take a wild guess that a hundred horny teenagers all alone on Earth isn’t some huge party?”
“We’re not alone,” Murphy deadpanned. It had come as a surprise to them too - the first instance of them realizing that was the case came when someone had thrown a spear through Jasper. He’d gone with the others to rescue the teen. He’d seen the way they’d strung him up. “There are grounders - people who survived the nuclear apocalypse, and they’re not pleased that we’re there.” He paused, frowning. “Though, everyone else who came down from the Arc seems to enjoy ganging up on people and hanging them too. So, you know.” Part of Murphy wondered why he had even held out so long against the torture before telling the grounders what they needed to know. Though, it wasn’t like those savages had really endeared themselves to Murphy either.
“Damn,” Caleb muttered as Murphy explained his dreams. The teenagers were turning on each other and there were others after them too? “I was hoping at least one person I knew would end up with good dreams.” Although Rapunzel sort of fell into that category. Possibly. She at least ended up with the happily ever after.
“If you do, it’s not me,” Murphy muttered. “I’m about ready for this bullshit to end. I’m just glad that things didn’t carry over again,” he said. Though, he wasn’t feeling all that good right now. The aches in his muscle hadn’t stopped when he’d started moving around like he was hoping, and now he was even starting to feel a little queasy. Hot, too.
“How’ve your dreams been?” Murphy asked, attempting to take his mind off how crummy he was feeling.
Murphy didn’t look too hot. But he was acting normal. Well not like Caleb knew what normal behavior was for him all that well. He had only talked to the guy a few times. And Caleb had a feeling he wasn’t the type of guy that wanted attentioned call to that. So he’d keep his mouth shut… for now.
“Sorry about that. Dreams suck.” Not that it was Caleb’s fault Murphy had been tortured in the dreams but still. “Fine I guess. Found out who my girlfriend’s stalker was and haven’t had any new ones since.”
Right. Caleb had mentioned that he hadn’t been dreaming in a while. Murphy shook his head to clear out some of the cobwebs. If he didn’t have things he wanted to do later today, he’d almost consider going back to bed and sleeping it off. Maybe he was coming down with something.
“Yeah? Was it the teacher?” Murphy asked, not noticing the fact that his tear ducts had begun to bleed.
Caleb had almost forgotten he had mentioned Mr. Fitz to Murphy. He was about to say that it wasn’t him when he noticed Murphy’s eyes. “The fuck?” Caleb asked brows knitting together. “I’m not sure how to tell you this… but your eyes are bleeding.”
“What?” Murphy asked, more than a little confused. He reached up to touch his face, felt the dampness as though he was crying, and then pulled away his hand. That was… that was definitely blood.
It was more the shock of it than anything that made him sway on his feet, though once he regained his balance he suddenly felt very sick. “What the hell is this?” he asked, not quite keeping the tremor from his voice.
Caleb subconsciously touched his own eyes just to be sure. Not bleeding. Good. Now back to Murphy. “Uh. I don’t know. I’m going to assume this isn’t a common thing for you?” Because by the way he was reacting it sure as hell didn’t seem like it. And really who the fuck would it even be a common thing for?
“No, it happens every Tuesday,” Murphy said dryly. Because seriously, who bled from the eyes on the regular? “I think I need to lie down.” He was starting to feel a little dizzy. He started to walk back to the dorms, before a wave of dizziness struck him unexpectedly. He managed to grab onto a nearby paddock fence to keep himself from falling.
Hey. In Caleb’s defense you never knew what>/i> was normal in Orange County. But he did appreciate the guys sarcasm. “Yeah that’s probably a good idea.” He didn’t exactly feel right leaving the guy bleeding from his eyes alone though. Especially when he couldn’t seem to stand up anymore with the grabbing the fence for support. “Where’s your room? I’ll help you.” Caleb said quickly following him and offering a shoulder.
Murphy felt a twinge of gratitude when Caleb offered his shoulder. Murphy was pretty sure that there just wasn’t any way that he’d managed to make it back to his room without some kind of assistance.
“Thanks,” Murphy said, throwing his arm around Caleb’s shoulder. “My room’s just over here,” he said, weakly guiding the way as the strength all leaked out of his muscles.
Caleb could practically feel the guy getting weaker as they made the short walk back to his room. This was bad news. It was times like this he wished he had some type of healing power or some shit. Hell he’d take any power over the whole talking to ghosts thing. “Is this some kind of space thing? Weak muscles from zero gravity or something?” Made about as much sense as anything. Although it didn’t explain the dude’s eyes.
“No,” Murphy said. “We tried to keep the Arc’s gravity as close to Earth’s as possible. Besides, we’ve been on Earth for a while now. Doesn’t make any sense that it would show up now, and not when we landed.” Though, Caleb had turned Murphy’s thinking to the fact that this might be a dream bleed over. It was the only thing that made any kind of sense, didn’t it? And Murphy might play the part of the idiot often enough, but that was only because he knew how easily people would underestimate him. Unintelligent, he was not. “The grounders,” he said, the knowledged donning on him with something akin to horror. “They must’ve infected me with something knowing I’d go back to camp.” Wipe them all out with some kind of virus, and they wouldn’t have had to lift a finger. Was he going to die? And did that mean that Caleb was going to catch whatever it was Murphy had?
He wrestled with himself for a couple of moments, torn between being glad of the help back to his room and some kind of nagging conscience he was trying hard to ignore. He stopped, and attempted to withdraw from Caleb’s touch. “You should get away from me. I’m probably contagious.”
Dream desease was really the only explanation. Or well it coming from the dreams because Caleb didn’t automatically jump to a virus. But he had been around long enough to know it was dream related. Which apparently Murphy seemed to think as well.
“This your room?” Caleb asked when Murphy stopped walking. Hopefully that was the reason and not that the guy could no longer walk. Which with the bleeding eyes and sudden weakness Caleb really wouldn’t put past him.
“Nah, I’m staying,” though he said it casually there was clear determination in his voice. “A disease from your dreams won’t affect me,” at least he sure as hell didn’t think so. “Besides I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be alone right now.”
There seemed to be something wrong with that logic, but Murphy was trying to focus more on keeping his feet under him than anything else. It seemed more and more like Caleb was taking on the brunt of the walking and Murphy was starting to feel like dead weight. Anyway, Caleb had been dreaming longer than Murphy had. He no doubt had a better understanding of how dream illnesses worked.
“A couple more up,” Murphy said, glancing around blearily to get his bearings. Once they got to his room, Murphy pushed open the door and headed straight for his bed, where he rested for all of five seconds before leaning over the side of the bed and vomiting blood into the plastic waste basket he had sitting next to the bed.
Well this just kept getting better and better. Caleb wasn’t sure which he was more disgusted by. The bleeding eyes or the throwing up blood. “Uh, can I get you anything. Gingerale or something? Maybe we should call a doctor.”
“Water,” Murphy managed to wheeze between heaves. He took a couple of deep breaths, then rolled back onto his bed, lying on his side. He closed his eyes. He didn’t like hospitals, not after his last trip to one resulted in his father’s murder. But vomiting blood didn’t seem to leave many alternatives. “You think they can do something for this?” he asked.
“Hell if I know,” Caleb asked rummaging around Murphy’s room until he found a glass and filled it with water. “They’d know what to do a hell of a lot more than I would,” he walked over to the bed to hand Murphy his water just as Caleb’s own eyes started to bleed.
Murphy thankfully took the water. Even the simple act of lifting the glass to his lips and taking a drink was difficult, and he was certain that he had managed to get more water on him than in him, but he was glad for it anyway. Then, he looked up at Caleb, and somehow managed to feel even worse. “Uh, dude,” Murphy said. “I don’t think this is just limited to me.”
“Wha-” Caleb began to ask lifting his hand to his eyes. Something felt off. When he pulled his fingers away he saw blood on them. Caleb stumbled backward beginning to feel dizzy himself.
Murphy watched Caleb stoically for a couple of moments, and then sighed. “You should probably lie down,” he said. He coughed roughly - it almost felt like he was going to cough up a lung, but no, instead it was just more blood. Lovely. “Bed’s big enough for both of us.” Well, mostly, if they got close. The twin bed really wouldn’t be comfortable for both of them, but it was probably better than the floor.
Caleb eyed the bed. It did not look big enough for the both of them. But getting back to his car, driving to his apartment? All that seemed impossible at the moment. So Muprhy’s bed it was. “We might need another bucket,” Caleb said and as if on cue he bent over vomiting into the same trash can Murphy had. All his strength seemed to be gone after that and Caleb collapsed onto the floor.
“If you want to get one, be my guest,” Murphy said. Honestly, he barely had the strength to pour water down his throat. He wasn’t going to be getting off the bed any time soon. Maybe he could text Neal and have the man roll some bottled water and an extra trash bucket into the room.
Murphy glanced at where Caleb had collapsed on the floor. Well, if he wanted to lie on the floor instead, Murphy wasn’t going to complain. He was glad to have the whole bed to himself. He didn’t toss his pillow at the older man, but he did kind of push it off the edge of his bed, where it landed relatively near Caleb.
It wasn’t that he wanted to lie on the floor but getting up didn’t really seem like an option at the moment. “Thanks,” Caleb mumbled reaching out and grabbing the pillow which he barely had enough strength for.