Pain. Hate. Envy. Those are the ABCs of me. (bygones) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2016-09-04 20:07:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, jonathan murphy, neal cassidy (baelfire) |
Who: Neal and Murphy
What: Caring for the sick NPCs at the Ranch
When: Today, September 4th
Where: The Ranch
Ratings/Warnings: Sickness, blood, etc. etc.
Status: Complete
There was nothing Murphy would like more than to be curled up in his own bed right now, sleeping for the next few days. The worst of the illness had passed. Murphy could actually move again, which had been nearly impossible at the height of his illness. He’d stopped bleeding from everywhere a while ago, his fever had finally broken, and after he’d knocked back a couple of water bottles and rehydrated himself, he was feeling okay. Weak, nauseated, and still a little sick overall. But well enough to post about his most recent dream, when he’d discovered the illness wasn’t meant to kill and was only meant to debilitate people for a day or two, on the Network.
And well enough to help the rest of the kids at the Ranch who were still sick. Because as much as he wanted to just ignore them, he knew he couldn’t. He’d brought the sickness here, and Neal knew it. He wouldn’t really be surprised if Neal decided that the Ranch wasn’t a great fit for Murphy after all, especially if he wasn’t pulling his weight.
Besides, some part of him might have felt guilty. Some of these kids were pretty young, and Murphy’d managed to get them sick. “You’ve got to drink,” he told one of the delirious boys, pouring water down his throat. Once Murphy was sure that he had drank what he could, he wiped some blood and spilled water from the kid’s mouth with a rag, not ungently.
A sickness that caused blood to rain down someone’s face was, in Neal’s opinion, pretty fucking nightmarish - but he was also holding fast to the notion that ‘this too shall pass.’ No one was dying, they were just severely incapacitated for awhile before the worst of it was over - a dream crossover, sure, and it wasn’t the first they’d faced in Orange County. It wouldn’t be the last either.
He wasn’t planning to leave the ranch until all the kids were accounted for and fine - whatever illness this was, it spread like wildfire and already Neal was feeling stretched a little thin; however, he was stubborn and determined to press on, to help those who were affected as much as he could. Probably until he either dropped dead or passed out himself, but the ranch was his responsibility and these kids had been through enough in their lives already.
At least it was easy to pass off as some strange flu or whatever. Nothing like giant spiders creeping up from the depths of the sea. Silver linings, yeah?
With him, he had a tote bag stuffed with bottled water, and was carrying an extra bucket or two stacked in each other, clean rags, and folded spare blankets. Weighed down with camping gear for the apocalypse, it looked like, and he went to go find Murphy. Poor guy. “Hey,” Neal rapped knuckles on the door to the room he was in, tending to one of the sick kids. “I brought extras of everything if you need any help?”
Murphy glanced over at Neal. He’d been worried the first day he’d fallen sick that Neal would fall sick too, but at this point, the fact that he was still healthy meant that he was probably like Octavia and Finn and likely wouldn’t get sick at all. “Yeah, I need help,” Murphy said. A kid on the other side of the room started a coughing fit, and Murphy got up quickly from where he was to help roll him on his side. “You been feeling okay?” he asked.
“Fit as a fiddle, just kind of tired - but I’m not going anywhere,” Neal promised, and quickly passed over a rag for the kid who had started the coughing fit. Likely it would lead to something bloody and you didn’t want that to spray everywhere.
Then, getting settled with his supplies, he decided he’d take over where Murphy left off with the other kid - more fluids, more water, rehydrate that system. While the delirious-looking boy drank in slow sips, Neal assessed what the state of bedsheets was - they didn’t seem like they needed a change yet, so he’d focus on helping these kids get as comfortable as could be before moving on.
“It’s good of you to help,” he added - really, he was kind of proud of Murphy. “You’re feeling better? No relapses or anything?” That would just be their luck.
Murphy took the rag from Neal with wry half-smile, then used it to dab the kids blood flecked lips with surprising tenderness. Once that was done, he fed the kid some more water. “I don’t think relapses really happen either. Almost everyone is getting over it by now.” Well, except for the people who didn’t make it, including someone who probably would have made it had Murphy not smothered him. Though, even without a relapse, he still swayed a little as he stood until he steadied himself against the desk.
Well, that was something. The sickness passed through a person’s system - an otherwise healthy person, Neal assumed - relatively quickly. Good thing too, because the human body could only stand so much bleeding out. It would take time to recover no matter what, those who had been affected - pale-faced and literally drained. Weak and wobbly, even.
But alive, which was what mattered. “Whoa there,” Neal set the water down and went to put a hand on Murphy’s shoulder to help steady him as well. “Maybe you should take a break. Just a quick one. I can handle things for a little while.” Then he added, in a more hushed tone (wasn’t like anyone was listening anyway - the fever and how shitty you felt was the main focus), “...you know it’s not your fault, right? That it crossed over?”
“I’m fine,” Murphy insisted, pulling away from Neal’s hand. He ran his hand down his face. “I don’t see anyone else infecting the entire county with Ebola from the future,” he muttered. He knew that no one else around here was likely to hear them. After all, he’d smothered someone who had been infected while he was surrounded by a ton of other sick people, and no one had been the wiser.
“Well, no, I think this might be the first county-wide epidemic of ebola from the future,” Neal admitted. He wouldn’t dispute that - he still stood by his claim, however. Murphy shouldn’t blame himself. “But we’ve had portals to hell open up, we’ve had the apocalypse a few times, we’ve had a curse from my dreamworld that made everyone hate each other for a week, we’ve had giant spiders and gremlins and I could go on and on - point is, these things happen. It’s no one’s fault. It’s just...it bleeds through. Call it an effect of choosing to live in a place where realities collide.”
He felt bad for the kid, sure - no doubt the guilt was eating away at him, and obviously he didn’t dream of pleasant things either (hardly anyone did). So that was all a lot to deal with, to learn how to reconcile. Neal meant it when he said he was all about second chances, and Murphy? There was a lot of good there, covered by wariness and spite. Yet Neal still believed in him.
“I feel like most people hate each other in general,” Murphy said, giving a bit of a half smile. At least there weren’t many people who Murphy liked. The list extended to only a couple of people after Neal. Feeling confident that his feet were under him again, Murphy moved toward the door to move to a different room to administer to the people elsewhere. “I killed someone in my dreams last night. He deserved it but…” Well, there was something cold about smothering someone to death when they were as sick as the kid that he’d just been tending to.
Neal chuckled a little. “Probably, yeah, no need to spin that story very much at least.” It was decidedly more difficult to cover up demons (by now the west coast must think California had a severe problem with drugs in their water, specifically in the OC), but anyway.
He re-gathered his supplies, after checking to make sure that the kids in this room were faring well enough to move on, and went with Murphy. Who had killed someone in his dreams, apparently? It was a wonder people who dreamed of other lives like that could even function in this one, Jesus.
“Taking a life is - “ Neal paused. He had never done it in his dreams, ironically. Just here. In this world - and he would very much argue that the guy deserved it, for kidnapping and torturing him and Lina. Regardless, though. “Of course you wouldn’t just brush it off. I’m going to guess that since your dream environment is kind of futuristic Lord of the Flies that there’s probably no avoiding situations like that anyway?”
“I could have avoided it. He was sick, like the kids in that room there,” Murphy said, making sure to keep his gaze fixed firmly ahead. “He’s the one who had put the noose around my neck when they hung me. I saw an opportunity and I took it.” But it wasn’t as if he’d had the strength to fight back.
“It’s the life, or what it sounds like - not much different between there and here sometimes? You see opportunities and you take them. You fight for survival, you fight to get by. It’s not a life I would have wanted for myself, or you, or anyone here,” Neal shook his head. Pushing open the door to the next room, he went in to find that this one was in dire need of a change in the linens.
One kid in bed was looking more zombie than human at this point, so Neal just kind of focused on shifting him off the mattress for a moment - little thing too, the hellion was on the scrawny side. “For what it’s worth though - “ He looked over at Murphy, “...I think it means a lot that you can step back from the situation and look at it in the sense that you could have avoided it.”
Killing someone in the dreams didn’t make him a monster here, was all Neal meant.
Murphy’s nose wrinkled as the diseased air from the room hit him. This virus really didn’t make anyone look very pretty, but that kid looked worse than most. He wondered briefly if the kid was going to manage to pull through, or if he was going to be like the ones in his dreams who hadn’t survived the virus, but he forced the thought out of his mind. Even if the kid didn’t pull through, it wasn’t his problem. He didn’t need to dwell on it.
“I remember thinking Lord of the Flies was a terrible book when I read it in school. Kind of wish I had paid more attention now.” Not that it really would have helped his dream counterpart. He’d have actually been surprised if there was a copy of Lord of the Flies to be found on the entirety of the Arc. “You don’t think that the dreams are indicative of real life?” he asked casually.
Keep everything clean, keep the kids hydrated, keep the fever down. Oh, and keep them from choking on their own blood - that was all they could do, and Neal was going to work round the clock doing it. He wished he had a vaccine or something, but there were only things like painkillers, and anti-nausea meds, that could help treat the symptoms. The thought of one of the kids not making it was...no, that wasn’t going to happen. He refused to let it spiral that far, refused to even consider it. The haunting thought had been fleeting but he always pushed it aside.
“No, I don’t think the dreams are indicative of much here. I’d be pretty screwed if they were, considering I’m dead in them. But I’m alive now - and I believe that the dreams are just one path, and this life is another. A better path, if we choose that for ourselves.”
Of course, it didn’t always seem that way - especially as he helped a boy onto his side so he could cough bloody phlegm into a bucket - but it was still something that he held onto regardless.
Murphy made his way to the other boy in the room, carefully propping up his head so that could pour some water down his throat. “That sucks,” Murphy said. “That’s a fate I hope I end up avoiding.” He stopped talking as the kid choked on the water, and he turned him onto his side, gently wiping some blood and spittle from the corner of the boy’s mouth. “Then again, maybe if I do bite it, maybe these dreams will stop.”
When the kid stopped coughing and his breathing evened out, Murphy wiped some sweat off his brow with the clean section of the clothe. “I take it you haven’t been home since this broke out?”
“They pretty much stopped for me after that. I had a few that were...in the afterlife, I guess?” Neal shook his head; it’d been a crazy ride, that whole shitshow in the Underworld. “But for the most part I died and stopped dreaming. And you’re gonna be fine. Both there and here. Especially here.”
Alright, minor crisis averted - the kid they’d been helping closed his eyes, obviously ready for a nap since coughing a lung up took a lot of energy out of you, and Neal kept the bucket and a bottle of water by his bed. Just in case.
Had he been home since the sickness broke out? Honestly, he’d lost track of time. “No, I’ve been at the ranch - “ Yeah, he was pretty certain of that. “I just want to make sure everyone makes it through. Em’s at home with our boys, and it’s best not to expose them anyway.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about there,” Murphy said, standing up and leaning against a desk while Neal brought the bucket and water to the kids bed. “We’re dropping like flies. Honestly, if I bit it I wouldn’t be surprised.” Fourteen of the 100 had already been killed in some way, shape, or form, and they really hadn’t been on Earth for that long.
“I was going to say.” He rubbed his eyes. Even if he was still tired, at least he didn’t have blood pouring out of them any longer. “I’d stay away. Wouldn’t want…” the name took him a second to remember, but he did, “Niko to catch something like this. Stick to the Chicken Pox.”
Like flies. Fitting, due to the resemblance to that book by William Golding - Neal hadn’t been exposed to a ton of public schooling, mostly up until age fourteen or so (his GED had been acquired much later), but he remembered not really caring for that novel either. Even so, he’d still hang onto some sort of hope, for Murphy’s sake - he was good at that.
“Chickenpox is pretty nasty, but nothing like this,” he shook his head, feeling like he needed a bit of a break himself - just to clean up a little, rehydrate, maybe stuff some food in his face. Keeping energy up was ideal, in order to best help take care of the sick ones. “Once everything’s sorta normal around here though, you’ll have to come meet Niko one day. And Henry too.”
If Murphy wanted to, that is. No pressure.
“Having had both, I’ll take chickenpox any day of the week.” Being incessantly itchy for a week had been annoying, but it was better than uncontrollably throwing up blood. Though his thoughts were brought away from both chickenpox and whatever virus it was that had infected the hundred in his dreams when Neal invited him to visit his kids. He had never really thought of himself as the kind of teenager that people would actually want to meet their small children. He was rough around the edges, and wasn’t generally considered a good influence, but the question brought a brief smile to his lips. “Yeah,” he said, swiping at his nose with his index finger. “That might be alright.”
Hell, Neal trusted Revy with his kids - she was about as rough around the edges as one got, but in all actuality, she’d also been the one to help build Niko’s crib. And Henry liked her (referred to as ‘the lady with the tattoos’), so ultimately, first glances were deceiving - he was a good judge of character, digging deeper to look at a person. Murphy had a lot of capacity to care even if the guy himself didn’t think so. Who knew, maybe even some time with a baby who was really fucking adorable (Neal may be biased, but come on, those fat rolls) would soften him a little too.
“Something to look forward to, just be prepared for Henry to talk your ear off about video games,” he grinned, gathering what was left of his supplies. These should be restocked as well. For the next bout of rounds that he would do. “How about we just take a minute and find some dinner? I’m starving. You look like you could use something also.”
“I could use a break,” Murphy admitted. He wasn’t at 100% yet and he’d been working for a good chunk of the day at making sure the other kids were well hydrated. “I probably should eat. I’m still feeling kind of nauseated though.”
“We’ll keep it light,” Neal promised, patting him on the shoulder. Murphy did kind of look pale, and more than a little tired - the fatigue was to be expected, because it had been a long few days. But finding nourishment would help. “Then when everything passes, and you don’t feel like you’re gonna puke, celebrate with a cheeseburger or three.”
It’d be okay. Just another pothole to bump over and then keep going along down the road - such was life’s way, no matter where you were.