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After they make their first proper truce with one of the grounder clans—a truce almost entirely orchestrated by Clarke and Bellamy, despite Kane and Abby’s protests—they finally get to take a break. The guards take care of watches and patrols and the kids?
They celebrate.
Monty whips up a double batch of moonshine and everyone has a much deserved drink. Or two. Or three. Or, you know, whatever. By the time the sun is all the way down, none of them are all the way sober—and a lot of them are all the way drunk.
Generally Murphy tries to steer clear of the stuff; he’s a handsy drunk and he doesn’t like making a fool of himself. But right now, being a little loose and out of control sounds pretty damn good, so to hell with it. He’s putting it back like a champ—already a good drink and a half ahead of the rest of them and reveling in it. Everything has gone warm and half-focused and for once, none of the shit matters. Monty’s moonshine tastes like piss and rubbing alcohol but, goddamn, it does the job.
Hanging on just the right side of way-past-tipsy, he slings an arm over Monty’s shoulder—the both of them hung back near the edge of the crowd. “Ya did good, kid,” he says, voice bright. Monty flinches before he settles. If Murphy was more sober, he might have the sense to feel offended. Instead he just laughs. “What? I make you nervous?”
Monty stumbles. “No, uh, no, it’s fine, I’m just—”
Murphy cuts him off with a sloppy kiss to the cheek and a too-loud laugh that gets even louder when he catches the deer-in-the-headlights look on Monty’s face. “Lighten up. Have another drink.” He passes Monty the one in his hand before weaving into the crowd to get himself another. He feels—good. Really good. I’m-about-to-make-some-bad-decisions-and-not-even-give-a-shit kind of good. He spots Clarke on his way to the booze.
“Heeeey, Princess!” He crows, making his way to her. “Havin’ fun yet?”
Clarke snorts out a small laugh and raises her glass. “Not as much as you, apparently.”
“Well, guess you better fix that.” Murphy feels kind of floaty. “It’s a party. Even the princess can let loose sometimes.”
Clarke grins and Murphy feels strangely accomplished for having caused it. The one he gives her in return feels too big for his face, but he likes it.
“So he can smile,” Raven drawls as she walks up to them. She doesn’t walk as well as she used to, but with the brace and practice she’s gotten pretty good at getting around. She and Murphy don’t really talk—for good reason—but that doesn’t seem to matter tonight. Not when everyone is well on their way to totally shitfaced.
“How’s the leg?” He asks, and Clarke’s eyebrows shoot up. Raven just rolls her eyes.
“Totally fucked, thanks to you.”
“Want me to kiss it better?”
There’s a moment where she just stares at him, and then they’re both laughing and she’s shoving at his shoulder. “Keep your mouth to yourself, creep. I can still kick your ass with one leg.” Maybe it’s just the alcohol talking, but it feels a little bit like they’ve fixed something—or at least, started to fix something.
“Yeah, probably.” He winks at her. “Offer still stands if you change your mind.”
“Whatever.” She laughs. “Go drown yourself in moonshine.”
“I would love to.” Saluting his goodbye, he makes a b-line for the moonshine only to find a suspiciously sober-looking Miller standing in his way. “Hellooo,” he says, studying the man in front of him. Miller and him—they’ve always looked out for each other. Miller knows him better than most of the others, and Miller’s got a look on his face that is totally killing Murphy’s buzz. “Can I help you?”
Miller claps him on the shoulder. “I think you’ve probably had enough, man.”
Murphy knows what this is about. Miller is thinking about Murphy’s mom. But Murphy, on the other hand, is very specifically not thinking about his mom, and he’d like to keep it that way.
“The fun’s just getting started,” he insists, wrapping an arm around Miller’s shoulders like he’s here to show him the secrets of the universe. “You remember fun, don’t you?”
Miller snorts. “You’re one to talk.” He nudges Murphy. “Word of advice? Hitting on people you’ve tried to kill is probably not the best idea you’ve ever had.” It’s half joke, half warning, but Murphy’s in too good a mood to take anything seriously right now.
“Aw, you jealous?” He teases, pulling Miller closer, until they’re breathing the same air. “’Cause I can kiss you, too, if it’ll make you feel better.” He leans in and Miller pushes him away with a loud bark of laughter.
“As if, you little shit,” he scoffs; he’s got one hand out, keeping Murphy at arm’s length, but the look he gives him is entirely too affectionate. So Murphy grins and makes kissy noises until Miller shoves him back with a muttered “go find someone else’s leg to hump” and a low laugh.
“Hey, Jasper!” Murphy yells into the crowd, still teasing Miller. “I tried to kill you too, right? Want a lap dance?” The look Jasper gives him has him roaring with laughter and he’s finally got another drink in his hand and things are going pretty good, if he says so himself. He’s winding his way back into the mix, not an outsider, at least for tonight.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen him like this,” Clarke says, stepping up beside Miller, who casts a glance over his shoulder at her.
“Like what?”
“So—normal. Happy, even. Should I be worried?” She means it as a joke, but Miller’s silence has her doubling back in concern. “What? Should I?”
Miller shrugs. “I don’t know. Probably not. I mean god knows he deserves a drink as much as the rest of us. Bad feeling, I guess.”
Both of them are watching from a distance as Murphy climbs shamelessly into Finn’s lap and drapes his arms around Finn’s neck. For someone who’s usually all tight frowns and shitty remarks, he looks warm and relaxed, tonight. He says something to Finn that neither of them can hear, and the immediate group around them starts chanting “kiss, kiss, kiss” until Murphy’s hands are tangled in Finn’s hair and they’re going at it like they’re trying to eat each other alive. Miller snorts out a laugh.
“Either way, I’m not cleaning up when he winds up puking all over himself.” He casts a grin at Clarke and she laughs.
“Here, here.”
Honestly Finn isn’t really Murphy’s type (and he knows he’s not Finn’s type), but he’s just glad to finally have his hands on someone. Distantly, he’s aware of the cheers from the group around them, but most of his attention is on Finn’s mouth—licking between his teeth, biting his lips red and swollen. And on Finn’s hands, which have snuck under the back of his shirt. Someone yells “take it off!” and he’s about eighty percent sure it’s Clarke, but he can’t say for certain. Because between the noise and the breathless kissing and the booze, Murphy is going dizzy in the best way.
"Easy, tiger," he groans up against Finn's mouth, "We're in public and everything." He’s entirely aware of the irony when he rocks his hips down just to hear the noise it draws out of Finn. Someone in the group whistles and crows and Murphy grins.
Finn is at least as drunk as he is. He looks at Murphy, half focused, hands roving down his back to his ass. “Where is this coming from?” He asks. Murphy barks out a disbelieving laugh.
“Oh, you have no idea.” He dives in for another kiss, and another, until his mouth feels swollen and good. “I could wreck you, prettyboy.”
“Yeah? Prove it.”
Murphy has Finn by the hair—drags his head back so he can get his mouth on his throat and leave some good marks, while he’s at it. Up until Finn tugs him back up to his mouth and he sets his teeth to Finn’s lip instead.
He would happily stay perched in Finn’s lap for the rest of the night, but his body has other plans. Pushing up with a hand on Finn’s chest, he says, “Sorry dude, gotta piss.”
Finn groans and wipes his mouth, but he’s grinning like a smug cat. “Buzzkill,” he teases and Murphy just winks at him before heading for the tree-line. He could honestly use the moment of quiet, anyway. The party is great and all, but he’s starting to feel like there isn’t enough room in his head to think.
You never really realize just how drunk you are until you’re trying to pee. He’s got one hand braced on a tree and he still feels like the world is turning way too fast for this shit, but he manages. Somehow. It’s a foreign feeling, because he doesn’t get drunk. Almost never gets drunk. That was his mom’s job.
Oh no. Nope. Not going there. Fuck that. This is the ground. Things are different on the ground. Whatever happened up there, it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t exist. Not anymore. They made a world for themselves, down here.
And who should he very literally run into when he turns around to head back, but the King of ground, himself.
“Well, look who it is,” he chimes, sounding a little off-kilter—feeling a little off-kilter. “Guess a kiss isn’t gonna make up for what I did to you, huh?” It’s supposed to be a joke—supposed to come off with the same kind of flippant light-heartedness as the lap dance comment, or the shit with Raven. But something in his voice goes weird and canned sounding and suddenly his throat feels too tight. He tries to swallow past the feeling—tries not to hate the look Bellamy gives him.
“It’s a joke, man,” he slurs, trying too hard to cover up what just happened. “Lighten up, shit.” His voice does it again and he takes a panicked step back, turning away so Bellamy can’t see the expression on his face—not in the dark, not this far from the fire, this far from the noise.
“Hey,” Bellamy says, one eyebrow raised, “Too much to drink?” He reaches out to steady Murphy on instinct and Murphy jolts away like he’s been burned—wild eyed and uneasy.
Fuck, way to play it cool. He squeezes his eyes closed and takes a breath before he settles himself. The buzz doesn’t feel as good, anymore. More like there’s too much noise inside his head. He’s sloppy and unbalanced and he’s never wanted to be sober this badly in his life. He still hasn’t answered Bellamy, and he can see the expression shift on the man’s face.
“Ey, Murphy, anybody home?”
“Yeah. Yeah.” Murphy nods, like a ragdoll—like he’s been disconnected from his body and has it on puppet strings, instead. The floating feeling doesn’t seem so good, anymore. “Yeah, uh—I’m just—I feel sick.” He tries to wave Bellamy away but Bellamy just steps in closer and puts a hand on Murphy’s back and fuck if that doesn’t make everything so much worse.
The sound that drops out of Murphy’s mouth is too wrecked to be a laugh. It makes Bellamy flinch and the only thing Murphy can think is good because there’s some sick part of himself that wants to scare Bellamy away from him. Except he doesn’t move away. Murphy doesn’t know if he should be mad or grateful. The ground feels like it’s tipped forward too far and he knows he’s too drunk for this.
An image of Bellamy’s neck in the noose comes to mind and in and instant Murphy’s doubled over, wretching, but doesn’t throw up. That would be too easy. After a few trembling moments on unsteady feet, he lets his shaking knees take him to the ground. And of course Bellamy follows—crouches down beside him—and he wishes he had the kind of self-control to shake Bellamy off of him, but there’s a part of himself that wants Bell—has always wanted him—in a way he knows he’ll never be wanted back and it aches. And maybe he’s selfish. Maybe he lets himself revel in the fantasy for a little while.
“You should have killed me,” he chokes around a hysterical half-laugh—curled in on himself so he doesn’t have to look at Bellamy. He shakes his head. “I would have killed me.”
Bellamy sucks in a breath and settles in so he’s sitting on the dirt next to Murphy. He isn’t good at this, but everyone else is at the party and Murphy is crashing fast and someone has to do damage control. “Yeah, well,” he says dryly, “You make pretty shit decisions, sometimes.”
Murphy’s laugh sounds more like a sob, and then he’s shaking and he can’t stop. He’s not crying. Not yet. But everything goes blurred and he scrubs at his eyes before they can give him away. “Fuck.”
“That shit’s over now, Murphy. It’s done.” Bellamy says, not exactly tender but with his own brand of rough-around-the-edges kindness. He used to be better at this kind of thing, but that man—that boy—seems far away from him, now.
Murphy can’t look him in the eye; he keeps thinking back to Bellamy, with the red seatbelt around his neck—thinks of himself, a couple weeks later, with those seatbelts wrapped around his hands so tight his fingers were going numb, hauling Bellamy up the side of a cliff. He thinks of the version of himself that goaded Finn into killing and the one that tried (that failed) to talk him down. He tries to separate the two, but they’re the same. No matter what he does, he was both of those people. He was the one who spent three days keeping their secrets from the grounders and he was the one who broke and spilled it all. He’s just as wicked as he is noble, in the end. And there’s a part of him that’s terrified that this new-and-improved self is just the flavor of the week.
“You’re a fucking idiot,” Murphy all but whispers, because he’s afraid that if he talks too loud, Bellamy will hear his voice crack. Giving in to weakness, selfishness, desperation, whatever he is—he leans against Bellamy and Bellamy winds up wrapping an arm around his shoulders instead of pushing him away like he probably ought to. He squeezes Murphy’s shoulder.
“You’re really shit at this whole making friends thing, you know?” Bellamy deadpans, but there’s something soft and teasing just below the surface, and Murphy needs that right now, even if he doesn’t want to admit it.
“I don’t play well with others,” he grumbles and Bellamy laughs.
“I’ve noticed.”
Bellamy must not be entirely sober—Murphy refuses to hope that Bellamy would be so soft with him unless he was a little drunk—because he scoots just a little closer and props his chin on Murphy’s head and Murphy sucks in a breath too small and restrained to even be called a gasp. The heat of Bellamy’s chest pressed up against his back almost feels like home.
Except it isn’t.
There’s a silence that seems to go on forever.
“I fucked up,” Murphy says softly.
“Yeah,” Bellamy agrees. “We both fucked up.” They sit like that, for a while, Murphy feeling miserable and drunk and trying not to make a bigger fool of himself than he already has. For the first time, he realizes how tired he is. But sleep doesn’t come easy, these days. He has nightmares about Charlotte, sometimes. He has nightmares about the grounders. He has nightmares about Finn. He takes watch duty at the times that no one else wants and hopes it’ll leave him too exhausted for dreaming. Sometimes it works.
And right now, Murphy is just drunk enough to make another stupid, reckless decision. He knows better, but he’s on a roll so why not keep going, right? Clumsy when he turns, he gets a hand on the back of Bellamy’s neck. They’re so close that Bellamy has to be able to hear the way his heart pounds, like it’s caught inside his throat. He’s so sure that Bellamy is going to push him away.
Then they’re kissing—chaste and closed-mouthed and quiet, and for some reason it aches more than it helps and he can’t figure out why. But there are Bellamy’s hands, gentling Murphy away by the shoulders and Murphy feels his heart drop into his stomach. He wishes Bellamy had punched him instead; at least then he’d have a hurt that made sense.
But Bellamy shakes his head with a look on his face that looks too much like pity. If he weren’t too busy being humiliated, Murphy would be furious over that look on Bell’s face.
“Not me, Murph,” Bellamy says, and Murphy knows that’s the first and last kiss from Bellamy he’s ever going to get. He tries to laugh but it comes out sounding stale and strained.
“Yeah,” he says, “I know.”
There’s a silence that he doesn’t know how to fill, and winds up murmuring a low, “I’m going to bed.” When he stands, the ground tries to spin out from under his feet and it’s all he can do not to fall over.
“Come on,” Bellamy sighs, standing up and getting an arm around Murphy’s waist. “You’re gonna fall on your ass on your own.”
“I’m fine—” He tries to wrestle out of Bell’s hold, but his limbs won’t cooperate and he doesn’t get anywhere with it.
“Murphy, shut up.” Bellamy gets Murphy’s arm slung over his shoulder and then they’re halfway stable. Physically, at least. Murphy’s pretty sure he’s one wrong word away from waterworks and he’s doing his best to focus on walking instead of all of the shit going on inside his head. He’s made enough of a fool of himself already without crying about it, too.
“You know there’s still time,” he slurs, the half-assed attempt at a sideways grin slapped on his face, “just kill me now and get it over with.”
“So dramatic,” Bellamy scoffs, shouldering through the opening to Murphy’s tent and helping him down onto the bedroll. “Sleep it off, Murph.”
Laying down stops the spinning, but he still feels like shit. There’s a sinking feeling in his stomach that won’t go away. His pride almost stops him from asking, but then again at this point he doesn’t figure he has much dignity left to lose. “Can you get Clarke?” His voice sounds too small for himself.
He can’t stand the way Bellamy looks at him, so he doesn’t look back—just stares up at the top of the tent and waits.
“Yeah, you got it,” Bellamy says, and then he’s gone, and Murphy feels like he’s going to be sick in a way that has nothing to do with the moonshine.
When Clarke comes in, Murphy has his back to her—face turned into the pillow so she won’t see the look on his face.
But she knows. Clarke always knows. She sits down beside him and runs her fingers through his hair. “Hey,” she says, voice warm and sweet in ways he doesn’t deserve—not with this kind of blood on his hands. That’s the tipping point. A watery breath shakes into a sob and he doesn’t just break—he shatters. The pillow hides the sounds but it doesn’t hide the tremble in his shoulders and the gasp of his lungs, or the way he feels too small inside his own skin, almost like his body doesn’t belong to him.
And Clarke—god, Clarke doesn’t ask. She just pets his hair and hums. They stay like that for a long time.
-
It has to be past noon, because the light is filtering through his tent and directly into his skull. Murphy groans and throws his arm over his eyes—tries to muffle the pounding in his head. The only thing that drives him out of bed at all is the fact that he needs to eat something. Or at least get water.
Clarke is the first person he sees when he steps out of the tent, and suddenly all of the shit from last night comes rushing back to him.
“Fuck,” he groans, hooking a right to avoid running into her and running into Finn, instead. Finn gives him a look that’s half question, half horror.
“Hey,” Finn says, voice low, “Did we--?” He points back and forth between them and Murphy snorts out a laugh.
“Oh yeah,” he says, maybe enjoying Finn’s reaction a little too much. “You’re a handsy son of a bitch, you know that?” He grins and Finn drags a hand over his face.
“Right.” Finn makes a face. Giving him an almost sympathetic pat on the shoulder, Murphy moves to get around him.
“You’ll get over it, Casanova.” He’s a few feet away before he turns back around to call out, “You know, you’ve got a pretty talented tongue, Collins!” Finn’s mix of pride and uncertainty almost make the hangover worth it.
Of course, in trying to avoid Clarke, he spots Bellamy, and realizes that Clarke is definitely the better option. He does the fastest about-face of his life and heads back in her direction, trying to figure out what he’s going to say to her when he gets there. It’s the closest thing to shy he ever gets when he wanders over to her—cowed, maybe.
“Hey,” he says, quiet. “I just wanted to apologize for—”
“Hey, Murph!” She interrupts, looking way too cheery and awake for his taste. “Hungry?”
“Uh, yeah, thanks. But look, I acted like a dumbass last night and—”
“Murphy,” she says, in that serious, mom tone she’s so good at. She pushes some smoked meat in front of him and settles back, looking content. “Shut up and eat your breakfast.”
Murphy watches her a moment longer, but he gets caught up in his own smile.
“Yeah,” he says, feeling better than he has in a long time—hangover and all. “Okay.”
Okay.