Work Text:
Murphy doesn't feel right if he's not in pain.
Pain of some kind has been his constant companion for years. It first seeped into him when his father was floated for stealing medicine for Murphy—medicine that didn't end up helping him, anyway. After that, everything turned gray, as though color was leeched from his world with his father's last breath.
When his mother started drinking, some color returned to Murphy's life. But it was a harsh blue—the color of sorrow mixed with despair. In the moments when she was overwhelmed by her anger at him, he would see purple; bright flashes of it when she struck him and yelled at him and blamed him for everything their lives had become. It was then that he learned pain made him feel alive.
The first time he took a knife to his wrist, the shocking red of his blood broke the myriad of grays and the sharp pain made him feel real in a way that he hadn't since before his father died. It was a good pain—different from the throbbing of his bruises or the ache of the hateful words in his head. It made him feel like he could breathe.
It made him feel like he might exist.
The day his mother died, her last words to him rang in his head until he thought he'd never be able to hear anything else again.
"You killed your father you killed your father you killed your father youkilledyourfatheryoukilled—"
They turned everything black until he couldn't see past the hate; couldn't think, couldn't breathe—
And then, red.
So much red.
He still doesn't know how he managed to find a knife in those moments, but he remembers how the darkness receded, giving way to the red of his blood. His mother's voice faded, drowned out by the pain of the multiple cuts he'd made in his haze of desperation. He thinks he may have fainted from the blood loss or pain or shock or all three, and he doesn't know how he didn't bleed out. Sometimes, he wishes he had.
Sometimes, he hears his mother's voice telling him—begging him—to kill himself. To atone for what he's done.
Only the knife in his arm silences her.
When the Hundred were dropped on Earth, Murphy thought that maybe now he could escape the gray, the memories, the voices. But Earth didn't rid him of his demons.
It gave him more.
He knew they all hated him. All except for John Mbege, who only liked him because he didn't really know him and didn't mind that he could be an asshole most of the time. Murphy didn't like any of them, either, and he was content to just coexist until he found somewhere else, somewhere better.
But then they tried to hang him.
It brought the darkness back. His mother's voice screamed at him to give up, to let the rope around his neck finally end his pathetic, miserable, worthless life. He thought he would finally die. It seemed a cruel justice that it would be the hatred of others—not anything he'd actually done—that would bring about his end, but he supposed he probably had it coming.
Except he didn't die. They cut him loose at the last moment, and his world—gray though it was—returned to his sight as the air returned to his lungs. Only now, everything was tinged scarlet with his hatred for the people around him, and he thought that maybe hate was the key to bringing the color back.
But when they banished him, not even his hatred or anger could keep the color from draining away again.
The Grounders found him soon after that. He was alone, because not even Mbege liked him enough to stay with him. The next three days alternated between black, red, and blue. His mother's voice was silenced by the pain of his torture and the new voices that jeered at him, mocking him for trying to survive when everyone else wanted him dead. He gave up all their secrets because why should he protect the very ones that abandoned him to this fate?
And when he returned to the camp after those three days of agony and killed two of the ones that had tried to hang him, he found that it wasn't only his pain that could bring the color back. But bringing pain to others didn't make the colors stay. It only tormented him by reminding him of everything he'd once had that he hadn't been able to keep.
The day Bellamy told Murphy he was a traitor for giving in to the Grounders, the words hit him harder than his mother ever had. They brought with them the spark of a new color—brown and kind of red, like his blood when it's dried on his skin. It was the same color he saw a flash of in the moment Bellamy kicked the crate out from under him however long ago that was, only this time, the color stuck. It hovered just on the edges of his vision, so he couldn't look at it directly.
It stayed there, haunting him, until Bellamy threw him the gun after they'd saved the stranded girl on the cliff. The gun landed in his hands with a burst of yellow so bright, he was momentarily blinded. After that, whenever he thought about that moment, he could see the yellow again, if only briefly.
But then, Raven tried to trade his life for Finn's and Emori betrayed him and Jaha sacrificed Craig and abandoned Murphy, and it all brought back the black and the blue and the red and the brown in sickening designs that made him want to vomit. His mother's voice—silenced for so short of a time—returned to him, too, and he wondered how he could ever have thought he'd be free of her.
He couldn't even bring back the yellow now, no matter how many times he tried to remember the short time that Bellamy had actually trusted him.
Now, Murphy has returned to Camp Jaha, though he doesn't know what for. The conflict with Mount Weather has ended and the Grounders aren't exactly enemies even if they also aren't exactly friends. There isn't anything he has to offer these people who hate him, except perhaps by being someone on which to take out all their frustrations.
His world is gray and muted and he is numb and unnecessary.
Bellamy invites him out on a hunting trip and Murphy doesn't decline because even the risk of running into Grounders that might still hate him is preferable to remaining in camp with people that definitely still hate him. He sees Bellamy watching him as they walk through the forest, but Murphy doesn't try to fill the void of silence. It's difficult to think past the flurry of voices in his head that scream hatred and anger at him.
"You've been different since you got back," Bellamy says, his voice breaking the silence like glass on stone.
"I guess." Murphy can't imagine why Bellamy would care how he acts, so long as he isn't trying to kill anyone.
"Did something happen on your journey with Jaha?"
"You already know the answer to that question."
"I meant," Bellamy says, "something you didn't tell Abby or Kane."
Murphy gives a short laugh that comes out more bitter than he intended. "You would assume I'm keeping secrets."
"Why do you have to be so defensive?" Bellamy asks, a familiar frustration in his voice. "Is it so difficult to believe that I might be concerned about you?"
The question causes Murphy pain that he doesn't understand, so he doesn't answer, either, because what can he say?
Bellamy expels an annoyed breath. "Fine, don't believe me," he mutters. "But you can talk to me, if you want. I won't mock you or anything."
Murphy thinks of all the things that he can tell Bellamy, but won't. He can tell him that he feels haunted by his mother, who wants him to die. He can tell him that he's still nervous in large groups of people and that he still feels an invisible noose around his neck. He can tell him that he has nightmares almost every night about his time with the Grounders—nightmares that leave him shaking and terrified that he's still there in that cage, and that his time since then is the real dream.
But he won't tell him because it's always the people closest to him that end up hating him the most, and Bellamy is already too close.
They get lucky and find a deer that looks relatively normal by pre-nuclear-war-Earth standards, so Murphy is back in his own tent by evening. He feels too sick to eat tonight; suffocated by the never-ending gray that surrounds him. Ever since Jaha left him on that beach to go chasing after a drone, nothing has been able to break the monotonous gray.
Nothing, except...
Murphy stares at the knife in his hand, the voices in his head clamoring louder than they have for days because they know what's coming. It's been too long since Murphy has cut himself. He's felt too numb for even that pain to break through, but his talk with Bellamy opened a sliver of feeling, and now he's desperate for the rest of the numbness to fade.
The first cut brings such a welcome break from the gray that Murphy is momentarily mesmerized by the red of his blood. It drips off his arm, landing on his pant leg and staining it with drops of color. The cut burns and the voices screech angrily as though they're going up in flames. Another cut silences them altogether and Murphy breathes in deeply, feeling real for the first time in weeks.
He's so entranced by his pain and his blood and his existence that he doesn't even notice Bellamy's intrusion into his tent until Bellamy's hands enter his field of vision.
Murphy is surprised enough by Bellamy's presence that he doesn't protest or fight when Bellamy kneels in front of him and gently takes the bloody knife from Murphy's hands, setting it out of his reach. Murphy drags his eyes up to look at Bellamy's face, expecting disgust or horror or pity, but he only sees a calm sadness in Bellamy's eyes.
Neither of them speak as Bellamy starts cleaning Murphy's arm, wiping away the blood and the red with careful precision. Murphy can't take his eyes off Bellamy's face, expecting his mood to shift at any moment, expecting him to spew hate into Murphy's thoughts, expecting him to...what? Bellamy being here, seeing this, isn't a scenario that Murphy has ever imagined as possible. He's certainly never thought that Bellamy would be so calm about it.
Murphy doesn't know what to expect anymore, so he just stares and waits while Bellamy cleans up the mess he made of his arm.
When Bellamy finishes bandaging Murphy's arm to his seeming satisfaction, he looks up at Murphy and asks, "When did you start?"
Murphy assumes that Bellamy is referring to when he first started hurting himself and says, "I don't know. Five, six years ago? Give or take some years?"
Bellamy nods, then asks, "Does it help you?"
Murphy's face twitches into a frown before he can stop it. Nothing about Bellamy's reaction makes sense to him. "I don't feel real without it," he says, his voice quiet. Then he clarifies, "The pain. I feel numb without it. This..." He motions vaguely to his scarred and bandaged arm. "It's the easiest method."
Bellamy looks down at Murphy's arm and the varied scars that are starkly visible. Some are dark and thick, others thinner and fainter. They overlap and intersect; Murphy's arm a canvas for his grotesque artwork of carved pain. Bellamy slowly reaches up and runs his fingertips across the scars, leaving a wispy trail of dark blue in their wake that fades just as slowly as it appeared.
Murphy shivers at the sensation of such a soft touch across the evidence of his self-hatred. He closes his eyes, needing the darkness to return. He doesn't know how to handle being treated this kindly, but he can't find the voices even when he searches for them.
"Are there more?"
Murphy opens his eyes at Bellamy's question and nods, pulling up the sleeve on his right arm. Before he can think too much about it, he lifts his shirt up as well, revealing the mess of scars that mar the skin of his chest and stomach. He expects Bellamy to recoil from the ugliness of them, but he doesn't. Irrationally, Murphy wants to hit him, if only to elicit a response that he can understand.
Bellamy studies the scars and seems to come to a realization. "Some of these are from the Grounders, aren't they?" he asks, touching the thicker, uglier scars so quickly and lightly that Murphy almost doesn't feel it.
Bellamy's question brings back memories of Murphy's time with the Grounders and he suddenly feels lightheaded with phantom pain. But it's a welcome feeling because his arm hasn't been hurting since Bellamy bandaged it—even though Murphy doesn't know how that makes sense—and he needs some kind of pain to keep him breathing right now.
"Yeah," he manages to say, his voice weak.
"Did that pain make you feel real, too?"
Bellamy's tone is too soft and understanding and it makes Murphy want to scream. He shoves at Bellamy's shoulders instead, pushing him away and snapping harshly, "Go ahead and mock me. It's not like that would be anything new."
Bellamy looks surprised by Murphy's sudden change in mood, but he only says, "I wasn't mocking you, Murphy."
His words piss Murphy off. "Why are you being so fucking calm?" he demands. "Why aren't you freaking out on me? Hitting me or something?"
Bellamy frowns. "Is that what you want me to do? Hit you?"
"Yes. No. I don't know! I just— I don't understand. I don't know how to handle this."
And now the voices are back, yelling for his attention, demanding that he finish the job that so many have started and failed to complete over the years. Murphy can't breathe under the weight of their disdain and anger and hate and he somehow ends up sliding off his cot onto the floor, gasping for air that he isn't sure exists anymore. He can't see anything; lost in the dark void of his inner monsters.
Vaguely, he feels hands on either side of his face and then the feel of lips against his own, followed by a breath in his mouth. It isn't the air that he needs, but it brings him back to awareness and reminds him how to breathe. He inhales in shuddering gasps, his vision returning slowly and revealing Bellamy's concerned face just inches from his own.
"I won't let you go there," Bellamy tells him. "I've lost you too many times and thought each time that I'd never find you again, but now that you're here again, I won't let you leave like this."
Murphy's voice is shaky when he asks, "What, you think you can save me?"
"Yes," Bellamy says seriously.
Murphy doesn't know how to respond to Bellamy's confidence, so he just stares at him.
"I may not know everything that I need to know about you yet," Bellamy continues, "but I do know that I'm going to help you."
Murphy only manages one word. "Why?"
Bellamy gives him a soft smile. "Because I care about you."
Murphy starts to shake his head because no, that can't be right, no one cares about him, not since before his father died. But he's cut short in his silent denial when Bellamy kisses him again.
"I don't care how long it takes," Bellamy says, his lips moving against Murphy's. "I will prove to you that I'm telling the truth. Just promise me one thing?"
Murphy wants to tell Bellamy that he'll promise him anything that he wants, if only to prolong this moment where Bellamy cares about him, but he can hardly breathe and can't voice the words.
Bellamy seems to understand somehow anyway, and he says, "Promise me that you won't hurt yourself just to feel real. Promise me that you'll come to me first, and if I need to, I'll breathe for you."
Murphy somehow finds his voice long enough to say, "I promise."
And when Bellamy smiles at him, Murphy realizes that his world isn't gray anymore.