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murphystartedthefire · 6 years

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Memori Appreciation Week, Day 2: canon-divergence

(guys, I’m sorry, this took the NO GOOD VERY BAD TURN from canon at “God Complex” although there’s still some room for hope in the end. heed this Content Warning for angst though.)

He keeps yelling until they come back and drug him too. It's a relief at first, that they might take him instead, but he wakes up still tied to the ladder. Immediately goes back to screaming and cursing and demanding to see Emori. Clarke has sad eyes and he knows they've done it. A lot of people are telling him to Listen and calm down. What Roan says is behave, and Murphy tries to bite him so they drug him again. The last thing he's saying is sorry I'm sorry I'll stop-

He wakes up the second time and breathes through his nose. Doesn't scream. Waits for them to open the door. It's a long time before someone does - Clarke again - and she actually jumps when she sees him awake and staring back at her.

He can do this, keep himself still and his voice even. Trembling but even. "Where's Emori?" he says. "I'm calm. Is she dead?" (His voice rises a pitch on the word, he hates it.)

"No," Clarke says, fast, too fast, and he doesn't believe her, her eyes are too sad. "No, I told you, she'd- she's fine."

"Untie me," he says without cursing. Already feels defeated, like he's calling her bluff. Why lie about her being alive, unless they've already decided he's next?

"All right," she says uneasily. "Murphy, she's not doing well, but she'll get better. We started the test-"

"Stop it," he blurts, panicked.

"We did. She's sedated right now. You can see her if-"

Anything, he thinks. But also fuck you, and also, still, I told her we were safe here. She wanted to go. I told her we were safe. If you killed her, I killed her. Do you get that?

He’s calm.

When they finally let them see her, she's not sedated anymore. She is spitting black blood into a can and can't sit up on her own and has sores down her arms and her forehead and.

He forgets he said he wouldn't run. He runs to her and stops. Afraid he'll hurt her if he grabs her too hard. Finds a piece of her head where her skin isn't breaking and kisses her there, puts his arms next to her, clutching the table at both sides, like a shield. This is better. He grabs the table so hard his hands hurt.

She says, "John," in a labored breath, sinking onto her back. Then something softer he can't hear.

"It's okay," he's saying. "It's okay. I'm sorry. We're okay."

She collects as much of her voice as she can and tells him, "You need to run." He doesn't, he said he wouldn't, and she doesn't protest more than that. He lifts her enough so she can sit up, and then she lies into him, and now he can't go anywhere. They've both accepted that.

----

It's a while of her leaning into him, finding places he can touch and hold her, before he hears anyone else, but starts to get snippets of what they're saying.

("We give her the pill, we don't have any more meds left here-" )

("There's more at Arkadia.")

("She might heal on her own." )

("Clarke, we don't know that-" )

("At least we'll find out that much.")

Their voices trail off then, and he realizes he was murmuring shut up shut up out loud and didn't hear himself.

"Murphy?" someone says gently, and it's Raven two feet away from him. Her eyes are locked on Emori.

"Stay there," he says, and she nods and doesn't come closer.

"Emori, I'm gonna get you some more water," she says. Then, "Murphy'll give it to you." She comes back with a cup of ice, not water. This is bad. This is bad. He thinks about Luna and the little girl, and he has no idea where Luna went or if they killed her too. Who knows?

"So I'm clear," Roan says in a low, firm voice, "it doesn't matter if she gets better or not. We only know she went as far as the first one."

"Not as far," Clarke admits quietly.

"I'm not doing this again," Abby says, seemingly from nowhere.

"So I'm clear," mimics Murphy - calm, calm - "this got you fucking nothing?" Clarke flinches. Good. She's the only one meeting his eyes.

"You should have finished it," Roan says in a voice like he's agreeing with him, and Murphy decides right then he's going to watch him die first. He’ll make sure they all die, but him first.

Roan is stronger than him, and Miller is armed, and he knows they will be the hardest people to kill, but he doesn't care. He'll wait until they're asleep. He'll wait until Emori's asleep.

(She won't mind the killing, she'll mind the danger. She'll tell him not to in her cracked voice but he will, he wants to. He'll come back to her when it's over and place more ice cubes on her lips and then...)

Then he doesn't know. Take her to the lighthouse and wait to die there. Away from everybody, like she wanted, like they were supposed to.

Abby and Clarke are talking quietly, tensely. Then Clarke's closer than two feet to him and he laces his fingers into Emori's hand and she squeezes, with as much strength as she has, even though it probably hurts. Don't say you're gonna kill them, he tells himself. But you are gonna kill them, like a reassurance.

“4000 REM is Praimfaya,” Clarke tells him, gesturing to a monitor. Then to the machine, which makes Emori shiver harder against him. “2500 is what killed... whoever that was. Emori was around 1800 when-" she doesn't finish the thought.

She woke up is the thought, and she was distressed, and they made a choice, and it's supposed to make them grateful. Murphy bites his cheek. Don't say you're gonna kill them, just do it. Like her.

"She might- she will get better," Clarke lies. "But we don't know what that means for everyone else."

"I hope it means you die," he spits. He's bad at this. He's bad at this.

Next to him Emori whimpers "please" with the voice she has. He's never heard her say that before. She told him once, she hadn't let anyone make her beg since she was a kid. He feels knives in his stomach.

"I promise," Clarke is saying. "Emori, I promise we're not putting you back." And then, in a tentative voice, in a hating-herself voice, "Murphy won't let that happen."

Abby is staring numbly into the wall. Emori's hand doesn't loosen around his, and for a second her eyes say I told you so before something more desperate and frightened takes hold. She mouths "Run" again. He can't go anywhere. Catch up, Emori.

"Okay," he says. “Yeah.” Calm. Good. He'll be good until they take the needle to his arm, and then he'll hit Clarke in the face and stab her with it.

They don’t trust him enough for that, though, which is smart. "I love you," Emori croaks, and then he gets drugged again.

----

When he wakes up he's not sure if he's dead or not, or a nightblood or not. He knows he's not throwing up or bleeding. He's on the nice bed in the mansion and Emori is too, and she's able to sit up but not really able to stand. Her left arm’s draped over him. She has bald patches through her hair he didn't notice before, without her scarf on. They're supposed to be grateful or something.

He goes downstairs and finds his backpack and the kitchen knife. Cuts his hand and it's black. There's a note on the table that says I'm in the lab. Radio. -Raven. like it's a grocery note. He goes back upstairs and takes the knife with him.

Emori says, "Let me listen" when he tells her about the radio. What he gathers is they gave him the needle but didn't put him in the machine, and then went to check out a bunker in Polis because all this got them fucking nothing.

He puts the knife into his bag and tells Emori, "I'm gonna kill them."

"Who?" she says, swallowing each word slowly. "Everyone left but Raven."

"When they come back," he says.

Emori almost smiles at something he doesn’t understand, and takes in a slightly-less-ragged breath than before. "Stay with me," she says sadly. He does.

----

They go back to the lab later. He's sure Emori won't want to but she agrees -- "We can't stay here" -- and so he carries her. He wants to make sure the machine is still there, because he's been thinking of putting Clarke in it, or Abby, or both of them, depending who he decides he wants to suffer more.

But they’re not here anymore. They left them only with Raven, which sucks because he doesn't really care about killing Raven. They've got him there. The knife sits in his backpack waiting, and Raven putters around the lab talking to herself. And she looks after Emori sometimes, when he falls asleep, when he has to pee, and Emori never cringes from her. So that's okay. He doesn't want to hurt Raven just for being there, not again anyway. He's waiting for Jackson or Miller to come back, so he can kill them instead.

"They're not coming back, John," Emori says eventually, quietly.

"I should've killed them."

She says nothing. She doesn't say no.

They could go back to the mansion, or try the lighthouse. They'll live longer at the lighthouse. Maybe the nightblood really works and they live forever.

----

He lifts Emori again, one step at a time, and Raven almost doesn't notice them leave. "Hey. You're supposed to help me," she says. "I'm supposed to keep you here."

"For what?"

"So they can take you back to this bunker. Five years underground, hydroponic farm. It sounds nice." It's weird she's not saying us. "Nicer than burning, anyway."

"And where are you going?" She gestures up, trying to be flippant. Her hair is a mess.

"Rocket."

He tries to find the space in him to care. Emori looks like she cares. "They're not coming back," Emori explains, to Raven this time. "I'm glad you have somewhere to go." Her voice is too flat to tell if she means it or not, but he thinks she does.

"Wait," Raven says, taking a breath. And it hits him that if it wasn’t the pill Raven gave her, the stuff might be working on Emori, and Luna's not here, and maybe they need their blood now. At least Raven might. He's still deciding whether he cares. Raven touches Emori's forehead and she doesn't move away, so Murphy doesn't shove her.

"If you need her blood, you can take mine, right?" he says, an edge in his voice. "But you didn't test it all the way."

"It's too late for that," Raven mumbles, but he's not sure if he believes her. "That's not what I-" she cups Emori's face and sighs with something like relief. He exchanges a look with Emori. Can they go or not? They can go either way. He has a knife.

Emori touches John's neck where it meets his shoulder. He's already straining from carrying her. "I can walk. I'll just be slow." He sets her down, still resting all her weight into him. It didn't hurt. He could've kept doing it.

Raven's still hovering like she wants to say something else, forcing something back. Finally she says, "Abby's giving you her spot, Murphy. I'm giving Emori mine."

"Keep it," he says automatically, without thinking. He doesn't have to look at Emori to know she doesn't trust it. He trusts it a little, even now, which is... stupid. He's already feeling less like killing everyone, and he just wants to lie down somewhere. But that's dangerous. She wanted to go, I told her we were safe here.

Even if they’re telling the truth, and there’s no catch to it... it feels different, that way, surviving on charity (it won’t last), on deaths of people who want to die. It’s not spite, he wants to live, but either way feels like a door slamming closed.

"What do you want?" he asks Emori softly. Anything. She looks at Raven, shakes her head. That makes it easier. Raven looks like something deflates inside her.

"Don't die like Luna," Raven begs, and he doesn't really know what the hell that means. Probably something like on your own, bitter, but they've always been that. They barely pretended to be anything else. "We're all screwed-up. You don't have to be alone."

Which is honestly hilarious coming from someone taking a one-way rocket trip, and she probably gets that, but he doesn't say it to her. Instead Emori says, "We won't," two small arms around one of his.

"We won't," he repeats. He’s less alone tied to her than the ladder. He was never that alone in his life. And Raven seems to get it then, and glances off at something they can't see.

"I know, I got it," she says to nobody. She's different when she looks at them again, decisive. "Good luck," she says, sniffling, voice hard again. "Set a timer on the locks, just in case."

He hadn't thought about that. If it works, they'll miss the worst of the death wave, they could walk right outside. If it doesn't, they're dead in a couple months anyway. "Thanks," he mumbles. The knife's still in his bag. He could wait for Miller to come back. Take Abby's spot. Five years to kill the rest of them any time.

Emori sways weakly next to him, and the thought fades away. They’ll survive or they won’t, away from everybody. like they were supposed to. Not alone. He doesn't care about the rest of it.

#memoriweek #dailymemori #john murphy #the 100 #emori #cute for a thief #fic #my fic

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