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Cold air pushes its way between the folds of your clothes, biting at your skin. The sun hangs watery in the winter sky and the clouds are a bloated, ugly grey. Snow crunches underfoot, but there is an element of caution to both of your steps. The Sky People were skating on thin ice, in all meanings of the phrase. Every step could place you on sturdy land, or a pitfall just waiting to be triggered.The Medical Tent is filled with broken bones and sprains. Not everyone had faith that the peace with the Grounders could be sustained.
“Where are we going?” Your words accompany a shiver racing down your spine. It was cold enough that your breath was visible in the air. As the wind picks up, you hunch your shoulders, tugging at your jacket.
Metal glitters between the tree leaves, alluding to the structure that had crashed into the Earth. The treeline ends and you both step out into the clearing. The walls still hold strong around the camp, though the structure is showing signs of weathering and deterioration. The dropship seem to rise out of the ground before you, still appearing as inviolable as always. Frost covers the sides like moss, dulling the space-metal. Rays of feeble light reach out from the sky and brush against patches of the icy paint, causing the sides to dance and glitter. A small frown plays on your lips, not fully understanding why you’ve trekked out here. There is no one else around, nothing stirring in the skeletal trees. All the animals had, smartly, burrowed down deep into the earth and settled down to wait out the worst of the weather.
Neither of you stop until you reach the interior of the ship. Murphy’s mouth presses into a hard, thin line and his shoulders set against the wind. His hair shifts and stirs, occasionally passing over his eyes. There is a long silence.
“I love you.”
The words ricochet between you, spoken suddenly and without warning, almost harsh. You stare at him for a long moment trying to process what you’ve just heard. Murphy’s chin is titled defiantly, his gaze steely and unwavering.
The meaning of what Murphy had just admitted hits you in the chest. Your heart begins to beat and pound violently against your ribcage, blood thrumming in your ears and drowning out all other sound. There aren’t butterflies fluttering in your stomach, but pterodactyls body slamming against the sides. It feels like a dream, surreal and like reality is waiting to jolt you out of the situation. This moment had played out in your heads a hundred times already, but none of them quite compared to how it feels to be actually happening.
“I love you too.”
He nods twice and brushes past, spinning you around and letting his hand linger only briefly against the back of your shoulder. Murphy clearly doesn’t have anything more to say, and doesn’t expect you to have wanted to say anything else either.
It is almost dark by the time you both stride back through the camp gates. The guards on duty give you both dirty looks for having been obliged to trudge through the snow and haul open the gates to let you in. In the frigid weather it was an exhausting task, but they couldn’t leave people out in the cold, and neither could they leave the camp open to attack by the elements or the predatory beasts roaming around in the trees.
You and Murphy haven’t said another word to each other since those traded in the dropship. Not even a goodnight is uttered as you go your separate ways towards your tents. He does, however, meet your gaze steadily for a moment before turning away. You watch his back disappear into the darkness before retreating to the safety and warmth of your tent and bedroll.
—-
Over the next three weeks you see Murphy a total of seven times. You hadn’t meant to keep a record of your interactions with him, but the tally is burnt into your mind whether you like it or not.
The first encounter barely lasts a minute. You walk past each other, holding eye contact. His expression doesn’t change, even when you offer him a slight smile. It doesn’t put you off, you know full well what he’s like. Seeing him makes your day. Your jobs and social statuses - yours not being particularly special, though significantly higher than his, of course - within the camp mean your paths didn’t cross often.
The second happens over dinner. You sit across him with a tray off lumpy, purple goo, occasionally poking at it with your cutlery. It looks almost as unappetising as the intestines of a boar, but eventually your hunger demands to be sated and you brave shoving a spoonful into your mouth.
Murphy doesn’t t seem keen on eating either, although he doesn’t succumb to the hunger that claws at everyone’s stomachs. The winter has been harsh, you know that he would be just as hungry as the rest of the camp. Despite this though, he removes a chunk of hard damper from his jacket pocket, presumably kept from lunch, and drops it onto the edge of your tray. He’d seen the way your mouth had twisted downward in distaste, how your eyes had narrowed and the obvious effort it had taken to swallow the gunk they were serving as food. Giving up the piece of grainy bread seemed preferable to watching you suffer through the meal.
A grateful smile touches your lips and you don’t try to refuse or give it back. Murphy wouldn’t have accepted it, and you weren’t about to refuse. You do break the piece in half and offer him part of the damper. He merely shakes his head, standing a moment later to scrape the goo off his tray onto the grass.
“Enjoy your meal.” It’s the first words either of you have spoken to the other since the dropship. Your smile grows slightly and you focus your eyes down on the tray. By the time you look back up, Murphy has disappeared. Disappointment writhes momentarily in your stomach, but you thrust it away and continue to eat.
—-
The next time you see him was in the medical tent. Jackson is hunched over his arm, needle in hand and expression distorted with concentration. Murphy glares at the ground, mouth contorted in a pained grimace. You had entered to drop off supplies for Abby, but watching him suffer meant you couldn’t leave.
You cross over to the cot that he was sitting on and perch yourself at the end, gaze locked on the thread sewing Murphy’s skin back together.
“What happened?” You can’t help the worry that colours your tone. You love this boy, and seeing him in pain, seeing him hurt, is unpleasant at the best of the time. But the long gash that arcs down his arm provoked a nausea you can’t quite ignore, makes your head feel lighter and your heart begins to race.
Murphy blinks away the hostility within his gaze and tries to rid his expression of pain. It is almost an almost convincing façade, but when he speaks his teeth are bared and his voice hisses from between his teeth. “Hunting accident. Fucking boar’s tusks slid straight through the skin. I didn’t even feel it until later on. One of the girls almost fainted when she saw how bad it was bleeding through.” He shrugs slightly, seeming uncaring towards his own well-being.
You fight the urge to smack your hand over his mouth. You hadn’t wanted to know even the minutest details, especially not those containing information describing how bad a wound it was.
“It’ll be fine,” Jackson interrupts before you can respond. “I cleaned the wound and will dress it after I finish with the stitches. As long as he keeps it clean, there won’t be any problems.”
The panic and uneasy feeling in your stomach abate slightly. He is going to be okay. You still sit with him on the bed until Jackson is finished with the stitches. Your hand shifts across the bed sheets, almost on its own accord, to press your knuckles against his thigh during the process. It isn’t much contact, but it’s enough to cause Murphy to visibly relax. Just your presence and touch is enough to make this situation more bearable, less painful.
—-
A few days later you are staring at the hilt of a knife, frustrated out of your wits, when he walks up to you. He’s one of the many who’d noticed your failed attempts at throwing the blade and embedding it in a nearby tree trunk. It was similar to what he’d practised with Bellamy in the first few days on Earth.
With his injury, Murphy can only talk you through the actions, but your aim improves incredibly quickly. The knife isn’t being tossed wildly off to the side, but it never manages to hit its mark either.
At one point he reaches forward to fix your grip on the hilt. His slender fingers shift yours against the metal, the contact prolonged unnecessarily. His hand drops back down to the side and Murphy stands slightly behind you, watching you repeatedly miss the tree. The air is bitterly cold and snow starts to swirl in the air, but you aren’t about to stop until you hit the wood successfully just once.
And he isn’t about to leave you alone.
Despite the worsening weather, he stays out with you, occasionally offering a piece of advice. Twice Murphy manages to force comments of encouragement between his chattering teeth. Considering his track record when it came to being nice, you can’t fight the smile that tickles the corners of your mouth and soon you’re grinning.
You don’t end up hitting your target, the knife still landing with a wet thud in the snow, even after the sky started to darken. Murphy has to latch a hand around your wrist and tug you into the relative warmth and safety of Mecha Station to eat, being too stubborn to walk inside on your own accord. You are still smiling when the doors close behind you both, shoulders bumping with each stride down the hall.
—-
The fifth time your path crosses with Murphy is in the middle of the day. The sun is shining brightly for the first time in weeks and the sky’s clear. But you’re stuck inside sorting through supply packets. An order had been issued to salvage whatever food, medicine, clothing, hygiene and domestic supplies from within Mecha. There were mangled cupboards filled with boxes and piles of broken bits and pieces. You’d been one of the unfortunate people assigned to sorting through the wreckage to prise out whatever could still be used.
It feels like you’d been crouched in the hallway for hours when you see him walk over in your peripheral vision. Murphy doesn’t say anything in greeting, he doesn’t say anything at all actually. But he does start sorting through the mess alongside you.
The silence is peaceful and comforting and warm. There isn’t an awkward moment shared between the two of you as you move around the containers and boxes. You occasionally meet his gaze and offer a smile. Several times he doesn’t give any kind of response. Then Murphy tentatively smiles back and it starts your heart pounding. Quiet chatter begins afterwards about everything and nothing in particular. You speak about your work around the camp and the strangeness of the earth animals, your family and how you used to spend your free time on the arc. He talks about books he’d read as a boy, about the first few days on the earth before everything had crashed down around his ears, the time he spent in the skybox, and the adventures he shared with Mbege.
The enormous task seems significantly less daunting now that Murphy is helping. Easy conversation helps to pass the time, and there remains a comfortable atmosphere between you both, even when the topic strays into darker sections of his past.
Slowly but surely, the jumble of supplies and wreckage dwindles. Distinct piles sit around you both, the fruits of your hard work. A dull ache begins in your head, the need to sleep can’t be ignored, but both sensations pale in comparison to the unadulterated jubilation and delight that wells up within you. Murphy had opened up. His love had been palpable in the air between you, becoming more tangible with each moment from his past that he trusted you with.
They used to say that ‘sharing was caring’, and right then, you never thought that anything had been closer to the truth.
—-
You only see Murphy fleetingly the next time. He’s walking away from your tent, head down and jacket drawn around his shoulders tightly. Curiosity shoves its way to the forefront of your mind and you can’t help but wonder why he’d been on this side of the camp. He works in the centre of Mecha and his tent was right on the opposite end. He has no obvious reason to be here.
The reason for his appearance comes obvious as soon as you near your tent. Tied to the tarp is a crudely cut slab of wood. The letters etched into it are rough and splintered at the edges, but the message leaves your legs weak and stole your breath away.
‘Hear my soul speak: The very instant that I saw you, did my heart fly to your service.’
You stand there staring at it for a long moment, fighting for breath. Your chest is filling with a sticky warmth that couldn’t be called unpleasant. Instead, overwhelming and consuming. Gingerly you raise a hand, brushing the tips of your fingers against the wood. You run your fingers along the grooves, tracing each letter slowly. Other than the three pretty words that had sprung from Murphy’s lips, this was his first open display of affection.
—-
The last time he approaches you an uncertain smile edges its way onto Murphy’s lips and he rakes his fingers through his hair almost nervously. “Do you wanna go for a walk?” His tongue darts out from between chapped lips, adam apple bobbing when he swallowed thickly. Murphy was nervous.
You aren’t about to turn down the opportunity to be in his company and he leads you out of the camp gates once again. It’s similar to how he’d walked you out three weeks ago, lead you over to the dropship and professed his love. However, this time he wanders aimlessly through the trees, walking at your side not one step ahead. His knuckles brush and bump against yours every so often.
Before he is even thinking about turning back towards the camp you have firmly taken his hand in yours. He doesn’t try to pull away. The constant contact is more meaningful than any words you could share and you both fall into silence.
Your fingers become entwined with his and Murphy strokes the back of your hand absentmindedly. The wind ruffles his hair, but only blows yours into your eyes annoyingly. You reach up to push it behind your ears and tilt your head sideways to study Murphy’s face. Your stomach twists, the pterodactyls have been thumping away in your digestive system for awhile now. Finally you decide the break the silence, a question on your lips.
“So Tempest?”
“Yeah.” He sounds surprised that you recognised where the quote had come from, and glances sideways, catching you staring. Eyes flicking away quickly, a faint smiles touches his mouth.
You can’t help but smile as well. The emotions you’d felt when you read those words bubbled up in your chest once again and a overwhelming sense of serenity wraps around you. Walking here, Murphy’s hand in yours, you felt more at peace than you had in a long time. It was like his touch, his presence, his love, was washing away the stain that the hardships of Earth had left on your heart.