Chapter Text
Bile pushes up the back of his throat when he spots the fence from the distance. It’s wide open, and there is no one standing guard that he can see, no movement at all. They’re getting close now, but it’s still quiet but for the buzzing of flies around his head and the soft padding of footsteps behind him. Way too fucking quiet.
“What’s wrong, John?” Murphy can feel the weight of Emori’s stare without turning back to her. It’s a sensation he’s grudgingly grown used to. She always seems to be looking at him. It, unfortunately, doesn’t seem to his irresistible handsomeness that warrants such unwavering interest. He thinks she might be searching for something, though he can never quite say what.
“Nothing,” he lies. “We’re almost there.”
She moves to stand next to him, and he makes the mistake of meeting her eyes. They are wide and brown and beautiful and so goddamn concerned for him. “Are you nervous about seeing them again? Your people?”
“No. And they’re not my people.”
Liar, he thinks, as he looks back to the fence and takes another step forward. The others follow him without question. The dread twisting his insides into knots must not read on his face yet. Even if it did, he’s not sure it would deter them much, if at all. They’ve been following him around like scared little ducklings since their beloved Chancellor got himself shot in the head.
Murphy wonders what Jaha would think of all of this, of his most reluctant and selfish follower risking his life to bring these people back to a place he had hoped he’d never see again. Murphy could have made a life for himself in the desert with Emori after learning the City of Light was nothing that Jaha had promised it would be, but the other survivors weren’t strong enough. They were tired and broken. They felt betrayed and lost. They looked at him with desperation in their eyes and begged him to take them home. Though it wasn’t without a sneer on his lips and a curse on his tongue, home he had brought them in the end. Or as close to home as any of them knew. The old, crazy asshole probably would have been proud of him.
“How long have we been gone?”
The man with the graying red hair has been asking him that since they left, and Murphy has yet to answer. Time is a long forgotten concept to him now. There is no time in the desert, only the brutal heat of day and the frigid cold of night, only thirst and sand and death. He isn’t sure how many nights have passed since he brought Jaha to his son’s grave and consequently found himself sucked into a madman’s final, desperate quest to feel like his life meant something. Weeks? Months? A year?
“This doesn’t feel right.” Murphy halts at the edge of the woods, and the others stop with him, fearful and obedient as always.
Emori moves to his side again, her arm brushing against his in the process. His skin tingles. She always seems to be touching him, too. A hand on his back, a casual move to push a free strand of hair from his face, her head on his shoulder at night—the gestures are all given freely and without fanfare, as if they are nothing at all, as if they should be expected. It had felt good in the desert, nice to be touched by someone who wasn’t trying to kill him, but it felt wrong here. Maybe it really had been months since he left, but it suddenly felt like only yesterday the Grounders were ripping out his fingernails one by one, only yesterday Bellamy was smashing his fists into Murphy’s face with a zeal most reserve for more erotic pursuits, and only yesterday the one person he thought he might be able to convince to give a shit about him held a gun to his head and tried to trade his life for her mopey, village-massacring ex-boyfriend’s. Inside that fence, people had only ever touched him to hurt him.
“What is it?”
“The fence, it’s open.”
“And?”
“And it shouldn’t be,” Murphy drawls, barely resisting the urge to roll his eyes. Emori is the first friend he’s had since Mbege died, and he’s trying. Being anything but an asshole has never come easy, not since he found his mother dead in her own vomit.
“What if they—?” The question lingers in the air, unfinished. He doesn’t want to spook the others, not yet. He had never even considered they could be dead. Even as surrounded by enemies as they were when he left, he couldn’t imagine the Princess or Bellamy or even Bellamy’s obnoxious, half-Grounder little sister falling to them. They always seemed so goddamned sure of themselves in a way Murphy’s not even sure he could hope to imitate.
“We have to look, John. We came all this way.” Emori is staring at him again, and it makes him want to crawl into a cave and never come out. He wishes she’d knock it off.
Why the fuck did I do this? He should have just let them all die in the desert. It would have been their own faults for not being strong enough to survive. And what had they ever done for him besides annoy the ever-loving shit out of him anyways?
But Emori is right. She usually is. They have journeyed too far and lost too much not to keep going. And he knows his own curiosity wouldn’t allow him to turn back now even if he wanted to. “Fine, let’s get on with it then. Get your knife ready.” He is about to take another cautious step toward Camp Jaha—Are they still calling it that?—but the snap of a twig sends his hand flying to the dagger tucked into his belt. “Who’s there?” he shouts, as everyone but Emori scrambles to get behind him. Fucking cowards.
“Holy shit. Murphy, is that you?”
The sound of his voice knocks the air right out of Murphy’s lungs, and his arm falls back to his side, limp and useless. Murphy’s chest caves forward and his shoulders fall, deflated, already defeated. Somehow seeing his face when he emerges from behind a nearby tree is even worse. His hair is longer, his nose more freckled, and there’s a scar running down the right side of his face Murphy doesn’t remember being there before—and, oh, he’d remember—but he’s still the same Bellamy Blake. He’s still the boy—man maybe, how old is Bellamy anyways?—Murphy hadn’t been able to stop thinking about since Jaha dropped them down on this hellhole to die.
“The one and only,” Murphy drones. “You gonna hit me now?”
Bellamy smirks. Fucking smirks. “Don’t know. You gonna give me a reason to, Murphy?”
“Didn’t plan on it, no,” he answers, tucking his knife back into his belt, hoping it conveys peaceful intentions. “I’ve come a long fucking way. Don’t quite have the fortitude for one of your beatings at the moment, much as I’ve missed them.”
Emori steps forward before Murphy can think to hold her back. The others are still cowering behind him—the Arkers didn't worship precious, noble, insufferable Bellamy Blake like the delinquents did—but she shows no fear. She never does. Without so much as a hello, she leans in close to Bellamy’s face, closer than he seems entirely comfortable with judging by how he recoils from her. The way his eyes widen almost makes Murphy laugh.
“You are Bellamy. Bellamy Blake, right?” When Bellamy nods, Emori backs away slightly and holds out her hand, her boring hand. She still insists on keeping the badass one hidden away. “I’m Emori. John has told me a lot about you.”
Oh god, shut up, shut up, shut up. He digs his nails into the palms of his hands to keep from screaming. He’s not proud of the near overwhelming urge to tackle Emori that grips him in that moment, but the blush he can feel creeping up his neck into his cheeks makes him wish he were dead. Or that Bellamy was dead. Or that they all were just fucking dead.
Bellamy glances over Emori’s shoulder at him with another smirk that makes Murphy’s nostrils flare. “Has he now? You miss me, John?”
Don’t call me that. “I told her about what an asshole you were, Blake,” Murphy says, as casually as he can manage with Bellamy’s eyes fixed on him. “What’s happening back there, huh?” He nods toward Camp Jaha, both genuinely interested and anxious to change the subject. “Why’s the gate open? You all develop a death wish without me around?”
Bellamy shakes his head. “There’s no one we need to keep out anymore. Except the occasional wild animal and you, maybe. But we all thought you were dead.” There’s a strange touch of something like fondness in the way Bellamy says that last part Murphy is sure he must be imagining.
“We defeated the Grounders then? And Mt. Weather?” An older woman whose name Murphy has never bothered to remember—Ashlyn? Emlyn? Allan?—asks. “We won?”
“We won,” Bellamy confirms, puffing out his chest a little. Jackass. “The Grounders are our allies now. We’ve been looking for the other dropships that left from the Ark. And we’ve been looking for you, too.” Bellamy meets Murphy’s eyes then, and his stomach starts twisting itself back into knots. “Chancellor Griffin seems to think Jaha took you all on some sort of quest—”
“The City of Light,” the redheaded man interrupts. “That’s where he took us. He said it would be our salvation, and that we would be safe, but it was nothing but another trap.”
“They have power, but they’re a harsh people,” Emori explains, her eyes still locked on Bellamy’s face. Murphy enjoys the way the older boy seems to squirm under the attention. It’s nice to know it’s not just him she scares the hell out of. “They’re fearful of letting others in and polluting the bloodline.”
“Not so fearful of murdering them when they come knocking at the gates though,” Murphy says bitterly. “That is how our beloved Chancellor met his real destiny, crying and babbling like a lunatic until a bullet went through his skull.”
“Don’t talk about the Chancellor like that,” the redheaded man snaps. “Who are you to talk about him like that?”
A strangled sort of laugh comes out of him. “Who am I?” he asks, stalking toward the idiotic little man. “I’m the person who saved your useless life, asshole,” Murphy sneers. “I’m your real fucking messiah.” The others turn and glare at him like he’s resurrected Jaha just to murder him in front of them again. Only minutes back in his old home, and they’ve already started to turn on him. The rapid shift in opinion doesn’t come as much of a surprise. They needed him back in the desert, but only Emori ever really liked him. Maybe the familiar surroundings have simply reminded everyone how much they hate him when he isn’t actively saving their asses from certain death.
Bellamy is looking back and forth between Murphy and the others with an expression Murphy can’t quite read. An eternity seems to go by in silence, and Murphy can feel his fists starting to flex. If they’re already back to hating him, it’s only a matter of time before someone decides to open the old wounds that still litter his face. But “You all look like you could use some food and a good sleep,” is all Bellamy says when he finally speaks. “Follow me.”
Murphy does follow. It’s the first time in who knows how long he’s followed instead of lead. It should bother him, the way his people have attached themselves to a new leader so quickly and with so little gratitude. But, instead, he feels lighter, freer, and almost pleased. He likes power well enough, he supposes, but what no one seems to tell you is that being in power is far too much of having to listen to other people’s fucking problems.
The bath almost makes him feel human again. Without a thick layer of dirt coating his skin, he can finally see himself. He’s darker now than he realized, darker than he’s ever been, tanned and freckled from the desert sun. He’s skinnier, too, he learns, as he runs his calloused hands down his torso and counts each of his ribs one by one.
“You look like you could use a decent meal.”
Murphy yelps so loudly and so fucking prissily, he’s not sure he’ll ever stop being embarrassed. Fucking Bellamy. “What the hell do you want?” he all but shouts. “Ever heard of privacy, Blake?”
“I was bringing you food, asshole,” Bellamy grunts, dropping a plate of brown slop on the small table at the end of his tent. He has no idea what it is, but it makes Murphy’s mouth water. “Ever heard of a thank you, Murphy?”
Murphy is about to spit something back when he suddenly and painfully becomes aware of just how few clothes he’s wearing. Only a threadbare—but, mercifully, clean—pair of underwear is keeping Bellamy from seeing all of him. He’s had dreams about this before, of Bellamy being in his tent, but, in those dreams, both of them had been missing their pants. This just seemed unfair.
Don’t even fucking go there right now, he thinks when he feels a tug low in his gut. He quickly reaches for the pants laid out on his bed, but his head is buzzing and his legs have turned to jelly beneath him and Bellamy is still staring at him and, before he knows it, he’s tripping over his own fucking feet and on to the floor.
This isn’t happening, he thinks, as he nearly face plants, only just catching himself with his elbows. This isn’t fucking happening.
“Whoa, there. You okay, Murphy?” Two rough hands press against the ribs he had just been counting. He can feel Bellamy’s warmth behind him, can smell the pine and soap and sweat that lingers on his skin, and it overwhelms every part of him. The bile pushes at Murphy’s throat again, and this time he can’t swallow it down. With a violent sort of choking noise, he retches at the foot of his bed.
This isn’t how it was supposed to go at all. This isn’t the way he imagined all of this playing out when he was drying up in the desert sun. It was supposed to be different this time. He was supposed to show up with his head held high, a dozen thankful followers at his feet singing his praises, like fucking Jesus in the flesh. He was supposed to talk about how he had crossed the desert to bring Jaha’s misguided acolytes back home to safety. He was supposed to be a hero, a changed man, not a naked, pathetic loser throwing up on the floor for no reason. Especially not in front of Bellamy Blake.
“You’re probably dehydrated,” Bellamy reasons, before lifting Murphy up like he’s nothing but a rag doll and setting him on the edge of the bed. “Drink this.”
Murphy narrows his eyes but takes the bottle being offered to him and does as he’s told. How quickly he seems to fall back in to old habits. Despite coming from Bellamy, the water is wonderfully cold and eases some of the burning in his throat. After his head finally stops spinning, he pushes the bottle back at Bellamy and reaches for the pants again. “All right, you win. Can you fuck off now?”
One of Bellamy’s eyebrows shoots up. “I win?”
“I’m pathetic, I get it,” Murphy hisses, as he struggles with the buttons of the fly. “You’ve successfully put me back in my place, so congratulations. Believe me, I had no delusions of grandeur coming back here.” His hands are shaking, because of course they are, and the buttons are slipping through his fingers like they’re made of ice and he can’t seem to manage even the basic task of putting on his own goddamned pants.
“What are you talking about, Murphy?”
“Go away,” he grumbles, as a button slips through his fingers again.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, just let me.” Bellamy’s hands move to replace Murphy’s, and it’s over. Murphy’s entire life is over. Because the barest brush of Bellamy’s knuckles over his cock sends a surge of blood through him like he hasn’t felt since Emori dropped her clothes in front of him and looked at him—dark skin and bare breasts shining in the moonlight—like it was a dare.
Murphy’s fist is flying across Bellamy’s face and cracking against his cheekbone before he even fully realizes what he’s doing. That Bellamy barely flinches shows just how much havoc the journey back has wreaked on his body. Great, you barely tapped him, and now he’s going to kill you. He’s not sure if it’s worth even trying to fight back. It would probably just piss him off more.
But, to his surprise, Bellamy doesn’t kill him. Doesn’t even hit him back. The obnoxious little smirk that stretches across his face is worse than any punch. “You’re sending me mixed signals here, Murphy,” he says, his eyes dropping.
Murphy follows his gaze and sees what Bellamy sees, his traitorous cock pushing up against his underwear. He’s harder than he can ever remember being, and he’s never hated himself more. “I’m with Emori,” he blurts out. He isn’t sure why he says it. First, it’s a lie. He never did take her up on that dare, couldn’t quite convince himself that she really wanted him to. Second, why should Bellamy give a shit? It doesn’t explain away the fucking hard-on Bellamy’s hands on his fly just gave him.
The smirk doesn’t budge, and Murphy barely restrains himself from punching him again. He might have, if he thought it’d actually make him go away. “She’s pretty.”
“Yeah, and she’s a good fuck,” he growls, narrowing his eyes in the way he knows makes him look more dangerous than he is. A good fuck? Oh god, what are you even saying?
It’s that, of all things, that makes Bellamy frown. “You haven’t changed a bit, have you?”
That stings more than Murphy would ever admit. Even if the crazy bastard had nearly led him to his death, Jaha had changed him in some ways. The John Murphy who landed on earth with a barely suppressed rage coursing hot through his veins never could have made it across that desert without killing at least one of those idiots. That John Murphy probably never would have helped them in the first place, would have left them to wither and die without a second thought.
“Guess not.”
“Hard to believe. Those people are saying you saved them, you know.”
“Yeah, well, they better. They wouldn’t have lasted two days without me and Emori saving their dumb asses.” Murphy turns away from him and finally manages to get his stupid pants buttoned. When he successfully pulls on his shirt on the first try, he finally feels like he can breathe again.
“Why’d you do it? Come back?”
“They would’ve died out there.”
“And what do you care?”
Murphy isn’t sure how to answer that question, because he doesn’t care about them, not really. “I don’t know.” He shrugs, keeping his eyes focused on the floor. “It felt like the right thing to do, I guess.”
“The right thing to do," Bellamy repeats slowly, like he can't believe those words just came out of Murphy's mouth.
“Can we just skip the foreplay? What is it you want from me, Blake?” Murphy snaps, growing exhausted of being asked questions he doesn’t know how to answer. “Were you expecting me to be someone else? Some sweet, gaping idiot who would follow you and Clarke around with wide eyes like everyone else? Where is the Princess anyways? Too busy for the likes of me?”
“I don’t want to talk about Clarke,” Bellamy says through clenched teeth.
That makes Murphy stand up a little straighter. There’s a sullenness in Bellamy’s tone that intrigues him. “You and the Princess have a falling out then?”
“Something like that, yeah,” Bellamy says. “It was during the war with Mt. Weather. She knew they were going to bomb a Grounder village, but she did nothing to stop it. She just left Octavia and the others there to die.”
Murphy is tempted to make a crack about Octavia, that pisses Bellamy off more than anything else and might actually make him leave, but he holds back. It’s not often that Bellamy talks to him, not like this at least, and the novelty of it is enough for him to keep from running his mouth. “Well, I assume she had her reasons, yeah?” he says. “Clarke doesn’t strike me as the watch a village burn for the fun of it type. Unless she’s kinkier than I imagined. And, boy, have I imagined.”
Bellamy’s upper lip ticks up in disgust. “It doesn’t matter. People died because of her. Our people.”
“People have died because of all of us, haven’t they?” When Bellamy doesn’t grace that with an answer, Murphy shrugs and doesn’t push it further. “Whatever you say, boss.” He falls back on to his bed and lets his limbs sprawl out over the soft fabric. He doesn’t even think twice about the way his legs fall open, or the way Bellamy’s eyes glimpse briefly at his crotch. That one moment of vulnerability from the great Bellamy Blake was all he needed to feel like himself again. “Will you fuck off now, or did you want to try to grab my dick again?"
Bellamy huffs out a laugh. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Murphy doesn’t answer, just stares up at the ceiling impassively, trying not to think about how much he would like that. “Fine,” Bellamy finally relents, holding up his hands. “But you better eat that when I leave. You look like a good breeze would blow you away.”
“Yeah, thanks, mom.”
Bellamy huffs again, and with that, he’s gone.
“I’ve been fucking summoned. Can you believe that? Doesn’t even leave her stupid tent to tell me herself. Sends some smelly Grounder bitch to do it for her. And that bitch has the nerve to tell me I better be on time, like I ever know what fucking time it is anymore.” Emori doesn’t answer, just grips his hand tighter and keeps pulling along through the darkness. “Where are we going anyways? I was looking forward to an actual night’s sleep on a bed, you know.”
“I found something.”
“Please, be vaguer.”
She gives his arm a sharp tug at that, but he thinks he hears her laugh. “A spring,” she elaborates. “Like the one we saw on the way here.” Murphy’s cock jumps for the second time that day, and he’s thankful Emori is facing away from him. “Do you remember?”
Of course he remembers. It had been just sitting there, on the edge of the desert like a sign from the higher power Jaha was always raving on about—cool, bubbling, blue water after weeks and weeks of thirst. None of them had even hesitated to drop their clothes and jump in, to lap the water up with their hands like animals and let the sand and dirt run off them in dark waves.
He was the first to leave. He didn’t want the rest of them to see the smile he couldn’t seem to keep off his face, lest they mistake him for someone who gave a shit. She had followed after him though, and when he turned, he found her standing behind him with a grin to match his own, clothes puddled around her feet and her eyes on his lips.
“Emori—”
“Shush, John.” She gives him one last tug forward and then stops. He can hear the sound of water, cutting through the quiet of the night, but he can’t quite see where it starts.
“You couldn’t have showed me this in the morning? You know, when I could actually see it.”
She mutters something under her breath and drops his hand. He immediately misses the feel of her skin against his. “Sorry, didn’t meant to piss you off.”
“You didn’t.” She’s sitting now. He thinks her feet might in the water, but he can only just make out the hunched over outline of her form. “Sit with me, John.”
Again, he does as he’s told. It might take time, but he’ll get good at it again. It was the only way to survive when he had come back to the group after shooting Raven and trying to string Bellamy up. Keep your head down and do as you’re told and they might not kill you like you deserve. He slips off his shoes and lets his feet sink into the cool water. A moan slips from his lips, as the muscles in his legs tense and then relax again.
“Few men have turned me away, you know, even with the hand,” she speaks, almost timidly. “As long as I kept it covered up.”
Shit, she can’t seriously think I care about the hand. “That’s because you’re fucking hot. Your hand, too.”
Emori snorts. “Oh, John, such a way with words.”
“Yeah, well, never claimed to be a poet.”
“True, you are nothing if not self-aware.”
“I’m not sure if I should take that as a compliment or not.”
“It was meant as one, for what it's worth.” She sighs and then leans to rest her head on his shoulder. This is how they had slept in the desert, her body against his, the slow rise and fall of her breath just by his ear. “Are you in love with him?”
Murphy feels his entire body tense, like a bow ready to snap. “In love with who?”
“The leader boy. Bellamy. You look at him like you might be.”
There’s the bile again, but there’s no way he’s going to make a fool out of himself again today. Besides, she's wrong. It isn't love, he doesn't think, though he's not sure if he'd know if it was. “Fuck no,” he practically yells. “You do realize he tried to kill me, right? For something I didn’t even do? And that I tried to kill him? Almost made him hang himself. All these scars on my face, I wouldn’t be surprised if more than half of them are from that prickly bastard.”
He feels her shrug. “It was just a question, John.”
“It was a stupid question.”
“Then what’s stopping you?”
He’s tempted to play dumb, like he had that night at the spring. If he acts like he isn’t sure what she means, she won’t push the issue. But now that they’ve finally stopped moving, he feels like he can’t keep running away. “You can’t possibly want me.”
Her head snaps up, and her nose brushes against the edge of his jaw. “What?”
“If you knew me, you wouldn’t want me. You’d regret it.”
“I do know you,” she argues. “Better than any of them do.”
He thinks she might not be wrong there. She’s the only person, other than that psycho bitch Reyes, who he’s told about his life before earth. She’s the only person he’s ever complained to about the hypocrisy of the 100, about how they branded him an outsider from day one. “Well, it’s not because of your hand,” he says. “That’s for fucking sure.” And to prove he’s telling the truth, he reaches out and takes hold of it. She tries to pull away, but he doesn’t let her. No, he pulls it into his lap and slowly peels away the cloth she wraps it in until it’s free.
Some kind of madness takes over him then, because he leans down and presses his lips to the inside of her wrist. The way she shudders against him only spurs him on. He drags his lips up to her palm and then to the edge of one of her long fingers.
He’s about to move to the other one, to let his tongue get in on the action, when she grabs his chin and forces him to meet her eyes instead. They look even more beautiful with the moonlight reflected in them. “What stopped you then? What really stopped you?”
God, she’s just like Bellamy, asking him questions he has no idea how to answer. Introspective is not a word he would use to describe himself. Thinking on the things he’s done and the why behind them is only a surefire way to depress the hell out of himself. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know,” she repeats.
“Yeah, I don’t know a lot of things, Emori,” he continues. “Maybe I don’t want to lose you.”
“You won’t lose me, John Murphy.”
He grunts and falls backwards, letting the back of his head hit the ground with a soft thud. He keeps hold of her hand and takes her down with him, so they are both looking up at the stars above them. “These people hate me. They’ll try to make you hate me, too.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“Yeah, well, we’ll see.”
She shifts next to him, turning on to her side and draping one of her legs over his. With a contented little giggle, she tucks her face into Murphy’s neck and breathes, sending a shiver down his back. “Friends trust each other, John. They're not constantly worried about doing something wrong.”
“Is that what we are? Friends?”
She presses a kiss to the edge of his jaw, just below his ear. He wraps his arm around her in response, pulling her closer to him. The only answer she gives him is a quiet hmm, but it’s all he needs. “I couldn’t sleep in the tent they gave me," she tells him. "I missed the stars.”
The I missed you part remains unspoken, but Murphy knows it’s there. “We can sleep here, if you want. We can sleep here as long as you like.”
He feels her nod. “Do you know what you’re going to say to them tomorrow? When you’re summoned,” she whispers against his throat.
He swallows and tries to stay focused on how warm Emori feels wrapped in his arms, tries not to think about the way Clarke and Raven and Octavia and all of the others will look at him when he faces them again. “I’m thinking of just telling them to fuck off.”
Emori laughs and kisses the spot below his ear again. “That’s my John.”