Found the Devil in Me
Rating: PG-13/T
Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Angst
Summary: For the hc_bingo Amnesty Challenge, prompt "Hugs". A look at one of the positive endings of Downpour.
Author's Note: THEY HUGGED. HOLY CRAP ON A CRACKER, THEY HUGGED. I LOVE YOU GAMEMAKERS, LOVE YOU MUCHLY. :D
Disclaimer: I don't own Silent Hill. It belongs to Konami/Vatra. The title comes from the Florence + The Machine song "Shake it Out".
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Murphy was thankful that Anne had not been an officer at Ryall.
If she had been, he would have been screwed a dozen times over. In general, she struck him as one of the officers that you Do Not Screw With under any circumstances if you wanted to keep your head and balls. On the other hand, she might have been able to cope with Sewell better than some of the others had.
Murphy was not in the habit of judging others (save baby-raping murderers); he had plenty of sins under his belt to cope with, and judging others for anything less than his own wasn't fair. Prison had changed him, but it hadn't turned him into a complete asshole.
Initially, when he'd first met Anne while boarding the bus and then during the ride to Overlook, he had thought she was cold; not surprising, given the nasty, cold and frankly disturbingly dark looks she had been giving him,. Upon meeting her in Silent Hill and being thrown off by her last name, he had dubbed her a crazy bitch and decided that, while he would do everything to get her out alive, he wasn't going to be putting any real trust in her. She was a cop, so naturally she didn't like convicts- But he had thought that it was strange that she couldn't get over that given the situation they'd found themselves in.
Upon learning that she was Frank's daughter (in the few seconds he'd had to contemplate that), his view of her had been thrown completely off. This was a woman that had been raised by Frank Coleridge, the man who had treated Murphy with decency and respect in spite of him being just another one of the rabble of murderers, thieves and lunatics that inhabited the prison. That meant that, whatever he'd seen of Anne thus far, that goodness had to have been instilled in her somewhere along the way.
Could he blame her for being so cold? The irony, the fucking lesson that this hell-hole town was trying to teach him, was- Well, the nun in the church had put it best: "Revenge is a long and treacherous road, isn't it Mr. Pendleton. Where do you suppose it ends?" Anne was doing precisely what Murphy had done: Avenging the person they'd loved the most in the world. Charlie and Frank's deaths had not been accidents, acts of God that were tragic but natural. They were murdered in cold blood by evil bastards that did not deserve to live.
But as the nun (was she real, now or once?) had said, where did it end? If Murphy hadn't sought revenge for Charlie, then there was a very likely possibility that Frank would not have ended up dead and Anne would not have been searching for her own justice. Maybe if she'd known the truth and gone after Sewell, the other officers that were either with Sewell or ignorant of his wrong-doings would have gone after her. A vicious cycle indeed.
Murphy sat on the floor of the shower room, not even bothering to try and figure out how he'd gotten there. He'd given up on trying to figure out how this goddamned place worked a while ago. Frank's blood was on the floor, even though it had been cleaned away months ago. Washed away like it had never happened.
But it had. And though he wanted so, so badly to, Murphy couldn't change that.
"I'm sorry, Frank." He whispered, shutting his eyes. It was always the best people that died the worst ways, while bastards like Sewell would live into their hundreds. And it was his fault. Maybe not entirely his fault- Sewell probably would have found some other sucker to exploit if not Murphy- but he was still culpable.
"It wasn't you."
Her voice surprised him; he thought he'd walked off into one of his own special circles of hell, witnessing Frank's death all over again. What surprised Murphy even more than Anne's presence was the tone of her voice: Soft. Compassionate. Understanding. Radically different from the tone she'd used with him previously, the kind that subtly promised him a slow and painful demise.
The hand on his shoulder made him jump, because after Frank there were no more friendly touches. From anyone. In fact, being a "cop-killer", he'd gotten more than his fair share of ass-kickings. But it was him, because if he hadn't been hell-bent on killing Napier, living the dream of every parent whose child had been murdered, Frank might have been okay.
Murphy twisted his head to look up at her. The light was dim, but he could see enough of Anne's face to see that it had softened. It hurt; it physically hurt to see her clearly regretting her vendetta against him, because it was still his fault. He lightly shook off her hand and looked away from her face. "It was my fault he died."
He climbed to his feet, and God did his body feel heavy.
"Pendleton…" She said, but he still couldn't quite look at her.
Goddamn it, it's my fault. Don't you see that? So maybe Sewell might have killed Frank even if I wasn't there. Maybe. But I was there, and I failed to save Frank. I could have, but instead I got to watch him get beat to death. If I hadn't made the fucking devil's deal with Sewell, maybe your father would be alive.
"I'm so sorry," He whispered, shaking his head. Murphy had to drag it up bit by bit until he was making eye-contact with Anne, who looked now more like a lost child than a tough-as-nails corrections officer. Maybe she saw something equally lost in him as well, because she ducked her head for a moment, bangs momentarily shielding her eyes. When she looked back up, she seemed resolute.
"I forgive you."
And then she hugged him.
The forgiveness he'd kind of seen coming, her voice having indicated a forgiving mood (at least for him, he had no idea what she was maybe now thinking of doing to Sewell). But even that had come as a little bit of a shock, especially given that she'd dedicated most of whatever time they'd spent here barely resisting the urge to blow his damn head off.
But a hug? Maybe it wasn't fair to judge given her frame of mind, but Anne had not struck Murphy as the kind to hug. Especially not a con, guilty of murder or not. This didn't seem to fit her character.
Well… What would Frank have done?
And then it wasn't so confusing anymore.
The closeness of another person (especially a woman) after so many years of keeping relative distance was strange, but Murphy found that he hungered for that far more than sex or alcohol or even revenge. After so many years of feeling like less than a human being, being consumed with burning hatred for Napier and then raging guilt over Frank, an embrace was indescribable.
Murphy shut his eyes and wrapped his arms around her.
One second, two seconds, three seconds, four-
And suddenly the sound of water, lapping lightly against the shore.
One minute it was silent, and the next it was just there. When Murphy fully realized what was happening, his eyes popped open and saw that- would wonders never cease- he and Anne were standing on the shore of a lake somewhere within the forest the bus had crashed in. Over her shoulder, Murphy could see the clear blue water stretched to the other shore, completely undisturbed.
Magical hugs that make everything better, Murphy mused. Sounds like something out of some bullshit kids' cartoon about rainbows and sunshine. Thank God Charlie had always found the Teletubbies to be "lame".
A sudden tenseness in Anne's frame let him know that she'd reached the same conclusion that he had. They released each other simultaneously, slowly. There was a light breeze, one that Murphy hadn't felt in the stagnant air of Silent Hill.
"Is this…?" Murphy sniffed in disbelief. "Are we free?"
Anne looked equally bewildered, staring around at the ground and then up at the sky, which has shades of yellow and pink painting the clouds. Was it sunrise, or sunset? "Yeah… I think we are." It was hard to believe that after all the shit they'd gone through, after the circles of hell that they'd traversed, certain that death was coming- It was almost impossible to believe that they were both alive and relatively well enough to tell the tale.
Now what were they supposed to do?
Anne's radio suddenly crackled to life after the dead silence it had been spouting in the fog world: "FZZZT- Do you copy? Ryall County Search and Rescue to Officer Cunningham. Do you copy, over?"
Well, hell.
Murphy had no intention of going back to prison. None. At this point, the only person he cared about knowing the truth knew what she needed to know, and he was satisfied. As far as everyone else was concerned, he was dead. Sewell could jerk off to the music they played at Murphy's funeral for all he cared. Maybe Anne would find a way to do something about him.
Just hope it doesn't involve a nightstick.
Anne took hold of the radio at her shoulder and pressed the button. "This is Cunningham. I copy. Over."
Murphy winced and looked away. Innocent or not, this was Anne's job they were talking about. This was, if she helped him escape, aiding and abetting. When he chanced a glance back up, Anne was looking at him. Her eyes were serious, with maybe a hint of uncertainty in them. "What's your twenty, Cunningham? We got half of the department out looking for you. Over."
"I'm okay." Anne responded, and maybe Murphy saw a bit of relief. They hadn't asked yet. "I'm on the shore of a lake somewhere. 'fraid I can't be more specific than that. Over." How would she explain that one? Murphy couldn't see any injuries on her that would make them question her mental state. And just how much time had passed between the bus crash and now?
"Roger. We'll send the bird to sweep the shore again. We've located everyone except for one: Pendleton, Murphy. You got a twenty on Pendleton, over?"
Right after the dispatcher had identified Murphy by name, Anne's head had slowly rotated upwards to look at Murphy. There was a deer-in-the-headlights look to her eyes, though a lot less panicked and a lot more 'fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck I was hoping you weren't going to ask me that'.
Her finger was still on the button, so Murphy didn't speak. He just stared, and frankly would not hold it against her if she turned him in. He wouldn't like it, hell no, but he couldn't quite blame her. In asking her to let him go, he would be asking her to commit a crime that could screw her life up as badly as his was, currently.
For a full minute, there was total silence.
Murphy began to grow nervous. Clearly Anne was debating whether or not she should tell the truth, but the longer she stayed silent the more obvious it might become to the dispatcher that something was up.
Then Anne turned her head back towards the radio. "Negative. Pendleton's dead. Over." In the last word, Murphy heard the grimness of the finality of the lie. She couldn't take this one back, and it made him cringe because how would she explain knowing that he was dead if there was obviously no body to show for it?
"Roger that."
Anne released the button of the radio, as well as her breath. She looked back at Murphy, and neither of them had to say what she'd just done for him. "Are you going to be okay?" He asked. I hope you're a good liar, because you'll need to be.
Anne took a deep breath. "You'd better go." As in, No, I'm not fine, I'll be better when you're not standing here ready to prove to the search party that I just lied through my damn teeth. It was just as well. Everything that needed to be said had already been said, and Murphy was not a man prone to lengthy exposition.
They turned away from one another, and Murphy walked away.
-End