Journey's End
"Whatever walked there,
walked alone."
—Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House
The journey was doomed from the start. Murphy knew that, but had gone anyways. It wasn't as if he wasn't doomed on his own anyhow. Just like Mbege... just like Finn. There was only one way things ended on the ground, and that was with someone else's knife in a vital place. Murphy knew that, and had come to accept it long ago. It wasn't that he thought he was some kind of tragic hero in a grand story about his life and death—he used to have some kind of delusions like that, but no longer. No, he was pretty sure now that whatever the story was, it wasn't about him. He was a side character, a footnote. A convenient antagonist when needed, someone for everyone to point to and blame when things went wrong. He was the fall guy, the patsy... and more than that, he was expendable. That had been made clear to him on more than one occasion.
Did he resent it? Maybe. But he accepted it, too. It was the way it was.
Murphy was doomed, sure. Always had been. Hell, it was likely he'd been meant to die all those years ago when he'd caught the damned flu. He'd survived that, at the expense of his fathers life and his mothers sanity, so now he was just marking time.
The flu hadn't killed him, nor had the rope around his neck hung by an angry mob. He'd survived that, survived the Grounders and all of their torture. He'd survived Raven, whom he knew would have had him dead twice over now. Survived when so many others had died, so many who deserved to live so much more than he did. Hadn't Wells deserved to live? Hadn't Sterling? Why were they rotting in the ground, while he continued to breathe?
Jaha would have said it meant something. Meant that Murphy was destined for some... thing. Something great, likely. Important.
Murphy didn't have to ask to know that Jaha thought he was the main character of the story. And not the tragic kind either. The kind that triumphs... conquers. He'd survived too, countless should-have-been deaths, just like Murphy. Only Jaha thought he'd survived for a reason. Was certain of it, Murphy knew.
He wasn't so sure. It didn't feel like he'd survived for any kind of reason or purpose. For so long, the only thing that had kept him going was the desire—no, the hunger—for revenge. It was what had kept him sane while the Grounders had tortured him, peeling his flesh and slicing him in the places that would cause the most pain, but do the least damage to anything he needed to live. He'd endured days of torture, starvation and sleep deprivation subsisting with only a single thought in his mind: payback. Not for the Grounders who tortured him, not for Clarke who had banished him. It was all of their faces he saw in his mind every night, every one who'd strung him up and let him dangle like a worm on a hook... all of their faces, but one more clearly than the others.
Bellamy. His leader. His friend. Bellamy who'd kicked the crate out from under his feet, allowed him to kick and struggle and die... Bellamy, just giving the crowd what they wanted.
In a strange, distant way he could understand why the others had done it. Myles, Connor... He wasn't delusional, he knew how he'd treated them all, they way he'd acted and the abuse they'd suffered at his hands. Yeah, he got it. They'd still had to die, but he understood. They'd taken something from him, and something as small and insignificant as empathy wasn't going to stop him from taking it back.
Bellamy was different. He'd never done a thing to Bellamy. He'd followed him, listened to him and carried out his orders. He'd respected Bellamy in a way he'd respected few people in his life. Admired him, even. How could he not? Bellamy was strong, handsome and charismatic. Everything Murphy knew he wasn't, but could not help but wish to be anyways.
The admiration was not mutual, Murphy knew. But he'd thought the respect was. He'd thought Bellamy trusted him, believed in him... valued him.
He'd thought wrong. That had become more than clear as he'd dropped through the air, felt the noose tighten around his neck and cut of his air supply. As he'd dangled there, legs kicking out desperately beneath him. As he'd waited to die.
Killing the others had brought him a sense of satisfaction, and at one point he would have gone after every single person who'd been a part of that mob. Every pair of hands that held him, each set of eyes that watched them string him up and every silent mouth that had said not a word to stop it. He would have choked the life from every single one them, watching their eyes bug and feeling their bodies struggle and flail beneath him. And when their eyes finally went dead as the last breath left their bodies, he would have smiled.
Once, he would have smiled.
But no matter how much satisfaction he thought could have been gained by killing the others, it was nothing compared to the thirst he'd felt for Bellamy. That was what had truly kept him alive, allowed him to withstand every torture and degradation, every day of starvation and pain. The thought that one day he would get back to their camp and when he did, Bellamy would suffer.
It had seemed so important, so vitally important that Bellamy suffer as he had. That he know what it was like to suffocate. That he be helpless and alone and scared, just like him.
It was strange to realize that he no longer felt that way. Bellamy was alive and well, not suffering and surrounded by his friends back at Camp Jaha. And Murphy did not care. Felt nothing at all in fact. No longer did the need for revenge gnaw at his insides, churning his stomach and pulling at his heart. He couldn't see the faces of those who'd hung him, and if he'd come across any of them now he didn't think he'd lift a finger to hurt them.
What had changed, he didn't know. He just knew that whatever had driven him to kill Connor and Myles... it was gone now. And in its place was emptiness.
Perhaps it was Finn who had changed him. Finn with the crazed look in his eyes, gunning down fleeing Grounders in a blind rage. Finn, tied to a post and gutted by the girl he loved.
Maybe it had scared him, to see how easy it was to slip over the edge like that. Maybe he just realized that if he'd kept going the way he was, Finn's fate would soon be his. And despite all his talk of being doomed, and accepting his fate... was the truth that deep down, he didn't want to die after all?
Murphy wasn't sure that was it. To die would be one matter. That he could accept. But if he continued the way he'd been going, it would not be Finn's fate that greeted him at the end. At the end, Clarke had been there to kiss Finn and hold him as she stuck the knife into his belly. He had died in the embrace of the person he loved. Who would be there to hold Murphy as he died? No one loved him, he knew that.
No, Finn's fate would never be his. Instead, his fate would be to die alone and unloved.
And that was what frightened him most of all.
A/N: Thanks for reading!
A few things, in case you're curious:
-This is a multi-chapter WIP about Murphy on his way to the City of Light with Jaha and Co
-Events will not play out the same way they did in canon
-An OC will be introduced in the next chapter who will be a main character
-The main pairing is M/M
-Trigger Warnings for future chapters include: mentions of PAST non-con/dub-con, discussion of prostitution, mentions of PAST violence and torture, mentions of PAST character death.
-Ultimately I want this story to be hopeful and optimistic, and for the characters to learn and grow.
-Although there will be OCs, there will also be familiar characters from the show (but not other members of the 100)
-NO CHARACTER DEATH
Thanks again and I hope you continue to read!
