I swear I am trying to write some more lighthearted chapters... But when I start writing even funny ideas be come deep emotional chapters :/
Fun/Funny prompts are most definitely welcome!
Thank you to tvstatic, the guest reviewer, Sobee1982 and Seagull88 for your comments on the last chapter and for all the favourites/follows. I'm glad you're enjoying these little ramblings.
Contiguity
noun
the state of bordering or being in contact with something.
PSYCHOLOGY
the sequential occurrence or proximity of stimulus and response
Day 391
We'd all dealt with a pissed off Murphy before.
Even once he out grew his homicidal tendencies, he wasn't fun to be around when he was angry. But a sulking Murphy… I soon learned that he was either the biggest headache on or off Earth, or an infinite source of amusement. Depending on my mood.
The sulking began around the time Emori had her third lesson with Raven – apparently the grounder had shown some potential with the shuttle's simulator and the two women had agreed on an apprenticeship of sorts. When this started, Murphy was the perfect picture of a supportive boyfriend, but I think he soon started to feel a little discarded, and that went on for a while. On some level I knew that Murphy would probably need a pep talk of some sort, but Bellamy and I had just decided to ration the moonshine, which had left everyone a little pissy, and I couldn't be bothered to pander to Murphy's emotional growth as well.
So, when Bellamy and I were having one of our half-hearted arguments and an over grown toddler stomped into the command centre to collapse in my chair and pout… We really shouldn't have been surprised.
"…You ok, Murphy?" Bellamy greeted after a moment.
"Fine," our intruder grumbled. "Go back to whatever you were doing."
I looked at Bellamy questioningly as Murphy started going through my desk. He shrugged and casually walked over to check the security feed.
"Are you looking for anything in particular," I asked, pulling myself up onto the corner of my desk to get a better look at whatever Murphy was doing. "Or are you just invading my privacy for the hell of it?"
Murphy didn't even spare me a glance. "Probably the second," he confessed, as if there was nothing at all wrong with that. "Maybe a bit of both." He found a stack of my sketches in the top draw and pulled one of him chained up in Becca's lap, from near the top. "Wow Clarke. I don't know whether to be flattered or creeped out."
"Maybe a bit of both," I mocked, rolling my eyes. Feeling Bellamy's gaze on me, I glanced over and saw that he had pulled up the camera feed from the docking bay, where Raven and Emori were laughing together over the rocket's engine.
I let out a silent sigh. Murphy really was far too old to be getting jealous over Emori having friends. Part of me was still amused by the childish sulking, but this had been going on for months by that point. Something had to be done. I locked eyes with Bellamy and we had a silent argument, which ended with Bellamy raising an eyebrow as if to say, You know he'll listen to you more than me. With a small, reluctant nod, I agreed and began mentally debating how best to approach this conversation.
Before I'd decided, a feeling of weightlessness overtook me and the things on top of my desk knocked against my limbs as they – and I – began to float.
"The hell...?" I muttered, looking across the room to see Bellamy escaping his floating chair.
"You guys alright?" he asked, trying to steady himself in the air.
Murphy just lay back, as if this was perfectly normal, and continued to sulk. "Not particularly. It's not so fun invading Clarke's privacy when all of her things are floating around the room for anyone to see." He turned to me with a sharp smirk, "Hope you didn't have any naughty sketches in that collection."
"Shut up Murphy," I huffed. "Bellamy can you still see the security feed?"
"I got it," his reply was immediate, obviously having had the same thought. "The whole Ring is in zero G. Everything's a mess but it doesn't look like anyone's hurt. Or like anything important is broken."
"You mean other than the gravity field?"
We ignored Murphy.
"Where are the others?" I brushed random objects out of my way as I searched for the Ark's intercom.
"Monty's in engineering, looks like Raven and Emori are making their way there. Should we go meet them?"
"Yeah," Murphy cut off my reply and I turned to see him propelling himself into a corner after a bottle of whisky, "you guys should do that. I found what I came for."
"Damnit Murphy," I grabbed him by the ankle and pulled him back to the centre of the room. "Make yourself useful and help us find the microphone." I turned back to Bellamy, "There's no point in rushing over there when Raven might need us to do something here."
He nodded in agreement and the three of us began searching through the floating mess.
"Why'd the damn thing have to be wireless?" Bellamy muttered, echoing my thoughts.
"Calling Ark Station, this is Zero G Party," Murphy's voice rang out across the Ring. "Looks like somebody decided to fulfil her zero G sex fantasies. Question is: who's the lucky guy?" I could feel the annoyance rolling off Bellamy as Murphy bounced from wall to wall, keeping the microphone out of our reach. "My money's on you Mont- "
Bellamy's superior height won out and he snatched the mic away from Murphy with a look of mile disgust. "Monty, what's going on?"
"The artificial gravity isn't working," was Monty's sardonic reply. Bellamy met my eyes as he exhaled in frustration. We were all still getting used to this new, harsher side of our friend.
"Thank you, we got that much. We were kind of hoping for an explanation."
I glanced at the security feed (which was built into the centre console and thankfully bolted to the floor) and saw that Raven and Emori had stopped at one of the hall way speakers to patch in on the channel.
"Raven do you have any ideas?" I asked, seeing as all Bellamy was getting from Monty was cussing and stress.
"We've probably lost power to the thrusters," she explained. "Monty, you need to check the relays. Clarke, you guys can run a diagnostic from Command, that will tell us if it's just a system failure or if I need to get outside and fix something manually."
"No need to sound too excited," I muttered, loud enough for her to hear as I made my way back to the console. "Who knew it'd be so hard to type in zero G," I grumbled to myself as I started the diagnostic with one hand and gripped the edge of the console with the other, to keep from floating away. The smile in Bellamy's voice, as he started giving orders, told me that he'd heard and it was enough to put me at ease. Even with Monty listing all the much deadlier issues that could come with this 'Zero G Party.'
"You good?" Bellamy asked quietly, spinning me around to face him once he'd let go of the mic.
"Yeah," I smiled and went for a side hug which ended up with us just bumping into each other, laughing. "You should go down to engineering. I can handle things here."
Bellamy glanced at Murphy – who had once again found our whisky – and I nodded at his silent question. I'll talk to him.
"Alright. Let us know what the diagnostic check comes back with."
Now alone with Murphy, I sighed and kicked off the side of Bellamy's desk, to propel myself in his direction. I took the whisky from his hand, replaced the cap and swallowed the liquor that had escaped the bottle before levelling Murphy with my best unimpressed glare.
"So, when are you going to sort your shit out?"
Murphy glanced up nonchalantly. "Which shit?" he shrugged. "In case you haven't noticed, we all have a whole lot of it."
I didn't raise to his baiting. "The whole you being jealous of Raven working with Emori thing that you're pretending we haven't noticed."
He just scoffed and turned back to the floating pile of junk he was messing with.
"Murphy," I spoke firmly but softened my voice when he turned back to me, clearly expecting a lecture. "You're not losing her," I promised.
I knew for all Murphy's talk and bad attitude, he was just a guy with some first-rate abandonment issues. Emori was the only person on this station who hadn't abandoned or cast Murphy out one way or another, but she going to be paying the price for it if I couldn't get through to him.
"Did you think that the six of us could spend years up here without coming to care about each other?"
"Well you guys never gave a damn about me, so why would I expect any different?" he snapped.
"That's crap and you know it." I was telling the truth, we all cared about Murphy, but I still felt a pang of guilt, remembering him locked up and pleading in Becca's lab. "Look at me," I shook his shoulders gently until he met my eyes. "We're family, Murphy. All six of us, and that's never going to change."
"That's just it though," Murphy looked down, swallowing thickly. "Clarke, now that she has all of you, how long until she realises that she doesn't need me?" He looked so lost in that moment… My arms twitched with the urge to pull him into a hug, but I knew Murphy would just see that as pity and shut down.
"She does need you," I assured him. "Murphy, just because new people come into our lives, doesn't mean we don't still need the ones who were already there. But right now… you acting like this whenever Emori gets close to one of us, you're just making her feel bad about wanting to be part of something outside of your relationship. How long do you think you can keep that up before you push her away?" he looked down, almost ashamed, as I finished. "That's the only way you're going to lose her."
He stared down at the papers swirling beneath our feet for a long minute before nodding and looking back up to me, familiar determination in his features. "Well I don't have to worry about that do I?" he insisted. "Not while I've got you to call me out for being a dick."
"Damn straight," I smiled and finally pulled him in for that hug. "Some more self-awareness from you wouldn't hurt though."
Murphy laughed and returned the hug. "No promises. But I will go apologise to Emori. You know, once we can walk on solid floors again."
"Baby steps I guess," I chuckled, pulling away.
The centre console started beeping – the system diagnostic had finished.
"Find the mic again for me?"
"You're the boss," Murphy agreed, pushing me towards the screens.
"Hey Clarke," Bellamy's voice sounded over the intercom. "everything ok over there?"
Murphy scoffed and rolled his eyes,
He knew Bellamy didn't just mean the gravity too.
