Is this chapter long? Longer than the last one. Honestly, you should all give Keliza153 a round of applause for reviewing. Otherwise, I would've sat on this a little longer. Why? Because I'm an asshole.
The next chapter is going to be Murphy's Law, and the chapter will be named accordingly as a warning. It took me so long to write that chapter, and I'm still working on the editing. You know what speeds me up though? Reviews.
At that point our training had begun, and let me tell you, I lost count of how many times he had knocked me to the ground. Every moment I tried to attack, he was able to counteract it perfectly, and shove me down. This went on for what had felt like days.
"Are you listening to me at all?" Murphy asked as he walked around me. I was once again on the forest floor, and I was beginning to wonder if I should just stay where I was, when he sighed and retreated to the tree where the backpack was, and sat down at the base.
I lifted myself up once I realized he wasn't going to jump at me, while he opened up the backpack and took out a bottle of water. He took a sip out of it and lifted it in my direction, nonverbally offering it to me. I smiled lightly and walked over to him, and he watched me as if he was taking in my every movement. He leaned his head slightly to the left, so I sat down next to him on that side.
The bottle of water was still in his hands and I slowly grabbed in from him, my fingers jolting slightly from the warmth of our fingers brushing as he let go of the bottle. The water tasted slightly of plastic and warm rain. Which, in case you're wondering, isn't the best taste. It was better than nothing, and considering most of our water was collected from tarps that were set out to catch rain, it was a pretty standard taste.
"So, earth." I mumbled, and I felt his eyes leave the backpack and land on me. Suddenly the closeness of him was almost overbearing. Our shoulders were touching, and the heat radiating off of him was intoxicating.
His chuckle shook his whole body, and I could see from out of the corner of my eye he started nodding his head. "So, earth indeed."
Silence filled the air, and after a few minutes Murphy started moving again, and grabbed some jerky and fruit from inside the backpack. Without saying another word, he handed an apple-like fruit and some jerky to me before he grabbed some more out of the bag for himself.
"You do know why I stopped visiting, right?" I finally asked. Murphy's whole body went rigid next to me, and I desperately wanted to reach out for him. I could tell this subject wasn't going to be a pleasant one for myself or him, but we needed to talk about it.
"I didn't know until I had seen you on earth. I had heard rumors. But you hear a lot of rumors on the level I was on, and not all of them are true." Murphy said, his hands clenching. His nails started digging in on the fruit, tearing tiny holes in the rind and letting the juices flow out. "When did you get locked up?"
"About a week after I had seen you last." I admitted, looking down at my lap and nervously tearing the jerky into bits.
Murphy let out a deep breath, and his whole body eased. He let the fruit drop out of his hand, and it fell over his knee and onto the ground. "Is that how you met Reed?"
"Yeah." It was my turn to chuckle. "When I first met Reed, the first words she said to me," I began, my face lighting up as I turned my body slightly to look at him better, "was, and I'm not making this up," At this point Murphy raised a brow, a smile starting to form on his face, "she said; 'Oh good, I have a new roommate. I hope you don't know how to make shanks out of mattress springs as well, because I don't know if I can stomach being woken up at three am again to someone holding a spring to my neck and mumbling a satanic ritual'."
Murphy shook his head, trying to force himself from smiling. Seeing Murphy smile again brought a sense of ease to me that I never thought I would feel again. His smile left too soon, though.
"How did you meet Jasper and Monty?" The venom in his words was toxic, and without even thinking about it I grabbed his hand. The hand that had been squeezing the life out of the fruit, and was now sticky as hell. For reference, I hate stickiness. But for his sake, I let it slide for the time being.
"A few months ago they had been brought in, and about a week after, Reed was forced to take measures into her own hands to make sure they wouldn't get killed. I swear if it wasn't for the fact that Reed is a distant cousin of mine, I would've killed that girl myself. But she has a certain charm, when she's not you know, pointing out your flaws and saving people's lives." I squeezed his hand, and he squeezed mine back. Which, used to be a game of ours. What? Nobody said we weren't lame ass kids.
"Jasper looks at you like the world shines around you." Murphy mumbled, and refused to make eye contact with me.
"In his defense, you've literally have only have seen him before he had met Octavia, and now that he has, he nearly died and is looking at just about everyone like that." I said, and was about to force him to look at me when he finally did it himself. His brow was once again raised, and it forced me to add, "Except for you. But I think he is convinced anyone he didn't know pre-near death is inherently evil."
Silence fell between us as I looked down at our hands, once again realizing he was holding the hand that wore his father's ring.
"I don't blame him for having looked at you like that." He said, and in disbelief I let go of his hand. Once again he smiled, before smirking. "You grew up beautifully, Rhy." He said as he let go of my hand as well. Feeling overwhelmed, and like the earth had turned the heat ten degrees higher than just a moment ago, I playfully pushed him before turning myself back so I could start eating lunch.
"You don't need to be such an asshole." I remarked, smiling while I threw pieces of the torn jerky into my mouth.
"Oh really, I'm being an asshole?" Murphy played, and nudged me with his shoulder as his laughter filled the air.
I brought my hand to my mouth to prevent him from seeing the food in my mouth as I turned my head, nodded and laughed.
"I pay you a compliment and I'm the asshole?" He teased, gnawing off a piece of jerky with his teeth and chewing it loudly.
"Are you questioning my logic?" I asked, my hand still over my mouth. You know, being polite and shit. Besides, you can't trust Murphy's compliments.
"Oh no, I would never." Murphy said, and he smiled at me before looking off in front of him, the smile remaining on his face, and without even thinking, I leaned into him, our shoulders colliding, and butterflies rising from my stomach.
Or at least, I had hoped they were butterflies. But I had never thrown the option of it being food poisoning off the table when I had been letting juvenile delinquents scavenge and make my meals.
Not even thirty minutes later we were back to our mock fighting. It felt nice to run around, and although every time I hit the ground my head spun, I did like it when he pulled me back up. Maybe I had been imagining it, but it seemed like as the day progressed he held onto my hand longer, and was gentler on me. Our conversations were as sporadic as my ability to defend myself. So we conversed randomly and when we did, it seemed to slightly surprise us both.
"Did you make any friends in your section of the skybox?" I finally let myself ask the question I had been dying to know ever since I saw him traipsing around with some of the other more notorious convicts.
He frowned slightly, before backing up from his strike pose and walking around me. "I wouldn't call them friends." I had to start turning to keep eye contact with him as he kept walking in a circle around me, "They are like bugs following the light. They all want power. Luckily for Mbege and myself, we got ourselves in good standing once we landed on earth, but before then on the skybox, it was mostly every man for himself."
John Mbege was another convict around our age, whom I didn't know much about. He normally sauntered around camp with Murphy, Miller, and the rest of Bellamy's twisted crew of delinquents.
"So the people you spend most of your time with aren't your friends?" I asked, frowning at him. He finally stopped pacing around me and sighed deeply, his shoulders slumping momentarily as he lifted his hand to rub his eyes.
"Let's just say," He began, dropping his hands and staring into my eyes. "If I was in trouble, they probably wouldn't come to help me."
Finally, after a long drawn out silence, I whispered; "I would."
He chuckled, nodding his head. "Well good thing I'm never in trouble then." He began, as he swiftly made his way over to me, "Because I would be screwed." His hands roughly grabbed my shoulders, about to push me down. Without even thinking, I lifted my leg and somehow maneuvered my way around so I could hook him behind his knee, and he went crashing down.
I should highlight the fact I hadn't been thinking, because he was still holding onto me. Of course, as luck would have it, I came tumbling after him, and landed on his back.
"See, sometimes I can be helpful." I quipped, not even bothering to try to get up yet. Would it be wrong to say it felt good to be laying on his back?
"I'm still holding the knife." Murphy remarked dryly, bringing his hand around to wave the knife.
"I could be choking you or something." My arms went around his neck, pulling his head up off of the ground.
I was way too proud of myself, and while I was basking in joy, he elbowed me in the ribs. I fell onto my back beside him on the ground, and he took no time to climb ontop of me, covering my body with his. His arms kept him from crushing me with his weight, and right leg somehow found its way in between mine, further preventing physical suffocation.
However, mentally I felt like I was being suffocated. His face was mere inches from my own, and whenever I inhaled I seemed to be breathing in his exhale. Which, if I learned anything from my science classes, meant I wasn't getting oxygen. And yet, for some reason I was enjoying the closeness, and was reveling in breathing his stale carbon dioxide. His eyes searched mine, and we stayed like this for what seemed like hours; in a stalemate as each of us waited for the next move to be made. My eyes involuntarily went to his lips, which as to be expected were chapped. By the time I looked back at his eyes I noticed he was staring at my lips, with a hint of what looked like longing.
Time nearly came to a halt however as his lips found mine. Rough collided with the smooth, but his lips felt so at home with mine. (Side note, Reed had found some aloe plants a few days earlier, and we have been using them for just about everything. Including to prevent the pain of chapped lips.)
Murphy lowered himself, our bodies folding into each other like collapsable chairs.
The kiss ended too soon in my opinion, and once our eyes found each other's again, I could tell he felt the same. Although, I could be making that up. I did have a head injury at one point, that I still keep forgetting about. His eyes continued to bore into mine as he lifted himself off of me, and up onto two feet. Momentarily, he crouched slightly, lending me a hand. When I took it, he quickly pulled me up and continued pulling me until our bodies were once again touching. I continuing looking into his eyes as he looked into mine. I looked away and tried pulling away finally, growing tired of the building tension. I wasn't quite sure my heart could take anymore of it when he finally spoke.
"Never forget your place, Rhy." He whispered, and my eyes shot back to his. He was once again giving me a grave serious stare.
"And where's my place?" I asked, letting him enveloped me further as his arms wrapped around my body, his hands making their way to my hips.
"Right here." He remarked darkly, and before I could make a snarky comment about wanting clarification, (such as, 'right here with you, or right here in general, or just with you.') his mouth collided with mine again. And, as we continued kissing, I realized I didn't care for clarification because I was with him. Unless he really did just mean I belonged in that one patch of grass on earth.