yardbird | ☁ [room 006 » 073 action spam]

He could stay here forever. In fact, he wants to. The world's a hopeless place, but not here. Here, there are no monsters like Patrick Napier or George Sewell or creatures wearing someone else's skin. There is no pain or sadness or funerals for old memories.

No, here he can feel the breeze on his face. He can watch the gaping blue sky fall up forever and ever, and beyond that into an infinite universe. They are all part of the same cell, the same entity. Together in green fields and red flowers, at a tree where it would be just the two of them -- father and son.

By the old tree where they used to play together, a boy in a red jacket waves to him. There is not a single shadow on his expression, as if nothing has ever happened to him. There is a joyful innocence in him again, the same child who looks at the world with eyes that one can only hope to understand. He's learned so much from his son, who once gave him the greatest gift he could have ever asked for -- the chance to see the world from a new perspective.

"Come on, daddy! Hurry up!" His laughter echoes over the hills.

Every night it's a new game. Last night was tag. Tonight they're catching robbers.

"They're getting away, daddy!"

The boy's small body vanishes into the tall grass. He frantically hurries through the fields, looking down, scanning everywhere for movement but sees nothing. The grass blades sway as the wind picks up, carrying a spring scent that's so fresh and so vibrant that this has to be real. It's real, he tells himself. I'm awake now. Like a bad dream, but I am awake.

There is no spaceship, and he's stupid for ever thinking otherwise. He laughs at himself in hindsight now. To think that a few nights ago he just spent hours here, sharing his dreams of space to his son -- well, some of them. He tells the boy about all the people he had met in his dream: People with cat ears and a girl who uses feline puns, princesses and kings and lords and ladies, and people he knew who had been to a town called Silent Hill. He did not talk about Silent Hill very much to his son. Couldn't bring himself to recount the things he'd seen, the things he had done there. But he can't forget about them, either. The boy who thought he was a soldier. The girl who was kind of a god. The woman he later fell in love with. God forbid he ever tell his son about how he had feelings for a woman who wasn't his mother, even if it was a dream...

As much as he is glad that it's over, he misses them. All of them. Maybe when he sleeps later he can dream about them again, as he does every other night. Maybe he'll have something more that he can share with his son, who always sits at the tree. Even when he doesn't understand entirely what his dad is saying, he never gets bored.

Suddenly, the boy emerges from the grass beneath his feet, his hands pressed together like he's carrying a gun: "Bang bang!"

"You're not supposed to shoot me, Charlie!" But when the boy just stares at him, he hesitates, then swings his hand over his heart. "Friendly fire!"

He lands on his back, and the grass softens the fall.

art by wolfgibbson @ tumblr

In the waking world, a single word murmured from a man's tired voice: "Charlie..."

Murphy had been sleeping in a lot lately. Twelve hours had gone by each night for the past week, fading into morning. Some days it seemed that the only reason he ever woke up anymore was so that he could just go back to bed again, and today was no different.

Edited 2013-08-13 02:26 (UTC)

As for Anne, she's noticed. Obviously. She's noticed the ungodly amount of sleeping he's been doing lately, noticed that he seems more interested in going to bed than actually living. But she hasn't said anything. Rather, she's kept herself busy. Instead of confronting him or worrying she's been pulling extra Security shifts, covering for people who need it. Sometimes even convincing people to take a shift off so she can work more, so she can fill the time she'd normally be spending with him with work.

Not all of her time, of course. She's still found time to chat with Firo, to grab a drink with her fellow SEC officers. But being the enormous social butterfly she is, there's only so much time she can kill with people rather than work. But it's easier than trying to go to bed as early as he does. She's not even sure she can manage it. And then of course there are plenty of things she'd rather be doing with him in the evenings than sleeping and she'd rather have something to take her mind off of that.

And so today when she comes home from an extra shift that she left for roughly around the time Murphy went to sleep, she finds him in bed. Of course.

With a shake of her head, she hangs her utility belt on the back of a chair, kicks off her shoes, and sits on the edge of the bed with a long, exhausted sigh. It's nice to see Murphy sleeping so peacefully, but it does make her worry. Especially because the last time she routinely slept twelve hours a night, it was just after Frank's death. For several minutes she just sits and watches him sleep. She considers waking him up. But then he says his son's name and she just stops. She's worried all over again.

Instead of waking him she just gets in bed with him, still in her jeans. Not intending to sleep, just crawling under the covers and wiggling close to him between the sheets. She finds a place for her head under his chin and doesn't move.

Edited 2013-08-13 16:49 (UTC)

Murphy wakes easily. He always has been a light sleeper. Despite how long it's been, how well-rested he should be by now, not even a slight stir is enough.

When he wakes, he's not in a bed on a ship but still in the field, with Charlie standing over him and his hands held together like a gun. He's still here. Of course he is. Why would he be anywhere different? His eyes pry open as he stares at his son's face, half-expecting it to vanish somehow but it doesn't.

When it sinks in, he's relieved. Happy.

"C'mere, you." With a yank, he pulls Charlie down over the soft grass beside him. The boy yelps, then laughs when he hits the ground.

It's getting dark out. He can start to see the stars. Charlie has always liked watching the sky as it changed from day to night.

"Do we have to go, dad?" Charlie speaks, not tearing his fascinated gaze from the stars.

"Not yet, but soon. Remember the last time you stayed up so late you got sick?"

The boy giggles. "It was fun, though. Right, dad?"

"Yeah." It seems as if it's been so long since he's laughed, he almost forgot what it felt like. After a moment, he stops, breathing through his nose as he glances at Charlie's face out the corner of his eye, and then to the sky.

Still, there is nothing up there.

"I've missed you..." Murphy muttered as he shifted, his cheek pressed over the crown of Anne's head. Instinctively his arms went around her, pulling her close under the covers just like he always did.

Anne has no way of knowing, of course, that Murphy isn't talking to her. Or that he isn't really awake. He does shift to put his arms around her, and it feels good. Not that they don't go to sleep together like this every night, but he's been a little... absent. Not in body, but all this sleeping he's been doing has seriously diminished the waking time they've spent together. So it's good to hear, really. And she just scoots a bit closer.

"I've missed you too," she mutters softly into the warmth of his neck. Shifting a bit, she kisses him there, and the lack of reaction is all she needs to realize he's still asleep.

He seems so peaceful. He looks so content. But sleeping twelve hours a night is not normal for him, nor does it seem like he should be doing, in any case. She's worried. And so she puts aside her misgivings about waking him up and shifts to gently shake him by the shoulder.

"Murphy," she says, slightly less quietly. He's been sleeping all this time, after all. It's not like he'll still be tired when she wakes him. "Wake up."

Charlie grins at him then, though that hint of confusion on his expression is palpable. "What're you talking about? I've been here the whole time!" The boy then stops, propping himself up over the grass on his elbows. "Dad, is everything okay?"

For a moment, Murphy stares. Because there is a flash in Charlie's expression that makes the boy seem older. Much older. His heart jerks, skipping a beat. But then he smirks and shaking his head despite himself. His head tilts up at the sky. "Never mind, it's nothing."

Nothing you have to worry about.

Everything is just the way they need to be.

"What d'you say we head back? I'll make us some tacos."

Charlie's eyes lit up. "Yeah, tacos!"

They rose to their feet, Murphy feeling his joints pop a bit. When he goes to reach for Charlie's hand, he freezes. The boy's face is a shadow of sincerity over the childlike enthusiasm he expressed a second ago. But it's getting dark out, and with just the moon over their heads it's hard to say...

"Hey, dad, can I ask you something?"

Murphy frowns. "What is it?"

Charlie's shoulders drop; his eyes peel to the ground. Suddenly, it's quiet. "Am I--?"

What?

Are you what--?

Wake up.

It came like a tiny whisper to him, but it might have been a crack of thunder in his head. The disorienting shift of reality, from standing to laying back in bed again with a ceiling overhead instead of a night sky...

Instead of Charlie's hand, it was Anne who was beside him.

Shit, he didn't even remember...

"Mnuh..." His eyes shut tight, brows knitting together as the drowsy ache in his skull throbbed.

Was it time to get up already?

At least he's awake now, and that much is a relief. Scooting a little closer, she runs a hand over his forehead where his brows furrow, and momentarily she feels guilty for waking him. It fades quickly, however, that little flicker of guilt. He's been asleep the whole time she's been at work. That's more than long enough.

"Good morning," she says softly, watching him as he goes through the varying degrees of post-waking drowsiness. "Sorry for waking you. I just wanted to make sure you were okay."

Because it's not as though she thought he was dead or anything. But all this sleeping he's been doing lately has been giving her cause for concern. No one needs to sleep that much. It makes her worry it's been depression that's making him sleep and that's enough to resolve to herself not to let him go back to sleep until she's thoroughly checked up on him.

The transition was way more jarring than Murphy would have expected. It was like being yanked from one place to another, which confounded him for several seconds as he just stared at the woman with all the shock of discovering a complete stranger in his bed.

Then there was a stab in his check, and a guilt that he didn't have the heart to express. Because the two scenes which he has just witnessed feel as real as the other that he was ashamed to have forgotten the sound of Charlie's voice, or the feeling of waking up with Anne next to him...

"Yeah, I'm okay." His voice croaked. He blinked once, and realizing that his vision of Anne started to become blurry and his face hot, he shut his eyes tight. "I'm okay..."

You're not fooling anybody.

Anne can see that shock, and it's got a little stab of worry running through her chest. What the hell is that even about?

Somehow, waking up and checking on him has managed to make her even more worried about him than she was before. It was the opposite effect of what she'd been hoping for, and she swallows the lump of worry and just looks at him.

"Oh yeah?" she asks him, her tone of voice making it obvious just how little she's buying it. "I don't think so."

To give himself something like reassurance she moves a little closer to him, probably too close, and tries to forget the fact that he looked confused that she was in his bed at all. Then, she just looks at him, stares for a very long time.

"I don't think you are. You've been sleeping twelve hours a night. And that's all you've been doing." Not spending time with her, not being social. Just sleeping. "Is something wrong? What is it you're not telling me?"

Twelve hours? Murphy stared back for a while, blinking through the haze that welled his eyes. Because twelve hours is a long time and he half-expected Anne to be joking.

But then it's Anne...

Rather than answering right away, Murphy broke eye contact by rolling on his back. He still had an arm wrapped around her, keeping her close as she moved in. But he needed to think. He swung his hand over his forehead, which throbbed as a result of oversleeping. By then it sure did start to feel like twelve hours, now that she had to go and mention it.

"There's nothin' wrong, Anne. I mean, not since the jump..." There was some truth to that, too. Nothing was wrong. He thought he was just sleeping better than ever.

It was the waking part that killed him. When he slept, he was happy to see his boy again. It had been so long since he could picture Charlie looking so alive and happy like that... When he woke, he was happy that Anne and the people he had met here weren't just products of a daydream.

What's so wrong with that?

Raising an eyebrow, Anne watches as he rolls onto his back. She's worried about him right now, which consequently leads to her analyzing his every move. She's come to learn that it's a good way to deal with him; he won't always actually tell her when something is going on. Quite a lot of the time, she just has to watch. Murphy is a complicated person, but his body language isn't complicated, just like anyone else.

She's not sure what to make of this, though.

"You can say that all you like, but when someone's sleeping that much, they've either got jet lag-- and I think you're over any jet lag from coming here you might have had-- or there's something up." Her voice is firm, characteristically firm. And she gets up on one elbow, looks him in the face. There's nothing really harsh about her expression, but it's clear she means business.

"What are you not telling me?"

It was then that Murphy felt a little cornered to the wall that he sat up as well. He glanced to Anne, sure enough that nothing he could tell her would convince her otherwise.

Honestly, it pissed him off. Whether it was the fact that Anne didn't believe him or the headache pounding in his skull, he didn't know. But it didn't give him an easy temper to contend with when she was talking to him that way.

"There isn't, dammit. Maybe I've just been catchin' up on some sleep lately -- which all things considered, doesn't happen very often. There a problem with that?" Murphy snapped his mouth shut and looked away again, not realizing the genuine frustration that flashed in his visage when he quipped at Anne like that. Both hands came to his face, tending to the tension that made the light hurt his eyes.

Jesus. Calm down, man. You're just agitated because of the headache, that's all. Groggy.

Honestly, Anne isn't expecting that. Maybe it's because she thought the question was harmless enough, or because she's usually on such good terms with him that she actually forgets about that monster of a temper they both share. But it catches her off guard, enough that she doesn't respond with a quick snap back or yell like she normally would; instead, she just looks surprised and wounded, stares at him for a moment, and then rolls away from him.

"I'm just worried about you," she mutters, hurt as well as irritation evident in her tone. "You didn't have to take my head off. If you'd rather I can give you plenty of opportunities to catch up on your sleep in the future. I'm sure we can find a couch somewhere." Right about now, she's wishing she'd just not bothered waking him in the first place. Some bright idea that was, Cunningham.

And then, her shoulders just slump as the brief moment of irritation leaves her and she just feels sad. "I'm sorry," she says, and means it. "I just... I don't know. The last time I slept like that, it was..." After what happened to Frank. She doesn't want to finish. Instead she just shakes her head and unconsciously curls in on herself a little. "I wanted to make sure you were okay."

Murphy bit down while he was ahead, afraid that he might say something else that he'll only regret later. Finally, he let his hands slip from his face, wiping away some stray tears that had followed his awakening. His chest hurt more than his head, and he was torn as to why. He should be happy, but somehow waking up and going to sleep just hurt more.

At first he wasn't going to say anything, until he looked down at Anne withdrawing. Murphy had forgotten how exhausting anger was, and how he wasn't the only one who let it wore them down. He saw the chips around her rough edges start to come off and it pained him to see that he was a part of that.

Still silent, he lowered himself back down beside her as she apologized, returning the closeness that she had pushed away. Reluctantly, he drew his arm over her shoulder, reaching for her hand while pulling her close to his chest.

Eventually he turned to her ear, murmuring into it: "I'm sorry, too." His voice cracked. "I'm really..."

I should be happy, he kept telling himself. Here it felt like he had the best of both worlds.

Then why did he feel so sad? Because he was still remembering his son's laughter and thinking of Anne's smile, and he felt torn between the two memories and didn't want to lose either.

At first, Anne almost just lets go completely and weeps when he comes close, when he puts his arm around her and takes her hand. But instead she holds it together and pushes closer, feeling her back mold against the plane of his front and slowly, she relaxes.

It's good to hear him say he's sorry, good to know that it was just a momentary snap of temper and that he's not actually angry with her, that it's something else. But at the same time whatever that something else is, she's not going to be able to get it out of him easily. Turning her head so she can kiss his cheek, she whispers another apology. But the way his voice broke... that's got her worried all over again. Because there is something wrong.

"Murphy..." she whispers, rolling over to face him so she can cup his cheeks in her hands. "I'm sorry. I just..." she doesn't know what to say. "I love you. Talk to me. Tell me what's going on. Or don't. If you don't want to talk, we can just lie here like this. It's okay." And a pause, and then: "I'm sorry I got on your case so much before. Just... let me be here for you, okay?"

The warmth of Anne's voice and her apologies send jolts in Murphy's heart, feeling a lot like regret. Regret and relief. He wished he hadn't snapped at her, but he was also grateful that she didn't resent him for it.

No matter how hard he tried, no words were coming out. But with Anne so close, he really didn't give a shit. He just pushed his lips against hers as she rolled over to face him, and focused on not falling apart into sobs between kisses.

After awhile he was able to pull away, a whisper shuddering in his breath as he shut his eyes again: "He looked so happy..."

Charlie, playing games and running around like nothing had ever happened. Murphy clenched his teeth, feeling that any more words would just fall apart into incoherent babble and he might as well just let those four words sink in.

It's a relief, after worrying and then after their brief fizzle of tension to feel him kiss her, and she returns the gesture warmly, hands moving from his cheeks to his hair. She feels that she can give him her own small, insignificant brand of solace while they're kissing and she just keeps giving him the small gestures of affection until he pulls away to whisper.

Something about the way he says that makes her breath catch in her throat, and she watches him curiously for a moment before it sinks in. Charlie. It was the word he uttered when she came in, before she woke him. And all at once the significance of that name along with the sentence he just uttered crashes in.

"Your son..." she says softly, and it makes sense now. He was dreaming about him. A pleasant dream, it seems. Which makes her wonder even more what this current dilemma seems to be about. All she can do is listen. She wishes she could help. But as he said before, listening is enough.

She just wishes it felt like enough.

Feeling her silent consent for moving in when he did gave Murphy confidence, kissing her for a while longer. But afterwards when he needed to breathe, all he could do was watch as scenes rolled like a sad movie on the back of his lids.

He choked, giving a slight nod in answer to Anne's question.

"Almost forgot... what it sounded like. His voice. When he was happy."

Come on, daddy! Hurry up! he could still hear on the back of his mind, Charlie's footsteps echoing into a memory.

Anne is happy to kiss him back for as long as they can both maintain without needing air, just melting into the closeness between them and hoping that somehow this will soothe him somewhat.

"Oh..." she says, voice heavy with emotion, and one hand smooths his hair gently, shaking a bit as it does so. For the moment she really isn't sure what to say, knows there's not much she can say to that that will do anything to help. It's that constant state of human helplessness, of knowing words are useless.

Instead of words at first she pushes their foreheads together, giving him closeness and warmth. "...Murphy..." there's not much to say, really, even if she wanted to. It's all too terrible. "That's why you've been sleeping so much? So you can see him that way..."

Oh god. Dammit. And you thought it was a good idea to wake him.

Seeing the waves of sympathy (and guilt?) reflect in Anne's eyes, Murphy shook his head. Briefly he looked at her, his own eyes red and welling.

"I... I don't know. Honestly I had no idea I was asleep for very long." It didn't feel very long. He felt tired instead, like all he wanted was to close his eyes and sleep the pain away and maybe, just maybe, he'd get to see Charlie again.

To reach out through the impossible reality and grasp his son's hand as they walk home, talking about cars and things.

Then Murphy's own guilt weighed in, realizing what this must look like to Anne. Realizing what this must be doing to her as well.

"I know this probably looks bad..." But then what? Murphy didn't know what else to say. That it was unhealthy? That he'll stop? As if he knew how to do that even if he wanted...

He didn't want to. It looks bad, but he didn't want it to stop.

"You were. All week, you haven't been doing anything but sleeping. Sometimes I worry if you didn't have to work you'd just sleep 24/7 and end up in a coma," yes, she worries too much. But there's nothing that can be done about that. So she doesn't even acknowledge that. Instead she puts her free hand to the small of his back and rubs her fingertips in tiny circles, hoping to soothe some of his tension.

"I love you," she says softly before she really responds to that at all. Partially because she doesn't know if she has the energy left to worry even more about what all of this means. She's not insecure about their relationship anymore, not by a long shot. But that doesn't mean when she's already worried about him she's not going to by transition worry about everything else she could possibly worry about.

"Yes, it looks bad," she confesses, fingers pausing momentarily before they go back to massaging him, and her lips fall to his cheek, then her forehead meets his once more. "It worries me. And it's not just that I've been missing you. Because I have. It's that I'm worried you're going to end up forgetting about life."

She knows what it is to get caught up in dreams about what it used to be, but she also knows that isn't life. Dreams can never be life.

"Oh."

The coma problem might not be so much a stretch, now that Murphy thought about it. People didn't wake up from stasis like that one time, so who was to say that this wouldn't be a continous issue this time?

Murphy wasn't very eloquent on the subject. He wasn't very eloquent at all. He just stared at the back of his eyelids for a while, seeing Charlie in his head but hearing Anne's voice in his ears.

Neither was so bad, was it? If he could somehow juggle between the two...

"Sometimes, I'd like to forget." He opened his eyes to look at Anne's. "You... haven't ever felt the same way sometimes, whenever you wake up? That your dreams make more sense than wakin' up to remember, 'Hey, I'm on a spaceship' every day?"

Because there are days where Murphy still felt like he was losing his mind, or he lost it already.

She doesn't mind him just being quiet for a while. She just holds him close, closes her eyes and breathes with him. She's used to him not being eloquent, and even if she wasn't it wouldn't be something she'd be inclined to hold against him. And then, she just listens. When he talks, she listens, and she swallows and tries not to snap at him.

"No, I haven't," she tells him, very plainly and very calmly. "Maybe it's because my dreams don't tend to make a lot of sense, or maybe it's just because I've accepted this place for what it is. But what I do know is that nothing else could make more sense than being with you." A pause, and she sighs, shuts her eyes, and just lies still momentarily before she says anything else. "Whatever you think about all this, even though it seems like a good thing, it isn't. Dreams won't ever be reality, and getting caught up in them so much that they mean more to you than your actual life isn't healthy. At all." Her tone is vaguely naggy when she adds that last part, just further proof that she's worried about him.

Hearing Anne's reply, a pit sunk to the bottom of Murphy's stomach. It made one wonder about what that said about him, who had been content to live in his own fake reality even if it was only for a brief period.

But the problem was that it wasn't becoming so brief anymore, and it was only a matter of time before he lost touch with certain things. Anne, Heather, Alex -- the ship. Everything.

Murphy watched her, stroking her bangs from her face as she shut her eyes. A gesture that he felt safe to do long after their many moments of intimacy together. He just needed to feel something real again.

He fell silent for awhile, his mind racing for an answer that wouldn't just sound like meaningless bullshit.

"I know it's not, but I just... wanted to pretend. For a little while. Like nothin' bad ever really happened. Just for a little while..." As he repeated himself, his words dropped into a quiet sense of desperation.

A soft hum escapes her lips when he brushes her bangs back, and she closes her eyes just momentarily, her fingertips still massaging his back. She feels like he needs it now more than before, now that the conversation is starting to stray into territory that's not going to be easy for him.

"I know," she tells him softly, shaking her head and leaning in to press a kiss to his lips. "I know. But pretending's not going to help, even if it's nice. You can't just forget things happened. The best we can do is get past them. And we can do that. You can do that." She figures if she sounds sure, then maybe Murphy will be able to grasp it, be able to believe it. Be able to accept the reality of it. "I know it's hard, but you've already come pretty damn far from how you were when we met. You've already done so much." Letting one hand creep upward, she runs her fingers through his hair.

"Don't forget about all that. You're worth more than that. You're worth too much to just forget about everything."

It really wasn't easy for him, but Murphy appreciated the gesture nevertheless. Anne's presence was more than just a consoling one. It was something he needed to ground him. His head spun and his feet felt like they were falling, even though the rest of him didn't move.

His eyes shut tight. Christ, felt like blood coursing through his brain...

Then she kissed him. And he relaxed a little.

A bumbling "I know" was all he could say at first. Because he did -- know. It was the getting past part that Anne mentioned that he had so much trouble with.

"It's just... hard. Sometimes. Some more than others. When you wake up and remember what's gone. And you'll never, ever get it back. Feels like the whole goddamn universe just wants to remind me."

Be it prison, Silent Hill, or the fucking Tranquility...

Anne gives him a squeeze, and when she feels him relax at her kiss she is somewhat relieved, though she still understands the weight of the unhappiness that's probably crushing down on him. And she is glad he knows, though she realizes that knowing has little to do it and it's the force of will to actually make the change that's the hard part. In some ways, they're very alike.

"I know," it's her turn to say it. "I know." For several moments, she doesn't say a word. "I know what you mean, and I know exactly how it feels. I understand completely. You know I do. But even if I understand I can't just let you drown in it. I'm sorry. But I'm not willing to stop pushing." A beat, and she squeezes her eyes shut too and just leans in closer, gives him more warmth. "I love you too much for that."

☁ [room 006 » 073 action spam]

[forward dated to 08/15 ~ closed to anne cunningham]

Re: [forward dated to 08/15 ~ closed to anne cunningham]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject