ArchivedLogs:Cura te ipsum

Cura te ipsum
Warning: Horrible Brain Pain D:
Dramatis Personae Murphy, Lucien	2013-07-02 D: D: D:
Location <NYC> Tessier Residence - Greenwich Village
Understated opulence claims this spacious and well-kept townhome, the decor throughout the whole of it of the highest quality and carefully chosen. The front door opens onto the entrance hall, a closet close at hand to receive coats and shoes -- the pale hardwood floors gleam underfoot, unsullied by tracked-in mess from outside. The living room beyond the entrance is all dark woods and pale earth tones, comfortable couches and armchairs and a thick soft rug laid down beneath. Two large and painstakingly aquascaped aquariums flank the entrance to the dining room, with several brightly coloured species of fish within. Most of the rest of the wall space, notably, is taken up with shelves -- shelves crammed with books of every subject and genre. A study branching off of the main hall is cozy, small, done in pale blues and lined with books as well around the large computer desk and smaller futon, though these rarer books are cased behind glass. Another securely locked door leads to the basement, and another to the full bathroom downstairs. The kitchen connects to the living room; in contrast, it is sleek and modern and well-appointed, stocked by someone who takes their cooking seriously. And takes their alcohol equally seriously -- to one side of the kitchen there is a fully-stocked bar. The back door to the kitchen looks out on a small well-kept garden. Whump, whump, whump -- those are the sounds of heavy boots on the steps leading up to Lucien's home. It's also the sound of Murphy's fist -- a steady rapping against the door. Even when /knocking/, Murphy manages to sound grim; like the sort of knock you'd expect a man bearing bad news to use. Except all Murphy's bearing today is a two-bit radio and a lot of /glower/. Murphy's dressed in his thick black overcoat (because FUCK YOU, heatwave), a sharp black suit, white shirt, black tie -- and a glare that could make daffodils wilt at thirty paces. He's got a cigarette cradled between his lips, but it isn't lit; not yet, anyway. It takes a good while before the door opens. Lucien is more summery; his suit is lightweight, pale dove-grey slacks and dove-grey vest, white shirt; his tie is deep red, though it is currently untied. He opens the door, standing in the gap created and looking out at Murphy with a rather bland expression. Green eyes flick up over his face, down over his suit. Return to look at that glare with steady neutrality. No greeting. Just -- watching, with eyebrows slightly raised and his hand still on the doorknob. "Yeah," Murphy tells Lucien once he opens the door, "I wouldn't wanna talk to me either." He's already reaching into his black coat, fishing. Reaching. What he pulls out /isn't/ a lighter for that cigarette; instead, it's a small, suped up two-way radio. With tape on the back and a frequency scrawled there. He holds it out to Lucien, before adding: "This is for you. Your ladyfriend's got the other one. 9 to 10 pm, she'll be listening. S'party channel, so watch what you say -- but talk to her. She's hurting, and there ain't a lot of people she can talk to about it." Then, a little slower: "Can we talk? Inside." Lucien reaches for the hand Murphy extends -- not the radio, though. He reaches for Murphy's wrist instead, though -- with no immediately apparent purpose past closing his fingers around it. Turning his hand over to /look/ at that radio. "You know, it is generally more polite to call before stalking people to their homes." Murphy's wrist is gripped; an eyebrow shoots up as Lucien turns his hand over and inspects the radio. No sooner is contact made than does Lucien feel that familiar thrumming, that constant, harsh /screech/ of pain -- no where /near/ as bad as it was over a month ago, but having slowly built its way back up -- spreading yet again, like the inevitable drip of calcifying stalagmites. But no sooner has contact been made then is Murphy gently tugging back -- not enough to break contact with Lucien, but enough to indicate some form of reluctance -- reluctance he's immediately voicing: "Hey. Don't -- fix it. Or fuck with it. My head, I mean," he quickly adds. "I mean, I don't know if you were gonna, but... if you were. Don't. Not right now." Murphy's eyebrow twitches, before he adds, slightly amused: "Do I strike you as /polite/?" "Why not now?" comes in idle curiosity. Lucien's fingers tighten when Murphy tugs, not hard exactly but firm. "I had no intention," he says in the same quiet murmur, "of fixing you." With the words comes an accenting of that pain. Sharper, louder; it doesn't stay confined to Murphy's head, either, stretching out sharp burning fingers to curl through his body, flaring harsh to sear pathways along Murphy's nerves. His expression doesn't change, neutral-quiet, brilliant green eyes focused on Murphy's. "No," he allows, "not really. But manners are sometimes a useful fiction, for all that they are -- a fiction." "Ah--" And then Murphy's glare flickers into something else -- an expression that doesn't move to his mouth, but certainly moves to his eyes -- one that is exceptionally rare for him: Fear. There are many types of pain; Murphy's acquainted with almost all of them. Compared to the pain in his head, most of them are trivial; if anything, other types of pain give him /focus/. But the pain in his head is special. Feeling it actually slacken its grip for the first time was near-euphoric; feeling it actually /tighten/ its grip -- in a way that is forced, and at the beckoning of another -- feeling it /spread/ past the boundaries of his head -- is unspeakable. "Ohfuck," Murphy just mumbles, quiet and horrified, knees shaking; he /yanks/ his hand, trying to wretch it away with sudden violence; the radio released. Unless Lucien catches it, it's dropping to the ground. "/No/." If he can't get his arm free, his other hand launches upward, /swinging/ straight at Lucien's chiseled, pretty jaw. The radio drops. Lucien's hand doesn't. It doesn't even tighten all that much, but then, it doesn't /need/ to; the muscles in that arm simply cease to properly /function/ at that first impulse to yank away. The pain calcifies further, /clarifies/ further, at those feelings of fear. With his mind attuned to Murphy's -- with the /speed/ at which he froze Murphy's arm when it tried to pull away -- it's likely enough that halting that punch is a possibility, too. Perhaps. Perhaps not, because Lucien does nothing to stop it; his head turns just slightly with it but it connects, hard. The sting of pain at the crack of knuckles to his jaw can be /felt/ -- an echo of pain that flickers through /Murphy's/ jaw, as well, in a shared transmission of sensation with Lucien's initial startlement. The breath that he hisses out is decidedly pained but there's also a sharp hiss of laughter there, too, forced between clenched teeth as he stumbles back into his hall. With his fingers clenching, now, against Murphy's wrist, possibly Murphy is pulled along; possibly Lucien's stumbling is just halted. The pain doesn't halt, tightening its sharp grip on Murphy's mind. "No," he echoes this word through his teeth, but it sounds somewhat /amused/ for all that, "I suppose you have little use for them." "/No/," Murphy just repeats, voice cracking; the force of the punch contacting Lucien's jaw is transmitted, but Murphy scarcely feels it -- and another punch doesn't come. Because after the first swing, Murphy doesn't have anything left in him -- his knees buckle as he drops to the ground, only Lucien's grip on his wrist stopping him from curling up into a ball. The radio's casing makes a sharp, painful *CRACK* as it hits concrete; the back pops open, batteries spilling out and rattling down the stairs. Murphy is /whimpering/, on the ground, as the pain and fear mount: "Pleaseno. Notthis. Anythingbut--no. Please," he groans, voice choked. "J-just. Kill me. Stop--" The words become unintelligible; he's moaning, sobbing, robbed of anything even /resembling/ strength. A sharp breath huffs out through Lucien's nose. He /tugs/ at Murphy's hand, with little respect for his sharp suit, just trying to pull him in from the doorway into the hall proper. The pain ebbs off to its natural levels, though Lucien's hand doesn't move. His eyes stay on Murphy's face, a brief thin press of his lips pulling his mouth into a thin line. Then evening out again. "I could," he says, quiet and mild and almost like an /offer/. It's probably a hard slog; Murphy's body isn't really working /with/ Lucien at this point. Not until the pain starts to ebb; then, suddenly, he's crawling, gasping -- lurching like a flopping fish into the hall. When the pain finally dims, there's no sign of hurt pride or injured dignity -- there's no dignity left /to/ hurt. Just heaving, wet gasps -- a low throatish whimper -- and a collapse, on his back, somewhere at Lucien's feet. After the offer, Murphy's quiet for a good three or four seconds -- just wheezing for breath, eyes wet, face red. He's got the expression of an ordinary teenager who just got dumped for the first time -- end of the world. When he finally manages to throttle his look back to something resembling a scowl -- pained and flustered -- he chokes back a groan, and responds, with a hoarse whisper: "Let go of my hand." Lucien does so, at that whisper, releasing Murphy and stepping back further into the hall. There's a longer moment where he still just looks down at him, blank and bland. But then steps over Murphy to close the door. "Next time," he says, quietly, "you should call first." When Lucien releases Murphy's hand, it drops limp; he just lays there -- showing no sign of getting back up. Even when Lucien closes the door -- he probably has to nudge Murphy's foot aside to make room for it. Once it clicks closed, Murphy draws in a ragged breath, and... "You wanna know something funny?" Murphy says, voice soft, just above a whisper -- but with a harsh, bitter edge of grim humor hiding beneath it. "I'm not even pissed at you. You're probably so fucked up that you think this is alright. I'm fucked in the head, yeah," and only /now/ does he show signs of getting up, slow but sure -- the extra pain is gone, but the /memory/ of it persists, and somehow, that's a whole new agony of its own, a layer he can never escape. "--but at least I know what fucked up /looks/ like. You, you're just--" He stares at Lucien a moment. Before taking a slow breath, and: "Next time," Murphy says, "mother-fucker there won't /be/ a next time. You touch me again, you'd better kill me." A muscle tightens in Lucien's cheek, one quick twitch-jump as his fingers curl harder against the doorknob. He exhales quick and sharp as he turns back to face Murphy. "That will not be difficult." He lifts a hand, tugging his untied tie out from where it runs under his collar. "I do not think it is possible to live in this city and not know what fucked up looks like. We swim in it every day." The backs of his knuckles press to his jaw, where Murphy hit it, mottled red and puffing with the beginnings of a very nasty bruise. "Then again, I suppose the fish have a rather different perspective than we do on what the ocean looks like." "No. Killing's not hard, not when you get the hang of it." Murphy's /slinging/ up to his feet; a dull, clumsy sort of wobble. A hand reaches out for something -- furniture? Anything -- to keep his balance. "I came here because the shadow-woman wanted me to tell you /she's/ dangerous. But fuck that; all she did was kill a man who tortured her children. Now she's alone and scared and trying to turn herself in because she figures that's the only way to make it right. /She/ knows she's fucked up. /She/ ain't dangerous. But you," Murphy repeats, tentatively relinquishing his grip on a nearby wall; he manages to teeter a moment, before regaining his stance. Fists clenched. "You're /poison/." There are things to hold onto -- the wall, a long wooden table against it. Lucien's eyes drop to Murphy's clenched fists; in counterpoint he actually relaxes, when he sees them, exhaling a soft breath as his hand falls to his side. "{I came with an antivenom,}" is French, tired but with an odd note of amusement twisted jaggedly through it. He moves away from the door, a step closer to Murphy, but then stops. His hand drops to rest atop the polished table surface, fingers steepled against it. "Is that all you came to tell me?" It takes Murphy a moment to parse the French. But parse it he does; his hands reach out, then; one to shove himself off the same polished table Lucien touches -- the next to grab the wall this leads him to stumble toward. His steps are becoming more clear and rigid -- by the time he's pushing off the wall, he's walking with scarcely a wobble. Toward the doorway. Notably, very /slow/ -- a wide circle that edges around Lucien. "No. Was gonna talk to you," Murphy says, warily, "about her. About helping her. Avoid prison. But I think," step, step, /careful/ step, "it'd be better. If I just told you. That if you /ever/ do something like this to her. If you ever /poison/ her like this --" There's a pause; a breath. The next bit is in Latin, abruptly sharp: "{Physician, heal thyself.}" "If I ever -- you will --?" Lucien doesn't move towards Murphy at all, though his eyes track the other man's movement around him. His fingers press down harder, weight leaning slightly against his arm. "The problem with rot is that it does tend to spread." His jaw tenses again, and then works slowly, a slight wince on his face as it moves. He lapses back into quiet, looking from Murphy to the door. "End you." If it's meant to frighten Lucien, Murphy speaks the threat with surprisingly little hostility; if anything, he sounds /exhausted/ -- as if he finds the very prospect emotionally draining. "I don't want -- enough people are dead, Tessier. And it ain't like I'm some sort of fucking saint over here." He's now by the door; his posture relaxes as he steps back against the frame, hand reaching for the knob. His other hand has shifted; it's now in his coat. "But I know rot when I see it. And you're rotting. If you spread it to others -- you're a dangerous mother-fucker, Lucien. But that's only because it's so goddamn /easy/ for you." Lucien's eyes shift to Murphy's coat, watching that hand. Not warily. Not anything except with bland dispassionate cataloguing. "Would it be difficult for you?" he asks, soft and curious and -- perhaps with the slightest note of hope. His weight presses down heavier still against his arm, muscles in it flexing into hard definition. "Easy for me. It --" He stops, jaw tightening again and his eyes closing slowly. There's a slight tightness to his voice when he continues, a little stiffer than its previous soft-gentle nothingness. "Should it. Be otherwise?" The knob turns under Murphy's palm. Moving to test it; to see if it's locked. And to otherwise open it. "Hard?" he says, and there's a breathy, wheezy sort of laugh there. "I don't even know what that means. I wouldn't /like/ killing you. Fuck, I," and there's a pause there, a brief contraction of his voice, a flicker of weakness. "--feel sorry for you. I don't even mean that shit as an insult. You're -- whatever the fuck is wrong with you. I wish I could -- just fix it. Help you. You helped /me/. But I ain't got your problem, and I sure as hell ain't got your trick. Fact of the matter is, only trick /I/ got is a real shitty one, and I'd rather you not get to see it." The question gets Murphy's eyes to narrow; brows crunch together. "I don't know how it /should/ be. But I know how it is. You probably ain't ever /had/ it easy, but you've probably always /done/ it easy. Haven't you?" The door is not locked, just closed. The knob turns. Lucien's jaw tightens further, and a brief quiet hiss of breath is expelled through his teeth when Murphy says he feels sorry for him. His eyes pull away, skating over the opulent house around them. "Do I look like I have it /rough/?" He starts to straighten, to push off the heavy lean against his arm, but then just stays. His fingers curl inward, weight balanced on knuckles rather than fingertips. "I have always done," he says, slow and level, "what I needed to do. I imagine you are not unfamiliar with that." "Yeah," Murphy responds -- his own tone muted, soft -- a hint of sadness -- his eyes on Lucien's face. "You really fuckin' do." When the door is opened, Murphy steps around it -- slow, steady. At no point is his back to Lucien. No sign of the weakness he showed earlier; his footsteps are now certain and steady. Hand still in his coat. "Maybe. Except right now, you don't look like the sort who's getting what he needs." Murphy takes in a breath -- a step back -- and relaxes even more deeply -- now that he's got open space behind him. The hand in his coat slips downward, slightly. "You asked me," Murphy adds, "why I didn't want you to fix the pain. Was gonna tell you, it's cuz sometimes I want it to hurt. Sometimes, I /need/ it to hurt. That's maybe the one good thing it gave me: It taught me not to run away from pain." Another breath, and: "Good luck." He takes several steps back -- away. Unless stopped, once there's enough distance between him and Lucien -- he'll turn and walk out. Feet briefly scuffing the dropped, cracked radio on his way out -- frequency still neatly printed on the back. Lucien makes no move to stop Murphy. He makes no move at all, really, just breathing slow and a little ragged through his teeth. His eyes shift away, fixing on the wall for a moment; it is only once Murphy has headed out that Lucien pushes himself upright, and moves to close the door behind him, the locks sliding into place a moment later.