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Murphy starts watching Jasper the day some idiot drops a log on his foot. Not a small log either, otherwise it wouldn’t have taken two of them to move it. It was basically the small trunk of a tree, heavy, solid and the edge of it slammed down on his foot protected only by the worn out sneakers he’d been disseminated at the supply station on the Ark.
It had caned and he’d let out a yelp, multiple people had to be brought over to get the log off of him and Murphy had told him to go to Clarke and get it checked out. But the pain was fading under adrenaline, becoming a dull throb he could carry on with and he was loath to do something Murphy had told him to.
He had tried to murder him not that long ago.
Jasper had carried on with his day on a foot that grew more and more painful. Then slowly; more and more numb. He didn’t pay it any mind, even celebrated as it became less painful. And all the while Murphy’s eyes were burning into his back.
That night he went to bed only mildly concerned. His foot was understandably swollen around a small scrape of dried bloody skin, but not entirely as bruised as he thought it should be. Rather, the skin was a pale red. But went to sleep all the same thinking it just needed a few days to recover.
Burning throbs woke him in the night that radiated up his leg from his foot. His body hot and sweating yet shivering like he was freezing. The pain was indescribable when he dragged his foot from the bed and tried to set it on the ground to stand and he cursed himself.
Murphy had been right, his mind traitorously thought, he should have gone to Clarke.
Luckily, her tent wasn’t so far away that he’d feel bad for calling out to her.
“Clarke! Clarke help!”
He heard movement immediately.
#
Murphy had kept her up all night. He wouldn’t explain why he was doing it either and she suspected he was just terrorising her for his own amusement. Nobody was sure he ever slept, always seeming to be busy doing something at all hours of the day and night. Maybe he was just bored of being awake alone at night and wanted company. Clarke couldn’t scare him off so she’d accepted her fate for the night and she’d roped him into a game of metaphorical I Spy that he was winning by a large margin.
It was close to early morning by the time he stood to attention from his place leaning casually against a table they’d made recently. Head canted towards whatever sound he’d heard. Had he been waiting for something? Someone? Had this all been a plot to lure her into a false sense of security then drag her off into the woods and murder her?
She wouldn’t put it past him, she had played a major role in his own hanging and she’d yet to feel the pains of retribution she’d been assured was coming her way at some point.
“Clarke!”
Jasper? That’s what he’d been waiting for?
“Clarke help!”
He was moving to the flaps of her tent before the call for help had even sounded in the air. She jumped up and hurried out after him. He was heading for Jasper’s tent, pace quick, no time to waste waiting on her to catch up.
She did when he was barging into Jasper’s tent and scaring the shit out of him.
#
Mere seconds after he’d called out Murphy shoved his way into his tent and Jasper got a sudden and overwhelming feeling of terror encompass him. He’d been waiting, there was no other way for him to have been so fast in getting to him. He was going to be smothered and his body buried in an unmarked grave if Murphy even gave him that instead of throwing his body in the forest far enough away to not be stumbled upon at random and leave him to be devoured by animals.
“Murphy!”
The relief that flooded his body was like that first sip of water after going without for days under the scorching desert sun after a timeless wandering through the bone dry depths of it. Clarke was here. There was a witness.
“You didn’t go to Clarke.” He said, and Jasper could imagine the expression on his face, eyebrow raised, wordlessly asking ‘why the fuck not?’. Jasper thought that was a bit strange, why would Clarke go to herself?
His hand, cold, turned his head towards him instead. Murphy rolled his eyes at whatever he saw and dropped him.
“What happened to him?” Clarke asked.
“James crushed his foot with a tree earlier.”
Clarke entered the tent and moved to crouch at his feet, trying to see in the pre-dawn dark. She prodded it and Jasper flinched, teeth gritting. She drew her finger back with a disgusted look at it. It had come back wet and the smell that arose was something truly foul, like old cheese, eggs and hot garbage.
She wiped the fluid on the threadbare bedding and looked up to Murphy to tell him to help him up only to find him a step ahead of her. She got to her feet and supported Jasper from his other side and they half carried, half dragged him to the medical area where she could actually see what was going on with him once they’d laid him out on the patient table.
He’d been quite the entire trip except when his foot would knock against the ground and he would draw in a sharp breath and let it escape in a strangled groan.
Clarke turned on the lights to the sleepy protests of many of the hundred who only rolled over and went back to sleep. She went to the end of the table where his foot lay and grimaced at the sight. It was twice the size of his right, unevenly puffy with swelling and blisters, one of which was popped and weeping its pus over his skin. The smell was overpowering this close and her eyes watered with it as she swallowed back vomit. Under the skin and covering half his foot was a deep purple red discolouration.
She had an idea of what this was.
Broken for one thing, she thought, and infected for sure. She didn’t think they had the antibiotics for something like this.
“Are you going to treat it or stand there and look at it like it’ll magically disappear on its own?” Murphy said in his deadpan tone. She shot him a glare and looked back down at the foot feeling very much out of her depth.
“I don’t think I can treat this. Especially if it is what I think it is.” She said.
“Well don’t keep us in suspense Clarke.”
She could smack Murphy for being such a callous asshole right now. Jasper, on the other hand, felt it oddly reassuring. Murphy wasn’t fazed by things until they were irreparably destroyed so it couldn’t be that bad.
“Gangrene. It’s not good. We can try to wait it out to make sure but…” She trailed off, maybe it was worse than Murphy’s blank face made it seem. He wasn’t going to look at Clarke though, if she was shaken it must be bad. He didn’t want to know. Murphy rolled his eyes at her.
“But what?”
She must have beckoned him away because he left Jasper’s sight and suddenly he was alone with his feverish brain the thought that this was turning out to be a much worse situation than he’d ever thought it could. He was scared, heart thumping under his skin, and fever addled. Barely sure of where he was.
Murphy was back, looking grim. It was bad.
“Jasper.” He was trying to get his attention, fingers clicking before his eyes, the sound almost syncing up but not quite. “Hey!”
There he was.
“We have to cut off your foot.” He said, and he sounded very reasonable. Jasper nodded and made a vague noise of assent, head swimming. But the words circled his brain as Clarke and Murphy wandered off again to get things prepared.
Cut his foot. We have his foot. But he has has his foot, like Clarke going to herself, it didn’t make such sense. Cut off. Cut off. Cut off. cUT OFF HIS FOOT!
“I need it.” He whined when Murphy walked back into view holding a triangular wedge in his hand. He was ignored. Warm hands pressed down on his leg, ensuring it would remain in place. The wedge was raised above Murphy’s head.
THWOCK
Jasper screamed, brain snapping into focus as his shin bones were snapped in two.
He couldn’t get away, the hands, more hands holding him down.
More people crowding, yelling, trying to pull Murphy away.
“Enough!” Bellamy roared onto the scene and everyone froze except Murphy who shoved the grabbing hands off of him and went to check if he’d gotten cleanly through both bones. He bent the leg sideways, a 90 degree angle eliciting another scream from Jasper and then calmly told Clarke:
“Ready to go.”
Jasper assumes Clarke nodded because Murphy walked a few steps away to a glowing orb he assumed came from a fire they’d set and reached for something.
“Murphy put it down.”
He didn’t and Bellamy marched up to him, wrenched the object from his hands, bodily shoved him away and turned to glare at Clarke.
“We need to talk.” He demanded, but Clarke’s hands didn’t leave his leg yet.
“Give him the axe Bellamy, we need to do this now.”
“He’ll live a couple more minutes.”
Jasper wasn’t so sure about that from the way he was feeling. Behind Bellamy, Murphy jerked his head the side, silently communicating to Clarke who sighed and let him go. He could hear her wipe her hands on her clothes.
“Fine, let’s go talk it out.” She said, clearly leaving as her voice felt further away and Bellamy was starting to follow. “But if he dies it’s on you.”
Bellamy takes the axe, the crowd parts for him and Murphy waits until the close ranks again to approach the fire and pull out another axe. There’s snickers from the crowd, a couple of them run off after Bellamy and Clarke, some are yelling in shock but nobody is fast enough to stop him.
Murphy steps up to his leg, axe parallel to the ground as he lines up his swing and Jasper can feel the heat radiating off of it even through his own fever and pain. It lifts above his head as if in slow motion though Jasper is sure it’s the alarm system going off in his head screaming at him to get the fuck away but he can’t move.
It’s gleaming white like the sun, distorting the air around it.
He thinks he’s going to die.
“Bet you’re happy now.” Jasper says, not even aware he’d said anything at all, only that Murphy has frozen. His eyes are trained on the axe but he sees the surprise in his eyes at the comment.
“What?” He asks, like he’s genuinely confused. Jasper was half convinced he might be.
“You finally get to kill me.” He pointed out and got the single most tired eye roll he’d ever seen come from Murphy’s face.
“Didn’t know you preferred a painful drawn out death to a short, relatively painless one. I’ll keep it in mind for next time.” He snarks back and now it was Jasper’s turn to be surprised. Had his murder attempt been an act of care rather than callous disregard for anyone else’s existence if it disturbed his? Had-
Scorching
Something’s sizzling.
Hand forcing his leg down, pressing the sun to his stump.
More hands and hands and hands holding, pressing, crushing.
Is someone screaming?
He’s screaming!
There’s that hand again, over his mouth this time, and he’s struggling. It’s bright. Everything hurts but his leg buzzes angrily and he remembers and shoves the hand away. Turns to the arm, the body the person it belongs to and points at him accusingly.
“YOU CUT OFF MY LEG!” It’s a half hysterical screech and Murphy doesn’t look in the least bit remorseful, sympathetic or anything remotely close to a compassionate emotion. Rather, he’s looking kind of annoyed. And it’s that that makes Jasper burst into tears, relieved tears, as Murphy rubs one of his ears like it’s paining him and tries to walk away, very quickly.
Jasper grabs his shirt and makes him stay. He doesn’t try very hard to tug away and Jasper’s grateful for that and wiping at his tears.
“I’m sorry I’m crying.” He sobs and Murphy shrugs.
“I did cut off your foot.”
And he did, so Jasper thinks it’s perfectly reasonable for him to cry all over Murphy without his complaining face making him feel bad for it. Saved by the Bellamy though, Murphy is quickly banished from the near vicinity when he appears with Clarke at his side. She’s giving Bellamy an unhappy scowl that he ignores in favour of looking at Jasper with sorrowful puppy dog eyes.
He sees the future for a second and decides he’d rather have Murphy there to explain what happened with his matter of fact tone and deadpan ‘you brought this on yourself’ stare. But he doesn’t have a choice in the matter, he thinks that might have become a thing for him over night.