maskormenacelogs | nobody gets out alive

His body jerks into awakeness, right into a state of panic. Sweat as soaked through his clothes, his covers are on the floor in a crumpled-up mess.

The world is ending and he’d just have a nightmare about it. He felt the pain of dying, still an ache in his chest. Their screams are still distant in the back of his mind. Terror, it’s raked through his entire body. Murphy sucks in air through his nose, filling up his lungs and sharply expells it right back out again.

And, for a moment, everything stops and Murphy is just staring up at his ceiling but it’s so dark in his room that he’s just looking up at nothing, at the emptiness that sits heavy on his chest. He knows if he falls asleep too soon that he’ll find fall right into the same nightmare. Over and over again. Some clockless moments later, Murphy rolls onto his side and pulls himself out of bed. He doesn’t know how to fix this. He knows he can’t help. And no one has ever truly wanted Murphy’s help.

He doesn’t know what to do.

Murphy’s dragged himself across his room now. His door was already opened, just a crack and only needed to nudge it open.

At the sight of Kylo, Murphy jerks. “If you heard me yelling, I’m fine.” Yelling, screaming, Murphy doesn’t know.

Of all the things Murphy can be doing, he finds himself in front of Noah’s bedroom door. He’s unsure of himself, his loose fist is mere inches from knocking on it.

He casts a glance at either end of the hallway. It’s dark and empty, no one else is wandering around. Murphy assumes they are all in their rooms sleeping. Assholes, Murphy thinks bitterly to himself.

After what felt like more than a few minutes, Murphy raps his knuckles on Noah’s door. “Noah,” he whispers. “It’s Murphy.”

Murphy wonders if there’s a word for someone who is scared of falling asleep because, when he does let sleep take him, it pulls him right into a nightmare. It suffocates him, drags him through inky black water. He’s yelling and there is no one to hear him. Murphy’s watched his death, he’s watched everyone around him die. Eviscerated out of existence. And it’s not quick and it is definitely not painless. Slow and agonizing.

He doesn’t want to sleep. He hasn’t been sleeping. Murphy looks like death has become him.

Murphy doesn’t know when exactly he walked into the kitchen but that is where he has ended up. Quietly, he rummages through the cabinets and he pulls out a glass.

It implodes the moment he’s got a good grasp on it. And pieces of broken glass are crunching in his fist. The tighter the force, the more the pieces of shattered glass crack. His power is still complicated, doesn’t know how to fully manipulate this force that is perpetually waiting for orders. He could have chosen the bits of glass to not touch him but it’s that pain that is going to keep him awake.

Tighter and tighter.

Glass mixes with the blood that drips from his fist.

Kylo Ren, most people would agree, is probably the least comforting person to find yourself confronted with in the wake of a nightmare. Kylo knows it himself. He's not the warm gentle light he can vaguely remember his mother being, long ago, slipping into the bedroom with the model spaceships hanging from the ceiling.

But then again, it hadn't accomplished much in the end, had it, all her gentle reassurance. The nightmare he is now stands as testament to that. Maybe sometimes, a bigger monster than the one you fear might be chasing you is all the comfort you need.

"I didn't," he says, letting himself in and closing the door behind him. He looks Murphy over. "I felt you yelling."

"I screamed that loud internally, huh?"

Murphy had planned on leaving his room. He didn't have a destination. That wouldn't matter the second Kylo let himself into Murphy's room. He steps back, allowing Kylo more space.

In the background, in the forest that Ronan dreamed for him, it's thundering and lightening. It lights up his room in flashes. "Yeah, come on in," he murmurs. "

There is something in the way that Kylo looks at Murphy that makes him feel small. So small and weak. "I can't help it." The nightmares, he means.

Noah isn't sleeping. Every time he closes his eyes, the panic compounds until he can't breathe, until his heart feels like it's going to explode in his chest. It's been this way every night—save Ronan's birthday when he passed out after drinking—since the transmission heralding the potential end of the world. So he's awake in bed, mindlessly scrolling through the internet on his communicator.

He can sense Murphy lurking outside before the knock comes. By the time it does, he's nearly to the door already. It's clear that Murphy hasn't woken him when he opens it a moment later. The room behind him is lit softly by several strands of colorful lights.

"Hey," he whispers back. "What's up?"

"You aren't so loud," Kylo offers. He glances at their surroundings, the dream forest echoing the disquiet of its inhabitant, then returns his focus to Murphy's face.

"But you are, to me. I would hear your whisper over a stranger's scream. We're connected."

"We're connected," Murphy repeats, the tone of his voice makes him sound incredulous.

This is all on some level of surreal. Murphy waking up from a nightmare, Kylo right outside his door. Kylo inside his room talking about connectedness.

"I'm fine now."

He's not.

Murphy steps back when the door opens and sees a weary-looking Noah. "I can't sleep." He pauses and then adds, "Nightmares are a bitch."

The world ending is a bitch, too.

"I kind of don't want to be alone right now. Have you painted any dream stuff yet?"

He pulls the door open wider and moves aside, silently inviting Murphy in. Yeah, he knows all about nightmares.

"I've been trying," he says with a glance at the table behind him. Several abandoned attempts—abstract swirls of paint on thick construction paper, mostly—are scattered there. Untouched this past week. He can't concentrate. "Can't get it right."

He's not, and they both know he's not. Kylo doesn't move in closer, but he doesn't retreat.

"Do you know what nightmares are?" He asks, curiously, though it's more Murphy's reaction than an answer he's interested in— because he provides it before he has a chance to respond. "They're a form of training. Testing. Your mind, pitting you against your fears in an environment where you are still, ultimately, in control of the harm you experience."

In Kylo's opinion, Murphy has no reason to feel ashamed.

The question easily dug right into his nerves. What kind of a fucking question is at, Murphy's eyes ask Kylo.

Even the answer that Kylo provides doesn't do very much to smooth the nerves that he's prickled.

"I've lived in a nightmare my whole life and never once was I in control of shit."

Before he steps inside Noah's room, he gives the hallway one last look.

Murphy's attention follows Noah's eyes to the table behind him. He's already walking there, curious to see what little Noah had done. It doesn't seem like much at all but Murphy can't blame him. The end of days probably isn't the best inspiration for most people.

"What are you trying to get?"

"Your reality was full of horror," Kylo offers, carefully. "And reality is harder to control. Nightmares..."

He lets out a breath, cutting himself off. No, he's not very good at this. He knows.

"I want to help you. Will you let me help you."

"Is," Murphy softly corrects Kylo. It's still full of horror. The world is going to end in how many days?

"How?"

Kylo doesn't move immediately. But something about this isn't working, and he wonders if maybe it would be... easier, if he weren't looming ominously by the door. It isn't exactly natural, the way he crosses the floor in long paces and sits on the edge of Murphy's bed, leaving a careful space for Murphy's wariness— but it is, maybe, more like talking to another person now.

"It isn't going to happen," he says. "What you fear. It isn't going to crumble under you. Even if this world ends. You won't be among the dead."

Joseph Kavinsky is here!

Which is weird. He should not be here, definitely. Those are the terms of the early-stage game he's running against Murphy, but you know Kavinsky. Even at his best and most respectful, he is bad and not good at respecting the physical boundaries of people's personal property. He's in here today mostly to check in about some dream shit, the computer, blah blah, something, Kylo Ren and Ronan, fill in the tall Goths about what's going on. Solidify the plan for the night of the full moon...

...and instead here he is, opening the door to find Murphy frozen over a handful of bloody glass. Yikes.

"Dude?" Kavinsky cranes his head. Glances around, honestly expecting! either of said tall Goths to zoom in here, possibly having been watching Murphy through a baby monitor, and take over. No? Nope. Apparently not. "Dude. Wake the fuck up." He's at Murphy's elbow in a moment. Less glazed-eyed himself, lately, than he had appeared at the birthday party, or in the street afterward. He's come around. But he's always been like that: good in an actual crisis, at least, if it wasn't one he caused himself. "Slow. Open your hand."

The oppressive mood preceding the apocalypse hasn't helped, but even before that... It's been frustrating. Logically, he knows he just needs to practice. Deep down, he worries that no amount of trying will get him anywhere. That the creative part of him died when he did and wasn't brought back with his new body. What if this is something he just can't do anymore?

He trails slowly after Murphy.

"One of those windows that looks out at somewhere else. Or- nothing, I don't know." What does it matter now anyway. "Do you want to make something?"

Murphy is silent, eyes chasing after Kylo as he traipses across his room to sit on his bed.

"I won't let Ronan sacrifice himself to make this new world. An entire planet? How is he going to manage that? How is he going to be fine after that," he says after a few beats of his heart.

His dream would never depict how the world is going to actually end, not in a fiery explosion. Murphy doesn't know how this world is going to end, he just knows that it will end.

Finally, he sits next to Kylo, deflated and wilted.

What a sight to see in the early hours of the morning, right?

Murphy's awareness is delayed by a second, maybe two because it takes him that long to notice that Kavinsky is with him in the kitchen. "I'm awake." Awake but distant. Awake but shut down.

Now everything's catching up to the present. "Shit." He drops the ball of crushed glass and it hits the ground wetly. The cuts shouldn't be deep. Murphy hopes, he can't really tell, though. "Listen, sometimes I break shit when I touch it - Why are you here anyway?" As the seconds pass, Murphy becomes more cognizant of himself and everything around him.

He is aware of the blood on the floor. The blood dripping from his hand still, palm up and offered to Kavinsky. A passing beat later and Murphy's twisting around to grab a dishcloth.

There. Solved.

Kavinsky stares at this very clumsy, less than hygienic, shabby facsimile of medical treatment. A dishcloth. Well. The Ark wasn't great for Healthcare.

"I was gonna take Ren out for a drive. Come on, kittentits. I got time before I need to do that."

Kavinsky reaches over to knock Murphy on the arm, a playful rap of his knuckles. Without waiting for assent, he starts for the stairs. He lived here for months; he's quite familiar with Kylo Ren's diligent maintenance of the Meadows first aid stores. There's stuff in the bathroom.

"Meet you in your room. Keep it elevated," he calls back.

"I got one of those windows in my room," Murphy murmurs to the table. He touches a few of the items, quietly examining them before putting the pieces back where he had found them. Fingertips ghost across the snippets of art that Noah can't seem to finish or get just right.

"Me?" Murphy shakes his head. "I don't draw or anything." That's a talent he never acquired. Drawing, painting, etc. "I was just kind of hoping we could hole up in the blanket fort."

"Sure, we can do that." That sounds nice, actually. He leads the way over and crawls onto the bed, holding back a flap of blanket for Murphy to join him. "Come on in."

There are more tiny lights strung around and over the canopy of sheets, so it's not too dark inside. Noah scoots back toward the middle of the bed, arranging himself cross-legged there and tugging part of a thick comforter over his shoulders.

Oh.

He isn't sure, exactly, why he's surprised. He shouldn't be. His eyes track over the way Murphy's despair at his own helplessness drags heavy on every limb and solidifies in the dejected slump of his shoulders. He sees Murphy's defiance slipping into misery.

And then he sees himself, reaching out to rest a hand on Murphy's back— as if on borrowed instinct. He isn't quite sure what to do with it once it's there.

"I would burn this world to ash myself before I let him give himself up," he says, slow and firm. "You know it's true. I won't sacrifice Ronan for anyone. Anything. And I won't ask it of you, either. No. I'm going to give him something else."

It takes Murphy a few seconds to realize that the Ren Kavinsky mentioned is Kylo. Kylo Ren. Why would Kylo go on a drive with Kavinsky, Murphy thinks to himself. Kylo had much better and more important things to do, did he not?

Murphy sways and musters up the energy to get himself into locomotion, from kitchen to stairs. And from there he'd follow behind Kavinsky. They part ways, for the moment, when Murphy veers off to his bedroom.

There's a storm happening beyond the window of the forest. A downpour, lightning illuminating his room in flashes before a thunderous roar broke through the thick, grey clouds. Murphy sits on the edge of his bed. Elbow on knee, bloody hand standing on end. Is this what Kavinsky meant by keeping it elevated? Murphy isn't too sure but he'll be finding out shortly.

Maybe.

Oh.

The warmth of Kylo's hand on his back stills Murphy, it is an unexpected gesture coming from him. He doesn't move, though. He takes comfort in this, wants to melt in the warmth that Kylo has offered him.

"I know," he murmurs, soft and fragile. "I want to give something to Ronan, too."

It's undeniably strange, sitting beside Murphy like this. To a force-user like Kylo, he and Ronan are actually very little alike in almost every way that matters— but Murphy's voice...
Kylo hardly realises he's drawing Murphy closer to himself, his broad hand soothing over his back in slow passes.

"How's your faith?" he asks quietly. "That's the greatest gift you could give him, now. Your trust. Can you believe me, when I swear it to you— that I will do whatever is necessary to save us? You, me, and Ronan."

Murphy laughs, dry and empty. "My faith."

Suddenly he's standing, shot upright and standing in front of Kylo. "You don't understand, Kylo. This isn't about how much I trust you or trust Ronan. Believe me, I wish it was that easy. It might not be enough? Is that something you want to gamble with. I want to help. I know what Ronan needs and I can give him that."

Slowly, Murphy lowers himself so he can sit on the floor, legs tucked under him. "Watch." He holds his hand out, palms up and facing Kylo. Nothing happens abruptly, it's just a collection of the intangible; he's gathering the psychic energy lingering around them.

And then something does happen. It's subtle, at first, little specks of purple popping from Murphy's hands. And then it's like oil spitting in a frying pan, more is gathering. Purple, illuminated energy that's shaping into something more solid.

A ball, about the size of an orange, floats above his palm now. A tight ball of pure, psychic energy. "Do you feel that? I know you can."

If Kylo's caught off guard by Murphy's sudden explosion back into defiance, he shows absolutely no sign of it. His hand hangs in the space left behind, then drops onto his thigh as he does as directed. He watches.

It's no small thing, what Murphy does next— the demonstration of his ability or his intention. The ball of light hovering in his hand is, almost certainly, more stable and contained than anything Kylo might produce if he attempted something similar. Murphy, Kylo realises, has been practicing this.

His gaze slides from the spectacle to Murphy's face.

"I feel it," Kylo says.

And he knows, then, that Ronan hasn't told Murphy what it is they intend to do, if the group of self-appointed heroes fail to give them another option. Ronan may have told Murphy about the new world he'll build for them, but he didn't explain the price that will have to be paid for it. Maybe, he was afraid Murphy would object. Maybe, he thought Murphy would refuse to come, if he knew the scale of the horror. The millions, billions of lives Ronan will have to burn through to carry his chosen ones to safety.

Maybe, Kylo shouldn't tell him either.

"How much can you gather."

It doesn't take Kavinsky long. After all, he lived in the Meadows for a good few months before he finally left. Was ousted. Whichever. The bathroom hasn't moved since the last time he saw it, nor the storage of its contents and amenities.

He walks back into Murphy's room just as another dash of lightning illuminates the window. Squints through the glass for a moment, discomfited again by its disruptive size, how jarringly different it is from what he remembers. But he does not feel particularly inspired to murder a pillow tonight. Instead, he shifts his attention back to the curious likeness of his ex-boyfriend, and sits down on the side of the bed and pops open the first aid kit.

Hannibal knows his way around fine surgical-grade implements, and therefore, so does one Joseph Kavinsky. Maybe, if he lives in this world long enough, he'll even try and go to fucking medical school.

He works quietly at first, anyway. Blots blood from the wounds, and picks slivers out of Murphy's hand, alternating. Leaves the tiny fragments of glass that he does find on a piece of gauze set down on the covers. He is meticulous, agile. Lynch might criticize his driving, in general, but Kavinsky's hand-eye coordination is pretty decent; it'd have to be, for the amount of swerving and skidding he used to do in his car.

Relief, as little as it came, eases the tightness in his chest. Murphy didn't know what kind of answer to expect from Noah. They have only hung out a few times but nothing like this, though.

Murphy nods and silently trudges behind Noah. He pokes his head through the opened flap, looking at the lights hanging around. "I like it," he murmurs, crawling inside.

"I didn't think I'd have to deal with the world ending again." With a sigh, Murphy falls onto his back, landing somewhere next to Noah.

Murphy only knows what Ronan has told him, that Ronan is intending on creating another world. The price was assumed or maybe Murphy was just too scared to ask. It will be a great sacrifice, that is what Murphy knows.

Murphy also knows that Ronan shouldn't be the only one giving pieces of himself away. That's why Murphy wants to tell.

"I don't know how much. Whatever is available to me?" From what Murphy has experienced with this, there isn't a limit. The energy dissipates, sinks back into his palm and it disperses back into the universes for it to be used again.

Murphy only watches quietly for a moment, let's his brain catch up with the present. Kavinsky does a good job by keeping him from sinking back into his thoughts, he does an even better job at cleaning out his hand.

There's not a lot of pieces to pick out from his palm, his little tk shield doing most of the work. But, still, there are enough bits for him to need Kavinsky's steady hands and skilled eyes.

Just then the room lights up and the sky behind them rumbles gently, a dull roar.

"Where are you and Kylo going," Murphy asks, voice so soft that it crackles.

"There's no destination," Kavinsky says. He glances up at Murphy, studies his face for an instant, then looks down again. "When you go for a drive, you're going for the drive. I got stuff I want to ask him about. Dude." He discards another tiny fragment of glass, glinting almost neon in the half-light of the room.

"He and Lynch like you. A lot. Way more than me. Probably as much as the Czerny kid, and Lynch knew him all the way from home." He shakes his head. "What's it fucking matter to you, man? I mess with Ren, I kick it with Lynch because we got superpowers in common.

"You got your own thing with them." If you asked him, Kavinsky would not be able to tell anybody why he tells Murphy things like this; not now, not in Jeopardy. Why he wants for Murphy to feel secure and safe in his relationships. Why that's what he thinks of, instead of seeing an opportunity to poke and torment the space boy about his obvious insecurities about being excluded. "If you keep second-guessing it, you might even fuck it up."

Another piece of glass. Kavinsky stoops down to check if there was any smaller piece that he might have missed.

"I was just asking a question, Kavinsky." Murphy's eyes sharpen, scrutinizing the look that Kavinsky gives him just then. "It's not that deep."

But Murphy does have his insecurities, a lot of them. There will always be that worry of not being liked or not liked enough, or just liked and not loved because there's always more. And it digs into Murphy's nerves that Kavinsky calls him out on it.

"Natural talent of mine, fucking things up," he drawls. "There's no more shit in my hand." Murphy knows this because his telekinesis doesn't detect any foreign objects embedded into his palm anymore.

"Again?" His brow furrows as he looks down at Murphy. He knows Murphy came from a bad situation, but that's about it. Noah hasn't pressed him about it and, without context, it's hard to glean much from what he hears of his thoughts.

Anxiously, he twists and untwists the edge of the comforter. "What was it like before?"

Kavinsky looks at Murphy doubtfully. Knowing little about the other boy's powers, it seems very unlikely to him that the kid actually knows what he's talking about. But in the spirit of allowing this Murphy his own agency, blah blah, make your own choices, et cetera, he acknowledges this with a shrug. Goes to grab gauze from the kit, finding one big enough to fit over most of the small wounds.

Tape after that. Attaching the gauze firmly. It's pretty cool that Dr. Chilton trained him to patch himself up in addition to royally murdering other people. Like, really thoughtful. Considerate. A holistic learning experience!

"Don't worry," says Kavinsky. "You'll never be as good that shit as me, asslord." He grins suddenly, like a bouquet of knives. All done, he reaches up to give Murphy a poke in the cheek, inviting -- some mean rejoinder, maybe an attempt to bite him. "And Ren and Lynch ain't gonna let anything happen to you."

"We should test it," Kylo suggests, watching the light dissolve back under Murphy's skin and into the universe beyond. A drop in the ocean, maybe, but the true value of Murphy's offering is his genuine desire to carry at least this much of Ronan's burden— as much of it as he can.

Kylo sees no reason to deprive Murphy of his choice to offer something of himself and what he can do. Why shouldn't he be allowed to contribute to their efforts?

"Limits and compatibility. Have you shown Ronan what you can do?"

"Mhm," Murphy hums, tired. He tucks his arms under his head, propping himself lazily. "Some A.I nuked the whole planet because, I guess, that's the only way to save the planet. They took thirteen stations into space and connected them all together. The Ark, that's what they called it."

Biblically, how could you not see the heavy undertones?

"So humanity spends the next hundred years in space. It's shit. Depending on your stations, you'd get a certain amount of food." Murphy's giving Noah a very watered-down version of his world ending.

Murphy still doesn't understand his own powers, he just knew and he can't explain why.

After Kavinsky wraps his hand all meticulous and doctorly, Murphy pulls his hand back. The other is used to swat Kavinsky's pokey finger. "Don't."

His good hand scrubs at his face, the heel of it digs into his tired eyes. "Do you know what he's trying to do? Ronan." Murphy looks at Kavinsky sidelong.

Kavinsky laughs, because -- he's mean. Even when he's being gentle, he's still mean. He lets his hand drops and he throws discarded pieces of bloody gauze and sticky tape in the trash can. Easily and with finesse. He should wash his hands, but instead he turns his head to look at the window glass, the blobby, organic shapes of raindrops against the surface, distorting the view of the forest outside.

"Yeah," he says, finally. "Do you?"

Kavinsky doesn't look at the space boy when he asks, let's the question drift there in the air, under the erratic patter of rain.

Slowly, Murphy stands up again and takes a seat at the edge of his bed.

"No, I haven't."

Sometimes Murphy forgets he's been gifted - a very loose term - inexplicable abilities. "Just you." Murphy pauses and adds, "How would we test it? The limits and compatibility."

Kylo, even if Murphy had yet to admit it, has been a very good - here it comes - mentor. Adviser, guide and Murphy always found himself gravitating to him with matters such as this.

The biblical name isn't lost on him, not after accompanying Ronan to church all those times, but... "Sounds like Terminator," he comments. The whole evil-AI-nuking-the-planet thing, at least. Not the living in space part. It also sounds pretty horrible. Differently horrible from what they're facing now, some mythical entity summoned to rip the world apart, but still.

"And you were born up there? On the Ark?" He remembers the first time they met, Murphy saying he used to sleep in a tent.

The laughter can't afford most of Murphy's attention. It does tug into his nerves, but not enough to say anything. Murphy turns his head, bleary eyes following after Kavinsky's glance. Outside, raindrops are softly pitter-pattering on the window. The thundering has dulled to soft roars in the background.

"Yeah, I do. And I don't like it." The idea scared him, scared of what it'll do to Ronan. Scared of never seeing Ronan again.

"We've done a lot of shit like this before," Kavinsky says, being -- reassuring. Even though part of him doesn't like it. The old Murphy, his Murphy would have been worried too, and that makes it worse and not better. More confusing, not less. "It ain't a great plan, but it's better than not having one."

Kavinsky thinks it would -- will? -- be a fucking nightmare, actually. Hanging out a broken-off slab of Meadows, adrift in the cosmos, with only Ronan Lynch and his shag pile for company. Maybe this is why he fucks up the timing, weeks later. Lingers too long at the ritual. Some subconscious form of self-sabotage, because it'd be better to cinder under the touch of cosmic goddesses than have to spend some indefinite nanite-fueled lifespan pap-papping Ronan's boyfriends, one of whom used to be his boyfriend.

He gets rid of the stuff. Red glass and bits of medical supplies. It only takes him a couple of seconds, to go to the bathroom, split it up between the trash can and the cabinets. Then come back again.

"Do you want some weed?" he asks, because he's definitely not going to suggest having some more orgasms with Ronan to relax. Someone else can suggest that.

nobody gets out alive

kylo & murphy; 11/10

murphy & noah; sometime before 11/12

kavinsky & murphy; sometime before 11/12

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mild powerpose lmk if not ok

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