he’s insufferable. octavia’s SICK of people bossing her around in some screwed up attempt to keep her safe, intentions be damned. “look AROUND, murphy!” she gestured with one arm to their peers lying around them, covered in blood and dirt and sweat and quite possibly on death’s door. “if i was going to get it i’d be coughing up blood on the ground already.”
since she’s apparently lucky enough to be immune to the virus, she should be able to take advantage of that to HELP the others, the people she cared about.
but arguing with murphy wasn’t going to help any of them, either, and a heavy sigh of frustration concedes her defeat.
“fine.” she’s almost able to face him without flinching, now; but even when she tries to scowl, she can’t help but notice his wounds. his skin is more bloody and bruised than not, leaving him nearly unrecognizable to someone who didn’t know him as well as she did. the thought of what he’d been through nearly made her nauseous, left her head spinning. her posture softened, just a little, shoulders dropping and hands falling to her sides.
she’s not wrong, and he hates it. the more she brings up her immunity to the cesspool of teenagers, the stronger her argument feels: it’s been a few hours. even clarke could only hold her own for so long, and after the princess had fallen, no one else came in with a case.
he goes back to clean the floor, helping the kid who’d made it move away, but not without catching that little stare she gives him. the one that only draws on top of how weak he looks.
but it's difficult to keep his mind on clean-up when it was running amok with pain & fear & anger and the drilling voices of everyone like do we kill him? do we take him back? what are the grounders gonna do? why'd he have to come back? and all murphy can think is I DON’T KNOW, I DON’T KNOW, I WAS SCARED AND I WAS GOING TO DIE, I DON’T KNOW —
he’s swaying on the balls of his feet from the force he’s using to scrape up the liquid, but he’s clutching the cloth too hard and he feels her eyes on him and he’s not really cleaning anything up so much as he is distributing it across the floor. a build-up of frustration huffs out past his lips before he returns octavia’s stare. “what’s wrong — feel bad for me?”