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patrick murphy

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Who: Patrick Murphy (

illicitsolution)
What: Turtle hostage situation provides ~~pseudo~~willing lab specimens.
When: Evening of July 1st.
Where: Even's room (2206).
Rating: PG-13 for dirty mouths >:

In retrospect, he could have taken the elevator, but after his last... 'experience', he wasn't too keen on going near it. Still, after sixteen flights of stairs, he was grumpy enough to wonder if a pet turtle was worth whatever the hell Even had planned. At least the ginger-freak had said he wasn't gonna kill Murph', not that that was really that comforting. It was, after all, quite amazing how much the human (or inhuman) body could take without kicking the bucket.

And fuck that prissy bitch, his legs were cramping. Fucking stairs.

Safely on the 22nd floor, with one of his calves spasming in relief at finding a level surface at last, Murphy began the process of moving down the hallway, glancing at door numbers. It didn't take him long to find 2206; it wasn't like the numbers on the doors were inconspicuous, and to make it even easier the nameplates on the doors were painfully easy to make out. Murphy made a mental note that, if he should ever change rooms, he should remove the plate on his door ASAP.

Scowling to himself, the vampire took a moment to rest his legs and wonder AGAIN if he really wanted to do this. Ah, fuck, his turtle was a bitchy little thing but she was HIS bitchy little thing. Wouldn't be fair to let her get chucked out of some window because her owner was dumb enough not to check a pair of shoes for stowaways. Sigh.

He kicked the door, too lazy to pull his hands out of his pockets, and swore under his breath. Hopefully this wasn't going to be too fucking weird.

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Despite the fact that his favourite shoes had been ruined, Even was none the less smug. The loss of his shoes had gained him an interesting specimen, although not without a little bit of cruel manipulation. It wasn’t that he hated Murphy – in fact, he had already forgiven him for the whole hallway incident – he just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to study a new species when it presented itself. Even wasn’t known to be the kindest hearted man in the first place anyway.

If it wasn’t for the fact that the damn turtle was his ticket for using Murphy, he would have chucked her out the window the first time she bit him. She had proceeded to gnaw on him even as he ran around his room searching for something to drop it in so that his duck wouldn’t decide to nibble on her. Eventually he settled on a shoe box, which he had jabbed awkward holes into before practically flinging the little turtle in. He felt a little bad for his cruelty to animals, but it wasn’t like the turtle was defenseless. His fingers bore the battle scars of her attack.

He had been staring across the room at the shoe box containing the retched creature, pondering whether this was a good idea or not, when he was startled almost out of his chair by a loud thump on his door. A scowl quickly spreading across his face, he uncrossed his legs and hurried over to the door, unlocked several different locks, and then flung the door open. He loomed over Murphy, giving him a narrow eyed once over, before stepping to the side to let him in.

“Get in,” he hissed in slight irritation. “If you want to get this done quickly then start undressing now.”

Goddamn Even was tall.

Murphy was debating kicking the man in the shins half out of spite for holding his turtle hostage and half just for the hell of it, but unfortunately (or fortunately if you were Even), the taller man moved away to admit the ~~midget~~ vampire. He was stepping forward into the room when Even spoke, and very suddenly Murphy was sporting a look that was two parts incredulous and one part are you fucking HIGH?!

“Why” he started, stepping to the side out of the way of the door. “Do I need to get undressed?”

Was there some sick, perverse force messing with his life that demanded he get naked and embarrass himself at least once a week? There had to be. Either that or his karma was shot to shit. Scowling as only he could and crossing his arms over his chest, he gave the room a cursory glance and gave Even a pissy glare.

“And while we’re at it, where the fuck’s my turtle?”

Once Murphy was out of the way, Even stepped back and closed the door after him. He didn’t answer him right away, instead focused on locking his door back up to make sure that Murphy couldn’t just run out if he wanted to, and then finally turned and leaned back against the door. He smirked at the shorter man and brushed an orange lock of hair behind his ear, looking thoroughly amused now.

“Well, you don’t want your clothing to get filthy, do you? They’d just be in the way anyway, so best take it off so we can get started,” he practically purred.

He was sort of gleeing on the inside at the pissed off looks Murphy was giving him. Even did love antagonizing people when he felt he had the advantage. It gave him a sense of superiority. At the vampire’s other question, Even paused, and flicked his eyes towards the shoe box briefly as he pondered if he should outright tell him the truth.

“She’s… safe,” he began and trailed off. He did suppose there was no use keeping the knowledge from him now, and he pushed off away from the door and crossed the room. With one arm in a sling due to his unfortunate incident with a bullet, he only had one free hand to shove some of his more grotesque projects to the side to make room for Murphy.

“Shoe box,” he finished as he glanced over his shoulder to him. “I’d leave her in there. My duck was looking like she wanted to use her as a hockey puck.”

Murphy was debating whether or not he’d made a serious error in judgment by that point. Even was… Even was kinda creepy, when he wasn’t throwing a shit-fit. Maybe he should’ve kicked him while he had the chance and just taken his turtle and run for it.

“Okay, freak. I’m not taking anything off until I know what the hell you’re going to do.” He said, sounding a bit more defensive than he’d hoped. He wasn’t nervous, really. Just… on edge. Even’s room was cold and technical. Frankly, it reminded him a bit of a morgue. Or maybe it was just the smell. Tempted to flip off the sonuvabitch (Christ, where was all that hostility coming from?), Murphy just huffed and raised an eyebrow.

“You have a duck?” He drawled, in mock disbelief. “And you think it’s actually a threat to my turtle?”

Murphy wasn’t sure to be horrified or amused by the idea of Even owning a pet.

Even was starting to get annoyed with Murphy’s resistance. He didn’t understand what was so hard about following his requests. All he had to do was undress and wait for further instructions. The ginger plunked down irritably into one of his uncomfortable wooden chairs and crossed a leg over the other. Leaning over he glared at the other man from across the room, and then turned to flip through his journal with a grunt of frustration.

“My duck was a gift from Lana Lang. Her name is Copernicus, and she’s enjoying the bath at the moment,” he said, and then returned his gaze to Murphy.

He narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing him, and then waved his uninjured hand around the room. “Have a seat. If you’re so insistent on being difficult, then you might as well relax.”

He picked up a pen and tapped it against the table as he thought, and then wrote something quickly down on a stray piece of paper. In fact, he had been making mental notes about Murphy since he entered the room, studying him and his reactions, and he had just begun to write them down. Murphy was… well, he was a brat. He seemed normal enough so far when he wasn’t chomping on his neck.

“I told you, I want to study your condition. I’ll need samples of your blood, and I’d like to observe your body. Were you born like this?”

“You named your duck ‘Copernicus’?” he snorted, “You really are a dork.”

Murphy found himself a seat, and leaned forward, planting his elbows firmly on his knees. This was annoying the shit out of him. He needed a fucking drink. He was beginning to wonder if he should start carrying a flask or something. Still, at least the bastard was finally getting the show on the road and asking some questions. Those he could answer.

And as for blood samples and observations? Sounded like a trip to the doctors office, although there was no way in hell Murphy would ever agree to go to a see a doctor anything like Even under normal circumstances. Then again, Murphy hated doctors. And, at the moment, he hated Even too but that was probably a given by that point. He wasn’t even sure why he was feeling so hostile toward the man, unless it was just his deep-set urge to antagonize rearing it’s ugly head. Great timing.

Sighing, he tried to collect himself before he started getting any pissier. It really wasn’t the right time for that shit; Even wasn’t worth the effort. He tried to reinforce that fact in his mind as he straightened up in his seat and finally answered the man.

“No. I didn’t become a vampire until…” ah fuck, he had problems remembering exact numbers when it came to things that far back. “Years later. When I was an adult.”

“You’re an adult?” Even asked with a smirk. He chose to ignore the comment about him being a dork. “Could have fooled me.”

Now they were getting somewhere. He made note of Murphy’s answer and then stared down at his paper for a moment. He really hated this interview type of gathering information. He’d must rather just read a book or dive right into his work. He sort of figured he might have been able to figure this out on his own if the vampire had just given him a chance to begin the experimentation-

… Murphy was really going to protest to what he really wanted to do. He couldn’t have that. At least he was prepared for a struggle.

After a few moments, Even got up again and started to pace around the room, notes in hand. He opened a few drawers and peered into them, occasionally throwing a glance to Murphy, until he pulled a bag of hard candies out of the dark recesses of his desk drawer.

“Would you like anything? Candy? Something to drink? Eat?” he offered as he sat back down and plucked a candy from the bag. He toyed with the wrapper for a while, crinkling it up and then uncrinkling it as if he was indecisive if he really wanted it.

“How can this disease be passed on then? Are you fertile?”

“Of course I’m a fucking adult.” Murphy snapped, glaring at the man before had a chance to catch himself. He settled down quickly, though, reminding himself that arguing with the asshole wasn’t going to make things go any faster.

“Unless you’ve got booze ferreted away somewhere in that desk, I’m not interested.” He scowled, staring as Even as though he’d rather be somewhere else, or maybe punching him in the gut. That would be nice. Smug son of a… and there he went again, aggression flaring up. Even really did seem to rub him the wrong way.

But anger aside, he needed to get those questions out of the way if he wanted to get out any time soon.

“Disease is passed on through biting.” Murphy grumbled, “Except that castle seems to have taken away my ability to infect others.” He added as an afterthought.

“As far as ‘fertile’ goes, I know of at least one vampire with a kid. Dunno if he was a vamp at the time of making her, but his wife was.”

Even stilled slightly when Murphy mentioned how the disease was spread and looked over the other carefully. It was funny how he had been mere circumstances away from being human no longer, and it didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest. He just closed his eyes briefly after a moment, and then averted his eyes.

“That’s fortunate for me then, I suppose,” he said, and then finally unwrapped the candy.

He popped it into his mouth and then dropped down to his knees. He crawled about on the floor for a moment, looking like an awkward, gangly, three-legged dog, and then reached under his bed and pulled out a small wooden chest. He pushed it across the floor towards the vampire and threw it open once it was a few feet away from him. The chest was mostly empty, but there were a couple bottles occupying space that he began to pull out.

Whiskey, vodka, gin, a few bottles of red and blush wine; all were open, a few of them had already been used half way. Even picked a few of the wines and put them back, seemingly choosing his favourites. “Help yourself, I’m not going to be drinking all of this anymore anyway. Don’t touch the ones I put back,” he offered, and then got to his feet again.

He began to pace around the room, touching his head as if he had a headache of sorts. He was just thinking, really. He was quite intrigued of the prospect of children being born after contracting the disease. From what he had read in the library, such usually wasn’t possible. He was half tempted to ask for a sperm sample- No, no… That wouldn’t go over well likely. People like Murphy just didn’t jack off in some stranger’s bathroom nonchalantly. He could take it by force-

…Yeah, Even didn’t really want to go there.

“Intriguing,” he finally commented and paused in his pacing. “However, too bad you don’t know the exact circumstances.”

He walked across the room and began to toy with random parts of his lab. He poked and prodded at samples, checked test tubes. He was quite, obviously, just wasting time. He purposely was delaying and keeping Murphy long in hope he’d just crack and get on with things.

“So, you need blood to survive, yes? Can you eat anything else? How about… hn, How old are you anyway?”

“’Fortunate’ is an understatement.” Murphy muttered under his breath, watching Even go about hauling out the chest. Moron probably didn’t have any idea how lucky he was that Murphy wasn’t infectious. Dying sucked, as did being a vampire. Well, expect for that whole undead liver thing. That was pretty damn handy, he had to admit.

With a grunt that might have been a ‘thanks’, assuming the listener was feeling optimistic, Murphy fished himself out a partially finished bottle of whiskey, helping himself to a lengthy drink. It burned on the way down, warming his gut in that familiar, not unpleasant way. He sat back in his chair, relaxing now that he had his favorite vice.

He was less than pleased when Even started dicking around his lab, apparently doing sweet fuck all. If he was hoping Murphy was going to get impatient, he wasn’t going to be disappointed. The vampire huffed, helped himself to another mouthful of whiskey, then answered as soon as Even had finished asking his questions.

“Yes I need blood, yes I can eat regular food, and I’m… shit, over a hundred at least.” He replied, toying with the neck of the bottle and eyeing the contents as though disappointed it wasn’t full. At least it tasted fine.

“… So you’re immortal?” Even asked quietly and paused in his prodding.

He placed his gloved hand down flat on the surface of the lab table and looked at them closely. It was an awkward, ugly hand. The knuckles were much too large and the fingers much too long. It looked frail, weak, and Even couldn’t help but avert his eyes in disgust after a moment. He turned his attention back to the items cluttered on the surface of the table, then pulled a few older notes towards him. He read them quickly – some obscure notes on animating the dead – and then crumpled them up.

“I suppose we’d get farther if you just finish explaining to me the individual symptoms of your illness and what makes you different than a normal human,” He murmured, then noticed a bottle at the edge of his lab table.

It was a rather nice, strong plum brandy that he had taken a rather guilty liking to during his loss week. He picked it up and was surprised to find that it was still mostly full, since he had been quite sure that he had drunk most of it. He opened it up and gave it a smell before taking a swig, bit back a gag, and then placed it back down on the table. …He wouldn’t do that again. Apparently when not suffering a loss he wasn’t much for hard liquor.

He gave Murphy a glance and then fixed on the bottle of whiskey in his hand. He stared at it for a moment, the gears turning in his head. He had an idea. He allowed himself to take another swig of his brandy, if not just to put on a little show for Murphy. …It was good, so it wasn’t a complete punishment. Mainly, he wanted the vampire to see him drinking from the bottle. Instead of putting the cap back on the bottle, Even kept it open as he began to fuss about the lab table again. Slipping something into the bottle was decidedly easy; all he needed to do was grab the bottle by the neck and drop a few dissolvable tablets in he had tucked between his fingers.

He then looked at it and swirled it around as if debating taking another swig, then wandered back over to Murphy. He sat down again, a bit closer to the vampire now, and held the bottle out to him, “Would you like to try some? This was my favourite choice of hard liquor when I was experiencing my loss. I turned out to be quite the… I drank a lot.”

“Um.”

Immortal? Shit, that was a good question.

“I guess? I don’t really know. We’re technically dead - but not really? - so we don’t age but our bodies are still alive. I mean, hair and nails grow, we’ve got a heartbeat, eat and breath and fuck and everything, but we’ll live until we’re killed? And it takes a lot to kill us.” As demonstrated when he paused to finish off the whisky as easily as someone might finish a bottle of water.

“We heal faster than humans too, but that’s about it as far as weird abilities go. Aside from the not aging, the reliance on blood, and that, we’re pretty much human.” Not that they treat us like ones. He added silently, watching Even playing around with… brandy? It really shouldn’t have surprised Murph to drink some, considering the stash he kept around, but he couldn’t help but cock an eyebrow when the man drank straight from the bottle. He seemed like the kind of guy who’d insist on at least putting it in a cup first.

That eyebrow didn’t come down, even going so far as to creep up just a little more when Even sat down and offered him some. Murphy wasn’t one to turn down alcohol, so he didn’t think twice before reaching out and taking the bottle. Not being particularly picky about his drinks he downed a large gulp, his expression relaxing. It was actually pretty good, even though he didn’t really drink brandy normally.

“Thanks.” He said after a moment. “It’s good.”

“I know it is. I’m quite picky about what I drink,” Even said with a smirk, and then leaned back in chair.

He licked his lips and then reached for his bag of candy again, this time choosing a sour lemon flavoured one, and popped it into his mouth. He sucked on it a little, and then played with it in his mouth, clacking it against his teeth. It would be roughly ten minutes before the drugs kicked in – maybe a little sooner with the way Murphy downed his booze – and he was pondering on how to kill time until then.

“Improved healing is better than nothing. Personally, your disease doesn’t sound too terrible… for being dead. It could be worse from what I’ve read. You could go toasty in sunlight or such.”

Even rocked in the chair for a little bit, and then it suddenly occurred to him that once Murphy started to feel the effects of the drug he probably… will have quite a bit of difficulty undressing him. Not that he really wanted to do that, and just thinking about it made his cheeks colour. He averted his eyes from the other, and then reached up to rub his forehead.

“You should start undressing. I’ll let you keep your underwear on for now. It’s not like I haven’t seen you naked before anyway.”

Murphy snorted quietly, sipping at the alcohol every so often. The taste was growing on him quickly. He was vaguely amused by Even’s apparent candy appreciation; just like the whole duck thing, eating candy just didn’t seem like something to expect from the ginger dork. He rolled his eyes discretely, hiding the gesture with a glance at the bottle.

“The disease isn’t what sucks, it’s the fall out.” Murphy said flatly, helping himself to another swig. “As for getting ‘toasty’, I do that anyways.” He pointed absently to his face, which was indeed on the pale side. Definitely not the skin tone which dealt with the sun the best.

Murphy stared at Even, chewing on the inside of his lower lip in a way that made him appear to be both pouting and scowling. That was right; Even had seen him naked before, a fact which horrified him more than a little. But when he thought about it… Bitching wasn’t going to do anything other than make them both pissy. Murphy wanted this over and done with soon as possible, and if he wanted to get out of that freaky room with his turtle, he needed to cooperate, right?

“Underwear stays on.” He said finally, scooting forward in his seat then leaning back to unbuckle his belt. Just like at the doctors office. Ugh.

“Ahh, yes. I’m not too fond of the sun either.”
If that wasn’t obvious enough. Even’s skin was pale as a sheet of paper, and his hair and eyes provided little in the case of protection from the sun. Typical ginger problems really. He was just lucky that his hobbies and line of work didn’t really require him to go outside often. He had only been out of the castle a few times, and all those times had been while he was suffering his loss.

“What’s the fall out?” he asked after a moment and turned away from Murphy to give him a bit of privacy with undressing.

It’s not like it really mattered since he’d just turn around when he was done, but Even always felt kind of vulnerable when undressing. There was just that awkward period between being clothed and unclothed that made you feel exposed. He didn’t know if Murphy shared the same insecurities and paranoia, but he figured he might as well take initiative instead of waiting to find out.

“Fine, I don’t need to see your penis any more than I have anyway,” he added after a moment.

“The fall out? Simple. People hate vampires. Well, back where I’m from they did. You die, you come back, and the people who loved you before hate your guts.” Even if you were married to them. Murphy scowled, dropped first one, then two shirts on the floor before standing to drop his pants. He was too busy hating on the people ‘back home’ to be embarrassed as he kicked them off to join the pile, going so far as to grumble to himself as he hiked his boxers a little higher up on his hips.

Sans clothes, Murphy was about as far from intimidating as you could get. To put it blunt, he was a scrawny little bugger. As if fully aware of that fact, and trying to make up for it, the vampire crossed his arms over his chest and glared. Which… wasn’t very scary, really, coming from a short little gothy bastard in his underpants.

“Good for you. Ya can turn around now.”

“People hate anything they’re afraid of,” Even said in response, and looked down to inspect his journal again.

He could sort of understand. Even had been somewhat afraid of what Vexen was, so he ended up highly disliking him. People back at Garden had been afraid of the darkness, so they hated it. It was basic human nature, and it was hard to break the mould.

He turned around again when Murphy said he was finished and made a soft ‘tch’ sound in his throat as he glanced over the vampire’s body. Hardly impressive. It made Even somewhat disappointed. There were obvious perks to this disease, but it didn’t seem to be that there was much.

“You’re scrawny,” he said the first thing that came to mind, obviously poking fun at Murphy.

He stood up and stepped closer to the vampire, then started to circle him slowly as he studied him. He murmured soft assessments to himself under his breath, and then reached out and slid one leathery, gloved hand over Murphy’s shoulder and down his upper back. “Subject appears to be in his late teens or early twenties, but claims to be far older. No obvious muscle deterioration, good… Normal bone structure…” He circled around the front and leaned in so his face was a few inches from Murphy’s. “Eyes look clear and healthy.”

He then lifted a hand and pushed his fingers against, and then past the vampire’s lips. “Abnormal muscular formation around the canines. Canines of unusual shape.” He glanced back up into Murphy’s eyes. “… … Are your teeth the only physical difference?”

“And you’re a gangly ginger twit.” Murphy hissed, making little to no effort to conceal his retort.

The vampire tensed, incredibly uncomfortable with being scrutinized so closely, especially when Even started touching him. Murphy wasn’t a touchy-feely sort of guy in the best of situations, and he certainly didn’t appreciate being poked and prodded by someone he was currently just barely tolerating. What made it even weirder was the fact that Even was talking to himself while he did his thing. That… was really kinda creepy. Murphy was about to comment when he found himself staring at the other man with an expression of pure ‘what the fuck’ as he was… poked in the mouth?

Murphy scowled, opened his mouth, and bit down on the first bit of Even he could get, which was, logically, the fingers he’d been prodding him with. It wasn’t a long or particularly nasty bite, but it was probably hard enough to leave marks in the skin under the gloves. Releasing quickly, Murphy jerked his head away and took a step back, swearing loudly.

“Keep yer fuckin’ fingers outta my fuckin’ mouth!” he spat.

At feeling the teeth pierce through his glove and into the sensitive flesh of his finger, Even’s eyes widened and he yelped suddenly in surprise and pain. The scene from then on could be considered comical from a third perspective: As Murphy jerked his head away and took a step back, the ginger scientist took his own stumbling steps away, clutching his hand like he had suffered some sort of terrible wound. A number of feet of personal space restored, Even peeled off his glove and stuck his bleeding fingers into mouth, giving the vampire a nasty glare from across the room.

“Wut tha fuck is fwung fith you?” he snarled around the digits in his mouth, and then pulled them from his mouth and looked down at his wounded bony fingers in distaste. “You insolent little wretch! I should set you on fire.”
Of course he was just threatening out of frustration. Even really wasn’t the type to deal with fire and he looked it. One observation of the apprentice’s cold demeanour, completely modest attire, and the stiff and chilly surroundings he surrounded himself with, it wasn’t to draw that heat just wasn’t his element of choice.

Even crossed the distance between them against leaned over, looming over Murphy somewhat as he gestured wildly with what could only be described as borderline hysteric. “Sorry if I offended you, precious. It’s just normal human beings don’t have fangs and excuse me if examining the muscular and dental structure of your mouth is part of my research.”

He seemed to get suddenly irritated about his state and surrounding in general, and with an unhealthy bit of aggravation, ripped off the sling he had been keeping his other arm in. He hissed in pain at the sudden strain he put on the wounded muscle from the sharp movement, but then grit his teeth against it and poked Murphy sharply square in the chest.

“You. Go lie down. Now,” he hissed, and then pointed towards an examination table. That, thankfully, was not covered in gore.

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