Face To Face

[pinkroses]

Murphy glanced down as Ben’s hand slid comfortably into his own, but he quickly lifted his eyes again to watch the vampire as the offer was made.

“Typing stuff? Like… what? At the Academy? Or…” Or what? With the new Districts which had been set up? With Ben’s ex-Oligarchy chum? Yeah, like they would want Murphy, a human who probably knew too much and had helped destroy the Oligarchy. Murphy shook his head slightly, trying to rid himself of those thoughts before giving Ben a smile.

“Whatever, yes, extra work would be great, I don’t care what kind. My dad spent a Hell of a lot more than I realised, no wonder he was drunk all the time. He was hiding from it all,” Murphy said in a much cheerier tone than the topic deserved. He hadn’t meant to tell Ben about his sudden debt, but suddenly it was out there and he couldn’t stop himself from saying it.

“Come on, let’s sit down and you can tell me more about this Academy you’re setting up. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help, I can do more than type,” Murphy said with a smile, pulling gently on Ben’s hand to try to urge him towards the living area and the sofa there.

[Trillian]

Ben nodded when Murphy guessed where the work was.  He could see the concern on Murphy's face, the doubt that passed by before he hid it with a little smile.  He was pleased his offer hadn't been met with resistance, though hearing about the debt surprised him.

Ben followed Murphy to the sofa and sat with him, the pair of them still holding hands.  He leant into the cushion, his shoulder also to it because he was twisted around in order to look at Murphy still.

"First you have to tell me about this debt.  Who's it with?  A bank or some freak with goons?" he asked, not liking the idea of Murphy's father owing gambling debts or something to a bookie.  A bank was better, because it meant Murphy was at least safe from losing his kneecaps.  Did people even get capped anymore?

[pinkroses]

Murphy shook his head slightly, angling his body towards Ben, his shoulder resting against the back of the sofa.

“No, no goons. Unless they’re biding their time and waiting to pop up and surprise me. No, it’s just banks with their letters. My dad was mortgaged up to his ass, I’m surprised they hadn’t taken the house back years ago. But he kept them off somehow, obviously I’m not as skilled at ignoring them as he was,” Murphy explained, twisting his lips up a little.

“Selling the house, or what of it I did own, didn’t cover all the interest, but y’know, I’ve been to see the bank and stuff and I think they’re pretty glad they’ve got me to deal with now instead of him. Payments are getting worked out and I can afford this place, so… it could be worse.” As usual, it could always be worse.

[Trillian]

"Murphy," he said, surprised that his friend hadn't mentioned this immediately when Ben had asked if he could do something for him.  He really shouldn't be surprised, but it was still something that Ben could help him with.  "At least let me pay the debt for you.  No!" he said, his free hand reaching up and pressing against Murphy's lips, so that he couldn't protest, even before he got a word out - Ben had assumed there would be a protest, there didn't actually need to be one.  "It's not like you got yourself into this mess, you inherited it.  Let my inheritence cancel out your inheritence, okay?  If our positions were swapped, I'd like to think you'd do the same for me," he lectured, and lowered his hand to Murphy's chest, toying with the mortal's shirt and feeling his friend's heartbeat beneath his fingers.  "I'm not giving you money, really."

He was, but they didn't have to look at it that way.

[pinkroses]

As Ben expected Murphy opened his mouth to protest but Ben’s cool fingers pressing against his lips cut him short. He hadn’t meant to ask like that, but looking back on how the conversation had gone he supposed it might look that way and his cheeks flushed at that thought, his heart pounding under Ben’s touch. He should have just kept his big mouth shut.

But it would help. It would help so much. He could focus more on writing what he wanted than making sure he wrote enough crap to get paid enough to struggle through. But where had his pride gone? Why ask? He had lost most of it when he accepted his demotion instead of quitting outright.

Murphy hesitated for a moment before leaning forwards to brush a gentle kiss against Ben’s lips as long as the vampire let him, but not letting it linger.

“Thank you, Ben,” he murmured shyly, wishing he could argue against it, but it would just be idiotic. Ben did have a stupid amount of money, as bad as the debt was to Murphy it would make the tiniest dent in Ben’s millions.

[Trillian]

When Murphy pulled away from the kiss, Ben's lips were upturned in a smile.  It was good to feel free around Murphy again, that kisses and touches like that weren't awkward.  He'd worried that they would be, but was massively relieved they were not.  He'd never had a close platonic relationship with anyone like this before, and he valued it dearly.  The small touches, the hand holding, the little kisses.  Many a time he'd seen girls behave this way with their friends, and he'd envied them.  It wasn't until Murphy had become his friend that he'd discovered he could have it too.  It wasn't until his self-inflicted split with Murphy that he realised how much he needed him.

"You're welcome, Murph," he said, and felt a great deal more lighthearted.  "The Academy," he said, slapping his knee lightly with his hand to be an ending of one conversation and the start of another.  "It's going to be a place of supernatural education.  Learning about all the different powers, or maybe even tapping into them, if you're a supernatural," he mused, remembering what Conner had said.  It hadn't been the vein he'd been thinking, but it was a good idea nonetheless.  "And for mortals, too, I think.  How to protect yourself.  That should be setup, too," he said.

[pinkroses]

Murphy grinned in relief as Ben finally turned the conversation away from the human’s problems to talk about much more hopeful things. He leant sideways against the back of the couch, letting his fingers play gently with Ben’s as he listened to the vampire enthuse about his idea.

His smile widened slightly as Ben mentioned humans being involved as well – that Murphy could definitely get enthusiastic about. He wanted to help out, but didn’t really see how he could other than general admin. He was organised (although the state of his apartment currently was not a great advert for that) and a very hard worker. But if Ben let him then he’d be happy to do as much as he could, and not just for the pay.

He wasn’t sure how humans would really be able to protect themselves in real trouble, so information on that would definitely be good. Especially now the Oligarchy was gone and Murphy had no idea how well the district leaders were doing at keeping things in control.

“I bet a lot of people would leap at the chance. Human or supernatural. Is… do you think humans needing protection might be more important with all the changes that have happened? Do you know much about the districts and stuff?” Murphy asked. “I want to hear more about your Acadmey, of course, you know I do, but… what do you think? It would be sensible anyway, because there’ll always be the odd ones… but you were here when it all went to shit before. That’s not going to happen again, is it?” he asked.

[Trillian]

Ben considered it.  He'd thought everything was pretty much the same still, even with the Districts still getting up there.

"I haven't read anything weird in the papers," he said, casting a sideways smile in Murphy's direction before it slipped a little as he thought his friend's words over.  "Everybody seems to be doing what they were always doing," he said.  "I don't know, I'm the last person to ask, I've mostly been a hermit.  Except I found a guy to train me, he... uh, he'd lost his sire and we initially talked about that," Ben explained, failing to deliver the exact nature of their meeting, considering he'd tried to bury himself in a shallow grave.  "Then he offered to train me.  Pity, I guess.  I didn't care, I took it.  I have to call him though, set up the next session," he said, and pressed his lips together because there was a lot more he wasn't saying there either.  He'd run off on Vincent and Owen, pissed off when they accused him of keeping secret the fact he was the ex-Luminary's fledge.  He had to deal with that, because otherwise he was going to lose his training.

[pinkroses]

As much as he enjoyed talking to Ben, Murphy did wish he had someone more experienced to talk to, someone who knew more about what was going on. Maybe someone like Charon. But that chance, however small it had been, was gone. Murphy couldn’t ask him anything more. But there was little point in getting upset about that, he would simply need to find out more elsewhere – and even the information at the paper was limited for him now.

Murphy watched Ben steadily for a few seconds as Be explained about his new trainer. It was good to hear Ben had someone to help him, Murphy knew well enough that fledglings needed someone with a lot of practise and experience to train them (which was one of the many reasons he hadn’t asked Ben to consider siring him) but Ben definitely didn’t seem overly happy about it all. Ben was vulnerable at the moment, someone approaching him who had also lost their sire (which probably wasn’t all that rare really) and offering to help him just seemed like more than chance. Hopefully this guy wasn’t trying to take advantage of Ben.

“Did something happen with him? You… you don’t seem so keen on the idea, and I know you love training,” Murphy said with a concerned frown, squeezing Ben’s hand gently.

[Trillian]

"Oh, I dunno.  Eating humble pie is about as tasty to vampires as it is to humans, I guess," he joked, letting Murphy know that he was mostly upset about having to go back with an apology on his lips.  Saying sorry wasn't something Ben was looking forward to.  "Vincent's fledge is pretty full on.  Really intense.  But it's train with him or nothing, you know?"

Murphy was smart enough to understand that Ben was coming between a sire and fledge's training session, so he carried little weight.  It might even give Murphy the correct idea that Ben was a great deal intimidated by the blonde, who looked older, seemed to have his shit together, and even though he was younger, he could tap into his celerity.  It wasn't often that Ben felt inferior to other fledges, but there it was.

"I spoke to Vomas at the Venture opening, too," he said, going back to the previous topic of Districts.  "He told me I was living in Dark Angel territory.  I might have to move."

[pinkroses]

Murphy relaxed slightly at Ben’s vague explanation of what had happened which left Murphy to fill in a lot of the gaps and he hoped he was doing it right. It must be difficult trying to fit into someone else’s training routine – or alternately for Vincent’s fledgling, having someone else suddenly there disrupting things. Murphy wondered if it had been much the same when Ichabod had begun training with Ben and Kerr. But Murphy knew that was definitely not a topic to bring up with Ben for so many reasons.

“Yeah, it’s gotta be tricky, I’m sure you’ll all get used to it though, you’ll regret it if you don’t stick with it,” Murphy said encouragingly, knowing how hard Ben found it to admit when he had been wrong, but he had the chance to carry on his training so he had to take it.

“Maybe I should come along to give you moral support,” Murphy added with a jokey grin. He didn’t expect Ben would want him to go along and watch his training, and Vincent and his fledgling probably wouldn’t want another unfamiliar face. But there was a part of Murphy which, despite knowing it would probably be taken as a joke and he wouldn’t be welcome, hoped Ben would say yes. He was curious to know how they went about training, what kind of things they did and how much practise it took. Ben had eagerly shown him new tricks after training, but that was different to seeing the progress being made. And it might help him know what to expect if he was ever sired.

A frown flickered across Murphy’s face as Ben explained about his conversation with Vomas. Seriously? If you were living in an area which wasn’t run by your own kind you would have to move? That seemed weird, and surely it could only lead to the city splitting up even more.

“Is it just because they’re Dark Angels? They don’t sound like the friendliest lot, is it because of that or would it be the same if you’d ended up in someone else’s District? What’s this one?” Murphy asked warily, hoping Ben wasn’t in danger living where he was, and curious as to who was ruling his own territory.

[Trillian]

He nodded along to Murphy's words, having missed the sounding board that Murphy was, liking the ideas that were coming his way.  The comment about moral support did get accepted as a joke, as Murphy suspected, and Ben smiled at the idea of it but didn't take it seriously.

Ben shrugged at the last question, and worked his way backwards from there.

"I dunno.  I think come with me to the Ward sometime, and we can find out.  Even if Conner can't see us, there'll be information there.  Maybe even pamphlets or something."  He looked at Murphy thoughtfully as he searched his mind for the other, earlier questions.  "As for where I am, I'm not being forced to move or anything, but I'd prefer to live in a section of the city with a vampire in the leader position.  I mean, what if I have some freaky incident with a dark angel?  Might be biased judgment on that, so I thought it would be better to have the bias in my favour.  Vomas seems to tolerate me, but Jake strikes me as more... forgiving."

He gave a humourless laugh.  "Not that I plan on getting into any more trouble."

[pinkroses]

“No, I reckon we’d both try to stay under the radar,” Murphy said, giving a small smile which didn’t quite meet his eyes. He had no intention of doing anything which attracted attention, which was partly why he hadn’t tried too hard to find another paper or magazine in the city which might want to hire him.

“I can definitely see why you’d rather have one of them in control, I mean, different kinds stick together, don’t they. If I was under one of them and got myself in trouble they’d probably just chuck me to the dogs,” Murphy said, slouching back against the sofa and running a hand through his hair. He’d love to go see the Ward, get an idea of how things were working. But he’d written the piece which had got the Oligarchy disbanded and the Luminary killed (maybe not directly, but one thing lead to another). Ben was one of them, and had been Kerr’s partner, no doubt they’d be far more forgiving to him.

Murphy wasn’t worried about people coming after him for retaliation (although there had been a few sleepless nights thinking about that, nothing had come for him) but there was no way they would stick up for him if anything did happen.

“I thought about leaving here, just… starting new somewhere else. Maybe like, I dunno, DC or something. But I’ve thought about doing a lot of stuff over the years and I’m still here,” he added, glancing sideways at Ben with a wry smile. He’d considered asking Ben to go with him, but they hadn’t been talking then and he hadn’t imagined Ben would want to go anywhere with him. His lack of funds had been a dampener on making any real plans towards heading off as well. And now Ben had his Academy, so there was little chance of them heading off together. But the Academy was a good thing; it could give both of them something to focus on and work towards.

[Trillian]

When Murphy spoke about potentially getting into trouble with his District Leader, Ben considered that it might be a good idea to put his own name down for notification, to speak up for his human friend.  He was following this path in his head, wondering how to go about organising something like that when Murphy spoke again.  Ben looked at him in horror - he didn't have too many people that he could really trust.  Kerr was gone, Murphy was it and maybe Connor he could go to for help if he needed it, but he couldn't say he trusted the other vampire entirely.  He didn't know where Connor's loyalties or obligations lay.

"When I went to New York," Ben began slowly, not wanting to say anything negative to Murphy about leaving while also trying to talk him into staying (because it sounded like he wanted to stay, judging by his last comment), "there was a club there, called Liquid Empire.  It's owned by the same people who own Risk, I've found.  Venture, I mean."  That was just something he'd discovered long after coming back, because Venture had advertised their other locations and club names.  "It's possible there was another political setup there, too.  I know Jake came from there too, and they had this other name for their politics.  Um... Camoflage, or something.  That's not it, but, you know."  He shrugged, hoping his point was made.  Being in the know meant that Murphy might not technically be safe anywhere, and at least here he had Ben to watch his back.

[pinkroses]

Murphy’s smile faded as Ben explained that who had owned the club in New York. He’d known they had spread out a lot, but he hadn’t really thought that they might have ties wherever he went. If the Sacramentum wanted nothing to do with him he might find it more difficult than he thought to get similar work elsewhere. And now that he knew about it all there was no way he wanted to pretend he knew nothing. He wanted to make the most of his knowledge, to use it however he could. But the opportunities all seemed to have slammed shut.

“I met up with him a few times. Not Jake, the vampire who runs the Sacramentum, the ones who own Venture. It’s like one big family. We didn’t really go into the politic ties they might have, but yeah, I guess it would make sense that other cities would have something like here. I’d like to find out more… no one would want to talk about stuff like that though, would they?” Murphy didn’t really know much about Jake, but if Ben hardly even knew the name of the politics Jake had been involved in there it was unlikely Jake would want to talk to a human about it.

He fell silent, once again considering where else he could go, but then he remembered the look on Ben’s face when he first mentioned it and he shuffled a little closer, his thigh pressing against Ben’s as he gave his hand another squeeze.

“I would have asked you to come with me. I wouldn’t have just gone. Even when we were… y’know. I would have asked you.”