FIC: Mercy (complete and revised)

[ladyjanelly]

Just realized that this one didnt get over to my personal LJ in its completed form, so I wanted to post it just for tidiness' sake.

 

Title: Mercy
Author: LadyJanelly
Characters: Connor, Murphy
Rating: R
Warnings: violcence, pain, death, animan-harm
Disclaimer: Not mine and stuff.

 

 

The ropes are hemp, rough around his wrists and so tight that he can no longer feel his fingers.

The priest of the town looks on as the nooses are secured, first around his brother's throat and then his own. The night before they had asked for last rites, and been told that they could only receive the sacrament if they would say that the voice that had guided them for five long years had been that of the devil.

This they couldn't have done, so now they face death unconfessed. He hates the priest for that, and the church for excommunicating them, but not God. They've never been angry at God.

Sweat stings his skin where the rope had brushed his face as it went over his head. The tropical sun burns down, and he tastes salt when he licks his lips.

His head turns. His eyes meet those of his brother. Sorrow. Acceptance. He wishes he was as strong in his courage and his faith.

It takes all that he has, all that he is, to not scream at the injustice of this day, to not cry out for mercy or vengeance.

The hangman adjusts the rope, taking up the slack. The knot rests tight behind his ear. The trapdoor under his feet creaks in anticipation, the bastard thing.

An English officer, some ponce in a big hat and curled wig is reading a list of their crimes. Murder. Corruption, piracy and more. He's surprised they haven’t been accused of buggering the damn sheep.

"Have you any last words?"

"Aye."

He watches as his brother speaks, grateful that one of them has found his voice.

"Whosoever shall spill man's blood, by man shall his blood be spilled." The words have the ring of a biblical passage. The voice that speaks them is strong, sure.

He has never been so proud in his life.

Something more than sweat burns his eyes but he will not look away from the only person here who matters.

In the corners of his vision he can see the official step away and gesture with his hand.

He steels himself to not cry out, to not shame his brother or his family name with a last show of cowardice.

He sees, in those blue eyes, the very moment when the planks beneath his brother's feet fall away.

"Murph!" is the last word to pass through his brother's throat before the merciful knot snaps his neck.

And then Murphy too is falling. Just before he hit the end of the rope he smiles, knowing that whatever their fate, Connor will be there. Waiting. As always.

He stops falling.

He will not be alone for long.

 

-----------------

The wind is cool. The sun is warm, shining down upon him. It makes a broad red glow behind his eyelids, but is not so bright that he wants to turn his head from it.

The ground is soft beneath his back, and he has a sense of green and growing things.

In the distance he can hear the song of a lark.

Something is tickling across his lips--string, or a soft leaf. The teasing is forcing him to wake, forcing him to become aware of himself and the world.

He's not breathing, and that realization hits him like a shot and he coughs and struggles for air. A hand presses him back against the softness of the grass, and Connor's face shadows his own.

"Easy now, Murphy." His brother's voice is so calm that it is impossible to be afraid. He breathes and stares up at Connor.

He can't remember when his brother's face was so relaxed and peaceful. He knows he has seen it, just not the "when" of it. The line of worry that so often lingers between his brows is gone. There is no tension in the shape of his lips or the set of his shoulders.

The white of Connor's t-shirt almost glows in the sunlight and he knows he can't remember Connor in a white t-shirt.

He blinks. He shouldn’t. The world twists around him, inside of him and everything becomes dark. He's holding Connor instead of the other way around and his brother is dying in his arms. A pitiful candle lights the ugly cell. He watches each struggling breath, and it hurts more to see Connor's pain than to live his own broken bones and festering wounds.

The sun is only a sweet memory to him now, something he will never see again.

This city-beyond-the-sea has killed them, two immigrant boys from County Cork. It was bigger than they could have understood, and its evil men had resources that stretched beyond their wildest imaginings.

Their rosaries have been taken from them, but that does not stop his lips from moving in silent prayers--pleas to God to keep and shelter their souls when this is all over.

"Murph..." The word is a rasp, forced through a throat torn raw with screaming. There is more blood than air and he can see Connor fight against the threatening cough.

Murphy leans close, feels his own tears hot on his feverish cheeks, sees them fall, glitter, splash down on bruised skin. "I'm here," he whispers, because he's not sure that Connor can see him.

"I'm afraid..." The cost of those words is high, and Connor's face twists in agony.

"Shhh," Murph whispers back. "I'll be comin' right behind. Ya won't be alone for long. I swear to Christ."

He touches the least-hurt part of Connor's cheek that he can find. He uses the back of his hand. His fingers are too broken for such a task.

Connor nods, the slightest movement of his head, but Murphy knows he understands.

It doesn’t take much pressure. A little more than the weight of Murphy's arm and his brother's chest cannot refill with breath. He knows the jagged ends of bones are grinding together as he presses. He feels his own heart breaking.

There is no struggle, though it hurts them both. Murphy can feel the moment when his brother's soul is gathered into the arms of God and he's left alone with only a corpse for comfort.

He knows it won't be long before the fever or hunger or the brutality of their captors sends him back to Connor.

He is depending upon it.

--------

Connor is calling him. Strong fingers grip his.

"Murph, get a hold of yourself," his brother's voice says, but he's not angry or impatient like Murphy remembers him being so often.

"There is no place here for that. Let it go, Murphy. Let it be."

Fingers brush his hair back from forehead, and he tries to focus on those fingers, let himself be drawn to them, but he's not strong enough. As much as he wants to be here, to stay here, the world slips away on him again and becomes a field of white.

He's running, and Connor just behind him. The air is so cold it burns his lungs and stabs his cheeks like a hundred good steel pins.

Connor has the revolver. He knows this, as surely as he knows Connor will not use it. They cannot kill a good man. There are costs higher than death.

They struggle through knee-deep snow, heading for a sparse tree-line ahead of them. Murphy hopes that the branches will have kept some of the snow off of the ground, or that they can hide there, but he doesn’t really expect it to be so.

He's afraid--for Connor, not himself. It's the only reason he regrets killing a man they fought beside for more than a year. It had been one thing, working with Pat to kill foreign invaders, men who would cause harm on Irish soil. But he couldn’t be content with that. He made bombs and struck at the innocent women and children of those men's homeland. It was crossing over into true evil. It broke their hearts but it had to be done.

A grey shape shoots across the snow towards them, faster than they can hope to travel.

"Connor!" he shouts. "The dog. Shoot the damn dog!"

They know the silent bastard of a wolfhound. Rory's dog, and his master can't be far behind. They stop and Connor fumbles with half-frozen fingers to get the gun out and pointed in the right direction. Not fast enough and Murphy steps in between.

The hound almost outweighs him, and the force of its charge bowls them both over into the snow. He takes the crush of jaws on the arm instead of the throat, wishing for the thickness of a coat to keep teeth off of his skin because the sweater he's wearing is doing no good at all. Then Connor is there, pressing the pistol against the beast's ribs and firing.

Murphy's elbow is almost wrenched from the socket as the dog falls.

They run again, Murphy cradling his arm against his side, leaving a fresh blood trail in the sharp white of the snow. Connor's ahead now, and it seems it should be the other way around, but to say so would take too much effort.

Murphy hears the shot and starts to fall before the sensation of impact registers.

"Conn..." he calls out in surprise as he's tumbling face-first into his brother's footprints.

"No! Murph!" He is shamed by the anguish in Connor's voice, shamed that he has caused the one he loves, more than God or country or life, such pain.

"Run. Go." He tries to say but his voice won't work and Connor's rolling him over and trying to stop the gushing of blood with his hand. The bullet's gone through him and the damn sweater is beyond saving now, he thinks.

"How could y'do it, Connor?" Rory's voice is sharp as the wind. His feet crunch in the snow as he approaches. "He trusted you two. You were family for Christ's sake!"

"We claim no kinship with evil men." Connor's words snap back, crisp and clear but he's shaking with the cold and despair. "He was a murderer, not a soldier."

Connor's gun barks once. The hand that holds it shakes with cold and exhaustion. His brother's arm is around Murphy's shoulders, holding his head free of the snow but the cold seeps into him though, a dull aching numbness that is spreading up from hands and feet towards his heart. His fingers twitch, to no effect. The empty gun falls to the snow and Connor's hand presses against his chest, trying to keep the blood in him.

"Those 'innocents' died to send a message," Rory sneers.

"So did your Da." Connor answers and Murphy knows the boy won't understand, but at this point it doesn’t matter a bit.

The rifle-shot echoes across the cold and empty field. Connor's blood is hot against his cheek. He falls beside Murphy, the place where his hand had pressed cold in its absence.

Murph hears the sound of the gun being reloaded, and he feels the emptiness in the world where his brother's soul should be.

Rory's shadow passes between Murphy and the cloud-shrouded glow of the sun. Tears shine in the boy's eyes as he raises the stock to his shoulder.

Murphy looks up at those eyes, the same blue-grey as his own. "Shoot," He whispers.

 

-----------

The rifle's report becomes the sound of two booted feet striking as one, kicking in heavy door. A room is spread before them, a room that should be filled with a meeting of mafia guys.

Instead there's a folding card table, a pyramid of six grey bricks on top of it. A little blinking green light turns to red.

Fucken Italians,

Murphy thinks, using six bars of plastique when one would have done the job.

He has just the time to look at Connor one last time. Then the blast hits, blowing them back against the brick of the hall. Bones are crushed, organs destroyed, skulls shattered.

"Connor!" He's screaming, even though he knows he has no lungs, no jaw, no voice.

And Connor is there--his warmth, his scent, his strength. Arms hold him, rock him. The air smells of grass instead of fire. The light behind his eyelids is soft.

"For fuck's sake, Murph. Stop. Please. Stop."

He looks up at his brother and sees worry, almost desperation in his eyes. Apparently there's a limit to even white-shirt-Connor's calmness.

Panic rises in Murphy's chest again.

"I can't do it again, Conn. Please. I can't see you die again. Don' make me. I don' want to."

The heel of Connor's hand rubs the tears off of his face.

"I never have," Connor tells him. "I never will."

Comments

[ex-wegotta738.livejournal.com]

LadyJanelly did you write this passage? "There is no struggle, though it hurts them both. Murphy can feel the moment when his brother's soul is gathered into the arms of God and he's left alone with only a corpse for comfort"

[ladyjanelly.livejournal.com]

Hrm? It came out of my head with the rest of the fic. Although I read a lot, so it could have been lingering in my brains from somewhere else. Why do you ask?

[ex-wegotta738.livejournal.com]

It is sometimes difficult to communicate by computer without being misunderstood. I ask because your disclaimer says "Not mine & stuff" wasn't sure what that meant. Why do I care? I have gone through this. Not with a brother. I have no brother. But, a dear friend. I have never been able to verbalize how that felt, in that moment. When I read what you wrote I became physically ill. No offense, it has nothing to do with your writing. Yet, I didn't feel so alone in it all somehow. I don't mind being alone in it, I am not looking for someone to share this with. So, I wondered if you to have been through this experience. Is that how you were able to describe it so perfectly, so accurately? Thank you for putting the words in my head.

[ladyjanelly.livejournal.com]

Ahh. No offense taken. More confused than anything. The "Not mine and stuff" refers to the fictional characters that I'm using. Some film company owns the rights to them.

I've never lost anyone close to me, or been there when someone died. I am very flattered that I was able to express Murphy's feelings in such a realistic manner with only my imagination to work from. Maybe it's easier that way, to be a little further from the feelings than someone who was really in a situation like that.

Glad I could give you the words to define what you feel. I know the importance of having the right words and I know how hard it is sometimes to find those.

[unperfectwolf.livejournal.com]

This is the most disjointed complelling fic I have ever read. While my mind is going WHAT THE FUCK? My brain (there's a mind and brain in my head, and they aren't the same. I don't know. Don't ask.) is going OMGILOVEITGIVEMEMORENOWDAMNIT. So.... I think it was a good thing. YAY!

[ladyjanelly.livejournal.com]

Disjointed was okay, as long as it wasn't so bad that it felt like work to read it.

The goal of the piece was to change the time, setting and mission each time, without explicitly saying where and when they were, and to let the sensory info and inner dialog get that across to the reader.

This fic really messed with my head for a while. I'm still having problems writing past-tense as the default.

Any part that you felt was sharper, more real than the rest? Any part that was so vague you couldn't get a grip on why they were in that situation?

Thanks again for the reviews.

[unperfectwolf.livejournal.com]

The first one was the one I got the most. The last one was a little vauge, and consequently hard to get the first time around, mostly because it was short. The middle two I got, but only after a few blinks and my mind settling it into place.

Reguardless, I loved it. I'm in a history class (american, pre 1865) and the entire 100 pages I read today revolved around the influx of the irish and stuff that happened because of it, etc, and it made me want to write au bds fic. But I won't, at least now. I so need to sort all the plot bunnies out before I go into that, and get through finals too.

Fucken A. Sorry about the disjointedness of THIS post. *headdesks*