THE BOGEYMAN.

@pyrify​ ------ CHERYL MASON / MEME. ‘ this pain will last forever. ’

       yeah, it will. there’s nothing that can replace the loss of a loved one--- especially not a parent, not a child--- and murphy has known that since the sickening drop of his gut that hit when they pulled charlie’s body out of the lake. he’d known then that there would be a gaping hole in him, so violently ripped free from its form that he would always feel it, as if the hand that ripped it free was still inside his flesh. every day there’s a fresh pain left where charlie used to be, even now that he’s come to terms with it. more or less. as much as a father can come to terms with losing his kid the way he lost charlie.

       he has a soft spot for her, that much is certain. she’s much older than his own child had been, but there’s something that he can’t shake about the fact that her father’s dead and his child is dead. both were killed, and both events had sent them...

@onlygrief​​ —— RILEY BISHOP / MEME. ’ you’re a different man. ’

       is he a different man now? the man who got arrested... is he gone entirely, or is he still there, lurking beneath the surface of a man who only thinks he’s changed because he feels as if he was forced to? has he really been rehabilitated, as the system would have him believe? did he ever really need rehabilitation at all? what he’d done in there, to napier--- how wrong had it been? would he do it again, if given the chance? he sees charlie’s face behind his eyelids and clears his throat, turning his gaze from the officer.

       she’s the one who needs to believe he’s a different man; she’s the one who holds his fate now, the one who decides if he’d really learned anything from being in prison. still, even though he relies on her for his own freedom ( it’s not like he doesn’t like her company, but it would certainly be nice to have some alone time ), he doesn’t know that “different” feels like a good way to describe him. 

@fatedruin​ ------ ANNE CUNNINGHAM / MEME. ' maybe i didn’t treat you quite as good as i should have. '

      “what gave you that idea?” before she has time to dwell on their past--- there’s plenty to dwell on, plenty of reasons why she might have treated him with a little less than a common level of respect--- he takes her chin in his hand, gingerly tipping it upward. there’d been no way for her to understand, and she’d been blinded by the same things he’d been blinded by. ANGER. GRIEF. REVENGE. he can’t blame her for that, not when just about every major decision in his life since the loss of his son had been made with that same blind, indifferent rage. maybe she’s finding it harder to be more gentle with him than he’s finding it to be with her; that’s fine.

@aglaophotis —— CHERYL MASON / MEME. ‘ someday, all things will end. ’

      he can’t argue with her there. he’s old enough to have seen a lot of things end, to have brought things to an end with his own hands, to have begged and pleaded for things to end only to feel the sickening relief that flooded his body when the end finally came. worst of all he’s seen things end that should never have ended, never the way that they did, never when he could have fucking done something about it. he’s seen things end far too early, far too brutally, and he understands better than most that, yes, ALL things will end.

nobody has to bitch!! i open my goddamn mouth when i want