#iswm murdock | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

theknightmarket · 3 months ago

Note

Had the biggest of big brain ideas.

Murdock gets a hint of your search history (in whatever way, have fun) and it's a whole bunch of sus murderous things or very specific google searches about the human body (eg "how long can a human last without oxygen?")

Murdock gets a little excited, thinking you're at most, a killer like him and at the very least morbidly curious about these things which may lead to a gateway.

Turns out you just write a lot in your free time. Shenanigans ensue.

"It works."

In which Murdock makes an expensive assumption. TW: murder, blood Pages: 19 - Words: 7500

[Requests: OPEN]

Murdock wasn’t good with technology. He had been aware of that since the first time he turned on a phone and managed to get himself permanently locked out before he could input a single password. It wasn’t his style; it was as simple as that. He’d seen plenty of killers who used the internet to their advantage, but that was easy. Boring. Any yahoo with access to Yahoo could go that route.

But Murdock saw murder as an art, not just some pastime he could pick up and put down as he pleased. It required dedication, and he was devoted to it like a worshipper to their deity. So, no, he wasn’t good with technology, nor did he want to be.

The good thing was, you didn’t need to be good with technology to watch over someone’s shoulder, now did you? If you did, he would never have met you, the person who was sat at the table opposite him in the café, with your front facing the wall but your laptop facing him. You had dimmed the screen to the point that words were barely decipherable from the rest of the darkness, but Murdock’s business forced his attentiveness to skyrocket, so the only way that you were keeping things secret was to shut it down completely.

Not that you had a reason to. He hadn’t even been meaning to catch sight of your screen in the first place. It wasn’t his intention to intrude on your privacy – not that you could ask for much in such a public space – but nobody could blame him for getting distracted. His target wasn’t going anywhere until his shift was up, and that meant he had four hours to kill before he had to…

Well, jokes weren’t funny when they needed to be explained.

So, Murdock took to his favorite hobby: people-watching. Normally, it wasn’t that interesting, but that was the point. He needed something that would let him pay attention to his target without letting him know he was paying attention. He needed something passive. He needed something that wouldn’t distract him.

This was the first time that it had failed him. It took only a minute, as his eyes swam over from the teenager bussing tables, to the elderly couple sitting outside the café, to the businessman arguing on the phone, for his focus to land on you. It was purely accidental that you caught his attention. You looked just like everyone else, sitting at a table with some device out next to the cup of coffee. You weren’t even moving, no, you were just reading whatever document written in eleven-point Garamond that you had pulled up, and he almost ignored you completely.

It was in his peripheral that he saw you switch over to the search engine and type in a question. Something simple. Something quick. Something that piqued his interest more than his target glancing unsurely in his direction.

‘How long does a human body take to decompose’. The answer you found – after a few minutes of avoiding AI generated responses and the unrelated ads – was liquification at one month, but that wasn’t what kept him watching. Instead, it was the fact that you copied any of the relevant information into another document, separate from your first one, and then erased the question.

That in and of itself had him blinking slowly in hidden curiosity, but then you typed in another question. ‘How much blood can a human lose before they pass out’. The answer was thirty to forty percent, which you noted down underneath the decomposition timeline. You typed in yet another question. ‘What are the immediate effects of blunt force trauma’. Answered with internal or external hemorrhaging, copied into the document, exchanged for another question. ‘What are the hardest causes of death to identify’. Answer: sudden natural death, copied, replaced.

It was as though his body were frozen in a state of shock. He held his breath, halfway through inhaling, and stilled his coffee cup at chest height. What were the chances? He was genuinely asking himself, trying to think of the last time he had met someone like you, someone like him. Were you like him? Or was he just missing the mark and making assumptions that put him at risk? Was he stupid to believe you were a…

Murdock’s body rebooted. You were back on your original document again, typing between two paragraphs, and he was free from the spell he had been placed under. He could move his limps again, and he brought his coffee to his lips in a movement as smooth as he could make it, so as to avoid earning anymore suspicion from his target.

Behind the scenes, his thoughts were racing, like horses startled by the starter pistol. This alone was unnatural; he was normally calculated, slow-paced, he took his time in such delicate matters, but this was different. He knew it was practically impossible for there to be two killers in a room, let alone one. This was in public, too, and there was no chance for you to be the real deal and not have been caught yet. Researching methods of disposal in public would get you caught as fast as if you were to hand over a body to the police yourself. But you weren’t sitting in a jail cell, you were in front of a laptop in a café, because you weren’t dumb, because you weren’t a killer. He was just being unnecessarily hopeful.

Murdock took a sip of his coffee.

On the other hand, maybe you were smart. The smartest person he had ever seen before, and this ‘mistake’ was just you hiding in plain sight. People rarely took things at face value anymore. They were too used to being lied to, and you used that to your advantage. Maybe – and he was forced to remind himself that it was a huge maybe – you really were like him, you were just good at making it look like you weren’t.

And, for that, he applauded you. Internally. The barista was watching him like a hawk, after all, and he didn’t want to be chased away before he could find a way to talk to you. If he was going to get to the bottom of who you were, the easiest route would be through you directly, but he couldn’t waltz right up to you and ask if you were a murderer. He needed time.

But time he did not have. You were bound to finish your cup before he could figure you out.

Over your shoulder, he continued to watch you work. Your hands flew across the keyboard faster than he could track, and that combined with the size of your font meant that what you were working on was lost on him. Maybe it was a research paper. Maybe it was a note for the police to find on your next victim. The lines were blurring between the possibilities, and he had no way of getting closer to the truth, not even when you returned to the search engine and entered another question.

‘What is the best place to cut to avoid blood loss’ were the words that showed up, but the answer was not as easily found as the ones from before. The results were clogged with help centers, lines to call if you were at risk, and therapists that espoused positive thinking to fight against the concerning thoughts you obviously weren’t having – if the tapping of your fingers on the table was anything to go by.

After a few seconds of scrolling and getting nothing but mental health help, you rephrased the question. No change. You retyped it with quotations marks and parenthesis, but the search engine was being uncooperative. With a final key smash into the search bar that bled exasperation, you dropped your head into your hands and appeared to try your hardest to mold the heels into your eyes.

Murdock was good at reading people, but he didn’t have to have as much experience as he did to know you were getting frustrated, and you getting frustrated meant that he was running out of time.

How was he supposed to get your attention? Or, more specifically, how was he supposed to get your attention without also getting the attention of the barista? He looked as wired as a junkie; moving beyond his current position would be a risk beyond what he was willing to take. Still, he was nothing if not resourceful.

He glanced around the table he had sat himself at. There were still mugs and plates and all manner of other castoffs from the people before, the busboy was busy with the messes outside, and his target was too nervous to walk within three feet of him, which left him with free reign of the things they left behind. It wasn’t much, but the sudoku sheet and pencil was good enough for him. It was something normal.

In a practiced, jittery, socially awkward hand, Murdock scrawled down the number of his burner phone and a little message underneath it. He hesitated for a second, and then added a smiley face. It would make him come across less creepy, given the content of that message out of context.

One look up was all he could spare, but, luckily, it was all he needed. You were still there, but you were flicking through your open documents and aiming for the ‘save’ button on each of them. A second late and he would miss his opportunity, so, in a fleeting moment of impulsiveness that shocked himself, he gripped his almost-empty coffee cup, slid out of his seat, and slipped the sudoku sheet behind your laptop on his way to the trash can.

He only noticed his heart beating wildly in his chest like a prisoner been told he’d be executed in the morning when he got back to his seat. He hadn’t known he was going to do it in that second until he was doing it. He was only aware of the fact that you were in the process of leaving. He didn’t consider going after you, he didn’t consider following you down the block, he didn’t consider figuring out where you lived and leaving it in in your postbox even though he was definitely capable of it. It was almost as though he wouldn’t get another chance, like a schoolboy seeing someone he liked the look of and not knowing how to approach them.

In that quick succession of movements – a timeframe he was more accustomed to when chopping someone in the back – Murdock wasn’t a serial killer hoping that a stranger was a friend. No, it was nothing so simple. Instead, he was anachronistically and uncomfortably normal.

He dug into his pocket to check if his burner phone was still there before walking straight out of the café’s front door. He needed to clear his head. The barista – his target, because he wasn’t a schoolboy, he was a professional murderer – would be there when he got back.

From that man’s point of view, he wouldn’t have seen anything but a patron kindly cleaning up behind him before leaving. From your point of view…

You couldn’t focus. Of course, you hadn’t been able to focus for the last hour, so that was a moot point, but this was a new kind of ‘couldn’t focus’. Questions swirled in your head, a gathering storm that overshadowed everything else that you should have been paying attention to. It was so difficult, though, when your thoughts kept drifting back to the little slip of paper that you’d shoved in your pocket. Your laptop held securely under your arm, you waved to the barista and started the journey back to your apartment.

The note itself wasn’t a puzzle – metaphorically speaking, given that it was a sudoku sheet – because everything was there, written in an approximation of calligraphy, the words and the numbers seared into your memory. ‘Upper and lower arm’ and a seven-digit line. It was a phone number undoubtably, but what were you supposed to do with it? Text a thank-you? Call them? And how did they know your question in the first place?

Either it was the weirdest pick-up line you had ever received, or you had accidentally caught the attention of a serial killer.

You laughed at yourself under your breath as you crossed the road. It was no secret that you had an overactive imagination, and, while you tried to keep it contained within your work, it was prone to leakage sometimes. It crept into your reality and made you believe the most fantastic stories just because it was more interesting than real life.

While the characters you wrote about investigated missing families and sliced and diced college kids who strayed too close to the house in the woods, you spent your time flitting between the store and your apartment. Going to the café was a rare treat for you having reached fifty thousand words. It was a safe life, yes, but boring.

The note in your pocket seemed to burn through the fabric.

It didn’t have to be. It wasn’t a call to adventure, but a date might have been the break from the monotony you were hoping for. You were no romance writer, you traded in blood stains over lipstick stains, and yet the possibility of someone new was more exciting than words on a screen had been lately. It helped that they seemed to be into the same things as you – maybe they had the same hobbies, maybe, and you were forced to remind himself that it was a huge maybe, he was like you.

You stopped by an alleyway and went a step inside. As you leaned back against one of the brick walls, you fished the paper out of your pocket.

On one hand, you didn’t even know what the person looked like. They had been sitting behind you the entire time, and you only caught sight of their back when you noticed what they left behind. A long, dark coat and a flash of a red something was unhelpful, so you were back to square one in that regard. It was a similar situation for conversation. Not a word had been exchanged between you, and your assumptions of their interests weren’t the most stable things to base an interaction off of.

But then, on the other hand, you were already holding your phone in your other hand and typing the number into your contacts, and there was no real harm in testing it out. Besides, who needed a name when you had ‘maybe a murderer’ for caller ID?

Without giving yourself time to think about it, you texted them a quick thank-you for the information. You didn’t wait to see if it delivered or not, and, instead, pocketed your phone again and continued on your way. If something came from it, then something came from it, and if it didn’t, then it didn’t.

Neither you nor Murdock expected it to go as far as it did; after your first message, he responded with a simple ‘you’re welcome’, and that was that. It took another week for you to talk again, itself being a small moment among the stress of a normal week. You’d asked him another anatomical question, something about how best to fit a human body in a cooler after the internet had given you less than stellar results. Hell, it was only once you’d talked it through with him that you learned that he was indeed a he and that his name was Murdock. You kept his contact the same though.

For a laugh.

That helpful conversation was left alone for another few days, you went about your separate lives as you had before you met, and you thought about him as an acquaintance to ask about the most niche interests.

If someone were to ask you when your relationship changed from those monotonous, distant conversations to something real, you wouldn’t be able to tell them. It just… happened. Something shifted in your conversations, and you stopped going to him just for an easy answer or to save time, and you started going to him because it was him. You liked talking to him more than you liked getting your little problem solved, whatever it was. Broken bones and spilt blood were put on the backburner, to the point that they would become rare in the sea of conversations you had about the merits of keeping throw pillows on the bed or your third attempt at building a ship in a bottle.

The only obstacle between the two of you getting closer was the physical distance because, for some reason, your schedules never seemed to sync up. It was as though fate was perpetually dragging you around in a dance that just skimmed Murdock. You lost count of how many times you missed each other by minutes at a time.

You guessed that was why you were so excited when you finally managed to arrange a date – in the place you had first encountered one another, no less. The café wasn’t far from your apartment, but it wasn’t often you found the time nor the energy to leave the comfort of your home. A lot of your writing featured you hunched over with odd angles and twisted limbs, which was not a sight safe for the public, so you tended towards staying at your desk instead of an open space.

Despite having recently chided fate for its unreliability, you had to grant it some leeway when it let you meet Murdock.

The thump of you flopping back against your mattress knocked you out of your dramatic thoughts. You weren’t a romance writer, but your brain was beginning to look like one, and your chewing of your lip wasn’t doing you any favors.

But could you help it? You were excited, more excited than you had been in a good while, and your proof was hanging right in front of you. Two outfits, both with their positives and negatives. One was flashy, one was comfy. Were you looking to draw attention today – were you supposed to be looking to draw attention? You weren’t good at this. Picking out the right shirt to go with the right pants was not your forté, and you hadn’t spared a thought to color palettes since high school.

Your mind was fogged up with choices and your veins were alive with adrenaline and your mouth was coated with the taste of iron.

Furrowing your eyebrows, you shot up straight, paused, and groaned.

Great, you’d chewed your lip so much that it was bleeding. Just what you needed.

You swiped your finger across your mouth to get rid of what was there already and shuffled to the bathroom for a cloth.

However, you weren’t the only one with blood on your hands; while you were busy trying to find the midpoint between pajamas and a suit, Murdock was ruining is outfit. He wasn’t an idiot, he’d planned a margin of error between getting from the warehouse to the café, but getting an entire new set of clothes was going to really bite into his time reserve. Still, he would do whatever he could to not be late for your date, not only because he didn’t want to come off as uncaring. He also didn’t want you to think he was bad at his job.

Wrenching the axe out of the woman’s neck, listening to the gentle stream of blood grow into a gush, he couldn’t help but think about you. He remembered your questions and the variety of ideas you tested him with. The weight of his weapon seemed almost tacky in comparison to what you teased. All your creative ways of ending a life made him wonder if he should have been doing more.

But he had constructed a recognizable method, and he was proud of what he had achieved in the media. Those sloppy back-alley stabbings were never mentioned in tandem with his name, and he thought that was worth it. You were inventive, but he was reliable. Maybe you could work together on something if this date went well.

Murdock caught the glint of his watch from the flickering lights of the warehouse. If he wanted to be on time, he had to get going. Luckily, the woman had already stopped squirming, and leaving the body there wasn’t a problem.

He pushed back the sleeve of his jacket to see the real issue. The inside was coated with specks of blood, creating a sticky seal between the fabric and his skin. He couldn’t let you see this – you’d think he was careless, and that just wouldn’t do – so he stepped around the corpse and went off in search of the closest bathroom. No doubt the warehouse ones were going to be grimy, but he had to take what he could get.

The café was relatively empty when you arrived. There were only two or three people in there, including the barista and each doing their own thing around the room. For the fun of it, you sat down in the seat from weeks ago and shot Murdock a text for his whereabouts.

You weren’t as nervous as you thought you should have been. This was the first time you were going to meet in person, by all means, you should have been worried! Somehow, though, your heart was beating in its normal rhythm, your breath was steady, and you were enjoying looking around the room while you waited.

A few minutes passed like that, and, while you stayed calm, your confusion was certainly growing. Had he forgotten? He hadn’t replied to your message, so it was possible that he had gotten busy. You knew about the erratic nature of his schedule, it was the very reason you had been looking forward to this date, but he seemed like he had the decency to tell you if anything came up.

“Hi there.”

The whisper almost made you jump out of your skin, and you struggled to contain the yelp of surprise even after you turned around to see the man you had been waiting for. It didn’t matter that you had expected him, he apparently had an uncanny ability to sneak up on people.

You lightly batted your hand against his arm. “Don’t ever do that again.”

“I’m sorry.” He said this despite him obviously not being sorry, considering the low, breathy chuckle he let out as he slipped into the chair opposite you.

“And I was going to offer to pay for your coffee.”

“Did I scare you that much?”

You shot him a blank look, to which he started up his laughter.

As far as dates went, this was going pretty well; you started by ordering your drinks – you noticed it wasn’t the same barista as last time, but shifts changed all the time – and, while you tried to return to your last conversation, you couldn’t help but point out how bad a choice black coffee was. It was less of a complaint, and more of a public service.

“It’s not that bad,” he said after taking a sip from the cup.

“So you admit that it’s at least a little bad?”

“It’s better than your sugar-loaded concoction.”

“One sugar packet does not make it ‘sugar-loaded’.”

Despite his glasses covering his eyes, you were able to feel the disapproval quite clearly, enough to match yours, before it faded, and he slid his cup towards your side of the table.

“How about we trade?”

You took a second to think about it; it wasn’t as though you’d never tried black coffee, but it was back when you were thirteen and hadn’t understood the possibility of sweeteners.

Semi-reluctantly and fully suspiciously, you exchanged his cup for yours and brought it close to your lips. You left enough space to joke, “You aren’t trying to get my DNA, are you?”

“Why would I want your DNA?”

“To frame me for one of your murders.”

Had the cup not blocked your view of Murdock as you poured hot coffee down your throat, you might have recognized the flash of panic that spread over his face like lightning in the middle of a storm. His grip tightened around the cup, knuckles becoming more defined while he fought back a frown.

“Do you really think so low of me?”

Placing the cup back down on the table, you shot him a grin that made him relax again. It was a joke, you had been joking, just joking.

“I’m smiling,” you said as you pushed it closer to him, “but that was horrible.”

Oh, right, the coffee. He had almost forgotten what he was doing, but he fixed his mistake by taking a sip. The first taste was the coffee, go figure, but behind it was the faint undertone of what he had expected. The sugar was weaker than what he’d thought it would be, but, nevertheless, it was there, and it was not for him.

“You’re one to talk,” was his response.

“Still, you have to be some kind of murderer, or else why do you know so much about anatomy?”

Were you testing him? Seeing how far he would go in public? You were being bold in joking about your shared work, were you trying to figure out how careful he was? Protecting yourself was a smart move, but he wasn’t going to take the bait so easily.

And you weren’t the only one with jokes.

“I’m a mortuary technician.”

It was a simple answer, one you deemed worthy of a surprised look.

“Really? Why’s that?”

“I feel most at home standing above a dead body?”

That got a laugh out of you, a genuine laugh that made his playful smirk turn more appreciative. For the first time since before he could remember, he thought he preferred that sound from you more than the fearful shriek.

How… normal.

When you faded off into a few stray chuckles, a thought occurred to you that prompted you to point at him dramatically and faux-offended.

“You never answered my text.”

The tilt of his head had you pulling out your phone and showing him the last conversation that you had. The message stood out starkly against your background, even with the dimmed screen, and you tapped it with an accusatory look.

“Well, would you look at that,” he muttered, leaning back in his chair.

“Yeah, delivered.”

“No, no, I mean—” he pointed at his contact name, “—that.”

You flipped your phone around to look where he was referring to and immediately felt a blush crawl from your neck to your cheeks. ‘Maybe a murderer’ was not the most affectionate thing to have him labelled as, and for him to see it on your first date was mortifying.

“Oh, yeah, that.” As quickly as you could, you turned it off and shoved it back in your pocket, praying that it or yourself would somehow disappear so that you didn’t have to deal with the embarrassing consequences.

“Maybe a murderer? I thought we’d already clarified what I am.”

“And I thought you were a mortuary technician?”

“So people can’t have hobbies?”

You glanced out the window as you absentmindedly swirled your coffee. “I can’t, at least. I mean, I turned my hobby into my full-time job.”

“What was that saying? Find a job you love, and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.”

“Oh, I’ve worked some days.”

Murdock leaned closer on the table, perching his head on the back of his hand, like a cat watching a fish from an unreachable perch. “So you don’t love it?”

“Of course, I do! It’s just… keeping track of everything gets so tiring after a while, you know?”

“Based on the questions you’ve sent me, I think simplifying your methods would make it easier.”

“I could, but then it wouldn’t be nearly as fun.”

“I, for one, can vouch for the excitement of reliable techniques. Sometimes, knowing how to do something and do it right is the best part. Refining your skills.”

“Do you think people would care as much if I just did the same thing over and over again?”

From your experience, reusing old material, especially in the same book, made for a lousy read. Unless he meant rewriting the same piece – which itself would bore you out of your mind – you certainly didn’t want to put someone through that.

There was a dip of Murdock’s head, a lowering of his tone, a glint of the sun against his glasses as he said, “I wouldn’t mind seeing some of your work.”

You tried to disguise the surprise from the sudden beating of your heart with a sip of your coffee. It was nearly all gone, which meant so too were your moments of reprieve. Fortunately, he looked genuine, as though he actually wanted to see some of your in-progress chapters.

“Even the stuff that isn’t finished?”

You were brazen, weren’t you? More than he’d ever imagined was possible. “Did you leave a body out so that you could come here?” Just the thought of you taking such a risk just to see him made his breath speed up in a way that was more familiar to him in chasing down a victim.

You shrugged. “They’ll be there when I get back. They’re just words on a page, after all.” You opened your mouth as if to continue that thought, but you soon closed it and furrowed your eyebrows. “How’d you know it was a body?”

There was no accusation in your voice, but the confusion was a feeling you and Murdock shared. Just words on a page? What did you mean by that? Was there some popular metaphor amongst murderers he was unaware of or…

Wait.

“Hey, are you okay?”

Oh, no.

“What’s under your sleeve. Are- are you bleeding?”

Oh, no.

In a flurry, he tugged his sleeve down over his wrist, as though pulling it far enough meant you would forget you had ever seen it. Telling you it wasn’t his blood wasn’t an option. Telling you it was the blood of a woman whom he had killed – no matter the reason – was not an option.

“Oh, I’m okay,” he rushed to say, his words spilling out of his mouth faster than he could think of them. He needed an excuse, any excuse that wouldn’t make you sprint out of the café as though he’d just told you he was a murderer, which was possible considering he was a murderer and you were distinctly not. “Just caught my wrist on a scalpel at the mortuary, and I guess I didn’t bandage it correctly.”

That was cheap. If you wanted to, it would have been so easy for you to question him about the holes in his story. He didn’t even know if technicians used scalpels, and there was no sign of actual injury anywhere near his wrist. It was shoddy, and this situation was dangerous, and he had gotten so comfortable in presumably talking to another killer that he hadn’t tried to cover anything up.

Damn it.

Murdock had made a mistake. A stupid mistake that was sure to haunt him for the rest of the days. Hell, he’d made two mistakes, the first being to have ever assumed that you were like him without then making absolute sure that he was right – he was meant to be good at this, but that was the most idiotic he had been in his life – but the second mistake was even worse.

Because he’d gone and caught feelings for you. Ones he didn’t think he’d be letting go of for a long time; you were terribly kind, and you were awfully genuine, and, worst of all, you weren’t a killer like him.

You were a writer.

While Murdock was internally having a heart attack over the mess he’d made of this relationship from the very beginning, you nodded sympathetically. Wounds on the wrist always made you squirm, whether it was a knife or a paper cut, so you just sat back in your chair.

“If you want to, I’ll ask the barista if they have a first aid kit while you go wash it off.”

He had been staring straight at you when you said that, and the sunglasses blocked his eyes, which meant you didn’t see the way he startled like a rabbit.

You…

You believed him.

Slowly, he nodded, then pushed himself out of his seat, searching for the sign for the bathroom. In sync, you went to talk to the employee, but Murdock stayed standing for a moment.

You hadn’t pointed out any of the problems with his story, you just took him at his word and moved on, trying to help him with a lie. But it couldn’t have been that easy. Something would come up eventually and he’d have to face the music that he had orchestrated himself. He’d lose your laugh and the ill-fated connection you had made. He just knew it. It was only a matter of time.

And yet, surprisingly, everything continued on just as smoothly as before. In some ways, it became even better – being a murderer came with constant fear of getting caught, but also dating a murderer came with twice that amount, especially when it was concern for someone you loved. And, if one of you were caught, there was an uncomfortable choice to be made.

But none of that mattered! Not anymore. He could enjoy talking over scenarios with you without getting a heart attack whenever you got home late. Sure, anytime you went out into the public together, he spent a few extra minutes looking over his shoulder, but you weren’t doing anything illegal, and Murdock took care not to leave anything behind at crime scenes. A little more awareness was a price he was willing to pay to spend time with you.

Some of his favorite moments were spent in your apartment, and this was one of the best; the blinds were up, the door was locked, and you were leaned against him on the couch, television showing a nature documentary that he was only half paying attention to. Had it been in the depths of winter, snow floating about outside, it could have been the closing image of a hallmark movie. Though, despite it being a cool May evening, it was good enough for the both of you.

You laid your head on Murdock’s shoulder with a sigh, your hands stilled at the keyboard of your laptop across your thighs. He knew that sigh, so he drew the arm that had been strewn over your shoulder back to card a hand through your hair.

“What’re you stuck on?” he asked in a low tone that reverberated through your skin. You almost forgot what troubled you, but the screen in front of you brought it back to the forefront of your mind.

“I don’t know if this works.”

“How so?”

Instead of trying to describe the situation or awkwardly reading it aloud, you just shifted the laptop so that he could see it. Even though it was dim, you didn’t need to burst the comfortable atmosphere with a flashbang – it was a neat skill Murdock had, to be able to read in any environment, but he never explained where he learned it. You’d asked him once, but the only response you got was a wink and a smile.

It was only a short paragraph that had you stumped. When you first started, you would have called it good enough and moved on, but ever since you met Murdock, you had taken special care to make it as accurate as possible. He always got excited when describing certain scenarios to you, always took the time to be precise with what would happen, always made your writing better. It felt like an insult to him to be mediocre at his favorite subject.

He signaled that he was done with a hum.

“I’m tempted to say they wouldn’t pass out before getting to the other hand but…” he trailed off into another hum. “It would depend on their pain tolerance, wouldn’t it?”

“That’s the thing. I’d like them to pass out in this chapter, but later on, they have to have a pain tolerance high enough to run on a broken leg. I don’t really want to get rid of either one of them, though.”

Murdock’s hand in your hair paused, and, unable to see his face, you assumed that he was thinking of ways around it. You had no clue what else you could use that would give you the same effect, so you were already resigning yourself to cutting this part of the scene when he shifted behind you. You took the hint and readjusted yourself against the couch, but you shot him a confused look.

Because his glasses stopped you from seeing his eyes, you were only able to go off of the smirk that spread across his lips. On anyone else, it might have been concerning, but you knew Murdock, and you trusted him through and through. You simply tilted your head in a silent question.

“Sorry, love, I just remembered an extra shift I’m supposed to be at in half an hour. Influx of bodies this week.”

Well, that was disappointing. While you were hoping he had come up with some solution to your struggle, this was also one of the few nights that your schedules aligned. Problems with your calendars hadn’t disappeared after your first date, which meant what little free time you had was spent together, even if you weren’t doing anything specific. You supposed it couldn’t be helped, though – work was work, and Murdock took his job very seriously.

Sometimes you almost wished he didn’t, especially given the recent string of murders around the city. You didn’t like him walking off into the darkness alone. You knew he was able to protect himself, but… you couldn’t help but worry.

That worry apparently showed on your face, if Murdock leaning down to your level was anything to go by.

“Hey,” he whispered, “I’ll come straight back as soon as I’m done with the last body. I’ll be okay.”

“I know, I know, it’s just- y’know, I’ve seen the news and it’s not very assuring.”

He tugged off his glasses with one hand and used the other to caress your cheek. The touch was soft and comforting, but seeing his eyes was the thing that made your shoulders relax and edges of your mouth perk up in a small smile. It wasn’t often that he took them off, outside or inside, but it always made you feel better, as though you understood him the second your eyes met. They were the windows to the soul, after all.

“You don’t need to worry, love. No murderer is going to get me in alleyway. I’ll always come back to you, no matter what.”

To you, that was a pledge for protection against that maniac with an axe. To Murdock, that was a pledge for protection against the police who stuck their heads where they didn’t belong and got them chopped off for it.

But he wouldn’t tell you that. You didn’t need to know; it would only make you worry more, and that was the last thing he wanted.

Slowly, he leaned forward and pressed his lips against yours. His thumb continued to stroke up and down your cheek, but his hand that held his glasses maneuvered so that he could comfortably cradle the back of your head. On your part, it took you a second to melt into his hold, but melt you did, and you found yourself pushing off the couch to get closer. This was nice. This was safe. Not the safe that you had months ago, the kind that was unbearably boring and made everything else monotonous, as though you were frozen in a block of ice. This was the safe that warmed the ice ever-so-gently until you were pulled out into a protective embrace. The pressure of Murdock against you, no matter the point of contact, was a reminder of that. Your doubtless safety.

When he pulled away, you couldn’t stop the little sound that escaped you, disappointed for a reason different than before, but Murdock only responded with a smug chuckle.

“Later,” he muttered as he replaced the glasses over his eyes, “but I have to get to work.”

He made as if to brush a hand through your hair again, but he smoothly switched directions and grabbed your laptop from where it had slipped during your little moment.

You huffed an indignant, “Hey,” but it was no use.

“This is coming with me.”

“And why’s that?”

“I might be able to figure out your problem while I’m out. It’ll give me something to think about while I wait.”

You rolled your eyes but put up no other resistance. You certainly weren’t going to get anywhere with it, and a break from a screen sounded good about now.

“Fine,” you said as you reached for the TV remote, “just don’t go looking through my files.”

His grin stretched wider. “No promises.”

That look. It was stupid, cliché even, but it made your heart flutter every time it was directed towards you. It showed up in soft moments, in your playful banter, in your affectionately-termed lectures when you wanted to know how long someone could go without oxygen. You’d never taken a picture of it because you never felt the need to; there was always the confidence that you would see it again and capturing it beneath a glass cover was a lot like admitting your time was limited. That was something you didn’t want to risk.

With the flutter replaced by a heaviness, you waved goodbye to Murdock as he waltzed out of your apartment door, your laptop under his arm and keys in his hand. Late night shifts meant that you would go to sleep alone but wake up held securely in a hug that you never felt begin. You guessed that you were a heavy sleeper, or he was just careful not to disturb you when climbing under the sheets.

Though, that theory was put under strain when you stirred to the sound of your bedroom door opening and closing early in the morning, blearily opened your eyes at a rustling, and twisted around to look at who had entered the room.

The moon draped Murdock’s red and black clothes in a milky sheen of light. While he peeled off layer and layer of fabric, you tried to make out the shapes of color that painted his body. They almost looked like splatters – the product of darkness – with their odd angles and droplets against his skin – the aftereffects of sleep – and the way they smeared as he drew his shirt over them – the fantasies you were so prone to indulging in.

You whispered into the shadows where he stood, “Welcome back.”

He laughed to himself under his breath before padding over to join you. You opened the bed for him and held the sheet up until he was safely nestled at your side, arm thrown over your shoulders to guide you closer.

“It works, love.”

“Hmm?”

“The hand thing. They can pass out at the fourth finger and still hobble their way down a hallway with a broken leg. I think it just takes them realizing what situation they’re in for the adrenaline to work its magic.”

“Huh—” you shifted so that you were looking him in the eyes, “—how’d you find that out?”

In the darkness of the room, silhouetted barely by the moonlight but altogether protected from the outside world, he smiled at you and pressed a kiss against your lips. It only lasted a second, two at most, but you couldn’t deny the faint taste of something unusual. Iron?

He drew back before you could figure it out and whispered, “A body came in with the kind of damages you wrote about. Did some tests and it turned out they were put in pretty much the same situation.”

Your eyebrows furrowed and the corners of your mouth turned down. What were the chances?

“Should we be worried?” you asked, mind running wild with questions. Was it just a coincidence that it was the same scenario? Was it just a coincidence that it happened the same time you wrote about it? Was it a coincidence, was it a coincidence?

Murdock broke you out of those thoughts with his words resonating through you. “What did I say before?”

“I know, but…” You couldn’t finish, but you didn’t need to for him to understand. Just saying the words aloud made a certain feeling stir in your gut. Maybe it was simple fear, maybe it was a small glimmer of guilt – either way, it distracted you enough that Murdock had to bring you in impossibly closer for you to snap out of it.

“Love, he won’t hurt me and he’s not going to hurt you.”

His breath fanned over your hair as you slotted your chin over his shoulders.

“I’ll make sure of it.”

[Thank you for this request! I don't know why I have so much Murdock content considering he shows up for fifteen seconds in a completely missable and frankly irrelevant chunk of Space, but, y'know, I love him, so it's fine. Also, I totally used some of this so vent about how hard it is to search for that blood loss question. Again, thank you for requesting <3!]

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