Work Text:
It's been five months.
It's been two days.
It's been three weeks.
It's been an hour.
2D doesn't know, nor does he care, because how can time pass when there's nowhere for it to go? If a tree falls when no one is around, will it make a sound? If a man trapped in the lonesome south screams until his vocal cords rip is he truly screaming at all? 2D would love nothing more than to try, but Murdoc would beat the living daylights out of him for making such a racket.
He's been sitting at this desk for…
(for…)
Pen in his hand, nib to paper, the ink weeping onto the blank page. His brain has been carved out, he's sure of it, his head hollow inside like Murdoc always says it is. His hand's shaking, or it's his vision blurring, and there's a thump thump thump reverberating in his skull that's growing louder, where is it coming from?
A gnarly hand rests on the gnarlier wood of his desk, making him jump.
2D looks up to see Murdoc glaring at him like he'd crawled his way up from the sewers. This or isolation, it's a tough call to make. At least now he knows what was making all that noise.
"What the bloody hell is this?" He snatches at the ink-blotted page. It rips where the pen nib tries to hold onto it.
2D curls his lip, ready to return his anger with a biting remark, until he realises he doesn't remember what it is. What he was trying to do. Murdoc scoffs at his silence (although he would've scoffed at any answer) and shoves it into his pocket without a second thought.
"Waste of good paper, that. Could've used it for brainstorming my genius ideas. I can't exactly pop on over to the local corner shop and pick some more up, so watch it," He growls. Tutting, he jams his hands in his pockets and turns to go back up the stairs.
2D's tentative question gets caught in his throat, but he must make enough noise that Murdoc faces him, raising an eyebrow.
He knows what the answer will be.
"Are you really sure there's no painkillers anywhere?" His hand trails up to his temple. "My head's been killing me."
It's a feeble excuse 2D's used too many times, they both know it, but he's sure his skull is about to collapse in on itself if he doesn't get something in his system. Murdoc either doesn't know about his inner torment or simply doesn't care, because he rolls his eyes, groaning.
"How many times do I have to tell you I don't have any shitting pills? It's all I fucking hear from you, you and your painkillers. There's none. Got it?"
Scowling, he jabs a finger into 2D's forehead before stomping back upstairs.
2D raises a hand to the sore spot, fingers tentatively grazing where he was poked.
"Ow," He murmurs.
If Murdoc thought he talked about the painkillers a lot, then he'd strangle him if he ever heard how much he thought about them.
It's funny; he'd been living in a dazed, dream-like state for so long, and now his face has been plunged into cold water, bringing him back to reality and leaving his head constantly throbbing, each pulse of pain a rude awakening. Everything is so heavy - his eyelids, every time he blinks, his limbs, every time he moves, his head, every time he's not resting it on the nearest surface. Chasing sleep until there's red light in the moonlight and red tendrils in the whites of his eyes, he feels so bone-tired, and yet it's always just slipping from his grasp, leaving him instead with heavy eye bags, heavier eyelids, heavier limbs.
Sometimes it's as if he's become a part of Plastic Beach; he hears every creak and groan and crack, he feels the gentle sways as it buoys on the water's surface, he senses every time that bloody whale swims too close, every blip and malfunction from Cyborg Noodle, every curse from Murdoc as he throws away yet another sorry excuse for a song. All of it, until he feels overwhelmed by the sheer amount of everything and nothing that can happen in a single moment. Other times it's as if he's removed completely. He takes in nothing. Processes nothing. Watching everything through a dim screen. Flat, cold, and lifeless. The hours pass him by without so much as a greeting. Here one day, gone the next. It's enough to drive a man insane, if he's not already at the brink.
Today he wakes up and wishes he didn't. It's not as if he gets a choice, though, because Cyborg Noodle silently standing at the foot of his bed tells him Murdoc wants him in the recording studio.
He can wait, though. It feels as if they have all of eternity to finish the album.
"Why does that bastard want me up so bloody early?" He croaks at Cyborg Noodle despite knowing she won't grace him with an answer. He pats the edge of his bed. "Come sit here for a bit."
She doesn't move. That's fine; Noodle always did her own thing, anyway.
Groaning, 2D sits himself up in bed, propping his head up with his hands.
"Murdoc's been a real cock lately. Not that he wasn't before. It's just he's a bigger cock now. His cock's not gotten any bigger, though." He snorts at his joke. Noodle doesn't find him as hilarious, going by her stare. "Sorry. Don't think I'm meant to tell them jokes around kids."
"But it's actual torture here, innit? There's nothin' - just water, water, water. It's killing me, Noodle. Don't even get why we're here, anyway. Was there no more places not in the middle of the sodding ocean?" He scowls. "Don't get to see anyone else. Just his smarmy face. I'm well sick of it."
After his impassioned rant, he waits for Noodle to yell an agreement, or nod with vigour, fringe flopping over her eyes.
Instead, Cyborg Noodle marches off without a word.
Of course. It's been years since he's seen Noodle. This plastic imitation feels almost like spitting on her grave, a desperate attempt to reanimate the peaceful dead. And, most of all, brings forth waves of fresh mourning when he's brought back to reality. He'd kill for one last game of Mario Kart with her. One more botched haircut. One more prank played on management when bored on set. Fate wouldn't dare be that kind, though.
2D sighs. Lets his eyelids flutter. Lays back down.
"No, no, no!" Murdoc says, cutting the instrumental short yet again. "I've already said you're supposed to go higher at that bit! Try and get it through your thick skull, eh?"
2D, who'll probably be hearing this stupid bridge in his sleep at this point, groans. "I am going higher but you just keep going over the same blinking part!"
Murdoc drags his nails down his face. "Why can't you just do it without whining? It's all you do! 'Murdoc, where's my pills?' 'Murdoc, when can I leave?' 'Murdoc, why do I have to do my one job, a.k.a. sing a jolly little tune?' I'm trying to write a masterpiece, yeah, I don't really want to mother you, believe it or not! It's enough of a drag having to see your ugly mug every day as it is!"
"Mother me?" Incredulous, 2D leaps out of his chair, knuckles drained white as he grips the arms. "Sod off. You don't fucking talk to me unless you want something from me!"
"Let's be honest, 2D, why would I want to talk to you?" With a scoff, Murdoc crosses his arms. "You've got nothing going on up there, you couldn't form a clever sentence if your sad life depended on it, and most of the time you're high off your rocker."
"Yeah, well, whose fault is all that? Not mine, I wasn't driving your rustbucket straight into a music shop of all places or doing doughnuts to impress some birds that didn't even want you!"
Murdoc smirks.
"That so? Well, I know one bird who wanted me."
2D knows full well that he couldn't possibly win against Murdoc, and yet, as the anger runs hot in his veins, he swings, a mirror of the moment he'd first washed up on this goddamned shore. Caught off guard, Murdoc stumbles as his fist knocks him in the cheek. The pain is a dull ache in his knuckles - hopefully it hurts the other man as much as it hurts him. 2D hisses, cradling one hand in the other.
"You twat."
He whips his head up to scowl at Murdoc just in time to see a fist headed straight for his sorry face. The pain's sharp, almost blinding. It spreads like small needles as he lurches backwards, crashing into his chair and falling head first onto the floor. Murdoc doesn't waste the opportunity to jump him, one hand pulling on his hair and the other swinging once, twice, three times. It's all 2D can do to spit every insult in the book, flailing his legs and swinging his fists with wild abandon. If it hurts Murdoc doesn't show it - he throws insults as he throws punches, one man pinned under the other, snarling and yelling and cursing. He swings again, again, again.
When 2D wakes up, as he is condemned to do, his vision's dim as if he's still half asleep. The pain's almost heady, leaving him far away and floating out. Gingerly, he brings his fingers up to his face and winces as a fresh wave of agony washes over his right eye. (There it is – back down to Earth.) It feels heavy, puffed and swollen. Christ, he hopes that Murdoc feels every bit as pained as he does.
It takes a while for him to pick himself up off the floor, the hard wooden planks numbing the back of his head. It's not surprising that Murdoc would stoop so low as to mention Paula, but the twinge of betrayal is still there. That, and the sheer anger - the most intense feeling he'd held in his chest in god knows how long - has left him exhausted, like the tide going back out after a raging tsunami. He wouldn't say it was a nice feeling, of course not, but after so long going through a drought he needed a storm.
A small thrill of satisfaction courses through him when he does get up and sees the blood-spotted tissues left on the table.
Murdoc is drunk, which is nothing to write home about. 2D knows, not because he’s seen him (banished to the cell he calls his room) but because his crashing around shakes dust from the ceiling, and his loud anguish, directed at no one in particular and everyone who’s slighted him, permeates the cracked walls.
2D will see him. He’s sure of it. This is how it goes.
Padded footsteps grow louder, and 2D sighs into his pillow. Resignation, because though sober Murdoc is self-absorbed, drunk Murdoc is entirely lost in his own head like a man drowning at sea. What a miserable place to be.
A beam of light haloes his staggering form as the door creaks open.
“‘D,” He murmurs.
Murdoc, as always, doesn’t wait for an answer before doing what he wants (moving close, closer.) 2D doesn’t give him that answer, because he’s not seeking one; he covets atonement, peace of mind.
2D shivers at the sudden cool breeze as the covers are lifted. He’s curled inwards, eyes fluttering in a nervous facade of sleep; in a way, he anticipates Murdoc, who fits himself around him, back pressed against front, skin to skin.
He reeks of cheap lager. Count on Murdoc to forget his pills but manage to scavenge Coors in the middle of bloody nowhere. Breath hot on the back of his neck, 2D resists the urge to shudder.
“‘D,” He says again, more insistent and a little more congested. 2D hopes it’s the solid knock to the nose he gave him that does it. “Paula was a cow.”
2D doesn’t frown, because sleeping men don’t frown, but he shifts in such a way that Murdoc groans about the disturbance. It’s a piss-poor attempt at an apology; the only reason he recognises it as such is thanks to this very routine.
When 2D doesn’t answer, he grumbles incoherently. Then, when he can muster a sentence, he says, “Not into her, never was. Swear. Terrible shag.”
Paula wasn’t terrible, she was just okay, really, but it’s not about whether she was good in bed or not. They both know that, Murdoc perhaps more than he as he swipes a thumb across a bruise blooming on his jawline like it’s a spot of dirt. Then he flinches, and the world stills as Murdoc holds his breath for a moment.
“Sorry,” He murmurs, and 2D wonders what it costs for him to say it every time, the way it’s slurred like the word hurts if not soaked in alcohol. “2D...”
Perhaps the gentlest he’s been in a while, Murdoc blows cool air on his face – 2D’s eyelids flutter, a telltale sign he’s awake. “I know y’can hear me.”
2D breathes out, then opens his eyes fully. He watches the light from the doorway spill across the floor as Murdoc waits for him to move.
"What," He says, not asks, because he doesn't want to know. This dull routine.
"Sorry," Murdoc leans in, lips pressed to the skin behind his ear as if it'll muffle his wretched words. "Sorry."
2D swallows the guilt rising in his throat, because it's not his to choke on. "Okay."
"The br- does it hurt?" The bruise, caressed by his calloused thumb.
"Does if you touch it," 2D says – he means to be scornful, but it falls flat beneath the rare soft touch.
"I'll get summink to put on it, hold on…" Cold hits once again as Murdoc fights with the sheets.
Sighing, 2D reaches behind to lay a hand on him. "S'fine."
Murdoc falls still and returns to cocooning him, quiet.
"'D," He says.
"What."
"Don't leave th'band. Yeah?"
What band? The two of them and a bastardisation of the girl he'd considered a sister?
Perhaps Murdoc realises this.
"Don't have anywhere else to go, anyway."
Not a way off of this piece of shit island. Even if he managed to swim all the way back home, there would be nothing left for him.
"I know." He's silent for a moment. "Neither."
So that's that, then. Two of them bound together for fear of being the only thing the other has.
The part 2D hates isn't this – though it brings forth tumultuous thoughts that are difficult enough to deal with on top of everything else. These rare moments where the alcohol lets emotions float to the surface, where they can be without conflict, this is what 2D craves almost to the level of his painkillers. The part he hates is the early morning, when a hungover Murdoc with drunken amnesia wonders how in the fresh hell he's gotten here and slips out without a word. Equilibrium is reestablished in the form of spitting insults and wound-up fists.
Perhaps there would be no care like this without injuries to nurse, caused by the other. That's not something 2D likes to think about. So he doesn't.
Instead, he reaches behind and grabs his arm, pulling it across his body. Almost absentmindedly, he watches Murdoc's limp hand flop into his loose grip. 2D longs to turn and face him, but he doesn't think he can stomach how he looks cracked and vulnerable, even softened by tonight's shadows.
2D only receives a low protesting grumble as he turns his palm over, circling the rough calluses from years of bass, tracing the grooves of his worn skin as if he can read his palm.
This line means you'll be nice to me, he thinks, a silly fantasy. This line means you'll get me my pills. This line means you'll say sorry sober.
Here they lay, pressed together and matching breaths, attempting love.
Morning rises in the form of sunlight streaming through the water-logged windows, projecting waves onto the floor like a broken mosaic.
2D shifts, and rolls over to crumpled sheets.
This is how it goes.
During the recording sessions, 2D wants nothing more than to be left alone.
And yet, when he is left alone, he wants nothing more than to chat to Cyborg Noodle, or provoke Murdoc, just to make something happen, just to feel something other than endless, numbing blankness.
Most of the time, though, he lays on his bed in this rust of a home and stares at the ceiling, listening to the waves lap gently against his window. Attempting anything else feels like such a mountain to climb that simply the thought is exhausting, so he doesn't think. Sometimes, his hand will trail down past the waistband of his boxers, only to soon discover he's not in the mood. He's not in the mood for much of anything most days.
On an island alone in the middle of the ocean, choices are limited - even more so when he's not allowed outside and his skin has probably forgotten the warmth of the sun. There's no one to talk to except a mute robot soldier and his bandmate (band and mate both used in the loosest terms possible), his sex drive is nonexistent and the only thing that seems to care about him is the whale always swimming laps around his room.
That bloody whale.
It's taunting him now, floating outside of his window and swimming lazy laps around the island, not too close so as to send 2D running off, but enough that he always feels a little on edge. Perhaps it can smell fear.
Tentatively, he steps closer to the window, keeping a careful eye on it so he's ready to flee if it's too close. It would be all too easy for it to swallow him whole. The mere thought makes him shiver.
What would that be like, 2D wonders as he watches the whale move through the water.
Whether it would hurt. Whether it'd be quick. What would come after. Nothing, he hopes. He could do with some nothing after the everything that's been going on. Perhaps he'd be able to catch up on the sleep that's been evading him. That'd be nice.
2D could swear the whale meets his eyes, at that moment. He startles, backing away from the window until they're at opposite ends of the room.
What stupid thoughts. If 2D were to pick a way to go it wouldn't be by whale. Living his last moments in paralysing terror doesn't sound like the best send-off.
When the whale starts swimming away, he breathes a sigh of relief and pries himself from where he'd plastered his body to the wall.
Then, when he's sure it's gone, he puts up two fingers.
A small victory.
2D enjoyed music the most when he was dancing around his childhood bedroom to the sound of a fuzzy radio or a tinny CD player. His hair a shorn, fluffy blue, he was young and eager and there was a whole world of music to explore, and it amazed him that there could be so many different sounds that all equally made his heart beat faster and his eyes glint with excitement.
He enjoyed making music the most when he was working at the Organ Emporium. When business was slow - which it usually was - his boss deemed him too thick to manage any of the finances and so let him have free reign on the instruments. That was when the floodgates had truly opened - he could create anything that he imagined, those songs that brought him joy as a kid, and breathe new life into them. Nothing he made at first was any good, of course not. No clue what he was doing, pressing keys on impulse, scribbling down the first words to come to his head. Focusing in school had always been a slog, but when brainstorming a new song, he could easily spend hours mulling over a tune until his boss would snap his fingers in front of his face and tell him to get back to work, or else. He created so much then, finished and unfinished and half-finished and half-assed and complete ass - it didn’t matter, he loved every second of it.
Plastic Beach swallowed any passion he had for music and spat it out in disgust, mutilating something that had been so fresh and exciting until it was just as everything else is on this goddamn island. Complete rubbish.
Or maybe it was Murdoc who got his careless hands on his passion and left greasy fingerprints all over it. When he does sing, or play the keyboard, it's for Murdoc's album that Murdoc is writing for Murdoc's band. Murdoc brought everyone together, so he should have the right to dictate what they do, no? Hours spent in a recording booth with him breathing down 2D's neck the entire time is the opposite of why he surrounds himself with music in the first place - that wild freedom and unpredictability.
Either way – he hopes he can be forgiven for what he's become. A husk of his former love.
2D decides he'll have one thing for himself again. Something that encapsulates the deterioration of his endearment of music to near loathing, now. Something where he won't think too hard, and go with the feeling rather than the technicalities, that Murdoc won't ever see if he's careful.
The draw to his desk groans as he pulls it open and snatches one of the few blank pages he has left. Taking a deep breath, he puts his pen to the paper, the ink flowing as he starts to write.
He writes for five months, for two days, for three weeks, for an hour, lost in it all.
It feels good to have something back.