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The first time he sees it (she? he? xe?) he's not entirely sure if he's imagining things or not. Probably the latter, since the drugs he's on right now didn't have vividly intense semi-aquatic hallucinations as a side effect listed. Plus, he's pretty sure he's only overdosed enough to muffle the intermittent pounding in his head, not so much to send him careening off into a psychotic alternate not-really-real-reality.
Unless Murdoc's switched out his pills again. Wouldn't be the first time he's done that. And if that bastard did - well, then, he doesn't really know what should or shouldn't be happening. Like, for example, if there should be a gangly, dripping person with nearly translucent skin and a funky fishbowl head standing in the middle of his room, staring him down like it's trying to bore through his head with an unnerving stare.
Jesus, he thinks. It's already bad enough on this godforsaken island, what with the murderous whale always peering through the window and the smell of burnt plastic coating everything with its stench. Does he really need this thing too?
2-D blinks for a few minutes at the figure in his darkened room, wiry and pale against the lumpy outline of t-shirts and spare Donc-A-Matic gears lying about. Pulls the thin curtains that cover his little window a bit tighter with a pitiful rattle. Pops a few more pills and twists around until his back's to the wall and he can close his eyes without being wracked by his phobias for a few seconds.
It always comes back to this, he thinks, and then he falls into a fitful sleep.
The second time he sees it, he's in the recording studio. He supposes, in a way, that it's a bit better than the first time. For one thing, he's not crazy, because apparently Murdoc can see the thing too.
But then again, it's also a bit worse than last time, for the same reason.
2-D is perched up on a wooden stool, stork legs folded in half and hooked underneath him, willow arms wrapped around a microphone stand while he croons the preemptive lyrics to Broken into the device. He can barely hear Murdoc's heavy bass and synthesized beats thumping along behind him through his thick recording headphones, let alone anything else happening in the room, so he's decided to just close his eyes and let the music take him somewhere else. Back to Kong, he thinks, back to wild Geep rides and cheesy zombie movies and babbling ten-year old guitarists and mild-mannered drummers and bass players who scowl in his face but smile when they think he's not looking. Back to favorite keyboards and crummy Saturday morning breakfasts and ridiculous photo shoots. Back to his band, back to his family. Back to home.
Please, god, anywhere but this plastic beach.
He's so wrapped up in the harmony, the memory, that he doesn't notice that the music's stopped until the sound of his lone vocalization, stark against the silence, jolts him out of his reverie. Opening his eyes, he gets a glimpse of the thing standing wide-eyed in the corner, staring straight at him, when all of a sudden a bottle smashes against the wall and nothing's there anymore and Murdoc is whirling him around. He bares his yellow fangs and snarls in 2-D's face. 2-D nearly falls off his chair.
"It's you."
"What?"
"It's you," Murdoc growls again, and shoves 2-D hard so that he topples down and lands on his elbow. A streak of pain shoots up his arm. "You're summoning it, you traitorous little snot. This is your fault. You scum, you face-ache, you-"
"What- no- Murdoc, I didn't-"
"You won't stop putting these things in my head," Murdoc howls, bending over 2-D and pulling him up by the front of his faded tee, "and you're driving me mad!"
There's a beat, a split second of calm, and 2-D's blurry brain thinks briefly of the eye of a hurricane, and how it's calmer than the rest of the whole terrible storm, and he wonders why he remembers odd things like that but he doesn't remember important things like don't take too many pills and don't make friends with criminals and the number one rule on Plastic Beach, don't say stupid things, especially not ever around Murdoc.
"You can see it too?" he wonders aloud, and then immediately regrets it because he just broke rule Numero Uno once again.
A greenish fist flies at his face and everything goes black.
He's vaguely aware of being slung over someone's shoulder, and bobbing down through corridors and elevators, past piles of trash and hissing pipes. He's tossed into the dark of his room with a splitting headache, a screaming right eye, and a fuzzy perception of the world that slowly winks out.
He's starting to get the sense that he's being followed, and it's not just because of the whale this time.
He'll see it out of the corner of his eye, mostly. A little movement off to the side as he lies in bed and half-heartedly strums his cracked ukulele. A deep violet tentacle, slithering quickly out of view when he looks in the dirty bathroom mirror or when the light reflects off the back of his cereal spoon just so. A webbed and veiny hand, brushing past the window or poking through the vents. Sometimes he'll feel a cool drop or two fall on his face or his arm, and one time it landed in his open mouth as he was daydreaming and he realized. Of course. It's saltwater.
The only consolation to the new installment is that, hey, at least he's not the only one seeing this thing. But then again, the only other one who can see it is Murdoc, and 2-D's pretty sure that he's not the posterchild for excellent mental health. So.
After a while, he decides he's got to give the thing a name, at least, and so he drags out a massive leather-bound dictionary that he finds lurking underneath his bed and flips through the pages one by one, gently turning flaky corners and trailing his lanky fingers down the faded, cramped text.
He ends up accidentally ripping the dictionary anyway.
The tear goes right through one of the pages in the E section, running through eutrophic and evacuate and finally coming to a jagged finish right above evangelist, which according to the dictionary means a preacher of the Gospel, a revivalist, a person marked by enthusiasm or support for any cause.
2-D's not really sure what the Gospel is, even though he knows it has something to do with church and Sundays and big important words like salvation and holiness. And he isn't really interested in that third definition, other than wondering how someone can be marked by support, and if the mark looks anything like the purpling bruises that have pooled underneath his right eye. (Thanks a lot, Murdoc, you dick.) But something about the second definition strikes a chord within his chest, hits that little chime that goes off whenever he's found the right note or lyric to go in a song. Revivalist, his brain mumbles quietly, and something sleeping soft behind his heart reminds him, as if from a long time ago, that means coming back to life.
He thinks he needs a little bit of life right now, when his own is so empty and alone.
From then on, the last thing he thinks before he falls asleep at night is Are you here with me? Goodnight, Evangelist.
How long has it been? Two weeks, three weeks? A month or two? Whatever the time, it still feels like it's been lifetimes since he's heard Murdoc's voice.
"Wake up, face-ache." There's a claw on his shoulder, shaking him out of the smoky haze that his pills always bring, and 2-D burrows deeper into his blanket fortress and tries to ignore the plastic beach and all its horrors for just a little bit longer.
It doesn't work. But then again, why would it? Never has before.
"Come on, you gelatinous toothpick," groans Murdoc, and yanks him off the bed, comforter and all. 2-D lands in a heap of tangled limbs on the floor and the bassist pulls him upright, unfolding him by an elbow, and says, "We're making music today. Do it right and you might not get a shiner in the other eye too."
2-D sees the Evangelist sitting quietly in the corner of the room, placid and unnoticed, and gives it a little wave as he's dragged bodily out the door by the back of his shirt. He's more than certain he sees one of the tentacles flop out of the fishbowl on its head and wriggle congenially back. And then the Evangelist disappears.
2-D's splutter of astonishment is swallowed by a metallic clang as the door to his room slams closed with a steely finality. He's left to the mercy of his…his what? His friend? His bandmate? His jailor?
To be completely honest with himself, he's no longer sure which.