Work Text:
Some things, Murdoc could take away.
He could take away the taunting, the manipulation, the belittling. He could change all of that. He could take away the drunken physical outbursts; bruises received before his prison sentence faded and healed away to pale skin in a matter of days. He could remove every single one of those things from Stuart’s life.
But he couldn’t take away the brain damage.
A year of therapy and healing and talking and new loving had given way to a peaceful, long-awaited relationship between he and the vocalist. Murdoc could give him what he deserved- kindness, patience, love . 2d had given Murdoc forgiveness. Looking from the outside, it was as if Murdoc had never been the devil he once was at all.
But Murdoc still saw it.
On the days where Stuart would wake up confused, not knowing where he was- sometimes even thinking he was still imprisoned at Point Nemo in that dreadful styrofoam cell by the very man who woke up next to him. Stuart would start, and push himself off of the bed, trying to escape Murdoc before coming to the realization that he was a decade ahead of where he thought he was and everything was okay and Murdoc wasn’t going to hurt him.
When he had debilitating migraines, unable to eat or sleep or cry through the pain, having to lock himself in a pitch-black room to find any kind of relief. They would come on due to stress; interrupting recordings, songwriting sessions, phone calls, therapy sessions. Stuart would be bedridden for hours if not a full day. Murdoc brought him caffeine pills and water and cold rags and kept everyone out of the room and kissed him each time he came in, but he still saw the damage.
And when the singer would go into a trance; not responding to stimuli for bouts of up to 30 minutes, seemingly sleepwalking. And the short-term memory loss.
Murdoc saw all of it, and he knew that it was his car that smashed into 2d’s skull and it was his reckless driving that sent him through the windscreen and headfirst into the curb and it was his stupid actions that made life so much harder for Stuart.
2d would say it was all in the past. That despite all of what Murdoc had done, those two happenings were honest accidents. Murdoc didn’t have to worry about it- he helped when the long-term symptoms of the brain bleeds and concussions and coma were there, took care of 2d. To Stu, it really was alright. The crashes weren’t on purpose. Murdoc was and would remain forgiven.
Murdoc would continue to struggle with forgiving himself.
It was easier with his behaviors, his drinking, his pathologies. He could fix those. He could make them right. But seeing Stuart suffer from the events that occurred on the day they first met decades ago, seeing him struggle to remember the smallest things, seeing him in excruciating pain and panic, and all the while not hold any anger towards him for any of it…
Murdoc wished he hadn’t even been there to meet Stu at all.
He would never have had the opportunity to treat him like dirt all those years, never had the opportunity to change his daily life forever.
“Never have had the chance to be forgiven,” Stuart reminds him.
Some things, Murdoc couldn’t fix.
The ones he couldn’t… he would work on not blaming himself for.