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2D has been enjoying his mornings lately. It's a particularily hot August, which is nice - at least as long as he dosen't think too long about why it's so hot.
The warm weather brings chill vibes. He finally has time to sit at the kitchen table in his short shorts, drinking soda as he submerges himself in the hazy feeling of summer. Carbonated static softens the edges of his brain. He’s been wanting to go to the ferris wheel at the pier for a while. It's a tad close to the beach, but right now, he feels that he can manage. Ferris wheels take you high up and far away from it. Static swallows the sound of waves and all that remains is a rhythm. A tune is taking form, slowly, while he taps his fingers. Beyond that, his goals fade into a blur. His gaze comes to rest on the bright blue sky outside the window. The sunlight comes down so strong and sharp it makes the mailboxes look like unreal videogame models.
What day is it even? Ah, there’s the mailman – so not Sunday; at least 2D knows that much. The poor man still gets shaky hands when he comes up to the house. One run-in with Murdoc in a foul mood will do that to you, but 2D’s been on a campaign to improve the relation. If he sees the mailman, he makes sure to stand in the window and wave. So far, the results haven't been great. The mail guy drops a package on the doorstep and practically runs away, leaving 2D to stare at his own reflection. A wide grin and blank eyes. Maybe it’s just harder to make friends when you don’t have pupils. Still, he tries. Oh well.
One last sip of soda, then he's going to see what that package is about. Noodle bought diet instead of the real thing, and he wonders idly if it's true that the artificial sweeteners give you cancer. No matter what the fake stuff does, the worst part is that it just doesn't taste as good. Sure, sugar's bad for you, but it's not like 2D ever minded the sugar crash. Anyway, time to see what else there is to do this morning besides being pleasantly bored.
First impression of the package: It’s not his. It’s surprisingly light. There’s nothing on it in foreign languages and it’s not stamped Top Secret, so it’s probably not for Noodle. It rattles a bit. Oh, there’s the label – it’s Murdoc’s.
That changes things. It could be something that goes bad in the heat if left alone. Or it could be alive. It wouldn’t be the first time - 2D’s got the bite marks to prove it – so out the hobby knife comes. A real nice, satisfying zip through the tape. After digging through the packing peanuts, 2D isn't really sure what to make of the contents. He decides he probably just doesn't get it. Murdoc must know what it's all for, and he ought to know it's arrived. (Plus, someone should make sure he wakes up before the two in the afternoon, which is what will happen otherwise).
The bedrooms are upstairs where the air is humid. Ceiling fans pulse rhythmically behind closed doors. Murdoc’s room has something cave-like about it, but that’s not the house’s fault. Murdoc’s room is like that no matter where it is. He only makes subtle changes between places, like the way he's started keeping one of the chairs free of laundry so there's somewhere for 2D to sit when he's practicing playing guitar alongside Murdoc's bass. It doesn't happen often, but sometimes, and its nice. A lot of the time the door is just shut. Today, it is at least unlocked.
Let’s have a look, then.
It’s dark, for one: Blinds drawn, lights off. The light coming through the doorway paints a yellow square on the floor, framing 2D’s silhouette and Murdoc’s naked back. He must’ve passed out last night, but not before taking a bedsheet down with him. He doesn’t move at all – except yeah, he’s still breathing, lying there like a monument to the sheer amount of abuse the human body can take and still live. The veins in his hands bulge and narrow as his circulatory system tries to supply his organs anything but alcohol and acid. He’s long past the good-looking sort of grime; 2D must admit that Murdoc can pull off dark circles and dirty nails, but this makes one wonder how there’s any liver function left in him. 2D imagines Murdoc all scar tissue on the inside, black like the stuff he throws up sometimes.
(The walls in this house are thin enough that 2D can hear it when Murdoc's sick in the bathroom. It makes him think back on those days when his migraines were real bad. Nothing like spending the evening after a show bent over a toilet in a pitch-black bathroom trying not to move too much. Murdoc would come clean the vomit off 2D's t-shirt, but he'd turn the light on in the process which made 2D's head feel like a slow-motion explosion. Nowadays that doesn't happen anymore, and 2D lets Murdoc take care of himself. Most likely Murdoc wouldn't even let 2D come in if he tried, but who knows. He doesn't try).
2D opens the door wider. Maybe Murdoc will come to his senses with a bit of light and fresh air. The room has a characteristic, caustic melange of smoke, alcohol, bodily fluids and ammonia. 2D knows it’s part of the artistic process, but it’s kind of getting in the way of all the non-artist stuff that could be fun to do. Whenever he asks, they’re always going to the ferris wheel tomorrow.
No movement. OK, fresh air isn’t helping.
Picking at a hangnail, 2D wonders how annoyed Murdoc is going to be when he wakes up. He’s going to have a headache, but part of 2D thinks he deserves it. All of it. There’s a question about how to wake him, exactly. 2D has yet to employ Murdoc’s ancient yoga methods for waking the unconcious (i.e. slapping the person’s face until they wake up) to any great success. Previous attempts have just led to 2D being the one getting punched as soon as Murdoc is conscious enough to form a fist.
He prods at Murdoc’s leg with his foot. It feels like a light little twig. It’s surprisingly easy to kick Murdoc over to his back - which you’re not supposed to do with drunk people in case they start to choke on their vomit, but Murdoc's the exception since there's no way he would allow himself to go out like that. Even if he did, 2D's sure he’d claw his way back out of hell to get a do-over.
Speaking of claws. A hand curls around 2D’s ankle just as he’s getting ready for another nudge.
“Mpfp,” Murdoc announces, trying to speak with a mouthful of filthy shag carpet.
(Hey, that’s what she said. Or something).
“Your package came in the mail,” 2D says.
“Package?” comes the reply, now much less carpeted.
“Yeah. Your Kool-Aid’s waiting for you downstairs.”
“You. Woke me up. For that.” Murdoc’s thumbnail burrows into 2D’s skin.
“There's a bunch of chemical powder, too."
"Well that's different! Can't let the others get a hold of that."
"Yeah, thought you'd like to know."
2D shakes his ankle free of Murdoc’s grip, loses his balance, and plants his butt on Murdoc’s bed to save his tailbone. Super-soft sheets. Shame about the smell.
“Do you change your bedsheets… ever?”
“Different priorities,” Murdoc says. He’s managed to sit up now, and he squints at the light. “Like you remember either. Suppose you’d get lost in a pillowcase if you tried.”
“We could probably afford one of them professional cleaner people now,” 2D muses.
“One of those with the little French maid costumes, maybe? Aw, what’s that look on your face? Don’t get jealous.”
2D wasn’t aware he had a look on his face. He draws his shoulders in, slumps a little forward and waits. Murdoc, standing up like he's surprised his sense of balance allows it, has set a target – the dresser – and sets off to conquer. He has to pause halfway through the room and leans against a table with the sort of occult experiment that makes the hypothetical maid out of the question. Being exposed to biohazards is probably not in the job description. Or being exposed to Murdoc’s naked ass, which coincidentally is the thing that’s happening to 2D right now. Not the first time, nor the last, but come on, Murdoc could’ve put his underwear somewhere easier to find. And picked something to wear other than those tight pants that take him forever to wriggle into.
2D wiggles his toes, averting his eyes from the ass. He’s seen it before, but Murdoc might as well get some privacy. 2D realizes he’s lost a flip-flop somewhere between the kitchen and here. He crosses and uncrosses his legs, which are also lightweight, stick-like.
Can the simile expand? Maybe Murdoc’s legs are like sticks dragged from a bog and his own are like driftwood, a lot longer and paler and kinda just there. Like driftwood, 2D just... ends up places. But the simile doesn't hold when he factors in the bruises. There are a lot less than there have been, but they still make for splashes of color all along the spectrum from blueberry and purplish to fresh-pea-green and split-pea-yellow. Some of them seem to have been there forever. He’d rather think that, anyway, than start remembering specific episodes. There are lots of those. Not that it’s some kind of competition about whose body is more messed up. (If he won or lost, it’d be Murdoc’s fault either way).
Anyway, Murdoc’s wearing pants now, so that’s good.
“I’ve a nasty fuckin’ headache,” he growls. “Grab me something to drink, will you?”
It’s not really a question, but he’s dropped the or else that used to come at the end. That’s good, too. 2D’s generally feeling pretty good. There’s a bit of morning sunlight creeping in through the blinds and maybe this’ll be the day they go to the pier after all.
“Seven sugars?” he asks, pushing off the bed.
“However many it takes.” Even though there's no reason, Murdoc comes along - he shoulders his way past 2D and into the hallway. “Don’t trip on your shoelaces on the way down,” he adds, even though he’s the one with a white-knuckle grip on the banister.
2D’s only fallen down the stairs twice, and that had nothing to do with his shoelaces, but sure, he'll look at his feet some more to make sure he gets down safe. He’s had enough head trauma for a lifetime. (Unless, of course, more head trauma would fix the problems he’s had since his last head trauma, like how Murdoc says that the second car accident improved his condition from the first. You never know. Biology is a mysterious thing).
By the time 2D gets to the kitchen, Murdoc is already having an impatient argument with the kettle in what 2D finds to be a pathetic-endearing way.
"I can never find the bloody teabags," Murdoc mumbles.
He’s put on some kind of striped shirt bought on tour ages ago. No matter how he changes, he somehow always looks effortlessly like himself. 2D feels a lot more like everything in the mirror is a bit unstable, like someday he won't recognize his own face. One day your hair’s not blue and one day it is. Or it could be something inside him that changes and makes him less like himself.
2D takes the breakfast tea from the cupboard and pours hot water in Murdoc's mug.
Used to be that he could count on playing music with Murdoc to make him feel like himself. The same scene - the two of them and their instruments in various dark rooms - repeats itself through the years, becoming something he returns to, a baseline. A bassline. 2D wonders if he’ll ever want to stop listening. If his hair’s going to stay blue forever. It's been like that so far, and Murdoc seems to like it. Though when Murdoc calls him stuff like cherub or good looking, 2D can’t figure out what his criteria even are. Many things are confusing with Murdoc except for the music and the way he takes his tea. Well, 2D thinks, plopping sugars into the mug, good looks come and go. Better live in the now. And there’s always color from a box. Not Murdoc’s box, though, because that’s bright red Kool-Aid.
“Can I have some?” 2D asks, pointing at it.
“All in due time,” Murdoc replies. He’s hauled the package up on the table and scattered packing peanuts all over the floor. “Tell me if you see the mailman again. I’m still waiting on my chalice.”
“We could have some after we go to the beach - y'know, the ferris wheel. We could have it with ice cubes. And those little umbrellas.”
“I love those little umbre- wait, the beach?” Murdoc stares into the distance for a sec before he apparently manages to dredge up the memory of the promised pier-trip. “Oh right, yes, that beach. The pier.”
2D sets the cup of tea down in front of Murdoc, just barely harder than necessary. “You forgot, didn’t you?”
“What are you talking about? Of course I didn’t forget. I just need a moment to wake up and – hold on, nature’s calling. Be right back.” Murdoc takes the cup with him. He’s surprisingly fast.
2D is slow, and that’s fine. He leans back. Waits. The beach waits somewhere out there. Murdoc forgets, but 2D thinks he remembered, too. Murdoc has his own brain static, only in his there’s a note like a guitar string vibrating. It seems to get lost in the noise except for when it breaks through and becomes the sound of a conscience. 2D's seen the change in Murdoc's face - split seconds here and there, long, long waits in-between, but it is something Murdoc's capable off. And a lot of 2D's time is spent waiting, watching bruises come and go. Life becomes ripped jeans and broken stuff and 2D has one measly tube of glitter glue as the metaphor is getting away from him surprisingly fast. But even if 2D had whatever the equivalent of duct tape is for fixing certain inner organs with all their scar tissue, he’s kind of tired of trying. There’s something to be said for floating along. Let the Ferris wheel carry you off.
Murdoc’s in the bathroom, splashing water in his face, crashing down into the surface of the water in the sink. He’s been crashing for a long time. He meets his own eyes in the mirror and then sees 2D stand behind him like a horror-movie ghost, observing.
“Maybe I’ll go by myself,” 2D says. “Later.”
Then Murdoc’s hand clenches the towel, and he says, “No.”
“No?”
“No, no, I’ll come. If you really want to. Could do with some fried foods for the hangover.”
Murdoc sounds annoyed, but 2D knows there's more to it. He supposes his survivor-body has been reconfiguring itself so that there are specialized bits of his brain that work all the time to figure out what’s going on in Murdoc’s head, and that's what's flaring up now: It wasn’t his imagination that Murdoc looked almost scared there. 2D potentially has an ocean of things in his life that are not Murdoc, and Murdoc must be afraid that 2D could just… go. Could change. Make music alone, go to the ferris wheel alone, sink into his own static, at peace.
But he won’t. Can't imagine it, really. He can't make things alone; he himself was made by Murdoc, and he waits for Murdoc find his shoes so they can go together. In the hallway Murdoc ties 2D’s laces right.
And on the beach Murdoc'll talk about all the things he dreamed up tripping. All the plans he makes to stop himself from hearing that guitar string nerve in him that got shaken loose at the very first car accident and never quite stopped singing, though it took him long enough to hear it. 2D will listen to all of it instead of the waves, which still make him feel weird. None of Murdoc's talk ever really makes sense to 2D. It just makes him make sense. Here's a purpose for him, following along, here's his shadow stuck tight to his physical form, heavy and real on the asphalt next to Murdoc, who's scowling at the sun and wearing the matching sunglasses 2D bought for him.
There’s a buzz in that, under the wide blue sky. He gets a new can of full-sugar soda at the broadwalk. The sugar rush rises. The crash comes later. It's the round-and-round motion of the ferris wheel bringing you up and then right back to where you started - only you're different now, having seen the world from that distant vantage point above.