Chapter Text
Waking up for one Stuart pot was never easy. Or maybe it had been easy before the accident that had completely changed his life and led to him encountering a strange green man named Murdoc Niccals, but he wouldn't know anything about that. He had no clear memories of the times before that fateful afternoon when said green man drove a stolen car directly over his skull.
So maybe waking up had always been hard for him, maybe all through school he’d been one of those kids who was late so often they got notes sent home about it every day, and maybe if he asked his Mum and Dad they’d say ‘ Oh son, you always were a bit of a layabout in the mornings! Proper terror to get up and out the door on time!'
Sometimes he thought maybe he wasn't awake at all. That he was still in a coma, sprawled across the floor of a Winnebago owned by the man whose poorly thought-out crime had put him in it in the first place. That everything that had happened in the last few months had been a dream cooked up by his mind, forever trapped in a dreamless limbo.
Stuart found that he operated on a whole lot of 'maybies' these days, but this morning at least, he was pretty sure he was awake. He’d slept funny, and his neck hurt, and if his brain was making all this up as he went along then it would have to be a jerk for imagining a crick in his neck for him to suffer through.
Stuart had a sort of routine for getting up in the morning, and it went as follows: If nobody got tired of him sleeping late and took it upon themselves to shake him, he’d wake up naturally. He’d lay in bed and open his eyes slowly, and then he’d take a few minutes to try and get his bearings. He always had a short period of time upon waking where he wasn't sure where he was or what was happening before his brain would catch up and he’d think, ‘It’s alright. You're in your room in the studio.’ or ‘No need to panic, you've fallen asleep on the couch again, S'no big deal.’
Then he’d think for a little while and try to remember a bunch of other stuff, like what he did yesterday and if he took his medicine last night and who all was in the house with him. Just little things like that. Then, when that was done, if he had made it to bed the previous night he had a chance of noticing his journal, which he kept under his pillow, and if he had dreamed, he’d try to write down his dream.
Stuart found that since the accident, he very rarely dreamed. Maybe he hadn't much before it, but he really didn't now. He thought maybe it was because his brain had to work so hard during the day to keep everything straight that it was too tired at night to entertain him anymore, and it just wanted to sleep. He kind of missed dreaming, he thought, if it was something he used to get to do more often.
Today, like every day, his first order of business was to go to the bathroom and have a piss, and so that was what he did. Afterwards, he washed his hands and through the small space that was left uncovered in the center of his mirror, he had a look at his face. It was still the same face, thankfully. Still the same blue hair, the same missing teeth, and the same ruined eyes. Same everything.
In the mornings, his vision was often a little worse than what it would get to later in the day. His eyes had a tendency to tear up and run pretty badly overnight, and often he had to clean them with a damp washcloth before they’d feel up to cooperating with him. He did that this morning and immediately noticed the note taped underneath the washcloth on his towel rack that said ‘Eyedrops’. He opened the medicine cabinet and fished them out, putting two in each eye and blinking rapidly to distribute them evenly.
That task completed, he read the other notes taped around his mirror. ‘Remember to take pills’ ‘No not the ones you're thinking of’ ‘These’ ‘Take three each morning’ ‘The ones in the green bottle’ 'don't take more than three’ ‘then take one from the orange bottle if you need it only’ 'Remember to switch these notes around, they're in the wrong order!’.
He followed the trail of notes until he was sure he’d taken all the pills he needed and added another with the sticky pad and pen he kept in the bathroom for just this purpose.
‘Remember to streamline notes!’
He taped that to the mirror too. Then he brushed his teeth and headed downstairs. He was eager to see what Russel had made for breakfast that morning.
When he got to the kitchen doorway, he put on his brakes when he saw a man he didn't recognize at the table with Noodle. He squinted, but that didn't really help him much, and his mind reached for who it could be. Nobody was panicking; he could make out Russel was bustling around the kitchen as usual, and Noodle herself was writing something on paper next to this guy and she didn't seem scared, so he probably shouldn't be scared either, right? Oh! Oh, wait this was her tutor, wasn't it? Stuart felt himself relax when that came back to him all at once. He’d met this guy before, even if he couldn't remember his name.
Ever since they’d started taking on gigs after they’d finally got the good news that Noodle was officially staying, Murdoc had hired a tutor for her just like the paperwork said she needed to have. It had been either that or public school, and Murdoc had chosen the tutor option even if the expense of it was, in his own words, ‘Higher than a sodding kite!’
Now that he knew who this was and that he’d met him before, he walked into the kitchen and shot his friends and the tutor a hearty “G’morning!”
“Morning Stu. There’s bacon and eggs on the counter.” Stuart looked, and indeed, there were. They smelled good (Stuart thought everything Russel made smelled good), but he wasn't sure he could handle heavy food like that this morning. Sometimes he just couldn't stomach anything in the morning but plain toast or cereal, and today felt like one of those days.
“Fanks Russ, but I’ll have to pass; Fink, I’ll just have a bowl of cereal.” He reached up into the cabinet to get a bowl and headed to the pantry. He had a secret weakness for children's style cereal, which Murdoc claimed was ‘disgusting sugary shit’ but this morning he chose plain, non-descript corn flakes with milk.
Cereal prepared, he sat down at the end of the table across from Noodle and the Tutor Who’s Name he’d Forgotten and took a few slow bites. Noodle was hard at work on whatever she was writing out, and Stuart felt a little pang of pride watching her focus so intensely. He could count the morning when Murdoc had shown them the papers, saying she had been allowed to stay with them among the happiest of his life. He’d written it down in his journal in excruciating detail in the hopes he’d never forget it.
It’d taken all three of them and the English to Japanese book to get her to understand what those papers meant, but when they did, well, it’s a wonder he hadn't gone deaf from how loud she’d squealed. Even Murdoc, for all he tried to never let anything really show, had been over the moon about it; Stu just knew. He didn't know if he’d ever wanted a little sister in the past or if children were ever something he had thought about having, but he was glad that Noodle got to stay. She belonged with them. It was simple as that.
He took a few more bites of cereal and then took a minute to stare at the tutor and try to commit what features he could make out of him to memory. He really couldn't see details of anything unless he squinted and held it up very close to his face, and even then, stuff like reading was kind of guesswork going on the dark shapes against a light background and his familiarity with his own handwriting. When people asked him how well he could really see, he often described it as a bit like looking through sunglasses smeared with petroleum jelly. The world looked like a vague painting, with most of the detail lost and the colors all dulled from the blood trapped between the surface of his eye and the lens underneath. There were times when he was grateful that his memories from before the accident were lost. You couldn't miss perfect vision if you didn't remember ever having it.
Pretty much the only good thing that had come from what the accident had done to his eyes was that nobody could ever tell where he was really looking. He would fully admit, at least in his head, that he enjoyed the ability to stare at people. He indulged in it pretty often, and he reveled in the ability to look at people, any part of them really, for as long and as hard as he liked.
The only way people could really tell he was staring at them was by staring back until they could make out where his pupils were behind their veil of darkened blood, and if they could do that, ,well, they were staring too, weren't they? It was a real stalemate of rudeness at that point, wasn't it?
From what he could tell, Noodles' tutor was a Japanese man, mostly balding on top, and probably an older man from his slightly bent posture. He thought the man glanced up at him, so he shot him a big smile, but he was met with no response. Huh, maybe he’d already said something to put this man off and just didn't remember it. That happened pretty frequently in Stu’s experience. Often, he didn't know if a story he told was weird or rude until he got others' reactions to it. He had probably gotten the man's name wrong numerous times too, and he knew people had varying reactions to that. Some thought he was doing it on purpose and got cross over it.
“Well done.” The older man said his attention firmly back on Noodle. “Yoku yatta.”
Noodle smiled, and Stuart remembered now that her lessons were in both Japanese and English to help her learn English smoothly.
He listened in on the lesson, which was apparently in math, a subject he was positive he wasn't good at even before everything because he found it unbearably boring even now. He let his mind wander to whatever it wanted to, and he was thinking about how the backyard, with its tombstones, probably looked like a miniature city from the air to the birds flying over it when a word problem the tutor read out loud to Noodle caught his ear.
“If Suzan had eight pies and her friend Margaret stole three, how many pies does she have left?” and before the man could translate that into Japanese, Stuart interjected.
"Oh, I know that one! If Margaret is out there stealing pies from Suzan, she ain't really her friend, is she? It’s a trick question, innit! Tell Noodle to write that down!”
Russel had one of his understated chuckle fits that Stu thought were funny, and he was almost positive the look the tutor sent him wasn't a very nice one. He didn't translate his answer for Noodle either.
“Mr. Pots, we've been through this before. I’m being paid by Mr. Niccals to tutor one and only one child in this household. You cannot keep interrupting, or I’ll never get anything done.” Mr.'man whose name Stu couldn't think of' said, and fine if he was going to be that way Stu was glad he forgot his name. Wasn't even going to ask him for it again.
“I guess I'll just go eat somewhere else then.” He said and grabbed his bowl to go eat on the couch. "Bye, Noodle, have fun learning.”
“Sayonara, Stu!” She said back to him, and he gave her the biggest grin he could manage. He loved that she’d started using their actual names and that she had mastered the art of ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ along with a few other short phrases in English already. Oh, and she also knew the word shite from Murdoc, though they’d all tried pretty hard not to cuss in front of her.
Stu was sure if he had been mailed to Japan in a crate at ten years old, he’d be doing way worse at learning their language; in fact, he probably would have just stayed in the crate and lived there forever. Noodle was the bravest person he knew, and even though he didn't know a huge number of people, he felt like that statement would hold true forever.
He threw himself on the couch, nearly sloshing milk out of the bowl, and decided to just eat reclined across it, staring up into the ceiling. Russel didn't like them eating on the couch, but with the tutor in the kitchen, he hadn't said anything against it. They did have a working television now, but without service to it, it was only good for watching DVDs from the handful his mother had sent him when he’d requested a few more things from his room sometime ago. Maybe it was last week? He sometimes had a hard time keeping time lined up right, especially the further away from an event he got.
He was just finishing the last mushy remains of his cereal when the sound of Cuban heels on the stairs let him know Murdoc was on his way up from the Winnebago. One thing he always appreciated about his friend was how easy it was to tell him apart in a crowd. All he had to do was listen for the click of his shoes and look for the nearest smear of green and he always knew just where Murdoc was.
He put his bowl on the coffee table and sat up just as Murdoc came into view, and he must have known the tutor was here this morning because he was wearing a shirt and his least holy jeans. He walked in front of the couch and looked over Stu’s head to the kitchen. “Did Russ cook something this morning besides bacon?” He asked, and Stu nodded. “There's eggs too, an toast.” Murdoc nodded, then reached down and swept his legs off the couch so he could sit down next to him. Stuart nearly tilted out onto the floor, but he caught himself just in time.
“I don't think I’ll go in there quite yet.” Murdoc said, nearly so quiet that Stuart didn't catch it. “that Mr Nakijima’s a real wet blanket. Coulda hired a hot broad but he was the cheapest tutor I could find, and that's bloody relative, I tell you. Still costing me an arm and leg.”
Stuart nodded and felt vindicated that Murdoc didn't like the man either. He liked to think Murdoc was a good judge of character, and if he said he was a wet blanket, then he probably was. He was smart like that. Murdoc leaned back in his seat and threw his arms onto the back of the couch. He turned to look into the kitchen to make sure Russel had his back turned before throwing his feet up on the coffee table. Stu thought he was right to be cautious. They’d just got that table, and Russ wouldn't like that at all.
“So you looking forward to a quiet night in with Noodle while Russ and I work the scene and get us a few new connections in the music world?” Murdoc said, and Stuart smiled. For once, he remembered exactly what Murdoc was talking about.
“You mean the party you heard of at the club we played two days ago that Russel is going to baby-sit you at?” He knew that would make Murdoc mad, but it was true. Russel had worded it exactly like that, and Stuart had remembered it. Anytime he remembered anything clearly like that, he felt he had to say it out loud, even if it made Murdoc mad. Reward his brain for a task well done.
“He is not baby-sitting me, you twit.” Murdoc said, his eyes narrowing dangerously. “He just insists on going because he thinks I won't be able to control myself around free beer. As if I have some kind of problem. D’you have any idea how much watered down beer it would take to get me sloshed? With my tolerance? I’d drown in it first.” Murdoc was keeping his voice quiet so the tutor wouldn't hear, but he got even quieter with what he said next, so Russ wouldn't hear.
“If you ask me, I think he just wants to get out of the house, and he’s the one who will feel safer if i’m around. After all, he had a bad time in a club parking lot, did he not? What better way to test getting out on the scene again than with an experienced reveler such as myself? I’m right flattered to be his chaperone.” Stu thought that sounded pretty nice, actually. Sometimes Murdoc could be downright sweet when he wanted to be; really, he could.
“Don't tell him I said that, though.” Murdoc tacked on, “Wouldn't want him to get embarrassed.”
“I won't,” Stuart said, and he tried to convey seriousness in his voice. He wouldn't want to embarrass one of his friends. They sat on the couch for a while longer, with Murdoc doing most of the talking. Speculating on which local artists would be at the party and if it’d be worth it to try for another gig there when eventually the tutor gathered his things to go, and Murdoc rose to pay him and see him out. Stuart decided to take that opportunity to go back upstairs and change into some real clothes.
He sorted through the clothing he had in his closet before settling on a yellow jumper and one of his favorite pairs of jeans. He found his hairbrush under the jeans and was quick to use it to brush out his hair. He sometimes lost it for days at a time and ended up having to skip hair brushing or going down to the winnebago to ask Murdoc to use his.
His hair had such a thin, wispy sort of texture to it, and it never seemed to do anything he wanted. If he cut it short or combed it wrong, it tended to look very thin and flat in a very unnatractive way, he thought. He was slightly envious of Murdoc’s hair because it was so thick that you couldn't even get to the scalp when it was parted. Stuart had on occasion thought of dyeing his hair back to a normal color, just to see what it’d be like to be a brunette or blond, but the thought of how strange it would look when his roots started to grow back in blue always stopped him from trying it. Plus, now Noodle really liked his hair and seemed to think it was some kind of amazing, and somehow it seemed wrong to rob himself of one of the few things people tended to think was cool about him.
No, he’d leave it blue so long as that was how it grew in. Not like he was getting a stuffy office job anytime soon. He ended up getting distracted trying to figure out which of his sneakers to wear, and by the time he made it back downstairs, Murdoc had finished breakfast and was gone from the kitchen table. “Docs out smokin.” Russel said when he saw him enter the room. “I had the tutor tell Noodle it’ll be just you and her tonight while we go to this party event thing. Gotta say, Stu, I’m not looking forward to trying to control Murdoc around free alcohol. If he wasn't right about us needing to make some connections, I’d make him skip this whole thing.”
Stuart thought back to what Murdoc had whispered to him on the couch about Russ getting out of the house more and tried to play sympathetic. “I’m sure it won't be that bad. Murdoc can handle himself for a few hours around beer, I fink. He only got bad wiv me once in the winne months ago, and that was when he’d had vodka.” Stuart remembered that still, despite it being months ago, before they’d even moved into the studio.
He couldn't remember the details in any real capacity, but he remembered the bruises on his neck, and he remembered Murdoc had been drunk and angry over something. It had been raining, he thought; otherwise, why wouldn't he have left the Winne after that first punch? He thought maybe it had been a two way fight between them that night, but he couldn't be sure. He hadn't started keeping a journal then, and every day farther out from it, he lost more of the event to his leaky memory.
“That had to be bad if you remember it that far back.” Russel said and Stuart shrugged.
“Dunno, maybe it was, but like I said, that was off hard liquer, so as long as he’s not around that, he’ll be fine.” He wanted to believe that. Murdoc wasn't a bad person; he just made confusing choices a lot, and Stuart felt he could relate. He was confused frequently, too.
Noodle was still working on whatever school stuff the tutor had left her with, but she slapped the table next to her and looked at him eagerly, so Stuart plopped down and watched her work. He found that Noodle liked that kind of thing a lot. Attention from them even if she couldn't understand what they were saying, and vice versa. He leaned over her papers and saw one of the English worksheets.
Now that he could do, he was a native speaker after all.
He went to slide it out from under the other pages, and he nearly had it to himself when Noodle slapped her hand down on the page and laughed. “Stu No!” she said, “Kore wa watashi no sakuhin desu. Gomakashi wa kikanai!”
Russel watched them with amusement written all over his face. “She’s right, dude, no. You remember what happened last week when you finished filling out one of those for her when the gig ran over and she didn't have time to finish it?”
Stuart most certainly did not remember what had happened or that he had done that in the first place, and his look must have said as much because Russ was quick to tell him. “Your handwriting is bad, man. We got a call from Mr. Nakijima asking if Noodle had suffered a stroke.”
Oh, well, that made sense, Noodle's handwriting was pretty good, and his was...not so great. “hehe yeah, I forgot.” He said and slid the paper back to Noodle. Really, that was for the better, she had to learn this stuff for real anyway, and she couldn't do that if he was doing the work. Might as well let her figure it out herself.
Throughly admonished, he watched Noodle for a while longer before he decided he’d spend a little time in the recording room. He made himself a cup of tea and took it with him. When he got there, he set it on the edge of his keyboard and followed the sticky note arrow trail hed’ taped to the keyboard’s side to the heavy spiral notebook that hung underneath it. This was Stuart's songwriting notebook.
In it, he kept notes for their songs, a tally of when he’d last cleaned a board, and the most personal of all the song lyrics he’d written. Stuart liked to write songs. He thought up pretty turns of phrase all the time, and if he had any paper on hand, he’d jot them down and deposit them in this spiral notebook as soon as he got the chance. He had quite a few built up in it by now.
He draped the notebook across his lap and checked his pockets to see if he had any notes to add to it. This pair of trousers had none, and so he decided to read over things he’d already written and see if he thought of any improvements. He never shared these songs with anyone, well, he was pretty sure he’d shared a few with Murdoc, who’d laughed at them and called them ‘nonsense’. He was sure Murdoc had said something close to 'Stick with singing Dents. People like things like naunce and coherency in their songs, and you don't have the head for either of those.'
As far as Stuart knew, he was right too. Murdoc was a good song writer, and he’d actually sold a number of songs, so surely he would know if Stu’s work was any good, right? Sometimes he thought about showing off his notebook to Russel but the thought of Russel agreeing with Murdoc wasn’t bearable. He liked Russ and he felt like he knew him, so he knew that, worse than telling him his songs were shite he’d be nice about them. He’d say something like, “Well yeah, they’re really 'you' kinda songs, Stu, but it’s alright, your good at other stuff.” And for Stuart, that sort of response felt so much worse than Murdoc’s laughter ever could. At least Murdoc could be counted on to always be honest.
Time got away from him the way it always did when he was focused on something. By the time he noticed his back was hurting from sitting on the stool for so long, he was positive he’d missed lunch, and dinner was fast approaching. He turned off his keyboard, re-hung the notebook back in its place, and decided to head into the kitchen to see what everyone else was doing.
Apparently he’d lost more than an hour or two in the recording room because when he came into the living room, Murdoc was already dressed in his going-out clothes, and Russel was writing something on the dry erase board they’d bought for the fridge. He couldn't remember why they needed the thing, but he suspected it was probably something he did that prompted its purchase.
He found himself squinting at the list and listening to Russel tell him where they were going and reminding him of the important stuff he had to do while they were gone.
“Dinner is in the fridge; it’s that broccoli cassorole we had last night, so all you have to do is put it on a plate and microwave it. Garbage pick up is this evening, so bring the cans back up the drive, I wrote that on the fridge,” Stuart nodded at that, trying to commit it to memory. “Can Noodle have dessert? Like after dinner, real dessert?”
"Sure,” Russel said, “let her have those weird raisen cookie things she likes so much, but not the whole box because they go through you really fast.” He sounded like he had personal experience with that, and Stuart snorted. Murdoc strolled past them to look at his face in the foyay mirror. One of the things he’d done as soon as they’d had the tiniest bit of money stashed away in the safe was take a little out to buy some nice clothes for himself. He’d expected Murdoc to get something a little different than what he normally wore, but he’d just come back from his excursion with a few new black turtlenecks and a single button-up black shirt that he was wearing now.
Stuart would never tell him to his face, but he thought the way Murdoc dressed was a little boring. Sure, it was a classic rock and roll look, but Stuart could think of a lot of colors that went well with green, and privately, he wished Murdoc would ask him what he thought he’d look good in. It would never happen in a million years, but a boy could dream.
Noodle who had been watching them from the couch, came over when she saw Russ and Murdoc getting ready to go out the door. Murdoc ruffled her hair and squatted down to give her a little “Sayonara, Luv," before rising and giving Stu a less heartwarming goodbye.
“Don't try to cook anything, and keep the doors locked. If you do something stupid and anyone gets hurt, call nine nine nine.”
Stuart rolled his eyes and was glad no one could tell when he was doing it. He knew what the number was, thank you. He had practiced dialing it a few times, and it was written on the fridge. Like he’d ever forget the number for emergency services.
“Be good, Noodle.” Russel said, “ We’ll be back before midnight, hopefully. '' And when Murdoc had already stepped out the door on his way to Russels car, he added, “I won't let him stay all night and make an ass of himself.”
Stuart waved to them as the car sped off and then turned back to Noodle with a grin. He thought tonight was going to be fun.
He had a good feeling about it, and Stu couldn't remember a time when his good feelings had ever been wrong.