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It was the kind of fight that had been brewing all afternoon, and everyone in the house knew it.
It probably made Noodle more uncomfortable than Russell, seeing as Murdoc and 2-D arguing had been a crux of her experiences going back to childhood, although she hadn't always possessed the foresight to realize that even the spats they had that she laughed at might not have been all that funny. Not even when they said they were just joking afterwards.
(She realized that Russell might have encouraged them to say that at times to try to shield her from the true nature of their animosity when she was a child. She knew she could ask them about it now, but she kind of didn't want to know.)
Russell was never particularly interested in getting involved in his housemates’ disputes. Especially not recently after acknowledging that, in the present day, 2-D was almost certainly sticking around of his own accord. In the past, he used to ask why 2-D bothered putting up with Murdoc, and he mostly received blasé half-answers and indifference to suggestions of change. Eventually, Russell remembered that you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. And if you dunk the head of that blue-maned, black-eyed horse into the water to try to force it to, you might just make it drown.
What made this time different was that, in the past, this sort of tension would eventually bubble over into a physical altercation that 2-D was likely to lose after a while. After they got back together to record Humanz, the others noticed that 2-D wasn't even afraid to throw the first punch anymore if it came to that, though they didn't fight too often those days. (To be fair, Murdoc was spending a lot of time on cloud nine, to the point that he had probably been some variety of stoned for every interview they did at the time, so there was much less arguing between them than there really could've been). But this time, no one was sure if it was going to go that far south.
After this round of returning to his (rightful) place as Gorillaz's bassist, Murdoc seemed even less angry and more sober than last time. 2-D, on the other hand, didn't really seem to be in the same boat.
It was true that in Murdoc's absence, 2-D smiled and laughed more, rambled more openly without being cut off, and showed renewed confidence in his own creative control. But sometimes, when everything slowed down, 2-D could be found scribbling things to himself, tapping away at a rather dinky 37-key that he was fond of composing little demos and ditties on with dreamy synth presets. ( “I'll never get tired of those,” he'd said, “anything with that bloopy sound.”) And that was when an inexplicable look of sadness would begin to seep through his newfound joyous exterior.
If 2-D saw Ace watching him, sometimes he'd politely invite the other, nicer green man to join him for an impromptu jam session.
“I think I’m missin' a baseline,” Stuart would say, “might help me get the words goin', right? Oh, and you know, it's nice to have some better playin’ for once, too. But don’t tell Mudz I said that.”
And yet 2-D would usually stop working on whatever he was writing and change to playing something else.
If he caught Noodle staring instead, then 2-D would shake it off, swap from minor key melodies, bang out a few bars of one of their more upbeat songs (it was often Dare) and sing it with a goofy smile. Probably kind of poorly and a bit off-key, as he sometimes did when he wasn't fully ‘tuned into ’ the song. (Or maybe, more specifically, because he never really could sing Dare in its typical key, but that only barely stopped him.) Noodle would roll her eyes and smile, sometimes singing along in a voice many years more mature than the teenager on that recording, but grooving with dance moves nearly every bit as youthful. And then 2-D would chuckle that little half-suppressed way he always did, claim he was stuck on this part of the composition, and say that he'd have to make another stab at it later. It didn't stop her from wondering, though.
With Russell, well, 2-D would just give him this strangely tired sort of smile and go back to whatever it was he was doing. Maybe he didn’t think it was worth the trouble to put on an act for Russ. Maybe he thought that the drummer wouldn't buy it anyway, and with Russell, 2-D obviously wouldn't be driven by any of that lingering paternal instinct that encouraged him to prevent Noodle from worrying, no matter how potentially fruitless it was or how old she got.
In any case, the lyrics that 2-D wrote over the past few months were usually about longing. But maybe that was just a coincidence.
Now that Murdoc was back, 2-D didn't seem to know how to feel. A lot of times, he just seemed uncharacteristically annoyed. And Murdoc, well, he didn't even appear to be taking the bait nearly as often as expected when 2-D took petty jabs at him, whether Murdoc had started it or not. Sometimes, it almost looked like that annoyed 2-D more, which didn’t make much sense.
But then again, feelings often didn't. 2-D himself knew that very well by now.
“I'd say he brings out the worst in me, ‘cause he probably does ,” 2-D had drawled one night, a little woozy from a drink or the painkillers—Russell wasn’t sure. “But then, sometimes, I don't know. Like, with the music…I just…it sounds mental, right? Like I wanted him gone sometimes, but now he is, and it feels like he shouldn't be…?”
It was just him and Russell downstairs that humid July night. Noodle was cooped up in her room, trying to track down El Mierda, and Ace was out on the town.
“You mean Murdoc?” Russell asked, knowing damn well it couldn't be anyone else.
“Yeah, that bastard, ” he lazily remarked with no real bite to his words, “I don't know what I'll do if, well, when he comes back.”
“You could always make up a reason to keep Ace around longer,” Russell sarcastically suggested.
2-D wouldn't do that, and they both knew it well. Murdoc wouldn't let him if he tried, either.
“No,” 2-D mumbled, shaking his head, “no, I mean, I don't know how I’ll act. I might be really happy. Or I might go mad and throw a bottle at his stupid head, knock out his teeth or somethin'.”
“Yeah, that’s what he does to ya,” Russell couldn't help but snicker, though he was a little surprised.
“But I worry I'll be worse off if he doesn't come back,” 2-D confessed, “and I don't get that, either.”
The tremors rumbled through the house all day. Yet, somehow, 2-D and Murdoc had managed to contain any escalation until nightfall, after Russel and Noodle were in their rooms and could pretend not to hear anything to avoid getting themselves involved in the potential oncoming disaster.
Neither of them even knew what the pair were actually arguing about—not that it really mattered to them anyway. 2-D might’ve finally pushed enough buttons and gotten the response he was(n’t) hoping for. Maybe Murdoc said something actually in-character for him, instead of skulking around and being strangely non-confrontational. All they'd determined based on what little context they had was that it seemed like it was something Murdoc had said that was the fire-starter.
In any case, it was enough to get 2-D ranting and raving, so it was probably pretty bad.
“—you, you ruined my eyes in those crashes,” he hissed, “you called me names, you hit me, and you fed me a load of bollocks about ‘being a star’—”
“And you are a star, because of me,” Murdoc growled. “If you hadn't met me, you'd still be some fucking store clerk! A waste of talent, a nobody ‘till the day you died.”
“No worse than you, an old drunk stumblin' around Stoke, starting 50 awful bands that no one ever goes to see! At least I might 'a been happy all those years, bein' a nobody!”
“Or you'd be just as miserable as the rest of us. Just look at everything I ever gave you! I made you into this. And you owe me, remember?”
“Oh right, so we're doin' that again, are we?”
Murdoc, increasingly tired of 2-D's attitude, bellowed, “Well, maybe I should've left you after you woke up from that crash!”
2-D didn't miss a beat before shooting back, “Then maybe I should 'a died when you crashed through that window.”
Murdoc scoffed, nearly gagging on his cigarette smoke in the process.
“You don't mean that,” he retorted.
“And what if I did? It's not like you'd care if I didn't do the singin'. Gods know you couldn't do it.”
Murdoc took another drag from his cigarette to think while 2-D attempted to compose himself enough to keep lashing out.
“You know what?” 2-D started again. “I should 'a walked out on you after Paula.”
“What? Are you serious? 20 years and you're still on about that?”
“Because she liked me,” 2-D nearly whined, “so of course you had to ruin that!”
“May I remind you that she chose to have sex with me? She couldn’t have liked you that much, then, could she?”
“But you chose to say yes,” 2-D pointed out exasperatedly. “I'm over her, but I'll never be over you doin' that t’ me.”
Murdoc smiled arrogantly—a terribly displeasing expression—and sneered, “Yet you chose to stay, didn't you?”
“Terrible fuckin’ mistake that was,” 2-D muttered, followed by a shockingly wry chuckle. “And when I actually got away from you years later, you kidnapped me—”
“ I didn't technically kidnap you—”
“—held me against my will in that terrible, tiny room with my greatest fear—”
“Look, are you really going to dig through every little thing I did 10 years ago?”
“—and forced me to—little thing?” he nearly shrieked. “The worst days, months of my life are a, a little thing to you?!”
“It wasn't sunshine and roses for me either! You think I wasn’t a little mad myself? I was alone on that floating trash pile for months, too! Fearing for my life and not knowing what happened to Noodle…!”
“‘Course you hafta make this about you. Can’t even have my own worst days,” 2-D groaned, shaking his head to himself before going on, “and...and, actually, you know what the worst days of my life had in common? You. Maybe I should 'a found another way—maybe I really should 'a smothered you in your sleep back in ‘09, or tried.”
It surprised 2-D a bit when he said it, maybe just as much as it did Murdoc when he heard it. Not because it struck Murdoc as untrue, or because it was even a surprising sentiment, but because it sounded unusually serious, and 2-D hadn't taken to that kind of hostility in years.
“What? You, you wouldn't even hurt a fly! You can't mean that.”
“If not me, then…then maybe you should 'a drowned in that bloody sewer.”
That one stung. 2-D saw the hurt flash across Murdoc's face for a moment. But it was only that: only hurt, and only a moment.
No real anger.
“Dee, that's rubbish,” he barked. “You don't even know what you're saying.”
The awful, bitter taste in 2-D’s mouth wasn't enough to stop him from countering, “But what if I did?”
“Well, then...but it doesn't matter anyway because you don't!”
“I could!” he spat back petulantly.
“But you don't, ‘cause you're still here, and so am I, see?”
“‘Cause you keep comin' back, like a…like a…gross thing that's hard to get rid of…”
Murdoc was thinking ‘tumor’ and was sure that 2-D would be too, if he was thinking, but he wouldn't give 2-D his best ammunition.
“Like a wart?” he offered with an unbefitting smirk.
“Y-yeah! Yeah…wait, don't help me!”
“And you keep staying, Dee,” he pointed out, unusually cool. “You hate me that much, why don't you leave now? This isn't the middle of the ocean, now, is it? And I don't see any ropes around your wrists and ankles. We both know I could do it if I wanted to, heh heh.”
2-D grimaced. “I’m tryin’ to figure that out too, yeah. Maybe ‘cause I think you would find me and drag me back here anyway.”
2-D suddenly remembered that thing his therapist said about a hostage situation and Stockholm Syndrome…not that he felt like he understood it much better now than when she mentioned it.
He was too busy musing about that to notice that Murdoc hadn't questioned or disagreed with what he'd just said.
“Oh, and I didn't say I hate you,” he added.
“No, you just wish I was dead,” Murdoc snickered. “Obviously a sign of undying affection, my mistake. Anyway, you're not the first, and you certainly won't be the last to say it.”
Most who wished for Murdoc’s demise had the means to make it happen. At least 2-D definitely didn't.
And it's not like 2-D could hate him half as much as Murdoc hated himself at his worst.
“No, I don’t,” 2-D denied, “and maybe I should hate you, really should. But t’ tell you the truth, Mudz, I don't like bein' mad, holdin' grudges. Makes my head hurt too much. I’m not built for it, my mum always says. But, really, when you were gone this time, I was a bit scared, ‘cause I saw what things were like without you there again…”
Murdoc raised a brow, watching 2-D more intently, though the latter never turned to meet his gaze.
“A-and, I saw how good they could be.”
Murdoc sucked in a sharp breath, gearing up to rebut, but 2-D kept going:
“I was in charge. Last time I made music without you was…a-anyway, we were makin' music and I heard how good it could still sound. I like Ace. Nice guy, that one, not sure what he sees in you. And I realized that I could 'a had peace a’ mind and music without you years ago. Used t’ think it was one or the other. Now I know that I really should 'a left before. But I could leave now, any time I want, ‘cause I could do it without you. But I still haven't.”
Murdoc was strangely quiet in response to this, trying to process that concept of being...unnecessary. Replaceable. To 2-D , a man who's image Murdoc had invented, molded from the lump of dented clay that he discovered. It should've been infuriating. It should've made him want to scream, or lash out, but…all he could find it in himself to do was silently seethe.
Good.
2-D was bumbling, strangely naive, affable but irritating, and rambled on skittishly about things only he really understood in a shrill speaking voice. He was empty-headed, easily influenced. Peaceable.
This was one of the rare times that he seemed to be very little of those things, suddenly calm, self-assured, and cold. It was the calm part that was probably most off-putting. Not despondent or irritable—because 2-D had definitely been there before—but just unbothered by the disdain dripping from his own words.
And Murdoc couldn't get angrier, because this malice wasn't even unjustified, and he didn't have the energy left in him to pretend it was.
“You must a’ changed, know how I know?” 2-D said a little too cheerfully. “It's not just ‘cause you said so or anythin’. It's ‘cause you're lettin' me talk, and sayin' nothin’. No, no backhand to the face. No throwin’ things. No yellin’. Few years ago, we'd be kickin’ the shit out of each other by now. You're tired, just like me. See that? All those years, and you're a little more like me. But I guess I'm a little more like you, too. Bloody awful, that last part, you don't think?”
“Alright, I get it, I get it—I’m terrible!” Murdoc finally spat. “You made your point, faceache—I let you have your guilt trip! You got your pound of flesh! Happy now?”
2-D just sighed, looking over at an imaginary spot on the floor.
“Generally, yeah,” he said. “Right now? Not really, no. I don't like bein' mean. I think you might deserve it, right, but I don't like it.”
But 2-D realized that it was surprisingly easy to continue rambling now that he’d started. So easy to say, “I don't see how you do this so much. I don't see how you can shit on someone when they're down like it's nothin’.” That wasn’t even really true, since it was now so easy to rub salt in the wound, when 2-D no longer feared retaliation. When Murdoc was just letting him do it.
He didn't really want to care if Murdoc was hurting from something he said, if such a thing could be truly possible. But 2-D knew he still did, somewhere deep down under the bitterness.
“Why’re you lettin' me talk, anyway?” 2-D finally asked, watching puffs of ash fall to the floor from the cigarette dangling between Murdoc’s lips.
“I've changed. Isn't that what you said?” the other mockingly parroted. “I talk over you, you take it personally. I don't talk, you ask me why. Maybe I just don't care what you say anymore, ever think of that? Maybe you're just not worth answering anymore.”
“But you don't mean that.”
“Maybe I do,” he somewhat distantly replied, outing his cigarette on an empty can.
“But you don't.”
“Well, I could!” he huffed.
“So, that settles it, then,” 2-D announced, putting his hands together like they'd made some kind of progress. “Let's both say what we really mean now, right?”
Murdoc didn't answer, but 2-D still felt an uncanny smirk overtaking him.
“I'll start, then. I don't actually wish you were dead, Mudz.”
“Oh, what a relief that is,” Murdoc said in the driest voice he could manage.
“I was actually quite scared when I heard you might 'a drowned, you know. I just got mad with you is all. I don’t want to fight, but I do want an apology for tonight,” 2-D went on.
“Oh an apology? That's all, is it? No large sacrifice, or groveling?”
“Would you really do that for me?” 2-D asked mockingly, batting his lashes, staring with big, white eyes and a large simper, feigning the innocence that he used to truly have for so many years.
“Sod off, faceache,” Murdoc snarled.
2-D chuckled despite himself, knowing that he shouldn't be so casual, shouldn't be so calm about the gravity of what he's been through with this man. And yet, he couldn't find it in him to hold onto all of that anger, not when Murdoc himself was showing relatively little in return now.
It had been a slow descent, but his stints in prison, multiple brushes with death, and several rounds of losing and abusing the trust and goodwill of the only found family he had seemed to have finally knocked Murdoc one peg off that selfish, self-serving high horse.
Or maybe Murdoc was just having an off day. 2-D realized he didn't really care which was which at the moment. His innate desire to forgive—to move on, to reset, to forget—was one of his faults, or his strengths, depending on who he asked and when.
“I am serious about the apology, though,” 2-D eventually added.
He had no expectation of sincerity; he really just wanted to see if Murdoc would do it. If what 2-D said to him had any sway on his actions at all.
Murdoc might apologize to Russell or Noodle out of, well, fear mixed with respect. In Noodle’s case in particular, probably because he also cared. But Murdoc had never expressed much of any of those feelings about 2-D.
Respect, or a proxy of it, would do just fine. Remorse would be even better, but obligation would be tolerable. He didn't think it would be the first time.
“Alright, fine. I’ll do it, if you tell me something first,” Murdoc proposed after some time.
“Are you bargainin' with me?” 2-D asked incredulously. “Apologies don't work like that. Not s'posed to be con…conditioner.”
“Condition-al. And why not—what do you know about bargaining?”
“I knew that,” he grumbled (and he did, but making words come out right could be a chore at times). “And what do you know about sayin' sorry?”
“Only what I need to know. Which is more than you know about bargaining. You give me an answer, then you get your apology.”
Despite being well aware of how silly it was, 2-D eventually conceded with, “Well…what's your stupid question, anyway?”
“Did you actually miss me?” Murdoc wondered, smirking devilishly with narrowed eyes, “Noodle told me you were not all right in the head while I was gone—well, worse than usual. That true?”
2-D rolled his eyes, but it was far easier to see in his brows and body language than in his eyes themselves, as was typical.
“She thought I was actin' strange only ‘cause I was happy, actually,” 2-D swiftly corrected, holding his nose high in the air. “Can you believe that? We practically raised that girl, we did, and she'd never seen me smile so much before.”
A beat passed, though it could've been hours. Over that time, Murdoc’s face had contorted into a sour glare and he'd begun mumbling something rather unsavory sounding, preparing some sort of verbal (counter-)attack.
2-D just smiled wryly.
“But I kinda missed you anyway, Mudz, you old goth,” he teasingly confessed. “Can you believe that? Don't even make sense, really. I'm startin' to think you're like my headache pills.”
“Well, it’s about time you started to think, I’d say,” he quipped. “And how, by keeping you high?”
“How what?” 2-D questioned rather earnestly, mostly ignoring the jab and knitting his brows together. “Me thinkin', or the pill thing?”
Murdoc took his turn to roll his eyes, but replied with only mild annoyance, “The pill thing.”
2-D shrugged, explaining, “Oh, then no. It's just hard to stay away from 'em, and I usually have too much. Oh, a-and Noodle thinks you're both bad for me.”
“That's a new one," Murdoc snorted, "so then I’m like your bad habit? Tch, you should write a song about that.”
2-D just blinked, sheepishly muttering, “Maybe I already have…and, and that was more than one question, I think. So…my apology?”
Murdoc shook his head to himself to reign in his surprised expression, wanting to know more about this supposed song, but also figuring that he'd have to weasel that information out of 2-D at a later date when the blue-haired man didn't remember that he was supposed to be angry.
“Was hoping you'd forget about that by the time you answered me,” Murdoc grumbled, “but let's get on with it, then. I'm sorry for crashing into that store that day, whisking you out of your boring life and making you into a superstar under my watchful eye.”
2-D frowned deeply at Murdoc's wide smirk.
“Not like that! That's a terrible apology, and you know it!” he protested, almost like a child.
“I do?” Murdoc smugly questioned, tapping a finger against his chin as if in deep contemplation. “Well, what do I know about saying sorry, anyway?”
2-D folded his arms up against his chest, slumping into himself somewhat in irritation.
“Well, you should be thanking me for the good stuff,” Murdoc prattled, noting that 2-D sighed but hadn't moved to raise his head.
Another moment passed quietly, Murdoc waiting for another quip, or a wisecrack, or maybe just something to say. 2-D had been so cheeky tonight that he hadn't anticipated silence.
Giving it a little thought, he couldn't help but consider that Noodle and Russell would be a bit mad if 2-D went to them all sad or something, wouldn't they be? Especially Noodle. Murdoc was loath to admit that he hadn't exactly been a great father figure to her, and the thought of her getting even more cross with and disappointed in him than she already was for his recent bout of lying was quite disheartening.
She would side with her ‘big brother’ over him, unquestionably.
(Not sure he could fully blame her for that, even though he wanted to. Not many in their right mind would choose him over 2-D in any situation. Well, except Paula. Actually, scratch that — Paula probably wasn't in her right mind. They both dodged a bullet with that one, even if 2-D didn't see it that way.)
“But I am sorry. For all the, uh, the bad stuff,” Murdoc eventually said.
And when 2-D looked back up at him then, despite his wide, white eyes instead of black, Murdoc could still see that wiry 20 year old he'd met all those years ago with that entrancing, vacant stare. That boy may have frowned and sneered in all the press photos, but mostly to give his image a veneer of distant dissatisfaction to match their often depressive tunes and 2-D's love of the irreverent punk scene. In reality, he was easy-going, and just kind of sardonic. And, back then, though he often winced and folded under Murdoc’s directives, he had mostly wanted to please the bassist who he did view with some level of respect—however begrudging it would soon become.
2-D was pushing 40, now, and yet glimpses of who he was would still emerge sometimes, despite it all. Even though at times like this, it was only for a moment. And thinking about that boy—about everything he'd been through since then—Murdoc felt, well, kind of bad for him.
“I know I said it before the last time I left,” Murdoc acknowledged a bit awkwardly, “but, really, I am. And I know you probably don't believe me or whatever, but there you have it.”
2-D contemplated that heavily for a moment. To be fair, be really only expected—hoped for— a ‘sorry’ for Murdoc being a dickhead right now. He'd already gotten an apology for the past and enough time to ruminate on the fact that he was pathologically inclined to accept it, even though some part of himself kept fighting him on it. Maybe it was the last remnants of his weak self-preservation instinct holding on for dear life.
He knew he wasn't quite at the level he wanted to be at, the healing wound suddenly nicked and bleeding again after Murdoc lied about why he was in prison enough for Noodle to put herself in possible danger, all just to get attention. (Attention that he was also taking away from the rest of the band, because heaven or hell forbid that 2-D be in any position more prominent than Murdoc's own). 2-D knew that was why he couldn't stop himself from digging up the past, but he also knew that letting go and putting down the shovel felt like what he needed.
“Well, I want to believe you,” 2-D eventually admitted, “a-and I'm really sorry I said you should 'a died. I really didn't mean that.”
“Yeah, I know,” Murdoc said almost dismissively, not meeting the other's gaze.
But it didn't feel entirely like the truth.