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There was no purpose in decorating when they’d just have to uproot themselves again. 2D hunches over his desk in his barren room, the space tight with his bed within arms reach of his closet door. With his long limbs, he wouldn’t have to get out of bed to reach most of his belongings— which are limited anyway. The only features his shoddy living arrangement bears to old iterations are the armies of empty cups and dirty dishes, generations of Casio keyboards, and the lived-in stink of a bachelor set into the nicotine-stained upholstery. What was once an assortment of Gen-X kitsch that kept him company has dwindled to the bare bones of 2D’s space— a TV propped on his dresser with its accompanying stack of horror DVDs, empty frames for posters he intended to hang up— it was all too much of a headache. It’s exhausting enough trying to find a new studio space, and on top of that he has to readjust to that old specter lurking about.
2D crumples another sheet of all-wrong lyrics from his journal, chucks them in the direction of the overflowing wastebasket, and misses so it lands on the overflowing floor.
“You missed.”
2D glowers in the direction of the voice from the doorway.
“Didn’t mean to interrupt something,” Murdoc says, kicking some of the reject lyrics out of the way.
“Of course not. It’s always on your schedule anyway,” 2D grumbles.
Murdoc shoves his hands in his pockets. “If it’s that important, I’ll come back later. It’s fine.”
“I don’t have anything anyway.” 2D drags a sinewy hand through his sparse fringe. “What?”
Murdoc looks down, scrunching his mouth. “I can’t just stop by to see how it’s going?”
“Let me guess— you tried bothering Russ and Noodle and got rejected twice?”
Murdoc scowls— not an angry scowl, but one where 2D could easily imagine him as a child, pouting when his bid for attention goes unrewarded. “That’s all I do? Bother? Should I go jump off a bridge?”
“What do you want?”
Murdoc crosses his arms. They’re lean but muscular under his black shirt, and he makes sure everyone sees them upon his — sorry, Gorillaz— return from their extended slumber, how he’s entering his 50’s not gracefully, but swinging. 2D knows he didn’t do everything on his own. What he’d give to humble Murdoc about his authenticity. Then again, Murdoc could just as easily point out that 2D’s eyebrows barely move (from the migraine treatments, of course), and thus they remain at a stalemate.
“Well can I come in?”
“If you must.”
Murdoc saunters through the empty cans and smell-test-needed tee shirts and makes himself at home on 2D’s bed: a bare mattress on a bedframe with a comforter and a discolored, flat pillow.
“Get your shoes off my bed.”
“Right, sorry, wouldn’t want to dirty these pristine white sheets, would we?”
Murdoc, rather than taking the hint to not get too comfortable, kicks off his boots and sprawls out on his stomach, facing the desk at the end of 2D’s bed as if they’re about to talk about boys.
“What are you working on?”
“Nothing now,” 2D mutters, sitting side-saddle in his chair and clicking his pen against the cheap wood of the IKEA desk.
“Anything I can help with?”
“If I had anything worth looking at, I’d run it by you.”
Murdoc reaches out and ruffles 2D’s hair, a gesture 2D swiftly swats away like a bug.
“Don’t let me distract you.”
Traditionally, a statement like that should be followed by an exit, but Murdoc is not so astute as to carry on that tradition. As 2D turns back to his journal, Murdoc lays his head on 2D’s blanket.
“This reeks, man.”
“Good thing it’s not your bed.”
“Yeah, good thing.”
Murdoc picks his head back up as something catches his eye: himself. Hanging on the inside of 2D’s closet door, ajar enough to see it, but closed enough that it wasn’t intended to be seen, is a poster of Murdoc. It could be some twisted shrine, perhaps, if not for the darts that riddle his grinning face.
“Stu,” Murdoc says, his tone syrupy. The use of his actual name makes 2D’s ears perk up, but he doesn’t turn back around. Murdoc continues:
“I don’t want it to be like this, you know that.”
2D exhales deeply, mouth tight. “Like what?”
“I don’t want to be some unwelcome guest in my own band. I’m really trying. You can see that, can’t you? I’ve been very good, haven’t I?”
“Do you think you’re the judge of that?”
Murdoc props himself up on his elbows. “Name one thing I’ve done recently to deserve being ostracized.”
2D keeps clicking his pen. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.
“How am I supposed to get better when I’m the villain by default? What initiative do I have to try when nothing I do is rewarded?”
“You don’t do it to be rewarded,” 2D mutters. “You do it because you oughta.”
“So I oughta do it for everyone else, but no one oughta do it for me?” Murdoc asks. “That doesn’t seem like a fair deal.”
“What do you want?” 2D repeats.
“I want a little appreciation, that’s all.”
2D snaps around to finally face him.
“Murdoc, thank you so much for not hitting me in the head when you disagree with me, and for not rolling your eyes like a spoiled toddler when we ask you simple questions, and for not setting the house on fire.”
2D slams his journal closed and starts to stand up, but Murdoc grabs his sleeve. 2D glares down at him.
“Stu,” Murdoc says again, returning to a soft, pleading voice. “I really am sorry. I know there’s nothing I can do to undo it all.” He lets go of his sleeve, lays back down, and rolls over onto his back, gazing up at 2D from upside-down with wet, brown eyes. He reaches for 2D’s hand again, Murdoc’s palm warm and rough. 2D’s fingers remain ambivalently limp.
“I don’t want it to be this way. I want to be friends. But I can’t make up for it all. I ruined it.” He tightens his grip on 2D’s hand— not a threatening tightness, but a desperate one. “I know you want to hurt me.”
2D yanks his arm away. “I’m not like you.”
“No, no you’re not. You’re better than me. You always have been. I never really deserved for someone like you to look at me.”
Murdoc nudges closer to the end of the bed so his head hangs off the edge of the mattress. His bangs fall away from his face, revealing his dark eyebrows arched in a mask of penance. With his head lolled back, he leaves his throat open and vulnerable. “Stu,” he says. “You deserve to punish me.”
2D stares at him, mouth twisted.
“I want you to,” Murdoc says, hushed.
2D lingers at the bedside, his fingers grazing the sheets nesting Murdoc with consideration. Murdoc forces down a smile pulling at his mouth.
“Stu?”
2D straightens up and quickly gathers his pen and journal from his desk, turning on his heel to strut somewhere else. He looks back to Murdoc from the doorway, hand on the doorknob to his own room,
“What are you, Catholic?” 2D sneers.
With that, 2D shuts the door behind him. Murdoc sits up, alone in the fading evening light coming in through the curtainless windows. He watches the wooden door that’s replaced the space where 2D stood as if the twerp will return with a “who am I kidding?”
But he doesn’t.
Murdoc reaches over to the closet door and throws it open, yanking the darts from the poster and gathering them in his fist. He props up the pillow behind himself, leans back, and sends a dart sailing into his own stupid face.
Despite the puncture wound in his paper forehead, the other Murdoc grins back at him as if to say “probably be better at this if you weren’t seeing double all the time, huh?”
Murdoc chucks another dart at the bastard’s face, and this time hits him square in the nose.
Bullseye.