#AYYY I'VE WRITTEN RILLAZ FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE JANUARY!

[supposed2bfunny]

Yoo it’s me & you got me thinking. So 2D,spoiled only child,not real thoughtful(prob didn’t realize his mum did his laundry til he moved out and his laundry wasn’t magically clean anymore) & Murdoc leaves little candies and things in his pockets/around the house for him. Phase 5, Murdoc’s in jail. Suddenly there’s no candy around for him all the time. He’s confused about this until Noodle is like “who do you think did all that stuff for you?” What do you think that realization is like for him?

Uhhhh this may have expanded beyond anything I had in mind when you sent this ask hours ago, nips. Short ficlet under the cut!

It’s the second or third day after Ace moves in and the band moves forward with the new album that 2D finds the last vestige of Murdoc lurking on his things like a smelly miasma. He pulls on a worn sports jacket, a gift from FILA from 2013 or 2014, slips his hands into the pockets, and finds something heavy and metallic lurking in the right-side pocket.

Pulling it out, he beholds a silver ring bearing a skull, the sort of thing Marilyn Manson would have pulled off well in the 90s, that gothic bulkiness in which Murdoc has always aspired to look cool in and has never quite succeeded.

After a moment’s inspection, 2D does the logical thing: he hurls the ring down the staircase of the Spirit House, grinning with satisfaction at the sound of it bouncing off the wooden floors below and rolling away to be forgotten amongst debris and clutter and apathy.

“Tosser,” he mutters to himself.

The weeks wear on. Recording goes well, the band gets on just fine, and 2D does not think about Murdoc. 

However, he does suffer a few completely unrelated hang-ups that put the faintest damper on his otherwise now-near-perfect and tosser-free existence.

Primarily in the loss of surprise candy.

He wonders for the first time where all the sweets have gone.

And this leads him down the rabbit hole of wondering where they came from for the first time. For as long as he can remember, 2D has always been pleasantly surprised by hard candies, lemon sherbets, blue-raspberry lollies, Jelly Babies, even the rare Cadbury Creme Egg in the pockets of his jackets, or in his jeans, sometimes tucked into his beanies or even shoved into his pillowcases. Sort of like a tooth fairy has graced him at random times, leaving behind his preferred snacks. Good omens, if ever there was such a thing. 

It’s always reminded him of the way his mum used to leave Flake bars on his pillow after doing her weekly shopping, even when his dad went through his health kicks and tried to ban sweets from the house. 

He doesn’t exactly notice the loss until he’s standing in line at the market one day, purchasing several boxes of his preferred frozen chana masala dinners, when he impulsively grabs a few chocolate bars on his way to check out.

It’s only then that it occurs to him he hasn’t found any mystery goodies lying around for him in several weeks. Where had they come from in the first place, he muses. Noodle? Maybe Russel?

It doesn’t seem likely that Russel was giving them out, since he prefers to cook whole meals himself to serve the band. That leaves Noodle. And why wouldn’t she be sharing candy with him these days? Are they having a row?

As he makes his way home, he ponders what he could have done wrong to upset Noodle. She’d seemed perfectly fine the other day when they went out for bubble tea. She’d even laughed when he’d sucked the boba through the thick straw by sticking it between the gap between his front teeth. Things had seen positively chilly between them!

Being the brave, no-nonsense man that he is, and the de facto leader of the band now that the tosser is locked up for lord-knew-what, he figures he ought to confront her about it straightaway.

So he gives it a couple of days, in case she needs to blow off steam or cool down. Then a few more days, figuring she can approach him first to apologize, he should really be the bigger man. Then he gives it yet a few more days, just to be sure they are in fact having a row. Because rehearsals seem normal. Noodle’s spirits seem as high as ever, her Instagram posts emoji-saturated, her smiles genuine, her laughter nonstop as she develops a close bond with Ace and the two become inseparable. 

Finally, he bumps into her one night: they’re nothing reaching for their preferred coconutmilk ice cream sometime past two in the morning.

“Great minds think alike,” she smiles. “I’ll grab the bowls.”

“Hey, Noods,” he says, leaning back against the counter casually and popping the carton open. “Can I ask you something?”

“What’s up, Dee?”

“Are you...aw, it’s gonna sound so silly! You ready to laugh? You’re not cross with me, are you?”

She hands him a bowl and spoon and gets scooping. “Cross with you? Not at all--” he nearly drops his bowl in relief--”why do you ask?”

“Nah, forget it. What’s Ace say? Fuggeddaboutit?”

She pulls a face. “That was a really shitty accent.”

“Aint that the point?”

“I guess,” she concedes. “Anyway, I want to know why you thought I was cross with you: just tell me!”

“Well...I guess I kind of miss the candy you always shared with me.”

Noodle pops her spoon into her mouth, sits on the kitchen table and crosses one leg over the other. “Huh? What candy?”

“I mean, you’re the sweet tooth queen, Noods! You always have candies on you, and you used to share ‘em with me. And I guess I miss it a little bit.”

“When did I last share candy with you?” she asks. “It’s been like, a million years since I placed one of those bulk orders of the good stuff from Japan that I like.”

“No, no, not any Japanese candy. I just mean like, Jelly Babies and stuff. You used to leave ‘em in my coat pockets, or sitting out on my keyboards to surprise me. Like, rewind a month or so ago, you’d do it all the time.”

“No I wouldn’t,” she answers, looking thoroughly perplexed. 

“But...” he frowns down at his ice cream. It’s too cold still, hasn’t begun to get all good and melty the way he likes it. Just a lump of chill and ice. “Then who did?”

“You mean the little presents Murdoc always used to leave out for you? 2D, that was all Murdoc.”

There’s a pause as 2D continues to leer down at his bowl, almost forgetting that he’s not alone in the room. He remembers the skull ring he’d found and thrown. He remembers the candies sitting on the bench by his piano in the basement, the comic books rolled up and jammed into the case of his acoustic guitar, the comic books he has no memory of purchasing though they feature his favorite heroes. He remembers the fidget cube he’d found one day in his sock drawer, and the Cadbury Creme Eggs next to his condoms by the bedside.

“Hey,” Noodle’s voice draws him back out. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” he says quickly. “Everything’s fine, luv.”

She arches a brow at him; she knows he only calls her that when he's unfocused. “It’s okay to miss him, you know,” she says gently. “Sometimes I do too. He was pretty indulgent towards you, when he wanted to be. Can’t blame you for missing that.”

“Yeah right,” he forces a chuckle. “Think we’re all doing better with that sod out of the band for a bit. I’m having a nice time stretching my legs, so to speak. Really, I’m much happier these days, in case that wasn’t obvious.”

“Okay,” she responds, and she sounds patronizing, but maybe it’s just his imagination. “I’m gonna go finish the movie I started,” she hops off the counter, leaving him to his thoughts. “G’night.”

“’Kay, night!” He sits down at the table properly, intending to finish his dessert. But while it melts, he figures he has time for a smoke. He pats his pants pockets, realizes he doesn’t have any cigarettes on him. Murdoc always had ciggies with him, no matter where he was, no matter what level of dress or undress he was in. These days, 2D often finds himself with smokes but no lighter, or playing with a lighter but lacking in smokes.

Not in the mood to get up to find some, he instead sits there, fiddles with his spoon. It seems wrong to qualify Murdoc’s behavior as kindness, given that the word is so contradictory to his entire persona. Murdoc is not kind. Never has been. Murdoc is a tosser, a criminal, an impulsive crackhead with a tendency to make decisions that hurt those around him.

A selfish prick...whose arbitrary actions have unwittingly brought him joy for months, years, shit, he can’t remember when he first started noticing these little treats and presents left out for him, like a corvid collecting bottle caps for a preferred human companion. 

He hates Murdoc then, not for his cruelty and nasty behavior, but for his capacity to defy his own constructed persona. 

Sometime deep into these thoughts, he realizes that his ice cream has melted beyond the point of being softened and melty: it’s just a puddle of coconutmilk soup with a caramel swirl. It’s also lukewarm. It’s also approaching four in the morning.

Joints cracking as he stands, 2D brings his bowl to the sink, then approaches the bottom of the staircase. He pulls up the flashlight on his cellphone, casts it around the foyer and the living room, peaks under unpacked boxes of records and ottomans collecting dust and many, many, many pairs of shoes.

He doesn’t find that ring he’d thrown. Eventually, he gives up looking and heads to bed.

For the first time since he’d received a phone call from the local police station, he dreams of Murdoc, wakes up with crusty eyes and tight lungs and stares at the ceiling for a long time. He feels less like the leader of the band then, and more like a wayward child. A runaway. A vagabond. Directionless.

Eventually, he reaches out an arm, fumbles blindly till he finds the notebook he’s been writing lyrics in. With a sigh, he hoists himself up into a sitting position, rolls his shoulders; a joint cracks somewhere in his neck.

His pen scratches dryly a bit against the blank page at first, reluctant to share its ink with him. The hiss of nub against paper, friction. Then, the ink floods out, all at once.