#he could treat me like fucking garbage and id still come back crawling to him like a stupid bitch

[dyscrasia-eucrasia]

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Part 11

Angel spent most of the next morning nursing an excruciating hangover. He hadn't even had that much to drink, but he still spent a good amount of time hunched over, retching into the toilet. When finally his stomach had settled enough to get a sports drink down, he crawled back onto his futon and pulled a blanket over his head. 

He intended to spend the rest of the day like that, napping and forgetting the night before, but sleep eluded him. He tossed and turned fretfully until finally he grabbed his phone from the end table and checked his notifications. 

His Instagram notifications had been going off all night, to the point he finally silenced his phone, something he never did normally. There were notifications for followers, comments, likes - and one tagged picture from Clayton's account. 

His stomach dropped and he thought he was going to be sick again. He didn't want to look at it, but he knew he had to. He needed to know if his entire social media career was over. He couldn't stand that thought. He couldn't stand the thought of going back to being a nobody so desperate for cash that he quit school to strip. He didn't want to be just a face in the crowd again. 

He hesitated a long time before tapping the notification. The Instagram logo came up on the screen and he was presented with a picture of himself and Clayton. Clayton had his hands on either side of Angel's face, and was forcing his mouth onto Angel's. Angel was tagged in the post, but all the caption said was 'West Virginians know how to party'. There was no mention of the fight, no acknowledgement that Angel looked completely surprised in the photo. 

He scrolled through the comments. They were all hearts or eggplant emojis or declarations of jealousy. 

That was Instagram for you, he supposed. Everything sanitized for public consumption, worst qualities twisted into aspirational ones. 

There was no way he could possibly talk about the attempted assault now. He'd just look petty and attention-seeking. He'd get accused of being a gold digger looking for a pay-off. 

And the worst thing about it was that when he checked his own profile, he found that overnight, he'd smashed past ten thousand followers and was edging close to twenty thousand. His follower count had more than doubled, and he didn't even care. It had happened the wrong way. This wasn't the kind of attention he wanted. He didn't want to be seen as Clayton Howard's hookup. 

Morbid curiosity compelled him to check Youtube. Sure enough, Clayton's vlog channel had posted a new video about Charleston, but it mostly covered the daytime as he and his crew had run around the city being obnoxious to locals. Angel's stomach twisted. God, he could see so clearly now how everything Clayton did was an act. An especially grating one, at that. How had he ever had a crush on this guy? 

And then there was Angel on screen, smiling into the camera and throwing up a peace sign as Clayton wrapped his hand around his shoulders. The rest of the video was made up of rapid cuts - walking to Broadway, drinking Fireball shots, dancing. Then a shot that mirrored the photo on Instagram of Clayton kissing Angel, his friends hooting in approval. The video cut to Clayton shouting at the camera for the viewer to buy his merch and subscribe to his channel, and that was it. Video over. His disgusting behavior completely edited out, Angel's fate left in question. 

Angel put the phone down, turning onto his stomach and burying his face in his pillow. He felt like trash. Literal trash, in that he'd been used and tossed away. And nobody even knew it. Nobody would care. After all, he had less than 20k followers. 

He stayed like that for a long time, face pressed into his pillow. Tears came on and off, but he didn't even feel sad. He mostly felt empty. He was nothing, a nobody. A fake persona for the internet to consume and then throw aside. A pretty face that got views. Content. 

His phone rang. He ignored it. It stopped. He continued to lay there, feeling awful. 

Time passed. He wasn't sure how long - he may have dozed off at some point. But then the phone rang again and brought him back to the present. 

He couldn't hide from the world forever. 

He lifted his head and turned to look at the phone, precariously balanced at the edge of the futon. His eyebrows came together in confusion. That wasn't the name he'd expected to see on the caller ID. 

"Hello?" He asked, bringing the phone to his ear. 

"Hey dude," Demie replied. Angel noticed for the first time that despite his tone being monotonous, there was a warmth under Demie's words. His voice was rich and deep, like the ringing of a gong. 

"Demie?" Angel asked. Of course it was Demie. But still, he was surprised. "What… what's up?" 

"Just checking in on you, man. You seemed super out of it last night." 

Oh, that was right. He'd called Demie. He couldn't remember much of the conversation, but one part did stick out in his mind. In his drunken state, he'd told Demie he liked him. And Demie had replied in kind. 

For the first time that day, his heart didn't feel like a cold heavy lump of metal in his chest. 

"Yeah. I'm okay." Angel lied. 

"You sure? You seemed… I dunno. Out of it." 

"I mean…" Angel took a deep, shuddering breath. When he spoke again, he had to fight to keep his voice from cracking. "I just… I really looked up to his guy, but now I know he's a complete ass, and I can't even talk to anyone about it, because they'll just take his side." 

"Yeah, fuck that guy," Demie said, and Angel couldn't help but smile. It was just the way Demie said it - he had no idea who Angel was talking about, and his tone didn't even change, and yet it really felt like he meant it. 

"Honestly, I feel like garbage," Angel said. "I just keep thinking about it over and over and I feel so fucking stupid."

"Yeah, uh…" There was a pause. "Do you wanna listen to a song I've been working on? I dunno, might make you feel better."

"The Orpheus one?" 

"Nah, it's an older song. It's part of this concept album Mar and I were planning about the Trojan war, but Mar moved before we could finish it."

"What's it about?" 

"You know who Achilles is, right?"

"Uh… he had a weak ankle, right? That's why we called it the Achilles Tendon." 

"I mean… that's the really short version of it, yeah. So Achilles had this best friend, Patroclus, who gets killed by Hector of Troy. And Hector takes Patroclus' armor, and that pisses Achilles off, so they fight. So Achilles wins and kills Hector, but instead of giving him funeral rites he ties him by the ankles and drags his body around outside the walls of Troy." 

"That sounds… intense, but okay." 

"Cool, hold on a minute." 

There was some scuffling in the background, and when Demie came back it was clear he was on speakerphone. 

"Okay, ready?" He asked. 

"Sure. Hit me." 

Angel could hear an acoustic guitar. The melody wasn't what he'd expected - he'd expected something fast and brutal, like the stuff he'd heard at the concert. But instead this was slow, plodding, like a funeral march. 

Then Demie's voice came in, low and resonant. Even over the phone it made Angel's sternum vibrate. He sang slowly, deliberately, drawing notes out in long holds. 

The lyrics talked about Achilles, about the pain he felt. It described how he lost a half of his soul, and how he sought revenge. But it wasn't a huge, bombastic revenge - it was a bitter one. The Achilles that Demie sang about couldn't heal the hole in his heart, and so he took it out on Hector. He didn't hate Hector, though, and he felt shame for the way he treated Hector's dead body, and he knew it would lead to his own eventual downfall.

It was a song about the cyclical nature of revenge, and of loss. Angel didn't even notice until the song ended that he was crying. Not silent tears, either - he was actually sobbing. 

There was a clatter as Demie picked up the phone again. 

"What'd you think?" He asked. 

"Holy shit, man," Angel choked. "Holy shit that was so fucking deep." 

"How'd'ya feel?"

"I--" Angel wanted to say that he felt like shit, obviously. He had already felt like garbage and then Demie had gone and sung an incredibly depressing song to him, clearly it would just make things worse. 

And yet, it hadn't. He didn't feel bad at all. In fact, he felt fine. Good, even. Like he was rejuvenated. It was as if the previous night hadn't even happened. 

"I feel better," he admitted.

"Cool. Hey, uh… be careful and stuff, or whatever." 

"Yeah. Yeah, thanks." 

"Cool, see ya." 

"Okay. Thanks. B--" The line went dead before he could tell Demie goodbye. 

He sighed, turning over onto his back. His entire body felt lighter, and the tune of the song swirled around in his head. He wasn't sure what had just happened, but it was like Demie's voice had healed him. His hangover was gone, his anxiety was gone. He wouldn't necessarily say that he was happy, but he felt… good. 

There was one thing he was certain of, though: he was falling fast and hard for Demie. Not in the parasocial internet crush way he'd felt about Clayton Howard, but in an organic way. Demie had been there for him twice now, despite virtually being strangers, and each time he'd come away feeling better. 

Not to mention, the way Demie had sung about Achilles and Patroclus had been so powerfully, painfully gay. 

He wanted so badly to see Demie in person.

[btsinwonderland]

Love Me Better - Ch. 16

A Monsta X Story...

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The walk back to the car was a blur. Vy was still reeling from the incident. Wonho's words felt thick and heavy she could barely comprehend them.

"Hey! Look at me, you're okay alright? We're going back for now," he said.

She vaguely nodded and felt the car start. The ride was long and unsettling. She cracked the window open and felt the cool air on her face. After a while Wonho inquired if she was doing okay.

She stared at the dashboard while she spoke. "It was just really...I saw pieces of him on the road..." she could barely finish her sentence before almost gagging.

Wonho kept quiet and the rest of the ride was spent in a comforting silence. When they got back he told her to go clean up and that he would give the report to Shownu. She gratefully accepted his offer and went back to her room.

After the shower she checked her phone, there was a text message from Minhyuk. He asked how her day went. She humorlessly laughed out loud and could only come up with a reply saying it was eventful. She wrote in that she missed him too.

It was sometime after midnight she laid restless in her bed. She sheets felt rough and suffocating. The entire room was hot and silent. She could hear every creak and tiny noise amplified in her ears.

With a sigh she got up and put her sweatpants on. She grabbed her phone and put her headphones in.

The night air whipped through her hair as she ran. The breeze blew gently on her skin and she closed her eyes for a few seconds to take it in. Without thinking she jogged to the field they used to train in. The outdoor gym was hidden in the shadow of the night and she noticed a figure moving in it. When she got closer it glanced her way.

"Can't sleep huh?" Wonho said.

"No..." she said quietly.

He hopped away from the apparatus and approached her. "Let's go," he said.

"Where?"

He just grabbed her hand and pulled her away from the field. They walked back to the apartment building and he ushered her inside. When they got to the kitchen he pulled out a bottle of whiskey. He took out two glasses and poured in the brown liquid. She smiled when he handed her a cup. They walked out to the front porch and rested their glasses on the railing, looking outwards at the parked vehicles and gravelly roads.

"I was most interested in learning to fight because I thought it would protect me. Make me stronger. My entire life I couldn't protect myself or my mom from my dad and I thought this would finally be the time I wouldn't be afraid anymore. But I'm just a fucking wuss," she said.

Wonho laughed. "You thought you'd come out of this as a terminator?" He looked up at the sky and shook his head. "This job, this life, you'll find, no matter how much experience you think you have, it never gets much easier. Some things, like that guy today, you'll get used to shit like that. Doesn't make it easy, but there are worse things that can keep you up at night."

She felt oddly comforted by his words and felt a little weight fall away. They sat there for a long time until she felt the pull of sleep. Downing her drink, she turned to walk back to her room.

"Wonho?"

"Mm?"

"Thank you. Let's meet at dawn and get started again tomorrow."

He smirked and nodded at her. She almost left again when she had a thought.

“Wonho?”

“Yes?”

“What keeps you up at night?”

There was a long silence between them and she thought he would not answer. Then he said so low she could barely hear, “all of it.”

The next morning they went back to the man's house discretely. From what they noticed there were no cops present.

“This is our best chance to get information. We got lucky he probably wasn’t carrying any ID. But they’ll find out who he is and where he lives soon enough, let's go,” Wonho said.

They went in through the back and listened for any noise but there was no one there. The house was lacking in many ways. There was one solitary couch in the empty living room with an old television sitting on the floor. They walked upstairs, into the bedrooms, the kitchen, the bathroom, and checked every drawer, shelf, and corner. There was nothing.

“That can’t be, he had to have something here,” Vy said.

Wonho thought carefully for a moment, “Unless someone got here before we did…”

“But doesn’t the house look all ransacked after that kind of stuff?”

“Don’t believe everything from movies, if it looked ransacked then the cops would escalate the case into a crime investigation. What they wanted was to get rid of all the evidence and make sure they treat our guy like a regular deceased.”

Vy kept quiet and looked around. Though no matter what she looked at, there was no indication of anything other than dirt and negligence. She even looked in the toilet tank, nothing. Perhaps her movie watching anecdotes were not as helpful as she had thought. They did a full sweep through the entire house but there was nothing.

Wonho swore and began muttering to himself. “Of all the cases…Even if this guy died we could have just put it to bed, but it's because of that damn phone call we have to look into it. If this ends up being a huge waste of time…”

Vy had a thought. “I know it might be impossible, but since we can’t find anything here, I remember he threw his bag over the bridge. I mean it's probably god knows where now or destroyed, but that’s the only thing I can think of.”

He agreed it was their only option at this point. They walked over to the bridge and went off the main path into the bushes. It led to the underside of the bridge on a steep hill. There were worn out clothes ominously laying around on the grass. As they walked deeper into the foliage and got closer to the river, they saw that along the underside of the bridge there were small shacks made of all sorts of used materials.

“You go look for the bag I’m going to see if there’s anyone here,” Wonho said.

She walked along the edge of the river and looked around. There was an endless amount of rocks and slime along with lots of garbage. For a moment she thought she saw something promising but it was just a backpack filled with mould. She gagged from the stench. There were many things she would have to learn to get used to, being squeamish was going to be of no help to her.

Wonho found her and from his angry expression she knew he did not get any information.

“They won’t say anything, didn’t sound like they knew much either. Guessing you found shit all too.”

He crossed his arms and stepped back. He stood there scanning the area for several minutes. She left him to his methods and continued along the edge of the river. She followed the path of the current hoping that it might have washed up somewhere further ahead. Soon she was far enough away from the bridge that the trees became thinner and the grass faded into dirt. Frustration bubbled up and she cursed aloud.

There was a rustling behind her and she turned around ready to attack. It was a child. A little girl that looked no older than five. Her skin was covered in dirt and she looked filthy. She just stared at Vy with an expressionless face.

Vy walked up to her but the girl began to run, she grabbed the girl’s arm but the child turned around and bit her. Vy exclaimed and stepped back in surprise. She chased after the girl and tried to find her but it was of no use. Then she thought of a plan.

She ran back to Wonho who was completely fed up at this point and requested him to come with her. He gave her a doubtful look but she begged for a chance.

Vy ran up to the bridge and into downtown while Wonho followed behind her.

“Where the hell are we going?” He said.

She turned into the first sandwich shop she saw and went inside. After ordering a dozen of them and a pack of water bottles it only took them seconds to get it all ready.

Wonho walked in when the shopkeeper handed her the bags. On her way out she patted him on the shoulder and said, “thanks for spotting me on this one! I owe you!”

His confused look turned to anger when the shopkeeper heckled him for the unpaid food.

She ran back to the bridge and began to pass food out to the homeless people that were there. Many of them were seniors or young children. Some smiled at her with grateful faces while some snatched the food away with a scowl. With one sandwich left she ran back to the place where she saw the girl. She unwrapped it and set it on the ground.

“I brought you food! I promise I won’t hurt you. I won’t touch you, I just want to talk to you.”

She then walked backwards and stood a few feet away from the food. A small brown head popped out of the trees. The girl crawled up to her slowly. She saw the food and magnetically went towards it. The girl took the sandwich and shovelled it into her mouth. She squatted and filled her mouth until she started coughing. Vy was about to step forward when the girl flinched then she stopped.

Vy crouched and rolled a water bottle towards the girl. She grabbed it and gulped it down in one go.

“I just have one question for you, did you see a black bag wash up here recently?"

The girl stared at her for a long time and looked around. Once she confirmed there was nobody around she nodded at Vy.

"Wait,” the girl said.

She ran off and when she came back there was a black satchel being dragged along the ground with her. She brought it to Vy's feet and stood slightly closer than before.

Vy was ecstatic and smiled when she saw it. Though it looked very worn down from the water it was their best find so far.

"Thank you so much,” Vy said.

"That belongs to the mean man..."

Vy's brows furrowed. "You know who this belongs to?"

"He sometimes would come and talk to people here."

"Which people?"

She shrugged. "They were mean too."

As the girl continued to look around her eyes widened in fear when she saw one of the older woman walking their way. She immediately ran into the trees again before Vy could say anything else.

Vy turned to leave when the older woman grabbed her arm. "Don't come here again."

She was a bit puzzled when she got to the car but her thoughts dissipated when she saw Wonho leaned back in the driver's seat with his arms crossed and eyes closed.

"You conned me. After all my kindness..."

Vy laughed as they drove back. "Are you sulking right now? I don't have any money! And with it I got valuable information so just think of it as an investment for this assignment."

Wonho rolled his eyes. "So you found the satchel? Do you think they have more information?"

She nodded. "They wouldn't say much but maybe I'll go back later and ask that girl. She was so cute, sad to see her life turned out like that."

Wonho shrugged and said, "if it makes you feel better, in our line of work it's likely you'll die at a younger age than she will."

She gave him a look. "Wow thanks."

When they got back to the apartment they went to one of the meeting rooms. She opened the bag  over a large table and started pulling out its contents.

A lot of the items suffered severe water damage and crumbled with the lightest touch. The inside was slimy and wet and she thanked herself for wearing gloves.

Wonho stood in the corner and watched what was being taken out though most of it was useless. She pulled out a mushy pile of what once might have been money. The bag was then empty. She searched through the pockets desperately trying to find something. Anything.

"Wait I think I found something!" She said.

A small rectangle was pulled out of one of the interior pockets. It was wet but intact. The writing was still legible though faded slightly.

Wonho took the card she handed to him. He turned it over in his hands. "You ready to go?"

"Where?"

“According to this, Ace Accounting."

[avecorviidae]

Fic: falling out of feeling

Fandom: Gorillaz Rating: T Relationship(s): Murdoc Niccals/Stuart “2D” Pot Word Count: 2246

Ao3 Link

It’s an unbearable number of minutes before 2D finally stops pretending to drink the shite canteen coffee and looks him in the eyes.

“How’s the place treating you, then?”

A neutral question, as far as things go. Or, it would be, if Murdoc were anywhere other than here.

“How do you think, faceache?” he spits, but it comes out weaker than he would’ve liked, bitterness giving way to exhaustion. 2D flinches back nonetheless, wincing as his eyes trace the steady line of reddish bruises up Murdoc’s jaw and into his hairline. Murdoc sneers, juts his jaw out, puts on a big old show of refusing to be ashamed. They’re being watched, after all, by the officers and the huge fuckoff sods who roughed him up, and their nice wives and mumsies come to see them, all of them gawking at the black-eyed bright blue poofter in the fucking patterned floral shirt who’s come to see Murdoc Niccals. Beyond that, though, beyond his cred, his inside rep, he’s putting it on for 2D, like he always does, the fuckoff-I-don’t-need-you strop he always throws before he crawls back every single time.

Trust 2D to toss it right back at him.

“Listen, Muds,” he starts abruptly, and Murdoc’s eyes snap up to him, already put on-edge by the tone. He’d thought 2D’s discomfort was about the locale, the sterile, grey visitation centre of Wormwood Scrubs pressing down around him, but Murdoc knows that tone, and a we need to talk by any other name still tastes as fucking sour.

“Muds,” he starts again, learning forward over the low plastic table, “my head’s not on straight right now, yeah?”

Murdoc bites back a when is it ever?, in favour of scowling in petulant silence.

2D’s voice takes on a desperate edge. “My head’s not on straight, and, look, Noodle’s got this mate, right? A bloke named Ace, and he’s a bit of a bassist I guess, has this nice place in L.A., and he’s invited me and Noods and Russ to maybe hang out and jam with him for a bit. And, Muds, I think I might take him up on it.”

Well.

At least he has the decency to look guilty about it.

“So that’s how it fucking is, then.”

“No, Murdoc,” 2D says, pleading, but Murdoc’s already pushing his chair back, ready to get the fuck out of here. His cell, the rec yard, even the communal fucking showers would be a welcome reprieve from this.

2D stands as well, leans over and grabs Murdoc’s wrist before he can react. “Look, I know you’re angry and you probably won’t cool down for a while, but I’m leaving you my phone number, yeah? And just, call me Muds, okay? Whenever. And if I don’t answer, I’ll call you back, quick as anything, okay?”

Murdoc blinks once, then tugs his hand away sharply, out of 2D’s grip. “And why the fuck would I ever want to call you?”

2D sighs, all the fight going out of him. The way he’s built, he looks like a marionette cut from its strings, all jutting bones and awkward angles. “At least take this,” he says, voice resigned. He rummages in his jean pockets, and after a moment, produces a crumpled tenner, dropping it on the table between them. He must’ve brought it for the canteen, Murdoc supposes.

He sneers. “What, and get hep A from the fucking beans on toast? I’ll pass, thanks.” Still, he pockets the cash, knows it could do him some good.

“Call me,” 2D repeats dully.

Murdoc leaves.

-

HMP WORMWOOD SCRUBS

INMATE PHONE CALL TRANSCRIPT OUTGOING: INMATE ID: #24602     INMATE NAME: MURDOC NICCALS

RECEIVING: STUART POT (LOS ANGELES, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA)

-

STUART POT: You called! Are you… Uh, are you alright, Muds? Not dying or anything, yeah?

MURDOC NICCALS: Me? I’m great, just fucking dandy, Dents, I’m just in fucking prison.

SP: Oi, don’t get snippy mate, you called me!

MN: Well. Had to make sure you were still kicking, didn’t I? Make sure this Ace bugger didn’t turn out to be some evil fucking serial killer out to murder my whole band, eh?

SP: [LAUGHS] He’s not evil, Muds. Just a bit, er. Thick.

MN: I’m sorry, are you fucking joking? You’re calling someone else thick? This bloke must be a fucking vegetable!

SP: Oh, sod off. He’s just, you know, a bit odd, innit? We were doing some shoots for a music video on Venice Beach, and we wanted a shot of him playing basketball with the locals, because he’s a bit of a local, right? Being American, and that. But one of these kids throws him the ball, and he catches it, and takes out a flipping flick knife and pops the bloody thing!

MN: [LAUGHS]

SP: It ain’t funny, Muds, they were right angry!

MN: Well that’s what you get, isn’t it? Filming a music video on Venice flaming Beach, for chrissakes. What’s it even about?

SP: Not about much, I guess. It’s a, a happy song I guess, so I just roller skated around for a bit, and we got some shots of all the folk milling about, and it was pretty good up until Ace pulled that shit. And Russel tripped me up, but I don’t know that he meant to.

MN: Rollerskating? 2D, what the fuck are you doing to my band?

SP: Just messing about, Muds. I think it’s turning out alright, so far, we’re cleaning up the audio for the rest of the album, and Jaime’s said he might wanna do these uh, things, these, visualizers for some of the songs, yeah? And it’s–

MN: Are you enjoying this? Getting to fucking gloat about replacing me in my own band, writing your hippie dippie alt-pop shit with some fucking Californian bassist, putting out a whole fucking album without me in my fucking band–

SP: But it’s my album! It’s your band, Muds, of course it’s your band, but I’ve got to do this, right, and you can’t take it like that, like we don’t want you back, ‘cos it’s not the same doing this without you. Ace is thick, Muds, seriously, musically thick, he just plays whatever me and Noodle tell him to, never adds anything himself. Which is alright for this I guess, ‘cos it’s my songs and I know what they’re supposed to sound like, but I keep hearing you in my head going, “And that’s where the synth oughta stop, you always want your stupid little midi solos, Dents–”

MN: [LAUGHS]

SP: Sod off, stop laughing! You sound just like that, you do, you always fucking barge in and say every song ought to go exactly your way, and we’d stay up half the night tweaking one chord progression over and over ‘cos we knew it didn’t sound right and I can’t do that without you, Muds, so quit saying I want rid of you, alright? I can’t keep doing this without you.

MN: Then don’t. Just fucking wait until I find a way out of here–

SP: I can’t, Murdoc. Not with these, yeah? I’m sorry.

[CALL END]

-

SP: Do you ever miss Kong?

MN: No.

SP: Go on. Not even a little bit?

MN: No! Why would I miss that infested, stinking pit of garbage?

SP: Sorry, are we talking about Kong or Plastic Beach?

MN: Bugger off. At least Plastic Beach wasn’t in fucking Essex.

SP: [Singing] The only way is–

MN: Stop. Stop! I could’ve gone the rest of my sad, miserable life without being reminded of fucking TOWIE. You really are a poof.

SP: Guilty. I miss Kong, though. Really, I do. I mean, not the smell, or that portal-thing you kept downstairs, or the bathrooms, or really anything about it, but… It was alright, the stuff we did in there, weren’t it?

MN: Alright? D, it wasn’t just alright, it was fucking revolutionary! Changed the international music scene forever–

SP: I miss when we’d order pizza in, and the Domino's delivery bloke always got lost on the way up, and ended up calling us all curled up in a ball crying ‘cause he saw a ghost or summink, and we had to go out and collect him.

MN: Ah, yeah. Think they blacklisted us eventually.

SP: And Noodle tearing through the place. Skateboarding up and down the hallways at midnight–

MN: –Screaming like a banshee in Japanese because we hadn’t been watching how much sugar she’d had, yeah. God, she were a great little sprogget, weren’t she?

SP: You know she’s seeing someone?

MN: What?

SP: Yeah! Some bird named Buttercup, lives round here apparently.

MN: She’s too young to be dating! You’ve told her she’s not allowed to be dating, Dents, fucking tell her!

SP: She’s twenty-summink, Muds, I don’t think we’re allowed to tell her what to do anymore. If we ever were, really.

MN: Still! What if she gets hurt! What if this Buttercup bird breaks her heart! I don’t trust anyone named fucking Buttercup, D.

SP: Me neither, really. I wanted to, you know, stand on the porch with a shotgun and be all, you have my daughter back by midnight young lady or there’ll be hell to pay, like in the movies, right? ‘Cept the place we’re in don’t have a porch, and Noods never brings her round anyways. The only reason I even know she exists is ‘cos Ace kept running his mouth when he weren’t supposed to. She were right angry at him for that.

MN: [LAUGHS] Good for her.

SP: I do… I miss the people we were when we were doing music at Kong.

MN: We were terrible people, D.

SP: Still are. But at least it was fun. Least it was just us up on a hill and half the fucking world weren’t watching us and writing articles every time we got high on something.

MN: D…

SP: I think I hate L.A., Muds. Really, I do. I know I was the one who wanted to come here, but I think, once this album’s done, I need a break. Middle of nowhere, you know? Not like Plastic Beach, but, us, like…

MN: Jamaica.

SP: Yeah. Yeah.

[CALL END]

-

HMP WORMWOOD SCRUBS

FORM BP-S383.058: INMATE PERSONAL PROPERTY RECORD NAME: MURDOC NICCALS ID: 24602 TYPE OF PROPERTY: COMPACT DISC QUANTITY: 1 DESCRIPTION:

JEWEL CASE CONTAINING: -ONE COMPACT DISC (C-D) OF ALBUM TITLED “THE NOW NOW” BY “GORILLAZ”

-

He looks tired. Probably not quite as haggard as Murdoc, one eye still bandaged over, half his face an inflamed, angry red, but still, he looks a bit like he walked off the plane high and half asleep and stumbled straight into the visitor centre. Hell, he might’ve.

He’s not making any pretenses about drinking the coffee, this time, but he’s got his skinny fingers wrapped around it, leeching warmth from the Styrofoam cup.

Murdoc blinks, winces, glances away. Doesn’t know how to start.

“I mean, do you get it now?” 2D asks, abrupt as ever. “Why I had to do it without you. I couldn’t just… I couldn’t let you play those songs, not like, not when they were for…” He trails off, scowls down into his cup.

“I know,” Murdoc murmurs. “S’why…”

He shakes his head, forces himself to spit it out. 2D gave him this, the least he can fucking do is stop being a coward and finally return the favour.

“S’why I couldn’t let you sing Plastic Beach alone.” 2D looks up at him sharply, eyes wide and disarming. “What?”

“I brought in so many collaborators so you’d make a story with them. Not think about me, or the lyrics I wrote, or why. Couldn’t listen to you singing my words back at me all alone.”

All at once, 2D’s face goes slack and soft with understanding. Murdoc finds himself unable to look away, skin crawling with shame and fear and a thousand other things, but still staring right back at 2D. He’d always found his eyes a bit unnerving, glassy and blank, like squid ink. Opaque and reflective, and Murdoc’s always seen more of himself that he wants to, when 2D looks at him like that, like there’s not another thing in the world that could possibly keep his focus.

2D hums, low and crooning, “I’ll wait to be forgiven, maybe I never will–”

“Don’t,” Murdoc says softly, “Stu, stop.”

Because of course he’d know, pick out the one that Murdoc can barely stand to think about. He was a showman, was 2D, and way back when they’d actually gotten Little Dragon to perform live with them, he’d sung to her full-throated, down on his knees pleading and bright and shining with sweat, had looked at her like nothing else existed–

Like he was looking at Murdoc now.

“We’re not good people,” Murdoc says, like he’s realizing it for the first time. He might be, in a way, because he can’t quite wrap his head around the kind of poetry they’ve been writing each other, like they’re the kind of people who pine, who love like that, who get to have that.

“That’s alright,” 2D says serenely. “I still try, sometimes. And I guess it’s never too late for you to start.”

“Cheeky shit,” Murdoc says, but he’s smiling, almost. “You’ll– Will you be there? When I get out of here?”

“‘Course, Muds.”

“Then I’ll start trying.”