Chapter Text
Chapter 4: Stylo
*************************************************************************************
Overload, overload, overload…
*************************************************************************************
The following weeks passed with little incident. As 2D had expected, Murdoc came down to his quarters daily to insist that he help with the album, to write lyrics or music, all of which 2D flatly refused. With each passing day, 2D grew steadily more impressed with himself; he’d been able to withstand all of Murdoc’s vitriol and cursing, and hadn’t caved to a single one of the other man’s demands. It wasn’t like him, and he felt himself emboldened, however trapped he was.
But what he found himself more impressed with, however unintentionally, was Murdoc. In all the years he had known him, 2D knew that Murdoc was not a particularly patient man, and his temper could fire off like a hair-trigger. He’d been the target of Murdoc’s anger and annoyance enough that he had come to expect a whallop to the back of the head or a sock to the eye if he said something out of turn or exceedingly stupid. But whenever Murdoc came to his room, he slammed the door, yelled, and threatened 2D, but had yet to lay a hand on him. As miserable as 2D was in his situation at Plastic Beach, he was thankful for this new development.
Other than to bring him food and to pester him about the album, Murdoc left 2D alone, and he couldn’t say that he minded. He spent hours pouring over his old law books, or watching Dawn of the Dead on the tiny TV Murdoc had left in the room, and when he wasn’t doing either of those things, he laid on his bed getting higher than a kite, masturbating, or both. Murdoc had shipped with him at least a year’s worth of his pills, so 2D didn’t bother to count out how many he took every so often during the day. Instead, he dumped a small handful out into his palm and sat back waiting for everything to get fuzzy. He had also discovered that Murdoc had tossed in with his pills several cartons of his Lucky Lungs. As he was sure was unbeknownst to the bassist, he had stuffed into a few of the cigarette boxes a decent amount of weed already rolled into joints. He considered it a good afternoon when he could lay back on his lumpy mattress, pills working their way into his brain and a gentle curl of hazy smoke rising up from the end of a joint toward the high ceiling of his bedroom. In those quiet, Murdoc-less moments he could almost pretend that he was in his apartment in Lebanon, warm sunlight pouring in through the windows, or his old room at his parent’s house back in Crawley where he would watch the shadows from the setting sun shift lazily across his ceilings.
But Plastic Beach had no sun for 2D. Outside his single, small window was only the deep, fathomless ocean. Although he couldn’t see the surface, 2D knew that the season had shifted enough that even in the tropical ocean, a late autumn chill had taken hold, turning the water to an icy grave for anyone unlucky enough to be caught in it. The thought of seeing a body float past his window made him shudder and he’d quickly shoved those thoughts away. But the peace that 2D had so far enjoyed didn’t last.
After nearly a month of the same droll, Murdoc burst into 2D’s room and grabbed him roughly by the elbow, pulling him into the cramped hallway without a word. 2D could only trip over his legs trying to keep up with the firm grip on his arm.
“O-oy, what do yew think yer doin?!”
Murdoc whipped around sharply and quieted his singer with a venomous glare. 2D recoiled at the flash in his eyes. “We’re goin’ out. If you won’t help me work on the album, then I’ve got to use yer soddin’ arse for SOMETHING around here.”
“But where are we goin’?”
Murdoc rolled his eyes upwards, his bloodshot schelera making his face look even more jaundiced than usual as he continued to drag 2D through the winding underbelly of the island.
“I’ve got somethin’ I need to do on the water, and you’re coming with me.”
2D began to open his mouth once more but shut it quickly when he saw the look on Murdoc’s face. Although usually in a foul mood, Murdoc’s anger tended to be almost comical; outrageous expressions, sudden and loud outbursts, and a blundering indignation at being, in his own opinion, the only member of the band besides Noodle with half a brain. But the look he wore this time was one of stony determination, marked by a tightly clenched jaw and hardened eyes. 2D had seldom seen this particular face, but knew that when Murdoc wore it it was best to stay out of his way.
The two of them came to an elevator, which clunked and rattled and made 2D’s stomach jump into his throat as they rode up in it to surface of the island. As the crisp ocean air hit his face, 2D felt as though he was breathing for the first time again. He’d almost forgotten what air was like without it being polluted by the haze of secondhand smoke.
The sky overhead was a dull, stormy gray, the sun blotted out by a solid covering of threatening looking clouds that were a sure sign of the changing of the season. Feeling freer in the open air, 2D let the brisk wind send a shiver down his thin body as he took a look around the beach. Unlike the weather, little had changed in the landscape of the island since he had arrived. Even without the bright sunlight, the trash under his feet remained a disgustingly grimy shade of neon pink. 2D noticed that, amazingly, a few wilted looking palm trees stood along the edge of the water. Their roots split impossibly into the filthy plastic that if he didn’t know Murdoc, 2D wouldn’t have otherwise believed.
At some point during his observations of the island, Murdoc had released 2D from the vice-like grip he had on his elbow and had stalked over toward and onto a modest fishing boat, a cabin cruiser with a dented hood and half missing guard rail. 2D watched hesitantly, inching his way over as the other man dug around in a small compartment at the edge of the deck. Murdoc, seeming to find what he had been searching for, straightened up and lobbed a long, skinny bag at his singer, which hit the singer around the middle. 2D wheezed, the wind knocked straight out of him.
“Get in, ‘Dents, we ain’t got all day for you to stand there like some slack-jawed moron.”
Trying to force his stomach back into its proper place, 2D shot Murdoc a nasty look, but climbed up and over the rusted rail with the bag, the boat swaying in the water beneath them.
“What’ve yew got in the bag, Muds?” He held up the long duffel before tossing it aside on the deck. “An what’re we doin’ out here? It’s right nippy out, an yew didn’t bring my jackets or nuffink’ to this sodding hunk of junk.”
2D knew that his complaining would only serve to irritate the already grumpy bassist, but that didn’t stop him. The whipping ocean wind and overcast skies sent a chill down his spine, and he’d instantly had goosebumps the moment they walked outside. And besides, they clearly weren’t going to be working on the album, so he wasn’t sure why Murdoc had dragged him from him room.
Murdoc growled, but not before wrenching off his own jacket and throwing it at 2D. “WE aren’t doing anything, you twit.” He put his foot on a small, rusty tackle-box sitting near the edge of the cabin and kicked it over toward 2D. “YOU are gonna sit out here and try to catch some bloody fish while I keep a lookout.”
2D raised his eyebrows. “What’ve yew got ta keep a look-out for? There ain’t nuffing around here.” He felt a panic raise once again in his chest. “Is there?” 2D’s head was flooded with images of monstrous sharks, towering and sweeping tidal waves, and, worst of all, gigantic whales lurking below the surface of the water, ready to devour him.
Murdoc scoffed as he pulled open the cabin door and stepped inside. “Course there ain’t, Faceache.” He waved a dismissive hand out the open door before turning on the boat’s engine. “Just get fishing- your petulant refusal to do anything means that we might start runnin’ low on food before we get this album finished, and I ain’t eating your boney arse to survive.” With that, Murdoc let the cabin door slam shut, leaving 2D alone as the boat took off through the choppy ocean waters.
2D stared down at the bag before unzipping it. Inside were a few shoddy looking fishing poles, line already wound through them. He picked one up and made his way over to the tackle-box where he pulled out a glinting lure and held its sharp hook between his long fingers. He hadn’t been fishing in ages, not since his dad had taken him as a boy. He remembered that he hadn’t been particularly good at it, but had been overjoyed every time he got a nibble, usually scaring away whatever fish had been interested.
‘If only he could see me at it now,’ he thought sullenly as he tied the lure onto the end of the pole and let it sink into the water behind the boat.
Watching it trail lazily through the waves, 2D considered Murdoc’s jacket still clenched in his hand. He didn’t really want to accept anything the bassist felt like giving him, but the persistent cold, made more intense by the added wind from their movement through the water, made him decide to slip it on. It was too short through the torso and arms, and smelled strongly to cigarettes and alcohol, but it kept out most of the chill. Settling cross legged onto the deck, 2D picked up the fishing rod and watched Plastic Beach drift off into the distance.
---
By the end of the afternoon, 2D still wasn’t sure why exactly he and Murdoc had gone out on the ocean. Murdoc had stayed shut in the cabin the entire time, staring intently out at the open water with a small pair of binoculars, hissing at 2D every time he had tried to poke his head in to ask when they would be going back. But for the hours they spent cruising this way and that, 2D never saw anything that Murdoc could have been searching for, so he was relieved when he finally turned them around and headed back for the island. The weather had turned from overcast to misty, with a full-blown storm threatening them on the dimming horizon. When they touched the shore 2D was sure that he saw a few tiny snowflakes beginning to fall.
He handed the few fish he’d managed to catch over to Murdoc as they made their way back to the elevator entrance, who grumbled at his measly haul. “What in the bloody hell were ya doin’ the whole time? Sweet satan, Faceache, if it weren’t for the fact that you can talk I’d think you were still in a damn coma.”
2D huffed. “Well sorry I ain’t done a good enough job! I didn’t see yew doin’ nuffin’ in there, yew old sod.” He yanked Murdoc’s jacket off and threw it at him. His entire body was stiff and painful from the cold, and his temper rose. “What did we even go out there for? We jus’ drove ‘round for hours in the bleedin’ cold! And for what? Yew didn’t do nuffin’ the whole fuckin’ time!’”
Murdoc ground his teeth and yanked 2D by the other arm, shoving him through the open door before following after and smashing the button down to 2D’s room. “It ain’t none of your concern what the hell I was doin’, an’ if you know what’s good for ya you won’t keep testing my patience with your bloody smart mouth. The only good it does me is singin’, and you ain’t been doing any of that.”
The door opened and Murdoc dragged 2D by the wrist down the hallway, wrenching him into his quarters. The bassist’s eyes glinted at him dangerously as he stood in the doorway, looking him over disapprovingly. 2D was sure he looked a complete mess, tired, windswept, and frozen to the bone, but he scowled up at him defiantly.
“Now get to bed. If the weather holds we’ll be goin’ back out tomorrow.”
2D began to open his mouth in protest before being cut off.
“An’ if ya complain about it again I’ll give ya something for your useless arse to complain about!”
And with that, Murdoc slammed shut the door of his room. 2D slumped across the room and collapsed on his bed, reaching blindly over to his bedside table to grab his pill bottle. Everything hurt. He was barely 31, but he could feel he joints scraping and grinding against each other near daily, and being out in the cold all day hadn’t done him any favors.
He shook three little white tablets into his palm- one for his joints, one for the migraine he could feel starting to bloom around his temples, and one for the hell of it and gulped them down. Before he twisted the cap back on, he paused for a moment and shook out another one. If Murdoc was going to drag him back out in the morning, he wanted to make sure he could sleep through the night. But just as he was about to toss the last pill down, the door caught his eye from across the room.
It was open.
2D got up slowly. The door sat open, just a crack, but enough that it hadn’t slide in the jam. He stared at it. Murdoc must’ve slammed it so hard that it had bounced back.
‘How could he not have noticed?’ It seemed unusually sloppy for the bassist, who never slacked in his duty of keeping 2D in line. But that was of little concern to 2D at the moment; he may have found a way to escape, a way to never have to see Murdoc’s slimy face again.
Reaching out slowly, he placed his hand on the handle. He had never been completely sure, mostly because of the lack of visits Murdoc had paid him and his consistently high state of mind, but he thought that maybe, the door didn’t lock on its own, that Murdoc was using a separate lock to keep him in. Hesitantly, he pushed the handle and nudged it the rest of the way shut. He had either just doomed himself or figured out a clue to helping him get away from the island. Heart caught in his throat, he pushed down on the handle and pulled.
It opened.
2D quickly shut the door again and instantly started pacing, breathing hard.
Murdoc had left his door open for the night. Murdoc had left his door open for the whole night. This was his chance. It was as though the stars had aligned just for him. Had they not gone out on the boat earlier, he wouldn’t have known how to leave. He knew how to hotwire cars, and surely a boat wouldn’t be too different. If he could sneak out of the building, he could steal the boat and make a run for it. 2D wasn’t sure what he believed in anymore; he had long ago abandoned his parents’ Catholicism, and after Noodle’s death, he had found himself drifting away from Buddhism. But in that moment, he gave a quick thanks to whoever might be listening.
Hastily, 2D shoved a few shirts, pairs of underwear, and pants in a plastic bag, along with a carton of cigarettes and several bottles of his painkillers. He glanced at the old alarm clock that Murdoc had given him in the first few days of his capture. Bright red numbers shone 10:27 PM back at him.
Sighing, he tied the bag shut and tucked it safely under the edge of the bed. He couldn’t leave now. He knew Murdoc would still be awake well into the night. And despite his age and the excessive damage he had caused to his decrepit body over the years, 2D knew that Murdoc’s hearing was sharp- he would be able to hear the boat pulling out of the dock if he were still awake. So 2D sat down on the edge of his bed, got comfortable, and kept his eyes fixed on the door. He could wait. He could be patient.
---
Night seemed to take an eternity to fall. 2D laid on his bed, watching the minutes tick by on his clock. All he could do to keep from panicking was smoke cigarette after cigarette as the room around him faded slowly to black. He couldn’t take any more pills to help him calm his nerves; he had to keep his wits about him if he wanted to make it off the island. He rehearsed his plan over and over in his head.
‘Find the stairs to avoid any noise from the elevator. Find something to unscrew the paneling. Hotwire the boat’s engine.’
When the clock flashed 3am, 2D decided that it was finally late enough to go. He couldn’t figure Murdoc was still awake, given his plans to go back out on the ocean again in the morning. Feeling for the bag he had prepared under the edge of the bed, 2D grabbed it and stumbled the distance to the door. He took a deep breath, nudged it open, and poked his head out into the hallway.
Red light flooded the cramped corridor. 2D had to squint his eyes to make out anything, his already poor vision made worse by the low light. To his right, he could faintly see the only other thing on that end of the hall, the elevator that Murdoc had taken him up in earlier that day. To his left, the hall stretched on and disappeared into blackness. 2D bit his lip. As tempted as he was to dash into the elevator, he knew that it would be loud. He also knew that Murdoc was a damn light sleeper, and had given him a wallop numerous times at Kong for walking too loudly outside his bedroom in the mornings.
2D slipped out, pushed the door back into the frame, and started down the left side of the corridor. Feeling along the edges of the walls, he was sure that it was the slowest he had ever moved in his life, and he tried to make his footfalls light as a feather and keep his breathing even. The stairs, if there were any, would probably be within its own alcove, so he dusted his fingers along the cool metal panes of the wall, waiting for his fingers to hit any kind of doorframe or opening. When they finally bumped into a door, he stopped to inspect it.
What he saw wasn’t what he was expecting to find.
The door was open just enough that 2D was able to see inside if he bent his neck at just the right angle. As his eyes adjusted to the thin line of dim light coming from the crack, he began to see a gaping hole in the middle of the floor illuminated by flames bouncing gently from within it. Although the hole was quite large, large enough in fact that it appeared to melt entirely through the floor, he could feel that it gave off no heat, and the flames had no fuel. 2D recognized this almost immediately as one of Murdoc’s portals to Hell, similar to the giant one he always kept open in the basement of Kong. Sitting near the edge of the hole was Murdoc himself. He was crouched low and the light from the fire licked over his gaunt face. 2D was struck by this image.
‘When did he get so thin?’
2D saw Murdoc’s lips moving rapidly, though he couldn’t make out what he said. His voice was low and gentle, so unlike how it was in every other facet of Murdoc’s life. 2D had only ever witnessed Murdoc speaking so quietly once, shortly after Noodle had arrived.
Before she had learned any English, Noodle occasionally threw terrible crying fits, mostly when she was tired and frustrated after struggling through long days of practice with no way to talk to her bandmates. It had always been Russel or himself who had to pick her up and carry her to her room and coax her into sleep, as Murdoc had made it quite clear that although he was willing to let a nine year old join his band, he wasn’t about to do any parenting. But 2D could remember one exception, an evening when Russel was away visiting Brooklyn and he’d had a head-splitting migraine. He had woken up from his painkiller induced haze to Noodle crying loudly outside his door. Just as he had been about open his door, however, he heard Murdoc faintly from the other side.
‘Come now love, you don’t want to be raising a stink. Dent-face is down and out for the count and if ya wake him up it’ll just give him one more thing to complain about, as if he doesn’t do it enough already.’ Noodle’s crying slowly came to a halt, and he heard Murdoc give a pained grunt as he must have lifted her. ‘Now let’s go down and try to practice- maybe old Mudsy’ll show ya a strum or two on El Diablo. I get the feeling you’ve got some bass player spirit in you.’ 2D never before experienced Murdoc try to be soothing, and he wouldn’t see it again until he watched him muttering to the pit. It was a strange thing.
But he couldn’t be distracted. With one final look to make sure Murdoc’s gaze lay firmly on the portal, 2D darted past the door and continued on.
When 2D finally found the stairs he felt like he might burst into tears. Climbing up them four steps at a time thanks to his impossibly long legs, 2D made it to the ground floor and wrenched the door open. The outside air was cold, much colder than it had been during the day. 2D shivered instantly and took a moment to put on the t-shirts he had brought with him, though they did little to help warm him, and began scouring the beach for the boat. He had remembered that Murdoc had pulled it in on the side of the island with the elevator doors, so he sprinted in that direction. But in the few, short seconds it took him to dash over, 2D’s heart dropped; the boat wasn’t tied to the dock. He circled around the island, pulse quickening rapidly.
It was completely gone.
2D felt himself beginning to hyperventilate. ‘Where did it go? I know it was here!’ He hadn’t seen Murdoc move the boat before coming back into the island with him. Had he moved it while 2D was waiting? But where would he have even put it? He’d circled the entire island, and it was nowhere to be found. Suddenly, a thought struck him and 2D’s blood froze in his veins.
‘Did Murdoc realize I was going to escape?’
It didn’t seem possible, but 2D didn’t want to consider the possibility of Murdoc finding him outside. If he made it back to his room without the bassist noticing, he could always try his escape again.
Deciding that trying to make it back unnoticed was his best option, 2D ran frantically back to the stair entrance. He just had to sneak back down the steps and past the room Murdoc had been in, if he was still there, and back into his bedroom and he would be safe and scott-free. He could do it, he could make it. But just as he went to wrench open the door, it flew open forcefully, knocking 2D onto the hard plastic ground. He looked up and in an instant the air was gone from his lungs, eyes surely deceiving him.
It couldn’t be.
He couldn’t be seeing this.
Noodle stood in the doorway, staring down at him.
A thousand different thoughts and emotions seemed to hit 2D all at once- disbelief at her standing before him, joy at her being alive, panic that Murdoc would find them both and lock them away, and a fear that she wasn’t real, that the combination of his poor eyesight, painkillers, and stress was playing a trick on him. Even as he pulled air back into his lungs, his head was swimming.
“N-Noodle…” he gasped, speaking just above a whisper. “Is…is that yew, luv?”
She didn’t move an inch as she continued to gaze down upon him coolly, a detail that 2D didn’t fail to notice, even in his discombobulated state. He squinted at her through the dark. She looked just as he remembered her from three years ago, the same height, her hair done the same way, and tiny in every way, a trait that betrayed her incredible physical strength. But something was off, and 2D went from ecstatically relieved to nauseous with dread. She hadn’t appeared to have aged a day over 13, despite 2D knowing that she would have just passed her 17th birthday. But more unnerving that that, he had never seen Noodle look at him with such indifference, not with the hard eyes that this Noodle possessed.
2D struggled to stand, trying to recover from his shock. He approached her cautiously. “Hey, Noods, s-say sumfink’, yeah? Tell me it’s yew, Noodle.”
He slowly reached out to her eerily still body to place a hand on her shoulder, to feel her skin and know that it was really her, but as he did so, she darted forward and pulled his arm behind him. In another instant her hand was clenched tight around his windpipe, crushing it under her strong grip.
Over the sounds of his own sputtering, 2D heard a voice, but not the one for which he had hoped.
“Once again you’re only about half right, ya half-wit.”
2D saw Murdoc step into the moonlight and ruffle Noodle’s hair as black spots started to swarm his sight. The bassist smirked down at him evilly, sharp teeth glinting even in the dark.
“Mu-“
“Go on and drop him, won’t you dearie?”
And the hand around his throat squashed out 2D’s remaining consciousness.
*************************************************************************************