Chapter Text
When Stuart was young, he had a fascination with extreme weather. Whenever it would storm, he would spend the duration of the time seated enthusiastically by the window in the living room, watching and waiting, hoping to witness something, anything, big. As he grew older, he grew fixated on tornados. Perhaps, he thought, it was because he had never witnessed one in person and was left to only imagine what it felt like from the fuzzy tapes his father had recorded for him off of the television, or maybe it was because the thought of standing in the presence of something so powerful and living to tell about it. Stuart liked to imagine what it would be like to stand right in the center of a tornado and see the funnel from the inside.
His mother tells him the idea is completely ‘mental,’that tornadoes aren’t so common in Crawley, so why bother dreaming about it. But Stuart’s researched tornado alley, and he disagrees. And he continues to learn about them anyway. He buys himself a book on meteorology, and then another on storm chasing. Then he begins to practice looking at the sky as a way to predict weather patterns, and he hopes.
He’s looking at the sky - a very cloudy sky - and hoping the evening he meets Murdoc.
Technically, they’ve met before. Stuart’s daily migraines serve as a reminder of that. Tonight, however, is the first time they’ve spoken alone, and he isn’t sure what to expect or what compelled him to seek the other man out in the first place.
His parents weren’t much help either. His father was skeptical. His mother was just happy to have her boy back. So Stuart was left as the deciding vote on how he should thank him. It comes down to his memories of the way Murdoc looked at him, and the way Stuart can’t seem to get his face out of his mind that makes him want to know him.
He finds him loitering around one of the bus stops in town looking shifty and guarded. He’s wearing the same clothes he had on the day of the second crash, and as he lifts his foot to stamp out a cigarette, Stuart notices that at least one of his shoes is on the brink of losing its sole. But his eyes are still as vibrant and expressive as Stuart remembers them. They carry a certain level of excitement in them when he turns to see him.
“Hello,” Stuart says with a wave. “It’s…it’s Murdoc, right?”
“Good memory. So maybe you’re not as brain dead as the doctor said.” Murdoc lights himself a second cigarette and takes a drag. “And you. You’re, uh…what was it...Stephen?”
“Stuart. Or just Stu,” he replies. “So, uh, I don’t feel like I ever got to thank you properly for, uh-”
“Hurling you through the windshield?” Murdoc chuckles.
“Well, not exactly…it’s less about that and more about waking up from my coma.”
Murdoc appears to be receptive to this. “You’ve got that right. If it weren’t for me who knows when you would’ve woken up. You could have been dead.”
Stuart doesn’t like to think about himself dying but he nods anyway. “Yeah, so, uh, we don’t really have the money to give you a big reward or anything but I thought we could do something that you want to do, or I dunno…walk around. My mum gave me some money…”
Murdoc doubles over in laughter at this.
“Or…maybe not,” Stuart says, unsure of how to interpret his reaction.
Murdoc shakes his head as he tries to compose himself. “No, that’s fine..it’s just…wow.” He looks up, a devious grin on his face. “I think…I think I would like that.”
They head further into town from there. Murdoc is interested in pubs and Stuart attempts to make a mental list of places they could go but it’s difficult to think and match the other’s brisk and confident pace at the same time. Internally, he wonders how someone as disheveled and dirty looking as Murdoc grew to be so sure of himself - sure enough, that he could walk around in a town he didn’t know as if he knew where he was going when really, Stuart knows he has no idea.
They eventually settle on a place near the city bank.
Murdoc makes himself at home and is discussing the different beers available on tap with the bartender before Stuart can pick his seat. “So, going by the sound of your offer, I’m assuming the drinks are on you then?” he asks.
“Yeah. Well, and my mum.” He wonders what else to say. It isn’t like he can remember any of their time together, and somehow, asking about what it was like having to carry him around everywhere doesn’t seem like the best conversation starter. Thankfully, Murdoc unknowingly alleviates his burden of indecision for him.
“So have you given any more thought to my offer?”
“Offer?” Stuart remembers him mouthing something to him as he drove him to his parents, but none of what was said.
“The band! My band.” Murdoc is more animated now. “You play the keyboard, and I need a keyboardist. We’ll have to see about your skill level, but you’ve got the perfect look for it.”
“Me? You don’t think I look, well…a bit odd?”
“No way, mate. You look brilliant. Unforgettable.”
Unforgettable. Inside, Stuart notices his heart start to beat a little faster.
“All the birds will flock to you,” Murdoc continues. “And me too, of course. See, watch this.” He leans over to the couple next to them and motions towards him. “I’ve got a question for you lot. You see my friend, Stanley, here?”
“It’s Stuart,” Stuart says.
Murdoc ignores him. “Whatever. Anyways, when you look Stuart over here, what would you think he does for a living?”
The couple goes through a few guesses. An artist, a circus performer, and a wannabe punk. The man thinks his hair is fake. His girlfriend remarks that she likes his hair but that overall, he looks “interesting.”
“So he’s not someone you would forget?” Murdoc asks.
They both answer no, and Murdoc promptly shoos them away. “And that’s what I’m looking for - longevity, an impact.”
Stuart isn’t sure. He's considered being part of a band. He enjoyed playing demonstrations for families at his uncle’s store...But for a living? Murdoc had asked two people but what about everyone else?
“I don’t know. It’s not something I’ve ever thought about before.” As he notices Murdoc’s face start to fall he adds, “I’m still thinking about it. And no matter what, I’m going to talk to my uncle about giving you some of our keyboards. He’s still a little ticked, but I think he’ll understand.”
Murdoc studies him for a moment before turning back to his drink, swirling it around in his glass. There's a pensive look on his face “So then, not trying to be rude but…Then why are we here? What exactly is this?”
“What’s what?”
Murdoc rolls his eyes and waves his arms around as if to motion towards the rest of the room. “All of this. The drinks, this night, you ringing me up in the first place? To be frank, I thought it was because you wanted in, but that doesn’t sound like it’s the case.”
“Uh…well, I wanted to say thank you.” Stuart knows he’s going to have to expand on this. “And I guess…I don’t know. It’s just…it’s a funny thing when you spend so much time with someone without ever knowing them, you know? But I want to know you.” That sounds so dumb, his brain tells him. “So I guess I just wanted to…talk?”
Murdoc’s eyes widen in surprise at this and then he averts his gaze and mulls over Stuart’s response. The response was benign enough, silly even, Stuart thinks so he doesn’t know why Murdoc seems so thrown off.
“Alright,” he says after a while. “Okay…I can work with that.”
Stuart wastes no time. “So are you from around here? Do you live close?”
Murdoc hesitates to answer this. “I..err, you could say that I float around, waiting for my big break, trying to spread my demos around. They’ve got to get to a label at some point, y’know? There’s got to be some label executive out there that isn’t completely deaf.” He signals for the bartender to refill his glass. “Your parents didn’t tell you much about me, or the court case did they?”
“No. I guess they didn’t, but I never really asked either. I figured I’d talk to you.” Stuart pauses to order a drink for himself. “So when you say you float around…Where’s home from here after tonight?”
“Does it matter?” he responds. “Besides, that’s not what’s important right now.”
He steers the conversation towards Stuart from there, and Stuart happily obliges. He finds himself telling Murdoc about his job, the regular customers, the fairgrounds where he works during the summer. Then he broaches the topic of music and Murdoc turns in his seat a little more so that they’re facing each other. It’s the first time Stuart notices the red hue of his left eye.
It’s easier to talk to Murdoc than he anticipated. They talk about their favorite bands, a conversation that lasts for a significant amount of time. Murdoc tells Stuart about the various cover bands he’s been a part of, and this one time he stole a £5000 worth of wedding gifts from a wedding where he was assigned to play. Stuart follows up with a story about the time he almost broke his wrist after jumping too far off his bed while singing along to The Human League. Murdoc laughs at this. It’s a laugh that, considering how glum and suspicious he looked earlier in the evening, Stuart begins to cherish.
“You’re a crackpot, I gotta say,” Murdoc says, wiping his eyes as they wander out of the pub in search of the next stop.
“Yeah, my classmates always said I was weird, but I learned to sing a lot of songs that way, while I was jumping on my bed,” he replies, grabbing the other man’s shoulder to steer him away from a trash can with which he's about to collide. “Careful,” he says. He almost adds in a comment about Murdoc’s alcohol intake that night but decides against it. He doesn’t want to sound uncool. “Maybe we should grab something to eat."
“Are you kidding? You proposed a pub crawl and we’ve only crawled to one place.”
Stuart decides not to argue with him so they continue walking, or in Murdoc’s case, stumbling, towards their next destination. Murdoc fills the time by attempting to list all the pubs in England that have gotten him the drunkest. Stuart spends splits the time between trying to be engaged and trying to make sure the other man doesn’t end up face-first on the sidewalk.
About a block before the next pub they pass a solitary street busker. The sound of the guitar grabs Murdoc’s attention immediately.
“Oi, old man,” he says without bothering to wait until the song is finished. “You take requests?”
The busker nods. “There’s not a song I haven’t been able to play yet. Old, new, underground, mainstream, whatever you want to hear.”
Murdoc turns to Stuart and grins. “What kinds of night does it feel like?” He only gives him a moment to answer, a chance that Stuart isn’t able to take in time, before turning back to the busker to say, “He’s paying, so I figured he deserves the courtesy.” He turns back to Stuart. “So, uh, St-”
“Stuart,” Stuart says.”
“Right. Stuart. How do feel about the classics? I mean, you can’t really go wrong with the classics.”
“Don’t you want to get to the next place?”
“There’ll be time for that, the night’s just started. ‘Sides, I want to show you my Bowie impression.”
“You do Bowie impressions?” the busker asks.
“Yeah. I did it at a lot of weddings. The crowd loved it but the pay was shit.”
At this point, Stuart notices a small crowd gathering around, and he can’t decide whether he wants to pull Murdoc away before he humiliates himself, or let him have his fun. He settles on the latter as the busker launches into an acoustic version of “Under Pressure.” If he sees Murdoc start to fall, he would have to rely on his reaction time to try to catch him. In the meantime, he would enjoy the music.
He soon finds himself clapping along and holding back laughter as he watches Murdoc's various attempts at dance moves and remembering the lyrics. Whether Murdoc was actually a competent wedding singer or not was unknown, but Stuart wasn’t going to judge him based on one drunken performance. At the very least, from the reactions of the crowd, he was entertaining.
It’s not long before other passing party goers start to sing along, too. When the busker switches to a song by The Clash, Stuart feels the urge to join.
“Now this next one, you might not know so well,” the busker jokes, but as he strums out a few chords it becomes clear that he is being facetious. Stuart immediately recognizes it as “Hey Jude.” This time, he sings along with the crowd. It’s a famous enough song that everyone seems to know it, and after a while, he feels comfortable enough to really start to sing. As they approach the bridge, he begins to imagine himself elsewhere.
“Hey, Jude, don’t make it bad,
Take a sad song and make it better,
Remember to let her under your skin..”
He closes his eyes in anticipation.
“…Then you’ll begin to make it better..”
He sees himself back in his room, jumping on his bed.
“Better, better..”
…Then all of sudden his bed is a stage.
Better, better…”
And then he lets out the best McCartney impersonation that he can muster. It doesn’t register that he is one of the only ones still singing until he hears someone cheer. Then he sees Murdoc staring at him, dumbstruck. Even as the rest of the crowd moves on with the song, he remains frozen, and it makes Stuart feel frozen too, unsure of how to interpret his reaction. Hoping he didn’t scare him or something, he smiles and waves to him. This seems to break Murdoc out of his daze, and he’s soon frantically beckoning him over.
“Have...have you always sounded like that?” He asks once Stuart is within earshot.
“It’s like I said. I play for the kids at the shop and I sing in my room. That was fun too…you don’t think I sounded too bad? I wasn’t expecting everyone to just drop out like that.” The more he thinks about it, the more he likes how the crowd cheered.
“Bad? Can you even hear yourself? You nailed it!” Murdoc is looking at him with a level of amazement that Stuart isn't used to. It reminds him of the day he fell out of the tree, and the wonder he felt thinking he could touch the clouds from where he was sitting. He had been so engrossed he hardly noticed the branch giving way. That’s the way Murdoc is looking at him: like he’s the clouds his eleven-year-old self was trying to touch. He likens it to the way he felt the first time he went on a date with a girl but he pushes that thought away immediately.
“Yeah…I guess…I guess I did,” he finally responds.
“You know what this calls for? I’d say it calls for another round.” Murdoc begins to charge ahead but stops when he realizes he doesn’t know where he’s going. He turns back to Stuart and asks, “So, uh, where to next?”
Their dynamic changes after that. Murdoc still walks out in front of him like he’s the one leading but his attention is far more focused on Stuart than it was at the beginning of the night. He rambles on about his band, how seamlessly they would work together. Stuart’s hypothetical role has also changed. He’s not just the keyboardist now, but the frontman.
They only make it to one other place before Murdoc is struggling to stay upright. Stuart allows him to lean on his shoulder as they walk.
“Mmm. You got the next place lined up then?” He asks, his breath warm against Stuart’s neck.
“No,” he answers. “I think we should probably think about heading back.”
“Wha? S'not that late.”
“Look at the leaves,” Stuart says. He doesn’t think Murdoc is in any state to comprehend this but he goes on anyway. “See how they look all inside out like that. When there’s a storm coming, the wind does that. And I don’t know about you, but my house is a little while away and I don’t want to get caught in it.”
Murdoc sniffs. “Okay, Mr. Weather Reporter. Whatever.”
“I did like to read about the weather when I was younger. I used to want to be one of those uh, people who chase storms and hunt down tornadoes. I still really want to see one but there aren’t that many tornadoes around here. There are more than you would expect but they’re still rare. It’s tornado season right now.”
“Blah, blah.” Murdoc lifts his head off of his shoulder to look at him and Stuart can see how unfocused his eyes are. “So you’re leaving me early then. That’s fine.”
“No, I…” Stuart trails off as it dawns on him how little he’s managed to learn about Murdoc throughout the night. Sure, he had heard a vivid collection of stories about Murdoc’s past jobs, his music taste, his various sexual escapades and his ultimate goal of forming a band, but it was basic information - his home, his family, his exact age - that was still missing. It meant Stuart had no way of knowing he would be okay after he left him. Right now, he could barely even stand without his support.
“Do you…have somewhere to stay tonight?” He asks.
“Who, me? I’ll be here, there, anywhere…”
“You’ll get along alright on your own?” Stuart persists. He’s doesn’t know why he’s asking anything when he’s already made up his mind.
“Let me tell you this, mate, I’ve never felt more..more ALIVE in my life.” As if to prove a point, Murdoc pulls away from him and tries to run ahead of him. He doesn’t make it far before Stuart has to grab him again to keep him from stumbling into oncoming traffic.
“It’s okay,” he says, even though Murdoc didn’t apologize for anything. “I’m going home. Or well, you and I are going home. My parents let my friends stay the night all the time. This will be fine.” It sounds more like he’s trying to convince himself.
It’s an eventful commute back. Unruly, Stuart thinks as he guides Murdoc away from trying to convince a group of teenagers to give him their cigarettes. As they sit on the subway, Murdoc prattles on to anyone with earshot about how famous he’s going to be. Then there’s a frantic moment when they get to their stop where Stuart has to pull him up from the gap after he fails to “mind it.” By the time they arrive home, Stuart feels like he’s just finished a grueling obstacle course akin to the ones he used to have to do in gym class.
The inside of his house presents an entirely new set of obstacles. Once Stuart manages to find his keys and unlock the door - all with one hand, too - he finds himself having to guide both of them through the dark in search of the light switch. All the while, Murdoc fidgets and stumbles next to him, occasionally burying his head into his shoulder and pulling at his jacket in an attempt to steady himself.
“So, look, Stefan-”
“Stuart.”
“Stuart. Yeah. So, you’re joining my band, right?”
At this point, Stuart is feeling a perplexing mix of worry, admiration, and pity. Questions float through his head as he guides Murdoc down to the basement where his room is. What was the point of answering if his answer would be forgotten in the morning? Did Murdoc even know where he was right now? Who was Murdoc? How could he allow himself to get to such a state when Stuart was still essentially a stranger to him?
“Um…maybe?” Stuart doesn’t know where his hesitation comes from. Chances are they’d play together and fizzle out as most bands did. If he hadn’t spent the time with Murdoc that he did, he might have written him off as a loser. Still, something about the way he looked at him, and the way that he spoke makes Stuart believe in him.
His response seems to be good enough for Murdoc, and he smiles at him, a hint of disbelief in his eyes. “You mean that? You’ll do great. We’re going to be great.” His attention is diverted when he sees Stuart’s bed. “You mind if I lay down for a bit?”
“Actually I was going to get some blankets for you over here…” Stuart tries to steer him towards the couch on the other end of his room but Murdoc breaks away from him and flops down on the mattress with a relaxed sigh.
“Soft,” he murmurs.
Stuart kneels down beside him and awkwardly begins to turn him so that he’s laying on his side.
“It’s just like I was saying,” Murdoc continues. “And just like the crowd was saying.” He rests his hand on Stuart’s cheek. “You’ve got something. And with me at the wheel, we’re going to be unstoppable.”
Unconsciously, Stuart finds himself leaning into his touch until he feels Murdoc’s nose against his. They’re so close now, close enough that he can see the creases in his skin and what looks to be faded bruises under his left eye and along his neck. He has so many questions, but they’re still so close, and he feels his heart beating faster and faster.
Suddenly, as if he’s read Stuart’s deepest, most secret thoughts, Murdoc pulls him down closer and then they’re kissing; or at least, he thinks they might be kissing. Murdoc’s aim is poor and he lands on the corner of his mouth so maybe, Stuart thinks, he was aiming for his cheek. Nevertheless, he leans in anyways, tilting his head so that they're properly aligned, blushing as the other begins to move with him. The moment is brief, however, and soon Murdoc is laughing again.
“You’ve been waiting for that one, eh?” He chuckles.
Stuart is mortified.
“Well,” he says with a hiccup. “Get used to it. You’ll have birds lined up for miles.” He holds his hands wide apart to indicate that the space between them is a mile. Then he adds, “And I’ll have some too...More, actually.”
Before he can properly react, he’s nearly assailed by the jagged edge of Murdoc’s fingernail as he clumsily points his finger towards his face.
“Dents,” he says, a lopsided grin on his face.
Stuart furrows his brow in confusion. “Dents?”
“Two dents. In your face. That’s what you look like. But I…” He pats him on the cheek. “But I like it.”
Stuart feels his face turning red again.
“Can I call you that?” Murdoc continues, yawning. “Two-dents?”
Stuart gulps, still unable to fully comprehend if and how the last five minutes even happened, or if he hallucinated it. “Yeah…yeah. Okay.”
Murdoc rolls over so he’s laying on his stomach and yawns again. “Y’know, I have some songs...songs I wrote.” He nuzzles his head into the pillow. “I can bring them over…. You sing them.”
He’s far too out of it to really know what he was saying or what they just did, Stuart decides, and the light snores that follow soon after only substantiate his presumption. For himself, it was just the opposite. He felt aware, painfully aware, of everything that had just happened, and how he was stuck with Murdoc, who he hardly knew but who seemed to know him, passed out in his bed. He can’t bring himself to wake Murdoc up, and he also doesn’t want to leave him, not now and not tomorrow.
Not ever? He wonders, but that’s too big a question to ask himself now. Instead, he pulls one of his pillows of the bed, sets it on the floor and sits.
Outside, he hears the rumble of thunder and the shrill whistle the wind. It sounds bad, bad enough that Stuart thinks that if he were to go upstairs to gaze out the window, he might finally see his tornado. But there weren’t many tornadoes in Crawley, there wasn’t really much of anything in Crawley. Stuart looks back to Murdoc sleeping soundly on the bed.
The next day, he asks to see the songs.