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Cramps can hurt like hell. Any afab person could tell you that for free, including Noodle herself. But having not been having periods long (being only 14), she’d never felt any pain like this. She felt it ironic really, with her traumatic past still haunting her, this is what she felt like crying about? She had resorted to sitting on her bedroom floor at 2am, cradling her knees in hoping to cease the pain shooting through her lower abdomen. Spoiler, it wasn’t working. With the incessant, uncomfortable nature of her situation, she couldn’t help but to start to silently cry to herself in pity. She felt weak for it, but thinking of this only made her cry more because of it.
With all the thoughts rushing through her head, and her sobbing becoming undoubtedly and uncontrollably louder, she became lost in it, the back and forth of her brain screaming at her to stop crying because it was stupid, but simultaneously drowning herself in an overload of all her other negative emotions spilling over.
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Defeatedly, Murdoc stepped out of his winnebago into the frigid gust of the night. He’d been attempting to sleep, but had another nightmare about his ghastly father. Not that he’d admit that to anyone, especially Sebastian himself. Well, maybe Noodle. He always valued their similarities, but blamed himself partly for it. If he didn’t abuse 2D so often maybe she wouldn’t get angry as easily… not the time. Why do his thoughts always get out of hand? Must be because he’s sober. As long as Noods doesn’t start smoking. Or drinking too much.
He wasn’t sure what to do so late at night. He thought he should go inside though, it was getting too cold to just stand outside and ogle at the floor. Something led him outside rather than sit in the winnebago and mope around as usual; he supposed he thought his life was getting too routinely - he always hated that.
Stepping into the frankly disgusting lobby of Kong, he decided to just go for a walk through the deserted hallways. Perhaps it can help him clear his bloody head, or make him think about everything more. Who knows, but it’s worth a try I suppose. It was so quiet, all he could hear was the whistling of the wind hitting the high building at an equally high speed.
Murdoc strode at a leisurely pace past the juxtaposed sign bearing “NOODLE’S ROOM ♡” stuck to the door, hearing a sniff, then suddenly freezing. He swore he heard a choked sob. Eyes widening, his eyes darted around the deserted corridor. He didn’t know how to deal with people crying, he never had. But, he felt Noodle was a bit different to other people. They both mutually understood how it felt to have their childhood stolen away from them.
Not knowing what else to do, he knocked on her door, causing the crying to pause, a hiccup escaping afterwards.
“It’s me. Uh… can I come in, love?” Murdoc half murmured out of awkwardness.
“I guess…” Noodle replied, rubbing her eyes in an attempt to mask the obvious puffiness of her eyes. She didn’t want to look so weak in front of him.
Murdoc hesitantly opened her door, closing it behind him. He then stood still, unsure of what to say or do. He knew he should’ve gotten Russel or something.
“Are you okay? Did you want me to get Russ or-“
“No!” She replied hurriedly, “I mean, no. He’d get worried and stress out over me, and if he’s sleeping for once he needs to stay asleep.”
“So… what’s the problem?” He said, attempting to remove the gruffness in his voice. It wasn’t working.
“Just- thinking. And, well, never mind.” She wanted to tell him, but she concluded he’d laugh at her. He would laugh at anyone else. Neither quite realised the extent the green man loved her.
Murdoc didn’t like how Noodle hid things from him. It made him feel like she didn’t trust him but- maybe she shouldn’t. He didn’t deserve her trust, he’d just betray it eventually.
“Alright, I’m not gonna laugh at you, you know that right?” He felt like he needed to apologise, but the words wouldn’t come. Since when was he so soft? He couldn’t deflate his ego like this.
“It’s- my time of the month.. and it really hurts. I can’t make it stop.” Noodle replied. Murdoc felt his heart sink a little. How the bloody hell was he supposed to deal with this? He never kept women in his life and didn’t know what they did to help. But he wanted to help. His eyes moved around the room and his mouth attempted to form words, but with no avail.
He finalised what he wished to say. “That sounds bloody awful mate. Excuse the pun” flashing a small grin, he received a light punch on the arm; “actually though. Is there anything I can get you since I’m upright or..?”
His sympathies were cut off as Noodle’s gaze was directed behind him. He swivelled his head around to see what she was looking at. A tall, lanky-legged silhouette stood majestically in the doorway. Well look who it is.
“Wot’s going on?” 2D asks, voice breaking a little, probably because he just woke up, although he sounds like that normally anyway.
Before Noodle could tell him not to worry and go back to bed, Murdoc had already explained her situation. She shot him a warning glare, in which he replied with a shrug. 2D also looked slightly uncomfortable, but sympathetic.
“When I went out with a certain girl,” looking dirtily at Murdoc as he annunciated, “I used to give her some of my painkillers and some aspirin too. She liked having a hot water bottle. I dunno.”
“Look at Dee being useful for once. Never useful to me, are you faceache?” He sneered at 2D, who cowered in his mild threat.
“Stop being mean to him for once! He did nothing wrong!” Noodle whisper-shouted at Murdoc, eyebrows knitted together in both anger and pain. He held his hands up in feign surrender as if he did nothing wrong.
2D fished a bottle of his painkillers from his pocket and inspected the label.
“I think she’s supposed to only have one because she’s still a kid.” At least he didn’t offer as many as he took every five minutes. He shook one into his hand, she held her hand out and he gave it to her.
“I don’t think I can swallow them dry like you do, Dee. Would you mind getting me a glass of water from the kitchen?” She asked, the complete opposite of Murdoc’s barking orders.
“Yeah ‘course” 2D replied, and strode out of her room and downstairs towards the kitchen.
Upon 2D’s absence, a silence fell between the two band members. Murdoc felt like he was missing something, like she hadn’t told him something else troubling her.
“Are you sure that’s all that’s the problem, love? You know I understand how you feel more than most. I guess.” He internally cringed. Why did he find opening up so difficult? He cursed his childhood.
“I don’t know. Being sad makes everything else seem worse, you know?” She replied, a little unsure of how to put her feelings into words. She felt like she’d never be normal. Like girls her age. That’s all she wanted sometimes. How many girls like her were being raised by a possessed drummer, an illegal green man stuck in the 70s, and a tall man with blue hair and no eyeballs, all while playing guitar in a band? She wished she didn’t know as many things as she did. They all say how grown up she is; she doesn’t want to be anymore, it’s all too much. When she came to the band, it was hard to converse and understand, but she understood one thing: she wanted to play guitar. Maybe she shouldn’t ever have heard ‘ocean bacon’. Maybe it would’ve been better to just not know.
There was no point in thinking about this. She knows all this now and there’s no going back. She suddenly realised how her vision had turned into one of those wobbly mirrors again, being full of tears. Blinking rapidly, she looked expectantly at Murdoc for his answer.
“I get ya kid. You don’t need to explain.” He concluded, his gaze pointing at the floor. They exchanged a small hug. Murdoc wasn’t a hug person like she or Russel. Noodle appreciated it. He did too, although he didn’t realise it. Perhaps he needed it more than she did.
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Russel awoke suddenly, feeling like he was just thrown onto his bed. He was sick of waking up like this every single night. The creaking of floorboards brought him away from his thoughts. Checking his clock, 2:20am, confused him. He wouldn’t normally be surprised by 2D walking around, but it was coming from the direction of Noodle’s room. Of course, it was in Russ’s nature to check on her.
Trudging down the corridors and stairs groggily, he arrived at Noodle’s room to find the door slightly open, although she sometimes left it like that. Peeking in expecting something unusual, all he saw was Noodle sleeping peacefully in her bed. Smiling a little, he closed her door quietly and went back to bed.
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