You Still Use Shampoo
Rated ~ T (for language)
Disclaimer ~ Disclaimed!
Recommended music ~ "Shampoo Suicide" by Broken Social Scene. I imagined the story as a music video to that song, though the plot doesn't reflect the lyrics.
Notes/Warnings? ~ You Forgot It In People (the BSS CD) came out when Noodle was about 13 & had recovered her memories/ability to speak English, but this story's set sometime in 2000, so Noodle's only nine or ten and still speaks Japanese. Speaking of forgetting, I don't remember Kong Studios' layout so I improvised. Another experiment in present-tense narrative. I completely blame Tom Wolfe.
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It's 3 PM at Kong Studios, and what's Noodle up to? She and 2D are having an impromptu jam session in her room, the two of them just sprawled across her bedroom floor, 2D with his Korg and Noodle clutching her Les Paul, the one which came with her when she got shipped to Kong Studios. It's comically too big for her body, so she's sitting with the guitar laid across her lap, her tiny feet inches away from a big old loop pedal. She lets her fingers slide over the guitar strings, 2D's layering together a dreamy, quavering bassline, humming happily to himself as a rough little song starts to form.

Down in the carpark the ogre is stirring; 'ogre' being Russel's not-so-affectionate nickname for Murdoc Niccals. The first thing he notices when he wakes up (beyond the Winnebago's usual fragrance) is the numerous beer cans, cigarette butts, and ostrich feathers that litter the floor. He thinks of the irony that two twin hookers dressed as French maids could make such a mess and not clean up after themselves. Altogether it was a good night. Murdoc pulls himself out of bed, scratching two days' worth of stubble on his face. A shave is in order, heck, a shower might be even better. So on go his jeans and an old pair of boots, the Winne's door slamming behind him as he shuffles out of the carpark and toward the elevators. Here's what he sees before he gets to the bathroom: a low-slung table he stumbles over, Russel, passed out on a couch in a food coma while Del button-mashes his way through Mario Kart, a pair of creepy twins from God knows where wandering around one hall.

And then the bathroom, lovely place, though it needs to be cleaned, you can smell it the minute you walk in, and the damn tourists have a tendency to linger in there. Whatever. It's all familiar. He grabs a tube of shaving gel from his caddy, heads to the shower and is midway through shaving his face when he realises he has no shampoo. Stumbles out of the shower and steam pours over the place. He rifles through the medicine cabinet, knocking down pill bottles and toothpaste tubes and face wash and pimple cream. Nothing.

From their spot just above the bathroom, 2D hears an agonized groan in between the sea of guitar and synth loops. He glances anxiously toward Noodle, but the little Zen guitar master's deep in a meditative trance. He s about to say something when the door to her room slams open, the paper lanterns on the ceiling swaying violently. And then 2D finds himself looking at a very angry, wet, and naked Murdoc.

"Murdoc? Why are you naked? he says slowly. He shields Noodle s eyes with one hand, frantically looking around the room for something, anything he could give to Murdoc to cover himself."

Murdoc leans in close to him, one red eye and one black one and half his face shaved and goodness his breath stinks. "Face. Ache. What have you done with my shaaaaaampoo?" His clammy hands are at 2D's neck, and as the singer's arms flail toward the ground Noodle is nowhere nearby.

"I, I don't know! I didn't use nothing!"

And here Murdoc throws 2D onto the floor. The singer flinches, sucks in his teeth. He's suddenly aware of a million little insignificant things; the wind whistling through the gap where his front teeth used to be, the anxious prickly feeling at the back of his head. The synthesizer loops on. Noodle's either just out of eyeshot or else has completely left the room. Maybe she's gone to get Russel. No way a girl her age needs to see a grown man stark-naked in her room. 2D looks up at Murdoc, willing himself to look the man in the eyes only. Don't you dare look below the stubbly pubebeard, Stuart, he tells himself. Takes a deep breath, and the words just vomit out. "I'll give you my shampoo if you need it. You just needed to ask. Or not ask. You could have, ah, just gone to my room and gotten it, yeah? I don't mind. I don't -"

For the love of sweet Satan, did his vocalist just crack over some shampoo? Fucking pigmy sod. 2D's stupidity's probably contagious, the whole bloody band's going to turn to blathering idiots if he doesn't smack some sense into them. He's about to give 2D another blow to the head, when he feels a tap on the back.

"Murdoc-sama! Champu? Champu, Murdoc-sama?"

Noodle is behind him, holding out a tall plastic bottle like a cross before a vampire. He looks at her over his shoulder; the gibbon-faced Gibson girl's wearing a hopeful little smile. She doesn't seem the least bit disturbed about the half-naked fight happening on her bedroom floor. The first thing Murdoc thinks to do is to knock the bottle out of her hands, say it probably smells like little kids and kittens. He could've just used a bar of soap. And that's when Murdoc thinks, fuck it, the entire situation makes no sense.

2D's about to say, "Take the shampoo" or "calm down, Murdoc," or another overused intervention-type sentence, but the moment of tension's over. Murdoc sighs, reaches over and takes the shampoo bottle, picks a music magazine from the ground and covers himself. "Thanks, love," he says, and walks out.

2D stares wide-eyed at the door. "Well, would you look at that. Murdoc still uses shampoo, after all," he says to the hallway. He turns his head toward Noodle, trying to judge her response, but all she does is pick up her guitar and motion for him to return to the keyboards. And after about a minute, he does.

As for Murdoc? Though he can't read the Japanese label, the shampoo works a treat. Doesn't even smell like kittens.

[End.]