The scuff of his boots rasp in slow echo across the dimly lit car park, his head still buzzing from the hum of the crowd, the thrum of his base, feels it all vibrating through him and shuddering off his skin as the night wanes into quiet still.
He's tired. A good, satiated tired, deep in the sinews of his muscles. Satiated like the thick push of rum as it works its charm into his bloodstream. Like the heavy-lidded way 2D looks up at him through the comedown.
The door of his Winnie clicks gently behind him as he toes off his boots and drags his shirt over his head, feels the damp flop of his fringe curl above his brow. Leftover tinges of liquor pulsing weakly through his veins.
"Muds?"
Thick stagnant air hugging his skin.
2D's face breaks into a sweet smile as Murdoc settles onto the bed covers beside him. 2D's limp body curved on its side, strewn against the dirty stained sheets heavy and almost lifeless. He still smells like the thick cloying taste of alcohol from their afterparty, sharp like cheap perfume, salt and musk from the crowd clinging to his clothes. Murdoc breathes him in, marvels at the way all these familiar scents become somehow more when mixed with the smell of 2D. Spicy on his tongue. Makes him heady with it.
"'eya, Muds," 2D greets, lips parting sluggishly, voice cracking. He reaches out with one sloppy hand to grapple at the chain around Murdoc's throat. Tugs them closer together with it. Or tries to. Fails with the useless medicated state he's in.
He looks almost ethereal with his cheek against the pillow, the hollow lights from outside painting blue on his pale skin.
"Hey yourself."
Murdoc settles on his back, one arm crooked above his head. He arches a brow as he peers over at 2D, his prone body rising and falling with each slow, shallow breath.
"You still in there, faceache?"
2D makes a noise that sounds like a pleased laugh, like broken toy pieces jostling about in his open mouth. Soft, like a secret.
"Aw, Muds, I'm al'ways in there," he grins. Tilting his pretty pretty face and making his pretty pretty smile go sideways. "Don't it seem like it?"
Murdoc wants to kiss him.
"Sometimes it seems like I gotta go fishing around in that sodding brain of yours tryin' to find you." He doesn't mean any of it, never means any of it. The harshly cut words and nicknames that have all kind of just slotted together into charming novelties that makes 2D smile, makes him feel special, special names, special words, special insults that don't mean the same things they used to.
Maybe that's wrong. When has Murdoc ever cared. Especially not now, when it makes 2D smile and makes his eyes go bright and makes things happy in that poor broken head of his.
Murdoc lets the quiet fall around them, doesn't get why 2D keeps crawling into this dump of a trailer, falls asleep so easily amongst the stench of sour booze and stale cigarettes and old items of clothing that Murdoc's never bothered to wash. Just peels off and puts back on the next day, and the day after that. Old and worn out. And 2D just keeps nuzzling his face into the crook of Murdoc's neck and inhaling him in like Murdoc's stench is his meds in airborne form.
2D's restless, Murdoc can practically hear his thoughts getting all jumbled up in his brain, stuffing up his mouth like too many marbles all trapped against his teeth.
He lights a fag, rolls the filter loosely along his lips with his tongue and takes a pull. Relishes in that burn down the back of his mouth as he inhales, tender flesh scratched raw from screaming out to the crowd all night, goading them on.
"This'll perk you up, sunshine," he offers throatily, curling in close enough that he can taste 2D just by breathing him in. He pushes the lit fag between 2D's chapped lips, watches the glaze over 2D's dark eyes melt away. A little bit, at least.
Satisfied, he rolls back and stares at the cracks weaving through the ceiling, mulls over how they twist and squirm in a much less animated fashion than when he's on a bender. Funny that. He'd once told 2D that the ceiling had twisted into Paula's leering face, when they were off on some high and tangled up on the floor in the sticky summer heat. 2D had snorted messily and laughed against Murdoc's shoulder. Laughed and laughed despite the fresh bruises blooming along the cage of his ribs, whining Don't make me laugh, Muds, it hurts.
But that was awhile ago. That was before.
"Like swimmin' upstream." 2D's voice floats through the fog.
"What?" He draws the cigarette from 2D's mouth and back to his own. No need to keep remembering those things.
"You've got to go against the stream, ta find them," 2D says, voice sounding distant, far away.
"Fish, D?"
"Yeah," he nods, heavy-lidded and on the edge of bleary. "My thoughts should be goin' downstream, with the current. But. 'stead, they get all confused an' backwards an' try to push upstream instead. That's why it's so hard ta find them. Sometimes. They're goin' in the wrong direction. I think they go all over the place, really."
"Like lost fish, eh?" Murdoc comments dryly, watching the smoke trail lazy curls up into the spiny cracked ceiling.
"Like the dodgems at my dad's place. Twistin' all over. Do y'know in America they call 'em 'bumper cars?' Here we say, you gotta 'dodge. em.' - get it? And there they want you to off an' bump each other righ' up. It's funny, in'nit?"
Murdoc nods vaguely. He wants to tell 2D that he's wrong about the fish. They're supposed to swim upstream.
He reaches over his hopeless singer to stub out the butt of his fag, and then rests his face close so he's in focus for those swollen-up black eyes.
"Just how many pills did you take, dents?" he murmurs, thumb pressing into the hollow of 2D's cheek. Curls his fingers around the back of 2D's neck and feels the bumps of his spine. 2D just smiles sleepily.
Slurs out, "Don't know 'ow many. Hurt a lot tonight."
Murdoc's expression softens, eyes roving over 2D's sleepy lopsided mouth, skin pulling back from his cracked smile like a broken jester.
"Did good out there tonight," he says, voice a low rasp.
The kid's always good out there. Brilliant and beautiful and pulsing like some magnetic creature against the lustful surge of the crowd. Makes his mouth go dry sometimes, watching 2D sing, watching him become otherworldly under the gleam of the lights as the music ripples through him. Wants to say that.
"Yeah?"
Fucking beautiful.
Wants to say, doesn't say.
2D preens at the praise, curls in closer like a cat and presses his lips to the underside of Murdoc's chin in what he can only surmise must be a kiss.
He's so sloppy like this, so willing and easy and Murdoc feels a dark smile shift over the contours of his face. Likes it when 2D's all doped up, all loose and pliant in his hands, so easily turned on. So easy to roll over, get him on his stomach, press down into the seedy mattress and push into him for a nice lazy fuck. 2D always sounds so good when he's getting stuffed full of cock, riles Murdoc up something fierce and animalistic in his bones.
But he likes it the way they are now. Likes the way 2D's all soft and lush, cheeks pink from the stuffy too-hot air of the Winnie. With his gangly legs tangled up with Murdoc's. Likes the way he can feel 2D breathe beneath the weight of his palm, the slow steady rhythm up-and-down, up-and-down. Likes the feeling of 2D's too-long fingers as they curl into the pitch-black of his hair. The way they're so close that Murdoc feels suffocated by it.
It's quiet and still and intimate in a different kind of way. Intimate in a way that feels like home, although Murdoc's never known what that's really supposed to feel like. Heard about it in a cheap song. Just feels right, somehow. In this lush swell of darkness that settles around them, warm and palpable.
"Surprised you didn't get off with a bird tonight, Muds." 2D says, tongue lolling heavy around the words. "Didn't think you'd be back here with me."
Murdoc frowns at this. Pushes his big hands through 2D's soft soft hair and pulls. Tugs until he can scowl into 2D's dopey face, the kid too blissed out from pills to protest.
"What are you bloody on about now? When was the last time I shagged a groupie?"
Murdoc knows the answer to his own question, doesn't need 2D to try and supply one in his fractured little brain. Knows that it's been two months and seventeen days since he last pulled some woman into his trailer because that's when he realized that fucking 2D was far better than having some one-off that he'd be too drunk to remember anyway. Took him another week and half to figure out why that was. That he didn't need to be screwing 2D to enjoy him, that being with him was enough, that their nonsensical conversations were, in fact, enough. Quite nice actually, fancy that. Something to look forward to. To rely on.
2D's eyelids flutter, pupils shuddering back and forth beneath the thin bruised skin, blue lashes casting soft shadows, like broken bird wings.
"Didn't mean nothin' by it," 2D offers softly, as Murdoc eyes him over, the way his skin stretches over the hollow dips and arches of his face. He's melting in Murdoc's hands and Murdoc doesn't want to let him go; he tightens his grip in 2D's hair, soft soft soft.
It's been even longer since 2D picked up a girl, because 2D had known far longer before Murdoc that it was Murdoc who he wanted, didn't need any substitutes. Content with lingering by his bassist's side, waiting waiting (waiting since he went splintering through that damn glass window).
"Just sayin'," 2D starts, his lips trying to find the shape of the words and. And—
"Don't need no slag," Murdoc mutters, kissing 2D's mouth, tasting sleep and medication on his tongue and in the soft wet heat of him. 2D stirs beneath him, pressing up and open for more. Damn kid's so easy it's almost pathetic (It's not). Murdoc's half hard but also half irritated, so he reaches down to adjust the discomfort in his trousers. Gives a hard squeeze to discourage the want.
"'m glad, Muds." 2D says faintly, voice so pretty and sweet, flushed lips pressing against Murdoc's throat as he tugs from his grasp. "Don't go back to any birds, yeah?" Voice muffled against Murdoc's skin, fingers tangling in Murdoc's belt, in his zipper as it ratchets down, down. "I'll keep it real good for ya, I promise, 'kay?" Voice like something precious and fragile, something Murdoc could break with his hands if he wanted to.
He smiles up at Murdoc. Slanted shadows cutting across his face, a pretty picture all slashed up. Smiles with a toothy, toothless grin but his eyes are sad, upside-down curved lines with smudges of exhaustion heavy underneath.
Murdoc feels sick.
"You don't 'ave to go back ta them," 2D mumbles, with his mouth full of cock and his hands burning imprints into the jut of Murdoc's hips.
And Murdoc wants to shove him away. Wants to break him into pieces, like he used to, even though it never relieved anything before. Just made him feel even more worked up and furious. 2D's sweet sweet lips always smiling up at him, mouth full of blood - Aw, I love you Murdoc!
Murdoc swallows the bile in his throat, saves it for when he can wash it down with something that burns awful, wash away the sick sick taste of guilt and hatred and why why why.
"Don't worry, D," he reassures thickly, in a voice that threatens to betray too much. Shaky hands in 2D's hair, against his cheek, around his throat. Squeezes, not hard, just for it to be enough. "Can't escape me, y'know that." Words 2D wants to hear.
Feels 2D hum and nod, chin bobbing like a marionette doll. Happy so happy, this broken used up boy.