To be honest, I really dunno what happened that morning. It wasn't frightening, really. Not frightening or angering or anything. To be honest, it was kind of amazing. Amazing how the squeal of tires hitting pavement could be so closely identified with the shattering of the glass windows and how that damn car—or rather, the driver inside it—busting through the shop could aim so recklessly—reckless enough to, just out of coincidence, run me down.
Inside a keyboard shop.
The story really isn't one packed with action—at least, not on my end as I was unconscious within moments of the event. There are a mere few factors from that morning that I can call back to my clouded mind. For example, I remember that there were these real obnoxious kids runnin' round the store. I'd lost my name tag that morning, and I'd received a good scolding and a couple slaps in the back of the head from the manager.
But I'd just been standing around the shop, not really sure what I was supposed to be doing—I'd been unsure of what I was doing for the last year that I was working in this small keyboard store. I used to be the star employee at Uncle Norm's a few years ago. I played the keyboard—and pretty damn well if I do say so myself.
"Hey, you little twat!" I'd turned to the manager bleakly, lips slightly parted. "Don't do that with yur face—you look retarded." I screwed up my expression shamefully, and he sighed. "What do ya think you're doing, anyway?" I'd felt confused by such a question.
"'Thought I was workin'."
"Obviously not. You're just standin' there!"
"But…I stacked up that pile of keyboards yesterday…"
"So?"
"Wha…wha else is there for me to do?" My shoulders slumped, eyebrows making a small V of ignorance and confusion. He sighed again, and I felt a small wave of guilt. How many times had I heard that same sigh? The sigh of exasperation from my mother, father—frequently from my father—and any other poor soul to come into contact with me?
"You know what, why don't you just go and 'elp Randy with the boxes?" He'd said, shaking his head and walking away. Corners of my lips twitching downwards, I'd done as he said and moved to the other end of the shop. The boy named Randy was a couple years younger than me at seventeen, but he still looked upon me with disgust on the rare occasion that our shifts overlapped.
"What do you want?" He sneered, lifting a box over his shoulder with a little more grandness than I thought was required. It was glancing sideways that my eyes fell on the teenage girl a few racks away. Did he not notice the look of discomfort and nervousness on her face as he sent a meant-to-be-handsome smile her way? My eyebrows rose as I stared at him, but I didn't comment on that matter.
"Well, Mr. Creavy tol' me to 'elp you out with these." I pointed to the cardboard boxes of music books—just for piano, of course. He'd scoffed.
"I'm not working with you." He started to walk away towards the cash register. "You finish those yourself." I pursed my lips, but said nothing as I turned back to the boxes. There were still quite a few left, but nonetheless, I started to heave them towards the shelves, mostly pushing and shoving rather than pulling or lifting. My skinny, femininely fragile frame didn't aide my strength very well. I didn't really care for the "feminine" bit.
It was then, when I'd returned to the cart of boxes for the fifth time, that those two children, a boy and a girl, scampered past me, laughing happily, chasing each other. The girl knocked into my leg as she passed, and I stumbled backwards, trying to hold onto the large box balanced in my arms.
Of course, being the clumsy boy that I was, I wasn't able to keep my balance and tipped backwards, falling on my arse. The box tumbled out of my arms as I cringed and reached back to run my hand over the sore small of my back. Giddy with excitement, the two children circled me at a run. I was getting dizzy trying to keep my eyes on them.
"Hey! Blueberry fell down!" The boy shouted with a wide grin. I frowned. Surely they could think of a better annoying nickname than "blueberry." My head of blue, spiky hair was often made fun of and laughed at. I learned to get over it. After all, I hadn't chosen for it to be this way. It was an all new low for me to be bullied by two six year old children, however.
Suddenly, the girl had stopped running abruptly, her face curious, and she leaned over to pick something up. For a moment, she examined it, and then she looked up at me with a sweet smile. "Hey, Mister Blueberry, did you lose your name tag?" I squinted at the pin in her hand and flustered in embarrassment. "Stuart Pot". It must have been in my back pocket all morning..
"Ah! Thanks!" I laughed excitedly, reaching out for the tag.
That was when I heard the tires. That high-pitched squeal of rubber on cement, and there was no time after that. There was a shriek from the children's mother at the other side of the shop. "RACHEL! GEORGE!" And then headlights flared outside the glass doors, glaring right into my face. I shoved the two children sideways before trying to jump up off my knees, but there was no time. My hazel eyes widened as the glass door shattered and the Vauxhall Astra shot forward.
But, as I said before, they didn't widen in fear or even shock. But, strangely, they widened in awe, and the first thing to cross my mind was, "What a terrible car…" The driver shouted out the open window of the car at the customers, waving a gun out of it. He wasn't paying attention.
"Everybody get down! We'll kill you all if you move." Though the voice was frightening and somewhat raspy, there was no note of malice. In fact, the man sounded rather uninterested. And then, as he wasn't paying attention, the bumper of the car rammed me full-on in the face, and it wasn't so interesting anymore.
I blacked out.
. . . .
(A/N: For this next bit, I just want to make it clear that I'm only using present-tense writing while 2D is in his catatonic state. Once he snaps out of it I'll return to past-tense. Sorry if that gets confusing, but I'll warn you guys when I switch back to past-tense.)
I try to open my eyes.
Perhaps it's exhaustion that makes my lids so heavy. Or perhaps the fact that I can't move any other part of my body.
Or maybe it's because my left eye socket burns like hell—no exaggeration. It feels like there's a fire circulating through the left half of my face. It's a white, hot pain that, unsurprisingly, I don't really feel like complaining about. Right now, I don't really feel like complaining about anything.
My body feels kind of tingly. Strangely numb, like your arm feels when you lay on it for too long, or something—only it feels like that all over. So, it would most likely be a little bit painful if I tried to move any part of my body. It would be reasonable to just lie here and wait for the pain to go away, but I've never been a very reasonable person. My fingers twitch experimentally.
All of a sudden, something's grasping my hand desperately, painfully—this whole "ease myself out of the strange sensation" idea is moving a little more quickly than I want. A voice hisses in my ear.
"Hey! Stu! Stu, wake up!" The voice is familiar, but I don't trouble myself trying to remember it. Because all of the sudden, I just want to go back to sleep. "Stu, please!" I might have sighed, but then again…I don't really feel the impulse at this moment. Using pent up energy, I work to open my eyes. The burning is intense, and I almost close them again, just to make the pain stop.
"Oh, Stuart!" While I recognize the woman sitting beside me, I still don't really try too hard to put a name to her face. She's young—my age, it looks like—and she's very pretty. She gasps as she looks at me, covering her gaping mouth with one hand. I don't ask why she's so distraught—I don't really care. I look around me, and recognize the very familiar cleanliness of a hospital. The fumes are almost suffocating.
That same tingle of agony clenches my fingers and I look down to see that this young woman is the one holding my hand so roughly. For a moment, I just stare at them expectantly, waiting…she doesn't remove her hand. Finally, I just pull mine from hers, sending another unpleasant jolt up my forearm. She's still gawking at me, but I don't really care. The room is that familiar, bleak white, with teal curtains. Teal that's several shades lighter than my azure disarray of spikes.
There's a stubby plant in the corner, as though somebody added it in a weak attempt to bring décor into the room. I've been in a room like this before, but the last time I was fifteen—I'd actually fallen out of an open window while getting intimate with a girl. She was able to disentangle herself before the fall.
I wasn't so lucky. That's "clumsy" to the maximum extent. It's also terribly embarrassing, but not the maximum. I've had worse embarrassments.
Suddenly, the door opens and two faces appear that I can give names to. Or at least give…titles to. Mom and Dad. My mother gasps when she looks at me and turns away, her eyes tearing up. Dad looks pretty distressed too.
"How are you feeling, son?" He asks gruffly, and for a moment, I don't understand that he's talking to me. When it occurs to me, I don't answer, but just watch the woman sniffling in his arms. She isn't looking up. My voice feels lost, like my vocal chords have snapped. I really have no desire to pursue a conversation with them anyway. Suddenly the woman beside me speaks to my parents.
"We have to press charges." She whispers.
"Paula, I know that—"
"Look at him!" She interrupts my father, pointing to me. "Look at what that man did to him! His eye…! And on top of that, he's got Catatonia! It's all that man's fault and he should pay for his crimes!"
"Paula," He says again. "They're already sentencing him for armed robbery. That's enough for Rachel and I."
"David," She says irritably, "He barely recognizes you, and…" Tears jump to her eyes. "I don't think he recognizes me at all." I might have rolled my eyes, but rather than that, I just stare at her with disbelieving eyes. I find that I can't really…understand what the problem is.
There's only a minimal frustration.
I try to sit up, but refrain at the uncomfortable twitching of my limbs.
Dad moves as though he wants to help me, but then changes his mind and puts his arm around Mom again. The ache in my face is starting to become more pronounced, and I cup my left eye with my hand. My mind seems so slow—like you feel when you just wake up. Like you've been awake 'till five a.m., and somebody comes to wake you up at seven. They could be telling you that a fire just started, but you still haven't fuckin' earned back those seven hours of sleep, have you? Such a situation might just give you the strength to flick 'em off, call 'em a prick and go back to sleep.
Why I'm thinking about this, I can't even figure. In simple terms, I feel drowsy. My vision's a little blurry, and even though I've probably been awake for a good five minutes now, it's not clearing up at all. I'm still too sleepy to recognize my own irritation at this fact.
Other than these defections though, I feel very comfortable—you know, not including my hellishly painful face-ache. For a brief moment, I wonder—with a very mild curiosity—what could cause such agony. As though reading my thoughts, the woman, Paula, hands me a mirror on the bedside table, and I look inside. It probably would've been frightening, what I see. But I can't really register what I'm looking at. My left eye is…strangely colored. The um…the…whatever, the "white part" is now dark, and the lines forming my, uh, pupil and stuff, have disappeared, making the whole eyeball a depthless black in color. Horrifying.
Unthinkingly, I reach for my face, planning to pull at my eyelids and observe the strange appearance, having mismatched eyeballs. Very mismatched eyeballs. However, Paula smacks my hand away, and my dark orb drifts to her irritably.
"Don't do that Stu—you're gonna make it hurt more." She puts my hand back on my lap, and for a moment, I'm still as an indignant anger touches me. The moment she pulls back, I reach for my eye again. "No, Stu." Again, I'm restrained, and again, I ignore her command. I really don't want to touch it that badly, but there's a strange new senseless, childish impulse to get what I want.
"Ugh! Look at that!" She hisses to my parents when she finally gives up and I poke at my face while looking in the mirror, pinching each of my eyelids and pulling them apart so that the edges of my black eyeball are visible. Cool… "He's all…not Stuart!"
"We're not pressing charges, Paula. Besides, Mr. Niccals' sentence is beneficial to both him and Stuart. Stu gets care and Mr. Niccals gets…well, he pays for his crimes." Dad says.
"You're not really gonna let that maniac have him, are you? Not that he even wants him at all! You two can take care of him fine! I can take care of him fine!"
"The three of us all have jobs, Paula. Who's going to care for him when we're working, hmm?"
"You can call a babysitter!" She snaps furiously. "But this is the man who almost killed him, remember? And you're just gonna leave Stu in his care!"
"Calm down," My mum speaks for the first time, pulling away from Dad and drying her eyes with a tissue in her pocket. "Mr. Niccals is—"
"What's with this 'mister' crud?" Paula mutters grudgingly, turning back to me.
"—a respectable man. I think it was peer pressure. You know, all the kids now are telling each other to steal and stuff."
"He hardly counts as a kid, Rachel."
I settle back more into my pillows, yet feel more and more uncomfortable. Perhaps that's because Paula is now running her fingers through my hair, an unconsciously soft smile on her face. The smile is unsettling—I feel unused to such a kind expression.
For a long time, everybody's quiet, and everybody's looking at me. Okay, super uncomfortable now. I look to the window and yawn. I'm starting to wonder if this is even the same room as the last few times I was here. Because this view is pretty exact from how I remember it. A cracked parking lot, an untrimmed tree resting near the corner to the intersection, and a weak little bush lining the sidewalk. Suddenly Mum talks.
"He's gonna be here soon to get him."
"What!?" Paula whips around, almost knocking her chair over. I flinch, but don't look away from the window. "He's not even properly healed yet!"
"Dr. Clarkson said that there's nothing to heal! The damage is permanent!"
"Shouldn't we at least wait for him to come out of his coma?"
I squint at the window pane now. What are they talking about? I'm not in a coma. I feel perfectly…normal.
"He may never come out of it, Paula." Dad says quietly, and I'm feeling a little irritated now. I open my mouth to protest, but nothing comes out, and I suddenly feel exhausted. I collapse on my pillows, mouth hanging open tiredly. Paula seems a little put out too. She sighs and turns to gaze at me, though I don't return it.
"Oh, Stu…" Such sentimental bull crap. I'm not in a coma. My eye lids start to droop, but I hang on to that thought. I'm not in a coma. "At least let him sleep for now." And, as though she were talking to me, I silently agree and let unconsciousness win me over.
. . . .
I'm awoken by the loud slam of my hospital room door. My eyelids pull open resentfully, and I can't bring the room into focus for a few seconds—which is ironic, because a few seconds is all the warning I have.
"Come on, wake up now, face ache!" That might've been funny. After all, I was just thinking that a while ago. But it isn't the least bit comical as a hand yanks my shoulder forward roughly, and that horrible tingly feeling shoots through my limbs, though I just cringe. I look up warily, and then curiously. Strange man. He's tall, and he's got this shaggy black hair, and he's real slender-lookin'. Though I know I'm at least two times skinnier. I'm skinnier than everyone.
I'm so lost in the concentration I'm mustering to observe his appearance that I don't even realize how my lips are hanging open in that stupidly unconscious gawk, and that my eyebrows are furrowed. He crosses his arms while watching me and rolls his eyes—which are two different colors. I almost laugh. He's got mismatched eyes just like me.
"Well come on! Get up!" He says irritably, and I squint at him in real confusion now. The man sighs and then grabs my arm, yanking me from the mattress. He ignores the fact that my legs are tangled in the blankets, and I stumble to the floor as he drags me over to the dresser. "Get dressed, and hurry it up!" I just stand there, staring at him, dumbfounded. He growls, and the sound is surprisingly feral. "Can't you even get dressed yourself? I was hoping maybe you'd be the other kind of Catatonic." I tilt my head to the side curiously, and he continues his explanation grudgingly.
"There's the kind of Catatonic that's all jumpy and bubbly, and that walks around in circles for fun, and then there's the kind that don't talk and apparently don't do nothin' at all for themselves." I continue to stare at him, and he sighs again. "The name is Murdoc Niccals. I'll be the care-taker for the newly vegetated face ache." He holds his hand out to me, and I just stare at it. He frowns. "You're not too bright, are you?" I don't recognize the sarcasm in his tone.
Without a second glance at me, he turns to the dresser, rummaging through the drawers for a few moments before pulling out a mismatched (I'm starting to think that a lot of things are gonna be mismatched now) set of clothes and throws them at me. "Put those on—we're leaving." Just when I'm pouting my lips curiously and pulling my shirt off, the young woman—Paula—rushes in the door, her cheeks flushed.
"What do you think you're doing?" She shouts at the man named Murdoc. "You can't just kidnap him from the hospital!"
"Watch me." He says with a smirk before turning to shove the rest of my clothes—which, for some reason are in this dresser—into a dark blue duffel bag.
"You have to be careful with him! You can't just shove him around like that! He's got Catatonia, remember? And all thanks to you, so you'd better shape up! You owe him!"
He rolls his eyes, muttering to himself as he zips the bag closed with long clawed fingers. "He ain't so fragile. Don't get your knickers in a twist." As he says this, I'm having a little bit of trouble fitting my arms into the right sleeves of my shirt. I come up with my right arm in the head opening and my left in the right opening so that my head is still beneath the fabric. I can barely see under the shirt's rim as the two of them stare at me quietly, mouths hanging open. "Aw'right, maybe he is that fragile." Murdoc mutters disgruntledly as he roughly helps me into the right position.
"You'd better be nice to him." Paula says warningly as he scoops up my pajamas and shoves me towards the door.
"If he's not too much of an arse. Doubt it, though."
"I'm serious! If Stu comes back with one scratch on him, so help me god—"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah!" He waves her away irritably. When the door is opened, I'm pushed into the hall, and I stumble before regaining my balance, eyes drooping even though I've only just woken up. Murdoc Niccals starts to drag me by the elbow through the wide corridor, but I'm too drowsy to ask where we're going. Why am I so damn drowsy all the time?
He pulls me through the hospital lobby and past the check-out desk, though the woman tending it looks as though she wants to stop us. Again, my mouth is hanging open like a mental person as I'm literally dragged through the parking lot and to a dark blue Vauxhall Astra. A terrible, beaten Vauxhall Astra.
And suddenly, it all falls into place.
I become dead weight, and he drops me so that I have to stumble to my feet to face him. And then I'm frozen, just watching him.
I was in the keyboard shop. That's right, I was in the keyboard shop, and I was uh, I was movin' boxes I was when it happened. Er, there was a little…kid? My memory is a little hazy, but this is definitely that car. This is definitely the battered piece a crap that busted through the window then.
"What the 'ell are you doin'?" He growls grumpily, and suddenly, I can identify his angry tone with the bored one from the scene.
I feel my blood spike in my veins. He's kidnapping me. That's gotta be it! He probably killed everyone in the place after I passed out, an' now that he knows I'm still alive, he's come to finish the job so there are no witnesses! I want to scream. I want to run and shout that he's an insane murder. I want to save myself.
But I just stare at him quietly.
"Go on! Get in the car!" He grabs me by my shoulder and pulls the passenger door open before pushing me in. There's still time to get away…
He closes the door and then walks around the front to get in the driver's seat. The doors lock, and I'm trapped now. Goodbye life. As though suddenly tired, I bury my face in my hands and might've groaned. He looks to me in annoyance.
"Okay, I don't really have time to babysit you all day, so here's what's going to happen." I peek up at him between my fingers, eyes still—somehow, even under the circumstances—drooping. "You're just going to do what I tell you to do, and I'm not going to be hindered at all by you, right?" I stare. Why is he…? "Right?" I continue to gawk at him unintelligibly, and—with a roll of his eyes—he smacks me upside the head, not hard enough to really hurt me, before turning the key in the ignition.
We back out of the parking lot, and turn onto the road. I really don't want to look at the terrifying man, but then I really do, as though to make completely certain that this really is the man who almost killed me. The whole ordeal just resolves to the random twitches of my hollow black eye from a fixed point on the windshield to the pair of leather-clad feet to my right.
He doesn't say anything, and I of course don't say anything, but he turns to look at me. It might've worried me that his eyes aren't on the road, considering what a crazy driver he is even when he's paying attention, but I'm currently curling an uncurling my fingers, as though the movement is absolutely fascinating to the eye.
"So you…don't speak, then." He says, as though to himself. I don't look up from my hands. Suddenly he grins, and a shiver runs down my spine. His teeth are sharp and pointy like some monster from a child's bad dream, and the action really does make the man look like Satan himself. "Well that's an added bonus. That means I won't have to waste my energy beating you to a pulp 'till you have no words left."
I really have no way to react to that, so I don't. Instead, I stretch my legs under the dashboard, reaching my fingers towards my toes. After a long while of silence, Murdoc Niccals laughs. I look up warily. He shakes his head, as though I'd asked him to explain.
"I really did a number on yur face, didn' I?" He doesn't sound as repentant as he should be about that fact. Surprisingly though, I'm not as angry as I should be about it, so I really can't and don't want to complain. I turn to the window, pouting just a little, and he laughs again. "Nah, bein' totally honest, I had absolutely no idea you were there. I was a little preoccupied tryin' to rob the store. Once I'd made sure I wasn' gonna be charged for murder or somethin', it was actually pretty fuckin' funny."
My eyebrows furrow in irritation as I stare out the window, but not really at him. It sounds as though he got caught when he tried to steal from Uncle Norm's, and it sounds as though nobody but me got hurt, which was by accident anyway.
Meaning that this man isn't a mass murderer. Totally wasted nerves.
And this is his punishment for robbing a store? Community service? Hauling a catatonic (scratch that—I mean perfectly sane) blue haired teenager around with 'im? For a moment, curiosity strikes my mind. How many hours a day am I supposed to hang around? And what am I supposed to do for those hours? Sit in the passenger's seat?
I'm now gazing out the glass with a very melancholy feeling. Paula—I'm finding that that name is more and more familiar every time I think it. Her position in my life is just on the tip of my tongue—talking to me like I'm a child, Mum not talking to me at all, Dad never speaking more than five words, and Murdoc Niccals sneering and insulting for the rest of my life. I actually muster the strength to sigh.
Am I really in a coma?
I can't be. When you're in a coma, you're supposed to feel…incoherent, aren't you? You're supposed to feel like you're in a different world from everybody else while your body does its own thing…right? But then again…maybe it's like this. My thoughts seem to be my own, but they're very slow now, and I feel so tired…
The feeling in my head is a bland aftermath of destroyed interest for life. It's like I'm a child again. Like I'm seeing other people for the first time. Like I'm moving my body for the first time. Like I'm still learning to speak. Like I'm catatonic.
This sucks.
. . . .
Now I've succumbed to the knowledge that I'm temporarily catatonic, it's not too surprising that rest has done absolutely nothin' for my shuddering limbs and mild headache. I don't open my eyes now that I've regained consciousness. The surface I'm lying on isn't real comfortable, and it's pretty hard, but better that than wake up and greet this still new, terribly horrifying dilemma.
I just want to lie here and sleep some more…
But suddenly, I can't help but wonder where "here" is. Where did I fall asleep again? I feel around me with my sore hands and note that the surface is sleek and absolutely rock hard. Wooden flooring. My right hand stretches farther, and meets another vertical wooden surface. A…door? Finally, I open my eyes, and see that I'm right.
It's a door.
I readjust and look around myself. It appears to be a bedroom. There's a good sized bed against the western wall, and there's two tall lamps on either side of the room. Neither is on. There's a dark mahogany dresser against the same wall that the door is on, and the walls are a shallow blue. I remember now.
Murdoc Niccals had driven me back to his house, but his friends were here. There were three of them. There was a slender, very tall boy with messy brown hair and a tattoo encroaching on the side of his face. There was also a pudgier one with a cigarette poking out of his lips, and then—this was the real shocker—there was also a woman. Only I knew this woman. This was the "teenage girl" from Uncle Norm's that I'd seen that day. She'd been in on it? All this careful planning to have someone on the inside, and they'd still been caught.
This was the crew that had orchestrated the robbery.
After a few minutes of their making fun of me, Murdoc had locked me in his bedroom while they were here. I supposed it was considerate for him to lock me in a room with a bed, but then I thought that that was probably just coincidence and that he'd probably crack my bones if he caught me asleep in his bed, so I'd just curled up by the door and closed my eyes.
And now I'm awake. And I don't know how long I've been asleep, and I don't know how long I've been in this house, and I don't know where Murdoc is, and I don't know how to get out of this room—There are no windows. It's like this house was built in case something like this ever happened when he'd have to keep a prisoner.
For a long while, I just lie there, contemplating. Should I wait it out? I figure that's the reasonable thing to do, and I curl up again.
I'm almost asleep again when the door bangs open, smashing against the back of my head in the process. I don't even whimper as I clutch my head in my hands and scramble away from the door, looking up. Surprisingly though, it isn't Murdoc. It's the woman from his crew. She looks from the door to me and back with a curious expression.
She really is pretty, I'll admit that. She's got full lips that are now painted an electric yellow, a nice figure, and her brunette hair's got streaks of purple and yellow in it. She looks like she could be in college, just like me. Finally, she snorts and enters the room, one eyebrows rising at me.
"Uh, why were you sleeping on the floor?" Obviously, I don't answer, and she smacks her palm against her forehead. "Oh, I forgot. You don't talk, right?" She kneels down in front of me, as smirk on her face. "Sorry about that by the way. Murdoc has never really been very careful." She gestures to my black eyeball, but she doesn't look very disturbed or grossed out. Okay, she's really pretty.
But that still doesn't mean that I want her near me.
Of course, I'm a little curious. Curious as to what it's like to know a criminal, but I already know Murdoc Niccals, and that's enough for me. I curl into a ball against the bed, and peek at her over my folded arms. Just like a child. She laughs.
"You really did get pretty messed up in that accident." It was hardly an accident, I think edgily. Your boyfriend deliberately drove a car through a store window. "But we didn't mean any harm—really. Muds is…" Totally unrepentant, I supply mentally. "Well, he didn't mean to. It's not like he busted your face on purpose." She laughs nervously, as though these words sounded better in her head.
The door is pushed open further, and Murdoc is standing in the doorway, a bored expression on his devil face. "Rachel, Aaran and Lew are leavin'. You goin' with 'em?" She sighs, but doesn't take her eyes away from me. I make a mental note—she has the same name as my mother.
"Yeah, just a sec." She says to him before smiling at me. "Don't let Muds give ya too tough of a time, kid. He's really harmless if you can get onto his good side." Are we both thinking of the same man? The one who ran me over with a car? She sighs again and stands up. Murdoc glances at me.
"Hey, face ache," He says, waving for my attention. "Com'mon. It's time for you to get out of here too." I stare at him blankly. What's that mean? Does that mean he's gonna make me walk or somethin'? But I don't know how to get home from here. I don't know where here is. He waits as Rachel walks past him and into the hallway, and when I still just stare, he growls a curse word under his breath and stalks over to me.
Murdoc fists his hand into the front of my shirt and yanks me to my feet. He drags me behind him into the hall, and we walk alongside the other three towards the door.
"Try not to beat up Tosspot too much, Muds. You'll need him breathing if you want to stay out of prison." Lewis says, the tall brown-haired boy, with a smirk. "Tosspot" is the new nickname that they've made up for me. Lovely.
"I know that." Murdoc mutters irritably, seeming actually disappointed by that bit.
"Hey, get over it. At least it's better than the life-long community service." Aaron says, the pudgy one.
"That's debatable." Says Lewis, still grinning. Murdoc mumbles something incoherent again.
"What are you lot talkin' about?" Rachel says amusedly, holding the door open for all of us. "I wouldn't mind harboring an adorable blue-haired catatonic teenager."
"That's because it's an adorable blue-haired catatonic teenager." Lewis replies mockingly. "Makes it harder for them to reject you when they're trippin' over their own feet anyways, huh Rachel?" She punches his shoulder as we reach Murdoc's gravel driveway.
"Well, 'guess we'll see you tomorrow, Muds," Rachel says, glancing at me as Lewis and Aaron clamber into a dark green Honda Civic.
"Ya," Murdoc replies indifferently, running his fingers through his hair. My huge eyes follow the movement curiously. Unthinkingly, I copy him, though I'm not able to copy the cool air that goes with him. My fingers are more frantic, excitable, and my expression remains a curious gawk as I watch him. He doesn't notice this, but the three that are getting in the green car do.
Lewis laughs, and Rachel smiles warmly at me. At this, Murdoc turns to look at me. I look right back at him, and blink. He glares, but the brunette girl catches him. "Come on, Muds, he's catatonic. What are ya gonna do?"
"Knock 'is teeth out." Murdoc growls, but she ignores him and continues.
"I think it's cute. It's like you have an adorable shadow." With this, she winks at me and slides into the passenger's seat. The car starts to back out of the driveway, and Murdoc waves, seemingly exhausted. Hesitantly, I copy the gesture and move my hand back and forth towards the departing criminals, though my dilated pupils stay on the black-haired Satanist beside me.
It's a strange kind of feeling. Like my mind is still sarcastic and bitter, but then as soon as there's actually another human being around me, I act on that childish instinct to get attention and to be cared for. As Murdoc turns to glower, I realize that I want my temporary caretaker to like me. As the thought touches me, I suddenly have a new pining craving to get on that good side that Rachel and I—or rather, just Rachel—discussed.
"Go on, get in." Murdoc says, opening the passenger door and yanking me forward. I climb in willingly as he circles around and once again gets in the driver's seat, feeling awake and excitable for the first time since entering my coma. Which is unlucky, because it's nighttime right now—ten o'clock according to the clock on the dashboard—and I'll be going to bed again soon when I get home.
But I just stare at Murdoc Niccals the whole drive to my house, getting myself more familiar with his features. One of his eyes is a hazel color, and the other is sort of glazed over, like it's covered in a thin layer of film or something. Also, they usually have a furious flare to them. His nose scrunches up a lot when he's irritated, which is seemingly almost always. His lips are thin, perhaps because they're pursed all the time, and his dark bangs cover his whole forehead—partially his eyes.
It's all a little scary, but it's also a little intriguing. This man is sort of interesting. And really, there's no reason to be angry with him, other than the fact that he locked me in his bedroom, since the whole car thing was an accident anyway. The robbing-the-store bit wasn't any of my business, so no wrongs were done on my side, I suppose.
Eventually, we reach my house—I faintly realize that Mum must've given him the directions—and he pauses at the curb. I stare at him for a while, and he stares back—that same glint of anger in his hard pupils. After a moment, I smile to myself. In a way, his constant anger is sort of cute in a puppy-dog kind of way. Like a little kitten trying to roar like a lion.
He's taller than me, but not by much. And though Murdoc is slender, he's not very fit—like the strong kind of fit. We'd probably be well matched in a fight, though I'd lose anyway just with my lack of experience, but other than that small flicker of irritation—so constant in his glare—there's nothing too scary about this man. It's comforting.
He scoffs at my stupid smile. "Go on—get out of my car, face ache." He leans over me to push the door open, and I clamber out without protest—of course, without protest. Within moments, the door is closed again, and the battered Vauxhall Astra is speeding away, leaving me at the door of my home. For a moment, I just stand there, and then a voice calls to me.
"Stu! Stu, there you are!" I turn, and Paula is practically skipping down the porch steps to greet me. She hugs me, and then pulls back to smile. "We thought you'd never get back! Come on, there's something inside for you to eat." She takes my hand and leads me up the steps. I look back to the corner where the car had disappeared, and mull over my thoughts for a moment.
It seems as though I'll be seeing Murdoc Niccals a lot now, so I guess that this will become routine in time. He'll pick me up, perhaps lock me in his bedroom again, and then I'll go home. For a long moment, I think about that. Then, I inwardly shrug, Ah, what the hell, and let the dark-haired girl before me drag me up the steps and into the warm, snug house.
And that was the day I became the vegetated pet of Murdoc Niccals.