The minutes seemed to drag by. They had probably only been in the hotel room for a hour, but to 12 year old Noodle it felt like an eternity. Hollywood so far hadn't lived up to it's grandeur, she thought idly to herself. They band quickly discovered they couldn't go anywhere without being mobbed by people asking questions and requesting autographs. A close call involving one particularly rabid fan and Murdoc's upside down cross necklace had been the final straw, the bassist herding the group into their hotel room while rubbing his sore neck.
2-D, completely oblivious to the chaos that surrounded the band, had been going on about the sights he'd seen for the last half hour. "An' I saw a poster for th' Spider-Man movie! Isn't that cool, Russel?" he excitedly said. Russel said nothing. 2-D, undeterred, carried on. "D'ya think that we'll get to meet anyone famous?" he said, bouncing up and down like a kid in a candy store. Silence again. Noodle cast a worried glance at Murdoc, the bassist gingerly squeezing the bridge of his broken nose with his eyes shut tight. 2-D, oblivious, continued on. "I wonder if the release party will have any of those american biscuit things on the table?", the blue-haired man wondered. A heavy silence blanketed the room between the man's outbursts.
2-D began to say something, but Murdoc cut him off, his hand not moving from his nose and eyes still shut. "If you say one more fucking word, Dullard, we're going to have to start calling you 3-D instead of 2-D." the bassist hissed, his voice laced with enough poison to kill a small mammal. Russel and Noodle both darted their eyes between the vocalist and the bassist, feeling the tension growing. 2-D's smile slowly faded, the heavy silence consuming the room. The only sound was the hotel's TV turned down so low none of them could make out what it was saying. The uneasiness in the small room grew, even the normally gentle Russel beginning to show signs of stress.
"Y'know, I hope they don't cast us as just extras or somefin." 2-D started again, obviously having forgotten the bassist's threat. Noodle felt her stomach fell, knowing that Murdoc was nanoseconds from carrying out his previous threat.
Murdoc suddenly gave a loud, animalistic scream, and launched himself at the vocalist, knocking him to the ground. Murdoc pinned 2-D's arms down with both of his knees, and began punching the everloving hell out of 2-D's face, punctuating each blow with a "SHUT. UP!"
"SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!" Murdoc yelled, loud enough to rattle the lamp on the desk. Noodle leapt up from the bed and tried to pull Murdoc off of 2-D, but had about as much effect as a mouse trying to pull a concrete block. "Stop! Murdoc-san, stop!" the girl yelled at Murdoc. It had no effect. 2-D's nose was bleeding heavily, coloring the whole bottom half of his face a grisly red. Blood caused the ends of his hair to clump together, and the singer was squeaking out protests in between blows. "No-! Murdo-! Pleas-!" he groaned.
Murdoc, enraged that 2-D continued to speak, wrapped his beefy hands around the singer's skinny throat and began to throttle him. The singer worked his hands out from Murdoc's legs and tried to pull Murdoc's hands off of his throat, to no avail. Russel bellowed, "MURDOC! That's ENOUGH! Let 2-D go, NOW." The bassist, blinded by his rage, continued.
2-D gave a desperate gurgle, and Noodle became even more frantic in her attempts to pull the bassist off. Russel, furious that Murdoc had continued and worried about 2-D, stomped over, his rage combined with his mass causing the hotel room floor to quake. He yelled at the top of his lungs, "MURDOC! LET HIM GO!", before swinging down one mighty fist, connecting with Murdoc's mop-top covered head with a sickening "THUD" that seemingly echoed through the room. 2-D was suddenly released from Murdoc's grasp, the bassist falling flat on his back with a low thud.
Nobody dared even breathe. The air conditioner kicked on, filling the air with the sickly smell of blood. Noodle sat beside the nearly unconscious bassist, mouth open, wondering if she should scream, cry, or both. Russel still glared at the sprawled out bassist, his fist bright red and throbbing. 2-D was breathing hard and quickly in between sobs, but was still alive. Murdoc was trying to keep from blacking out after the massive impact. For a split second, Noodle worried that Russel's blow had killed Murdoc. She slowly crept closer to him, relieved when she could still see his chest heaving. She was torn between comforting 2-D or Murdoc. If she comforted 2-D, she risked setting Murdoc off again, possibly on her this time. Even though she could defend herself easily, she did not want to be the one to kill Murdoc. If she comforted Murdoc, she would appear like she condoned and accepted what he did, and also risked setting the volatile man off on her. So she stayed where she was, mouth wide open.
After what seemed like an eternity, Murdoc sat up with a start. The remaining band members watched in disbelief as Murdoc unsteadily walked to the door, swung it open, whirled around to face them, and yelled "DONE!" before slamming the door so hard it rattled the lamp on the desk. Russel, still furious, soon followed him after as soon as he was sure he wouldn't run into the evil man on the way out of the hotel and out of the band in its' entirety. 2-D, recovered from his near-death at the hands of Murdoc, looked furious as he glared at the door, before stalking over, throwing the door open, and slamming it so hard that the lamp finally fell off the desk, shattering on the floor. Noodle was now all alone in the hotel room, the only family she'd ever known gone for seemingly good.
For the first time since joyfully hopping out of the FedEx crate, Noodle cried.