"I don't care!" Murdoc's voice screeches throughout the building, snapping Stuart from a very nice daydream that had him floating down the river on a raft. Just like that Huckleberry Finn fellow that Twain guy wrote about. Any minute he was going to round the next bend and see a paddle steamer all white with brass glinting in the early morning light, floating peacefully across the water, full to bursting with gamblers from places unknown. Of course Murdoc had to spoil it. It wouldn't be a full day if he didn't. Surprise surprise the man doesn't care about something. Morals perhaps, or maybe people? Perhaps there should be a book started and everyone could take bets? He taps his finger to his chin, wondering what it might be that stands proud for him not to care about this morning.
"Probably something that will eventually back down again, so that he can go on to not caring about something else by this afternoon," he mutters and slips off his bed. Spitting a swear word when his foot treads on something sharp, he hops and reaches down for it, pulling it out. A shard of glass glints in the light and smells distinctly like Murdoc's favourite brand of rum. The singer rolls his eyes and mutters about being tired of having to tiptoe around the man's destruction, then tosses the glass in the bin. Limping down the hall he makes his way to Noodles room. In the past the young woman had plastered his various injuries, maybe she'd do it again? At the same time he could learn a little more about her. Since coming back from Hell she's not been as talkative as she once was, so it's hard for him to know if she's okay. He pauses at her door and thinks that back through. Shaking his head and coming to the conclusion that it's obvious that she's not. After all, who could be after being in such a place?
"Besides Murdoc," he mumbles and knocks on the door.
"Yes?"
"Um Noo, can I come in?" There's silence for a moment, before he hears a heavy sigh.
"Hai." Opening it slowly he gingerly steps in the room, looking around at the mess and instantly thinking how unusual that is for her. Typically fastidious in the past, aside from perhaps the odd dropped item, now there is a definite air of untidiness, although it's not really bad, just disorderly. A five minute spritz around the room would have it back in shape in no time. It's mostly clothes dropped on the floor and a few magazines scattered around the room. Usually her clothes would have been neatly folded or hung on hangers, not dumped and crumpled like- "Hey!" Instantly snapping out of it, Stuart steps straight back onto his wounded foot and yelps with pain. Looking down at it, the young woman huffs and reaches down, grabbing his ankle then forcing him to hop back a few paces, dropping onto the bed.
"I stepped on some glass," he moans softly, watching the way she's studying the cut carefully, before opening a drawer on her side table and rifling through it.
"Mm," she grunts, looking a bit too busy to really say much for the moment. So Stuart waits, reclining back on his elbows with his foot resting softly on her shoulder.
"You better not be messing where you shouldn't be in there?" Russel's voice snarls from the window.
Sitting up sharply, he looks back at the warning eyes that are staring at him, gritting his teeth and looking down at Noodle who has just found the sticking plasters. Someone else who seems to have changed somewhat, not that that was unexpected either. Still defending his "little sister" from the wolves of the world who'd try to take her from him and defile her innocence. He probably feels even more protective, because he couldn't do a thing for her when she was lost to them all. Saving whatever is left perhaps? As much as he doesn't blame him, he still wishes that the guy could see that he feels the same way. If he had known what the bassist had planned for her, then he would have gladly put a bullet into the back of his head to stop it. Pausing at that thought for a moment Stuart changes his mind. Maybe not that then, but he would have found a way anyway.
"It's okay. He's hurt his foot and I'm fixing it, that's all," she says in reply, then drops the older man's appendage off her shoulder and stands up. "Don't move." Watching her make her way to the ensuite, Stuart catches Russel's eyes in his periphery, still angrily staring at him.
"I mean it man," he growls deeply, before finally disappearing again. Huffing in annoyance, Stuart looks down at his lap, wishing that the drummer would stop comparing him to Murdoc all the time.
"She's like my damn sister bruv," he mutters with an uncomfortable shiver at the thoughts now cycling around in his head.
He'd never see her as much more than that as far as he's concerned. They'd grown together in that sense so it's not that easy not to imagine a sibling type bond developing. She'd been changed by the secret program sure, but she was still a little girl at heart. The secrets still locked away in her mind that she'd never told anyone, a hidden glint of sadness in her eyes, lost behind a thick fringe that blocks out part of the world that maybe she just doesn't want to see. The things that she has seen already would take many years of therapy to get over. Monster and ghosts, zombies and demon possessions. Did she really need this one last thing in her small life? The answer is no, and her coldness is proof of that. Murdoc may have endlessly said that she wasn't a little girl any more, but he was wrong. She was and an innocent one at that. Maybe that was why he chose her? The innocence was the price and in the end took most of the collateral damage. To then come back to the man that had done this seems odd, but then maybe it was simply that she had no where else to go. Back to the one that destroyed her innocent soul, the one who looks at her now through lecherous eyes. The one who is more the kind to wave off such things and take a chance, but that's because the man has no scruples. Lifting his head when she returns and smiling at her, he sees the coolness in her eyes as she squats back down beside the bed.
"You should check your floor after this. Ever heard of a vacuum?" she asks. Opening and closing his mouth in surprise, he's about to answer when she suddenly grabs his foot and lifts it up again, dropping him flat onto his back. That's rich, he thinks when he lifts his head, looking around at the disarray of her own room. The rough way she wipes his injury down then dries it, makes him yelp a little; His thoughts once again heading back to the gentle young girl she'd been before, smiling as she carefully tended to his various cuts. "There, you can go now." She stands and nudges him from her bed, scrunching up the paper envelope from the bandage and tossing it in the bin. Getting to his feet the singer takes one last look back at her as he limps towards the door, before he sighs heavily and steps out of the room.
"You're not my Noo," he growls in annoyance, furrowing his brow and making his way carefully down the corridor. Colder and less inclined to gentleness than she had been before. At least she was still nice enough to help him though, so it's not like she's completely gone. Perhaps being in that place forced her to grow up in an instant. The sights and sounds of Hell would have been horrifying and it wouldn't be the kind of place to put anything, then expect it not to change them inside.
"Why are you still here?" Murdoc snarls as his lift chair whirs around the corner.
Blinking at that the singer searches his mind for an appropriate response. With the number of times the bassist has done this, ringing through his head. Vague questions with several possible reasons why they've been asked. The meaning lost behind a veil of cigarette smoke and contempt. On purpose of course, only to make him seem far more intelligent. Half of the frustration he feels at the world is due to his own refusal to let people know exactly what he's thinking or what he wants when he makes demands such as these. He'd be easier to please, if he'd just open his damn mouth and tell me what he bloody wants properly, the sod.
"Huh?" he finally grunts, unable to work out where the man might expect him to be. Rolling his eyes the bassist hits the chair button to stop it's decent, then stares at him angrily chewing on the butt of his cigarette.
"The bitch is asking about the foreclosure and your suppose to be out there working to stop it. So where do you think you should be, yah, yah... twat?" he snarls back. Raising an eyebrow the singer shrugs his shoulders heavily.
"It's Saturday Muds?" he grunts in confusion. Widening his eyes a touch, the bassist rams the chair in reverse and heads back up towards Stuart, who begins backing up away from him further. Stopping it again at the corner the bassist moves to climb out, then seems to change his mind and sits forwards instead.
"Do you have a problem getting a part-time weekend job?" he growls in irritation.
"I hurt my foot," Stuart replies, lifting it and pointing the injury out. Taking a quick glance down at it then back up again, Murdoc rumbles out a dog like growl that reverberates around the singers head like a heavy cloud. He then sits back in the chair and slams it into forward gears again, staring at the younger man as the chair begins descending back down the stairs.
"Lazy bastard. Chop the damn thing off," he mumbles through clenched teeth as he slowly slips away. "Ingrate!" he finally calls when he's out of sight.
Making his way slowly back to his room later, Stuart flops down onto the bed and pulls his laptop closer, continuing the search he'd been doing on the internet; in regards to Hell holes. Not that he's found many references to the kind that he'd seen in Kong's basement. Of those he had seen it merely stated what he already knew. That it was a passage to Hell, but little else that really told him much more than that. Thinking about it a little more, he types in darkness and scrolls through the list to something more appropriate. That was the most prominent thing about Murdoc's room, so perhaps if he starts with that then he'll find what he's really looking for, and suddenly finding himself looking at Christian sites he sighs and reads what they have to say. Slowly his eyes widen in surprise and he looks towards the doorway and flicks off the laptop.
"Poor sod," he gasps silently, then shakes his head correcting himself. "Silly sod more like," he adds as he places the device on his side table lifting his legs onto the bed and laying back with his hands behind his head. On the one hand, if what he read is right then Murdoc has finally got his just desserts, but on the other knowing that that's up there, perhaps he needs to once again consider getting the Hell away from the guy. This last thought brings a chuckle of amusement from the singer and he rolls onto his side. Because right now that is probably what Murdoc wishes would happen, but then they did say that it would be for all eternity and he would have known that himself. So really his stupidity has come home to roost and no one can do a darned thing about it.
"But he's not dead though?" Stuart suddenly says, sitting up sharply on the mattress. Knitting his brow and gazing back out to the landing, he slides his legs down from the bed. Standing and making his way over he peers towards the bassist's door. His mind ticking quietly while he taps his index finger against the frame; Almost as if he's punctuating each individual thought off with the tap of his finger. "And he can come out here?" Slowly moving out of his room, he stands there wondering if that's significant. If he's not dead, in Hell but can come out and be with us here, what does that mean? Grabbing his laptop again he switches it back on to do another search. There just has to be someone out there that knows what this is? Looking at the results, he sees something that peaks his interest.
"What the Hell is outer darkness?" he mumbles clicking the link.
