Murdoc had just hit someone with his car. And it was a little shocking that he didn't feel guilty so much as just mildly surprised. He knew he was fucked up, but shit.

The boy was still on his windshield, arms and legs crumpled into a freakish parody of a dance, cheek smooshed against the glass and gaping lips giving Murdoc a clear view into his mouth. Two or three teeth hung perilously unanchored, just barely dangling from his gum line. As he watched the boy shifted weakly, and one dropped onto his tongue, blood oozing out after it.

Murdoc's hands were clenched hard on his steering wheel, arms stick-straight out in front of him. Shifting around underneath all his instinctual numbness was a quickly expanding sense of intrigue. For whatever reason; Murdoc sure as hell didn't know. But he couldn't look away from the person in front of him with the long long limbs and the spiky purple hair. Said person shifted again, eyes fluttering. Murdoc found himself similarly transfixed when he found himself being stared down. The boy didn't falter either, just looked at him with his open dark perversely innocent gaze.

He abruptly spat a tooth out, and it made a small pinging noise when it bounced off the windshield. Murdoc could hear people behind him, gasping and chattering and making a humming wall of stricken energy, but he couldn't pay attention to them. He was hypnotized by this person on his windshield who was staring straight at him.

"Bloody 'ell, mate," the boy croaked. "'oo might wanna get 'oor eyes looked at."

Then he passed out.


Murdoc's foot tapped impatiently, trying to align itself with a Syd Barrett song that had been stuck in his head all morning but too agitated to do so. He leaned as far back as his little metal chair would allow, legs straight out in front of him and arms crossed agitatedly across his chest. He'd thus far made two trips to two different vending machines, and was sorely disappointed to find that neither of them carried beer. His foot tapping crept up a tempo.

Why in the name of Satan was he at a fucking hospital?

He'd managed to jump out of his car with a quickness that bellied his unhealthy appearance and flee at top speed up until the point his lungs gave out two or three minutes later and he'd had to take refuge in a dumpster. He'd been forced to ditch the Vauxhall Astra, but it was most likely totaled and he'd stolen it in the first place anyway. He'd also probably have to stay on the down-low for a while; he wouldn't be performing any gigs any time soon.

(Not that he would anyway, with all the shit-luck he'd been having with bands recently. Why was it so fucking hard to find talent these days?)

And that was all well and good, because being Murdoc he was used to that kind of thing.

What he wasn't used to was purposefully being a dumb fuck and coming out of hiding to go loiter in a place he wasn't fond of in the first place.

He hated hospitals. Hospitals were trash. Sickly smelling cesspools without a speck of taste thriving with the pathetic underbelly of society, whining and moaning and writhing like the prideless worms they were. It made him sick.

Why the fuck was he here?

His teeth ground together in a strangely hypnotic rhythm, nose wrinkling with distaste. At himself, mostly. He was here because he'd put someone in a coma, and for some reason he cared about that. Not in a 'Shit I put someone in a coma' kind of way, thank Satan for small favors, but in a 'I'll follow this guy around for no particular reason why am I doing this again?' kind of way. He didn't understand it, and he didn't like it, and for shit's sake he needed a beer. Or some vodka.

A nurse walked by him, little red heels tap-tap-tapping. He impulsively snagged her wrist, taking a little bit of pleasure when she stumbled. At the very least he could make someone else's day suck.

"'ey, how's that purple haired bloke holding up?" he asked blithely, ignoring the nasty look he got in return.

"Who?" she asked stiffly, and delicately tugged her wrist. He almost snickered. Oh, the outside world. She was going to have to gnaw his hand off to make him let go before he wanted to.

"Stringy guy. Slammed him with my car this morning." He leered at her. She wasn't particularly pretty, too bony for his tastes, but watching her get more and more uncomfortable made it worth almost as much as if she was.

"I can't keep up with every patient that comes in," she snapped, and jerked her wrist again. He released his grip and watched with great amusement as it overbalanced her. She gave him one last, venomous glare before she stalked away, heels echoing off the walls.

Now bereft of entertainment, Murdoc sighed angrily and got to his feet, loping down the stark white hallway to where he thought the information desk might be. He couldn't really remember. He didn't really care.

It turned out to actually be three hallways over, and by the time he'd found it he was seething. Why the fuck was he here again?

Oh, yeah. That stringy guy he'd slammed with his car that morning.

The man behind the desk looked half dead off his own boredom. He gave Murdoc a single dull glance before returning to his magazine.

There were a few things that pissed Murdoc off above the ordinary. People ignoring him was one of them.

The man jumped when Murdoc's fist slammed down in front of him, making a loud smack that resounded through the room and upsetting his pencil cup. Murdoc grinned toothily.

"'m looking for a friend," he stated, voice oozing charm. "Big skinny guy?"

His stare was off-puttingly flat. "Do you have a name?"

Fuck, these people and their fucking names. Who cared? "He was in a coma last I saw."

The man's eyes squinted with sudden recognition. "That purple-haired guy?"

"Yeah!" Murdoc nodded vigorously. "That's the one!"

He leaned back in his padded wheely chair, exposing a subtle mustard stain that had been hidden in his fat folds. "Yeah, some maniac ran him down. He's in room 202."

Murdoc looked over to where his finger was pointing. He tapped his hand once on the desk and turned to go. "'ppreciate it, yeh little bitch."

Room 202 turned out to be not particularly far at all. Murdoc stepped inside and came face to face with a rather old, rather muscular nurse with pursed lips and yellowish eyes. She glared at him. He stared back.

"No visitors," she snapped.

"'ey, but I'm, I'm family!" he protested, because she had hurried forward and was now busily crowding him back out the door. He leaned up on his toes and caught a glimpse of purple hair and one heavily bruised eye. "I wanna know what's wrong, ya bloody harpy – "

"He has a fractured knee cap and a broken arm," she stated, now resorting to shoving. And damn was she strong. "One eye is permanently damaged and he's currently in a coma. You can visit him in an hour or two."

"But – "

"No visitors," she repeated, and shut the door in his face.

Murdoc stood there staring at it, a little dumbstruck. An hour?

After a few more moments of contemplation Murdoc shrugged and turned to leave. "Eh, fuck it."

He tried to tell himself every instinct in his body wasn't telling him to stay.

He later attributed it to the fact that he was arrested the second he set foot in the parking lot.


Roughly a week later Murdoc found himself in a disturbingly similar situation.

Morbidly similar.

He rode with the boy in the ambulance this time, much to his own puzzlement. One major difference was that the boy was awake this time, blinking painfully slow and trying to turn his head to look around him. His mouth moved soundlessly, forming half-vocalized vowels Murdoc couldn't understand.

The other major difference was that Murdoc wasn't in danger via the good old blue boys, because the attractive little collection of girls who had been watching had fled the scene, and upon the officials' arrival Murdoc had lied his ass off. And Murdoc had a fairly dense ass. As far as anyone knew 2D was the poor ironic victim of a hit and run. And not the victim of a stunt gone awry.

It had been pretty funny to watch him fly out the car and hit the pavement like a ragdoll though, Murdoc had to admit.

On the other hand, Murdoc was once again feeling the not-so-subtle tugs of fascination, and that was what was really got to him, struck him to the core. He'd never really believed in fate, he made his own existence, thanks, but. There was no way him putting someone in and out of a coma in the span of a week was a coincidence. Just no fucking way.

"'oo the 'ell are 'ew?"

Murdoc's attention snapped back like a rubber band. The boy (what the fuck was his name again? Steve? Gilbert? Ah fuck it.) was looking at him, gaze tired and half-lidded but decidedly awake.

"Depends," he tossed back. "Who the fuck're you?"

The boy's eyes clouded, clearly confused. "'m Stu. Y'know, you look an awful lot like 'at guy 'oo hit me…can' remember when…yesterday?"

Murdoc leaned back in his chair, mind switching over to technical mode. Stupid. Okay, well, that wasn't really a surprise. "Crazy, in'nit?"

Stu just barely nodded, forehead creasing with the effort. "Yeah. Crazy, man."

Then he closed his eyes sickly and sighed. Murdoc took the opportunity to let his eyes rove all over him. A little homo, true, but fucking shit was this the most interesting thing to happen to him all month. He was skinny, and tall; his feet poked out over the edge of the gurney. He wasn't handsome, necessarily, especially not all banged up like this, but under all the blood and bruising there was a certain prettiness to him, a kind of innocent charm that probably had all the tween girls writhing in their pants. Probably real popular.

The idea was already festering, half-baked and crooked but there, in the back of his mind.

"Hey, Stewie," he said, pho-conversationally.

"Yeah?"

"You play any instruments?"