There were ghosts in Hannibal's eyes.
Or tears, Murdoc couldn't tell. Hannibal blinked into his face, once, twice, and then vaulted back to his feet. His knuckles looked dark and shiny and Murdoc cringed at the thought of more blood. He couldn't see properly. His entire body was aching and throbbing, the sensation of near-orgasm – but bursting with pain. It didn't seem too bad. He let his head rest against the wall and heaved at the obscure, swimming world before him; he looked and felt fresh from the womb.
It wasn't too hard a punch but it was enough to change his eyes to up-turned, watery marbles. One hand jittered across it, and the other his stomach from the kick to the groin and ribs. It hadn't been hitting, for the most part, just shouting, which was odd, because Hannibal never usually made any noise when did things like this. This time it had been heated, passionate, vocal, animal – and Murdoc was weirdly in awe. Hannibal stared at him, and then Dad, still lying on the bed.
"You know it as well as I do," Hans whispered, rubbing his wet knuckles on the duvet before walking out, mumbling.
Murdoc groaned, and the next thing he felt was the sharp, healing slap of a damp cloth over his eye, and Dad's nasty acid breath on his face.
Hannibal left the house and walked to nowhere. Hannibal remembered.
Hannibal hated the smell of hospitals, and the smell of the nightgown they'd dressed his Mother in. It was clinical, plastic; powdery like old people and pungent as baby sick. She lay there in that hospital bed; wires attached to the smooth white dome of her belly; stretch marks crawling over her skin like spider legs. There were odd, splintered, purple red blots across it too. She was fat and sickly, her mouth was dripping clear fluid and her face was shiny, sweaty. Long light brown hair was stuck damply to her forehead. Her tiny legs were spilt open over the mattress, weighed down by the huge expanse of round tummy.
"Jake," she hissed, "Ah, God."
Stood in the doorway, Hannibal went running over to her, dropping the plastic blue toy car in his hand onto the white tiled floor. "Mum!"
She held out her strange crinkled hands to him, palms up, inviting. He grasped them desperately, and she returned the pressure of his fingers. She felt like a cold, dead slug. She gazed up drunkenly at his Father, shivering. Hannibal was frightened for a fraction of a second. Her usually pretty eyes were all wet and red, burning up at him with a terrified, frantic sort of intensity.
"Jake, wait."
Hannibal felt the air shift behind him, and then Dad was gone.
Mum squeezed his hand painfully and dragged him closer. Hannibal rested his head against her chest, inhaled her disgusting scents, and wriggled.
"Ah, God," she wailed, and then snatched up a handful of Hannibal's Thomas the Tank t-shirt and pulled him off her. Hannibal stumbled backwards, but hurried back and patted her hand gently. "I just don't want it, I hate it," she told him, and slurped back mucus and tears, staring into his eyes seriously. "I fucking hate it, baby," she rubbed one hand across her stomach and glared at it helplessly, tears falling down her face. "I just hate it. I want it to die. I don't want it, I hate it. I just want to die."
"It's alright, Mum," Hannibal said calmly. "It might still go away."
"It won't, though. I can't make it, no matter what I do." She slapped the bulge of her belly, and her whole body jiggled fatly. She moaned. "I can't even look after you! Ah, God!"
Hannibal swallowed back his tears. "Maybe you just need a sleep, Mum."
She spoke in a trembling voice and stared at her tummy, rubbing it, pinching it, hard, hatefully, powerlessly. "I mean, I can feel it. I can feel it eating me. Eating me up, all day, all night, and I can't take it! I fucking hate all of it! I just can't take it anymore! Ah, God!"
She thumped her stomach again, yowling, and a screaming nurse came rushing in.
"No!"
Hannibal jumped back, and watched in blinding fear as his Mother continued to scratch at her abdomen, pinch and smack and claw. There's a little heart in there, Hannibal thought. As the nurse ran in she trod on his toy car and the plastic blue bonnet cracked down the centre. She almost fell over. She grabbed his Mother's mad, quavering hands, and then another nurse came in a grabbed his, took him away.
A few minutes later they were talking to his Dad in a little room. A nurse had given him a plastic cup of orange juice and sat him on a plastic chair outside, his face streaked by the bright light cut through the blinds.
"- and so we think it best if she stays, for a rest, at least."
"But it's just a bad bloody case o'the baby blues. She'll be right as rain in the mornin', you see if –"
"Mr. Niccals, your wife has been burning her stomach with cigarettes and self-harming for longer than two months now," said the doctor, "and chased a bottle of aspirin with a bottle of vodka this evening, with the intention of killing herself, and your unborn child. She is causing potential, and deliberate, harm to herself, and to others. I'm afraid I simply cannot discharge her from our care. Not for a while. I am sorry."
"What'cha mean, 'a while'?"
"This is a severe case of pre-natal depression, Mr. Niccals. Recovery will be a very lengthy, painful process for your wife, and yourselves."
"She ain't my wife," said Dad.
Hannibal ended up slumped, asleep, in the chair after that. When he woke in the morning she was gone. They took her away. He never saw her again.
But Hannibal remembered.
Murdoc left the house, but he did not walk to nowhere.
He left Dad in bed, sheets thrown awkwardly over him, a cup of coffee and two paracetamol capsules on the bedside table. After dabbing an icy, wet cloth over his wounds and offering him a little glass of gin, he had stalked straight up to bed without another word, despite Murdoc's pain-slurred protests through his slack tongue and cloudy little brain.
He felt lonely, and he was hurting all over, and he didn't understand, and so for some reason that led him here.
Pris' house was similar to their own, but the brick was a beige colour, and the windows were clean. The garden was bigger, too, greener, alive with white and pink and orange flowers that he didn't know the names of.
He wasn't entirely sure that this was the right house – had Hannibal said number fifteen, or fifty? It didn't matter. Fifty seemed to be his safest bet. He turned out the little iron gate, which didn't creak and groan as theirs did, and then followed the creamy stone slabs to the front door.
He snapped the knocker back against its brass lion's head twice, impatiently. It opened soon enough. A boy answered the door, slightly smaller than himself, with longish brown hair and the same pussycat face as Pris'. His eyes were not her opaque, devastating blue: instead they were a shiny, bird black. His mouth wasn't thick or pink, either. It was thinner, meeker – his lips were not cruel like hers. Definitely the right house.
"Is Pris in?" Murdoc asked quickly, suddenly embarrassed. This had been a completely fucking mad thing to even consider doing.
"Who're you?"
His voice was distinctly soft, but unpleasant, like Norman Bates; far too seductive and strange for a kid his age. He couldn't have been much older than thirteen. Murdoc frowned at him.
"Oh, 'mm Murdoc."
"Wull, she's upstairs," said the boy in his weird soft voice. "So, I suppose ya can come in 'n wait, if y'want."
"I do," Murdoc insisted. "Thanks."
The boy stepped aside and invited him inside with long slimy fingers, nails bitten down to the quick. He stepped into a sitting room that smelt like mothballs and toast. It was far too full for such a tiny room. The wallpaper was busily floral, coloured red, pink and teal, and then covered in hanging picture frames. They were all reddish wood, and large. The fireplace was the same wood, engraved with more flowers, and atop it sat more picture frames and a brass clock. Aside from that there were four fabric sofas, a TV, and two little vases on stands in the corners of the room. It hurt his head to look at it; it was like a 50's aristocrat's place.
"'Av a seat," said the boy. Murdoc sat in one red fabric sofa and looked about as the boy walked away through a door, to what seemed to be the kitchen.
The picture frames displayed photographs of the family; in them were immortal figures and faces of people he didn't know.
In the centre of the fireplace was a school photograph of the boy. In this, his hair had been gelled oddly to the sides of his head, while tufts of it stuck out at the crown and front like ruffled chicken feathers. He was wearing a green school jumper and smiling oddly as the camera light reflected in his bird-like eyes.
Other pictures displayed a pallid, slender woman with in her hair in bright yellow pin-curls, her face only just pinched by a smile. She was skinny and severe looking, like Pris, but her mouth and eyes were all wrong. She stood in the centre of what appeared to be a pub, the boy and a blonde girl either side of her, giggling. She was Pris' Mother.
Next to this was another picture. This person, he knew. Stood before a fence, dry soil, dry grass and dry roses, hands clasped behind her back, was a tiny Pris. She grinned dreadfully at the camera, teeth flashing over the right side of her face, her head slightly bowed. Her hair was flaxy pale gold, the kind that'd obviously darken within a few years, sticky-out and thick, cut just to her shoulders. Her orange and white polka-dot dress was blowing about and hadn't covered her left knee, tied in a bloody gauze. She was barely recognisable, such a girl, with her long hair and her slightly turned-in feet in their buckled white shoes. The only sign of the person he knew was that smile, and two glistening blue eyes, wet in the sunlight. That was the only picture of her alone.
"Alright?"
Murdoc's head whipped around so fast his neck made a weird, crumbling crack. Staring at him was a woman, slightly chubby, make-up layered thickly over her face. Powder was melting in the cracks by her eyes, which she had covered with more powder. Her lips were gaudy red. Her hair was short, bright, synthetic yellow. She had dark eyes and a tiny, thin, cigarette-shrivelled mouth.
"Yeah, thanks," said Murdoc.
"So, you're waitin' for Priscilla?" She had a very tart, husky sort of voice, as if she needed to cough heavily for sucking too long on a cigarette. Still, she wore tight, short clothing. A skimpy red tank-top and a denim skirt. She had grown old since that photograph, but she was still unmistakeably that woman; Pris' Mother.
"Yeah, I am."
"Right, I don't reckon she'll be long."
"Good."
Murdoc managed an artificial smile, and then looked at his knees.
"You don't look too good, what 'appened to ya?"
"Fight at school," he half-lied, entwining his fingers.
"I see. I've gotta ask it, don't I know you from somewhere?"
He swallowed thickly and looked up at her. He frowned. "No, you don't."
She looked suspicious, and frowned straight back at him, puckering her lips and shaking her head. Waggling a beefy finger at him, she contended, "No, I do. I know you."
"I'm sorry, but y'don't."
"No, no! I know you! Dave, c'mere, babe!"
Dave walked into the sitting room after a few seconds. He had a beer-gut and a reddened, strong-looking face. He wore a chequered shirt with three buttons open, revealing a mass of curly brown hair, like a cross-breed dog.
"Look who it is!"
Dave's eyes widened and he grinned at him, patronisingly, if slightly affectionate. "Oh, well, lookit you, all grown up, eh?"
"I dunno what you're all on about," Murdoc protested. Pris' Mother cackled at him.
"Ah, you know? You used to enter the talent shows at the pub, duck! Every week, you remember? Mighty good set of lungs on ya, I'll give you that. You used to do that Disney number."
She shrieked with laughter again, and Murdoc felt blood rush to his face and beat heavily on either side of his neck, a separate pulse, almost. This couldn't be happening.
"Hi-Ho, the Merri-o! That's the only way to go!" She sang, clapping her hands dully, lolling her head back to laugh again.
"Yeah, from Pinocchio?" Dave nodded enthusiastically. "I've got no strings, to hold me down! You wore a little yellow hat and those red shorts, blue braces! Very good costume, mate. Ooh, what a hoot!"
When they had finally sobered, Dave stuck his hand into Murdoc's face.
"Oh, dear God. What a hoot! Great to see ya again, kid. I'm sure you'll go far."
"Oh, yeah. Good luck, sweetheart."
Murdoc took it and dug his nails in as hard as possible; fucking wanker. Pris was right. Even her fat old coot of a Mother could do better. He wanted to break every bone in that hand. At least leave a mark. Apparently, he had. They left to go and sit in the garden. Murdoc remained alone for a while in their sitting room, refusing their offer to join them. He was happy chewing his anger.
The boy had been listening from the top of the stairs. He walked down them carefully. Murdoc noticed his feet were greyish and flaky.
"I don't think she'll be coming down here any time soon, actually," he said strangely, and then sat down opposite him. He smiled. "I'm Billy, by the way. They call me Billy-Boy 'cause I'm young. I'm twelve."
"Why won't she be here?" Murdoc snapped.
"She's got a boy up there, obviously."
Murdoc's stomach dropped.
"Who?" He demanded, his hands and eyes on fire with hate and fear.
Billy-Boy shrugged and smiled again in that weird, seductive manner. Murdoc recoiled. He picked off a flake of dead skin and dropped it onto his tongue. He said, "You're welcome to stay, its fine. Me and you could sit and talk, while my big sister and your big brother fuck each other."
He froze.
"And hey, man, I got strawberry laces. We can share 'em."
He couldn't speak; he felt the obscure release of tears in his eyes.
"I like classical music. I'm learning to play the clarinet. You want a lace?"
He shot up so fast Billy-Boy flinched. There was a packet of cigarettes on the table, and he took them – four Camel Filters.
"Those are Pris'! She'll be –"
"I don't care anymore."
He yanked the packet of strawberry laces from his grip and then thudded his way to the door, slamming it behind him.
A/N:
Aah, the plot unfolds. ;)
Firstly, just to clear things up for all people who didn't understand Murdoc/Pris' Mother/Dave's little discussion, in Rise Of The Ogre Murdoc tells the story of his Father forcing him to enter talent contests for drinking money. Murdoc once sang Pinocchio's "I've Got No Strings". :) Also, Billy-Boy was a guitarist in one of Murdoc's early metal bands.
Secondly, thank you as always to every single one of my favouriters and alerters, but mostly, my reviewers: SweetCherryCandy, Salekdarling, MaffyUndead, xPenguinxDreamsx, Bella, and – of course, and despite her absence – Sara, the gorgeous cherry-magpie-x. Your support and enjoyment means the world to me, thank you forever, snuggles for all! :D
I hope you all enjoy this chapter. Please let me know what you think! :D
