Psychic City: Thank you to all the people that reviewed for me in the last chapter! I appreciate:

Zoye, AliceInBloom, ryon, xxSay, whats-up-people, Gimmie back that fillet o'fish, 2D Fan, Va Vonne, Lively McBrighten, LECandeh, and more!

Next chapter will be posted as soon as possible- reviews definitely speed up this process, though. ;)


Chapter Six:
Sleep Cycles

When Mrs. Pot agreed to send her comatose son away to the home of the very man who put him in a vegetative state in the first place, she had certainly made up her mind about setting up a list of lengthy conditions. The first on the list, as approved by both the Pot's lawyer and doctor, was that alcohol use strictly banned. The second on the list, though just as important, was that drug use was also out of the question. Furthermore, Stuart Pot's progress had to be documented and recorded; Mrs. Pot would provide the book. However, when Murdoc Niccals woke up on a Sunday morning to the sound of a ringing doorbell, he stumbled out of his bed, drunker than a sailor, with his spidery green fingers hugging the circumference of a bulky yellowing joint. He staggered over the discarded mess of his shag carpet living room, groped towards the front door knob, and pulled it open with a forceful jerk before answering still tangled in the covers of his filthy sheets. Certainly, he had signed a contract agreeing to the rules set out by Stu Pot's mother, but at six in the morning, it had been foolish for them to have had expected him to be as such, anyways.

"Huh?" he grunted to the fat cop ironically holding a donut, who stood next to a stooped over blonde nurse. Synchronized, they raised their eyebrows at him in a judgemental manner before Murdoc Niccals glanced back at the joint. He leaned forward, nodding at the cop's jelly pastry and nudged him in the fluffy stomach. "I won' tell if you won' tell, 'ey, offica'?" he mumbled, trying out his early morning charm. The pudgy officer only held out his hand, plucked the thing from his fingers and scuffed it out briskly on the doorstep. Murdoc's smile, however, was not met with any sort of friendly expression in the slightest. "And wot 'ave we got 'ere?" Murdoc beamed.

The short woman at the police officer's side paid the bass player no attention. Instead, her arms worked wildly, still fidgeting with the wool blanket they'd drawn across Stu's crooked knees. The massive man answered for her. "It is Sunday morning, Mr. Niccals and, as you well know, this is Stuart Pot." He took great pleasure in watching Murdoc's face flicker from the pretty nurse, to the injured nineteen year old in an instant. The dramatic lines on his face seemed to double drastically. "'E's to stay two days and one night 'ere until Wednesday, where 'e'll do the same, and Friday."

Murdoc was not paying attention to the overweight cop and his monotonous reciting of the same schedule that he'd heard hundreds of times before. On the other hand, of course, he was paying close attention to the nurse, and watched her run her hands through Stu Pot's troublesome blue hair with a perplexed look on her soft face. She moved the longer pieces behind his ears and pushed the strays out of his distant looking face. And there Murdoc was, standing before her with barely anything on at all, and she had done nothing to truly acknowledge his presence. He decided instantly that she was a lesbian- she'd had to be, or she would have darted into his condo at the instant he'd opened his door. Though, her overwhelming fascination with the moron in the wheelchair still seemed to perplex him. Perhaps not a lesbian, he concluded, perhaps immensely psychotic.

And when finally the nurse lifted her hands from the figure of the unconscious kid, she only turned to the handles of his wheelchair, scooting him past Murdoc with a sense of careful belligerence that Murdoc had before considered completely impossible. The cop strode in past Murdoc, as well, his fingers finishing up with the last of his Danish, as he glanced around the home and scrunched his nose at the sheer sight of it. But Murdoc followed in behind them, glancing around the dump with a swell of pride that was all the more obvious before he remembered why it was exactly that he was up so early. Crushed, he watched Stu as he was wheeled to the center of the living room; felt discouraged even, as they hauled in a cardboard box labeled 'Stu' in after him. And, as he felt his shoulders drop with a swing of bitter resentment, he mumbled under his rancid breath, "for fuck's sake..."

"You 'ave your list, I'm assuming?" asked the bulky man, taking a step back towards the front door. He had been holding his breath since he'd entered the place, though Murdoc wasn't certain what it was that was so awful he was smelling.

"Yeah, yeah, I've go' the bloody list," Murdoc hissed back, flicking the pine tree air freshener that dangled from the cupboards in the nearby kitchen for emphasis. For as highly as they seemed to have carried themselves, they certain had no concept of any manners.

But the officer reeled back, "and you've check out all the 'ospital equipment?"

"'S been done, mate," Murdoc growled, ending hard as he sarcastically made a friendly gesture.

He had, however, done as he had been order to do involving the hospital equipment for Stu Pot. He'd went to the place, picked up the tubes and the needles. He'd even had to sit in a two-hour course class on how to inject the things into Stu's arm- as if he didn't bloody well know how to use a needle. He'd got the pills, the special foods, the fucking castrators; now all he'd needed was for them to leave his fucking house. "Well, tha's, tha', then," noted the policeman, and Murdoc Niccals pointed a steady hand towards the door. Right, that's that, his hungover head told himself, furious that they hadn't left already, now out.

However, much to his appreciation, they filed out in a pair; though the nurse did annoyingly glance back over her shoulder at Stu before Murdoc slammed the door shut in her small face. He turned around, inhaling the rotting air of his wonky little condo. The place wasn't anything much, but it served its purpose gracefully. In fact, Murdoc couldn't help but emit a smile as he roughly made his way over to Stu, glancing at all that reminded him of late nights, drinking games, and naked women all in the contents of his own personal Heaven. But there was Stu, snatching away his paradise with his simple presence alone. His skinny arms had been wound around Mrs. Pot's stupid little bear, and he looked as if he'd been dressed to attend a boarding school of all places.

Stu's bruised head lolled off to the side, his mouth opened slightly as his forehead leaned up against the edge of the wheelchair's back. He wore a pair of dark navy trousers, matched to a nicely pressed navy blazer. His tie, striped navy and yellow, dangled at his waif-like chest in the most blatantly useless manner. Without the safety of his sterile hospital bed, Stu Pot really looked as bluntly pathetic as a potato in the holds of the hospital chair. His bruised eyes loosely shut, he gave a little flicker before moaning, and then slumping back down even further in his seat. Bloody kid. Stupid, fucking git.

But all Murdoc had to do was stand in place, his hands dangling at his own sides for lack of utter comprehension. How had he, Murdoc Faust Niccals, ended up having to be the one looking out for this boy scout? He turned back to the desk at his right, snatching up a packet of cigarettes before jamming it between his rack of crooked teeth. Surely they had someone far more professional out there able to do the job, didn't they? As Murdoc made his way slowly towards the chair, he recalled Dr. Osgood saying something about Stu's interest in Murdoc's visits. Something about eye opening, and smiling, and sleep cycles. But that was back when Murdoc Niccals was happy to just get out of the hospital visits everyday. Back then, he would have feigned interest in anything just to avoid ever having to enter the place again. So, he thought angrily, sleep cycles. But who really gave a shit, anyway? Stu-Pot, he was as useful as a sack of cement and he was never going to wake up.

Murdoc really glanced the boy over for the first time in the day. He squared the kid up and down before taking to a daunting pace around him. And he had to admit, he truly had made quite the mess out of Stu Pot's face. Though it appeared as if Mrs. Pot had tried to comb her son's blue hair in a proper presentable manner, Stu's visible visage only stuck out more so. Thus, grinning bitterly, Murdoc smashed a finger up against Stu's lips, pulling the top one up forcefully to reveal a set of missing front dentures. It was all that his mummy could do to make her son appear more physically appealing through all the scrapes. He'd noticed with a chuckle at the sad bandage attempts someone had made to his wrists, and he flicked Stu's arms out from his lap and watched him dangle responsively with the restraints holding his slouchy body upright.

Nonetheless, Murdoc crouched to a squat and ripped open the cardboard box before he could contain himself. His fingers found the empty journal that he was supposed to record Stu's progress with first, and he tossed it over his shoulder in the searching process. Instead, he pried at the zombie films Rachel Pot had neatly packed inside, laughing spastically. Surely she hadn't expected Murdoc to sit down and actually watch the things with her vegetable of a son. However, upon further investigation, he found that she had expected such, and perhaps even more. Amongst the box of rubbish, she had also stashed a handheld 1977 Tomy Blip pong game. "Sorry, Stuuu Pot," Murdoc drawled, breathing his mass amount of white cigarette smoke into Stu's unmoving face, "looks like you'll be pong free for a long while." Then, whole-heartedly, he tossed the little machine back into the stash of nothingness.

He slipped his hands up and dragged the list off the table and, by the looks of it, Stu Pot was due to be fed. Murdoc's mismatched eyes found the dual cans of carrot and pea baby food, and he felt his stomach drop. Thus, he squared away his jaw and pried himself back up from the shag carpet stiffly. His fingers found the cigarette in his mouth and he took another drag on it, blowing the air once again into Stu's swollen face. He looked at the skinny kid, and then back at the food cans. Then he remembered that it was six thirty in the early hours of the morning.

He flicked the particles of cigarette ash to the ground and rubbed them into the floor with the ball of his extended big toe. Then, with one last and lengthy drag, he overstepped the box and outed the thing once and for all. "Looks like you're on your own, Stu Pot," he mumbled, and retreated back into his bedroom and back to bed.


There was something strangely amusing about sleep cycles that made the comatose Stuart Pot feel as if he were both floating and sinking all at the same time. He slept through his nightmares like a miserable rock, unable to move or pinch himself to prevent them. But his coming up was something miraculous; curious even, as the rising bubbles seemed to surface him like some washed up and wasted body. The morning that he had felt himself seated upright had been a particularly fearful one, however, for Stu, who had just emerged from a nightmare just as suddenly. He could feel the harsh restraint of straps across his chest, and the aching pinch of something sharp around his neck. His stomach growled and the space around him was silent. Nothing moved, and no one noticed Stu's eyes flicker dreamily open.

Though he certainly saw without truly seeing a thing, the comatose kid remained untouched, useless to the world around him in front of a box of his closest belongings. The handheld pong set and the zombie films sat in a cluster, watching up at him as if he were to dart for them at any second. In the box sat a lovely melodica, having been unnoticed by Murdoc Niccals hours before, as well as a set of logo-laced shirts. There had been a blanket packed in with the rest of the bunch and, as if by accident, a locked little journal that had been pressed up to the side of the cardboard complex.

Yet the unresponsive Stu, very much like a bag of cement, sat sack-like, waiting for the outside world to continue on without him. And so it did. As if uncharacteristically on cue, Murdoc Niccals stumbled out from his bedroom, pulling his trousers shut over his hips, and swearing loudly under his breath. "Fuck." In the moment that Murdoc's greasy hands took hold of Stu Pot's lifeless body, the comatose kid gave way, fumbling from the unstrapped restraints and landing with a thud on the carpet below him. With his barefoot, Murdoc lifted up the side of the boy's chin and cocked it upwards back towards him. He took in the sight of the zombie-like face,Though for a moment, Murdoc only stood analyzing the rag-like thing, so flimsy and lifeless without any type of support. And perhaps it was because he had been higher than a bloody kite, but he stopped and took time to ponder the state of being in a coma.

Maybe it was best, he decided, that the world had to lose one Stuart Pot. The boy was too skinny to be a professional fighter, and too presumably too slow to work anywhere else besides Uncle Norm's, anyway. Murdoc's face scrunched at the sight of a stack of photo albums, to which Rachel Pot had scribbled a short little note. Plucking up the massive book of Pot family photos, Murdoc hastily read, "the life you ruined." before tossing the scrap over his shoulder carelessly. He fumbled through the laminated prints, staring at pictures of Stu, clad in his school uniform, baby teeth freshly missing, and smiling back at the camera lens. He scowled at the little boy, glaring at a picture of him by the Christmas tree on the twenty-fifth, pajamas and all in front of a brand new keyboard. A more recent photograph showed Stuart Pot, freshly blue-haired, and seated on the lap of his father at the control box of a ferris wheel. Certainly, it had been more than blatantly obvious that Rachel Pot had put a hefty amount of time and effort into compiling the pictures together in order to make Murdoc Niccals feel some sort of guilt.

However, Murdoc only felt rather disgusted; embarrassed, even, for the unconscious kid in the wheelchair before him, who was helpless to close the humiliating book before it had been opened. The Satanist watched the images, wide-eyed and convinced; Stuart Pot had been perhaps even more of a ponce that he, Murdoc, had previously anticipated. His theories were confirmed by the hundreds of pictures of the more recent Pot kid, standing in the yard with a small child in his hands, laughing widely; a snapshot of Stu at what looked like a prom, lacing a flower around the wrist of a short and chubby blonde in a dress that fit her too tightly. There were the classics of the kid on a tree, on the slide of some playground, or on the lap of some falsified Santa Clause. There were the strange of Stu in a wonky little knitted sweater, an embarrassed look on his face with his mother's arm looped proudly around his shoulders.

He saw the pictures of Stu, overly skinny in a pair of ironically blue swim trunks, his azure hair wet and slicked back behind his ears with his fingers around the end of a hose filling up a blow-up pool for a group of spastic little kids. The last photos grew more and more recent; Stu at a piano recital, Stu with his arm wound around the shoulders of some girl who looked absolutely fascinated with him, Stu handing out balloons at a shitty looking carnival, Stu in glasses, Stu eating breakfast, Stu brushing his bloody fucking teeth.

From the pictures, Murdoc's sense of distaste only seemed to grow. He shut the book heavily, and placed it on the surface of his coffee table with bitter resentment. Then his mismatched eyes founf the outline of his own camera in the dark. Sure, the thing was merely a piece of shit, but it took photographs just as well as any old camera. Thus, he passed the pair of baby food cans and made foe the camera anxiously, gripping it tightly in the spidery confines of his fingernails. How about the life that Stuart Pot had ruined? Had Mrs. Pot never stopped to thing about that? Her own selfishness, however, seemed to have clouded her head, for she had not considered Murdoc's existence either. Thus, furious, he knelt down low and cocked up the chin of Stu Pot, whose eyes stared forward at Murdoc, though there was not an ounce of awareness behind either of his discolored pupils.

"Smile!" Murdoc hissed, clicking the top of the camera and igniting a harsh flash into the pale face before him. Stu didn't even flinch. The dangling trail of spit dangled loosely from his limp mouth and, with that, Murdoc let his forehead thump back to the carpet again.

Sure, maybe the world had lost its Stuart Pot. But, after he had considered all things, at least there would always be one Murdoc Niccals.


Psychic City: Sorry that this was a chapter that was a little bit on the shorter side, but I'm working on making the upcoming once longer and more eventful! Please don't hesitate to let me know what you think! All types of feedback are appreciated!