Murdoc Niccals hummed happily as he led me from the elevator and into the brightly lit space beyond, blood leaking sluggishly from the burst stitches in my abdomen. I blinked as my eyes adjusted to the natural light, looking around the wide open-plan room we found ourselves in dazedly. I was still reeling from seeing 2D, heart thudding hard beneath my sternum whilst fast flashes of unwelcome memories created a lightning storm within my mind.
The green-skinned man sauntered over to the oakwood desk sitting in front of a large fish tank display and began rummaging through the drawers, whilst the cyborg girl he'd called "Noodle" earlier stood frozen at the elevator.
"Come on, make yourself comfortable," Murdoc encouraged, pulling a small metal tin from the desk drawer he'd been rummaging through and gesturing to the blood leaking scarlet through the material of the towel I was wrapped in, "But if I'm going to be stitching you back up you're going to have to promise to be more careful with yourself, mmnyeah?"
Uncomfortable with how differently he was acting towards me since my violent run-in with 2D, I looked away from his shrewd gaze as I gestured to Noodle with a grumpy mutter, "Aye, but only if you keep that tank-girl over there well away from me."
"If you behaved yourself, force wouldn't be necessary," the man replied airily, rolling his eyes and gesturing for me to take a seat in the large leather armchair behind the oak desk.
Instead of following his suggestion, I wandered over to the set of tall windows that looked out over the strange island I'd heard him previously refer to as "Plastic Beach". Staring down at the ludicrously pink bay far below, I was surprised to see figures walking together along the shoreline, seemingly carefree and relaxed. A jetty with a gently bobbing sea plane moored to it jutted out into the inky coloured ocean, and then all that stretched beyond was those same black waves as far as the eye could see.
"What is this place?" I asked quietly, eyes jealously tracking after the figures disappearing around the corner of the beach and out of sight, "Where is it?"
"This, my angry little Jock, is my self-made private getaway," Murdoc replied proudly, coming over to the window so that we were surveying the view side by side, "Point Nemo, the spot at the middle of the ocean where everything that's ever been thrown into the sea eventually gets washed up at. Something to do with the tides mnnnghehheh."
"So you build a castle out of trash just so you could... record a new album?" I probed, the random tidbits of information I'd collected so far clicking into place ever so slowly.
"Exactly! Also to escape some pirates I did a dodgy deal with, but that's another story heghheh. Every man needs a palace of his own, so now I've got this one; a floating island of trash, with Murdoc Niccals as King of the Dump!" He explained, getting more positively animated than I'd ever seen before; not that I'd known the corpse-like fellow long.
Shifting in discomfort at the aching rupture in my ribs, I asked faintly, "Why not just record the album where you recorded the other ones?"
"Uhh oh... because I burnt it down for an insurance claim," Murdoc first faltered then replied breezily, waving a dismissive hand as he continued brightly, "Anyway out with the old and all that. The Plastic Beach album is going to blow everything ever released before it out of the water anyway. Russel's AWOL, the original Noodle's very much unable to make it, but as long as I can get that blue-haired halfwit to sing it'll still come out top of the musical history charts. I'm veering away from the previous album's style - going for something bigger and better than ever before, ynnehh?"
The original Noodle? Who the fuck is that girl standing by the elevator then...? This guy is so fucking unbalanced.
"Well, I'm sure that'd be very interesting to someone who actually listened to your music," I sneered derisively, watching as Murdoc's expression warped from excitedly passionate to cold and hateful as my words sunk like stones into the silence that followed.
YOU ARE READING
The Trapeze Swinger
Fanfiction"Him. 2D. I could see him even now, his goofy grin while holding the water gun like a hunting rifle, lining me down the sight. His hands ruffling my hair, one eye closed in a squint as if sizing me up, as if looking into the sun." The year is 2003...
