DEEDAY

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1.

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Murdoc stuck out a long finger, and jabbed.

"Oi."

Jab

"Oi!"

Jab jab

Stewart Tusspot did nothing, but sat on the couch. Much like the way he'd been sitting on the couch for the past two hours.

"Anybody home?"

Jab.. Jab jab

"HEY!"

Apparently not.

With a sigh, Murdoc leaned back, kicking his boots up over the comatose teenager's lap, obviously bored. The kid said nothing to this, but stared into space with one inky, vacant eye. Funny, Murdoc thought, looking the boy up and down. His good eye looked even duller than the hollow one.

Not that any part of him wasn't dull.

"Fukkin useless." gumbled the bassist.

Stewart sat there.

And saw nothing.

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2.

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"So I says to her, I says... 'Darlin, I'll tell ya wat ta do wid that thing, I'll tell ya!' 'And then she asks me, 'what's a Cockdog?'"

Murdoc laughed from where he was sprawled across his apartment couch, wearing nothing but a pair of tighty whities. Stewart Tusspot had been unceremoniously leaned up against the television across from the couch.

"Funny, eh?"

Stewart said nothing.

"Right? It was quite funny, I think. Yeah, I gave it to her laterrr, yes. And she loved it."

When Stewart still said nothing, Murdoc shot him a cold, pondering look, and for a while, was quiet.

"Hmmmm, you know, I was thinking... it must be quite difficuuuult to have gone for so long without a good wank. Am I right??"

From through the forest of empty liquor bottles on the coffee table, Stewart maintained his mournful silence.

"Hey." Murdoc said a little louder than usual. Then, after a minute, "HEY!"

When nothing happened, Murdoc leaned over himself and scooped an armful of empty, partially crushed beer cans from up off the floor.

"Oi, idiot!" the bassist waited for a beat, then chucked the first can at Stewart's skull.

It bounced loudly off the comatose teenager's forehead, and hit the coffee table with a tinny clang!

The boy did nothing.

"Anybody home?"

Toss

clang!

"Dent-head!"

Toss

clang!

Toss

clang!

Toss

clang!

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3.

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RING

RING

RING

"What- MURDOC, YOUR FUKKIN PHONE'S IN THE COUCH, MATE!"

"WAT?"

"YOUR PHONE! YOUR FUKKIN PHONE, MAN!"

Murdoc stumbled over the pile of human bodies currently jammed into his dimly-lit living room. The bass music was so loud, several of the pictures on the wall had fallen off, but none of the sofa's occupants seemed to have noticed. Too busy tangled into each other, the make-out pile had the appearance of a singular, undulating mound of human flesh.

"WHERE'S IT AT?"

"Over, nah, OVER THERE- no, THERE! Yeah!"

Stepping over what might have been an instance of date rape, Murdoc plunged his hand into the cushions of the couch. No longer able to tell what was the vibration of his phone and what was coming from his party music, the man shoved his arm down deeper into the crack of the sofa, rooting for the source. Annoyingly, he couldn't find it. The girl currently beneath him appeared to be either dead or unconscious, and her body did nothing to make Murdoc's hunt easier. It weighed down the cushions as she splayed across them, half on, half off. Leaning farther and farther into his poor balance, teetering higher and higher onto the very tip of one dirty boot, the bassist grew steadily less balanced. All it took was the unconscious girl making an unexpected and noisy return to the world of the living, and Murdoc found himself shoved, head first, up and over the arm of his couch.

...and into the lap of Stewart Tusspot.

"...OI," Murdoc yelled, after a moment of adjustment. "WHO PUT DENT-HEAD OVER HERE?"

Stewart sat slumped into himself in the tiny corner between the sofa and the wall, staring blankly into the party. A picture frame had obviously fallen and shattered on his head; bits of broken glass still twinkled from between the strands of his strange, blue hair.

The general din made no response to Murdoc's question. Rolling out of Stewart's lap, he crouched instead in front of his mentally-stunted charge, and looked him up and down.

"You havin' a laugh toniiight, ol' Tussy-boy? A laugh aaat myyyyy verrry special party?"

"......"

"Got a bit of glass on you."

"......"

"....Well, well. Mmmmmmm. What? What are you looking at? No need to be a twat about it."

"......."

Quirking his head to the side, Murdoc studied the glass in Stewart's hair, and thoughtfully stroked his dirty stubble.

"What youuuu need, is a bit of fun."

A few moments later saw Murdoc clutching at Stewart's jaw, attempting to shove two fingers past his teeth. It was easier than expected, and soon, the boy's mouth hung loosely open of it's own volition.

"Seems like you could use a bit of the good old, good old. A little taste of Agent Orange, hmm?"

Stewart said nothing.

Murdoc dropped a tab of acid onto his waiting tongue.

"Takes a while, mmmmmm, fifteen to thirty minutes... You like flying, don't you, dent-head?"

Silence was his response.

"Yesss, well, I bet you do. That is, if anything's still IN thereee..."

Murdoc closed Stewart's mouth again.

And, ever faithful, Stewart replied with nothing.

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4.

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Steam billowed out from the open bathroom door as Murdoc walked naked across his living room. Water still clung to his body as he drip-dried from his shower in the stale, smoky apartment air.

Stewart sat quietly in the middle of the sofa, not watching the cartoons that were playing on the television across from him.

"Ahhh, nothing quite so sennnnnnsual as a hot, soapy washcloth and a good wall of cold, cold tile." the bassist sighed, in a gratified sort of way.

Stewart said nothing.

"Chatty today, are we?" Murdoc made his way over to the sofa, standing unflinchingly close to the side of Stewart's face. "One opinion at a time, little friend."

If possible, Stewart said less.

Murdoc chucked a leg over the side of his charge's waist at that, and sat facing forward, naked and dripping, in Stewart's lap. The boy did nothing.

"So, I've been wonderinggg...." The naked man rumbled, "Is all of you as dull-witted as your face seems to be? As boring? As, mmmmm, uselessss?"

Stewart didn't reply.

"Really? Is that true?"

The boy blinked, vacantly.

"Well then. Lovely!"

Using his callused right hand, Murdoc unzipped his ward's jeans and shoved his hand inside. Like a child unwrapping a Christmas present, the bassist spent the whole time watching Stewart's face with fervent, gleeful interest. The flesh in his hand was warm, he was pleased to find. Warmer than he'd expected it to be. He wondered if Stewart's father knew what kinds of things happened to his son, when he was spending his court-appointed allotment of time here, and soon his hand established rhythm just inside the cold teeth of the teenager's open zipper. Murdoc matched the rhythm with his left hand, stroking himself in time with his ward, and he stared long and hard into the hollow socket of Stewart Tusspot's damaged eye.

But nothing happened.

After a while, when Murdoc noticed the flesh in his right hand was still soft, irritation began to set in. He himself was already harder than a cut diamond, but Tusspot was... he was...

How could this happen? This sort of thing never happened. And not just the opportunity to jerk off a comatose kid. (No, that was, somehow, still a completely delightful concept to Murdoc Nichols.) This was something different. Really different.

This was... a total...

... and utter...

Lack of reaction.

Why wasn't he crying?

No moaning?

Not even squirming!

Just...

Nothing.

Just nothing.

Stewart Tusspot sat there compliantly, and was quiet.

"UGH!" Murdoc rose in a sudden rage, his own erection deflating pathetically. In a fit of anger, he slapped Stewart across the face. Once, hard. Twice, harder. The third time he landed a punch, and each time Stewart's head returned docilely to it's original front-facing position.

"WAKE UP, YOU LITTLE SHIT, WAKE UP!" the naked man bent to shake the boy violently by the shoulders. "I KNOW YOU'RE JUST PRETENDING, YOU NUTTER, WAKE UP!"

When still nothing happened, Murdoc took a turn for the worse and pushed Stewart over onto his stomach, yanking at the hem of his pants. "YOU HAVE ABOUT FIVE SODDING SECONDS BEFORE I PINK SOCK THE LIVING HELL OUT OF YOUR LITTLE LOVE CHUTE, DENT-HEAD, AND IF YOU DON'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT, I WON'T STOP!"

Wrenching at Stewart's pants with savage hands, Murdoc dragged them down around the boy's thighs and clambered on top of him.

"WELL?"

Silence.

Murdoc shook him again. "WELL WHAT DO YOU SAY, YOU LITTLE SHITTY BAG OF PUTRESCENCE? WELL?"

Stewart simply stared out into the living room, underneath the coffee table. He stared into the air, and everywhere at once. His face was pressed up against the cushions, and his messy blue hair had fallen across his bad eye. He blinked like a placid animal.

Seeing this, Murdoc let loose a whistle of hot breath like a kettle releasing steam...

And he fell back onto the couch.

For a while, the room was filled only with the sound of Murdoc's labored breathing. Legs splayed like wet noodles out across Stewart's back, he breathed, and breathed, and breathed...

"Dent-head." Murdoc muttered bitterly.

And after a while, he was quiet too.

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5.

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"Ruddy homeless blokes, hanging on my coattails all day!" The musician groused loudly as he came in through his front door. Stewart was sitting on the couch as usual, and when Murdoc shed his hat and coat, he deposited them on the teenager's head and lap as if he were a coat rack.

"'Do you have some money?' 'Do you have a fag?' 'Do you have some time?' No, I bloody don't have five minutes, can't they see I'm busy trynna steal property?"

Stewart consolingly said nothing.

Collapsing on the sofa, Murdoc melted upon immediate contact, and soon was a puddle pooling in Stewart's lap. A few long moments were spent where Murdoc groaningly rubbed his face into the crotch he was resting on, but soon exhaustion stilled him, until he was almost docile again.

"My mates don't get it... Hmmmm... The sound... the sound's all wrongggg..."

Stewart kindly remained silent.

"mmm. mmmm.... The look... The look's wronggggg too.... but th' sound, 's not right... Needa... mmmmm, keyboard or sommat like that. mmm, like... Agustus Pablo, roundabouts."

Stewart said nothing.

"But... doesn't matter..." Murdoc yawned, letting his eyes drift closed. "They're all... knobs anyway..."

soon after, began the subtle drone of snoring,

and Stewart Tusspot sat.

And he sat and sat, and sat...

And sat.

And Murdoc slept.

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6.

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The thing about driving a Vauxhall Astra after having the front end replaced about a dozen times is, the littlest things will begin leaving bigger and bigger dents. Any number of little things. Really. A stray dog. A wheelchair. A revenging drug dealer. A cane attached to an elderly person.

And, of course, a good old fashioned iron parking meter.

Murdoc groaned from inside the pit of his once again ruined vehicle, not wanting to open his eyes all the way, and yet knowing that eventually, he would have to. If not to survey the damage, but to also locate the body of the other person who, until recently, had been in the car as well. Stewart Tusspot had flown out of the back seat and through the front windshield like a little girl flings a ragdoll. And though Murdoc suspected his head was full of helium and marshmallow fluff, he doubted very much that the boy would bounce.

Though by this point, Murdoc justified through the fresh lump on his head, the kid should have known what sort of thing to expect from keeping his company. They spent all their time together now, it was a given he should just be able to see coming. And radical driving techniques at the site of jiggling flasher boob was something he should have been able to see coming.

If old Tusspot saw anything at all.

The wet, uncomfortable feeling of rain began to hit the battered bassist through the hole in his windshield, and he let loose an audible groan.

And somewhere, halfway across the lot, somebody matched that groan with one of their own.

For the breath of a moment, (or was it a millennia? Murdoc wasn't quite sure which...) the world seemed to spin off-kilter, and beneath a savage flash of lightning several feet away, Stewart Tusspot climbed, slowly, to his feet.

Broken shards of glass stuck awkwardly from different angles up the right side of his body, and blood ran down in a red sheet from the place where once, his right eye had been. Now black blood filled the places where his pupils before could have been seen. And yet he looked around himself with a remarkable clarity, and sense of self.

He was, according to Murdoc's suddenly singular, rudimentary word for it,

beautiful.

"Oi, Dent-head, you alright?" Murdoc shouted after him, sounding happy... feeling incredibly happy, really, and yet having no idea why.

Stewart turned towards the voice, a spindly blood-soaked demi-god in the rain, and opened his mouth to speak.

"Wot?" he said loudly.

Murdoc flinched. "What?"

"No, wot?"

"Erehhhh, what?"

"Nuh, whot happn'd?"

He didn't remember?

"...A car crassshhh."

"It did?"

The boy sounded like he could hardly believe it. His cockney accent lilted dreamily from octave to octave. His mind was obviously higher in the stratosphere than most other people's were. Or was that just a symptom from the rough reentry of his rekindled consciousness? Not that it was a problem... it was utterly perfect. It suited him completely.

"Yesss."

"You saved me!" He yelled, and Murdoc was shocked to hear that it came with no small amount of blind sincerity.

"What?"

"You saved me!"

"From whatttt?"

"From, mm," Stewart stuck one long finger thoughtfully in his mouth, and Murdoc felt his saliva production double. "meself?"

"What?"

"It's like," Stewart made a face like he had a point, but a moment of blankness washed it away. "ehhhh..."

Murdoc waited, with what he perceived to be patience. It didn't matter. He could spend hours staring at that glorious, gory face.

"Like I was stuck in somefink liikkkee.... a big, black hole. Like I couldn't see nuffing, or hear nuffing neither." That thought seemed to depress Stewart, and the black holes where his eyes had been squashed themselves into a decidedly forlorn shape. "But you saved me, dinchya?" the boy followed up with, perking up just as quickly.

"What were you doing at the Organ Emporiummm that first day anyway?" The bassist couldn't help remembering, bent over his steering wheel and somehow feeling totally beyond his physical location. It didn't matter that they were both bleeding. That it was raining harder, now. His sights were set only for Stewart. " You remember that, at least? You've caused me a lot of troubllleeee, mmmmm. A lot of money, a lot of effort, yesss..."

"Well I play the keyboard, dunni? An the melodica, an them triangles and lil tambourines I can wear on me fingers. It's my Uncle! I work there, dunni? I'm Stewart!"

"You're a dent-head!"

"a wot?"

"Well, you got twooo dents now, don't you?"

Stewart stared at Murdoc with the hollow holes in his head. And yet they seemed to look at him with a greater intensity than his real eyes ever had.

The idea came suddenly. "Two dee."

"Wot? Two dee?"

"That's what I'll call youu nowww, yess. 2-D."

2-D seemed to consider this a moment, before a look of satisfaction illuminated his bloody face. "Awrite!"

It was a look that was wonderful and gullible, and on that brand new angel's visage, Murdoc couldn't think of a better expression.

At least, not outside the bedroom.

As the rain began to pick up, the bassist made a scrambling motion to escape his car, and soon was growing wetter with time along side his newly loquacious protege. They walked together towards the nearest gas station.

"So, m'boy..." Murdoc found himself rumbling, tossing a care-free arm over 2-D's soggy shoulder. "You play the keyboooaaarrrd, hmmmm? Ever given any thought to a career in muuussiccc?"

"Yeh! All the time?! Why, you gotta band or sumfing?"

"Welll....? I have, hmmm... I have a few ideeeeasss...."

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7.

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Murdoc stuck out a long finger, and jabbed.

"Oi!"

Jab.

"Oi!"

Jab jab.

"Hey, anybody hommmmeeee?"

Jab jab jab jab-

"AH-OWCH! Wot? Wot?! Wachu want, Murdoc?"

From across the room, Russel shot Murdoc a dirty look over the sound mixer. He was far away, the bassist knew. And 2-D was near, snapped for the moment back into sharp, focused attention. That was the bliss in this subtle torture. No interference.

"Nothing, really. Mmmm, just wanted to hear your sweet little voice, I think." 2-D's face distanced as soon as Murdoc spoke the words, obviously trying to return to the imaginary place he'd been a few moments before.

"What's going through that brain of yours, my little prodigyyy?"

"...."

Jab.

"OW!"

Jab jab!

"Stoppit! Wachu doin that for?"

But Murdoc only grinned.

By the sound board, Russel rumbled his disapproval. "Muds, you know you make him cry when you keep that shit up! And I ain't cleanin' up NO tears off this expensive-ass equipment today."

"Oh, don't be such a baby. You two are twinsss, practically. Twin babies! Yess. It's pathetic, really."

"WHAT DID YOU JUS CALL ME?"

Jab!

"OWW! Russel, make im' stop!"

"MURDOC!"

"Whose band isss this anyway?"

Jab jab

"RUSSEL!"

"QUIT IT, MUDS!"

"Fuckkingg useless." the bassist grinned, watching 2-D sitting there, squirming. And as this one reality settled with Murdoc, he jabbed the fleshy pocket beneath 2-D's ribs. The boy let out a yelp like a whooping monkey, and a fat tear slid down his ruddy cheek.

Finally, the dent-head was watching everything.

This was going to be a good year.

TBC in PART II