and the world feels wonderful   von akaspirin
                       (A Plastic Beach Gorillaz Fanfic)
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                   Kapitel 3: but i don't care if you don't
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tzzzzrsshh... like he said in an zzzzzsshhhhh.... in ninteen-eight zssshh....
"Oh, fuck this!", Murdoc cried out, switched off the TV and smashed the remote
on the wall. However a TV worked here, anyway. Sometimes it worked and if he was
lucky, he lied down on his bed at that time. Which wasn't that often.
Sighing, he rushed through his hair and swung himself on his feet. 
It was one of these nights in which his head went crazy. He didn't know what to
do. He didn't feel like working on the album at the moment, there was noone he
could talk with, he wasn't hungry, so he couldn't eat, Cyborg Noodle was
recharging, which just strengthend the point before. He was left with himself
and countless bottles of booze. Of course, he wouldn't think that. These were
facts nobody had to think about.
He knew how to deal with that. He was here for many months now, it wasn't the
first time.
With a bottle of rum in his hand, which he found beneath the bed, he trotted out
his room, destination unsure. 
'What would I do if I wasn't here?', he asked himself while the lift went down
to the studio area. He couldn't think of anything. Too much time had passed and
anyway, to do the things he'd usually do he needed utensils. Like... a
functioning TV. Or women.
The lift stopped and opened the doors for him, so he stepped outside to go to
the window. It was night. Well, he knew that, but who knew, maybe the time
fastened forward since he was in the lift and now it was day again. Who could
tell him otherwise. The bottle came to miss almost half a glass during his
staring session.
Murdoc sighed in frustration. On Plastic Beach, he learned what boredom really
was. That wasn't a bad thing, he was used to sluggishness. Yet usually, he was
sluggish while he had thousand things to do. Now he was just bored out of his
mind.
He began to wander around, took a brief glance to the squid, which couldn't
amuse him with its pouting face, and finally stopped at the bookshelf. He
decided to go down to his secret room, which could take a few minutes. For a
brief moment he didn't want to get stuck down there again, but then again it was
better than lying around in his room for hours. 
When he finally arrived, he set himself up in front of the monitors and
overlooked them quickly. Check, check, check, ha, Cyborg Noodle is in a weird
pose, check, check... oh, wait. There was the most interesting room, only
because there was someone he could watch. 'What's good ol' Stu-Pot up to?', he
amusedly thought, grabbed a stool to sit on and tried to identify some details
on the little screen. 2-D was nowhere to be seen. The bed was muddled, and some
things were lying around. No faceache far and wide.
He leaned back and folded his arms. Maybe it was the boredom pressing against
his sanity, but he asked himself where he could be. For a few days now Murdoc
left the door open, since 2-D hadn't tried to open it for a few weeks and the
whale kept him in place at any rate. Maybe he noticed anyway, plucked up some
courage for once and tried to escape at that very moment.
...or, more likely, he was passed out in the bathroom. Or he was just in the
bathroom, without being passed out.
He waited for a few minutes to rule out the last option - what else would he be
doing, anyway - just to go up the stairs to check up on him. Prudence is the
better part of valor.

Easily, he opened the door, looked around him and put the bottle on the ground
before he moved on to the little bathroom. 
"Ohh, what the hell...", he said quietly while he approached 2-D. He was lying
in there, like he thought, right beneath the toilet bowl. Obviously, he was sick
and then collapsed unconscious. Murdoc guessed it wasn't the first time that
kind of thing happened, yet he didn't notice it before. His subconsciousness was
happy - at least he had something to do now. He himself wasn't that happy. Of
course he could let him lie here, but what would he do if he went up again?
Nothing, exactly.
With his arms crossed he stood in the door and watched 2-D's chest moving very
slowly. Apparently, he was on his knees while he collapsed. His back was lying
on the ground and his legs were both bent in the same position. One arm was next
to his body, a few fingers touched his thigh slightly. The other one was bent,
so that his hand lied next to the back of his head.
"I told ye.", he said jokingly, bending down to him to lift him up, "Dun drink
that much. With ye, it always ends like this."
He took him to his bed and let him down. Then he checked his pulse, because his
chest moved really slowly at the moment. '52', he thought and looked at the
pained expression on 2-D's face. That was way too low. Surely he hadn't eaten
well in the last days and took too much pills today. Together with the
stress---
Again, he looked around him to find the open bottle lying unnoticed on the
floor, a few pills scattered about. Then he looked at 2-D.
"Yer useless like that.", he stated. Of course there was no reaction to his
words. Actually, he wanted to start to work on some songs with him the next day
and he didn't want to let his plans be destroyed that easily. One of his genius,
foreseeing plans had to be put into actions. From a drawer, which couldn't be
seen when you didn't know that it was there, he took out the implements to put
someone on an IV.
When Murdoc was done, he put out a glass bottle with the infusion solution in it
and prepared everything to put him on it. 
Hmm, he felt a d?vu. Taking care of an unconscious blue-haired boy. Ha, yeah,
okay, he did that before. His actions were stopped by his thoughts immediately.
Rum-induced, they were fast, like every thought was a car on a highway and he
stood at the side of the road and watched them appear and disappear within
milliseconds. With that, he didn't feel like he thought about something.
Everything rushed right through him, until the most important thought had a car
crash and lied in front of him, whimpering and twisting in pain.
Yeah, he could just turn around and leave now. But that would be against his
personal interests. The album unfortunately didn't make itself and he wanted to
begin tomorrow. If the singer didn't came to his senses then, he couldn't do
what he wanted. 
And anyway, he hadn't put someone on an IV for ages - the last time was during
his prison-time - so he was secretly excited to do that once more. 
Smirking, he connected the IV over the tube with the bottle and turned the
little wheel until the solution gave away a drop every two seconds.
Great work, like always. What else could he expect from himself?
"Just a few nutrients for ye.", he sing-sanged, "If yer even too dumb to eat
normally, yer best friend's helpin' yer out there... gladly."
With that, he grabbed his rum-bottle and left the room.

When 2-D woke up a few hours later, he panicked. He sat up in no time and
crashed his head at the window.
"Fuck... Fuck!", he cursed, his state becoming worse and worse. His breath was
very fast while his eyes followed the tube to the bottle. What the hell was in
there? Shivering, he stood up and examined the bottle, while he held his arm
with the IV. It really hurt, along with his head now.
Okay, the liquid in the bottle wasn't something he didn't know - at least he
thought the bottle looked familiar from former hospitalizations - so his concern
focused on the IV itself. He knew how to withdraw something like that, so he
began to pull of the plasters and finally got rid of it with a pain-filled
hiss.
Damn, what was Murdoc doing to him while he was passed out? That was the first
time he woke up with a fucking infusion.
Okay, slowly, slowly. First he had to---
"Good moooornin' sunshine!", he heard and looked up with a jolt, "I assume ye
looked over the lyrics, yea?"
With a huge grin Murdoc stood in the door, a cigarette in his mouth and a rather
big stash of paper in his hands. Wait... no clacking? Since when was that door
open?
"I... I, uh... haven't.", he said very quiet.
"What?"
"I haven't.", he repeated louder. He still held his arm in which the IV had
been.
"Ye haven't? Well, ye---"
"Wot do ye expect? I dun have the drive to work on yer songs while I'm locked
up in 'ere!"
Oh, two mistakes. He interrupted him and--- wait, who told him that these are
mistakes in the first place? Okay, Murdoc did, back in Kong Studios.
"Ye know that I hate repeating myself, right?", Murdoc replied, "Ye will sing
the songs. Ye should be glad I even considered to deal with ye again, up until
now ye were jus' a burden. For the last weeks alone you owe me a thousand songs!
Now come on up, we'll start now."
But 2-D stayed where he was.
"I... haven't agreed ta sing...", he mumbled, sounding not too sure. Maybe he
did want to... he loved making music after all. And it was true, he didn't take
a look at the lyrics but he was sure they were great. And he was sure they would
make something great. When Murdoc was eager like this, the outcome was always
ingenius.
But... but with everything else... what was up with him? His actions were weird.
He did a lot of things to 2-D during the last years but nothing was anywhere
near the situation he brought him in now.
"Ye know...", Murdoc began again, "I thought I have ta convince ye. That's the
reason I prepared something. Come in and help that dumbnut to find some
brains!"
2-D heard something buzz, then someone stepped in his room. His eyes widened in
surprise.
"Noodle!!", he cried out and went towards her, "Where were ye? Ah--- I thought
I'd never see ye again!"
He hugged her in a fluster, just to realize that something was wrong. He didn't
know what, but that Noodle wasn't Noodle. He let her go.
"Yer buzzing. Ev'rythin' alright?", he asked in hope. 'Please say yes and hug me
back and then there's just Russel missin'...'
"That's not Noddle.", Murdoc said. The words rampaged in 2-D's head. They seemed
to look for a sense in themselves but couldn't find anything.
"It's a replica. She's helpin' me here, quite a useful machine. Somebody has to
make sure everything's all right, yea? She's the one bringin' ye the meals an'
everythin'. Yep, that's her."
"What the...", 2-D whispered and took a few steps back. 
"But enough bla bla!", Murdoc said and grinned, "Noodle, take him upstairs to
the studio. Ye know, with the instruments and stuff."
With more buzzing she put into motion, stepping towards 2-D, who stepped
backwards until he bumped on the edge of the bed.
"Leave me!", he cried in panic and squeezed himself past her to run to the lift,
pushing the request-button over and over again. Because the target of her new
mission wasn't cooperating, she took the big gun, which was hanging on her back,
and aimed for him. Shocked, he stopped every motion in his body, his big black
eyes showing nothing but fright.
Murdoc laughed. "Okay, Noodle, don't shoot him. Understood? No. Shooting.
Singer. Of. Gorillaz. Just stay with him. Make sure he does what I tell 'im."
"Yes.", she said and put down the gun, "Understood."
"Oh God...", 2-D sighed out, his head in both his hands. What the fuck was going
on? Why couldn't Murdoc simply tell him, word by word, where they were exactly,
why he forced him to be on Plastic Beach, and what the fuck was going on
here...? Maybe because he didn't ask... and maybe he rather didn't want to
know.

Accompanied by a killer-machine and and an obviously drunk Murdoc, 2-D finally
reached the studio. 
"Stay by the door, dear, yea?", Murdoc said to Cyborg Noodle, who positioned
herself next to the door, the huge gun in her hands, ready to shoot.
"And ye'll come here. Come here, come here!", he said to 2-D and sat down on the
known red chair, looking at him. 2-D didn't move a muscle while he stared at
that weird machine. "Yer afraid of her? Well, that's good then. But she won't
shoot if I don't tell her. So grab yerself a stool and come here already."
Shivering, he did was he was told. What should he do aside from
that? Despite... well, fucking everything at the moment, he'd like to stay
alive.
As he sat down, the stash of paper Murdoc held in his hand the whole time was
pushed onto his lap.
"Now read this stuff. What you can read, anyway."
2-D gave in. It was the aftermath of yesterday that he could blind out what was
around him and focus on the words, which were poorly written on the papers.
Yeah, one of his qualities.
When he had looked over everything, he put them down and scratched his head.
They were a mess. Like he thought, they were really good, though a bit
confusing. He flipped through them again, eventually hanging on one page. The
lines were readable and the title was written in big red letters above them:
BROKEN!
On both sides of the lines words were written and scratched out again and also a
few tiny drawings. But all in all these text seemed like he didn't put too much
effort in it. Probably something you just come up with in a sleepless night, or
something. He read the lines again while Murdoc strummed around on a guitar.
"Wot's that? Broken?", he said and looked up. Shit, said too soon. He should've
left that as a thought.
"Whaddaya mean?", Murdoc replied.
"Uhh... I jus' thought... It's really... Uuhm..." 2-D clicked his fingers and
licked over his lips. "I dunno. Got an idea for the song already?"
Murdoc smirked.
And suddenly he forgot about everything around him and they were like in the
early years of Gorillaz - just sitting around, making music.

Of course they achieved nothing that day. In the end they both sat around
cluelessly.
„I think we'll continue tomorrow. Murdoc threw in the room. 2-D didn't reply.
After they fooled around with a few instruments, they really tried to work on a
melody but nothing wanted to work. Everything just made 2-D wonder what Murdoc
thought while he wrote on the lyrics, especially because he became so weird.
Well... more weird than usual.
„Ye heard me, dullard? Go back to yer room, or do ye want Cyber Noodle to
accompany ye?“
2-D stood up in no time and shook his head.
„No... no... I'll go there myself...“
And he went back down, sometimes glancing over his shoulder to check if there
was noone behind him.  

Wow. Murdoc really got him now.

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