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Bowie's face is frozen mid-note, brow furrowed in mockery of a cry. Eyes fluttered shut and lined with the creases of passion, he doesn't spare Murdoc a glance. He supposes the confines of the paper poster make it hard to do much else but take in that stuttered breath before the bridge.
Bone against carpet, no matter how soft it may be, aches when held in place by a weathered palm to the skull. The Niccals family aren't known for their riches, so the corded floor, the fur of an old dog on its last legs, does little to dull the pain against his cheekbone, his forced view that damned poster. Hannibal's not letting up soon, anyhow.
Murdoc arches his back, his brother's tailbone only nailing him down between the knuckles of his spine from where he's planted himself like a hunter with his prey.
"Go on. Tell me," He demands; Hannibal has never been one to ask for much, not in the face of a possible no. This way, all lean muscle and quick wit he's hoarded over the years, he assures himself what he wants.
To most, Hannibal is a force to be reckoned with; to Murdoc, he's a nagging pain up the arse. "Geroff."
Wrong answer. Teeth bared, he digs calloused fingers into Murdoc's thick hair and pulls. A brief reprieve from the welds on his cheek, but now he's risking a scalping.
Hannibal leans in, eyes slits as he inspects the ringed bruise around his brother's socket, lid swollen in a constant glare. Fresh, because it hadn't been there this morning when Murdoc had lobbed phlegm at his feet in goodbye; mottled, purple and black and blue like a spoiling fruit.
"Tell us who did it. Unless you did it y'self."
Murdoc purses his lips, mulling on whether he wants to gob spit at Hannibal once more to send him into a sort of conniption. The only consolidation the bruises bring him are in the warped form of a medal, a congratulation on his survival. Hannibal was ruining that for him, claiming himself the victor.
At his silence, Hannibal presses his face into the floor once more. Murdoc rears in a wince; give his brother the satisfaction of a reaction and it'll fan the flames. Once he gets bored at the poker face, the heat dies down – he'll clamber off and find his next target, or next lager to swipe from their father, or next bird to finger behind the bushes. It’s their twisted family ritual.
"If y'don't tell me I'll find out anyways." Hannibal pulls his lips back in a grin, knowing he has his brother cornered. Everyone knows someone who knows the oldest Niccals kid, who can draw blood from a stone with a glare. "Tell me y'self before someone makes up some shite and you look like a right twat."
Two years his senior and freshly adult, Hannibal thinks he can chief Murdoc like he can one of his boys.
He's right, but not for the reasons he deludes himself with.
"Get off and I'll bloody tell you," Murdoc grits, flailing his legs and hoping one connects with his brother's jutting spine. No such luck. Height has never favoured him.
"How abouts you tell me and then I'll get off." With the full weight of his forearm he pins Murdoc's head against the threadbare carpet, a reminder that he's not one to be making compromises right about now. "I'll ask again. Who. Did. It."
Murdoc grumbles an awwrgh that's distinctly childish, but that's the manner he's been backed into with this roughhousing.
"Billy Boy and his lot, alright?" Murdoc bites out, then gasps in a clear lungful of air as the weight on his back rolls off and to the side. After that, he takes shallow breaths to nurse the ache; Hannibal hadn't known about the bruises that trace the lines of his ribs.
"Billy Boy? That lanky lad that hangs around the park? Fuck's he doing knocking you around for? He's not got much going for him." Hannibal seems like he's thinking for once in his life, brow knitted as he lays on his stomach, sunbathing in the pallid yellow light the council's been threatening to cut off. It presses thumbs into his sallow eyebags, washes out their skin in a feverish hue. "I shagged his bird, I know that – did he finally figure it out?"
Murdoc had seen Billy Boy grasping at ditzy Kelly's arse on the way to period one that very morning, so he doubts that.
"Nah, why'd he go after you? Not like he hasn't tried it on me." Hannibal gears up with a gnarled, jabbing finger, ready to wrangle another confession from his brother. "Y'did something. And you're not saying what."
Murdoc refuses to entangle himself in Hannibal's business with his boys and his brutalising; if he's locked up now, there goes all his funds clawed together and stuffed under his mattress. The least he can do is wait until he's scraped enough together to get out of this shithole before wreaking havoc. All of London won't hear every thought he has in a game of broken telephone the way Stoke does. They'd learnt that the hard way with the old man. Between Hannibal and Dad, the Niccals have built quite a reputation for themselves. Stoke waits with bated breath for Murdoc's fall from grace.
They'll know his name, just not in the way they'd anticipated.
"I didn't do nothing."
Pinched between thumb and forefinger, he gets a twist of the ear for his feeble lie. "Don't try and fib t'me, you slimy bastard."
Murdoc bats him away though it doesn't connect; he couldn't withstand another beating if it did. "Found out he was a little poofter and he didn't like it."
"Fuck off did you." Hannibal chokes on a laugh, eyes wide like saucers and plating glee at the piece of tabloid gossip. Making Billy Boy the butt of the joke takes the heat out from underneath Murdoc. "No wonder he's always banging on about the latest woman he's bagged. Using them as a beard, I bet. Twat."
Murdoc drags out a laugh half a second too late, clawing himself off of the carpet and pressing the knuckles of his spine against the foot of his bed. This bedroom is a cupboard in all but name with a roof that bends over double and lights like bloodshot eyes that flicker in a narrowed stare. He picks at the peeling paint with a broken nail, the other arm bracing his knees against his hammering chest, and glances towards his poster, the only pop of colour in his beige-grey world.
"'S not fair if he's going after you for that. He's the one bumming other lads." Hannibal's sudden bite is a shock to the system; not because Murdoc hadn't anticipated it, but because it happens with a flick of a switch, from cackling with bared teeth to grinding the enamel together in a locked jaw. "I'll get him for that."
"Leave it," Murdoc mutters – any more of a protest and his desperation may rear its ugly head.
"If I leave it men'll go around thinking us Niccals are bleeding doormats. Y'could've tried to knock him back. Now I gots to pick up after you."
Years of being pummeled by his brother have given Murdoc a body built for defence with corded muscle and hard skin that bears the weather of men who should know better. No matter how fine-tuned he is, five versus one will never be a fair fight. Billy Boy knew that full well, but if he played fair Murdoc wouldn't be pressing fingers against aching ribs like an amateur pianist in the first place.
"You don't gots to do anything." Murdoc knows it's to defend Hannibal's lording reputation over the close-crawling way he slithers through the gaps in people's memory. Though he would love to knock a few bastards in the jaw, that well of pride will come when he rises to the top in an act of spitting revenge. Stoke is Hannibal's back garden, his playground; it's the first rung on Murdoc's ladder to blinding success. "I said to leave it."
"Someone's got spunk today. Where'd that come from?" A quick finger and Murdoc recoils, massaging the ache in his forehead that needles near as much as Hannibal. Between the beating and his brother, he'll be tattooed in ugly hues by the end of the week. "Why're you sticking up for him anyhow? He's the one that did you in."
"I can't be arsed to deal with it."
It's not a principle of being the bigger person; Murdoc has and will throw sand in the eyes of maturity. It's more a principle of self-preservation. He'll be at the end of more than a few tender bruises if Hannibal brings his boys upbank, teeth bared in a scathing question.
"Y'not dealing with it, y'big pansy, no need to break a nail," He sneers, words that could be comfort whittled to a pointed insult. "I'll deal with it. Easy. He's always pissed me off with his grotty attitude so I needed an excuse to go at him."
Billy Boy is grotty all around, in words and looks and touch. Grotty is what Murdoc's grown used to, so grotty fits neatly in the crook of his palms. That steel resolve, above all, is what sent him scrambling. Funny.
“Gee, thanks, Hannibal, sticking up for me like that, it’s well nice of my brother.” Hannibal pitches his voice in a warbly plea though Murdoc has largely outgrown voice cracks, clasping his hands together like a devout on Sundays. “That’s what I should be hearing from you. Y’look like I’ve told you we’re taking a trip to the dentist.”
Murdoc rubs at chapped lips with the heel of his palm, pressing the soft skin against the worn enamel of each tooth. “You want me jumping for joy that you’re going to sic your boys on him?”
“Bleeding hell! Is it too much to ask? Y’not gonna get nowhere in life acting all high and mighty. At some point y’need to get some hands dirty.” Hannibal worms his fingers as if to prove a point, scars like grooves that map out his pride and calluses built up from carelessly thrown punches. “It’s looking like you’d rather thank Billy Boy for giving you them bruises. You his lap dog or what?”
Murdoc bares his teeth in a snarl, a guttural sound caught in his throat at the very suggestion. “Am I – I’d rather go blind.”
“Yeah, well, you gots to be bum buddies with him, ‘cause how d’you know he’s a poof?”
Hannibal has to murmur the words aloud when reading, finger jabbing at the fine print. That means nothing for his sharp wit scrounged from prowling the streets; a twitch of his eye and Murdoc knows he’s woven together the scraps of the story.
“Y’not,” He says, flat.
Pathetic, Murdoc flinches at this – when Hannibal’s anger strikes hot it leaves in a flash. When he warns in hushed tones, it’s simmering. Soon it’ll boil, bubbling and spitting at Murdoc’s scalded skin. Those wounds he needs to nurse for days.
“I’m not,” He agrees, nails digging waning crescents into the flesh of his kneecaps. Hannibal may take his word in a desperate attempt to stay blind. That he’d rather have.
“Fuck, what’re you playing at?” No such luck. He lurches as if he’s going to make a grab for Murdoc, but instead claws at his face, pulling worn skin taut. “You shite – I can’t have a bender for a brother, they’ll make a joke outta me. I’ll lose all I got.”
“I’m the one that shagged him. You got nothing to do with it,” He tries. Sometimes this light ribbing cools him off and reels him in with a tamer roughhousing. It’s the best chance he’s got at bringing his brother back, a hug like a plague on the skin for them both where it’s a stranger’s gesture.
A hand darts out and grabs a fistful of his hair, dragging Murdoc to his feet. They see eye-to-eye these days, but Hannibal still dwarfs him in temper as he claws at his temple, pulling him in. He knows he’s pushed him over the edge this time.
Murdoc braces for a hit that doesn’t come. When he gets the balls to meet his brother’s gaze, he finds a look that Dad used to offer them, back when he would give his children the time of day rather than nursing a bottle of lager, thumbing at the peeling label as he sits it by his side on the settee.
“It’s my fault. I shoulda raised you better.” Caught in this rare remorse, Murdoc doesn’t point out that Hannibal couldn’t have done any better than he did; two years doesn’t make a child any more prudent than he had been at that age in the grand scheme of things. The hard lessons Murdoc needed to learn, Hannibal was struggling through himself. “I shouldn’t have let the old man let you do them little songs and dances. I shoulda shown you how t’fight instead of beating on you. I shoulda… I shoulda torn down that bleeding poster the day you put it up. Now lookit you.”
Murdoc shudders, the disappointment a cold blow to his gut. He’d rather the burn of a fury that’ll heal in time; this’ll settle in his chest and crumple his lungs, fundamentally wrong in all that he is. Because he’s a bender. Because he keeps his hands clean. Because he’ll crawl his way out of this pit one day.
Because, because, because, Murdoc Niccals is a shitstain on the rag that is their family name.
Look at him.
Heaving a sigh, he loosens his grip. Murdoc teases the sore skin with tentative fingers; he doesn’t have the heart to tell Hannibal that even if he’d been a perfect mockery of a father, he still would’ve worked out like this. Like his spitting temper, his thick, corded hair, his impending fame, it’s all in his nature.
“What happened after all that malarkey with Billy Boy, then? I know you were doing music with his men. Now he’s after you.” Hannibal pauses, curling his lip like he’d forgotten his fearsome reputation for a moment. “Don’t tell me none of the nasty shite. I’ll be ill.”
“Got scared I’d tell and buggered off, then jumped me so he could, erm, make sure I wouldn’t.”
“Good man – least he’s smart enough to back off.” Hannibal wrings his hands as if they owe him money, fixing Murdoc with a strange kind of thoughtfulness he doesn’t use all that often. “Might let it slip I got with his woman. Then he’ll have a reason to go for me. I’ll beat the living daylights out of him.”
Murdoc doesn’t fool himself into thinking it’s for his sake; Hannibal will look for any reason to use his hands.
“Alright.”
“She let me stick it up the arse and all,” He muses, almost an afterthought.
“Alright,” Murdoc repeats, notes of insistence. What his brother gets up to in the foliage and behind public toilets doesn’t make his shortlist of conversation topics.
Hannibal fishes a fag from his pocket, clamping it between his lip as he fiddles with the flame of a lighter. When it catches, he lets the smoke swell in his lungs before breathing it into the musk of Murdoc’s room. Pinched between two languid fingers, tips tainted yellow in a way that suggests this isn’t his first, he jabs the glowing end in his direction. “Don’t let Dad get hide nor hair of this. I mean it. He’ll leave you for the streets if he don’t kill you first.”
“He’s got his nose in the bottle most nights. Doubt he’ll notice if I drop my trousers and give him a good mooning.”
That elicits a bubbling laugh from Hannibal, rare when it’s not a cackle in the face of his ire. Murdoc feels a smile twitch at his mouth like a tic in kind. “Nice one, Faceache.”
“I’ll be gone before he suspects anything, anyway.”
“Y’still gonna just fuck off then?”
Murdoc sniffs, staving off a thick nosebleed that won’t come. “I need to. If I wanna make it big.”
Bowie stands where he will one day, in the throes of the music and gripping the mic stand like it’s his lifeline.
“Upbank, behind the old pottery barn in a ditch, there’s this old Winnebago. Stinks of baccy and lads go down there for a shag with their women all the bleeding time, but the keys are somewhere in the back.” A breath of smoke like he’s sharing a murky thought. ”Y’could get her up and running with a bit of elbow grease.”
That’s most of the funds Murdoc had been piling up for a means of an escape safe to be put towards more chance at survival. “D’you want me out that bad, hm?”
“Well. Can’t have people knowing y’funny. Fuck knows what flack I’ll get. Best y’gone before that happens.”
When two boys have been raised with no words of comfort, no arms to run to, they bumble over clumsy shows of tenderness, sweetness thick and cloying in the throat, too sticky to force its way from their windpipes. This is the best they can do.
Murdoc will be gone within the week.