NRT

Something by The Boomtown Rats was playing.

Murdoc was sat outside of a pub, slumped against the wall, turning a cigarette around in his right hand and watching the silence of the road. Nobody was around, but it didn't surprise him. It was dark, cold out, September mottled with the dead greys and reds of October. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and dragged again. Above his head, moths were spinning and smacking at the squares of orangey light from the windows. His breath clouded in the air.

"Oi, you out for a smoke?"

He turned slowly to see Paula, standing just before him, yanking at the straps of her red bra. She had Stuart Pot's favourite khaki parker slung over her free arm, a cold sore in the corner of her mouth, rubbery red and ugly, and black hair plastered to her forehead. She looked all sticky. From here, he could see the sweat glistening in her cleavage and a nick on her knee where she had cut herself with a razor.

"Mm-hm, chérie," he drawled, and then turned to look back at the road, happy, lazy, cannabis-calm on his face. Coloured lights moved slowly in the night, red, amber, green. Set order. Colour-coded commands. Bullshit.

Wordlessly, Paula sat close beside him, wriggled slightly, and then slurred, "Sickin' his guts up in there, 'e is."

Murdoc raised an eyebrow at her, and she grinned at him steadily. Her face wasn't nice: she had small, dark gerbil's eyes, a long, thick red mouth, a cleft in her chin. When she smiled it was worse – she looked like a fucking horse or a nasty little rodent – but he scarcely noticed it tonight. He was smiling back at her.

"Ah," he chortled, and sucked heartily on the cigarette.

Paula settled the parka over her shoulders and then rubbed her hands together. "Wull, I told 'im to have an orange juice. Take the edge off, yeah? Poor thing. Only had two sips an' 'e was spewing custard creams all over the floor."

He exhaled sluggishly, and then grinned, "Didn't even make it to the third pint, did he?"

He had taken them here, down The Crown, for a drink – for a great big piss-up to celebrate a new start with a new band. It had taken Stuart Pot less than an hour to reach the drunken vomiting stage, which was as hilarious as it was annoying.

"No, no," Paula laughed woozily, "Lih-ul dear. Poor lih-ul puddin' pie."

She was sweating like a dog, despite sitting in the cold wearing only a white vest-top and denim shorts and Stuart Pot's parka. Her mouth was fat and sloppy and her eyes were watery with weed, but somehow she didn't look bad, all half-dressed and sweaty. He could hear her breathing, smell her. She smelt like Detol and coffee and cat hair.

"Jesus. It's freezin' out 'ere," she mumbled, and then gazed longingly at his mouth, at the cigarette. Her eyes, dark and glassy, made him think of squashed, sticky birds on the side of the road.

"Could fuckin' use a fag, y'know," she said.

"Second last one, love," he shrugged, and then raised his chin into the air and blew out smoke in an exaggeratedly long, leisurely breath, tongue licking about his mouth.

"You arsehole," she muttered.

He scoffed. "Well, fuck off and smoke it with someone else, if y'don't like it. Mm?"

Her chest heaved fetchingly as she sighed, and then the yellowed whites of her eyes rolled up to the skies. She took on a strangely simple, peaceful expression. He liked her better when she was stoned. Only when stoned was she this placid. Sober, Paula Cracker was an odd, erratic little thing, snapping and jumping around and gnashing her teeth. Like a dog in the final throws of rabies.

"Maybe I will," she said quietly. There were stars in the sky and stars in her head.

"Off you pop, then."

"Maybe just I'll fuck off out of this band, too."

Murdoc paused then, closing his mouth and narrowing his eyes at her. She did not look at him, but she blinked several times and wiped her heel of her hand over her forehead, sparkling with sweat. Her eyes were cloudy, wet, bloodshot as if bathed in chlorine. When she inhaled, her lip trembled.

"That's what Mum says," she said sleepily. "She says it's a bad situation. Mum says I should leave an' clean up, all that."

Pulling the packet of Benson and Hedges from his pocket and picking the cigarette out carefully, he began, "Listen, love, you can -"

"Really, I don't want it."

Murdoc laughed at her. "Really?"

"Yeah. Don't matter none. I got these anyway." Paula too rummaged around in her pocket, and then finally pulled out a packet of nicotine gum. She shook three cubes into the palm of her jittering left hand, bandaged up and crooked, and then stuffed them into her mouth, leaving a glistening slick of saliva across her chin.

Murdoc pressed his lips together and raised an eyebrow. She was absolutely as cracked as he was.

"I'm tryin' ta quit," she explained, mouth squelching as she chewed. "I'm really tryin'. Ain't had a fag in a week."

She waited, but he didn't smile. He shook his head. "Then why, might I ask, are you 'out for a smoke'?"

Paula scowled at him. "Stu's been puking everywhere. The smell was too much after all that weed. I been gagging an' all that." She said proudly, "I had to get out. So there, ya big twat."

She looked at the road and waited for something.

When he didn't reply she twisted back to him nervously – expecting to find him sneering or scowling or loosening his shoulder for a smack – to find him sitting there, watching her, smiling that cosy, close-mouthed smile of his that she did so like.

He raised his eyebrows.

"What?" she managed dopily.

"Never thought I'd see the day," he shrugged, smirking, cigarette burning between his lips, "Paula-prawn-Cracker trying to – ah-ha – to kick the habit."

"Sorry, mate, but, why do you think that's funny?" She demanded.

Murdoc took a contemplative hit from the cigarette, and then shrugged for a second time, "You near enough eat cannabis and tobacco on toast for breakfast, sweetheart. One mighty up-hill battle you're fighting – y'know?"

Paula made an angry, metallic noise at him. "Cheers. 'S nice you're so supportive."

He didn't respond, just made a grunting noise, and she didn't like the silence. The pub was directly in front of the road, save a little red-brick pathway and two benches with yellow umbrellas – there should have been noise here – it was a small, grotty little place with bad music and good vino – but there wasn't. She could hear a city far away, but there was nothing here; nothing but The Boomtown Rats and Murdoc Niccals' intake of breath and nicotine.

She chewed her gum and then wriggled inside of Stu's jacket, which smelt of nice things like baby powder and Play-Doh, hopelessly trying to insulate herself against the cold. In the distance an ambulance screamed. The Boomtown Rats became Kylie Minogue.

She could smell the cigarette, and she moaned mournfully.

"Still one left, deary," he reminded her, "Mm?"

"No," she insisted, swallowing down the dirty, grassy taste in her mouth. She rattled the packet of gum. "This is better for me."

Murdoc scoffed. "Not the same as a fag, though."

"No. Not the same at all," she agreed. "But they'm okay."

He threw the cigarette to the gravel and snubbed it with the heel of his shoe, singing along croakily, "- I should be so lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky -"

Paula threw her head back and laughed dizzily, loudly, looking up to the sky and finding, to her delight, the dark shape of an aeroplane over red-streaked cloud. It was beautiful.

She brought her head down after it disappeared, and then scrubbed her hand under her nose, sniffed, wet her lips. "I 'ad no idea you liked Kylie."

He said frankly, "Who doesn't?"

Paula stuck her arms into the sleeves of the parka, sighed, and then said, "I might go an' find Stu now. That cigarette's callin' me."

There was a sharp noise, and when she turned, Murdoc's eyes were glittering at her over a lighter flame. He had the last cigarette in his mouth.

"Oh."

He held his hands up in mock surrender, "Look, I offered, darlin'. I did offer."

Paula nodded once, scowling. "Thanks, you old munter," she huffed. "That's sorted, then. I'm goin' to see Stu."

"Why?"

"I – well – I want to see if he's alright."

For a moment, she almost sounded sweet.

Murdoc actually laughed at that, and it surprised her. Her head snapped to the right and she stared at him, nostrils flaring, shimmer of gnarled teeth and fractured gums and Colgate.

She mumbled, mouth slightly agape, wobbling between a smile and a frown, "Oh, fuckin' shut up."

"I ain't bein' mean, love," he snickered. "I just never assumed you were the Florence Nightingale sort."

"Look, we ain't Romeo and Juliet but – well, y'know. 'E loves me, an' I love 'im. So piss off laughin' all the fuckin' while."

Murdoc cackled at her, and she found herself turning away and smiling weakly at her hands, flexing them. They were wrapped in worn pink plasters; she had sliced her finger hot and slimy on a broken guitar string, on butter knife, on a needle... She couldn't remember.

For some reason, when he laughed her belly churned – with sickness or happiness she didn't know. It was similar to the feeling she would get when Stuart ran his fingers over her face, gently and cautiously, reading her bone structure like brail.

She sucked at her cold sore thoughtfully, admiring the muscle moving in delicately Murdoc's temple, watching, fascinated, as he blew smoke in a pale, curling stream from his mouth. She couldn't leave, for some reason. Didn't want to. The cold was all she could feel now: weed had spread heavenly, happy numbness over her body and in her brain, lovely lovely lovely nothing, nothing but cold air burning her cheeks. She wanted to feel. That was all that mattered.

Desperately trying to resist asking him for a quick hit, she popped another nicotine gum in and chewed wetly.

"He thinks it's good I'm tryin' to stop."

"Oh?"

"Yeah," Paula said. "He brought me the gum."

"Bit of a hypocrite, mm?"

"No," she insisted. "He doesn't 'ave fags in front of me an' that. He's trying to help. We was goin' ta share the gum, like, but I have to keep havin' loads to get the same thing."

Murdoc smirked, "Like I said, it's not as good."

"I know that, pillock, but it's bad for me."

"Yes it is," he said carefully, as if he had weighed every word. "And it's not nearly as nice."

He shuffled closer to her, the smell of cat hair hitting him in the face. Blue make-up melted beneath her right eye as it watered. He gazed at her heatedly.

"Paula, Paula, Paula-prawn-Cracker."

Paula blinked. Her groin felt all hot. "What?"

"I'm right, aren't I?" He smirked.

She exhaled loudly and stared him in the face, mouth twisting as if she had been sucking a wodge of lemon, "You're not helpin' me. Wank bang."

"Ooh, I am, darlin'," Murdoc smiled, twirling the cigarette idly in one long, veiny hand, eerie orange light on one side of his face. His eyes moved over her lips.

Paula scooted back slightly, gulping at bile, choking on the warm smell of Murdoc, wool and tobacco.

"You know what you want..." He said softly, "So – so why deny yourself, mm, Pauls?"

She didn't know what to say, but she knew that he was right, about all of it. Curling her fingers around the too-big sleeves of Stuart's parka, she asked uncertainly, "It wouldn't hurt, would it?"

"No. Just one cigarette, love. One little puff and then that's it."

He passed her the cigarette soundlessly, but his eyes were glittering pretty even when the flame had disappeared. She thought he was smiling when she took it from him, couldn't tell.

She hawked back, spat out the chewing gum, and then looked at the side of his face, dragging so deep her cheeks deflated, her tongue alive and warm. Made her happy. Everything about this could be nothing other than good, she decided.

"That's good. That is good," she murmured. "Cheers."

It was weird. Tonight, instead of the nasty, shitty cigarettes he always smoked, Murdoc was smoking thin, girly menthol Bensons. Her favourite. It was odd that he had all that she wanted when she was slightly tipsy and stoned and, now, aching between the legs.

"Better?"

"Mm," she chuckled, snuggling into Stu's jacket, knowing what was coming and not caring, not escaping.

He kissed her within three seconds of her laughter, didn't even wait for invitation, response, because he knew he wouldn't need to. Just pushed his face against hers, nose first, and then pushed his lips onto hers, hard. Paula leaned into him willingly, drunkenly – he could smell Stuart all over her and it was strange, but still he continued to kiss her, a sickly thrill of triumph running down his spine. Stoned kiss with Paula, Paula with curves like a whisky bottle. Guilt trip, bad head in the morning.

She kissed him back even though her mouth felt cold and dead and her teeth got in the way. Finally, she thought, and it made her sigh, even stick the tongue in, dig the sliced fingers of one hand into his shoulders.

The cigarette was in the other hand and self destructing, eating itself, and then, as she wriggled closer it touched her tiny knuckle and it hurt. It burnt her.

But she shouldn't have expected anything less.

A/N: firstly, I apologise for the absolute vulgarity of this. There's a lot of swearing and cannabis-speak, but, this is Murdoc and Paula... it needs to be obscene. Fact is, there ain't enough Paula-fic out there, so there ya go – just over two-thousand words of Paula/Murdoc goodness, written at half six till eleven, poorly proof read. Hope you liked!

Oh, and, also. NRT = Nicotine Replacement Therapy