Well, it was for him, but most people weren't lucky enough to actually be said mastermind.
He wouldn't even have blamed them if they had sold El Diablo off. Would have taught them the meaning of the phrase 'wreaking vengeance', yes, but not blamed them. The thought of the massive bidding war that would've been sure to occur between music fans wanting it because it was his, Satanists wanting it because he'd gotten it from old Beelzebub himself, and maybe even a few priestly types looking to piss off the forces of hell by purifying it was almost enough to tempt Murdoc himself into putting it up at auction and buying a new bass with a miniscule percent of the profits. Only thing holding him back was knowing that no other bass would ever be half as good, and in the long run he'd make more coin out of going on as he had been than he would trying to coax as sweet a sound out of any man-made instrument.
But those worries had hardly even had time to settle in his head when his bedroom came into view and there El Diablo was, sitting on the end of his bed like it had never been in Mexico to begin with.
"I found him waiting on our doorstep when I arrived home," Noodle said quietly. He hadn't even heard the stealthy little thing creeping up on him, a skill she'd picked up by getting all those 'child soldier' memories back he supposed. It was still weird to hear her talking to him with words that he could understand more than one out of every twenty of at best. "He was not in the best shape when I found him after being in a box in the rain for so long, but I was very careful to fix him as good as new before you came back! I thought that you wouldn't be happy if I allowed a stranger to do the repairs."
"No need to start anthropomorphizing El Diablo, love. You wouldn't even like it's personality if it had one," Murdoc told her off-handedly, more focused on lifting the bass up and experimentally plucking a string or two. It would be too twee to say that the sound which came out was one he'd heard in his dreams during the long year and more he'd gone without playing; it was enough to say that he'd missed it, and wouldn't be going without for so long again if there was anyway he could help it. "You did good, Noods."
She smiled brightly at the compliment, then invited herself into his room without so much as a by-your-leave. "Are you going to play? I'd like to listen if you are."
"Suit yourself," he told her with a shrug. For once in his life, just for Noodle, he attempted to be polite and played standing so she could sit on his bed, but she ignored it in favor of perching on top of one of his cabinets, apparently unconcerned by the waxy residue of years worth of candles that caked its surface. He didn't bother with any actual songs, just randomly strummed out whatever chords he felt like playing as they came to mind, getting back into the swing of things after his long break. Almost as soon as he began he noticed Noodle's fingers twitching at her sides. As he looked more closely he realized that they were forming chords of their own to match him, playing the air to form a silent melody to his rhythm. "Y'know, love, I can wait for you to fetch your guitar if you want to play along."
She seemed surprised to realize what she was doing when he called her on it, and quickly pressed her hands flat against the top of the cabinet. "Oh, no! I'd just like to keep listening for now. Please don't stop."
As he went on playing she slowly began to lean towards him, the movement so gradual that he didn't even notice it happening until she was suddenly tilted so far forward that the fact she hadn't toppled right over made for a neat display of her balancing abilities. Stranger still, she was practically salivating as she stared at his hands moving over the bass.
For a moment his hands fumbled on the strings, music briefly turning into dissonance, but he caught himself quickly. Well well well. Looked like their little darling had gone and developed a bit of a crush while she was off finding herself. And showing good taste while she was at it; if she'd started slobbering all over 2D or Tubs he'd have had to really start wondering about her.
He did a little quick thinking, and came up with the answer, 'What the hell?' He might have known her since she was scarcely knee-high, but she had never respected him enough to feel pressured into a damned thing just because he wanted it, which any number of public interviews would show, and she could kick the stuffing out of him if he tried. As far as he was concerned that was enough to keep him from crossing the fine but very important for the sake of not losing fans by the droves line between being a 'monster' and being a monster, so as long as she could keep her mouth shut about anything that should happen until she was past sixteen and they could keep the law out of it, why not? And she was a discreet girl, so that shouldn't be a problem.
Testing the waters, he lifted El Diablo to stomach-level as he played and threw in a slow roll of his hips to see how she'd react.
Rather disappointingly, she didn't even seem to notice. Her eyes stayed fixed on his bass instead of his crotch, and when she gasped softly it was at his playing briefly getting especially emotive in his frustration instead of at his body.
Now there was a reaction to experiment with. He dropped his random strumming and really started to play, going with anything that came to mind. Some classics, some of their own songs from the last CD, snatches of a few things he'd been playing around with in his head while stuck in prison, even a few bits he could remember from the music she'd been working on that he'd gotten a quick look at before heading off for his Winnebago.
And now she was really getting all hot and bothered; here eyes were glazed from what he could make out of them behind her fringe and she was practically panting. El Diablo thrummed a low note and he could have sworn he heard her moan, which made him vaguely wonder if he could make her soak straight through her knickers with just the sound of his music. She didn't even seem aware of the way she was reacting, which as it turned out was rather ridiculously hot; it wasn't often that he ran into a woman who was so unselfconscious about being turned on without being a complete slag. Not that he had anything against slags-wonderful creatures to have around when he wanted to have a poke without worrying about them trying to stick around the next day-but they had nothing on this strange lustful innocence that Noodle was practically oozing out her pores.
Finally his hands stilled on the strings and he spoke to her, making sure his voice was thick with the old growl that turned women on so much. "Like what you hear, love?"
"Oh yes," she told him, and had to swallow and wet her lips when her voice came out a raspy whisper. "It's been too long since I've heard any real music but my own in person. All these months I've only had diseased recordings, hardly anything that didn't feel as if it were rotting away even as I listened to it." She pushed herself off the cabinet and stepped up to him close enough that he could see the sheen of spit on her lower lip, her fringe falling away from her face when she craned her head back to look him in the eyes so he could see how dilated her pupils were. When she spoke again her voice came out as a soft confession, "You don't know how afraid I've been all this time, that when everyone returned home I'd find that you'd all been infected as well. Or, worse, that you had been since the beginning and I just never knew how to perceive it until now. But as soon as you began to play I could hear that I should never have been worried to begin with." She covered his hand with hers, pressing it back down against El Diablo's strings. "Please don't stop yet."
Well, he thought as he started to play again, making her sigh softly at the first note, it was something. Even if her lust was over music instead of Muds himself, he could work with that. When it came to Noodle, and only Noodle, he wasn't quite enough of a sleazy creep to push her into any revelations she wasn't quite ready for yet (well, maybe he might get his hands on a copy of My Body, My Self and toss it into her room, but that could just as well be to see her through any girly puberty issues that a house full of men pushing middle-aged would be ill-equipped to help her with), but sooner or later she'd work out what it meant when she started getting tingly in her trousers all on her own, and if she associated those feelings with Murdoc... well.
And in the meantime all he'd need to do was make sure that she never had a chance to listen in on 2D or Russel having a private jam session.