For this Chapter:

Character(s), Pairing(s): Murdoc, Noodle

Rating: T

Warnings: language

Chapter Summary: Sometimes, there is too much happening in too little space with too few minutes, and sometimes, sometimes, Murdoc just can't do it. [Phase 2]

A/N: Thank you to PaigeK9 who is the mostly loveliest lovely to ever be lovely, she's a doll, if you like Rick and Morty go follow her! Enjoy, lovelies~!

THIRTY-ONE: I've Seen Their Worlds

Noodle doesn't remember, really, really remember, the last time she saw Murdoc cry. She's not even sure she's really seen him cry at all. Maybe a tear or two when he's stubbed his toe super hard and he bit his tongue trying not to swear and that's just a biological reaction, that happens. She broke her finger once, and didn't cry, but then banged her knee on the counter and cried for like an hour. Sometimes it's the stuff that doesn't really hurt that hurts the most and sometimes you just gotta cry it out, so she doesn't really count it as crying.

So she's not even sure she's seen Murdoc cry, and if she did, she doesn't remember it. Which is why she thinks she hasn't, because she'd have remembered seeing it if she had, surely. It's not the kind of thing you forget, when you see the main man himself shed a tear or three because Bambi's mum died, or he's feeling existential terror over a deal he may or may not have made.

Oh, hush up, Noodle, you're talking yourself in circles.

Well, anyway, she hasn't seen Murdoc crying, but she's seen him get up on the wrong side of the bed plenty. He's always that little bit on edge, and that's fine, sometimes, he's on edge. She's learnt, over the years, to deal with it. He's a very private man, as much as he wanders around topless and tells everybody every single thing that happens to him. He's private, keeps it all bottled inside. She guesses that's a product of his upbringing, of his having to keep his trap shut lest his brother start stubbing out cigarettes on his nancy-boy ass or some other violence. Murdoc's quiet when she meets him in the car; they've got to update her wardrobe again, she's had a growth spurt, and Russel is down with the flu and 2D can't drive, so it's up to ole Uncle Murdoc (Dad, Noodle will admit to herself, he's the closest to a Dad that she has, and it's a very different kind of Dad to what Russel is, but her name is technically Niccals so she is technically Family, and God that kicked up such a fuss! She doesn't think much of it these days, but she remembers all the same, and she lets herself admit such things as familial attachment. It keeps her sane, as much as she wants to dropkick Murdoc's face into the next century) to help her obtain said wardrobe upgrades.

His knuckles are white on the wheel as he drives them down into London, his jaw constantly working with well-chewed gum. He doesn't smoke in the car any more, a blazing row about it with her just after they'd reunited, and he'd put a stop to it. He's good like that. Makes the little attempts.

It counts for something, she supposes.

She watches him as he drives, gives up on making small talk. Murdoc is in his Quiet Mood, which means talking is mostly right out; nightmares, she guesses, or some conversation or another that he's had in the last few hours that have put him out. He gets like this, and in his more responsible, sensible moments of wise thought and introspection, he might even willingly admit it's his anxiety, it's his neurotic inability to process his emotions and present them in a socially acceptable way. Noodle looks at him, and he reminds her that he's a doctor.

'I know how brains work,' he tells her. 'Brains and chemicals and all the ways it goes tits-up. I know about that, love. I'm not just talking out of my arse.'

Noodle makes a comment about how he'd be a more productive member of society if he did talk out of his arse, and he snorts, and seems to cheer up a little.

But today is not one of his introspective days, so she doesn't get an explanation for his quietness today, and that's fine. This is what Murdoc's like, and she's used to it. They drive quietly from the estate, and Murdoc runs over a wandering zombie. Noodle cheers, hollers about the points, but Murdoc doesn't even smile. He could have smiled, if he chose, she thinks, because there are creases around his mouth, but he decided against it. Determined to be miserable then, she guesses.

Weirdo.

They get to London and Murdoc has cheered enough to answer her questions, and ask his own about what she wants.

'Do you need any tampons or anything?' he asks, 'might as well get everything while we're here, hey?'

Noodle trots around the side of the car and slots her hand into his. He squeezes.

'No,' she says, 'Russ got some with the last grocery shop, so I'm all good, thank you.'

He nods, and they head up from the parking lot and into the shopping centre, and he lets her lead him to the stores she wants to go.

'I'm just the bank,' he laughs, and she skips a little to keep pace with him.

It's been a while, but his legs are still longer than hers. And his pace is faster, his whole body itching with the weight of something he won't tell her about. She glances up at him in the first store, and he pulls out a T-shirt, some punny slogan across the front, and he offers it to her.

'Ha-ha,' she chuckles, but it's not really a laugh, 'I like it.'

He nods, a rough jerk of his head, and then he continues down the row of clothes, chewing on his lip. Noodle looks at the T-shirt in her hands, and then trots after him. As she points at something on the top rail, a cool and offensively colourful jacket that she can't reach, something flashes behind them. Murdoc freezes completely, doesn't even breathe. Noodle whirls on her heel, making a chalkboard sound as the rubber squeaks on the vinyl, but she sees nobody. She waits, and waits, and waits, but sees nobody. So she turns back to Murdoc, and reminds him that he's got to get the jacket down, gently, like she's coaxing a feral animal.

Murdoc is still for a second, and then finishes the action, gets the jacket and passes it to her.

She trots off, once they've got a suitable amount of clothes, to try them on, coming out every minute or so to model the fitting and better items she's found. She's starting to find her style, to find enjoyment in the wildness of the clothing options presented to her, and she's eager to show them off to the still black-clad, torn-jean, old rocker look that Murdoc has sported for the years that she's known him.

He approves of everything, but his eyes are elsewhere. She jams herself back into her clothes, and they head for the tills, his hand gripping hers tight enough to make her knuckles ache.

Another flash, and Murdoc bears his teeth, hunkers down over the keypad for his credit card. Noodle yanks the bag off the counter, and they make their escape as soon as his card's free of processing. She tosses a 'thank you' over her shoulder. Murdoc is holding her wrist.

They duck and dive through the throng of people, into busy stores where they can blend. Noodle needs underwear, but the only decent underwear store that isn't for the, ah, provocative lass, is fucking empty.

Murdoc looks at her like she's just kicked him in the nuts. She murmurs an apology, squeezes his hand and promises to be as quick as she can but she needs to get her bra refitted. Murdoc tries to make himself very small in the corner while he waits.

One of the girls – woman, really, easily in her late forties with grey hairs coming at her temples – takes Noodle into the fitting room, and leaves him be with a gentle smile. She won't say nothing, and that's fine by him. He wants to crawl out of his skin, and Noodle's is itching to get him home, as fast as possible. She tells the woman to hurry up.

The bell on the door chimes. Then it chimes again. Noodle turns, and the tape measure shifts. The woman tuts, and tugs her back into a straight arms-up position.

Murdoc barks something outside the fitting room, and Noodle forgoes the bra, shoving her jersey and her gillet back on, barrelling out of the fitting room, and hitting a photographer in the fucking face. Serves him right. Murdoc is hollering, and she pauses for a second, debates who to leap on. They're about to fight, and she has to stop someone.

'Murdoc!' she crows, and he glances at her.

He's grey, eyes wide and wild, and there's a tear in his lip, chewed straight through. She kicks a photographer in the shin, throws two fingers up so that all photos are unsellable – it's a good trick he taught her, fuck the paparazzi – and makes her way under his arm, feels the weight of him on her shoulder. He's exhausted, shivering.

'Get out of my way,' she snarls, and the paps stare at her.

They take photos. She wonders if Murdoc is losing his mind, it looks like Murdoc is losing his mind.

'Out of my way!' she bellows when nobody moves.

In the end, she kicks a pap in the knee and sends him stumbling, and drags Murdoc through the gap provided and out of the store.

'C'mon,' she urges, and Murdoc just stares blankly at her.

He's processing the words, but his thoughts and actionable abilities are completely separate. He can think fifteen thousand things, but he can't do anything with it.

She manages to get him out of that section of the centre, into the food hall, where there is so much bustle and so many people that they disappear in the throng, any dad and his daughter. Murdoc grips the back of her neck, and his nails hurt, but she hooks her finger through his belt loop and lets him direct her through the crowds, skirting around a Greek food stall and ducking under a low hanging sign for pizzeria, and then he abruptly stops, gets half the sound of her name out, and then throws up, right there and then on the floor. It's not the first time he's done something like this, and Noodle, a few years ago, when she was little, and didn't understand such things, she would have cried, and cried, and cried, and tried to hold him. Now she grabs his hand and yanks, dragging him as fast as she can through the hall until they're out in the (debatably) fresh air of the smoke shelter out the back.

Murdoc stands there heaving for breath, and then throws up again.

Noodle tries on her new coat, with its neon colours and patches and true fashion tragedy. It's not even a disaster, it's just a tragedy. She loves it.

(2D will later complement her on such a wonderful choice in jacket, and she'll flush to her hairline and giggle and hate herself for it.)

For now she's watching Murdoc as he scrapes his mouth and breathes hard through his nose and tries to get at least some semblance of his usual bravado back.

'What did you see?' she asks, because Noodle is older, but she's not old enough to keep her mouth shut just yet. 'In your dreams.'

She knows that Murdoc dreams, has heard his screams and his cries, but he doesn't talk about it. He's in a Quiet Mood, but it's gone way past Quiet Mood now, this is something else. This is his anxiety peaking in a way she's never seen it peak before, and he looks stricken when he turns to her, like he wants, desperately, to tell her, but the words catch on his tongue and he makes a choking noise that sounds like her name.

Without a word she dumps her bags on the floor and hugs him, holds him tight and he buries his face in her neck and sobs. They stand there silently for several minutes, and she rubs his back. She has never seen Murdoc cry before, and she never wants to see it again. But she keeps her mouth shut, because she's not that naïve, and settles instead for shushing him quietly, letting his cigarette and sweat and vomit smell fill her nose.

When he's done, when he's pulling away and sniffling and still grey, but blotched red with sore eyes and bloody lips, she looks at him with concern, stern but genuine.

'Home?' she asks.

Murdoc swallows, audible and reactive. He nods.

'Please,' he says, 'I'm – ' His breath hitches, like he's about to start crying again, like he's panicking. He shuts his eyes, forces himself to breathe. 'I'm – I need to go back to bed, haha, must have – I must have not slept right! All these late nights, haha, I'm getting too old now, little dove, I'm getting too old.'

She frowns at him, but tries to smile at the joke.

He doesn't smile back, and she continues to frown, but goes to get the bags and holds his hand as they slip through the food hall as quickly as possible, running down the escalator to get back to the car park. They don't say a word, but they don't need to, she knows where they're going, and he doesn't seem able to talk much.

Back in the safety of the car, he takes a deep breath, two, three. He lights a cigarette. She doesn't argue with him.

On the road, about halfway home, he veers off without indicating into a side-road, some dingy little country lane with more potholes than designated path, and pulls over in a passing place. He gets out of the car and stands in the middle of the road and stares at the sky. Noodle lets him, stays in the car, watching him quietly through the open driver's door, watching as he contemplates whatever he's contemplating. He doesn't come back in after a few minutes, so she unbuckles herself and gets out too, goes and stands in the road with him, with her ostentatious coat and his bat belt buckle.

'What did you dream?' she asks again, quiet.

'You were dead,' he tells her, serious, and his red eye is blazing, a flickering fire lapping at her soul.

She has heard 2D talk of his eye doing that, of it being the gateway to a hell they fear, but she has never seen it. She wonders if it's her imagination; she blinks, and it is gone. She blinks again, and it is back.

'I'm not going to die,' she tells him. 'I'm here, aren't I? Gorillaz is forever! You sold your soul for this, we aren't going anywhere.'

He doesn't look convinced, and looks at the sky again.

'Murdoc,' she says, grabs his hands. He looks at her, and he looks so sad, so scared. She nearly cries herself. 'Murdoc, listen to me. There is – there are other things, right? Other things I have to do in this life. I have – I have my mission. But I won't die. I promise. Nothing you do, and nothing anybody else ever does, that will never ever kill me. I promise.'

He nods, but she can tell he's not believing her, not really. He wants to, desperately, but he doesn't dare. He's believed before, and been bitten for it.

'Besides,' she says, 'if anything did happen to me, you'd come for me, wouldn't you? You'd come find me, if someone took me, if something happened. I'm the best guitarist you've ever had, you wouldn't let me just rot in hell for nothing.'

It's a bad joke, and he smiles, but it's grim, and his eyes are red-raw.

'No,' he says, 'no I wouldn't. I'd damn myself to get you out of hell, Noods, you know I would. You and Dee and Russ, you're all I've got. I wouldn't lose any of you.'

She squeezes his hands.

'Then promise me,' she says, 'promise me that if anything happens, you'll come for me.'

He looks at her, and she wonders if she's making a deal with the devil.

'I promise,' he says, and his palms burn hot.

She jerks her hands back, and his eyes burn like coals for a single heartbeat, and then something in the air around him changes, something in his soul seems to change. He's a little bit more Murdoc then, a little bit more him. He cracks his neck and rubs his head, and looks at her like she's gone entirely out of her head.

'Well,' he says, clears his throat. He looks sad. 'We'd better, uh. We'd better get home, hey? NO doubt 2D will be wondering where we've got to, and you've got to have that whatever rematch with the spinning tops.'

She's climbing back into the car and says, 'Beyblades, Murdoc, they're called Beyblades.'

'Hogswash,' he replies, and drops into his seat.

They don't talk about his – his – whatever that was, whatever he saw that induced such panic at the sight of paparazzi that he ended up throwing up, they don't talk about it for the rest of the drive home. Her palms itch, so she rubs them on her jeans. He goes straight to the Winnebago when they get back to Kong, and she seeks out Russ for some reassurance and to warn him of the paparazzi. Then she goes back to the Winnebago and knocks and knocks and knocks and knocks and knocks until Murdoc answers, in a T-shirt and his boxers, looking like hell.

'I'm tired,' she says, and Murdoc heaves a sigh.

He steps aside. Noodle kicks off her shoes and climbs into the bed. Murdoc shuts the door and tucks himself in against her side.

'Nobody ever asks,' he grouses as they fidget into a comfortable position. It's three in the afternoon. 'No, just help yourself to Murdoc's bed, yes of course. Just help yourself, it's not like he sleeps in it or anything.'

Noodle shifts her head to free her hair, rests her hand on his heart, beating steady beneath her palm.

'Shut up,' she says.

He shuts up, and soon starts snoring. They sleep like that until morning.

NOTES::

Title from Broken.

This one completely ran away from me, it was meant to be an introspective into Murdoc's completely and totally irreversibly damaged psyche but then I guess El Manana repeated too many times.

The underwear shop they're in is probably La Senzabecause Noodle is too objectively too young for Ann Summers and Murdoc has standards. Sort of.

Thanks for reading, lovelies~!