"Dammit, Muds, you're not turning a ten-year-old into a Satanist!"

"I'm not tryin' to, she found that shit on her own – !"

"Aw, guys, 'oore making 'er cry..."

Both men's heads snapped around in her direction, and it was all Noodle could do not to cringe. She'd just wanted to touch that shiny thing Murdoc always wore...it had looked interesting, and it had just been laying out on the coffee table, alone. She hadn't counted on Russell walking in on her examining it in the middle of the living room floor and having an apoplectic fit. She'd just – she hadn't meant to upset anyone. She felt her eyes water with intense humiliation against her will.

And because Murdoc looking at her with his creepily wide-open mismatched eyes and jutting carnivorous teeth was never really something she'd ever liked in and of itself, that really got her going. Her lip quivered and shivered and she bit it, but Murdoc was just so fucking creepy that she couldn't help herself, and a few tears squeezed past her eyelids and rolled down her cheeks. She sniffled a little helplessly, and watched Murdoc blink and lean instinctively away from her, expression uneasy. "Shit. Faceache – fix her or – something."

2D waved his lanky arms around, narrowly missing a nearby lamp and nothing short of panicked. "'oore the one 'oo made 'er cry, you do somfink!"

"I'll bash your bloody fucking face in, yeh useless fuckin' faggot son of a bitch – "

"For Christ's sake, Muds, can you not be such a dick around the kid? "

Noodle watched the exchange a little abashedly, ducking her head and wiping at her cheeks. So far, she had a meager collection of about twelve or so English words she could use without thinking too hard, because she heard them more or less on a daily basis. Fuck was one of them. Bash was another.

She didn't have any clear idea what they were talking about, but Russell yelled at Murdoc a lot, and Russell was nice to her a lot, so...she could assume Russell didn't want her touching Murdoc's things because he didn't like Murdoc? Ah, these people. So complicated.

Well, they weren't looking at her anymore, so that made it easier for her to get her brief crying hitch under control. She watched them silently for about a minute more, up until the point where 2D said something and Murdoc turned to him with his thin olive lips parting and a low guttural hiss issuing from deep in his throat that could only indicate he was moving out of 'irritated' and going into 'kill somebody', and then she gently tugged his sleeve with a soft. "Mudo-kun?"

He whirled on her, and it provided her with great fascination to watch his face slacken from rabidly incensed to taken aback in a second, eyes darting around her face to ascertain if she was still crying. If she concentrated on the lavender one it wasn't so bad; almost pretty. His lips twisted and jerked convulsively a couple of times before he addressed her. "Eh, fuck, yeh. What."

She held his strange necklace out to him, glancing quickly at Russell to see his reaction. "I sorry. I give. No mine, yes?"

He accepted it gingerly, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly with his other hand. "Um. Yeah. Sure."

"Is okay?"

"...sho'. Is okay."

She turned to Russell next, because he still looked superbly pissed and she didn't like any of her new family being superbly pissed. It was inevitable most of the time, but. "No mad at Mudo-kun. My. Me." She broke off, frustrated, then pointed at the Satan cross, still held in one of Murdoc's stocky hands. "Pretty."

For some reason Murdoc's lips curved sinuously into a slow smile in a way she'd only ever seen Murdoc manage to do, tongue curling out to run amusedly over his overly sharp teeth. "Oh, yeah. Pretty, she said, Lards. Guess I'm not the only one with some fuckin' taste around here after all – "

Russel's meaty fist shot out to crunch into his jaw before he'd even finished the sentence, and Noodle was left to tilt her head and wonder what he'd said.

Mmm. Never thought I'd write a Gorillaz fanfic. I forgot how much I obsessively love Murdoc's tongue.