So then it was Christmas.

Murdoc awoke in his winne the next morning in front of his TV. Murdoc shivered, it had gotten considerably colder since yesterday. He put on a shirt, which happened to cover his inverted cross necklace, and left his winne. He then rode the lift upstairs.

The first thing Murdoc noticed was that it was quiet. Murdoc felt a pang of loneliness as he realized that he'll be in Kong all alone for the next week. But whatever. What did he need the others for, anyway? They're missing out on a week of band practice. When they get back, they'll probably need hours to warm up. Not him, though. He'll be ready to go right from the start. Murdoc chuckled at the idea of besting his friends at something.

Murdoc went into the living room and found a bottle of vodka on the table with a big red bow tied around it sitting on the coffee table. He picked it up and noticed a card attached to the bottle as well. It read, "Merry Christmas, Muds!-Russel"

Murdoc scoffed and opened the bottle. With any luck he could send himself into an alcohol induced coma until his fellow band mates returned. Merry Christmas to him. He took a swig of Vodka and was about to head back to his winne when he heard the lift door open. Noodle scampered into the living room and sat down on the couch.

"Noodle?" Murdoc looked at the small girl, puzzeled. "Wot're you doin' here?"

Noodle shrugged as she flipped through channels, "Live here."

Murdoc flopped onto the couch next to her. "I know that. But it's Christmas."

"So?"

"I thought Russel was going to send you home to Japan for the holidays, ya know, to spend time with family and shit like that."

"Said no. No celebrate Christmas. No remember family."

Murdoc looked at Noodle. He had forgotten that she didn't really have a family or celebrate Christmas either. Murdoc put the vodka down and looked at the tv. "So, whatcha watchin?"

"Anime."

"The hell's anime?"

Noodle pointed to the TV. The show that was on looked way too bright and colorful, and was in Japanese. Just looking at it gave Murdoc a headache. But hey, he had nothing better to do. So much for his coma.

He sat back on the couch next to Noodle and tried to watch this "anime", taking the occasional sip of vodka to help better understand what was happening.

After a few hours worth of episodes, Murdoc had run out of vodka, and decided that that was enough of that. "That's it, I ain't watshin any more of this crap." he turned to Noodle and spoke again. "So what is it that people usually do on Christmas?"

Noodle shrugged, "I dunno."

Murdoc got up from the couch and picked up Noodle. "I say we go out, buy more vodka, graffiti the nearest building, and waste money, just the two fo us, what do you*hic*say?"

Noodle blinked and pointed to Murdoc, "You're drunk."

"Damn right I'm drunk! But yeah...yeah yur roight. No good goin' out like this. Any other ideas?"

Noodle smiled and scampered off to her room. She soon returned with a piece of paper and handed it to Murdoc. "For you!" She said.

Murdoc attempted to focus his eyes on the paper, but was far too drunk to make heads or tails of it. Additionally, Noodle was also not the best artist in the world. Fortunately, Murdoc was also far too drunk to care.

"This's beatiful! Really somethin! Truly represents the, the uh...disease of industialism's effect on humanity. Really quite nice." Murdoc let out a loud burp.

Noodle, who could barely understand english normally, let alone whatever words Murdoc was choking out in this drunken stupor, assumed that he liked it and giggled.

For the next few hours, Murdoc continued watching MTV while Noodle played on her Gameboy. Eventually, Noodle tugged on Murdoc's pants. "I'm hungry."

"Hiya hungry, I'm Murdoc." Murdoc burst into laughter and Noodle made a confused face. Oh right, Murdoc thought, English puns don't make quite as much sense to a Japanese kid. But Murdoc had sobered up enough to notice his stomach grumbling as well. "Hm, looks you're right kid. Time to find some food."

The two walked into the kitchen and looked around for something to eat. There was nothing exciting in the cabinets. Murdoc made a mental note to tell Russel to go shopping when he came back.

Noodle opened the fridge and smiled, "Tabemono!"

Murdoc, having no idea what 'tabemono' meant, looked into the fridge as well.

"Score!" Murdoc said. In the fridge were various tupperware containers filled with a pre-cooked Christmas dinner.

There was another note on the pile of containers. "Made a little too much food for my trip and thought you might get hungry.-Russel"

Murdoc shoved the containers in the microwave. He looked around for some utensils, but found none.

"We don't need forks, do we?" Murdoc asked Noodle. Noodle smiled and shook her head no.

"Good."

Murdoc and Noodle began to dig in to the food Russel had left for them with their hands. Despite being microwaved, Russel's cooking tasted just as good as it usually does.

"Murdoc-san," Noodle said in between bites, "Why aren't you home for holidays?"

Murdoc laughed, "I don't have a home. I live in the Winnebago downstairs."

Noodle tilted her head, "No family?"

"Nah, I gots family alright. Bunch a' bastards." Murdoc said as he took a bite of turkey.

"Do not understand."

Don't know what bastard means yet, eh kid? Murdoc thought, Good. Let's keep it that way. "Well, I do have a family but, er, I don't know where they are. I uh, got lost when I was younger, and I haven't seen 'em since." There, that was almost the truth.

"Just like Noodle?" She asked.

"Uh, yeah, just like you I guess."

"Was Murdoc-san's family nice?"

Murdoc looked at the young guitarist, debating how to answer that. he did not particularly feel like sharing the horrors of his youth with Noodle on Christmas day, so instead he tried lying.

"Yeah, they were okay I guess...Point is, we don't need family tying us down. We have Gorillaz now, and that's all we need."

Noodle, satisfied with that answer, agreed and went back to eating.

Later that night, Murdoc was sitting on the couch, with Noodle beside him, on her Gameboy. It was around 9pm, Noodle's usual bedtime, but Murdoc was never one to enforce the bedtime rule. Around a half hour later, Murdoc felt a soft thump on his side, and noticed that Noodle had fallen asleep and was now partially laying on top of him.

Murdoc raised an eyebrow, debating whether to push her off or not. Deciding against it, he took the Gameboy from her hands, shifted into a more comfortable position, and decided to go to sleep himself.

Around 11pm, Murdoc awoke to the sound of a knock on the door. He normally would have just yelled "Fuck off!" and gone back to sleep, but he didn't want to wake Noodle. Murdoc carefully moved away from the small girl and got up to answer it.

On his way to the door, he briefly wondered who would be at the door this late at night. Kong never got too many visitors, mostly due to all the zombies and ghosts. And at 11pm on Christmas day? Something was definitely off. Murdoc shrugged off any worry. He could probably take anyone who would try and cause him any harm. And if not, he had a little 10 year old ninja in the other room. He would be fine.

Murdoc opened the door and immediately regretted that last thought.

On the other side of the door were two people Murdoc Niccals knew all too well. The two people that have haunted his nightmares for as long as he could remember.

"'Ello Murdoc." his father greeted him. Murdoc attempted to slam the door on them. But Jacob Sebastian Niccals stuck his foot in the doorway. "Now, what kind of welcome is that for your dear old Dad?"

"Forget it Dad, he's not going to let us in." Murdoc's brother Hannibal said as he flipped his hair out of his eyes and crossed his arms. Jacob glared at him.

Murdoc had not talked to his family in a good number of years. For good reason. He wanted no part of whatever hole they had crawled out of. But, he should have seen this coming. He couldn't run from them forever.

"What are you two doing here?" Murdoc spat. "Come to off me so you can inherit all my money?"

"Of course not Murdoc, you're so dramatic." Jacob said, "And besides, if I wanted you dead you'd be dead already..." He added under his breath.

"So what do you want?"

"Well it's funny," Jacob waved his cane at his son,"Here I was, on Christmas day of all days, cold, alone, in debt, and without a drop of alcohol to be seen." He hunched over and began to shiver and cough, "When who but my dear son Hannibal comes to me like a savior in the night." He grabbed his older son by the shoulders, "He comes to me, and he says 'Father! Oh father! I've found dear brother Murdoc!'"

Murdoc rolled his eyes as his father continued his story, "And I say, 'Murdoc? *cough* Has my precious child finally returned to me after all these years?'"

Murdoc glanced at Hannibal, and could see that his brother seemed to be enjoying this display as little as he was.

"So, Hannibal shows me a picture of you and your band of Monkeys or somesuch, and I thought, why, my sweet son Murdoc has grown up quite nicely! I always knew he would amount to greatness! And must have quite a bit of money now, so as his long lost father, I simply must go to him and assist him in...managing his finances."

Murdoc frowned. That explains it. The second Murdoc became anything coming close to famous, those two show up to mooch off him. He should have seen this coming. Or at least, that would explain why one of them was there. Murdoc turned to Hannibal, "Homeless again, are we?"

Hannibal rolled his eyes, "I'm in between live-in girlfriends, yes."

Murdoc noticed his father walking with a slight limp and pointed to Jacob's cane, "Say, that's new. Someone shoot you?"

Jacob frowned, "Why, yes, actually. I don't get around as much as I used to. All the more reason I need your help, Murdoc."

"So wot is it exactly that you two want?" Murdoc was getting impatient and wanted to go back to sleep.

Jacob put his arm around Murdoc's shoulders, "I thought you'd never ask, lad!" He gestured to his tattered coat, "As you can see, your brother and I have recently fallen on hard times, and I was wondering if my own little boy could provide us with...a little slice of his new life as a celebrity." Jacob dug his nails into Murdoc's shoulder and his voice dropped to a whisper, "You wouldn't deny your old man that, would you? After everything I've done for you?"

Murdoc pulled away from his father. He wasn't going to let this happen. Not again. "Sebastian, there's no way-"

"Ah ah ah!" Jacob looked over his shoulder. "It's Jacob in this neighborhood."

"Wotever. There's no way in 'ell I'm lettin' you two leech of my band like the parasites you are! Now get out of my-!"

"Murdoc-san?" Noodle rubbed her eyes and appeared before Murdoc.

"Why Murdoc!" Jacob smiled widely. He had gotten him now. "How come you never told me I had grandchildren?"

Murdoc snatched Noodle away before his father could lay a hand on her. "You don't. She's not mine, she's in the band."

"Oh!" Jacob bent down to Noodle's eye level. "She must be a talented little lady, then, hm?" Jacob dug in his pockets. He pulled out a small wooden yo-yo and handed it to Noodle. "Here you go, lass, have fun!"

Noodle smiled and took the yo-yo. She spun it around a few times and giggled. She tugged on Murdoc's pant leg. "Murdoc-san's family?"

"Yes!" Jacob said before Murdoc could answer. "My name is Jacob Sebastian Niccals, and this," He grabbed Hannibal's arm and yanked him over, "Is my son Hannibal, Murdoc's brother. We were hoping if we could stay here for a bit. You know, catch up, discuss business, get back on our feet, all that. We hopefully won't stay long. We just missed Murdoc so very much, and we haven't seein him for such a long time, we had to come and visit him. It's Christmas you know, a time for family."

Noodle looked at Jacob, confused. Murdoc sighed, "You're talking too fast, she can't understand you."

Jacob looked down at Noodle, mildly disgusted. "Right." He cleared his throat. "We." He gestured to himself and Hannibal. "Family." He pointed to Murdoc. "We." He gestured to himself and Hannibal once again. "Stay." He pointed to the floor. "Here?" He gestured to all of Kong Studios.

Noodle nodded, "Murdoc-san's family can stay. Then Murdoc-san won't be angry all the time!"

"Well, there we have it! Hannibal, get the bags." Jacob began to walk in before being stopped by Murdoc. "Not so fast. She doesn't get to decide this, I do."

"Come on Murdoc, we both know you're just going to give in eventually." Hannibal said, beginning to get sick of this conversation. "You always do."

Noodle smiled and looked up at Murdoc. "Murdoc-san say he lost family. Now family found!"

Murdoc looked down at Noodle, "You don't get it, these two are some of the worst people you could ever possibly have the misfortune to come into contact with." Murdoc half expected that to set off Jacob and make him go into a blind fury. Insulting him had always done so in the past. But Jacob just looked there, a pleading look in his eye. That was odd.

Noodle pointed up at Murdoc, "But Russu-san say that about you."

"Well, yeah but, that, that's different-" Murdoc stammered. Hannibal chuckled and Murdoc shot him a look.

"Listen Murdoc," Jacob continued, "We just need a place to stay. I assure you that everything that has happened between us will not interfere with this visit."

"Give them chance?" Noodle stared up at Murdoc.

Murdoc sighed deeply, "Fine, wotever. I don't care."

Jacob and Noodle smiled. "Thank you, Murdoc, I really do appreciate it."

Murdoc didn't buy that for a single second. "Follow me." Murdoc grunted as he walked over to one of the guest rooms, closely followed by Jacob, Hannibal, and Noodle.

"You can stay in here. Don't get comfortable."

Jacob nodded, "Thank you again Murdoc...Hm, isn't it a bit late for the girl?"

Murdoc sighed, he had already lost this battle. "You're right. Noodle, get on back ta' bed."

Noodle bowed and waved goodbye to Murdoc's family. She then skipped away to her room.

The second Noodle was out of earshot, Jacob grabbed Murdoc's arm, twisted it behind his back, and forced him up against the nearest wall. "Let's get this out of the way now," He twisted his arm further, causing Murdoc to let out a growl of pain, "Do not get in my way. Understood?" Murdoc grunted in agreement, more out of habit than anything else. Jacob then released his son and dusted off his hands as Murdoc fell to the floor. "Come, Hannibal. It is rather late." Hannibal took their bags and followed his father into the guest room, spitting in Murdoc's direction.

Murdoc leaned against the wall, nursing his newly bruised arm. He had hoped that his past would never come back to haunt him, although he'd always known that that was unrealistic, especially with the type of past he'd had. Looks like there was nothing to do now but suck it up and deal with it. He had to, for Gorillaz's sake.

It was gonna be a long week.