Three years, eight months, six days ago:
Murdoc Niccals hated it when the money tried to get involved with the band.
"Hazardous environment?" he snarled, kicking some junk Russel had left in the middle of the lounge – one of the weird contraptions he kept making and dumping. "You don't know what you're talking about."
The producer – Mr Jenkins – one of Danger Mouse's associates, partners, or possibly financers, swept a disbelieving look around the room as he straightened his expensive looking suit. Jumped up little turd.
"Mr Niccals, the fallout after your little..." he grimaced, "appearance...on Mtv Cribs is very serious," he said, a frown on his puffy face. He couldn't be more than five foot three, and was almost spherical in shape. It was like someone had stuck a mini mitchelin man into an Armani suit. "To say you showed yourself and the band in a poor light is an understatement. We're being bothered by all the wrong people, all wanting a piece of you, and as it is, you'll get ripped to shreds. This place is outright dangerous! I had to run from a troupe of purple undead apes, take down a gibbering zombie, and ward off a demon just to get through your reception," he said. He had one of those annoying, undulating accents – West Country, Irish...or maybe Welsh. They all sounded the same to Murdoc.
"Aw, that's nothing," Murdoc said, going to the sofa to remove one of his stashed bottles of vodka from under the cushions. "That's just a bit of character to keep you on your toes, that's all. And they're better than any guard dog on the market, I can tell you..."
"It's no safer inside," Jenkins sniffed. "I'm amazed one of you hasn't broken your neck already, trying to move around all this clutter and mayhem."
Murdoc made a non-committal growl, as he wrenched off the bottle cap and knocked back a slug of the vodka, silently praying that the dullard didn't stagger out anytime soon in his neck brace. The stupid twat had gone and given himself a hair line fracture in a vertebrae from going arse over tit over another of Russel's abandoned 'instruments'.
"Tell me, Mr Niccals, would you be able to actually find anything in this hovel?" Jenkins said with a sneer. "Everything seems to be in utter chaos, and a band that's in chaos is not a band that does well."
"It's done us alright so far, hasn't it?" Murdoc said, slitting his eyes as he swilled a mouthful of the paint-stripper strength alcohol around his gums.
Better than Listerine, this stuff was.
The door slid open, and his chest hitched, briefly panicking that it would be a drugged up and injured 2D staggering in to give the suited twat more ammunition for his self-righteous bollocking.
Fortunately, it was just Noodle.
Unfortunately, Jenkins had something to say about her, as well.
"And that's another thing," the fat little man said, pointing a stout finger at Noodle, who looked at him blankly from under her bangs. "Why isn't she in some form of schooling?"
Noodle looked to Murdoc. Her look plainly said, "Who is this fool?"
Murdoc shrugged, and let out a snigger, knocking back another swig.
"We're a busy band," he explained, slowly, like one would to a child. "There's no point sending her off to school. With all the touring and practising we do, she'd end up missing most of it."
"Yes, but why, in all the five years she's been in your care, is there no record of a tutor being employed? That's what you are supposed to do in these sorts of situations. You can't just leave her uneducated!"
"Noodle don't need a tutor, do you sweetheart?" Murdoc said, pulling out a packet of cigarettes from his jeans pocket. "Girl's a bloody genius, isn't she? She teaches herself, or, something like that."
Jenkins looked to the teen guitarist.
"Do you?" he said, not looking convinced.
Noodle considered this for a moment, then shrugged her skinny shoulders, and left for the kitchen.
Well that was just fucking brilliant, Murdoc thought darkly. Thanks for that darlin', thanks a bloody bunch.
Jenkins made a foreboding sound.
"I'm not convinced, Mr Niccals," he said. "And may I ask, have you always smoked, consumed alcohol and wandered around half naked in front of her?"
Murdoc released a cloud of smoke in the little man's direction.
"Yeah, so?"
"If social services ever find that out, we are all going to be in deep shit," muttered Jenkins, pulling his blackberry out from his suit.
"Aw, come on," Murdoc snarled, putting the vodka down on the last clear space of the desktop. "What kind of shit is that? She's fine, isn't she?"
"The thing about child stars, Mr Niccals, is that the public, no matter how much they love them, are always waiting for them to go off the rails. It seems to me that, as her guardian, you're hardly setting a good example for the girl," Jenkins said, eying Murdoc up and down with something close to a sneer on his pudgy little face. "When she gets caught necking down pills and alcohol and tumbling out of nightclubs in a state, you're going to be the first person the fans blame."
As he spoke, he punched a number into his phone, and brought the chunky device to his ear.
"No, no, no," Murdoc said, squaring his shoulders and stepping forward menacingly to the smaller man. "What do you think you're doing. Who are you calling, eh?"
"I'm setting you up with one of my contacts, Mr Niccals," Jenkins said, holding up one finger to shush the cranky bassist. "I've used her to help clean up some of the more volatile bands before, and she's bloody excellent at sorting them out."
"You're calling in a manager?" Murdoc said, spitting the last word out like it was poison. "Fuck that. This is my shittin' band – no one 'cleans it up' but me, alright?"
Jenkins scowled, and flapped his hand at Murdoc, trying to cow him into silence as someone picked up the phone on the other end.
"Aw, hello lovely," he said, "how's everything with you, alright?"
"I'm serious, you fat little tosspot, if you try and bring some bitch in to boss us around, I will drop kick your sheep-shagging arse into the middle of next century," Murdoc growled, bending down so that his snarling face drew level with Jenkins'.
The little man's nose wrinkled at the stench of Murdoc's breath, and he backed away.
"Hang on a second, luv," he said into the phone, before covering the mouthpiece with his hand. "Mr Niccals, you are over-reacting and behaving completely inappropriately. I do not appreciate being spoken to like that, nor do I appreciate casual racial abuse,"
'Ha!' Murdoc thought 'So I was right, the bastard is Welsh...'
"You will co-operate, and do what I say, or I will make it my personal business to see that you get dropped from your label, and that no one else will dare touch you. Are we clear?"
A short, silent battle of wills panned out between the two men. The muscles under Murdoc's left, discoloured eye twitched, in a spasm of anger, and with a snarl, he stalked back to his vodka, watching the little Welshman with a dark glower as he finished hiring the unwanted help.
"Sorry about that, luv...So the reason I'm calling is, I've got a new job for you. It's going to be a bit of a big one I'm afraid, but if anyone can manage it, it'll be you. It's a live-in project I think, so long as you're feeling brave enough..."
"She's not moving in!" Murdoc snapped, earning himself a warning finger wave from Jenkins.
There was a silence as a feminine buzz chattered through the phone.
"Well, alright, if you say so. I'm sure the commute won't be too difficult, but I think you'll change your mind when you see this place. It's a round the clock job, in my opinion..."
Noodle resurfaced from the kitchen – by the amount of food she had piled up in her arms, she was planning to pay a visit to 2D. Since his accident, the axe-princess had placed herself in the role of house nurse, bringing him food, drinks, and as many horror films as she could find to keep him occupied and convince him to rest up.
"Murdoc-san," she said, "Russel-san is in the kitchen, trying to nail an aardvark to the oven with a cocktail umbrella and a boot. You might want to try and stop him."
"Ta, chicken," Murdoc said, keeping his dark glare fixed on the producer. "Do us a favour, pet –" he added in a lower tone, "Tell Face-ache not to come out of his room until I give the all clear, mmmkay?"
"Hai," Noodle said, as she turned around to press the down lift button with one bony hip.
"Okay, if you can get all your loose ends tied up by the end of the week, then you can come and get started over here on Monday..." Jenkins said into the phone. "Okay...okay, that's wonderful...okay...take care, m'love – I'll speak to you soon."
He pulled the phone from his ear, and rang off.
"Right Mr Niccals, now you're behaving like an adult, maybe we can talk through this rationally."
Murdoc just glared, and took another swig of vodka.
"My associate, Ms Nonce, is not a manager as such, she's an organiser. Think of her more as a personal assistant...just a personal assistant who does the stuff that needs to be done, rather than the things she is told to do. I'm hiring her to get Kong Studios in order, not your precious band."
Murdoc grunted. It still wasn't a very welcome change, the thought of some bint rifling around Kong, moving things around and taking out all the personality the band had spent so long cultivating wasn't an attractive one...but at least it wasn't as bad as he'd first thought.
"Don't look so down, Mr Niccals, I'm sure you'll all get along lovely. She's also has teacher training, so she'll be able to do some one on one tutoring with Miss..."Jenkins struggled to remember the guitarists last name, then realised she didn't have one. "Noodle, and just make sure that there aren't any holes in her knowledge. And it will go on record that you've got her a tutor, and so everyone will be happy."
Murdoc wanted to wipe the smug smile from the fat bastard's face, but instead, he gritted his teeth, and tried to return it.
"Uh...lovely..."he said, running his tongue over his teeth, "We'll see."
"I mean it Mr Niccals – we're going to have to do a lot of damage control with the press. If this place isn't looking efficient and respectable – or at least habitable, especially for a child, you're going to be in for a shit-storm, and it won't be worth it for us to bail you out. The Gorillaz will be over. You get it? O-V-E-R."
"Yeah, yeah," Murdoc hissed, rolling his eyes. "I heard you the first time. Just get out, alright? I'll let your sodding woman come and tidy up if it makes you happy, just tell her to stay out of my way, alright?"
Jenkins had started to gather up his things, and was already heading towards the door. Murdoc raised his voice to a shout so that he'd still be heard.
"You're just wasting her time and your money, you know!"
There was a resounding slam as the front door was shoved shut. With any luck, the twat would get caught by either a zombie or the gorilla hoard on his way back to the car. That would teach him to come and poke his greasy nose in where it wasn't wanted.
Murdoc watched the fat little turd's descent down the dark, demon infested hill to his waiting car, and snarled in annoyance when he made it unscathed.
He threw the vodka bottle onto the sofa, ignoring the remaining contents leaking out onto the cushions. Let the glorified cleaning lady deal with it when she got her backside over here.
Murdoc now had two things to go and do: tell 2D he was allowed to leave his room again, and stop Russel from turning their cooking utensils into weird, amorphous masses that not even the insane drummer would be able to think of a use for.
The question was, which one should he do first...?
AN: So yeah - this was as much as I'd written before it got abandoned in favour of actual work... I have the next bit of backstory half done (needs tweaking), but I can't decide whether that should be the next chapter, or whether I should do another Phase Three chunk... :\
Opinions will be listened to. Seriously...I'm not even two chapters in, and my inner-organizer has declared this fic a lost cause. :P
Also, as far as Noodle goes, my knowledge of Japanese customs, language and ettiquette (a.k.a my flatmate's on/off girlfriend) up and outed to the other side of the world, so I'm officially clueless. If I'm doing anything wrong with Noodle, someone please say!