Author's Notes: Been a while hasn't it? I'm sorry, things have been immensely hectic – but I won't bore you with that! Without wasting any more time here is the second chapter! But first, Nerd Girl 1, tewdee, , makoto4ever, Cheyenne and lovely Guest – you and everyone else who has read are all babes ;)
"What's up with you today?" comments Sam, watching me over the table in the canteen, suspiciously. It's cold out, as bloody usual, meaning I'm clutching a paper cup full of tea and staring out of the window at the billowing clouds, enjoying the melancholic chill it brings me. His words cause the others at the table – the few friends I'd been able to make in my time here – to look up from their fish and chips and pay minds to me.
"Nothing's up! Why?"
"You're being more quiet than usual... aaand you didn't say anything when Tasha walked past." The excentuated way he says he name causes a collective laugh from the others as my face turns as hot as my tea.
"Shut up."
"Aw, upset cause you missed 'er?" He suddenly goes silent and lowers his face back to his fried food, as do the rest of the boys on that side of the table.
"Wha-" I turn around and see Tasha, soft blue eyes staring out of her blonde cropped hair. She was chewing her lip nervously, shifting her weight from one foot to another.
"Hi, Stu." She says quietly.
"Uh, a'right, Tash? Hows it going?"
"Yeh, good thanks."
"Cool." There's a difficult silence between us, one shared by the fellow students in direct view of the situation. I start to VERY slowly turn back around with a polite smile before she quickly jabbers: "So, you going to the party tonight?"
There was a party tonight?
"Yeh, he's going." pipes in Sam before my sluggish brain can come up with a response.
"Great! I'll... see you there?"
"See ya there."
She scampers back to her table, grinning sheepishly. Tension relieved, everyone went back to their regular chatter.
"I am, am I?" I say to Sam, eyebrows raised. He gives me a punch on the arm.
"Unless you wanna be a virgin forever, yes, Stu."
I grinned – laughed and tried to act as though what he said hadn't affected me. But it did – I was fifteen and hadn't even started to think about... THAT. Or even who I'd do it with – although Sam seemed pretty certain he'd decided my eternal sex mate.
"So where is this party then?"
Sam half smiled, knowing he's won.
"It's a night club. You wouldn't know it – I think I've got a map in my bag though?"
A map? Weirdo.
(Everlong – Foo Fighters)
Everybody in sight was completely blitzed.
The loud music shook the bricked walls and floor of the vamped up warehouse, a rhythmic earth quake throwing high teenagers into the air along with the beat. One moment it was dark, like a cave, with all the fluorescent items in the room (beads, glow sticks, stolen police jackets) lighting up like glow worms; then it would all illuminate in bolts of green and pink and blue turning people's skin and hair strange colours depending on where in the room they were dancing.
"Get a move on, mate! She's waiting." Sam yelled, clutching onto one of my shoulders to get his balance back and almost dragging me to the floor. The "she" he was referring to was Tash, dressed in a silver sequinned dress that reflected the multicoloured flashes, edging closer and closer to me as the song progressed. I slyly looked over my shoulder to take her in. Yes, she was pretty and yes, I fancied her. But something felt wrong...
"Hi." She'd snuck up behind me.
"Oh, hi there Tash." I stutter as I turn around quickly, almost knocking her over.
"I was thinking... maybe you want to dance?" She moved a little closer, if that was possible, making it very easy to smell her hair – it wasn't soft how I'd expected it to be, but spicy like chillies and cinnamon.
"I'm really not good at dancing-"
Like a bullet firing she replied, "We could do something else."
My brain drew blank. "Like... sit down?"
She didn't say anything, but gave a coy smile that didn't suit her pretty features. She took hold of my hand and roughly pulled me towards the door. My heart was racing as I understood what she meant and everything began to spin. This was what I wanted wasn't it? This is what every teenage boy strived for.
As she pulled me, I searched the crowd for Sam, hoping for some shouted guidance across the crowd. Who I saw wasn't Sam. I saw Murdoc.
Sam, Tash, the club, it was all as useless as everything else.
He saw me.
His eyes widened.
"Stuart?" Tash tugged impatiently at my sleeve. After a while of me being a statue she stormed off – maybe. I'm not really sure.
The longer he stood there and did nothing, the harder blood pushed through my veins and the more emotionally confused I became.
"What?" I managed to mouth at him.
He backed away towards the door and I moved closer, our steps in time with each other staying the same distance apart.
He ran.
NARRATOR
(Stop the Dams – Gorillaz)
"What do you mean he han't been selling?!" SMASH. A pint glass was hurled across the room and shattered into the space on the wall in-between the two Niccals brothers.
"Dad, he'd get killed! Look at him!" Retaliated Hannibal, gesturing to his sibling. Murdoc tried to look as un-scrawny as possible but knew he was failing. Jacob's hard eyes fixed onto him with a hatred you wouldn't believe a creature could feel for it's own offspring.
"He'll be worse than killed if I don't start seeing profit on my investments." He stood up lengthily and walked over to the young boy, every step more intimidating than the last, meandering like a snake ready to strike.
"Well, Murdoc? Would you like to be worse than killed, my boy?" He violently grabbed a handful of his hair and raised him off the ground causing a yelp. "You gonna answer me?" He bellowed, curling his fist tighter.
"No, Dad." He managed to utter through clenched teeth.
"Well that makes one of us then." He threw his son towards the wall. Han couldn't see due to his head being lowered but he heard the tremendous crack and smelt the blood almost instantly after.
He felt a finger under his chin raise his gaze to the twisted, sunken face of his father.
"You're a good boy. If he messes you around, lemme' know, yeh?"
"Yeh."
"Good." He patted him on the shoulder and staggered off to somewhere quiet and dark in the flat.
Hannibal exhaled and allowed himself to look at Murdoc. He was passed out on the floor, blood making his dark hair look wet and shiny, like a can of oil had been poured over it. This had been happening for so many years now, it was almost normal. He sat down on a stained arm chair adjacent to the body, it's duck egg blue colour turned yellow from copious amounts of abusive chemicals and abusive people over the years – it literally had the stuffing beaten out of it. Lighting up, he stared at the boy, barely 18 years old, who he'd known for the majority of his life.
"Who is fucking knocking, at this God damn hour?!"
Jacob Niccals, 17 years younger and just as haggered, stumbled to the front door of the council house in Birmingham he shared with his son and almost ripped it off it's hinges.
Standing on the other side of the frame was a young red haired women, slim with a sensible ponytail and pretty freckles. The disgusted nature of the 28 year old creature turned instantly to perverse flirtation.
"And 'ow can I 'elp you, love?" He finished with a low chuckle, outstretching his hand to stroke a strand of her fiery locks. She looked at his fingers like one would a diseased maggot and smartly stepped away.
"Good afternoon Mr Niccals."
"Afternoon... could've sworn-"
She cut him off quickly. "I'm here with the social services."
"Social what? Oh, kiddy protection? I assure you, sweet 'eart, everything is going famously 'ere. Come and look at the little one. Lemme' get 'im. HANNIBAL! Come on, son." He yelled behind him and in an instant a minuscule child with mousy hair and large green, hungry eyes appeared behind his parent. He didn't speak, but looked up, questioningly.
"S'alright lad, the lady," he purred that last word causing the girl to curl her lip, mortified, "just wants to 'ave a look at ya."
"That isn't actually why I came, although now you mention it-"
"No? Then spit it out, birdy, I'm a busy man."
She glanced behind him, being met with empty beer bottles lit up in the darkness of the house by horse racing on the telly.
"Clearly. No this is about, ahem... your wife."
His arms dropped to his side and the attempt at a sultry expression became completely vulnerable.
"Helen?"
"Mum?" Hannibal whispered, looking hopefully to the women.
"Go back to your room. Now."
Still staring, the child backed into the dim hallway.
Both adults were silent for a moment.
"Is she getting... better?"
She struggled to meet his gaze.
"I'm only here concerning the child."
"But you just sent him away."
"Not him, Mr Niccals. No one was really aware about it until afterwards, it being such a premature birth, but Helen was pregnant." She motioned to somebody behind the blacked out glass of the car she arrived in to come forth. That somebody opened the door and began to walk up the path with a bundle.
Said bundle was handed over to the shocked father, revealing under its layers an underweight, ashy skinned baby. Dark eyes shone up at him.
"She called him Murdoc." Said the girl, whom was actually called Liz, if Jacob would've been bothered to read her name badge instead of treating her as an object as he did every other women. Almost every other women.
Liz and the bringer of the child, a tall blonde haired man dressed in a sharp black suit and waistcoat walked back down the path with nothing else to say.
"Wh-what about Helen?" He asked in a small voice.
Liz looked back at him with pity in her eyes and climbed into the car.
Even before the call came later that day bringing the news that Helen Niccals had drowned herself in the mental asylum, Jacob knew it. The child smelt of death.
He let out a wail and collapsed on the floor, Murdoc rolling carelessly out of his arms onto the grass. The broken man crawled into the house and in a couple of minutes had consumed an entire bottle of whiskey.
The child would've died.
I wouldn't be telling this story.
There would've been no Gorillaz.
But, as you know, he didn't - because a small scruffy boy had been watching from his bedroom window and cautiously came down the stairs, approached him, and lifted him up.
He didn't say anything like "I'm your brother" because they both knew.
Murdoc eventually got up.
"You all right?"
Murdoc glared at his kin in his most hateful way and growled: "Fabulous."
After a childhood of taking blames and beatings meant for his little brother, Hannibal had gotten in with the wrong crowd, left the house and left Murdoc to the lashing hatred with no protection. Guilt faded and when he realised the way to survive in that family house was being the second dog down in the pack. And when his father's words finally sunk in and started to take affect: "He killed your mother. My wife" things changed for the worse.
He walked over to the beaten up teenager.
"You're selling tonight. Don't fuck it up."
(Kill and Run – Sia)
So here he was tonight, in some teeny nightclub – selling.
Well, running.
Running away from Stuart.
"What?" He mouthed at Murdoc in disbelief.
Seeing him made a feeling grow in his soul, a rhythm that beat to the same time as the kid's heart. He could do anything with that rhythm, make HIM do anything. No. He... he couldn't.
Rushing through the door, Murdoc barged through a group of girls getting smashed off their high heels.
"Murdoc!" He heard him calling, heard his loud, awkward footsteps a little way behind but kept going. Deep in his memory, he could recall catching up with Stu the first time they met: was he still faster? He hoped to Satan.
"Murdoc!" Who's voice was that? A different one. It came from the other side of the road, but there was no time for chit chat with old acquaintances now – ESPECIALLY not the one gunning after him. Eventually he managed to disappear down an alley way and lost his pursuer.
Stuart stood in the middle of the pavement, feelings of disbelief and sadness rattling through his body as he gasped in shaky breaths.
Hannibal watched from the opposite side of the road – he had been calling his good for nothing brother. Came to check up on him out of the fucking goodness of his heart. But then he caught sight of something far more interesting. A little blue bird.