Chapter Text
Not much time had passed since the date of 18th, a month or two at most, and already things were back normal. Well, as normal as things could be for the band, that is.
Marilyn was still the same 4 year old that she had been then, just less frightened it seemed. She spoke more often, even if the others couldn't understand much of what she said, and she didn't cry or hide as much as she used to. Now instead of crawling on the couch and attempting to hide herself behind the coushions or stare at you longingly when she thought you weren't looking, she'd simply sit next to you normally or ask for your attention. She didn't seem like such a feral kitten anymore, and the others were greatly relieved at that. However, they weren't out of the woods just yet, and that was made evidently clear by the by the old English book Murdoc dropped on the table with a loud thud.
Yep, they had to do this all over again.
"¿Qué?" Marilyn hesitantly asked with a jump and gasp from the sound, looking up from the paper she was doodling on and eyeing the book carefully. She looked confused, and Murdoc only shook his head. He certainly was not looking forward to this.
"Oh no!" 2D wailed, dramatically wringing his hands in the air like an actor before plopping in a chair next to Mary in Kong's cafe which was (selfishly) adorned with their own faces everywhere. Marilyn's confusion didn't cease. "Not again!"
"¿Qué otra vez? ¿Qué es eso?" Marilyn asked again, looking between her father, 2D, and the book all with confusion. Hell, she even looked at the cat that lived in this place for help. He only stared off into space with that thousand mile smile, listening to "Left Hand Suzuki Method" as he had been doing for the past 5 years. She was sunk.
"This is what we have to unfortunately do, love." Murdoc sighed, sitting defeatedly across from her and pointing to it. "Inglés. It's time to learn, niño."
"I don't see how this is gonna work, Murdoc. She can't even read yet." 2D shrugged, looking at the girl with a frown.
"You don't see anything. How would you know?" Murdoc replied sarcastically and cruelly before looking back at the child. "Listen, not that we're annoyed or anything," Murdoc began already in a lie. Technically they were, and by they it's just Murdoc for being bothered to translate 24/7, but still. "But only me an' Noodle can understand you. Russ and Dents over there are kinda at a loss when you open your mouth. You gotta meet us halfway here."
Marilyn looked at how big that book that obviously was checked out of a library that never got returned to was with a shudder. It was thick. Big. Lots of words... Words she couldn't read... She looked frightened.
"You're not gonna do the whole fing!" 2D said quickly, putting his hands up in reassurance. "Wiv Noodle- Because Noodle is bilingual too y'know- Wait actually did you know she speaks Japanese and everyfing else now too? I didn't but when she came back-"
"Oh for Satan's sake- Shut up!" Murdoc snapped, wacking the man on the back of the head and making Marilyn cringe and shrink back into her seat. That looked like it hurt. "Either get the train on the tracks or park it!"
"Ack!" 2D winced at the impact. "Tosser..." He murmured, rubbing his head before looking back at the girl. "Anyway, when we taught Noodle we only did a few words at a time for emergencies an' such 'cause we needed to know if she needed the toilet or whatever. Basic stuff like how to say 'Im hungry' or 'I feel sick' or 'Murdoc is a twat'-"
"That last one isn't going into your vocabulary." Murdoc said, eyeing 2D for a moment before looking back at his daughter. "But yeah, the idea is still there."
"Oh..." Marilyn hummed, looking at the book with some degree of concern still. "Uh... ¿Quién me está enseñando?"
Both of the men looked at each other. 2D because he didn't understand a word just being said and Murdoc because it was a damn good question. He hadn't thought of that really.
"Huh... Well, I guess all of us." Murdoc shrugged, watching Marilyn's eyes widen in curiosity.
This wasn't going to end well.
________
"For the last time I am not sending her to some daycare for her to learn how to say a few words in English! We did this with Noodle! We can manage!" Murdoc huffed, wanting not only to keep his child's identity and the secret of his scandal safe, but his pockets too. "We'll be fine!"
"Noodle could read though, Mudz! This is gonna be a hundred times harder! It already is!" Russel sighed, running a hand down his face. His back ached from sitting in the floor with this little girl for the past 15 minutes, trying to get her to repeat one word, just one word, in English. "Why am I doing the first lesson anyway? I can't speak Spanish to know what she's sayin'."
"No es divertido..." Marilyn whined with a nod, looking a bit uncomfortable and annoyed herself. She wanted to drink juice and watch cartoons. She didn't want to do this! Why couldn't everyone just learn Spanish instead of her having to learn English? There was a brilliant idea.
"Isn't that a required thing for like high school in the US?" Murdoc asked, ignoring Marilyn's whines and keeping his attention on the drummer.
"I took Japanese not Spanish, and if you remember I forgot almost all the Japanese I took and had to re-learn it for Noodle. I doubt if I had taken Spanish I'd remember any of that either." Russel sighed, shaking his head. "All those years blend together for me. I'm lucky I remember to do basic math."
Murdoc shook his head. Incompetent. Everyone around him was incompetent! How'd this band get along without him? He doubted they could even so much as make breakfast without his expertise here to supervise!
All of that was totally wrong but to Murdoc it seemed right.
"Maybe we should just wait until she's a bit older? I can pick up some words in Spanish I think. I dunno 'bout 'D, but she never goes to him for stuff anyway." Russel said, looking at the little girl with a frown. "I think she's just too little, man."
"I... I dunno- have you picked up any of this?" Murdoc asked, looking at Marilyn with a raised eyebrow. "A word, a sound, anything?" He asked, looking and sounding a bit more desperate then he intended to come off as. He really didn't want to play translator anymore. "C'mon you can understand it, why not speak it, yeah? Anythin'?"
"U-Uh... Y-Yes?" Marilyn asked, looking between the two worriedly. Was that Sí in English? She felt her nerves wrack her little body as she waited, before a cocky grin grew endlessly on Murdoc's face. Was she right or was she wrong? Why wouldn't people just tell her?!
"¡Diablos, sí!" Murdoc grinned, and Russel motioned for her to turn around and gave her a high five. Marilyn thought this was good, right? Everyone else was smiling so she smiled too. She learned her first word! Yes! She could say yes!
She forgot it 5 seconds later, but baby steps.
________
"Right, so uh, we need to know some basic stuff, y'know?" 2D asked, sitting in the floor with her while Marilyn laid on her belly, kicking her feet in the air absentmindedly. Having 2D teach a class was like having a toddler try to be president, but everyone else was gone on shopping errands, so that just left Stuart, Marilyn, his old hound dog Prince, and Cortez eyeing the whole thing from a curtain rod like Edgar Alan Poe himself had put him there. Truly an interesting classroom.
Marilyn nodded for him to continue.
"Now you 'ave days like me where you just don't feel good, y'know? Except mine is my head and yours is your tummy and such from anxiety. Well we kinda need to know when those days are so we're not draggin' you 'round, stressing you out, making you sicka, and having you outta commission for a day or two. Happens to me, and it's no fun." 2D said, making animated gestures while he talked that made Marilyn giggle.
"Eres gracioso. No puedo entender bien tu voz, pero eres gracioso." She said through her giggles, and 2D didn't even faulter.
"I don't know any of what you just said. But anyway!" He said before grabbing something and sitting it in his lap. Marilyn was beginning to get bored and look around mindlessly.
"So I was- Oi! Pay attention!" 2D said, waving a hand in front of her face. Okay maybe the floor of his bedroom wasn't the best place to have this lesson... To put it lightly: 2D had so much shit in his room it was more like a museum than a place to bed down. She was looking at every keyboard, every monitor, every tiny object, every shamelessly full ashtray, and making grabby hands at Prince who happily trotted over to her and flopped next to her, nuzzling her side with a playful whine and huff. 2D sighed and attempted to continue.
"So I had dis idea here last night that I fink- Please don't do that-" 2D said, gently snatching a small melodica she was mindlessly pressing the keys on (that obviously weren't playing anything due to the lack of air in it) with another huff before continuing. "That I fink will work." He finished finally, holding an mp3 player up with a missing tooth grin.
Oh boy. This should be interesting.
2 hours later Marilyn could successfully say she either did or didn't feel good in English in case of bad days or should flu season strike hard. When asked how he, of all people, achieved this, 2D only shrugged.
"We listened to Feel Good Inc. 17 different times."
________
Murdoc rolled his eyes so hard they practically rolled out of his head. They had been here for two hours, tempers and emotions running high, and relationships on the brink, all because Marilyn refused to speak for Murdoc after he yelled at her. Lovely. Truly the father-daughter relationship for the history books.
"Goddamn, kid." Murdoc growled, lighting what felt like his 4th cigarette that afternoon and wanting to bang his head against the wall. "I wasn't so sure you were my kid a month ago but now I'm pretty damn certain you are. Quit bein' so stubborn!" Murdoc snapped, almost as if he had room to talk.
Marilyn, who had been sniffling and sobbing on and off for the last hour, only looked the other way with her arms crossed, making Murdoc groan and blow smoke out all at the same time. He looked like a dragon doing that to Marilyn, and if she wasn't so busy being mad at him she would have laughed at it.
The arguing and tears has been relentless for the past hour, and Murdoc knew this was something the stupid nannies on TV would classify as a near traumatic moment, but he didn't care. She pushed him! She knew she did! She may have been 4 and just fussy and nervous, but Murdoc was convinced she totally knew what she was doing and was doing it maliciously.
"Fuck it! If you don't say something in 5 seconds I'm dropping it and you're losing TV privileges, right?" Murdoc said firmly. He wouldn't really take away her ability to watch cartoons because they kept her from bothering him, but he'd give some punishment of some form.
Marilyn was nervous and jittery, her feelings still hurt from his words, and she wanted something to eat and to go to bed. She had enough.
"Fuck you!" Marilyn snapped before jumping off the chair and running off to who knows where, leaving the bewildered green-ish grey-ish brown man alone at the table with a bit of a stunned reaction on his face. Screw the punishment, she had won.
Murdoc simply crushed his cigarette and looked at the door she has scurried out of in a fury for a few moments. He was impressed, really. He felt his voice sound a bit hose as he choked a bit in response.
"M-Muy Bien..."
________
Russel long since had slumped over asleep on the couch, remote in hand has some Spanish-English cartoon played on the TV that attempted to teach Spanish-speaking children some English words. Marilyn understood why he was sleeping too. It was boring as sin! He payed money to rent this VHS? Marilyn stuck her tongue out. He should get his money back.
His deep snores were more entertaining than this.
However. Marilyn knew he meant well, so she wouldn't balme him.
Somebody else however, would.
"This shit's mad boring, huh?" a deep male voice called, making Marilyn smile a bit. Immediately a blue ghostly individual swirled out from Russel's left ear and in front of the little girl, making her cover her mouth as not to squeal and wake Russel up. "Straight borin' you to tears, eh?"
Marilyn nodded quickly, she looked up at him with a pure smile. She liked Del a lot. She couldn't understand what he was, but she liked him. By some ghostly magic, or because he took it in high school before he died, Del could understand Marilyn's Spanish. She felt fully free around him.
"This they teaching you ain't even useful, lil girl." He said, phasing into the TV and popping up on screen, fooling around with the people on screen and glitching the tape before ejecting it and popping out of the slot with it. Marilyn giggled even harder behind her little hands. Del grinned at it. "Trust me, you could be sayin' way more useful stuff than that."
Marilyn tilted her head, as if to ask "like what?"
Del's sharp toothed grin grew wider and his eyes narrowed. Russel wouldn't like this at all... But the big dork shouldn't have fallen asleep, now should he? Tisk tisk. It's almost as if he wanted Del to take over today's lesson. Ah well. Del would help out his friend, now wouldn't he?
"I liked your display the other day with your old man. Real classy. Socked 'em where it hurt, ya feel me?"
Del was a ghost and Marilyn couldn't feel anything about him, but she shrugged it off and let him continue.
Del practically looked like The Grinch as he smiled at her and floated closer, flicking the TV off with a simple and dramatic snap of his fingers.
"How about we ditch them goodie goodies and I teach you some more sayin's like that, hm?"
Oh Marilyn was in.
3 days later in another argument with Murdoc Marilyn used words in English that even Murdoc himself hadn't used in a fairly good amount of time.
Marilyn got put in time-out and when Russel finally realized where the child had learned said words Del wished he was able to die. Again. A second time.
Quickly.
________
"Alright! No more hurdles, no more unnecessary curse words, and no more arguments!" Noodle announced as she picked Marilyn up and sat her gently on her big soft bed with a smile before crawling up herself and sitting at the head of the bed. Noodle never let anyone in her room except for 2D and that was just to play video games one time, so this was an honor.
Noodle had her bangs pulled completely back with a headband and the rest tied back in a very small twin ponytails, showing Marilyn her warm and friendly green eyes. She had bits of acne here and there that her bangs naturally hid, but that was just apart of being 16. She gave her an almost prideful smirk as she took the notebook the others had been using to write stuff down and uselessly show her words she couldn't read and tossed it, watching it skid across her wood floor. Then she reached over the edge of her bed and fished around underneath it a bit before pulling a smaller scale keyboard out with a smile and nodded her head to the guitar beside them.
"Welcome to the school of Noodle! Here we do things fun, differently, and most of all..." She said as she slid the guitar around her body and played a chord on it with a smirk. "Right!"
Marilyn smiled and giggled happily.
She liked this already.
________
After not being able to find either of the girls in about around an hour, Russel decided it was time to check on them. After all, Murdoc's lesson the other day didn't go over very well at all, and Marilyn didn't seem all that keen on starting one today. Even with Noodle. In fact, she seemed so opposed to it Russel wouldn't be surprised if the two had just long given up and were playing now or something. It was slightly concerning. Curse Murdoc and his mouth.
However, when Russel got closer to the girl's room he could hear a tune coming from inside, peeking out just through a crack in the door. It was a repeated strumming sound in a rhythmic way, making him fight the urge to tap his foot as he stood by the doorway and listened. It wasn't until he listened good enough that he could hear what was happening.
Noodle would strum a rhythm-like pattern on the guitar and say a word in Spanish, pause for 5 seconds each time while keeping a beat going to count each second, and at the 5th beat Marilyn would reply the English version of the word, then Noodle would have her say it with her at the same time in Spanish to fully implement what the word she had just said meant in her own language, then the previous rhythm would start again and this would repeat just with a different word. Russel was floored. It was working. It was actually working. Marilyn was repeating words quicker and quicker now. It was genius.
Noodle knew what it was like to be a scared little kid trying to learn something big and new, and she also knew as wild as 2D's Feel Good Inc. escapade was, it worked and Marilyn found it fun. So why not run with the song idea just with her own twist? 2D was hella smart when people opened their eyes some.
Noodle learned life through the lens of music. That's just what spoke to her. So, even if Marilyn's passion wasn't music, Noodle wanted to share something with her that was not only important to herself, but she knew she could do well if she tried.
Russel could only grin at it as he pushed the door open some and leaned in the doorway, watching the two with a chuckle. He even hit the doorframe some in beat to add a little distant percussion to this lesson. Noodle knew he was there, and only looked up briefly with a smile before continuing on what she was doing with a slightly more noticeable bounce in her playing.
Oh sure, this may be unconventional, but it worked, and that was just how Gorillaz rolled. They were like an unattractive soccer team that somehow manages to win every season. They won ugly and strange, but a win was still always a win. Marilyn began to learn this too. Weird wasn't so bad, it just was different, and if different worked who was she to judge? She wasn't all that normal herself anyway.
Yep. Marilyn knew from that moment on for the rest of her life:
She was going to fit in just fine here.