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Contrary to popular belief, Murdoc Niccals liked kids.
People would assume, considering his demeanor, that he would punt the first ankle-biter he saw when given the chance. They saw the way he sneered during interviews, and the scathing insults he threw 2D’s way, and the alcohol he consumed like it was his last day on earth, and came to the conclusion he was not safe for anyone under the age of 18 to be around. That he just showed Noodle off for the press, for the girls, for the fame. A PR stunt.
That wasn’t the case. Murdoc loved kids, actually. It was better for his image that he didn’t make that fact known, so he didn’t. But it was true. He took 10 year old Noodle to local fairs and candy shops as they toured, taught her new chord progressions – not that she needed his help, that kid was a wicked guitarist – and tucked her in at night on the rare occasion he wasn’t plastered. He kept her away from booze and drugs, and he’d gotten in fights with stage managers and producers over their predatory glances directed her way. Sure, he wasn’t a model father, and he was far from perfect. But, then again, when your only example of fatherhood is Sebastian Niccals, the bar is low.
So, no. Murdoc didn’t hate kids.
But he had never wanted any of his own.
Noodle wasn’t his, not really. She was also Russel’s, and 2D’s. They were as much her dads as he was. It wasn’t the same as having a living, human thing that he made, that had the same crooked smile he did, or the same nose, or – Satan forbid – the same alcoholic tendencies that he did.
He knew 2D had a few kids, born from a night of drunken lust at bars or after gigs. He didn’t speak about it often, but Murdoc knew that the singer sent several hundred dollars from his cut of their royalties to a few birds he’d accidentally knocked up. Murdoc probably had a few, too, statistically speaking, even if he didn’t know about them. They weren’t his problem, though.
Well. They weren’t supposed to be.
He was in the studio when he got the call. Russel was in the booth, recording a beat for their next single. It was rough, and Murdoc was this close to scrapping the entire concept and starting fresh. Their producer, Damon, looked like he was about in the same spot Murdoc was.
“Maybe let’s take 5 on this, guys,” Damon sighed, resting his head in his hands.
“Nah, wait, I think I got it this time,” Russel spoke into the mic. “One more try. This is it, I can feel it.”
“Russ, we’ve been at it for an hour,” 2D replied, leaning over Damon to speak into the mic. “Lets take 5 to clear our heads, yeah? Then we can run through it again.”
“Aight, fine, whatever,” Russel grumbled, rising from his drum set and sulking out of the booth. He flopped onto the beanbag next to Noodle, who gave him a sympathetic pat on the back.
“It takes time to create the perfect sound, Russel,” she assured him. “You will get it eventually.”
“You’d better,” Murdoc grouched. “Cant record a bloody bassline until you get your shit together.”
“Oh, please!” Russel scoffed. “You go on and on about how you don’t need any of us to make the charts. You don’t need me to record your fuck-ass bassline, man.”
“I don’t need you,” Murdoc scoffed with an upturned nose.
“Guys, can we not do this right now?” 2D pleaded. “M’ head hurts enough already.”
Murdoc’s phone began ringing from his back pocket at that exact moment. He made a show of standing rather dramatically and sauntering out of the room. Russel glared at him his entire walk outside the studio, and probably would’ve stuck a foot out to trip him if Noodle didn’t ask him a question to divert his attention.
When he got to somewhere secluded enough that he was confident there wouldn’t be any eavesdropping, Murdoc whipped his phone out and flipped it open without checking the caller ID.
“What?” He answered impatiently. It was probably their PR manager, asking about press dates, or their label pushing to get a larger cut of their profits again. If he had to tell those wankers to bugger off one more time, he would set their offices ablaze.
“Am I speaking with Murdoc Niccals?” A female voice asked on the other end of the line.
“That’s me,” he confirmed, a little unsure now. This was not how his phone calls usually went. Usually, there were a lot more demands right out the gate, and then he could shout through the phone at them, and hang up on them mid sentence, and then move on with his life. This felt too professional. “Who’s askin’?”
“This is St. Paul’s hospital. I am sorry to inform you that your… girlfriend? Has had some complications during childbirth, and has sadly passed away. Seeing as you’re the father, you’ll need to come down right away and sign for custody of the child.”
It took Murdoc longer than he’d like to admit to process the words.
Girlfriend. Girlfriend?
“I don’t have a girlfriend,” Murdoc huffed. “Must ‘ave the wrong number.”
“I’m afraid not, Mr. Niccals. DNA testing confirmed you as the father. We need you to sign the custody forms so that you can take the child home.”
What the actual fuck was happening right now?
“Listen, whatever you said you name was-”
“I didn’t give you my name.”
“-I’m a very busy man, y’see, and I don’t have time to deal with prank calls.”
“Mr. Niccals, if you could just–”
Murdoc hung up before she could finish. With a frustrated huff, he stuffed the cell back into his pocket where it belonged. Honestly, as if he’d fall for that. Shaking his head, he turned and walked in the opposite direction of the studio. He needed a smoke.
He thought that was the end of it. But they kept calling. To the point where his bandmates were starting to notice.
“Yer phone’s ringin’ again, mate,” 2D informed him, slurping cereal at the kitchen table.
Murdoc groaned and got up off the couch, stumbling over to his abandoned cell on the kitchen counter with a bottle of gin in one hand. He squinted at the caller ID: St. Paul’s Hospital. Who the fuck even was St. Paul? He hit the decline button and tossed the phone back onto the counter.
“Who keeps callin’ you, anyhow?” His frontman asked, poking at his Cheerios idly. His eyes were on Murdoc, and the bassist had to suppress a shiver at having those void-filled holes staring into his soul. Not that he had much of a soul left anymore.
“Don’t matter. Piss off, faceache.” Murdoc tilted the bottle of gin to his lips, gulping down the last of the bottle before tossing it in their vague recycling pile (yes, Murdoc recycled. Very punk rock of him, thank-you-very-much). He snatched his phone off the counter, lest 2D do his own investigations, and whacked the blue-haired single over the head on his way past for good measure. 2D winced and flinched away, as predicted, but Murdoc felt his black, empty gaze following him as he stumbled back to his room.
The bloody phone was ringing, again!
Always at the most inopportune times, that thing. A persistent bunch at St. Paul’s, that’s for sure. It didn't matter if he was recording a song, or doing a radio interview, or playing Mario Kart with Noodle – or if he was making out rather angrily with his singer, as was currently the case. That receptionist had no life other than to ring his phone off the bloody hook, apparently.
“Argh, f’r fucks sake!” Murdoc exploded, leaning away from a startled 2D and pulling his cell out. “What?!”
“Mr. Niccals,” the same woman from the first call two bloody weeks ago greeted. “This is St. Paul’s Hospital–”
“Yes, yes, St. Pauls, I know! What do you want?”
“We need you to come down and sign the custody papers for your daughter–”
“I don’t have a daughter,” Murdoc sneered.
“You do, actually. She’s been with us for two weeks. Since the passing of her mother. Obviously, you didn’t get along well with her, but the child is yours and, legally, you need to either sign for custody of her or sign off for her to be placed in foster care.”
Murdoc sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. He ignored 2D watching him with obvious curiosity. “Y’aren’t gonna leave me alone until I do, are you?”
“I’m afraid not, Mr. Niccals.”
“Alright, fine. St. Paul’s. Where’s that, Leeds?”
“Vancouver.”
Murdoc gaped. “Vancouver.”
“That is correct.”
“Y’want me to fly to bloody Canada to sign some papers?”
“If you want, we could have them forwarded to you, but that will add an extra few documents you’ll need to fill out, so I do recommend you come sign them in person.”
Murdoc rolled his eyes. “Fine! I’ll book a flight. Christ.”
“We look forward to seeing you in person soon, Mr. Niccals.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Murdoc grumbled and hung up the phone.
There was a moment of blissful, heavenly silence in which Murdoc forgot 2D was sat not three feet away from him, perched on the table in his Winnie and kicking his legs back and forth like a schoolgirl. Unfortunately, that silence did not last.
“Y’have a kid?”
Murdoc rounded on him, jutting a finger in his face. 2D flinched back slightly, but continued blinking at him with owlish curiosity.
“Not a word to Russel or Noodle, y’hear?! I’m gonna get this settled, and then we’ll never speak of it again. Yeah?”
“A’right, yeah,” 2D agreed. “They’re gonna ask questions if y’fly off to Canada alone, though, won't they?”
“Where are you going with this?” Murdoc asked skeptically, though he already knew, really.
“I’ll go wif you! Say it’s to meet a potential collaborator or sumfink. Noodle doesn’t like flyin’, and Russel ain’t interested unless it’s someone he likes!”
Or, you could buzz off and mind your own business, Murdoc wanted to bite back, but he had to admit 2D had a point. If he wanted this to keep quiet, it would look better if he wasn’t just flying off on his own to do Satan knows what, that may or may not end up being a PR nightmare later. He could just dump 2D at a diner or something while he took care of business, and the trip would be over in a day or two. Better to get it over with.
“Fine,” Murdoc grumbled.
Which was how he found himself standing in Vancouver Airport, with one overnight bag thrown over his shoulder and 2D peering at a map at his side.
“Ooh, a poutine restaurant! Look, Mudz, we could get authentic Canadian poutine!”
“We aren’t here to bloody sight-see, you knob,” Murdoc snapped, snatching the map out of his hands and whacking him with it. “We’re going to sign some papers, and then we’re going to find a motel to bang in before our flight home tomorrow, and then we are going to never speak of this again.”
“But–!”
Murdoc walked away before he could hear 2D’s no-doubt childish protests.
“You must be Mr. Niccals,” the receptionist said immediately upon seeing the two enter the maternity ward.
“Warn you I was comin’, did they?” Murdoc scoffed.
“I thought they was gonna call security, actually,” 2D mumbled behind him.
“These are the documents you need to sign.” A stack of papers was pushed in his direction. He gaped at it.
“I thought it wasn’t much?!”
“It wouldn’t be, if you weren’t signing off for foster care.”
“What, is this your way of guilt tripping me?”
“No,” the receptionist said, her eyes back to her computer screen. “You are giving your child up to go through the foster system, to be in the care of other adults. Normally, the child is placed in foster care when they are older, because they have nowhere else to go. It isn’t usual for a guardian to send them to foster care, especially as an infant. There’s more paperwork.” The lady paused in her typing, and then met his eye again. “You’re surrendering a baby to arguably questionable, unstable hands, Mr. Niccals. You have to understand that the government would like to ensure you know what you’re doing before you do it.”
Murdoc glared at the stack of papers.
“Is it really that bad to be a foster kid? I thought that was just in the movies,” 2D piped up, because of course he did.
“Between you and me,” the receptionist leaned forward, “I’ve seen more kids in the foster system in and out of emerg’ than I have any other child. Some of these homes aren’t suitable. The parents aren’t suitable. The kids usually end up in the juvenile system, or overdosed on the street.”
2D audibly gulped, then turned to Murdoc with rather pleading eyes for someone with no eyes. “Mudz, we can’t send a baby there! That’s immoral!”
“Don’t care,” Murdoc grunted, flipping through the stack of papers to find the first page requiring his signature. Though, as he said that, he couldn’t help but feel guilt pooling uncomfortably in his stomach.
He didn’t grow up loved. He didn’t know the meaning of the word, even now, really. His father was a cruel and angry drunk, and with his older brother leaving the house more and more, and spending weeks at the local jailhouse, Murdoc was usually the one on the receiving end of his anger. It was miserable. It was hell. The things Sebastian Niccals would spit at him, right in his tiny, pre-pubescent face, were words no child should have to hear. The way he would throw glass bottles at him for breathing too loud, or sneak into his bedroom at night after he’d been out at a bar and–
He shuddered, and immediately pushed that train of thought far, far away, so he preferably didn’t have to revisit that for the rest of his miserable life.
Point was, did he really want to willingly put a kid in that same position? His kid, apparently? To know nothing but bitter anger and shouting, and pain, and loneliness?
Murdoc let out a very long, very loud, sigh. One that 2D immediately recognized as victory on his end, and his expression brightened considerably.
“Right. Where’s that paperwork for taking on custody, then?”
“Th’fuck do we do with her now?”
The two men stood on the curb outside the hospital, a bag of supplies slung over his shoulder and a baby carrier provided by the hospital in Murdoc’s hand. And it had a baby in it. A baby. And it was his. What the fuck.
2D had gotten his hands on the map. Probably snagged it out of Murdoc’s jacket pocket when he wasn’t looking. Whoever started the rumour that 2D was an innocent baby of a man is a fucking liar, because the singer was anything but. 2D gleefully shook the map out to unfold it.
“There’s a motel couple’a blocks down that way,” 2D told him, pointing in one direction. Then, he squinted at the map, and then flipped it around. “Or, maybe it’s the other way…” He looked up at Murdoc and shrugged. “I don’ actually know how to read a map.”
“Oh, for the love of–” Murdoc snatched the map out of his incompetent hands, again, and peered at it. “That’s not a motel, you dunce, that’s a cemetery.”
“Oh. Whoops.”
“Whatever.” Murdoc crumpled the map instead of folding it, because it was getting dark and he wanted to hurry up and find someplace to stay so he could go get drunk enough that he forgot about this whole situation. “C’mon, faceache,” Murdoc grumbled, picking a direction and walking.
They did find a motel, eventually. It was just past 9 when they checked in, but luckily for them, the infant in the carrier hadn’t stirred since they left the hospital at 3. Inherited his ability to sleep through the apocalypse, clearly, because Murdoc stopped several times to hurl insults at his blue-haired companion, and to cat-call a few birds outside a club on their way by, and to sign an autograph for a starry-eyed teenager. They got their room key and as soon as they stepped foot in the dusty room, Murdoc set the bag and carrier down on the floor and flopped face-first on the bed.
“Y’can’t just leave her on the floor, Mudz,” 2D said, hurriedly picking the carrier up and setting it on the second bed. “She should prolly eat, shouldn’t she? D’we wake her up?”
“Yer not supposed to wake a sleeping baby, I think,” came Murdoc’s muffled reply as he inhaled the stale scent of beer and, let’s be honest, probably several bodily fluids. Charming.
“Kay. So we just… leave her?”
“I thought you had a buncha offspring roaming this world, faceache, I dunno why you’re so clueless.”
“Well I’ve never, like, met any of ‘em,” 2D told him.
Murdoc turned his face out of the mattress and watched the other man gently poke at the baby’s chubby fingers.
“Well, then this whole venture is going to go swimmingly,” Murdoc grumbled. “I dibs the shower.”
2D didn’t seem to hear him, too distracted with the – very much alive, Murdoc still couldn’t fathom – baby, who it looked like had latched onto his fingers in her sleep. Murdoc took that as his cue to hurry into the bathroom and lock the door behind him before 2D registered his claim.
As he stood under the hot spray, he continued trying to wrap his brain around the events of the day. He had left London a free man. Now he had a baby. How the actual fuck did this happen?
It was all 2D’s fault, of course. If Murdoc hadn’t brought him along, he wouldn’t have had second thoughts about sending the kid off, and he wouldn’t be having an existential crisis in a dirty motel shower. He had decided the kid was far better off with literally anyone else. He wasn’t a good role model. Now he had a whole infant he had to look after, and it was all because 2D looked at him with those big, dark, blood-filled eyes, looking like he would cry if Murdoc denied him anything – not that he hadn’t made 2D cry before, on purpose, but something about it was different this time around. Something about Murdoc was different this time around.
Satan, he was going soft.
By the time he finished in the shower, the water went cold. Served 2D right. He dressed in an old band shirt he picked up off the floor of his Winnie without looking and boxers. Normally, he would walk out ass-naked, because it’s nothing 2D hadn’t seen before and Murdoc likes to show off. The flustered look 2D gets every time is a nice bonus, too. But, with a baby in the next room, that would probably mentally scar her or something. If she was even old enough to remember anything yet.
He should probably figure out how the fuck babies worked, huh?
2D was holding a very awake infant when Murdoc stepped out of the bathroom. She noticeably wasn’t fussing, but her eyes were open, and apparently that was enough to send 2D into a freakout.
“I ‘unno what to do!” 2D told him, visibly panicking. His hair was sticking up, and his eyes were wide, and Murdoc had only been gone for twenty bloody minutes.
“What are you going on about, you twit?” Murdoc walked past him to shove his day’s clothes into his overnight bag.
“She’s awake!”
“Uh-huh.”
“What do we do?!”
Murdoc groaned and turned to him. “Did she start crying?”
2D thought for a moment. “Uh– no.”
“She just opened her eyes and you decided it was the end of the bloody world?”
“Ehm,” 2D glanced at the baby in his arms, “yeah?”
“You’re hopeless,” Murdoc groaned. “I ‘unno how you talked me into this.”
“Well, I didn’t, really, I jus’ looked at you and asked nicely, and you agreed pretty quickly,” 2D shrugged.
“Whatever. We shoul’ prob’ly feed her, since shes awake.”
“Right!”
2D stood in front of the bag the hospital had given them full of baby supplies, attempting to juggle the baby around but realizing he couldn’t really hold her one handed. Murdoc let out a long sigh and nudged him out of the way, digging through the bag until he found a bottle and some formula. He presented both items with a victorious ‘aha!’ and squinted to read the instructions on the packet of formula.
“Huh. Y’microwave it,” Murdoc relayed. “Don’t think we have a microwave.”
The two men looked around their sparse motel room.
“Nah, but we’ve got a fridge!” 2D pointed out, very unhelpfully.
“Maybe the front office ‘as one, in their break room or whatever,” Murdoc mumbled. “Watch her. I’ll be right back.”
“Where y’going?” 2D looked a bit panicked again at the thought of being left alone with the baby.
They should probably name her, huh? Did she have a name yet?
“I’m going to work my charm,” Murdoc replied, grinning and showing his sharp teeth.
2D did not look at all comforted by that statement. “Please don’ get us kicked out like in Bristol.”
Murdoc flipped him off before he slammed the door shut behind him.
About fifteen minutes, a lot of suggestive comments and a bit of showing off with his unnaturally long tongue, Murdoc was getting absolutely fucking nowhere.
“I don’t care, man,” the lady at the desk – a girl in her mid twenties, maybe early thirties – said for the upteenth time. “Staff only.”
Murdoc growled rather loudly in frustration, which usually intimidated his target enough to get him what he wanted, but the girl just stared at him blankly and continued chewing away at her gum.
“You make a lotta weird noises. Maybe get that checked out.”
The bell above the door rang to signal a customer had just walked in.
“How can I help you?” The lady asked, completely disregarding Murdoc and putting on a fake smile for whoever was behind him.
“Ah– I’m ‘ere for him, actually,” 2D said.
Murdoc turned. He had the baby in his arms still, and she was crying rather loudly now. Actually, Murdoc wasn’t sure it even constituted crying because there were no tears coming out of the kid’s eyes. It was just a lot of screaming. Like a rabid animal.
Satan, she really was his.
“Did she let ya use the microwave?” 2D asked him desperately over the screeching in his ear.
“No,” Murdoc grumped.
“Oh, you have a baby!” The girl said, suddenly very interested. She stood from her rolling chair and walked around the desk, stopping in front of 2D and cooing at the baby. “Awww, what a sweetheart!”
“Yeh, we was just wonderin’ if we could use your microwave to heat up her formula,” 2D told her.
“Why, of course! Are you a new father? It’s stressful, I know, but it gets better as they get a bit bigger.”
“She’s mine, actually,” Murdoc piped up, but the lady just looked him up and down in disgust – the nerve! – and went back to speaking with 2D.
“Come with me, I’ll show you how to mix it! My niece just turned two, but I babysat a lot while my sister was at work.”
The two disappeared into the back room, leaving Murdoc standing alone in the small lobby.
Back in the motel room, 2D was happily feeding the baby the way the receptionist had taught him. Murdoc watched him in annoyance, nursing a beer and lounging on his chosen rickety motel bed. 2D was chattering away about all of the new things he learned. Something about gas. Murdoc didn’t care enough to listen, but 2D’s voice was good background noise as he mulled in his thoughts.
Kids have names, right? He’s assuming that’s something that usually happens at the birth. But, the kid didn’t really have anyone to name her at birth, since her mother kicked the bucket as soon as she was– clear, shall we say, even though that mental image made Murdoc grimace. So that meant she was nameless, right? Can kids be nameless? Murdoc thinks that the annoying lady that kept harassing him via phone call for several weeks should have mentioned that.
“Mudz? Are you even listening to me?”
“Course not,” Murdoc scoffed. “Say, did the hospital give us a… birth certificate or something?”
“I ‘unno, check in the bag,” 2D directed, nodding his head to the bag discarded at the foot of the bed.
Grumbling, Murdoc crawled over and began digging inside. Diapers, blankets, a pacifier, more formula packets – nothing. Murdoc huffed in defeat and tossed the bag aside.
“What’re you lookin’ for, anyhow?” 2D was now cradling the infant against his chest and patting her back lightly.
“Birth certificate. Kid doesn’t really have a name, I realized. Can’t just keep calling her the kid now, can we?”
2D hummed thoughtfully. “Fink you gotta apply for those, dontcha? Wuz it not in the paperwork you signed?”
Hah! Like Murdoc actually read anything he signed. He just wanted out of there.
He was either predictable, or 2D knew him too well, because his deadpan expression told Murdoc he didn’t need an answer.
“Awright, you take her, I’ll look through your copy of the documents an’ see if theres anything there.”
“I was supposed to get a copy of the documents?”
2D stared at him for several long moments, perhaps contemplating how Murdoc was a functioning adult and meant to take care of a whole other human life, then silently handed him the baby and began rifling through the bag Murdoc had just discarded.
Luckily, the receptionist must have shoved his copies in the bag, because before long 2D was sitting on the floor with a bunch of paperwork spread around him, flipping through then and reading carefully. While he was occupied, Murdoc peered down at the wide blue eyes of the baby he was currently holding.
“Hello,” he said quietly after a moment.
The baby dribbled on his shirt.
Murdoc grimaced and wiped her mouth with his sleeve. He stood, bouncing her a bit in his arms, and paced slowly around the motel room.
“For how dense he seems, Stu’s actually a pretty smart lad,” he told her quietly, because he didn’t really know what else to do and small-talk was a lot better when the person he was talking to didn’t answer him. Or really understand what he was saying.
So, really, it was an excuse to talk to himself.
“He was studyin’ to be a lawyer, y’know?” Murdoc told her, staring into her too-blue eyes. Those change when babies grow older, don’t they? Or is that only with cats? “Then I hit ‘im with my car. Prol’ly saved him from a boring life of pencil pushin’, if you ask me, but he gets a bit sensitive about it, so maybe don’t bring it up to him.”
Murdoc chuckled a bit, and added a sway to his step as he walked. He looked down, and noticed she had her eyes closed now. He watched her for several moments in silence, mostly in awe – not that he’d admit it – that this was a real thing in his life now. He just… had a kid, and that was his new reality. It was a little scary. Murdoc wasn’t afraid of a lot; he fought ghosts and zombie gorillas, performed on stage in front of millions of people, bathed in the attention of paparazzi. But this – fatherhood scared him. What if he mucked it all up? What if he turned out like his own father? He knew he was growing more and more like Sebastian Niccals every day – 2D could attest to that, with the bruises he was constantly hiding under long sleeved shirts and makeup. But now, looking at this lump of baby fat in his arms, he realized he would probably need to get his shit together.
Well, not together together – that was unrealistic. Maybe just gathered into one vague area. A controlled amount of shit, in the same vague area.
Satan. What was he even going on about anymore?
“I found it!”
Saved by the singer from his questionable musings, it seemed. Murdoc approached 2D, who was pointing to a line in one of the documents.
“Guardian must apply for a birth certificate within 30 days. Failure to do so within the given time period will result in a fine and a reevaluation of custody. Right there, see?”
“Alright, so we have a month.”
2D nodded. “Yup! We’ll need her name by then, and you’ll need to sign on as her dad, of course, and you’ll need to include the name of the place she was born–”
“St. Pauls Hospital, how could I bloody forget with how often they called me–”
“And her country of origin.” He paused. “I fink she gets partial Canadian citizenship, since her mum’s from here and it’s where she was born. Dunno if we have to register her in the UK or apply for citizenship, or if she gets it free cuz you’re from there.”
“That sounds like a lot of boring research that I don't want to bother with,” Murdoc grumbled, gently settling the baby into her carrier for the night.
“Uncle Stu can handle it, don’t worry!”
“Please, never, ever call yourself that in my presence ever again, or I will stuff a shoe so far down your throat you’ll shit it out in two to three days.”
“Right… sorry.”
Murdoc rolled his eyes and settled down in his bed, listening to 2D doing the same, and fell into a restless sleep.
What in Satan’s name had he gotten himself into?