#gorillaz paula | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sardonic-the-writer · 2 months

Text

𝐓𝐨𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐰 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐓𝐨𝐝𝐚𝐲

↳ summary: the day that landed your coworker in the hospital, and a car in the side of a building

↳ warnings: some blood, mentions of alcohol, some hurt but everyone turns out okay, and murdoc being murdoc

↳ notes: had a close friend that knows nothing about gorillaz beta read this, and they convinced me to post it. enjoy. reblogs and comments are more than appreciated

↳ song: da funk—daft punk

masterlist | commissions | carrd

Business at Uncle Norm’s Organ Emporium had been steady that day.

You remember it being around three in the afternoon when your shift rounded its end. The busted heater of the store rattled with a wheeze as it desperately tried to stay on, and you reveled in the momentary relief it brought you from the cold weather. Customers shuffled amongst isles lined with various vinyl’s and cd’s, occasionally approaching you at the front desk to ask a question or secure their purchase. Only one or two complained about the mold in the corners of the room this time—an overall win for the day, you mused.

“‘Ello.”

The small shop filled with a tinkling noise as the glass door to the outside swung open. A burst of cold air came with it, and the customers nearest the entrance bundled up tighter for the moment. You just exchanged a polite look with the newest addition to the store, eager to get off your feet and go home.

Stuart Pot’s green eyes flitted to you for a moment as he offered a small smile to accompany his hello. He took a moment to breathe in the warm air of the shop, no longer disrupted by the draft he had let in, before shedding his coat and starting forward. No doubt preparing himself for the beginning of his shift.

Stuart was a man that seemed to be all legs and no brain. Most people upon meeting him assumed he was stupid, walking all over him until he said something to make them think otherwise about their actions. You yourself wouldn’t have made much of him if he hadn’t struck up a conversation one day. Now, he was one of the only people you talked to on a regular basis. Pretty sad, considering he was just your coworker, but not at all unexpected for having just moved here.

You knew he liked roller skating and wanted to be a storm chaser as a kid. You knew he had a girlfriend that played guitar, and spent his spare time painting. And after one unforgettable day when you decided to bring your lunch in, you now knew his lips ballooned up when he ate pickles.

Stuart really wasn’t a difficult guy to get along with. And while your job wasn’t bad, it was always nice to have something of a friend to complain about it with.

“Afternoon.” You settled for nodding at him as he rounded the corner of the desk, pushing yourself out of the leaning position you had been in to allow him space behind the register. “It’s a real nasty one out there, yeah?”

“Only if yew don’t have a car.” Stuart, who had insisted you call him Stu for the past year now, shrugged. In truth, it wasn’t that he didn’t have a car, just that he didn’t know how to drive it. But that wasn’t anything important you needed to know.

You nodded in agreement as he panned away from you to clock in. At that moment across the store, a customer opened the door Stuart had just come from only to have the wind outside blow it closed right in their face. They took a moment to struggle with it before stumbling outside, looking displeased as they did so.

You made a face.

On a nearby chair hung your own scarf and jacket that you’d brought for the walk home. And while your feet hurt something awful, the thin layers you had brought in preparation of the temperature made you hesitate. Clearly you hadn’t thought long enough about how cold it would get. You sighed in defeat before turning back to Stuart.

“So, how have you been?”

The blue haired man blinked at your form leaning on the counter, no doubt wondering why you weren’t heading out. With a huff of air, you tossed the formalities in favor of a more straightforward conversation.

“It’s freezing out there.” You scrunched up your nose. “I don’t want to walk all the way through town in that just to get to my flat and find out my landlord forgot to fix the heat again. At least here has some warmth.”

“True.” Stuart’s voice cracked in its familiar fashion. Ever a man of few words, he just stood awkwardly, biting at a stray fingernail or two as a nasty habit. Thankfully the silence didn’t linger long before someone shuffled up to purchase a new set of guitar picks.

“Have you heard the new album that we got last week yet?” You mused after he was done ringing the fellow up, pushing yourself off and jumping over the front desk to point at a collection of records. “I thought it was pretty good, and it sounded like one of those underground bands you like to talk about.”

Stuart immediately perked up when you started talking about music; as he always did. It shouldn’t have surprised you, really, to work at a music shop with someone that was passionate about the art form. But with the way Stuart rambled on every now and then you’d think that that’s all he ever thought about.

Nimble fingers picked up the artists cover as Stuart turned it over to the description on the back. When you hadn’t been looking, he’d abandoned his post in favor of the possibility of a new song track, moving surprisingly quiet for someone of his height.

“Homework?” Stuart parroted the title back at you as he read through the track names. “Sounds funny.”

“Lot’s of people think the same thing about you.” You grinned with teeth, unaffected by his suspicion. Stuart just looked at you owlishly, letting a small gap toothed smile show as he caught onto the joke.

“‘S nawt my fault I got an accent.” He placed the album under his arm for later, no doubt going to utilize the employee discount you and him were so generously offered. “If anyfing you’re the weird one.”

You would have responded. In fact, your lips had already opened— ready to rebuke his claim —when a horrible screeching noise stopped you.

The front of the store exploded into a brilliant shower of glass mere seconds later. Shards glittering in the grey light from outside threw themselves at you, covering the skin along your arms and face with a tingly feeling. You barely had time to process a slow trickle of something warm making its way down your face before your body reacted for you.

A poorly carpeted floor felt the weight of your backside as you fell back, bumping your head on a nearby table in the process. Somewhere a few feet away from you, you heard high pitched groaning that sounded faintly like Stuart’s voice, and a gleeful cackle that incited a splitting headache.

Faint sirens wailed in the background as you wobbly stood to your feet. The sight before you was much different than it had been a few moments ago. Pianos and cases of speakers that you had spent the better part of last week propping up were now in pieces. Some made sparking noises as they lay in disarray. You stared at them as your vision swam, not yet aware of the yelling figures around you or of the small pool of blood collecting at your feet.

But the biggest change by far you noticed, was the giant car sticking through the front of the shop.

At the wheel was the source of the maniacal laughing. In the three seconds it took to give him a once over, you observed more details about the driver than you could ever want in your life.

He had olive toned skin that was lined with sparse scars. His teeth were yellowed and pointed in an unnatural manner, and his hair fell just about halfway over his eyes; which when he opened them you saw were two different colors. One black, and the other a faded pink. It didn’t take long for his gaze to land on you.

“Oi! Did you bloody see that!” He shouted with glee, apparently ignorant to the chaos he had caused. “Brilliant! Bloody brilliant! Can’t even say I’m sorry about the cuts, love.”

His gravelly tone did nothing to snap your brain out of the haze it was floating in. With a far away look, you stared straight through the driver.

Later you wouldn’t remember the way his eyes widened as you mumbled something with a frown before collapsing forward on the hood of his car, fading into a restless realm of black.

You were fine.

Stuart Pot was fine.

At least that’s what the tests said.

Doctor after doctor had come in and out of your room with clipboards before they allowed you to even so much as get up. They’d given up on keeping you off your feet after you rolled out of bed as an act of defiance.

Everything was too white. Hospitals had always felt so artificial to you, so being stuck in one was nothing short of a nuisance. Beeping machines in your ear only proved to aggravate you further, testing your nerves. Thankfully, a nurse was sent in to discharge you, bringing news of only a few cuts they had disinfected, and some minor head trauma that should be okay as long as you kept an eye on it.

Now here you sat, just a few rooms over from the one you had just woken up in, sitting in a visitors chair next to your only friend.

Your only, catatonic, unresponsive friend.

Stuart’s hospital room was busier than yours. There were more machines, more i.v drips, and more nurse visits than yours had. It was to be expected, though. He had gotten hit with the car head on instead of just being near it, unlike you and the other spectators. The only thing keeping your stresses at bay was that his vitals were steady.

Blue hair splayed itself all around his pillow like a halo as he lay almost peacefully. His chest was moving up and down at an even pace, the gap in his teeth making a whistling noise as he breathed. You would have felt more relieved about it all, if it wasn’t for his eye.

It was fucked. That was the simple way to put it. Completely and utterly fucked. Where a gaze of mossy green had been prior, there was now brilliant bloody red. The entirety of it had been consumed by an inky darkness, making it look like the appendage had just popped right on out of his face. You were unaware if Stuart could see you staring at him from time to time, but you figured if he could, all he would see was pain on your face. Pain, not at his appearance, but at the trauma that was sure to come from it when he woke up.

There had been a third party to visit Stuarts bed not too long ago, sporting sunglasses indoors and black lipstick, and proving to be a very useful distraction for you. You hadn’t recognized her at first until she rushed to Stuart’s bedside, clutching at his hand like it would somehow shock him back awake.

Paula Cracker was just as you remembered her; loud and unabashed. The one time she had come by the shop to pick up Stu on her way home hadn’t been particularly interesting, if the way she barely looked at you before screaming along to her radio said anything. Stuart had to assure you the next day that she didn’t mean any harm. She just wasn’t all for meeting new people.

You had shaken your head at him and said nothing at the time.

But now, in the hospital, sitting by her boyfriend’s bed, Paula couldn’t seem to stop talking to you. She ran right into conversations like they were open doors, barely leaving any room for you to respond before barreling on. By the time she declared that she had to leave, no matter how much she apparently wished to stay, you had counted a total of ten words that you’d managed to get in. You offered her a short goodbye to match. She didn’t seem to notice.

You settled into a morose silence after that. Nurses stopped coming in, and you stopped waiting for something, anything at all, to happen. It was beginning to set in that Stu had been, to out it bluntly, run over, and wouldn’t be waking up anytime soon.

You had just begun to wonder if you should head home when the door knob to the room rattled, and opened harshly.

“Well this is bloody brilliant.”

The door to the hospital room, which you could have sworn Paula had just walked out of, swung open in a wide berth to reveal the very person that landed you in the hospital.

A quick glance at the clock let you know that Paula had been gone for almost two hours, leaving you to sit by yourself as Stu stayed put.

“What are you doing here.” Your mouth moved before you could stop it, sentence slipping past your lips in a weak attempt to make sense of this unsettlingly human being.

He looked the very same as he had the last time the two of you met. Just this time with an upside down cross for a necklace, and less blood on his hands. Literally.

The stranger made his way over to you, flopping down in a visitor chair and lighting a cigarette with one very dented lighter. He smiled cruelly at you, showing off a familiar row of teeth. They were as pointed as you remembered.

“Charity.” He tacked on a weird laugh at the end through the stick in his mouth. Two fingers lifted to his lips to remove the cigarette, a thick plume of smoke coming with it. He blew it in your face, and if you hadn’t been so lost in thought, you might have hit him for it.

“You don’t seem the charitable type.” Once again, your words were getting ahead of you. But he didn’t seem to be offended at all. Rather, the man gave a bone chilling laugh that was ended with another drag of his fag.

“Court mandated.” He continued with a smirk.

“They already had you tried?”

“What can I say? The law works fast when it comes to Murdoc Niccals.” He shrugged, once again with that strange laugh of his that accompanied nearly everything he said.

You simply eyed him with a tired sort of caution, drinking in the new information like it could kill you at any second.

“What? Not going to share your name with me?” Murdoc sneered. “It’s only polite.”

“When it comes to you, I have a feeling manners don’t really apply.” You grumbled, but ended up sharing your name all the same. Murdoc nodded slowly in response. You saw his eyes flick you up and down a couple times— something that made you clench a fist —before they found their way over to Stu’s bed.

“Hafta take care of him for ten hours.” He continued to explain without a hint of regret for the individual. “Apparently knocking some scrub in the noggin’ is a crime.”

“I wonder why.” You responded dryly, scratching at the bottom of your right eye without thinking about it.

“Wish I’d hit someone better looking with my car.” Murdoc laughed with a not so subtle look to you. “Wouldn’t mind taking care of ‘em for a few hours.”

“You just crashed a car into the front of a building and nearly killed someone. I don’t think I’d trust you with as much as a dead fish, much less Stuart.” You crinkled your nose. ‘Or me,’ your brain silently added.

“Not much you or I can do ‘bout it now, love.” He took another smoke to punctuate his sentence. It left you with furrowed brows and downturned lips. Murdoc snickered at your expression.

“I mean, it wouldn’t that be hard to watch you.”

“Didn’t know you were into that.” The man sported a shark’s grin, only dropping it when you made a fake vomiting noise.

“God no. I meant watch you while you take care of Stu. Make sure you don’t do anything to him.”

“I’m hurt you think I’d do anything unethical to Steve.” He scoffed.

“Stuart.”

“Same thing.” He shrugged. You didn’t bother to correct him.

The two of you delved into an awkward pause that was timed by the ticking of the nearby wall clock. While you were busy thinking about what exactly you had just offered yourself up for, you could tell Murdoc was growing bored. You fell back on bouncing your leg as you analyzed him, the bottom half of your body attempting to get out all of the nervous energy you had been bottling up.

“Well—" Murdoc flicked a bit of ash off the butt of his cigarette, putting it out against the armrest of his chair. “—this was a joy, yeah? Let’s never do it again.”

You couldn’t help but mumble an agreement in his direction. He stood up with a twist of his back, letting out a satisfied sigh as it cracked.

“Guess I’ll see you soon, love.” Murdoc chuckled darkly while heading for the door. One leather clad boot was out the exit before he paused, necklace bouncing against his chest as he turned to look at you.

“Say. You don’t play any instruments, do you?” His eyes held an unreadable emotion.

“Uh, I dabble. Stu is more of the music guy than me.” You responded. “Why?”

But he was already gone, leaving you to wonder if he had never been there. But the ash on the chair next to you and the faint smell of booze in the air told you otherwise.

You let your head fall into the embrace of your hands as you groaned, massaging at your temples in an attempt to quell the pounding in your head.

“What have I gotten myself into.”