Nathan Explosion had a certain guilty pleasure.
He had discovered that Pickles was adept at painting a flawless set of finger or toenails. One night he'd been sitting around bored with the some girl's purse—he didn't know what happened to the girl; he was fairly certain that she'd been the one who tried to bite his dick off after he'd called her something she didn't like, and then stormed off in a huff—and found a bottle of black nail polish in it.
No one else was around; he was entirely alone in the big room, with the TV blaring commercials and all the lights off.
He uncapped the bottle, paused for a moment to sniff the gluey polish experimentally, and then made a careless swipe over one thumbnail.
Pickles had just been passing through, looking for a favorite flask he'd lost at the same party wherein Nathan had almost gotten an unwanted dick-ectomy.
Incidentally when he saw Nathan hunched over on the couch, he thought it was for an entirely different reason.
Pickles was going to sneak up on him, whack the back of his head, then run for his life as he was chased down by an angry cockblocked Nathan.
That was until a familiar chemical smell hit his nose.
He stopped flat and stood there sniffing the air and staring at the back of Nathan's head, silhouetted by the blue glow of the massive TV screen.
But when he was certain that the smell was what he thought it was, and not a tube of Toki's model glue, he padded closer to investigate.
"Dood, ya know if ya wanted somethin' ta huff, ya coulda' asked Toki fer sum glue. Ya didn't have ta mug some lady an' steal—"
He never finished his sentence, because what he saw made him completely forget how to talk.
Nathan had attempted to paint his fingernails black. He'd succeeded in painting most of all his fingers black from the first knuckle up; the polish was a tacky black mess everywhere. He had this deer-in-the-headlights stare of such absolute shock that Pickles could not help but grin.
But he didn't laugh. Instead, he said, "Here, yer doin' it wrong. Ya hafta go with the lines on the nail, see, not sideways…"
He knocked on Pickles' door with the back of one knuckle, was reassured by the silence that followed, and entered without being let in.
He found Pickles awake and just a little bit stoned, sprawled flat on his back on his bed. He was wearing nothing but a pair of underwear that had turned slightly grayish from repeated washings with other clothing that was black. Nathan smirked. Pickles had sworn to have the Mordhaus laundry workers fired, but never got around to it, if only for the sheer purpose that they always got the vomit stains out of his clothes. One had to be grateful for one's small blessings.
Pickles paused from his gnawing on the end of one carrot-colored dred, and turned his eyes from the ceiling to Nathan.
"Hey, Nate," he said. He grinned lopsidedly. "Ya here fer yer usual touch-up?"
"Uh…yah I…got another bottle an' everything, an' I stubbed my toe one day. S'kinda brutal, actually, I mean, it's all black an' purple an' hurts like hell. O yah. An' all the paint chipped off."
Pickles chuckled a little, mostly at Nathan's calling nail-polish 'paint' (the front-man steadfastly refused to call it 'polish'. There was something innately un-metal about the word 'polish' unless used in reference to one's guns, knives, or bike. But the narrator digresses.)
He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat upright.
"A'right then. Lessee the damage." The pot made him excessively cheery.
Nathan sat down on the bed and pulled his boots and socks off. Pickles lifted one of Nathan's big feet into his lap and stared down at the half-blackened toenail appreciatively.
"Real nice, Nate. Looks like ya dropped a brick on it. What'd ya do, anyway?"
Nathan couldn't tell him that he'd stubbed it against the leg of Toki's bed three days before, when both men had been particularly horny and Toki couldn't find Skwisgaar.
He mumbled something about a mic stand.
Pickles knew better, snickered lightly, and held his hand out for the bottle.
"Nice. New brand?"
Nathan started to nod, and then shrugged. Just to keep up appearances, of course. Pickles waggled his pierced eyebrows and chuckled some more. After a moment, Nathan grunted, "The other kind gets all sticky. When you paint it on, ya know."
Pickles nodded. His hand kept probing around Nathan's foot, between his toes, and up the instep. He was adept at any kind of massage, a fact he was not shy of advertising to groupies. It was one of his hobbies—that, and using it to make Nathan writhe.
He sank the pad of one thumb into the instep of Nathan's foot (Nathan made a pleased grunt) and then fingered the blackened toe gently.
"Don't look like this one needs it." he regarded the others—chipped paint flakes, scratches, and all.
Nathan watched Pickles as the other man studied his foot. Pickles was chewing his bottom lip thoughtfully while fiddling with Nathan's toes, and there was a fine, shallow indentation between his eyebrows. The chewed-on dred was the only one that hung forward over his shoulders, and the end hung loose.
Nathan reached out and tugged it gently.
"You gonna keep playing with my toes or do 'em for me?"
"Yeah, yeah…this coat's all chipped, I'm gonna hafta take it off. Gimme a sec, hold on," Pickles moved Nathan's foot and climbed off the bed to kneel beside it.
From that angle, Nathan had a moneyshot-grade view of the drummer, with his ass wagging in the air and his head below the level of Nathan's crotch.
The first time, he'd kept trying to look away, but his eyes had always wandered back to that pale curve of back, the dingy-gray underwear riding low, and—
"Gahd I got a ton a' crap under here. Eh…here it is."
Pickles finished his Under-The-Bed Spelunking to push a battered black shoebox up onto the matters. It appeared to be held together with duct tape and staples.
Pickles stood from were he'd been kneeling, reseated himself on the bed, cross-legged, and took Nathan's big foot in his lap again.
He opened the box, rummaged through it gently, past folded-up paisley-print bandannas in bright colors, a familiar red tie that Nathan never wanted to ask about, yellowed newspaper clippings, several sticks of black eyeliner and two tubes of lipstick, and more bottles of nail polish, only one of which was black. Nathan saw a braid of faded black hair peeping from the drifts of yellowed paper in the seconds before Pickles found what he was looking for.
"HAH! Nail-polish remover, gotcha, ya little—douchebag—" Pickles tried, (and failed twice) to unscrew the lid, before he realized that he was twisting in the wrong direction.
While Pickles scrubbed at his toenails with a torn t-shirt soaked in the polish-remover, Nathan reached into the box and pulled out one purple bandanna, and one yellowed piece of paper. He unfolded it and read it before wrinkling his nose.
"Hey Pickles, how come he shot heroin into his balls?"
Pickles paused for a moment to look up at Nathan.
"Ta hide it."
"From who? Guy was in—he was in a band, he coulda' done whatever he wanted…"
"From me." Pickles' hands slowed down.
"Why?"
"'Cause I saw him OD once. I saved his life. Dood had, like, no tolerance fer the stuff. Shoulda' jest stuck with weed, I kept tellin' him. Bullets wasn't any better—"
Nathan liked to get Pickles started on his old Snakes and Barrels days, and let him ramble. It wasn't a guy thing, and it sure as hell wasn't metal, but it was nice just to hear him talk.
"—Wound up half-dead one day, lost the feelin' in his toes an' his face…"
Nathan smirked. OD paralysis was brutal. That was the reason he liked Pickles' horror stories in particular, tales of drugs, overdoses, parties, babes and booze. He leaned back against the headboard of Pickles' bed, still smirking. His eyes drifted shut as he did, his hands behind his head, and he just lay listening to the sound of Pickles' voice.
Pickles saw Nathan starting to drift off, mirrored his smirk, and suddenly forced his fingers between Nathan's toes, spreading them wide.
Nathan sat up gasping.
"'M I puttin' ya ta sleep there, Nate?"
"Uh…yah…no, I—No." then, just to keep up appearances, Nathan added, "You know your old band was totally not brutal, right?"
Pickles was still smirking.
"Wasn't the point, back then, dood. Nah, we were just thrashy. Jest wanted ta be heard. 'Least, that was how I was. Growin' up with an attention-whore delinquent older brother, ya know, my parents always payin' attention ta HIM. 'Seth' this, an' 'Seth' that, an' 'Seth knocked another girl up', an' 'Seth stole from another gas station.' With all the bad shit he did, they on'y ever paid attention ta the GOOD stuff. Like his fucking 'A' in auto-shop."
Nathan had gone from dozing to actively watching Pickles. His toenails were spotless, but weirdly gray from the black polish's leftover residue. Pickles was scowling down at his foot with an expression of disgust so scathing that Nathan actually wanted to move away from him.
Anyone who really knew Pickles knew that he was anything but the laid-back drunk he was on camera, or even he jovial druggie he was backstage after all their shows. Pickles—sober Pickles—was bitter and antisocial, had a mile-wide mean-streak, and a burning hatred for his family. Sober Pickles held grudges and would carve a person up as soon as look at them. Sober Pickles was neurotic, high-strung, cynical and not just a little cruel.
Nathan did not like Pickles this way. He disliked when any member of his band (himself excluded) acted overly serious. He wanted to change the subject.
"That why you left home?"
"Hell yeah! I was seventeen when I left," he went back to Nathan's toes, unscrewing the polish bottle and balancing it on one knee. He started on the little toe and continued inward towards the big toe with the first coat.
"Jest gat tired a' my parents an' Seth, an' my mom's 'O honey, don't forget yer inhaler, honey, don't do that, you know yer not as strong as other boys, honey that music is so DIRTY!'"
He had stopped painting Nathan's toenails and was simply scowling down at them again.
Nathan wiggled his toes to get his attention.
"Dood, don't move 'em! You'll spoil this coat! Gahd, worse'n Tony, fidget all over tha place—Hold still!"
After a moment Nathan asked, "What d'you mean he—Tony—was a fidget?"
Pickles scoffed. "He'd shoot up an' then be bouncin' off the walls. Used ta ask me to do his nails, too. You wouldn't believe—"
Nathan sat back again. "What else did he ask you to do?"
"Aw, Nate, not this again—I told ya, I ain't gonna tell ya, 'cause all you'd do is complain about how not-brutal it was, yadda yadda yadda—"
"All right, all right. God, sorry I asked." Nathan fell silent.
A moment later, he took the box and pulled a sheaf of tattered papers out. Pickles' eyes narrowed dangerously when he saw that Nathan had found his old journal.
"Nate—"
"I'm not gonna read it out loud, and I won't laugh, okay? Christ."
Pickles still stared at Nathan suspiciously, but said nothing. Nathan, meanwhile, read all of four pages, holding them out at arm's-length because he didn't have his glasses. Pickles finished that foot and moved on to the other.
"Hey Pickles," Nathan began. Pickles tensed up almost imperceptibly, and he jammed the polish brush back into the bottle, and cracked his knuckles.
"Yeah?"
"When you started out—you guys—Snakes n' Barrels—you seemed pretty cool with it, but then…like, all of a sudden you started complaining about your band, like…you wanted heavier music and stuff."
Pickles looked at Nathan blankly.
"I don't know. I—I got angry. Madder than I already was. My fuckin' parents, when they found out where I was, they didn't—ya know what they did, Nate? You wanna know? –They sent me a fucking postcard sayin' how I should really come home, since Seth got himself thrown in jail fer knifing a quickie-mart clerk who didn't open the register fast enough. I was fuckin' famous. My band was huge. And they sent me a goddamned scrap a' paper tellin' me ta come home an' fill tha hole that deadbeat left. Like that was all I was good for. Fuckin' motherdouchebags."
Nathan had no idea what it was like to have siblings. He'd grown up an only child in a house where his mother waited on he and his father hand and foot, and where his father's stone silent, disapproving glares stopped anything from being fun. But just form listening to his friends, he'd always figured it'd be fun to have a little brother to boss around, or a sister to annoy. He couldn't think of anything to say to Pickles.
"Sorry, man," he said at last. "I didn't know it was like that."
"Yeah. That's what it was like." Pickles muttered. Then he shook his head and went back to Nathan's toes. "But do you think those douchebags cared? Hell no. So I got mad. It was—I was—Gahd—" Pickles threw up his hands in frustration and gave up. He finished Nathan's other foot in silence.
"A'right, gimme yer hand."
Pickles took Nathan's hand and locked their fingers together, so that Nathan's fingertips were splayed far apart from one another. He continued speaking, wandering from topic to topic, following no coherent thought. Pickles liked to talk when he was drunk, and Nathan liked to listen—he'd never been a big talker himself. He resumed his unhurried rifling through the box.
There was a bunch of postcards, stapled together messily and scribbled all over in red marker, which he didn't ask about. The one on top had a woman's handwriting on it.
He fingered the black braid.
"Gahd, 'e almost killed us fer that."
"Huh?"
"Tony. Me n' Sammy one day, when Tony was passed-out drunk, we braided up summa his hair n' chopped it off. Ya shoulda seen him. Had this real short patch on tap a' his head fer…ah, I dunno, about a month."
Pickles sat snickering over Nathan's hand. Nathan could see how one side of his mouth pulled up farther than the other, and that Pickles kept his eyes screwed shut tight when he laughed, or fought back the urge to. It was infectious.
Nathan laughed too, mostly at the expression on Pickles' face.
"That why he always wore that stupid hat?"
"Yeh! That's why he started wearin' that hat. –Hah—an' he kept wearin' it, 'cause later he started to go bald!"
Pickles found this uproariously funny, and howled with laughter so hard he fell off the bed.
Up from the floor, Pickles was suddenly silent before he murmured, "I'm going bald."
All the breath had gone out of him.
Nathan swung one leg over Pickles' prone form and stared down at him, his elbows on his knees.
"Yah, you are," he agreed. Pickles scowled up at him, and Nathan swatted Pickles' upraised knee gently, and continued, "Only a little. You—it's not as bad as you think. Shit happens. I mean—I—look at me. Probably gonna wind up fat and hairy and damn near blind, just like my dad."
Pickles chuckled a little, but shook his head.
"Naw, Nate, you won't."
Nathan made a scoffing noise, swooped down, and hefted Pickles up. They ended with Pickles straddling Nathan's lap, almost nose-to-nose. Nathan smirked—only a bit naughtily, and squeezed Pickles' ass.
"O yah? Name one of us that isn't starting to look like our parents. Skwisgaar even acts just like his mom. Murderface looks like he crawled right out of his grandmother's ass—"
"Poor guy,"
"Yah—"
"But there's Toki." Pickles shuddered; Nathan, liking faint buzz of energy, held him closer and resumed his lazy petting Pickles' ass. "Gahd, I hope tha kid doesn't end up lookin' like his father."
Nathan slipped an exploratory hand into Pickles' briefs. The drummer's lopsided grin disappeared into Nathan's hair; he tongued the soft, unpierced lobe of the hidden ear.
Nathan growled a little, and shuddered a lot.
"An' there's you," he said. He made a displeased grunt when Pickles drew away from his ear.
"Yeah. Lucky me, instead a' gettin' dad's allover coat a' body-hair, I got Uncle Chris' baldness."
He paused, chuckled again, and climbed off Nathan's lap.
"Gimme yer other hand," he said, and settled back onto the bed beside Nathan. They were silent for a long time, before Nathan settled one big foot on top of Pickles' smaller one. Pickles smirked down at his hand.
"Dood, footsies? Didn't know ya were tha playful type."
"Nah. Playful ain't metal." Nathan scowled at him significantly, laughed at Pickles' mirroring expression, and continued, "Just wanted yer attention. Hey, what happened?"
"Huh? To what?"
"Yer uncle."
"Oh, he died in Vegas."
"Oh." Nathan mentally kicked himself in the face. Hard. With a metal cleat. "Man, I'm sorry. I didn't know."
"Nah, it's okey. He was cool, Uncle Chris. Used ta' let me toke hits offa his bong. He had glaucoma." Pickles' smile, then, was genuine. It made his eyes crinkle at the corners. Nathan had the strongest urge to kiss him, right then, as Pickles continued talking.
"Plus, with tha way he died, I don't think he minded too much. Guy went ta' Vegas fer his 60th birthday n' died right after tha hooker finished her lap-dance. Tha morticians said they had ta sew it ta his legs ta keep it down. An' then at the funeral, halfway through the pastor's speech ya heard this RRRIIIIIPP! An' it looked like he pitched a tent in his pants. Good old Uncle Chris…"
Pickles' rambling story spent, he settled back, and finished Nathan's hand.
"There ya go. Wait a while before ya do anything with yer hands, okey? Or you'll wreck tha whole thing."
"Thanks, man. I owe you."
Nathan stood up and walked to the door. He gave one last considering look at Pickles, the bed, and the boxful of things that he was gathering back up and putting away, and he wanted something he could not name or place.
He closed the door behind him and, while walking down the hall, considered dragging his nails over the rough walls, just for an excuse to go back.