Whatever it was in the mirror staring back at him wasn't what he was used to seeing, he hated whatever was staring back at him. It was his own damned fault for looking in a mirror in the first place, but after he had regained his health for the most part and was able to leave the hospital wing of Mordhaus he had been curious. Who wouldn't be curious when they were told they lost all sight in their left eye and the vision in the right was damaged to the point it was strongly suggested they wear glasses or an eye contact, so far he had stubbornly done neither. The look of his eyes wouldn't bother him so much if it weren't for the fact that his left eye had a very glassy look to it, the already pale color managed to become even paler than it already had been. It somehow reminded him far too much of his father's eyes, another thing from his past he didn't need anymore reminders of; when it didn't remind him of the Reverend it reminded him of Magnus. He didn't need another physical reminder that he had known the man, bad enough he had the scar on his back. Toki lifted his shirt up and turned so he could get a better look at the mark in the mirror. The skin around it was a pinkish color, at least the infection was going down; the skin hadn't healed as well as it should have if it had been taken care of properly in the first place. Spending an entire year with a gaping wound that only got treated through sloppy stitch work and a daily dousing with a bottle of vodka hardly counted for proper medical care. He thought back to how sick he had gotten from the infections crawling inside the wound alone. He cringed thinking about how he had lay shaking on the floor crying in pain, skin covered in a cold sweat and pretty sure he would have just died. Magnus had tried to get him to get up, to move or to react, but Toki couldn't get himself to talk or to move outside of his shaking. The lack of response had filled Magnus with another bout of rage, he had kicked the younger man repeatedly, the toe of his boot striking the open wound with every kick. He had only stopped with Abigail had began yelling and had pulled the defenseless musician towards her to do her best to protect him.

He hated himself for how much he had relied on her; he knew that if it hadn't been for her he would have died. He would have either found a way to commit suicide or he would have just given up and waited for infection and disease to take his life. She had protected him, she had talked to him, and kept him calm the two times he had ended up having panic attacks. She had tried to keep him from blacking out the times it would have been an even worse danger to his health, she had even offered herself up for punishment the times she knew it would have killed him. It sickened him just how weak he had been; she didn't need to do those things for him. Before being captured she hadn't known him, she had barely spoken to him. Yet she actually thought it was necessary to take care of him. He was grateful, God he was beyond grateful. Grateful to the point he couldn't even begin to properly explain it in English.

Everybody just ended up taking care of him and protecting him in the end. Magnus had told him time and time again in that time that he would have died years ago if it hadn't been for Skwisgaar's pity in letting him into the band. If he had to stay homeless for another week he would have ended up starving to death or being killed, if Nathan and Pickles hadn't practically raised him he would have ended up even worse of a wreck, and if Abigail hadn't looked after him in that year he surely would have died. He was weak, he wasn't mentally capable to be strong. He wanted to, he tried to be, but he couldn't handle it. He took as much as he could until something would snap and he reverted into silence and his mind sending him back to places he didn't want to remember or relive.

Toki left the bathroom going back to his bedroom, he went right over to his laptop opening up the window he had been on before he decided to get a better look at his appearance for the third time today alone.

He looked through the news site, every other article talking about his band and what they had been doing while he had been away. Pictures of them drunk, stoned, and with half naked women clinging onto them. Videos, video links, and interviews; at least what you could consider an interview with somebody so intoxicated they kept zoning out after every three words they spoke. He wanted to be pissed and to some grand degree he wasn't even pissed, he was enraged. Magnus had showed him these pictures and videos though, it wasn't news.

Magnus had grabbed him by the metal collar bound around his throat and dragged him like he was a dog, had thrown him down onto the ground and pointed towards the computer screen showing him pictures and videos of his friends, his family pretending he had never existed. He had told Toki how they hadn't cared, how they had replaced him just like they had done to Magnus; he was a victim of the band just the same as him. At the time it had made him feel numb with fear, the fear of being forgotten and thinking that this was how he was going to die. When Magnus had thrown him back into his corner of the cell he had spent hours just staring blankly ahead until it hit him, when it hit him it had hit hard causing him to break down crying until the pain in his bruised ribs made him realize he should stop.

Since he had gotten back nobody had really talked about it. They were nice to him, attentive, and he could see a horrible guilt in their eyes every time that they looked at him. At this point they had to know that he knew about all of this, they were just waiting for him to react. Maybe he was too numb or dumb to react to it anymore, maybe he didn't want to know the reason why anymore. It was their business, he couldn't blame them. They had known him only a few short years, Murderface pointed out time and time again in the five years he had been in their band that he didn't count as an actual member. He was a newbie, he hadn't been there since the beginning; he was just a street rat that Skwisgaar had taken in for some 'dumb gay European reason'.

Toki crawled onto his bed curling up on his side, he cringed at the pain in his side. It felt like every inch of his body ached anymore; the medication he had been given for the pain helped, but there were times where he didn't take the pills that he was told to. He rationalized for himself that if he felt more pain he would grow up, remember what it was like to be in constant pain and how to live with it instead of complaining and flinching away from it.

He stared at his wall with unfocused eyes; his vision was absolutely fucked. One eye revealed nothing but darkness while the other gave him a blur around the outside of everything he tried to look at. If he could be bothered to move from this position on this bed then he could retrieve his glasses from his night stand, but lack of motivation and lack of wanting to really see anything kept him in place. He just wanted to lay here; he didn't want to eat, sleep, or see his friends. Every time they had to see him it was a guilt trip, even without speaking a single word his very presence filled them with guilt. He didn't want to be a reminder to them, not like that.

He heard his bedroom door click open, the sound of somebody opening the door as quietly as possible then closing it behind them in the same near silence. He played a guessing game in his mind about who it could be. It could have been Pickles, but the drummer had been around that morning offering to cook him breakfast and play video games with him, Nathan had come in around lunch, and Murderface had come by long enough to tell him to stop being such an asshole.

The mattress creaked with the weight of another body on the bed, Toki waited for Skwisgaar to say something, but the older musician remained quiet. He could feel eyes on him, looking him over as the guitarist tried to think of something to say, to do, or why he was there in the first place. He seemed to feel nearly as guilty as Nathan about this whole thing, Toki didn't understand why. In the pictures and videos Skwisgaar had looked lost, stoned out of his mind to a point Toki knew he would normally be highly against. The lead guitarist did not like being that out of his mind, out of touch with things; doing that much meth would have affected him and his playing abilities, then the type of women he had been having sex with were even out of his usual type. He'd just seemed so out of it, out of his normal self. Toki hadn't noticed it until he got back to Mordhaus and looked back at those pictures and those videos. It was like his reaction after Nathan had gotten him down even after seeing all of the things his friends had done and the way they had forgotten him his first reaction had been to cling to Skwisgaar's side. Not that it seemed to bother or disgust Skwisgaar like Magnus told him it would of, instead he had held him closely and protectively like if anybody had tried to take the younger guitarist away from him he was willing to slaughter them.

A hand on his side brought him back, he flinched away from the cautious touch. Skwisgaar pulled his hand away muttering something under his breath. Toki wanted to tell him he was sorry, he still wasn't entirely used to being touched yet.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry about everything. I really wanted to find you, but...Ofdensen said they were taking care of it and when they couldn't find you...Just after those first few months we started thinking that maybe you guys were dead."

He spoke the word 'dead' like it was nearly impossible to say, there was something broken and scared in his voice. Toki wanted to yell at him, say they could have looked themselves before it had been a year. He wanted to tell him that it hurt to be chained up like a dog and forced to see your friends out forgetting you like you meant shit to them even after five years.

"I'm so sorry. Please just say something or yell at me...You can beat me up if you want, I fucking deserve it."

There was something so desperate and self hating in his voice, the way it wavered and the choked sob at the end.

"I'm not mad at you, I wouldn't have looked for me either."

"Don't say that"

"It's true, you only looked for me because you were losing money."

He felt the slightest hit of resentment inside himself. It were possible if he weren't so broken down and exhausted then he could find the energy to scream at him, to punch him and tell him that he hated him. The only energy he could find in himself was to roll onto his back so he could look up at the older man. Skwisgaar looked away from him bowing his head, a curtain of blond hair hiding his face. Toki could still hear him crying, his breathing ragged.

"I'm sorry, I don't know what else to say. I was too much of a fucking pussy to look for you myself, I got scared. I didn't want to think about it or you."

There was a sense of pity at seeing Skwisgaar this way; he hadn't seen him this way for a long time. A morbid part of his mind he had become better acquainted with over the past year made him question just how hard he would be crying if Toki had died. He pushed the thought away when it made his chest ache.

Toki pulled himself up into a sitting position; he slung an arm around the older man's shoulders pulling him against him. Skwisgaar buried his face against his chest, he wrapped his arms around Toki's waist.

He couldn't force that reasonable disgust into himself. Whatever Skwisgaar had been doing to himself was punishment enough for now, God knows he would be living with that guilt in his mind for the rest of his life.

Lips hesitantly pressing against the side of his neck set his skin on fire in a way he hadn't felt since the night before the funeral had taken place. He held his breath while Skwisgaar trailed light kisses up along his neck pulling away when he reached his jawline. He released the breath he had been holding when he looked into the older man's tear filled eyes, he looked like he'd gone weeks without sleep. Having somebody look so closely after him made him uncomfortable; he recounted in his mind every detail that wasn't pleasant to look at and just how much it sickened himself.

"I'm sorry" Skwisgaar whispered, he placed a hand upon the younger man's cheek.

"Stop saying that or I will punch you."

The older man smirked, "Okay...I love you"

Hearing those words was comforting, he couldn't remember the last time somebody had said that to him. Had anybody said it and meant it, nobody genuinely meant it not like that.

Skwisgaar's lips meant his, the action was gentle and unsure; Toki kissed him back reassuring him it was okay. He tangled his fingers in blond hair he remembered used to be a lot thicker, but Skwisgaar also used to not be so thin. He could feel all the desperate grief coming off of the older man, he kissed him like he would never see him again. When they broke apart they stared at one another, both doing their best to control their breathing before kissing again. Skwisgaar gently pushed the younger man back onto the bed, his hand trailed up and down along his side doing his very best to not touch his scar. Skwisgaar kissed along his neck stopping at the neck line of his shirt, he nuzzled against the crook of his neck remembering the hundred times they had been like this before. Toki kissed the top of his head, he took hold of the older man's hand lacing their fingers together.

"Stay here tonight?"

"Yeah"

He didn't mention how many nights he had gone into Toki's room when he knew the others wouldn't notice and had just curled up and slept on his bed. They would have killed him if they had found out about it. It felt surreal to actually be in this bed again, only not alone this time.

"I love you too" Toki whispered

There was some odd small sense of comfort in finding a way to kill the loneliness they had felt for over a year.