TITLE: Dethbeds
AUTHOR: Shampaggin
PAIRING: Nathan/Charles
FANDOM: Metalocalypse
RATING: T
NOTES: Metalocalypse (c) Small and Blacha; This particular piece was inspired by some truly awful fic I had been snarking with a friend. Continued inspiration arrived in the form of the Dethbed (based on the rock and roll legend of the bed in the Rolling Stones tour bus), for which I most humbly thank Mistress Rat and hope she doesn't mind me borrowing it for a little while. A little more angsty in places than Dick In A Box, but I like the pace of this one much better.
Dethbeds
"It is astonishing just how much of what we are can be tied to the beds we wake up in in the morning, and it is astonishing just how fragile that can be."
-Neil Gaiman, Coraline.
They rarely slept for the simple joy of sleeping.
When Nathan slept, he did so on his stiff, king-sized mattress. For Nathan, bed was somewhere to go at the end of the day, somewhere to occupy his body while his mind shut down for several hours. On the occasions when he entertained a groupie, they were always, invariably, escorted out of the room by a klokateer shortly thereafter. His sleeping patterns were every bit as erratic as those of his bandmates, all five of them often running on Tokyo time.
When Skwisgaar slept, he slept on a sparse Swedish Modern aesthetic bed in the middle of his room. Flat on his back under white fur blankets, head on a single, white pillow, blond hair curled over his shoulders and upper chest. A bed to provide the ultimate in comfort, to satisfy both the vanity and the lust of the fastest guitar player alive. It was only fitting, of course. A bed large enough to accommodate his height and the girth of some of the ladies he often invited for the night. Skwisgaar never just slept.
Murderface slept on a mattress set in a macabre black bedframe. Curled devil horns and black spikes adorned the head and foot of the bed, black sheets and plain black comforters strewn around; William Murderface, most brutal of all bass players, would never have dreamed of a four-poster bed. It would ruin his view of the "morbid crap," as a certain dreadlocked redhead would have it, itemised and displayed proudly around his stonewalled room. Said room was surprisingly Medieval, something none of the other band members would have noticed if they had A) the knowledge to pass such a judgment, and B) ever actually gone in.
The aforementioned redhead, well, he slept on an habitually-unmade bed. More often than not, it was littered with bottles. More often than not, as it happened, it was also littered with X-rated magazines, bits of junk food and the wrappers it all came in, and soaking here and there with spilled bongwater. A bed was simply an elevated patch of floor, somewhere flat and even to lay his body on for a while while it processed and cleaned up whatever he put into it on any given day. Calvert and Molly would be the first in line to tell a gossip rag that Pickles never could keep his room clean.
Toki slept on the smallest bed of all. A double bed, neatly made, housing just him and the small form of Deddy Bear. Plain grey sheets and an old, goose-down comforter, something to curl up in and make a nest with. To any observer, Toki may as well have been part hedgehog. When Toki slept, he slept for need of comfort. When the day was done, and his light turned off, he would indeed curl up like a hedgehog and burrow deep into the warmth and solace his bed provided. And once in a great while, in his warm nest, Toki Wartooth cried himself to sleep.
On tour, all of this was suspended; The Dethbus housed the famed Dethbed, large and brutal enough to accommodate five tired musicians and whoever they brought back with them, and still not disturb each other. On tour, all guards down - though none of the men of Dethklok would ever admit to something so pussy - was when they could sleep for the hell of it. For the joy of it. For the simple reason that they felt like it. And on this particular tour, Charles Ofdensen reflected, he felt like it too. Reaching up to stroke soft, black hair and smiling at the unconscious sigh he received in return, he stretched, yawned, huddled just a little closer, and slept for the simple joy of sleeping.
-Fin-