Skwisgaar could feel the tension in Toki's smaller, stronger body; could feel the explosive anger coiled like a tight spring. There was blood all over his clothes, drying in his hair, splotched in crazy patterns over his wild-eyed face, and Skwisgaar feared for his arms if Toki decided to break the Swede's hold--no one could contain Toki if he chose to let loose, no one except maybe Nathan, but even Nathan was loathe to make the attempt.
The psychotic blue lightshow caused by the drug leftover in the remaining members Snakes n' Barrels' systems provided a convenient (if destructive) distraction from Toki's...outburst...much to Ofdensen's relief. No one would be left alive to testify that Toki had completely deconstructed a guy's face...and killed him, by the looks of it...the guy had had no face left when Toki had finally stopped punching.
They walked slowly back to the Hatredcopter, Skwisgaar holding Toki as tightly as he could, pinning the other guitarist's arms to his sides. He was the only one that Toki would allow anywhere near him, and even then it had taken all the courage Skwisgaar could muster to lay hands on his blood-crusted friend.
The blond tried hard to repress a cold shiver as he remembered how Toki had looked, poised on the guy's knees, his long hair tangled and dripping in blood. His broad chest had been heaving erratically, and his eyes...when he turned his head to look at his bandmates, his eyes had been bloodshot, mindless parodies of themselves, as if some demon were peering out at them from its perch within Toki's crazed brain.
Skwisgaar had been the only one not to shrink away, the only one to take a deep breath, kneel beside Toki, and ask him quietly to get up from the man's knees. Toki had complied, and it was then that Skwisgaar had taken hold of him--Toki struggled, but only halfheartedly, as if saying I could get away if I wanted...oh yes, you know I could...
He shook his head slightly and blinked, trying to clear his mind of the memory, trying to focus on what he was going to have to do for Toki when the younger man came back to himself. He felt Toki's bunched biceps twitch slightly, and had just a split second to tighten all the muscles in his own arms before Toki threw himself against his bonds.
"Lets me the fucks go," Toki snarled, and his voice was nothing like usual. It was ragged and cruel and somehow bloody, as if he were channeling some vicious Viking ancestor.
Just get to the Hatredcopter with him, Skwisgaar thought, though he could already feel the bruises rising on his forearms.
Ofdensen threw open the door to the giant helicopter, stepping away as Toki and Skwisgaar stumbled inside. The Norwegian had managed to break free just as the two of them made it through the doorway, and he took off up the stairs before Skwisgaar could so much as blink.
"Skwisgaar, uh...he's only gonna let you talk to him," Nathan muttered, rubbing the back of his thick neck. His voice was almost apologetic.
"Yeah, and I'm not really intereschted in loschin' my fasche to that crazy fucker," Murderface mumbled.
"I'd help ya, dood, but ah..." Pickles cast a bleary eye up the staircase. "Don't think he even knows who I am right now."
"He's not knowings who anybodies is," Skwisgaar mumbled, massaging his abused forearms. He began to make his way up the stairs, trying to ignore the pain, trying not to think about what would come next...
He found Toki in his apartments (slightly smaller than the ones back at Mordhaus), sitting in a corner with his bloody knees pulled up to his bloodier chest. His hands were buried deeply in his hair, and Skwisgaar thought he was digging his fingernails into his scalp--litte rivulets of fresh blood trickled down his wrists and forearms.
"Toki?" Skwisgaar asked tentatively. It was important to know if the younger man would respond to his name--if he didn't, it would be a bad, bad sign.
"H...hvem er det?" he asked, slightly raising his bleeding head from his knees. His trembling voice was more or less back to normal, but Skwisgaar was still cautious as he crouched down beside his friend.
"Toki, does you be knowings who I ams?" Skwisgaar asked, reaching out and laying his hand on Toki's arm. The brunette shrank away from the touch, but didn't try to fight him off.
"I......maysbe?" Toki pulled his head up the rest of the way, squinting slightly, as if he wasn't sure of what he was saying or who he was speaking to.
"I's Skwisgaar," the blond man mumbled, and had to fight a near-uncontrollable urge to simply take Toki in his arms and hold him tightly. It hurt so much more than it really should when Toki didn't know him, but he tried hard to remember that when things like this happened, Toki barely knew himself.
"Skwis..." Toki mumbled. "Skwis...Skwisgaar. Oh...gods, Skwis...whats did I..."
"Dats rights, is me," Skwisgaar said, cutting him off. "Now comes on, yous dildo...lets gets yous cleaned up." He rose up, knees popping slightly, and offered Toki his hand.
Toki stared at it for a moment, then pulled one of his own hands out of the tangle of his hair and stared at it; the bloody fingertips, the bruised, split knuckles caked in dried blood. He looked back at Skwisgaar's clean, pale hand, then back to his own, then back again.
"No," he whispered, "No, no, I's didn'ts...please, no..." he curled back into himself, digging his hands into his hair once more, trembling and rocking and mumbling under his breath in Norwegian.
Skwisgaar put one arm around Toki's shoulders and the other under the backs of his knees--though his strained muscles screamed in protest, he carried Toki into the bathroom.
Toki had fallen silent now; he let Skwisgaar undress him as if he were a doll. The Swede felt that familiar surge of anger rise in his chest when he saw the latticework of scars that made up Toki's back; everything that happened tonight could be traced back to that one man, that one heartless man who didn't deserve to be called a man, let alone a father. Skwisgaar tried to keep his face calm, but it was hard. It was so hard...
Toki made no sound until Skwisgaar lowered him into a warm bath and began washing the blood away from his hands.
"Ow," he whispered, as the soap stung the wounds on his knuckles. "Hurts, Skwis."
"I knows," Skwisgaar mumbled, and used the detachable shower head to rinse through Toki's hair. "This may be hurtins too, Toki, I's sorries."
He massaged the shampoo into Toki's hair as gently as he could, though Toki still hissed when the suds found their way into the tiny cuts in his scalp.
"Cans you stands up?" Skwisgaar asked, once every trace of the blood had been washed from Toki's skin.
Toki nodded and complied; he stepped out of the bath and wrapped himself in a dark, fluffy towel, watching as the maroonish-tinted water gurgled away down the drain.
"I...whats...Skwis, whats happens? I...don'ts be rememberings..." he knitted his eyebrows a little, then yawned. "I ams so tired..."
"Yous was drinkins a lot, Toki," Skwisgaar lied quietly. "Goes to sleeps...yous...yous will be feelings better in da mornings."
"Okies...yous comes too?" he asked.
Skwisgaar nodded, trying not to hate himself for lying, trying not to wonder what lie he'd have to tell to explain the bruises on his arms, trying not to think of what Toki would ever do if he one day remembered his psychotic lapses...