"Guys, guys, what'd we say when we formed the band? We said we would never show interest, care, or intervene in bandmates' personal lives. Never."
"I know, I know... So ye're still stickin' to dat den? I mean I wouldn't have a place to talk if we were to, yanno, intervene 'cause about how much I drink, but... yanno..."
It was hard not to care. Alcohol is meant to have a good time, not to force faux happiness down your own throat. Pickles knew this fact well. He knew a lot of facts well, but none so well as the simple fact that Toki was fucked up right now and all that alcohol was doing him no fucking good. He knew for a fact that helping him was against the rules. He knew for a fact that rules were made to be broken. After all, without evil there is no good; without someone breaking the rules, there would be no example of why not to break the rules. Of course a rule is only made to prevent something that had already happened. But by God if Pickles didn't break the rule, they'd lose another rhythm guitarist, and for the opposite reason this time. Was it irony? No, I suppose not. But better judgment, as the name implies, is better, and Pickles wasn't about to let some bullshit rule override his better judgment.
And so when Toki woke up and stumbled over to the toilet to hurl his guts out, Pickles was there holding his hair out of his face and rubbing his back to calm him down and talking to him to make sure he knew he was not alone, that there was still one person who cared despite what the rules said and that he'd never be alone as long as that person lived, goddamnit, not if he could help it. He held Toki's hair out of his face just like he used to do for Tony, back when he was in Snakes N' Barrels, and didn't just hold it, stroked and petted it, whispered calming words in his ear and, once it was all over, wiped the bile and tears from his face with a washcloth because he could tell that Tony, and now Toki, was shaking so damn much he'd never be able to hold that washcloth, much less lift it to his face. And once Tony, no Toki now, was clean of vomit but not of tears because his eyes, bright blue like a glacier, a glacier that was rapidly melting, just kept streaming the hot, salty liquid, full of anguish and pain and shame, he held him to his chest and kept petting his hair, kept whispering calming words to him. Because he did care, he cared so damn much. To watch this kid, this kid who was just barely halfway through his twenties and still had so much worse to come, who had already been through so much more than so many other people and he fucking deserved to be cared for, he fucking deserved a friend to hold his hair back and hold him while he sobbed, while he fucking caterwauled his pain into his shirt; to watch it broke his heart.
And once Toki had passed out, he lifted him up and brought him to bed. Sure he was shorter than Toki and looked somewhat scrawny, but he pounded on drums all day long, and with the incentive of care lending him still more strength, moving the Norwegian man was a small task indeed. And he stayed in Toki's room all night. He stayed up to make sure that Toki didn't throw up in his sleep and asphyxiate on it, just like he used to stay up all night to watch Tony. Because dying in one's sleep because it was a drunk sleep is such a horrible way to go, such a shameful, honourless way to go, and if someone Pickles cared for was going to die, let it be from a gunshot, or a heart attack, or a true-blue drug overdose, and let them be awake. Because who wants to miss their own death? So he stayed up all night with Toki, and when the kid woke up and just started drinking again, it hurt. It hurt because he wasn't good enough for Toki. Because his care wasn't enough.
And when the stupid kid drank so much that night Mordhaus was attacked and he ended up in the hospital for alcohol poisoning right alongside Charles who was admitted for broken bones and bloodloss, Pickles ended up spending more time in the stupid kid's room than in Charles'. And when Charles was pronounced dead, Pickles sat and waited for Toki to wake up so that he could be the one to tell him, so he could care for him and be cared for himself.
And at Charles' funeral everyone cared. Everyone broke the rule. Everyone cried, though they were too damn proud to admit it. But only Pickles had to go home and watch Toki continue drinking and care that he was drinking. Because Toki didn't need that alcohol to make him feel better, he was there, Pickles was there, goddamnit, Pickles was there to help him through it, Pickles was there to make him feel better. Even when Pickles grabbed his handgun and threatened Toki with it, Toki kept drinking because he didn't care that Pickles cared.
Pickles fired the shot that shattered the vodka bottle in Toki's hand and brought all the Gears and the other three bandmembers running. And Pickles was the one whose care got the better of him until it exploded in rage, and he knocked Toki to the ground and hit him, didn't beat him, but hit him until his knuckles had Norwegian blood on them, and Toki took it all without lifting a finger against it. Because this physical punishment was something he needed, something he felt he deserved because of all that had happened, and physical punishment was the only care he got growing up, the only way he knew his parents cared enough to keep him in line.
And when Pickles stopped and stood up and screamed, demanded what everyone was staring at, stormed off to his room, Toki whimpered. Not from pain, or from fear, but from loss, from the loss of Pickles, from the loss of the physical punishment that meant care. And not a Gear nor bandmate in that room could have kept Toki, bloodied and bruised, from following Pickles, though none of them tried.
Because he needed to apologize.
Because he needed to break the rule.
Because he needed to let Pickles know that he cared too, that he was sorry and he cared and he'd never be so foolish ever again, that he'd never need Pickles to hit him like that ever again.
And Pickles was there for him like the alcohol had been, as a crutch, as a wall to lean on, but he was there more than the alcohol ever could have been. Because he was there as a friend. A friend who would break all the rules in the world to be there for him. A friend who cared.