Author's Note: I have a theory that every person that Toki kills or causes the death of in one way or another basically he hears their voices and it started with the little girl in season one and goes all the way up to Magnus. I think that's why he drinks and does drugs and talks about killing himself, because he doesn't know what's going on or how to deal with it. So decided to sort of put my theory into a story, so test chapter I'll write more if anybody likes it.
'You killed me, your selfishness killed me.'
'You were never supposed to be born, you are a curse.'
'I should have just driven the knife through your fucking heart.'
Voices so many voices, too many to count, and by this point he was in his own way accustomed to them. Every voice was different, some of the voices were really nice and even forgiving towards him, but mostly they were angry. He didn't know why he was hearing them, were they even real?
He wasn't even sure he could respond to them, tell them to stop and just leave him alone. He was sorry, he was so very sorry for everything he caused them.
'You fucking asshole, you fucking smashed my skull and got away with it. Not a single fucking charge against your sorry ass.'
He wanted them to stop, why couldn't they just stop?
Toki took another long drink from the bottle of vodka he held tightly in his hand. He sat in the corner of his bedroom, his back pressed against the wall. He kept his free hand clutched to the side of his head, fingertips and chewed down fingernails digging roughly into his scalp. Ever since that little girl had died this had been happening to him, it started with her and at first he thought he was just going insane, maybe grief and regret were the reason he heard her screeching and accusing voice inside of his head. He had found drinking made it better or at least distracted him, when he was drunk he could drown out her voice. That had been fine, he found in time he could live with the regret of treating the girl like shit and he agreed with her; he had been a selfish prick. He could handle one voice, but when his father joined in after his death...That's when he lost a lot of control over his own mind.
There were times and even days where he didn't hear it, didn't hear them, but today wasn't one of those days. Today was one of those days where they were harassing him full force, pulling and clawing until his skull felt close to exploding.
He could only sit on the cold hard floor crying and whimpering, on occasion whispering for them to stop. He always wanted to tell somebody, he wanted to tell somebody so badly, but he knew how crazy it sounded and he still wasn't sure that he wasn't crazy. He thought he must be, he had to be crazy or at least his friends treated him that way. Ever since what happened with Magnus it was like nobody knew exactly how to treat him; Nathan sometimes seemed over protective almost scared to lose the younger man all over again, Pickles was close to the same way, and Skwisgaar and Murderface just treated him like some oddity they weren't sure was completely safe to be around. He hated that, he hated that they couldn't just go back to the way things were before. Well maybe not completely the way they were before, he didn't like how much they acted like they didn't need him back then.
'They don't need you now, you should have just listened to me. They don't care about you, you're just in the way like I was. They only came for you, because they were losing money' Magnus' voice hissed angrily at him from one of the many corners of his mind.
Sometimes in nightmares he could see them, dead and rotting corpses of people he had caused to die. They always grabbed at him and clawed at him like zombies in a horror film would do to a soon to be victim. The dreams ended with Toki waking up crying until he exhausted himself all over again.
Drinking helped; when he said that he helped he meant that it made it all a bit more tolerable. When he was drunk and when he was stoned he could still hear them, but the voices would be a lot quieter. They could break through though, they knew how vulnerable and stupid he could be when he was completely wasted and they loved taking full opportunity of that. They would get him into fights or get him to hurt himself intentionally or not, pain made them back away some. He always wondered what would happen if the just...
He took another long drink from the bottle that was getting too close to empty for his liking.
'I should have killed you, I should have worked alone. Not paired up with that bastard assassin. I wanted to make it hurt and make it slow.'
"Shut up, just leave me alone."
'I could have cut out your fucking eye, carved off your flesh; I could have kept you alive long enough to do all of that and more. You deserve shit, you're a filthy fucking dog. That's all you are. A fucking mutt that nobody wants, they don't fucking want you. He doesn't fucking want you.'
"I said shut up, just shut up!"
He threw the bottle as hard as he could, it hit against his bedroom door smashing. Toki started crying harder than he had been before; he honestly somehow preferred hearing his father's voice over Magnus' voice. He was thinking about that place again, about the awful things Magnus had said when he was alive. He wished the man was still alive, at least that way he couldn't be in his mind hurting him in a whole new way. He couldn't deal with this, he just wanted to be told he was crazy and he could be medicated and it would be okay. He could deal with that, could deal with his friends isolating him again, because they didn't know how to deal with him.
'They don't want to put up with you, you aren't like them.'
"What the hell is going on in here?"
Hearing a voice outside of his own head was new, he'd been in his room alone drinking for nearly two hours...Was it two hours or maybe it was longer, he didn't know anymore and wasn't entirely sure that it mattered at this point. He looked up pulling himself through the dark cloud filling up the space in his mind; Skwisgaar stood in the doorway looking down at the glass on the floor careful not to step on it on his way over to the younger frightened looking man. Toki didn't reply he just stared up at him, Skwisgaar stood there looking awkward and almost like he wanted an excuse to leave even though he'd just come in. This was how it worked ever since he'd gotten back home; maybe not from the get go. He didn't know what changed or what he did wrong. He vaguely remembered Skwisgaar holding onto him tightly when they had left the crumbling building and he fully remembered the Swedish musician sharing a bed with him that first night and still holding onto him like nothing in the world could pull him away. Now they were here and here was a very complicated place that frustrated Toki in a way he couldn't easily explain. It wasn't like they'd ever had a cut and dry relationship; half of the time Toki hated him, other times it seemed Skwisgaar wished he'd just disappear, but at the same time they were almost always together.
'He doesn't care about you, get that out of your head. He looks at you like you're a disgusting freak. He doesn't want to touch you and before he only fucked you out of pity.' Magnus taunted
"Just go away"
He wasn't sure if he was directing that towards Skwisgaar or Magnus or if it mattered. He just wanted to be alone, just sit there on the floor and wait for this to go away.
Toki figured and sort of hoped Skwisgaar would just save them both the trouble and the awkward silence and just leave his room, go tell the others how crazy Toki was acting now. Crazier than before, he was always a weird kid and Skwisgaar didn't like having to babysit him. That's what he told people, wasn't it true though?
The older man knelt down in front of him, Toki couldn't meet his eyes. He felt ashamed and disgusted and stupid, he felt worse than he normally did at any point in his life. He didn't fit in with them, he didn't fit in with his own family, and it made his stomach hurt. Why did they take him in in the first place, why did Skwisgaar treat him so well and then turn on him out of nowhere?
'He knows you're a better guitarist, he's always hated being second best. I knew how to keep him in his fucking place, you could do that too if you wanted to.'
Fingers touched his cheek and he flinched, his wide blue eyes met Skwisgaar's eyes.
"It's okay"
This time he didn't pull away when Skwisgaar went to touch his cheek again, he sat still and allowed the older man to touch his tear stained skin. He wanted to be able to see what was going on inside of his head, how normal it must be inside of there. He was probably thinking about how crazy Toki was, how they should have just left him to die and gotten a new rhythm guitarist. He sobbed again thinking about that.
"Why are you here?" Toki asked voice weak and strained.
"I got worried"
"Who told you to check on me?"
There was a pause, he looked guilty "Pickles"
"I knew you wouldn't come here, because you wanted to."
"I'm still worried about you, idiot."
His fingers ran through his hair, the feeling was soothing; he thought about all the times those long callused fingers had gone through his hair and gripped it and pulled it hard. He thought about the first night back at Mordhaus when Skwisgaar ran his shaking fingers through dirty brown hair, warm tears against his skin, and apologies being repeated over and over in Swedish. What had happened?
"You don't have to worry about me or say you do, whatever. Just go back to your sluts or something, I don't need you in here."
He tried to stand, but got off balance and fell back onto his ass. Skwisgaar helped him up this time leading him over to his bed.
"How much have you had to drink?"
"I don't remember, it's no big deal. I told you, you don't have to look after me. I know you don't want to."
Skwisgaar still looked completely lost for what to do, uncomfortable with a situation like this. Toki wondered if they could ever have their friendship back to the way it had been, it hadn't been extremely healthy or great, but it was better than this. One night of feeling loved by the blond haired man and then weeks of being avoided by him and stared at. He hated the way Skwisgaar looked at him anymore.
'Like you're some caged freak he's scared of.'
"Don't tell me what I want to do and don't want to."
"That's what you tell people though, you don't like having to babysit me. I'm just a fucking inconvenience to you. Why did you even come get me?"
"That's such a stupid question."
"No it isn't"
Skwisgaar sat down on the bed, he kept a distance between the two of them. There was always such a distance, he sort of wanted him to touch him again; he missed the warmth.
"Yeah it is, you know why we got you."
"Money or because you couldn't get a replacement?"
Skwisgaar looked hurt by the younger man's response.
"You're an asshole, you know better than that. We got you, because you're family."
It was easy to say that, but they always left him out and left him behind. They treated him like he was always a stranger even after knowing him for years now, he would never catch up with them and really be a part of whatever family they created with one another. He was just there and now he was just there, but it was so odd now. It was like they felt like they had to show they cared whether they did or not.
"Right that's why you ignore me and look at me like you're scared of me or something."
"I don't know how to deal with this okay, you act weird. You've always acted weird and after what happened I don't know what to do or say."
"Nothing, just leave me alone." Toki replied angrily.
He didn't need charity, he didn't need Skwisgaar doing this half ass caring. He rather have him straight up hate him than awkwardly pretend he cared and that he wanted him.
'Nobody wants you after the shit I did to you.'
Toki shuddered, more tears fell from his eyes, and Skwisgaar was looking at him with that same sort of confused fear. He moved over to where the younger musician sat with his back to his wall like a cornered animal, he pulled the other man onto his lap wrapping his arms around his trembling form. Toki buried his face against his chest and sobbed, fingers curling into the material of his black shirt.
"I want it to stop Skwis"
He couldn't be awake without remembering what Magnus did to him, remembering the way his parents tortured him, and without hearing the voices in his mind yelling for his attention. He couldn't sleep without being thrown into those dark and wretched places, without having the dead clawing at him dragging him into his own personal hell. He couldn't escape and he was so alone.
"I want things to be normal again, I want them to leave me alone."
Skwisgaar didn't know what he meant by 'them', he didn't want to ask. He was scared, he wasn't scared of his friend; he was scared of whatever was going on with him, because it was the same thing that had been going on for years now but seemingly it had grown worse.
The younger man found a hopeless comfort being held, his friend's fingers going through his hair and warm breath against his skin. This was the first time Skwisgaar had touched him since they had rescued him, he wondered how much of it was just a way to make Skwisgaar feel better about himself.