Christmas had come and gone, and it had come and gone awhile ago, if one wanted to be picky about it. It was so far gone by now that Pickles found himself longing for the bone-numbing cold that filled the corridors of Mordhaus during the winter. At least his room was always warm enough to suit him during the wintertime—during the summer months, he felt as if nothing would ever cool him off completely, not even the state-of-the-art air conditioning units or the rooftop pool. He walked around in nothing but gym shorts, his dreads twisted up in a bun and a cold glass of something fruity in his hand, and still felt as if he would sweat out his buzz before it even got started. He'd hated Wisconsin, but during the summer, he'd have killed to go back. It was hot there, but not ithis/i kind of hot.
Only one other member of Dethklok was as affected by the heat as Pickles. Toki Wartooth, having grown up in the bitter blizzards of Norway, seemed to wilt when June rolled around. The kid could frolic around in the snow of Mordland for hours wearing nothing but a long sleeved tshirt, jeans, and boots, but once summer began, 'frolic' was not a word that existed in relation to the youngest member of the band. The heat took something out of him, weakened him somehow, and it always threw Pickles for a loop to see how low the kid could get once the temperance of May faded into the hell of June. He himself didn't like the heat, but it mostly just pissed him off—it seemed to affect Toki mentally as well as physically.
It was a particularly humid day in the middle of July when Pickles, sitting next to Skwisgaar in the shallow end of the rooftop pool, asked why Skwisgaar didn't seem to mind the heat like Toki did—after all, Sweden was pretty cold too, wasn't it, and hadn't Skwisgaar grown up there?
Skwisgaar shrugged, flexing his long fingers beneath the rippled water. "I wasn'ts really in Sweden dats long," he replied. He flexed his fingers again, and Pickles sensed that they were drifting into dangerous, uncharted territory. No one in the band knew anything about Skwisgaar's past except that his mother had been a filthy slut and that Skwisgaar had hated her. Pickles knew he shouldn't ask, because asking was caring and they weren't supposed to care—but he asked anyway.
"Well where were ya then?" he took a sip of the tequila sunrise in his hand as Skwisgaar flicked little water droplets into the air and watched them fall.
"Alls over," he replied. "Spents lots of time ins da hot places, so dis doesn't bothers me like it does Toki."
Pickles scrutinized Skwisgaar's face as the blond said Toki's name—when Skwisgaar had found Pickles that summer in New York (had it been as hot there as here?), he'd had Toki trailing along behind him like some loyal puppy, skinny and silent and unable to speak any English other than curse words. Pickles had always assumed that there had been something there between the two of them. Even last winter, on Christmas Eve, when Toki had come to him shaking and shivering the throes of his worst memories…
Pickles shook his head, hard. One of his wet dreads slapped his cheek and Skwisgaar gave him an odd look.
"Gnats," Pickles muttered, even though there were no gnats in Mordland, or mosquitoes, either. He looked at Skwisgaar beneath his lowered, blondish-red lashes, and saw nothing to suggest that Skwisgaar felt anything much for Toki.
Then again, Skwisgaar didn't feel anything much for anyone, and if that had something to do with his slut mother, then Pickles wouldn't be surprised. He also wouldn't be the one to ask.
"PICKLES! SKWISGAAR!"
Nathan's voice thundered toward them from across the roof, where the doorway was. He and Murderface were running at full speed toward the Olympic-sized pool, wearing their swim trunks. This kind of heat was like a fucking upper to the two of them—Nathan, from Florida, loved summertime more than any season. Murderface did too. He was actually from Alabama, and the two southern boys reveled in the humidity and heat like children.
There was a splash of tidal proportions as Nathan and Murderface—neither of them very small—cannonballed into the deep end together. The look of indignation on Skwisgaar's thin face when the water reached his yellow hair made Pickles howl with laughter, and though he was thoroughly enjoying the moment, he felt the gnawing at a certain raw edge of his heart. Toki wasn't here.
iAnd it's not just that Toki isn't here with you,/i said the oddly toneless voice of his conscience.i It's that Toki isn't here with you./i
Pickles could determine the plural iyou/i from the singular. Suddenly, the tequila in his stomach was no longer a pleasant sensation—it was making him feel a little sick. Deciding that maybe now would be a good time to go to his room and dig up a little weed, he handed Skwisgaar his still-full tequila sunrise and stood. He pulled the soaked fabric of his trunks away from his crotch and walked, still dripping, toward the roof exit.
"Pickles! Where ya going?" Nathan asked, his jet hair plastered to his skull and face.
"Weed!" Pickles hollered back. "Be back later!"
He slammed the door behind him and dripped his way down the corridors and to his room—some Klokateer would clean up behind him, and if the manager complained, it was because there wasn't much else Charles could do to him.
He slammed the door to his room and cast his bed the barest of glances—it had been a strange place to sleep ever since Christmas Eve, but it wasn't Pickles' fault he had woken up alone on Christmas morning.
Christmas was a bizarre thing to be thinking about in the middle of July, that was for damn sure. Pickles stripped off his wet clothes and flung them in a corner of his room. He stood naked beneath one of the air conditioning vents for a little while, relishing the fact that he actually had fucking igooseflesh/i creeping across his pale, freckled skin. He almost had a hard time deciding which he wanted more—to be high, or to enjoy the blissfully cool air.
Weed won, as it always did. Pickles pulled on a dry pair of gym shorts over his narrow hips before ripping open his bottom drawer and pawing through the jumble of jars, Ziploc bags, wooden boxes and miniature vials. He came up with a tightly sealed Ziploc bag filled with little green buds. He opened the bag and inhaled—it smelled like heaven to him.
He had just packed himself a bowl and was in the process of pawing through the junk atop his dresser for a lighter when he heard a heavy, dull ithud/i from somewhere in the corridor. Startled, he went to his door and opened it just enough to peek through the crack. What he saw made his stomach do a backflip or two—Toki was leaning his back against the corridor wall, holding a bottle of Grey Goose in one hand. The other was tangled into the mess of his hair, which looked as if it hadn't seen a comb in days.
"Toki?" Pickles asked, opening the door the rest of the way. "Toki, kid, ya okey?"
"Fuckins fabulous," Toki replied, pushing himself away from the wall with an obscene roll of his back and hips. He stumbled forward a little, managing to slosh vodka down the front of his bare chest. Pickles forced his eyes away from the little drops of liquid that slipped down the carved landscape of Toki's abs and tried to focus on the problem at hand—Toki was drunk again, and a drunk Toki could be a dangerous one.
"I jest packed a bowl, if ya wanna hit," Pickles said, holding up the little glass instrument in his hand. "Bring in the vahdkah, too, if ya want."
He'd have to get that vodka away from Toki—he'd play hell doing it, but it had to be done, one way or another. When Toki was more or less sober, he could ask what the hell had brought on this particular drinking binge.
Toki stumbled into Pickles' room, setting the half-full (or was it half-empty?) bottle of vodka on the nightstand. He accepted the bowl and lighter from Pickles, lighting up with shaky hands but breathing in like a pro.
"Feel better?" asked Pickles, breathing in the sweet smoke himself.
"Ja," Toki muttered, accepting the bowl from Pickles again. They passed it back and forth a few times. Pickles sat down beside Toki on the bed and tried not to give in to his feelings of deja-vu.
"Dat's good shit," Toki mumbled a little while later, and groped for the vodka bottle on the nightstand. He grabbed it around the neck and prepared himself to take a deep swig, but Pickles caught his hand before he could bring the bottle to his lips.
"Do ya really need ta do this, Toki?" he asked, half expecting his youngest bandmate to suddenly transform into the feral monster that the liquor sometimes turned him into.
"Needs somethingks to distracts me," Toki grumbled, and drank despite the gentle hand on his arm.
iThis is déjà vu for fucking real,/i Pickles thought.
"Distract ya from what?"
"Talks about somethingks else," Toki demanded, and took another swallow.
"Why'd ya leave on Christmas mornin?"
The words were out of his mouth before Pickles even realized that they had formed in his brain—but it obviously distracted Toki, who choked hard on his mouthful of vodka and began to cough.
Pickles thumped him on the back a few times until Toki, still sputtering a little, looked over at him with wide, bloodshot eyes.
"W-whats you talkingks 'bout, Pickle…?"
"Christmas mornin. Ya weren't there."
The vodka bottle thumped to the floor and the remainder of its contents trickled out across the hardwood. Pickles didn't even notice, and neither did Toki.
"You…was you iwantingks/i me to stays?" Toki asked, looking back at the bed where they'd slept, tangled up together, that one night so many months ago.
Pickles tugged absently on a loose dreadlock. "Yeah, well…woulda been nice."
"Buts you…you was all highs and drunks dat night," Toki said. "I thoughts…dat maybes dat was de only reasons you does dat. Withs me."
Pickles inhaled sharply and closed his eyes—having his alcohol and drug abuse thrown back in his face in situations like this always hurt, because he could explain to Toki that he'd made the first move out of emotion all he wanted, but Toki would still think that it had been the booze and weed.
"It…" Toki took Pickles' fisted hand into his. "It…it wasn'ts cause of dats. Was it?"
Pickles shook his head.
"Den…den why was you actingks like dat?"
Pickles let his mind wind back through the months to the night of Christmas Eve, when Toki had come to him seeking distraction from the memories that plagued his mind. It had been winter, obviously, the time of year when Toki was most cheerful, most happy…but he hadn't been happy that night. He had been pale, jittery and weak, unable to keep himself from slipping backward into hellish thoughts of Christmases past. Pickles remembered how Toki's bright blue eyes had clouded as he relived that past out loud; he remembered how he had ended up with Toki wrapped in his arms, remembered the feel of Toki's breath on his chest as he rapidly whispered his fears, remembered the weird texture of Toki's back where the scars crisscrossed…remembered pressing his lips against Toki's in his best effort to get the kid's mind of the things that hurt him, because…
"I jest can't fuckin' stand seein' ya so miserable," Pickles muttered at length. "Yeh're the best one of us, even though yah've been through the worst of us, yah know? And yeh're normally so fuckin' ihappy/i. You bein' happy makes us all happier, b'lieve it or not, and when yeh're not…not so happy…I jest can't fuckin take it, Toki, it hurts me t' see ya hurtin."
He fell silent, staring at the tiny holes in the silky material of his gym shorts as if they were very, very fascinating. He only looked up when he felt Toki's fingers snaking down into the ball of his fist to twine with his own.
"I's not knowingks," Toki mumbled, "Dat anyone's give a damns when I's…how's you sayingks it? Not so happy…"
"Yeah, well," Pickles grinned, a little shyly. "We all give a damn, b'lieve me, but ah…seems like it affects me more'n it does the rest o' the guys."
"Good, 'cause you's da ones I wants to be talkins to da most…"
"Fer real? Why me?"
Toki raised one eyebrow; the expression coupled with his bleary unfocused eyes would have been comical in any other situation.
"Cause you's is da one it 'fects the most…so you's da one dat cares da most. You's makes me feel more betters dan anyones else could." he replied. Pickles found himself smiling an absurd smile; he was on the brink of throwing his arms around the kid, but then Toki hiccupped a little. Pickles' eyes wandered to the floor where the abandoned bottle of vodka lay. He bit his lip for a moment.
"Toki? Could yeh do me a favor…?" he asked. When Toki nodded, Pickles stood up and picked up the empty vodka bottle. As he sat down next to Toki, he put it in the younger man's hands.
"Come to me before this next time?"
Toki stared at the bottle for a long moment before shifting his gaze to Pickles. The drummer half-suspected Toki to say no; instead, the guitarist dropped the bottle again as he threw his big arms around Pickles's skinny torso.
i"Ja,"/i Toki muttered, his lips pressed against Pickles's thin chest. "I will."
A weird wave of deja-vu enveloped Pickles as he pulled Toki upward and into a kiss; it felt like Christmas. Christmas in July.