Toki knew he wasn't going to last much longer, but instead of wishing to be finally saved, he simply longed for death. He no longer had hopes. He merely existed in a cold, dark room flitting in and out of consciousness between Magnus's visits. Even Abigail's voice could no longer reach him.

The last time Magnus had given him extra attention, he'd been left in the interrogation room alone for hours, unable to breathe deeply, let alone stand. Too much adrenaline had been coursing through his body to allow him to lose consciousness, and his mind had been on fire from the new low he'd discovered he could reach. At some point, he'd partially blacked out, but he could remember the sound of boots against the tile, the warmth of another body, the sensation of floating... And then he woke up, back in his spot next to Abigail, chained to the ground by his neck. She had left him some 'food,' but bile rose in his burning, aching throat at the thought of eating. She gently urged him to eat, but her words fell on deaf ears, so, unsure of what else to do, Abigail tried her best to help mend his wounds. Toki wanted to push her away - the last thing he wanted was to be touched - but he could not summon the energy or willpower to do so.

Since then, days passed in blurs and nights he tried to block out altogether. But, through the uncontrollable chills of his fever and haziness of his mind, he could sometimes feel a cool hand touching his forehead, and on the occasion could even hear Abigail singing. Lately, she seemed to sing more often at night, shortly after his shot was done and Magnus had gone, doing nothing more. He enjoyed her voice and found it calmed him after the Pavlovian-triggered anxiety at the simple creak of the door.

Tonight, sleeping soundly, he was spared this anxiety as the door opened. Abigail exhaled slowly, straightening up against the wall carefully; Toki's head rest in her lap. She didn't want him to wake up.

He walked slowly, as he usually did, almost as if he hated his nightly tasks. There was always that thick air of condescension about him, always looking down at them through leering eyes. But tonight, Abigail felt something was off and worry grew in the pit of her stomach. Masked by the darkness, he stopped a few feet before them. The glow of a cigarette at his lips cast an eerie light upon his thin face, almost illuminating his blind eye with the glow of a predator in the dark. There was nothing in his hands.

"No food tonight." His voice was rough, but sounded slightly drained of his usual sadistic vigor. Abigail hated how he talked to them as if he still considered them human. She would have been perfectly fine if she never had to hear him speak again.

"And his shot?"

"No shot either."

"Then why are you even here?" Although she knew the answer, Abigail raised her voice in defiance. She was growing tired of staying quiet, and even if her words provoked him, she'd gladly take Toki's place at this point. Another night of torture would likely kill him while she had hardly been touched in comparison.

Magnus raised an eyebrow at her sudden confidence. There'd always been this burning behind her eyes, but she'd always seemed to be holding back.

"I hardly think I have to tell you."

"You can't keep doing this to him. You say don't want him dead, but he's had an untreated concussion for days!"

"It doesn't matter what I do anymore. Things finally change tonight. You should be happy." A look of remorse flashed through his eyes before his expression fell. "They're on their way."

Abigail's eyes widened, unsure of how to respond. There was no way he was telling the truth. Not after all this.

"I'm not surprised you don't believe me. I barely believe it myself." He took a long drag of his cigarette and stepped into their bit of moonlight. "I just wanted to spend one last night with my friend here." Exhaling the smoke into her face, he knelt in front of them and gazed down at Toki who hadn't even twitched in the slightest.

"Please don't-" Abigail began to plead, but Magnus was already peeling him away from her, setting him upright against the wall, taking his chin in hand and turning his face left and right in examination. His face had gone relatively unmarred, and he had plans to change that. Even if they managed to save him, Magnus would leave his mark for the world to see. Suddenly, Toki's eyes stirred, lids lifting slowly. His pupils were dilated as he stared at nothing. Still mostly asleep, his eyes closed again. Powerless, Abigail prayed he'd stay unconscious just long enough to bore Magnus into leaving.

"It's time to wake up." Magnus took the cigarette from his lips, flicked the ash in Toki's sleeping face, and twisted the butt into his inner arm. Toki's eyes tore open and he tried to jerk his arm away at the sudden searing pain, but Magnus had caught his wrist. Finally wide awake, Toki managed to process the figure before him. His stomach dropped as he was ripped from the hazy half-consciousness he'd been spending his days in. Reality still existed; the burn of the cigarette pressed into his skin a second time gave him no doubts.

His face twisted in a cringe as he tried to shake his heavy head. Not again, he begged, not again. He thought he was speaking but his jaw was locked as he tried not to cry out in pain. He'd just managed to cope with the self-hatred and disgust with himself Magnus had inflicted upon the last time and now he'd be thrown right back into it.

"Please!" Abigail had had enough. "Just use me instead! He won't survive this time!"

She had barely grasped his shoulder before he caught her by the arm and forced her towards him, his fingers now gripping her face with crushing force. The collar around her neck prevented him from grabbing what he wanted.

"Don't fucking touch me." He let his nails carve into her skin as he tightened his grip. "We never really needed you anyway." He shoved her back viciously, the short chain pulling taut at her neck as she hit the ground hard. She coughed and struggled to sit up, but no longer interested in her in the least, Magnus returned his attention to the trembling Toki. He crushed the fallen cigarette underfoot and knelt back down. "Since she seems so insistent on being a part of this, I guess we can let her watch this time," he said in a low voice, unlocking Toki's collar. "You'd love that, wouldn't you? Having someone else see how pathetic you can get..." He knew exactly where to hit. The last thing Toki wanted was someone to see him like he was last time. He didn't know how he could ever face anyone again if they saw how revolting, wretched, and weak he'd been, caving under Magnus' orders and using Skwisgaar's memory as an escape...

Magnus' fingers went through Toki's dirty hair again, pulling at his scabbed-over scalp until he was looking directly up at him, neck bent back at a sharp and uncomfortable angle. "Stand."

Despite his fear, Toki's eyes narrowed incredulously, almost daring to ask 'Haven't we been over this before?' He was demanding the impossible.

Magnus raised his eyebrows and shrugged at Toki's reaction. "Well, you're gonna want to try." He wrapped his hand in Toki's hair for a better grip and forcefully pulled him to his feet. Grimacing, Toki struggled to ground himself against the wall but the stabbing pain in his ribs returned with a vengeance. Sitting still and breathing minimally had helped reduce the pain, but whenever he stretched out it felt as if the broken bone jabbed into his lungs, and even though he'd lost a severe amount of weight, his knees shook under the heaviness of his body and his ankles felt almost non-existent. He would have immediately fallen back down if Magnus hadn't been supporting him - a familiar situation.

Toki exhaled slowly and carefully to minimize the pain. Again, he had no choice in this matter. While malnutrition had left them incredibly weak, and he and Abigail hadn't been able to fully stand, let alone walk while chained down, he knew his legs could work if he forced them. More than anything in his battered body, his head hurt the most by far, so if standing and walking was what it was going to take to make Magnus let go of his pounding head, he was going to try his damn best.

As he had managed to find some sort of balance, Magnus finally let go, allowing Toki to push himself from the wall and stand on his own. His legs still trembled and his chest burned but he was standing. A faint sense of pride grew inside him - something he forgot he could even feel - but taking a shaky step forward he realized just how lightheaded and dizzy he was. He'd been sleeping entire days away and had grown accustomed to hardly moving for days on end.

But now he was standing and technically even walking... Eyes flickered to the rusty door he and Abigail had spent much of their early days monitoring. In the beginning they'd watch it obsessively, expecting the band, or even Klokateers, to bust it down with a single kick and whisk them away, back into sunlight. But after so long, the door no longer represented hope. The only thing that stepped over the threshold was their captor, night after night, and soon the childish optimism had been replaced with a heavy reality - even unchained, making a run for it would spell certain death. A man more bloodthirsty than Magnus sat just out that door and up the stairs, surrounded by his legions of zombie-like followers. There was no way they could escape on their own.

"To that broken beam," Magnus ordered, tearing Toki from his wishful thoughts. Magnus watched him with the faintest smile on his lips, as if his struggling victim were a circus animal performing tricks especially for him.

A single glance at the wooden pillar sent a feeling of dread through his shaking body. It was the perfect distance for Abigail to see everything. Magnus had known what he wanted to do, had probably been deciding on the little details of it all day, but Toki could not think of what else could be done to him, save finally ending his life. Still, Magnus would find a way, and Toki was absolutely certain of two things: It would be agonizing and it would be humiliating.

Toki quickly turned to look back at Abigail, who now sat back against their wall. Her eyes were still pleading but she'd fallen silent out of fear her words would spur his torture further. Finding no comfort in the fact that Abigail would witness everything this time, Toki chanced a plea of his own.

"Abigail, please don'ts watch."

And with that, he was on the ground, knocked violently down by a force at the back of his neck. The falling sensation was quickly replaced by burning in his hands and knees. Small rocks and debris embedded themselves into the skin of his palms on impact. His elbows gave out within the second he had contact with the ground, and soon the sting of rocks and splinters in his skin paled against the impact of his broken ribs and chin hitting the ground, his teeth coming up hard against his tongue. The force sent a reverberating pain through his jaw while the tang of blood filled his mouth. He tried to push himself up out of instinct but something hard met the back of his head, sending his face back against floor. There was an audible crunch as his nose hit the ground first, and as he tried to turn his head to the side to take the pressure off of it, there was another powerful blow to the back of his head. This time, the left side of his face hit the floor under the weight and Toki couldn't help but let out a cry - something sharp had pierced into his closed eye.

Everything had happened so fast but as he lay motionless on the floor, listening to the echo of boots circling him like a wolf around prey, what had just happened became obvious. Dizzy and aching, blood gushing from his nose and dripping from his mouth, Toki dared not push himself up again. Magnus wanted him down, so he would stay down. Instead he slowly brought a hand up to his eye, carefully running a finger over his eyelid. Just brushing against the bit of debris that stuck out burned. Swallowing hard, Toki gripped it with his nails and tugged. It came out surprisingly quickly and painlessly. Rolling the object between his fingers, Toki examined what appeared to be a broken fragment of the tile that covered the walls. Though it was small, it had cut through his eyelid and entered the cornea. How much damage it had done, he wasn't sure, but he couldn't will his eye open either way. The injured eyelid quivered, involuntarily plastered shut as his eye streamed tears as if to flush out the irritation. Exhaling, he closed his other eye and waited within his pounding head for Magnus to tell him what to do.

The footsteps finally closed in on him and he felt his jaw being grasped firmly, turning his head to look upwards.

"I didn't say you could speak, did I?"

Toki had forgotten he'd even spoken at all. He shook his head faintly, eyes still shut.

"Look at me."

Toki struggled to obey, but his left eye refused to comply. The more it bled, the more it burned, and the more it burned, the more furiously bloodied tears streamed down his cheek. Growing impatient, Magnus reached down and pried the eye open, letting out a dark laugh at the damage. Toki's iris had been torn, causing the black of the underlying dilated pupil to peak out from the edges. A wave of relief washed over Toki upon finding he could still see through it. Magnus let it go roughly, disappointed.

"Too bad. Could have ended up like mine. Wouldn't that be nice? Every time you look in a mirror you'd be reminded of me." His mouth twisted into a smile as reached down to his belt with a hand. "Maybe I should finish the job while I still have the chance." The cold tip of a knife suddenly met his lower eyelid, pressing into it softly but threateningly. "Do you want to keep it, or should I just cut it out?"

Knowing he still was not allowed to speak, Toki simply shook his head again, grimacing in fear.

"Then," he continued, sheathing the knife, "you should do what I tell you to. And I told you to fucking walk." He rose to his feet, pulling Toki up by his shirt. Toki gasped sharply as the weight of his body pressed into his ribs by the taut fabric and, finding his feet, he stumbled forward in an endeavor to stand again. It felt as if his head were screaming at him and the world spun around and around as he tried to regain his balance. His body was threatening to faint but he fought desperately against it, fueled by the fear he would awake to his eye being gouged out. Putting one foot in front of the other yet again, he clutched his head, eyes planted on the finish line. With each step he took, the heavy gush of blood that pooled together from his nose and mouth dripped from his chin. He hadn't realized he'd been drooling in order to avoid swallowing or choking on the blood from his deeply cut tongue.

Although it was not far, with unconsciousness trying to pull him under, the walk stripped him of every ounce of energy. His back slammed into the wooden beam upon reaching it for support and, letting out the breath he'd been holding in, broke out into heavy panting. He clutched his chest, feeling his heartbeat accelerate through numbing fingertips – he couldn't slow his breathing. His knees finally gave out and Toki slid down the beam to the ground. He could hardly feel the pain in his ribs through the hyperventilation. His whole body was beginning to tingle and even as Magnus slowly approached all he could focus on was keeping conscious. Swallowing a mouthful of blood and spit, he wiped at his nose and mouth with the back of his hand in an effort to keep his hands moving, feeling, anything to shake his body's desire to shut down.

"Toki!" Magnus turned to look back at Abigail who had crawled out as far as the chain would allow. "Don't give up! They're coming! They're coming to save us!" She was frantic, yelling louder than she had since they'd been imprisoned. She wasn't sure if she believed it herself but she had to try to keep Toki together.

Magnus gave a low, deep laugh and shook his head with a shrug. "Are you really going to believe her? After she kept telling you it'll get better?" He gave a pitying smile as he knelt down to Toki's level, a knee planted on either side of Toki's hips. Magnus cupped his face almost comfortingly before pressing a thumb against Toki's injured eye, a thin smile spread over his lips as Toki jerked his head to the side, still rapidly gasping for breath. "Did it ever get better, Toki?"

Toki's fingers twisted into the fabric of his shirt as a sinking feeling washed over him. No. Every single day it got worse. Why would it ever get better? Toki suddenly remembered the realization he'd had last time Magnus tortured him. Magnus told the truth because he no longer had any reason to lie but Abigail's words were all sugar-coated lies to keep him from giving up. Was she that desperate to keep him alive and suffering?

"They are coming! They're on their way right now, Toki! You've got to believe me! Magnus told me himself!" Abigail wasn't going to go down without a fight.

"All you are is lucky…" Magnus muttered, growing agitated with Abigail's cries. "Even if they come for you… Even if they come for you I'll make sure you're useless!" He ripped Toki's hand from his chest, the other from his side, and pinned them up together over Toki's head. His wrists had grown so thin from emaciation that both fit perfectly under a single of Magnus' hands. He held them together at the wrist, hands overlapping each other, pressed so hard against the beam it cut off the circulation.

"All you are is lucky! You're lucky that they even needed a replacement! You're lucky they wanted you! You're lucky you haven't died yet!" Toki noticed the glint of metal as Magnus reached for the side of his belt with his free hand, still screaming. "And you're lucky they're actually coming for you after all!" A knife finally came into full view and Toki realized what was going to happen if he didn't free his hands. "Now let's see if you're fucking lucky enough to ever play again!"

He struggled against Magnus' grip violently and suddenly his own scream tore through the air. An incredible searing pain in his right hand ripped through him like electricity. Out of instinct he tried to bring it to his chest, to press down on the pain to lessen it, but his attempt to jerk it inwards only met with pressure and fire. As he expected, his hand had been pinned to the wooden beam, supported only by Magnus's knife.

"Look at you, saving your fretting hand as if it'd do you any good..." His voice was low again but his anger lingered in the air.

Confused, Toki looked down – his left hand had actually managed to break free.

Magnus wiggled the knife in the wood, disappointed, and watched the blood trickle down Toki's arm. He couldn't remove the knife to give it another shot or Toki would bleed out too early, and Magnus still hadn't done anything to him yet.

The last hope Toki didn't know he still had finally left him. Though the knife cut through vertically, there was simply no chance tendons or nerves hadn't been severed. The pain was still burning too furiously for him to tell how much damage had been done but he was certain there would be no saving it. Skwisgaar had told him a thousand times to always be careful with his hands, and had often gone at length explaining that the smallest things could ruin his guitar playing career. This was certainly one of them. Even if he was rescued tonight, he would be even more useless to them than he already was.

The death of that invisible hope stripped him from composure, and without regard to how Magnus would react, he finally let out a wailing plea.

"Kill me! Just kill me! Please, kill me!" He couldn't go back to the band now, even if Magnus and the Assassin let him walk right out the door. "Please... You can do anythings you wants to my body, I don'ts care! Just lets me die first..." He was sobbing uncontrollably, still hardly able to breathe. He felt the sickening tickle of a blood clot slipping from his nose as snot pushed it down his lips. He looked and felt disgusting in every imaginable way. He was filthy and revolting straight to the core. How could he face anyone again after this?

Beyond entertained and unbothered by Toki's outburst for once, Magnus grinned sadistically. "Toki, if you really wanted to die, you would have bitten your tongue off weeks ago." Magnus rose to his feet, towering over his victim and stepping on his free hand. Trapped under a maniac gaze, locked beneath Magnus' stance, and hand pinned to the wood, Toki was sequestered like an insect on display. And it made Magnus feel incredible. "Were you just a coward? Or were you too stupid to know you could do that?" The sole of his boot now pressed against Toki's pounding forehead, lightly pressing his head back against the beam. All of his weight was held down on Toki's free hand, crushing his knuckles against the concrete below. "You could do it now, if you wanted. I won't stop you."

Without a second thought, Toki opened his mouth and pushed his tongue as far out as he could. He laughed internally at the irony as he realized the cut on it had just stopped bleeding. It was in this second of hesitation, just before he could clamp his jaw with all the energy he had left, that he heard Magnus laugh out a "just kidding" and his heel met Toki's nose with devastating force. If his nose hadn't been broken before, it was now – but this was not even a concern to him as the back of his head cracked into the beam once more. He only remembered the shock and the sound of the impact before darkness finally sucked him under.

It was beautifully calm and peaceful and Toki felt nothing for the briefest of moments. But then his mind was back at work, and like a tiny flame flickering alive in the darkness, an idea came to him. It was an idea born of pure desperation and the consequences were perhaps more than he could bear, but he was so weary of this mental and physical torture. He was tired of being silenced. He'd always had an incredible amount of pride and everyone had come to know that little Toki had fangs when backed in a corner.

And he'd been backed in a corner for far too long.

Nothing else mattered now than bringing an end to this pain and humiliation. He could kill himself later if he still wanted to… But right now, Toki knew he had two simple options: he could continue doing nothing, or he could do something. In the black stillness of his mind, that something grew into a plan so repulsive… but perfect.

In their time together, Toki had come to learn a few things about Magnus.

He could hear Abigail frantically crying out his name, followed shortly by a calmer "See? He's still alive."

Toki blinked a few times, looking up hazily at Magnus. It was hard to see from his injured eye. It still stung furiously and had difficulty processing his surroundings. But his inability to see or react well would not hinder his planned performance. If he could just play his cards right, it would help him seem all the more genuine.

"Skwisgaar...?"

Magnus recoiled in disgust at the name, but a smile quickly slithered its way onto his mouth, eyes narrowing in realization. Perhaps he'd hit his head one too many times.

Toki pushed forward with his upper body, both hands still incapacitated. He looked up through a glassy, yearning gaze at Magnus and he felt himself smile so brightly his broken nose protested in pain. "Skwisgaar!"

"Yeah, I'm Skwisgaar," Magnus muttered through an excited smirk, lowering himself back down to his knees, still straddling Toki. He kept his knee pressing firmly down on Toki's hand; he didn't want him to have any control whatsoever.

At this, Toki moved as close as his pinned hands would allow and met his lips with Magnus' in desperation. Pride sparked up in Toki's chest when he felt the initial shock in Magnus' reaction, but in seconds, he was roughly pushed back against the beam as Magnus assumed control again.

Soon, the excitement from taking Magnus by surprise faded and his self-hatred flared up in its place. He was selling his dignity again, and like before, it was too easy to close his eyes and give in to true delirium so that he could imagine he was with Skwisgaar instead. And for a split second, Toki almost believed his own demented fabrications again. But the sheer pain that shredded through his body and Magnus' forceful, violent movements reminded him of the truth. Skwisgaar would never do this to him.

His tongue fought violently against Toki's, nearly choking him at moments. Magnus ran his teeth over Toki's tongue, searching for the earlier laceration and biting into it, reopening the cut. His mouth filled with blood again, which Magnus eagerly swallowed. His hands slipped up Toki's shirt and Toki felt his skin crawl. Rough, dry fingers dragged down his ribs, pressing against his giant purple bruises, each bone fracture. As he tensed and writhed at the painful contact, he could feel the smile widen in Magnus' kisses. He was absolutely enthralled by the fact that he'd caused this. He could feel a bone fracture through the skin. If he wanted to, he could easily finish the job and snap the fracture straight into Toki's lung, and he certainly considered it, but he had other plans.

His mouth stayed for far too long, and Toki frantically tried to break away for air, but Magnus would not let up until he needed to breathe. His hyperventilation threatened to return and he gasped for air in the fractions of the seconds that he could, breathing in the blood and the cigarette flavored saliva that pooled in the back of his throat. In his panic, he hadn't realized Magnus' fingers had trailed to his knife wound. Magnus finally broke away, forehead still pressed against Toki's and breathing heavily through a malicious, excited smile. He stared straight into Toki's eyes as he slid a finger under the first poorly done stitch. Horror welled up inside of Toki as he whimpered through his rapid and shallow breaths. He wanted to beg Magnus to stop, but his plan was at stake. Pathetic, terrified whimpering was all he could manage as Magnus gave a low chuckle and slowly pulled up on the stitch.

Toki cried out under the pain through a clenched jaw, skewered hand tugging against the blade as he lurched forward. Blood trickled down his stomach as the thread tore through the skin. Toki cringed, trying to escape Magnus' cold, piercing stare as his finger worked its way under the second stitch and tore it out just as slowly.

He hadn't anticipated what came next.

Just as Toki prepared himself to face the removal of the entire row of stitches, a finger entered the freshly opened wound. There was a horrible pressure and an even worse burn as Magnus pushed forward past the severed layers of fat and muscle, tearing back apart what had partially healed. Toki gasped violently and reeled back, slamming his spine into the beam. His muscles tensed as tightly as they could as he tried to brace himself, but it did nothing but sharpen the pain. And then Magnus entered a second finger, moving them in a scissoring motion, reopening the infected wound further. All night Toki's body had been on fire, but now he broke out into a cold, clammy sweat as vicious shudders assaulted him. Desperate to protect his stomach, his uninjured hand struggled under the weight of Magnus' knee to no avail.

"Look at me." The words were like thunder against the air that had only been filled with screams and gasps. When Toki did not respond, he forced his fingers deeper. The edge of his index finger brushed against the base of Toki's ribcage. "Look at me." Magnus was enraptured at the touch of raw bone and needed Toki to look him dead in the eyes while he violated him from the inside by means worse than a simple, clean knifing…

Toki had to take control back. He had to at least try to keep his plan together. Toki opened his eyes and gazed back into that terrifying mismatched pair with as much longing as he could pour out from his broken mind and body.

"Skwisgaar," he near enough moaned the word, "Jeg vil ha deg."

It sent Magnus over the edge. He hadn't realized how goddamn hard he was until those words nearly made him lose himself. Unable to take it anymore, he lowered himself onto Toki's lap, his weight now in his shins rather than his knees. This finally allowed Toki's uninjured hand to break free, but Magnus didn't give a shit about it now. The way Toki wrapped it around the back of his neck, pulling him down, closer, and ghosting his bloodied lips along his collarbone… He wanted his hand free. Just as Toki had hoped.

Though Magnus was surprised Toki was still delirious after all he'd done, he didn't mind at all. He would more than gladly take advantage of Toki's delusions, and he would gladly, if even for a moment, become the world's fastest, most beloved guitarist. And if even for a moment, he would gladly become someone else entirely – someone who was wanted more than anything. Distracted by Toki's sudden fervor and by his thoughts, Magnus no longer cared about the knife wound. He removed his fingers and, breaking away momentarily from Toki's surprisingly passionate kisses, shoved them into Toki's mouth. Their foreheads still touched, and Toki could not escape the unexpectedly languished look in his eyes. The fingers slid further down his tongue. Toki had no choice but to comply, but his stomach churned all the same.

Toki tried desperately not to gag on the taste of his own infected body fluids as Magnus pushed into his mouth even more violently than his wound. Instead, he did just as he had before – sucking them clean and running his fingers through the sweaty roots of his oppressor's hair. Nausea welled up in the pit of his stomach, and Toki was certain he was going to puke, but as Magnus removed his fingers he swallowed hard, willing himself to keep it down. He was reaching the end of his endurance. It was either now or never. The plan he had given up his dignity for was working - his left hand was free and Magnus enjoyed that it was. Whether this plan would work or not was entirely unforeseeable, but the consequences didn't scare him. He was certain things couldn't get much worse than this. He just had to try.

"Vil ha deg..." he repeated, brushing his quivering fingertips down Magnus' cheekbones, trailing down his ever exposed chest. Magnus' hair stood on end at the enticing touch, and although he didn't understand a single word of it, he knew this was how Toki would speak to Skwisgaar. It fueled his own delusions further and when Toki's fingers trailed lightly up the length of his cock through the stiff fabric of his jeans, Magnus shuddered in pure ecstasy.

His touch leaving all too soon, Toki's hand moved up to his belt buckle and tugged at it helplessly. While it was difficult with one hand, he could have undone it alone, but it was essential that Magnus did it himself. Seeing Magnus nearly crumble at his touch granted Toki a new hybrid of adrenaline and determination. "Jeg skal..." he began, even more provocatively and pleadingly than before, "faen meg... drepe deg."

"Oh, it was coming whether you wanted it or not," Magnus muttered through a licentious grin.

And when he looked down to undo his belt, the plan began to move like clockwork.

Toki's hand was free, and Magnus' attention was down at his pants, his own hands fumbling with excitement.

He had less than a second to act.

With all the strength he thought had abandoned him, Toki reached up for the knife, grabbed it firmly by the handle and tore it from wood and flesh. Magnus only had time to look up, eyes widening, as the blade was plunged into his chest down to the hilt. They both froze, Magnus in shock, but Toki in an overload of thoughts. His mind engulfed him. Over and over and over he stabbed Magnus, fifteen, twenty times, screaming, crying, swearing - but only in his mind. He no longer had the energy to move. It was done. Even Magnus' weight leaning into him, down on the knife, his hands wrapping around Toki's neck, being slammed back into the wooden beam one last time - nothing took him out of his thoughts. A pressure more ferocious than Magnus had ever exerted crushed his throat inwards; he had never injured to kill, but now...

"You..." Magnus' voice gurgled as blood gushed up his throat with every labored breath. With every pound of his hammering heart, blood pumped out of the wound, gushing down onto Toki's stomach. His aorta had been severed. The adrenaline was fading fast for Toki and all thoughts began to cut out as he suffocated, as his trachea began to collapse. This would be fine, he convinced himself. If he died now, everything would be fine. Hadn't he so desperately wanted to? He closed his eyes, not wanting his final sight to be Magnus' hatred filled, terrified expression.

Finally, the memories of happier days returned to him. Yes, there was no returning to the band now, even if they came for him. He would never be the same, never see them the same. Rainbows finally filled his mind once more. He even felt himself smile as the blackness killed the light.

But then the pressure lightened. Air choked back into his lungs without his permission and there was a sudden weight on his body. Toki unwillingly opened his eyes to see Magnus draped over him, limp. His blood ran cold.

"No..." His voice was barely even a whisper but it felt like he'd swallowed fire. "No, please..." He lifted Magnus' head, revealing a face plastered in horror, eyes still open and slightly rolled back, the stream of blood still dripping from his mouth. "No! Takes me with you!" He shook him violently. "Please!" As he shook him, more still-hot blood seeped onto Toki's already soaked torso. The hilt of the knife jabbed into his stomach under Magnus' weight, and the reality of everything finally came crashing down on him. The nausea returned, this time unrelentingly. Still trapped under Magnus' body, Toki could only lean over as he wretched violently, producing nothing but stomach acid, bile, and his own blood. Though his stomach kept heaving, there was nothing else to throw up. Body still rolling with convulsion and tearless sobs, he propped Magnus up against himself, slinging his head over his shoulder, and gripped the knife. He struggled at first but it came cleanly out with a wiggle. Dropping it at his side, he slid an arm under one of Magnus', his bleeding hand stroking the back of Magnus' head.

The physical torture had stopped but the torment remained. Minutes ago he'd imagined thrusting the blade into Magnus repeatedly, yet, despite everything that had been done to him – and everything that would have been done to him - his naivety could not shake the image of Magnus as his friend. Toki never wanted him to die. He just wanted everything to stop.

"I'm so sorrys," he choked out. "It was the onlys way." He repeated this over and over, rocking back and forth as if to comfort the body in his arms. It was still warm but completely motionless.

Toki closed his eyes. The torn wound on his stomach screamed, his ribs ached, his eye burned. The hand that had been stabbed now felt icy as blood no longer reached his fingertips and he now was aware of the blood trickling down his neck from the busted back of his scalp. Every part of his body trembled and he could hardly see through the haze. As he slipped out of consciousness, he noticed the knife was in his hand once more. He closed his eyes and was met with a final thought:

He had killed something he'd loved again.