Yeah, right. Toki thought, the words coming to his mind in Norwegian. You definitely weren't pretending at all, Skwisgaar.

Toki pulled his dark hair out of his face and leaned in toward the mirror, poking the tender and discolored skin beneath his right eye. It wasn't the first black eye Skwisgaar had ever given him, and it likely wouldn't be the last, but this one…this one had hurt more than the others, somehow.

He must have been high this morning, Toki thought, running water in the sink and splashing it gently on his bruised face. Why else would he…would he have…

Even in his own thoughts, Toki couldn't quite admit what had happened that morning in his closet. He couldn't think about it, couldn't dwell on it, because it made him feel things that he did not want to feel…things he was ashamed to feel. He refused to think about it at all, fearing that if he lingered on the thought long enough, he'd realize that instead of immediately pulling away (like Pickles would have done), punching the living shit out of him (like Nathan would have done), and killing him (like Murderface would have done), Toki himself had…sat there. He had sat there on all fours in his closet with his lips pressed against Skwisgaar's for ten interminable seconds before he had realized just what it was he had been doing. Toki also feared that if he let himself think about it too much, he would also begin to think about how he had…not minded.

Strangely enough, however, it wasn't that particular event that made his damn black eye hurt so much worse than any other black eye he had ever gotten from the fucking Swede.

No, what made this black eye hurt so much more was Skwisgaar's stupid, velvet voice whispering softly, "They can't beat you anymore, Toki."

"If they can't beat me," Toki muttered in Norwegian, drying his face and twisting the excess water out of his mustache, "What the fuck gives him the right to?"

Toki replayed the scene in his mind as he stripped to his boxers, preparing for bed. That morning, after he had recovered enough to leave his bedroom, Toki had managed to make it to the Hatredcopter just in time. His lateness earned him a half-hearted tongue lashing from the manager, but no one asked him what was wrong (not that he had expected them to) and he was grateful. To begin with, he had also been grateful that Skwisgaar was keeping his distance. The Swede had positioned himself as far away from Toki as possible for the entire flight, unusually silent. He didn't even look at Toki, let alone insult him, the whole way there.

Once they landed, however, Skwisgaar changed. Backstage, right before they were set to go on, the blond started in with a vengeance, as if trying to make up for lost time; he ragged on Toki's guitar skills, called him a fucking dildo who couldn't play to save his miserable life, and informed him that he might as well not have showed up today for all the difference it would have made in the show.

Toki had tried to ignore it, but he couldn't ignore the way Skwisgaar's words seemed more cruel than usual, seemed to cut a little deeper than they ever had before that morning. It was a matter of minutes before he whirled on Skwisgaar, rage flaring through his veins, and snarled at him in Norwegian, "Go fuck your mother, asshole."

A split second later Toki had found himself on the ground, head pounding like the notes from Murderface's bass guitar. The pale hand Pickles was holding out him doubled, then trebled, before his vision cleared and Toki was able to grab it. Nathan had Skwisgaar's thin arms in a deathgrip, and had braced him against his broad chest and lifted him off his feet; it seemed to be the only way to keep Skwisgaar from escaping. Pickles was pushing Toki toward the manager; after the incident when someone had decided to fuck with Charles's 'bread and butter' Toki knew Skwisgaar wouldn't be very keen on crossing the manager. Pickles offered him a joint for his pounding head at the same time Charles offered him aspirin. Toki took both, but missed the fleeting look of anger that crossed Charles' face when Pickles handed him the weed. The pain soon ebbed away, and for the entire length of the show, Toki felt fine. Skwisgaar was the furthest thing from his mind.

When he boarded the 'Copter behind the rest of the band, however, it was an entirely different story. Skwisgaar removed himself from the others almost immediately, taking a chair and dragging it into a corner. He sprawled himself in it, his long legs draped over one arm, and plucked absently at his guitar while staring out one of the many windows. Toki tried to ignore him and party with the rest of the guys, but his face was beginning to throb again, and the beer didn't sit well on top of the weed. He, too, found himself sprawled in a chair on the opposite side of the room from Skwisgaar, devouring whatever he pulled out of his candy bowl and shooting dark looks at the man who was responsible for the dull ache in both his head and his heart.

And now here he was, snuggled in his small bed with Deddybear in the crook of his arm, thinking about exactly what he had promised himself he wouldn't think about: that stupid fucking guitar player who had suddenly fucked up his relatively cheerful existence.

Gradually, his angry thoughts began to slow, ebbing further into the area of dreams than actual consciousness. He was so nearly asleep that at first, he thought that what he was hearing was part of his dreams…thought that it was actually himself who was screaming. It was such a despairing sound, so full of fear and pain that Toki, half asleep, shot straight up in bed with his arms over his face, his eyes darting back and forth, searching for the form of his father.

When he finally realized that his father was thousands of miles away, growing old and sick in Norway, the sound came again and he began to shiver. It was not something Toki was used to hearing in Mordhaus late at night; it was not Nathan raising hell, not Murderface insisting that he could sing, it was not even a smashed and strung out Pickles. It didn't even sound like any of Skwisgaar's groupies, either, although Toki couldn't recall hearing them in awhile and doubted that anyone in the throes of an orgasm would make such a fearsome noise.

He crawled out of bed, tugging his boxers out of his balls and twisting the waistband of his pajama pants until it faced forward again. He was trying to discern the direction from which the horrific scream had come…he thought that it had come from down the hall, echoing off the corridor walls and finally reaching him from…where?

The only room down that corridor is Skwisgaar's, Toki thought irritably. And if something is wrong with him he can go fuck himself.

He was just about to slip back into bed when something occurred to him: What if Skwisgaar really was hurt? What if something truly horrible had happened, and Toki was the only one to hear him screaming?

Toki—perhaps a better person than any in Dethklok—put his anger and hurt aside for a moment, and asked himself how he would feel if something awful was happening to Skwisgaar and he didn't go to help. He entertained a momentary fantasy of saving Skwisgaar from something hideous and terrifying, after which Skwisgaar fell on his knees in front of Toki and apologized for being such an asshole.

Yeah, right, Toki thought, That'll be the day. He stood still for a moment, Deddy tucked under one arm, alert for any more sounds from down the corridor. All was quiet now…he could probably just go back to bed, Skwisgaar must be all right now…

The instant Toki made up his mind to go back to bed, the scream came again, scaring him half to death. He clutched Deddy to his chest and froze for a moment, shaking, before getting hold of himself and turning toward his bedroom door. He opened it, still holding Deddybear tightly to him, and peeked down the corridor like a small child awake past his bedtime.

Something about Mordhaus at night had always made Toki nervous; he tried not to walk around alone after everyone had fallen asleep. There were too many shadows for his overactive imagination to deal with, but he was willing to brave whatever might be hiding in those shadows—and in his mind—to make sure that Skwisgaar was all right.

The band needs him, that's all, Toki told himself, knowing it was just an excuse and telling it to himself anyway. He wound Deddy's devil tail around his wrist nervously and began his trek down the hall. If something really bad happened to him, the sooner he gets help, the better. For the band.

The trick worked for a little while, until Toki was about halfway to Skwisgaar's bedroom door. At that point, he began to wonder if what he had heard actually had been one of Skwisgaar's groupies. He had never heard that precise kind of scream from a groupie before, true, but…if he went into Skwisgaar's room and saw him with a groupie—or worse, a crowd of groupies—after what had happened that morning, Toki thought he might snap. It was enough to make him turn around and creep a few steps back toward his own bedroom when Skwisgaar screamed again, and this time the sound was in close proximity.

"That's not some girl," Toki muttered to himself, "That's definitely the fucking Swede."

He raced the few yards toward Skwisgaar's door and stretched out his hand for the knob, then paused abruptly. Finally having reached his destination, he was now too nervous to go inside. If he knocked, Skwisgaar was liable to tell him to fuck off, no matter what was wrong with him…it was just the way Skwisgaar was. If he didn't knock, and walked in on Skwisgaar in the middle of something relatively harmless that just so happened to make him scream bloody murder, Toki was liable to have another black eye.

He remembered something Nathan had said once, something about choosing between the lesser of two evils. Toki hadn't really understood what that meant until now, as he pulled open Skwisgaar's door without knocking.

It could easily have been the last thing that he ever did. Skwisgaar's thin arm shot out of the darkness, the long fingers clenching around Toki's throat in a grip he never would have thought possible, as thin as Skwisgaar had always been. His air was choked off mid-breath, and he heard Skwisgaar's voice, somehow crueler and colder when speaking his native tongue, snarl from the shadows, "What the fuck do you think you're doing in here?"

Toki, unable to answer, brought his hands to his throat and clawed at Skwisgaar's hand; he managed to get one of his own hands around Skwisgaar's tiny wrist, but his lungs were already burning, his mind already refusing to function properly thanks to lack of oxygen, and the fact that he was much stronger than Skwisgaar was quickly beginning to mean nothing. He felt his feet leaving the ground and had a moment to marvel that Skwisgaar could manage such a thing before he began to kick and squirm in earnest, all thought except that of oxygen gone from his mind.

Then, just as suddenly as he had been seized, Toki was dropped. He landed in a heap, Deddybear trapped under his legs, swallowing great gulps of air like Pickles swallowed liquor. He had almost forgotten Skwisgaar entirely in his ecstasy at being allowed to breathe again.

"Toki?"

The voice was more accented than it would have been had Skwisgaar been saying 'Toki' in English, and Toki felt the hairs on the back of his neck begin to prickle. Skwisgaar only fell completely into Swedish when something was very wrong.

"Ja," Toki mumbled, getting to his feet and massaging his bruised throat. "What's wrong?" There was no point in speaking English to Skwisgaar if he wasn't going to speak it, too, and besides, their first languages were so closely related that they might as well have been speaking the same one.

There was silence for a moment, then a small click as Skwisgaar turned on a bedside lamp. He was shirtless, his sunken chest and protruding ribs slicked with sweat. His yellow hair was lank and lifeless, and the bags under his eyes seemed even more pronounced than usual. Yes, Toki thought, Something is wrong, very wrong, but what?

Skwisgaar seemed to realize that Toki was taking in his disheveled appearance. He shifted his weight uncomfortably from one foot to another, then bent over to pick up Deddybear. He held the bear for a moment, staring at it as if it were a particularly interesting brand of guitar, before handing it silently back to Toki and shuffling back to his bed.

Toki simply sat Deddybear on Skwisgaar's dresser and followed him. The blond was sitting on the edge of his bed, his face in his hands. Toki sat down beside him and repeated, "What's wrong?"

Skwisgaar looked up, and the expression on his face was one Toki couldn't recall seeing recently. He looked…younger, somehow. Almost frightened. "How?" he asked. "I mean…what makes you think there's something wrong?"

It was so absurd, so ridiculous of him to say something like that, that Toki nearly started laughing. He settled for a rueful smirk instead. Rubbing his bruised eye, he said, "Well, you were definitely all right before the concert, that's for sure, but right as I was about to fall asleep I heard you screaming, and when someone screams like that it generally means that they're not all right."

Skwisgaar—who had forgotten how sardonic Toki could be when speaking Norwegian—stared at him in blatant wonder. "You…" he began, "You came all the way down here in the dark? After I hit you like that? Just because I was screaming in my sleep?"

"Yeah, well," Toki shot him an angry look, but it only lasted for a moment. "I was thinking that you might be hurt or something."

Skwisgaar grunted. It was a bitter, angry sound, but Toki sensed that it was not directed at him.

"Are you hurt, then?" he asked.

"Pfft. Only where you can't see it." Skwisgaar sighed, burying his face in his big hands once more. "I'm…I'm sorry I hit you, Toki."

Toki nearly choked on his own breath. He couldn't believe his ears.

"You…? Wait. Wait, no, you must have a fever or something," he said, and even reached over to place a hand on Skwisgaar's forehead. "I'll call the doctor, you just wait here."

He had only just gotten to his feet when he felt Skwisgaar's hand close around his wrist; the Swede was laughing softly.

"No, Toki, no, I don't have a fever."

Toki—his heart still beating ninety to nothing from the first apology he had ever gotten out of Skwisgaar in all his fourteen years of knowing him—narrowed his eyes as snatched his hand away. "Then you must not be serious. You must just be fucking around like you were this morn—"

Horrified with himself, Toki stopped speaking. Skwisgaar looked as if he had been slapped.

"I…deserve that," Skwisgaar said, running his fingers through his messy hair. "But…I'm not fucking with you, Toki. I wasn't then and I'm not now. I swear it."

Toki's heart skipped a beat in his chest, but he could feel the blood beating beneath his bruised skin and shook his head. Tears were burning in his eyes and he hated himself for them because he was sick of crying in front of Skwisgaar, but he was suddenly so furious, so angry, that he couldn't help but let them fall.

"If you weren't fucking around then why the hell did you haul off and punch me in the face, you asshole? If they can't beat me anymore, if I'm so fucking safe with you, then what the fuck gives you the right to hit me? Huh?" he thundered. "Why the fuck should I believe a word you're saying right now, Skwisgaar? Give me one good reason why I should believe you!"

The silence this tirade left in its wake was deafening. The whiteness of Skwisgaar's room had blurred into one great pale fuzz as Toki tried to see through his tears, so he closed his eyes for a moment to blink them away. When he opened them again, Skwisgaar was on his knees on the floor; he was clutching his hair as if he wanted to snatch it from his skull.

"I'm such a fucking idiot," he muttered fiercely; his teeth were clenched together so tightly that the words came out as a hiss, and Toki took a step back, unnerved.

"Such a fucking idiot," he repeated, and when he pulled his hands away from his head his long fingers were covered in loose strands of his hair. He looked up at Toki, who nearly fell to his own knees; there were tears in the corners of Skwisgaar's icy eyes, trembling as if they wanted desperately to fall, but Skwisgaar dashed them away before they could.

"I'm sorry, Toki," he said, and again the words made Toki's heartbeat speed up. Skwisgaar raised himself back onto the bed like a man twice his age, holding his head in one hand. "Will you let me explain? Please?"

Toki, still stunned by the sight of tears in those cold eyes, only nodded. He sank to the floor Indian style, like a small boy waiting for story time.

Skwisgaar sighed once more, cursed violently, then launched into his tale.

"This morning…I wasn't pretending, Toki. I swear that to you, even though I guess I know you don't feel the same way. When you came into my room just now, I thought you were someone else, someone I didn't want to see. But on the 'Copter you were so quiet, and you seemed so sad. I was afraid you were going to become catatonic again before we even landed, so when we got there, I did the only thing I knew to do to keep that from happening: I started picking on you. It worked, sort of, I guess. I hated seeing you hurt like that, Toki, but I knew it would piss you off, too, and you play so much better when you're pissed off, for whatever reason."

He paused. Toki could see him trembling, could see his throat working as if he were trying to swallow something large and disgusting.

"I just…" the words were choked, broken, but Skwisgaar pushed onward. "I just…never…expected you to…say that. About her. And…me. She…she fucked so many fucking people and I…she…there were times that we…f-fuck—"

Toki had been waiting for it, because it always happened whenever someone brought up Serveta. Maybe not right away, but eventually, and as Skwisgaar leaped to his feet and scrambled for the bathroom with his hand plastered over his mouth, Toki followed him quietly.

The Swede was sprawled on the white tile in front of his toilet, dry-heaving and spitting and holding his forehead. He looked tragically like post-party Pickles.

"Sorry," he mumbled weakly, and spit into the bowl once more. "I can't…ugh, gods—!" He heaved again, this time bringing up a wash of yellow bile tinged with blood. It filled the bathroom with a sick, acrid smell.

When Skwisgaar wiped his mouth on the back of his arm, he turned to see Toki holding his long hair out of the way. He managed a weak smile before the nausea overwhelmed him again; this time the blood was more prominent.

"Have you been puking like this since they came to visit?" Toki asked, taking advantage of the pause in Skwisgaar' sickness to gather his hair more fully at the base of his neck.

Skwisgaar could only nod; he was retching again, but nothing was coming up. All he could do was spit a few more times, and even his saliva was pinkish-tinged.

Toki helped him stand; he had to pour the mouthwash into the little plastic cup for him, because Skwisgaar's hands were shaking too badly.

A moment later they were back to Skwisgaar's bed, with the Swede propped weakly amongst his fluffy pillows and Toki sitting on the edge of the bed beside him. The silence between them was so awkward that it actually seemed to have weight, and Toki's mind was reeling, trying to process what Skwisgaar had told him.

'I guess I know you don't feel the same way.' The words echoed around in Toki's mind. He wouldn't—couldn't—allow himself to hope that meant what he thought it meant.

"Skwisgaar," he began slowly, "Are you, um…" He stopped, rubbing the back of his neck; he could feel his face flushing and knew his cheeks must be brightest pink. "Are you…gay?"

He wanted to crawl under a rock and hide as soon as the words were out of his mouth, but Skwisgaar's lips twitched in the ghost of a smirk.

"Maybe," he replied. "Are you?"

It was amazing how many things could fill his brain in the space of a few moments, Toki thought, as he flashed back to that morning, to those ten full seconds that Skwisgaar's lips had rested gently against his own. He let himself feel something about it for the first time since it had actually happened; he had been so busy fighting off the feelings that he hadn't actually let them come, hadn't actually let himself examine them.

He had been startled at first, he remembered; he hadn't known what Skwisgaar was going to do to him until he felt the Swede's mouth against his. Once he had gotten past being startled, he became frightened, frightened that this was some game, that Skwisgaar would suddenly pull back and laugh, that Nathan and Murderface and Pickles would suddenly appear from behind his closet door and tease him for being a little fag, but nothing of the sort had happened. His fright had given way to a sense of comfort then, much like he had felt while crying into Skwisgaar's chest. After that there came…happiness. Simple, fleeting happiness, and the knowledge that this was what he had always wanted. A split second after that thought had crossed his mind, he panicked, jumping backward and ordering Skwisgaar out of his room.

"I think only for you," Toki replied, and for some reason he couldn't fathom, he dissolved into tears.

Skwisgaar, apparently, was full of surprises tonight; as soon as Toki had buried his face in his hands, he felt the taller man's thin arms around him, pulling him gently into his lap. He could feel Skwisgaar's long fingers stroking through his hair, heard him mumbling comfort in a mix of English and Swedish, and even as he cried Toki's heart soared.

When he pulled away this time, he did so gently, wanting Skwisgaar to know that he appreciated his kindness; he left one of his hands twined with Skwisgaar's on top of the furry coverlet.

"Are you all right, Toki?" Skwisgaar asked, and Toki smiled slightly; the blond's high cheekbones were coloring.

"I'm…all right, I think," Toki said, "Just…confused. You, though…you were the one screaming in your sleep, Skwisgaar. Why? Are you all right?"

Toki saw what he expected to see; Skwisgaar's face changing in the blink of an eye. The new openness, the new honesty that he had seen from Skwisgaar tonight faded quickly back into the cold, brooding model that he was most familiar with as the Swede replied, "I was dreaming. It's nothing. I'm fine."

Toki nodded. "You're lying," he said, "But it's okay. What were you going to say before you started throwing up?"

Skwisgaar's jaw clenched down so tightly that Toki could hear the sharp click of his back teeth as they snapped together. He could feel Skwisgaar's body change as all his muscles seized up, could see his throat working in that same way, like he was trying to swallow something he couldn't quite get down.

"Nothing." Skwisgaar said, and Toki knew he was fighting not to start dry-heaving again. It was exactly what Toki had expected him to say.

"You're lying," he repeated, but his voice was quiet, gentle. He stood up, letting Skwisgaar's hand go free slowly, giving it a last squeeze before he finally let it drop. For a moment, the Swede opened his mouth, looking as if he were on the verge of explaining…but he closed it almost instantly.

Toki started to walk away, toward the door. He could feel Skwisgaar staring after him.

"Toki? Where are you going?"

Toki turned around, one hand on the doorknob. With the other, he picked up Deddybear and hugged it to his chest.

"You and me…we're the only ones who know what it's like, Skwisgaar," he mumbled. "We're the ones that got beat up the worst, fucked up the worst…I could help you, but if you don't trust me, then how the hell is this going to work?"

He stood for a moment, silent, then tossed Deddybear across the room to Skwisgaar and left. The Swede sat alone, hugging the bear, feeling empty and hopeful all at once.