About two hours before Toki woke to find himself alone in the big white bed, and an hour before Skwisgaar opened his swollen eyes and dragged himself into the bathroom, the phone in Charles' office began to ring.

Charles himself was out in the main room, overseeing a group of Klokateers as they cleaned up the leftover mayhem of the night before. Only his assistant remained in his office, and his assistant was currently asleep; she had been lulled by the tiny speakers in her ears that blared a symphonic version of Dethklok's last album.

The phone rang on, unanswered. Charles' voicemail picked up at last, and a harried, nervous message was left by the caller.

Charles' assistant slept on.

xXx

The moment Skwisgaar opened his eyes, he knew that it was going to be a very bad day. He could tell from the way his sore eyelids barely parted, and from the painful throb that pulsed in the middle of his forehead like an emerging tumor.

He tried to ignore the signs. He closed his eyes and pretended he couldn't feel the deep ache in his head. He settled more deeply into Toki's broad chest and tried, but it was no good. His headache was only growing worse, the little bits of sleep in the corners of his eyes itched, and Skwisgaar wanted aspirin.

He disentangled himself from Toki's possessive embrace and stood, perhaps a little too quickly; there was a dizzying moment of vertigo before he felt capable of walking even the short way to the bathroom. When he reached it—after steadying himself against the wall the entire way—he went immediately for the mirrored medicine cabinet.

He paused with his hand halfway to the cabinet, frozen by his reflection.

His eyelids were puffy, swollen from tears, from the way he had rubbed them so viciously the night before in an effort to disguise those same tears. Thin red lines mapped the way from his lashline to the pale blue of his irises. The skin below his eyes had turned a bruiselike shade of lavender, and his hollow cheeks were colorless, nearly translucent. For the first time in his life, he was noticing lines other than the tiny crow's feet he'd had since he was twenty-five or so. His head swam; his stomach rolled.

He looked old.

He looked like death.

He looked like her.

He nearly broke the mirror with his fist as the realization took hold; instead, he snatched the cabinet open and grabbed the aspirin. He shook four of the little white pills into his hand and threw them into his mouth, chewing them like candy. As bitter saliva flooded his mouth, he ran cold water into the sink and splashed it on his face. The sudden chill shocked his system, and after a moment or two, he felt better: more awake, less hung-over.

For a moment, Skwisgaar contemplated taking a shower…most of what he'd thrown up last night was liquid, and what wasn't would go down the drain easily anyway. He changed his mind when his vision began to get swimmy again; he wasn't sure he could stand up in the stall without slipping. He settled for pulling his slightly lank hair back into a ponytail instead, and began digging through his suitcase for a pair of track pants and an undershirt.

He found the track pants, but no shirt. He'd just pulled Toki's shirt from the night before over his head when there came a knock at the door, and that was when Skwisgaar remembered his conviction that today was not going to be a good day.

The Klokateer in the doorway handed him an envelope and bowed respectfully before blending back into the darkness of the hall. Skwisgaar shut the door on him, shaken at the script on the front of the envelope; it read Skwisgaar, and it was in the Robot's handwriting.

"Skwisgaar,

You were seen. Not by Nathan or Murderface, Thank God, and not by any fans or paparazzi either, but you were seen by a plainclothes Gear and that's bad enough. You need to be more careful or you need to come out; make up your mind.

Charles Ofdensen"

Skwisgaar crumpled the stiff paper in his bony fist, scowling. Ofdensen was right, of course…when was the robot not right?

He looked over his shoulder at the brown-haired lump buried in white blankets. The lump rose and fell in gentle waves as Toki breathed; it was an even, soothing motion. Skwisgaar closed his eyes and wished fervently that he'd never woken up, or that when he had, he could have managed to lay there and listen to Toki's breathing until he fell back asleep.

Wish in one hand, shit in the other… Skwisgaar thought, sighing heavily and tossing the manager's note on the floor. He stood over Toki for several moments, watching as the Norwegian mumbled in his sleep and shoved the blanket away from his torso. The blond's pale eyes roved along every curve and plane and angle of Toki's exposed skin, taking in each place he'd ravenously explored the previous night, each place he'd touched, caressed, kissed. He had seen Toki's body as he had never seen it before, and even now, as he stood above his rhythm guitarist with his mind reeling, he felt his cock beginning to stir, heard his heart beginning to hammer in his thin chest. He very nearly crawled into bed to give Toki a little good-morning gift…but then Toki stretched his arms above his head.

Skwisgaar froze in place, his narrow body inclined ever so slightly forward. His eyes locked in on the bulging muscles of Toki's arms…the arms that had wrapped around him as he screamed helplessly on his bathroom floor, the arms that pulled him up and held him close as he shivered, the arms that had tightened around him even as he snapped at the man to whom they belonged. Those were the arms that he had leaned on as Toki helped him to the sink, the arms that had half-carried him back to bed, the arms that had held him all throughout the night as if he were some small, terrified child.

Skwisgaar gazed at those arms and recoiled.

I shouldn't be feeling like this, he thought, but the tide of embarrassment rose from his toes to his scalp in a blushing wave. I shouldn't be feeling this, I shouldn't…

His words meant nothing. Shame was rising in the wake of embarrassment, shame so deep and acute and familiar that Skwisgaar's empty stomach began to roil ominously. He drew away from Toki, away from the bed; his thin shoulders hunched as he remembered the events of the night before.

The mem…the nightmares, he thought, beginning to shake, The nightmares…

He gagged on his own saliva. His back thudded into the wall across from the bed and he sank down, long legs pulled up tightly to his chest, as he remembered what had happened the night before. Toki had heard him screaming, he had seen him throw up until threads of blood showed up in his bile. Toki had seen the tears, had heard him crying. Toki had pulled him up out of the fetal position, had held him and calmed him even when Skwisgaar snapped and snarled. Toki had seen him come unhinged, and no one—no one—was ever supposed to have witnessed that.

Skwisgaar wrapped his long arms around his knees and began to rock, feeling sick, feeling ashamed, feeling weak…feeling like a failure. His stomach was a whirlpool of nausea and he dug his teeth into the meat of his forearm in an attempt to keep his sickness under control; when the acid seared its way up and into his throat, he forced it down again in one painful swallow.

He scrambled to his feet then, heartburn glowing inside his chest like a capering fire-imp, and reached for the doorknob. He had just opened the door, had just lifted his foot to flee through it, when he paused. Guilt ate through the shame for a moment and he looked back at Toki, who was now mumbling to himself and reaching toward the place where Skwisgaar's body had lain.

This is a dick move, he thought, and he hated himself. The guilt spread through him like a poison that had been injected directly into his heart, and still Skwisgaar slipped through the door, still he closed it behind him, still he trudged down the hall, down the steps, and away from the only person in the world to ever see him fall apart.

How the fuck will I ever be able to look him in the eye again? He thought to himself, descending into the newly-cleaned main room. His arms were wrapped around his chest; he shivered as he sank into one of the dark, plush couches that lined the edges of the room. He'll never see me the same way.

A Gear materialized beside him, but Skwisgaar didn't even see her until she bowed her head, exposing the brightly colored dreadlocks that streaked through her ponytail. "My lord, do you require anything?" she asked.

"Nej, unless yous can be tellingks me hows to goes back ins times," Skwisgaar mumbled. "Goes away, wills you?"

The Gear bowed again and disappeared as silently as she had come.

The Gears could murder us all in our sleep and we'd never hear a thing, Skwisgaar mused, still surprised by the stealth with which she'd come to him. Of course, then the Robot would murder them, so I guess we don't have anything to worry about.

As if the devil had spoken, Charles appeared at the top of the staircase. At least, Skwisgaar thought it was him. The Robot looked…well, not so robotic today. He seemed to have buttoned his suit jacket wrong, and his tie…

How the fuck did he manage to put his tie on backward? I mean, is that even possible…? Skwisgaar leaned forward over his crossed arms and squinted for a better look. Sure enough, the short part of the Robot's tie was facing the front, lying in the middle of the longer, thicker part.

"Robots?" Skwisgaar said tentatively when Charles had reached the foot of the stairs. "Is you malfunkshunningks?"

"Skwisgaar?" the manager looked at him, as if startled to see him there. "Oh. Skwisgaar. Yes, hello. Have you…have you heard any phones ringing lately?"

Charles' bizarre question managed to distract Skwisgaar from his own problems quite thoroughly. "Whats does you means, ringingks phones? We's Dethklok, de phones be ringingks all de times," he replied. "And does…does you has your glasses on upsides down?"

"Oh." Charles looked down at his nose , going momentarily cross eyed, and Skwisgaar gaped at him in wonder. "Yes, yes I do." He righted them absently and continued, "What I mean to say is, have you noticed the phones ringing more often than usual?"

Skwisgaar blinked at him. "Dids you steals Pickle's leftsovers drugs or somethingks?"

"Oh, no," Charles waved his hand, then sifted it through his disheveled hair. "I haven't taken anything. Although perhaps I should. I wish you had noticed the phones, Skwisgaar. I certainly didn't."

"Whats wit' de fuckingks phones?" Skwisgaar asked sharply. He was beginning to feel a little frightened. If the Robot had lost his mind, which he obviously had, then Dethklok was not going to survive for very long.

"Well, you see, New Method Wellness has been attempting to contact me since…well, since the day Pickles arrived." Charles' hands were shaking as he adjusted his tie; he still had not noticed that it was completely backward.

"…ands?" Skwisgaar prompted, resisting the growing urge to grab the Robot's fidgety hands.

"And he is not there," the manager replied. His arms dropped away from the hopeless case of the tie as he spoke, hanging limply at his sides, as if he had no clue just what they were for, anymore.

"Nots…" Skwisgaar felt his stomach drop. He began to shake again. "Nots dere? Den wheres de hells is he?"

"No one knows," the manager said flatly. "He…he escaped the very first day, the director of the facility informed me that Pickles was in their care for nor more than three hours. They…an orderly went in to check on him and found that the man…the doctor, psychiatrist or whatever he was…they found him on the floor of Pickles' room. Knocked out. With a…with a lamp. He remembered being knocked out with the lamp. After that…no one has seen him. He's…disappeared."

"Disappeareds?" Skwisgaar's voice cracked on the word and he forced his rising panic back down into his chest. "Peoples don'ts just disappears. Pickle musts be somesplace. Wheres coulds he haves gone?"

"No one at the facility seems to know," the manager said. Emotion was beginning to disconnect from his voice, and Skwisgaar found himself strangely relieved. He felt even better when Charles continued, saying, "I am, of course, pressing every charge imaginable against the facility and those that were in charge of it. It will soon be a parking lot. I just…I don't seem to know what to do otherwise."

"Pfft," Skwisgaar sat up, nervous energy taking him over, and began to pace. His fingers danced gently against his skin, over nonexistent strings, though his arms remained crossed. "We has to be findingks hims. Dats what's we has to be doingks. It's can'ts be dats hard, Pickle been famous since he was a kids. Somebodies will be spottingks him, den we cans picks him up, and dens I can beats da shits outs of hims for scaringks us likes dis."

"That will perhaps be more easily said than done, Skwisgaar," Charles sighed. He had noticed that his buttons were askew, and had fixed his jacket. To the tie he remained oblivious. "It has been a little over twenty-four hours since Pickles went missing. Don't you suppose that someone would have noticed him by now? He is, after all, one of the five best-known faces in the world. His hair is so red that it's orange, and what's more, it's dreaded. He has a particularly distinctive accent. He should have been noticed by now. Even if he was in disguise, he should have been noticed. There should be reports. There would be a trail of crazed fan bodies leading to where he is as they fight one another to the death for the chance to touch him. There's nothing, Skwisgaar. There's just…nothing. He walked out of New Method Wellness and disappeared."

At that, Charles sat down hard on couch that Skwisgaar had just vacated; the Swede was momentarily terrified that he would witness the Robot bursting into tears, but Charles' shoulders only quaked once or twice before they became still.

Silence hung in the air for an eternal minute before Charles looked up again. When he did, his eyes had gone flintlike; his features were haggard, but undreadable, and when he spoke, it was in a monotone that was like balm to Skwisgaar's panicked soul.

"Skwisgaar, would you please go wake the others and ask them to come downstairs? We will, of course, be flying back to Mordhaus later this morning, but I believe that I should inform Nathan, Toki, and William of Pickles' disappearance as soon as possible. Perhaps he has been in contact with one of them."

It was obvious that the manager did not believe that in the slightest, but Skwisgaar nodded his consent and hurried toward the stairs. He was halfway up before he remembered the Robot's tie, and turned to tell him he should fix it; as he opened his mouth to speak a scrap of bright red silk flew across the room, and Skwisgaar closed his mouth and continued up the steps.

He paused with his hand just above the knob of his own door. An image of Toki's bright blue eyes looking up at him with pity flashed mometarily across his mind, and in his head he heard Toki's voice murmuring It's okay that you can't hold yourself together, Skwisgaar, it's okay that you scream and cry and puke like a baby when you have a nightmare…it's okay.

He drew his hand back and wrapped his skinny arms around his stomach and muttering curses. He rarely fucked up, but when he did, someone inevitably lied and told him that it was "okay." The words "it's okay" were the bane of his existence.

I have to tell him about Pickles, he told himself firmly, ignoring the nervous, nauseous feeling in his chest and stomach and closing his hand around the cold doorknob. If he starts talking I'll just tell him it's important, I'll tell him to hurry downstairs and maybe…maybe this will make him forget.

Toki wouldn't forget, but Skwisgaar pretended to believe that he would as he opened his door and his mouth to cut off Toki's questions.

It took him a moment to realize that there was no Toki in his bedroom. He peered into his bathroom, even the closet, but Toki was gone.

Fan-fucking-tastic, he thought, and sighed heavily. He woke up alone and now he thinks that you used him or something. You're a real fucking genius, Skwisgaar.

The Swede left his room and took the two steps across the narrow hall to Toki's door. He turned the knob, accustomed to walking into any and all of Toki's rooms without a knock or invitation, but he found the door locked against him.

Fuck me, he thought, resting his forehead against the steel door as Toki called out, "Who's theres?"

"It's me, Toki," Skwisgaar answered in Swedish. "There's something important that I need to tell you. Open up, I'm in a hurry."

He wasn't really—it would take Murderface and Nathan long enough to wake up, even longer to get out of bed, and even longer than that to get over their ire at being woken so early. A few minutes spent lingering with Toki would make no difference, but already Skwisgaar felt his palms beginning to sweat, his heart beginning to race, his gorge beginning to rise.

There was a clicking sound and the door opened a bit. Toki left it cracked and sat back down on his bed, duffel bag in his lap. He continued rummaging through it for something to wear. His heart was pounding in his chest, but when he opened his mouth to speak, his voice was flat.

"What's so important?" he asked, not looking up.

Skwisgaar was silent for a long moment; Toki could feel the discomfort radiating off him in waves that broke like shattering glass against his heart.

"Just tell me already," he said, voice sharper than it would have been had he been speaking English. "So you can go. Since you're in such a hurry."

"Pickles is missing."

Toki looked up suddenly, distracted for the moment from the raging conflict of his own emotions. Skwisgaar saw the change, and was grateful for it; Toki's snappish, brooding mood made him nervous.

"He escaped the rehabilitation center somehow. The manager sent me to tell everyone," he explained.

"Was…" Toki's eyes were softer now, even hopeful, and Skwisgaar swallowed the sour taste of his own guilt as it crawled up his throat. "Was that why you weren't there this morning? Did the manager come find you?"

Skwisgaar's brain screamed at him to lie, to lie and let that hope in Toki's eyes grow into happiness, into forgiveness.

"No," he said instead, as the panicky, shameful feeling from earlier began to turn his saliva to sludge in his mouth. "I was awake already. I saw him downstairs. I've…got to go wake up Nathan and Murderface."

He turned abruptly, grabbed the doorknob and swallowed painfully, but from over his shoulder he heard Toki ask softly,

"Skwisgaar…are you all right?"

"Yeah. Fine. See you downstairs."

He shut the door behind him and fled for the bathroom.

Toki sat on his bed for a moment, staring at the door, slowly beginning to realize that he was not all right. Not all right at all.