Chapter 6.1 Fish bowl
Since an agreement couldn't be reached they decided to just throw all the animals in together and watch the carnage unfold but to their disappointment, nothing much happened. All of the sea creatures seemed to either ignore each other or run away from everything. Even the camouflage octopus had hidden expertly in the rocks and was very uninterested in the passing potential snacks.
Toki had sat as far away from Skwisgaar as possible and now he and Pickles were drinking Mojitos at the end of the table, watching the baby Tiger shark swim around the tank. Skwisgaar and Murderface sat at the other end arguing about how much or little (depending on whose side you were on) of the base lines had been written by Murderface. Nathan sat in the middle of the table and shifted between the two conversations. He shifted back to the base lines conversation when he noticed that Skwisgaar had managed to completely rearrange the food on his plate without actually consuming any of it.
"You freaking anorexic or something?" Nathan butted in and pointed to the swede's plate.
Skwisgaar was really not enjoying the front man's new found concern for his welfare and let out an exasperated noise. He humoured the vocalist by consuming one tiny forkful of salmon and washed it down with another vodka and lemon; He was managing to get through a good amount of alcohol if nothing else. Nathan raised a very expectant eye brow at the blonde man and Skwisgaar proceeded to consume two more tiny forkfuls under the watchful gaze of those green eyes. Murderface showed his concern in his own way.
"You know, you schould schtock up what you can for the come down. It'sch gunna be schomething fierce." The bassist commented as he watched the lead guitarist tap his fingers vigorously against the fork.
"Ja." Skwisgaar replied with a little irritation in his voice.
"Seriously man, you'll end up hospitalised at this rate." Nathan continued.
"Ja." He replied with more irritation.
"It'sch like a bear preparing for winter, you schee?" Murderface added.
"Jaaa! I gets it!"
"Good, so go on, eat. Or do I need to force feed you like a baby?" Nathan said. Skwisgaar put one hand over his face and stabbed his fork hard into his fish.
"Fuck damn it! I'll stab you both through the neck if you don't fuck off and leave me alone!" The swede said in total frustration and rubbed his face in both hands while his heal twitched violently again.
When he looked up the three Americans were looking at him with annoyed expressions and Toki was staring at him with wide eyed unease through the tank. The Norwegian didn't look away this time and he and Skwisgaar stared blankly at each other through the glass for a few moments. Skwisgaar was the one to turn away this time as he stood up from the table and took a cigarette out of his packet.
"I amns't your fuckings baby, Nat'an." He said as he looked down at the front man with angry, blood shot eyes. The front man frowned and curled his lip slightly back at the guitarist who then turned to throw the same angry, blood shot look at Toki before walking away towards the smoking section of the balcony.
"Looks like someone's startin' to come down." Pickles commented nonchalantly as he looked back to the tank of sea animals. His phone bleeped a message at him. "But it looks like that person won't be me." He said with a smile as he checked his phone. "Sorry, guys. I'll be back in a few minutes." and he left the table.
Toki crossed both arms in front of him and rested his chin on them as he watched the fish. Nathan was still fuming silently over Skwisgaar's moodiness so it was Murderface who broke the silence.
"I don't know why all of thesche damn fish won't juscht kill each other. They all fight all the time but put them all in the schame tank and they juscht carry on co-exischting." Murderface said disappointedly. "Look at the two lobschters, they're juscht hanging out, palling around together, right next to that damn octopusch and it'sch not doing a god damn thing about it!" Then an idea struck Murderface, "Hang on, I'm going to liven thingsch up a bit." He took a knife from the table and stood up on one of the chairs to hold his arm over the tank. The other two watched as the bass player ran the knife over the inside of his forearm and the red blood began to drip into the clear, clean water of the tank.
Nothing happened for a moment then the shark began swimming around voraciously. The piranha swam right up to one of the Siamese fighting fish and swallowed it whole, one of the lobsters caught the sea snake and cleaved it in two, the electric eel had stunned the other Siamese fighter and it floated upside down towards the surface, the tiger shark then swooped right in and took a chunk out of the eel and the octopus finally reached out with its tentacles and smothered the other lobster.
"Schee," Murderface said with satisfaction, "All it takesch isch a little blood."
The three of them watched, pointed and commented on the tank chaos for a while until Pickles returned.
"Holy cow! Whad happened 'ere?" He asked, eagerly pointing to the tank.
"Moiderface happens." Toki vaguely explained. Pickles looked over to a beaming Murderface holding a napkin to the cut on his arm.
"Aww, dood, you couldn't have waited 'till I got back?" He said plaintively and completely unmoved by his band mate's act of self-harm. They all stared transfixed at the contents of the tank until there was so much blood and so many entrails they had to squint to see what was going on inside.
"I'm pretty sure tha octapus is tha last man standing." Pickles said peering hard into the tank.
"Hows can you sees him?" Toki asked and searched intently at where the drummer was pointing.
"You can't see it? It's right there. No, there, next to the rock, he's tryin' ta hide but it ain't workin'. Well blondie'll be happy his guy won, where is the fallin' star anyway?"
"Don'ts know."
"Don't care." Nathan added quickly.
Toki looked down at the table dejected and Pickles felt bad for bringing up Skwisgaar so he clapped a friendly hand on Toki's shoulder.
"Hey Toki, come with me for a second. I got somethin' you'll enjoy." Pickles said to Toki and they both got up and left the table. Murderface grabbed the moment alone with Nathan.
"What the fuck is up with Skwischgaar and Toki? Did you schee the look thosche two gave each other?" Murderface started conspiratorially.
"No, not really." Nathan said, lying slightly.
"Well Skwischgaar wasch schtaring daggersch at him."
"He does that to everyone." Nathan said more as an excuse for not having smacked the swede when he had done it to him.
"Well what the hell did he dump him on Picklesch for then? Eschpecially after, well, you know, and then he fuckin' locksch himschelf down in the schtudio for the nexscht two weeks! I tell you, there'sch schomething fucking weird going on." The bassist said and swigged at his domestic beer.
Nathan mulled this over in his bourbony brain for a moment and realised something interesting about Toki's behaviour in the last two and a half weeks. Whenever he had been freaking out he hadn't switched to Snow Speak, he might have had completely incomprehensible English or had gone silent altogether but he hadn't forced them to go find Skwisgaar. It also seemed that Skwisgaar hadn't wanted to be found.
"I suppose they're just fighting about something stupid again." Nathan said unconvincingly.
"Nah, this scheems different. Fuckin' lovers tiff if you aschk me." Murderface said only semi sarcastically as he held his arm tighter. Nathan noticed the blood seeping through the linen napkin.
"You're getting blood on everything." He observed.
"Yeah, thisch isch deeper than I meant it to be." Murderface said factually.
"Well go clean yourself up, there's fuckers everywhere with their phones out. Hang on," Nathan whipped out his own phone and Murderface moved the napkin aside for him take a picture. "There, now go wash that shit off." Murderface tottered off towards the bathrooms and Nathan sat there looking into the murky fish tank.
What the fuck was going on with his band? He thought as he clinked around the ice in his drink. They all had their spells, their moments, their 'little accidents', still, he hadn't seen the blonde man in a hole this deep for a long, long time. He needed Skwisgaar on top form this close to record release but the man seemed happy on his little bout of self-destruction. Nathan couldn't fault the music he was producing, though, and considering he himself hadn't come close to finishing the lyrics he felt he didn't have a leg to stand on there. Maybe he should just leave him be but then there was Toki.
They had suggested to Charles that Toki should be medicated but the manager had been reluctant to go down that path saying that the guitarist had been under a lot of stress lately and that he would most likely be back to normal soon. Nathan took out his phone again and flicked all the way back to the photo of the two Scandinavians asleep on the bed. Instead of smiling at the picture he frowned. He was right, they shouldn't rely so much on Skwisgaar, the man was a selfish, arrogant, flake who only helped with Toki when he felt like it. Most of the time he was the cause for Toki's upset in the first place which was most likely why he had run to Pickles more recently.
Thank heaven, hell and everywhere in between for Pickles who had managed to pick up the pieces, almost literally sometimes. Earlier that week Nathan had been watching from the window as Toki and Pickles sat in the picnic area outside. Their conversation had gotten very animated on Toki's part but that wasn't unusually, then Toki had ended up with his head on Pickles's shoulder and the drummer patting and rubbing his back. It hadn't lasted long and soon the two were back to playing Frisbee, though the way they were reacting to the disc indicated that it was most likely a game of Mushroom Frisbee. That was the first night Toki had stayed in the drummer's room and the rhythm guitarist had stuck to him like glue the whole week.
Nathan looked around the restaurant and recognised a few other patrons from various parties the band had been to; there were only so many people who could afford these places after all. He thought the Sheik looking guy on the table next to them might have been one of Abduhl's many brothers and he didn't like the idea of him taking the opportunity to talk to him sitting alone so he finished his drink and retreated to the bathroom.
The bathroom was huge, much bigger than necessary for the restaurant, and was essentially split down the middle by a huge narrow fish tank running from basin counter to ceiling. Various tropical fish danced amongst the brightly coloured coral and unusually loud ocean noises where being pumped through the speakers, resinating in the fantastic acoustics of the room. Nathan was expecting to find Murderface in there dressing his wound but he wasn't anywhere in view. He went over to use the urinal and could have sworn he heard a girl's voice over the load ocean crashes however he then heard a much more familiar mid-western twang.
"Pickles?" he enquired and his deep voice boomed around the room.
"Nathan?" Pickles asked in reply even though it couldn't have possibly been anyone else. A stall unlocked close to Nathan and the red head poked out. "Hey man, you want in on this shit?" he asked and Nathan could hear Toki's distinctive giggling coming from the same stall.
"What is it?" Nathan asked.
"I jus' got some real good coke delivered ta me. Some o' the best shit I've had in ages!" The drummer said through his signature crooked smile.
"Sure," Nathan shrugged, "but I'm not getting in there with you guys. Why didn't you just do it here on the counter? Or at the fucking table, no one gives a shit. You should have seen what that Sheik and all this wives were doing two tables over from us."
"This one," Pickles pointed a thumb at Toki "was getting' all paranoid or some shit. Anyway, here." The drummer brought out his compact mirror with a few premade lines on it and passed it to Nathan with a straw. At that moment Murderface emerged from a stall on the other side of the room.
"What the fuck? Can't a man take a schit in peace! What are you all doing schtanding around in the fucking bathroom?" he demanded.
"Coke." Pickles said plainly.
"Shit, yeah. Can I have schome?"
"Sure, why nawt. Let's make it a fuckin' party, whatever."
The front man put it on the counter and they each took a turn dipping their heads down and then pulling up sharply. Each of them concurred that it was 'fucking awesome shit!'
"Man, I thought I heard a girl in here but I schuppose it wasch just you then, Toki." Murderface teased as the Norwegian began giggling again.
"Aw, screws you Moiderface." Toki retorted uncreatively and bobbed his face down to the counter again.
Toki went down for a full line, which was about double what he had been dosing himself, and when he brought his head level again he was looking through the fish tank glass into the face of non-other than the faster guitarist alive. Behind the blonde, on the other side of the bathroom, one of the Sheik's wives quickly relocked the stall they had just recently shared.
The swede held himself up on the basin with water dripping off his face, he had accidentally washed off all the concealer and so looked the way he actually felt. Toki looked back at him with wide, coked up, glassy eyes as he held his nose and swallowed; the foul tasting stuff had globbed at the back of his throat. The drugs caused a temporary loss of inhibitions in the brunette and he held his finger tips on the tank as he looked into the eyes of the bedraggled lake monster on the other side. Toki allowed his other hand to fall away from his nose and the two sets of blue eyes held each other's gaze until a warm sensation began running into Toki's moustache. The Arctic Ocean blue eyes changed expression and the blonde brow above them furrowed. Skwisgaar flicked the last of the water off his face as he trod around the fish tank and up to Toki.
Toki didn't struggle when the blonde man backed him into the counter and clasped the back of his head in one hand. He looked up at the older man expectantly with parted lips and apologetic eyes but the swede did not meet his expectations. Instead, he ran his left hand over the Norwegian's top lip then held it out for him to see the blood smear.
"What de fucks ams dis?" The Swede began accusatively, "You tryings to fucking O.D. or somethings!?" The hand at the back of his head scrunched a fistful of brunette hair aggressively.
Toki's mouth opened and closed slightly and his eyes darted around the swede's face wildly. He could taste a mixture of the bitter glue and metallic blood running down the back of his throat and for a moment he thought he might be overdosing after all. The drugs made him want to touch the blonde man so he ran his left hand through the golden weft flowing over his shoulder and held his palm over the lead guitarist's heart for a moment, feeling its rapid beat. The swede didn't relax his grip and stared down at Toki's blood smeared face with his cold, red, dark rimmed eyes. Toki looked up at him dazed, then he realised how pissed off he was and bunched a handful of Skwisgaar's shirt in this fist.
"So whats if I ams?" Toki said and pulled the swede closer to him, "You amns't one to be talkings!" he grabbed Skwisgaar's left wrist tightly and stretched out his arm to reveal the track marks.
Skwisgaar released his grip on the back of his head. "Sos sosrries I been busy wit de album. I only has three fuckings part to be writings." he said sarcastically and tried to push off Toki but Toki held him firmly with amazing strength.
"Two!" Murderface piped up but was ignored.
"So dats whys you locks yourselves up and plays de darts on yous-self?" Toki chastised and shook the man's arm to further his point.
"Ja! It ams!" he said trying to break away again but Toki had the weakened man held fast.
Nathan wasn't going to stop Toki this time as he would most likely give the Swede a proxy beating for him. Murderface was quietly hoovering another half a line but Pickles, ever the peace maker, was beginning to get worried.
"Come on guys. This anin't tha place for this." he began and moved towards the two. Skwisgaar gave him a filthy look.
"Why yous gives him dis shit anyways? He ams lookings like dat fuckings clown!" The swede accused the red head. Toki twisted his grip and held the blonde tighter in anger.
"Dood, it's jus' a lil' nose bleed." He said trying to diffuse the situation. "Come 'ere, Toki, I'll clean ya up."
"Fucks off! I's not a little kids! I can does it myselfs!" Toki burst out at the drummer and threw Skwisgaar back two feet. The swede stumbled slightly and Toki turned around to wash himself off over the sink.
"Ams dis what happens when I ams not arounds?" The blonde blamed the red head by pointing at Toki's back.
"No, this is whad happens when you are around, when yer nawt, we have way more fun!" The short drummer glowered defiantly up at the tall guitarist. The blonde man was hurt and so turned to the other two.
"And you twos ams OK wit dis?" He asked still pointing to Toki over the sink.
"Chill out man, it's just a nose bleed." Nathan said holding his own nose.
"Yeah, nobody worry about me over here!" Murderface called out as he cleaned away his own blood; Nobody did.
"He's fine. You should be more worried about yourself." Nathan said loftily; the guitarist had absolutely had it with the front man's know-it-all attitude.
"Yeh, you're tha one bein' tha fuckin' 'come-down Queen'!" the drummer said heatedly. Skwisgaar reached out one of his long arms and grabbed a fistful of Pickles's shirt, stepping into his space.
"Whats you just calls me?" He said menacingly. Pickles just grabbed a fistful of the swede's shirt in retaliation and glared back up at him.
"Yer fuckin' heard me, blondie." He said through clenched teeth. They glared at each other meaningfully, daring the other to make the first move.
"Skwisgaar, will you fucking knock it off!" Toki said having turned back around momentarily.
"No, don't you fucking start with that!" Nathan interjected quickly, "I'm fucking sick your god damn Snow Speak!" Toki threw Nathan a glassy, yet somehow dagger filled, gaze.
"Aw, fucks you all offs." Toki said in frustration and slid himself along the counter edge in an attempt to make an exit. Skwisgaar looked up from Pickles's snarling face to stem Toki's retreat.
"And where the fuck do you think you're going?" The swede demanded of him.
"The fuck away from you guys!" Toki answered as he staggered past Nathan.
"HEY! What the fuck did I just say!" The front man said and reefed Toki backward by the shoulder.
As Toki spun around he did the most impulsive, drug fuelled, idiotic thing he quite possibly had ever done up to that point and backhanded the front man clumsily across the face.
"Fucks you, I says what I wants!" he yelled and backed up into the counter top with blood trickling down his face again. Nathan was stunned for a moment but then all of his body language changed and suggested they were about to become a four piece band.
Both Skwisgaar and Pickles let go of each other and reached for Toki but it was too late. Nathan had grabbed the rhythm guitarist by both shoulders and thrown him into the small wall adjoining the stalls behind them. Toki let out an involuntary yelp as the air was smacked out of his lungs and blood oozed more fiercely down into the corner of his mouth. The last of the bitter sludge at the back of his throat was dislodged and Toki's heart began pounding uncomfortably in his chest. He gapped at the front man who brought his face close to his and squeezed him so tightly he bruised.
"You're a real problem Toki, you know that?" Nathan growled low and clearly to the shocked brunette. "You fuck up one more time and you're out of the band."
Toki wouldn't have said a word even if he had been capable. Nathan released him and calmly walked out of the room leaving the rhythm guitarist to slide silently down the wall. Pickles immediately went over to him and caught him as he slumped forward.
"Ok, yer gotta breath, that heart rate's a bit high." He instructed as he held one hand on Toki's chest and the other on his back. Skwisgaar looked down at the two on the floor with arrogant disdain.
"You can deals wit him." He snarled and the red head looked up, "He ams your babys now." And with that he began striding out of the bathroom.
"Scheriously Skwischgaar…" Murderface started but was cut off.
"Shuts up, William!" Skwisgaar shot at the bassist without looking up or slowing his stride out of the room.
Toki stared after the blonde man as Pickles put the brunette's arm around his shoulders and lifted him to his feet.
"Fuckin' 'come-down Queen', alright." Murderface commented to Skwisgaar's wake and snapped the little compact mirror closed.