Toki pushed his bedroom door open and sloshed his way inside with Skwisgaar shivering behind him. He swayed over to the nightstand next to his single bed. "There you are." He said and pulled out a one third full bottle of vodka. Before Skwisgaar could snatch it from his hand, Toki had taken a full swig of the contents. Toki's eyebrows furrowed and he held his hand to his mouth, "Nei." He pushed the bottle into Skwisgaar's chest then darted with amazing accuracy towards the bathroom.
Skwisgaar gripped the vodka bottle tightly around the neck, as if he was actually trying to strangle it. He eyed the nightstand with distrust; what other causes of harm to Toki did it contain? He raced over and rummaged through every square inch of it. It was filled with the usual, comic books, condoms and crayons. But something poking out of a beat-up blue pencil tin caught his eye. Two strands of brown hair and two strands of blonde, perfectly entwined in a four strand plait. He pulled it gently from the tin and held it delicately between his fingers.
He touched the shorter section of his own hair at the front absentmindedly and pieces of fuzzy memory from that night pushed through like a spring saplings from the vodka frosted earth of his mind.
He remembered laying in the dark, a hollowness returning to his chest as the drugs wore off and the Vodka reminded him of his melancholy from Lyssie's dramatic departure that afternoon. He remembered the smell of fur and the warmth from Toki's body as he took his time fiddling with their hair. He remembered a feeling of connection and a moment when his wall was lowered by choice.
Finally, he remembered desperately reaching out to Toki, and using that feeling to shield his heart from Lyssie's words, because at his core he knew she was right - He would die alone. He laughed at her words now. If his track record was anything to go by, he wasn't going to die alone, he was going to with Toki.
The thought latched onto his brain stem and took over his entire mind. He stared at the ominous knot in his hand. Fuck. Was this the fate the Norns had truly made for them? To be more than artist and muse but to be bound so tightly, they tangled in each other's life energy? Or more accurately, in each other's death? There were stronger forces here than their simple human hearts, their destinies were entwined. The Gods had spoken.
He held the shabby plait in front of his eyes with the reverence of holding two human souls. A symbol like this shouldn't be stuffed into the back of a draw like a kid hiding porno magazines. It needed proper care and attention, something Toki was notorious for lacking. Skwisgaar folded the hair carefully and stowed it in the back pocket of his wet jeans. He'd figure out something to do with it later.
He then took a long swig from the vodka bottle to calm his nerves. The sound of his band mate vomiting drew his attention back the present situation. He sighed and put the bottle back in the draw it had come from. He turned towards the bathroom but paused. He stared at the nightstand like an old enemy, then took the whole thing out into the hallway to sit outside the door like trash. He wasn't chancing anything tonight.
The sound of his band mate vomiting drew Skwisgaar's attention back inside the room. He stood in the open doorway to the bathroom and watched Toki cuddle the toilet bowl as he retched violently into it.
"That served you right." Skwisgaar said as he knelt behind Toki and began to act out a scene they had perfected from at least a hundred hotel bathrooms. He Pulled back Toki's hair and put his other arm around his stomach, "Come on, all of it." He said and pressed in hard on Toki's middle. Toki convulsed, spat, panted then repeated this combination until there was nothing left to purge. He then slumped next to the ceramic toilet, a wet, spewy tangle of brown hair and denim, and wiped the bile from his tongue with his soaking t-shirt.
"They sent her ashes back to England today." Toki said after catching his breath. "I still don't get it. I don't know what happened to her."
He moved and a crease formed across his wound. He held his shoulder, wincing, unable to reach the source of pain.
"Why do you even care?" Skwisgaar clenched his teeth as he remembered the glass shard poised above Toki's heart. He sat on the lip of the bath tub to steady himself as a flicker of protective anger ignited in his chest. How could Toki forgive something like that? How could he be so naive?
"Because she loved me! She said she did, and I know she meant it. So why would she do that?" Toki took the hand from his shoulder and put it to his forehead, "Why the fuck am I talking to you about this? You don't know anything about love; you've got none for anyone except yourself."
"That's not true." Skwissgar said automatically, his protective anger turning to shield himself instead.
"Oh?"
Toki's sardonic tone made Skwisgaar regret his honesty. His head bowed as he leaned forward on the lip of the bath to rest his elbows on his thighs.
Is this what Toki saw when he slipped through Skwisgaar's wall? Someone devoid of compassion? A "Vampire", that's what Toki had called him. Someone who attracted people to him so he could hurt them. Setting Toki straight on that point had not been easy for Skwisgaar. He had never put into words his true intentions to deliberately kept people at arm's length so they would never be close enough to hurt him.
But revealing an honest part of himself had changed Toki's understanding of him. It had acted like a plaque of explanation next to the chaotic modern art piece that was Skwisgaar's true self.
Perhaps honesty, just as concealment, had a power of its own. Honesty had brought Toki close enough to get him off the roof, perhaps honesty would keep him close enough to get him through tonight.
Skwisgaar rubbed hard at the back of his fret hand. "You remember Lyssie, don't you?" He said. Toki shook his head. "The one with the purple highlights?" He added. Toki Shrugged, "The one who," Skwisgaar pressed his lips together, "made that big scene when she left?"
"Oh! The one who slapped the shit out of you?" Toki pointed a finger excitedly at Skwisgaar.
"Ja, that one." Skwisgaar dug his right thumb nail into his fret palm but forced himself to keep talking. "I liked her. I liked her a lot. More than I liked the others. More than I should have." Toki tilted his head and looked at Skwisgaar in drunken curiosity. "I started to tell her things. You know, like, personal things. Things I've never told anyone else. I'd look forward to her coming over, then miss her when she wasn't around." His head dipped lower, "And that's why she had to go."
"Hangs on." Toki pulled himself up into a sitting position using the rim of the toilet bowl, "Hangs on." He blinked at his band mate a few times as he collected his thoughts. "So, she liked you. And, fucking somehow, you liked her back. And the next logical step for you is to dump her?"
Skwisgaar scowled as he turned to face him. "You can't let them in, Toki. If you do, then they've got power over you." He pressed his nail deeper into his fret palm, "You can't ever let that happen." The thick string of scar tissue seemed to twanged under the pressure and sent a jarring shock wave though his whole hand.
One side of Toki's unkempt moustache quirked upward. "You are completely fucked in the head, aren't you?" Toki laughed.
"Says the guy who just tried to throw himself off the roof." Skwisgaar's defences were back up. This is what he got for telling the truth.
"Yeah, so I know what I'm talking about." Toki said in a serious tone. They locked eyes and glowered at each other for a moment.
Skwisgaar let his head fall again. Toki didn't know what he was talking about. He didn't know what it was like to hand yourself over completely to someone, to the wrong someone, like Skwisgaar had done with that man.
First, he handed over his heart. That man's talent had captivated him and he allowed his love to flow, even against convention.
Then his body. He wanted to please him. He wanted to be special to him; to be chosen by him. To be his confidant and share his bed. To let him take whatever he wanted so long as he wanted him.
Then, he gave up his mind. He believed everything that man told him and moulded his own thoughts to match his, to the point where he had no thoughts of his own.
Without even realising it, he had given up his soul to that man. He no longer belonged to himself. His only worth was for that man's whimsy, and Skwisgaar had allowed it to happen.
Never again.
Never again would he let someone that close to him. So close that they could turn his heart strings into puppet stings. So close he would sacrifice any part of himself for them. So close that ten years later, they were still there, still a part of him. Like a parasite. No, like a monster. A monster lurking just under the surface of his mind. A monster that only needed to hear that man's name to swim towards the surface and strike at his heart, his body, his mind, and his soul.
So, these were the monsters Toki spoke of. He turned to his band mate who was panting pathetically on the bathroom tiles. What sort of monsters lashed at Toki's soul? What great and terrible beasts had he been fighting, alone, in his darkness? A darkness that was so black, he could find no other way out but to self-destruct?
Skwisgaar rubbed the mark from his nail and his rubbing made the white of the old scar appear more prominent. Perhaps he knew more of the desire to self-destruct than he thought? He stared at the white stripe on the reddened canvas of his palm as his mind slipped back to their old house in Tampa:
Teenage Toki had walked past the bathroom and had seen Skwisgaar sitting on the lip of the old bathtub, filled with murky black ink, cradling his bandaged hand.
"What ams you doings?" Toki asked cautiously as Skwisgaar had been prone to the most spectacular mood swings since the injury and almost anything could set him off.
"Nothings, fucks off." Skwisgaar snapped as he quickly wiped his eyes.
After a long time of living together, Toki had a pretty good idea of the nuance between Skwisgaar's 'Fuck off' that meant 'leave me alone' and his 'Fuck off' that meant 'ask me why I'm upset'. This seemed to be the latter. He sauntered over to the bathtub to inspect its contents and lifted a now grey pair of jeans out of the water.
"Well, Nathan will be happy." Toki attempted to keep a casual tone to the conversation, "He might even stop calling you Snow Flake." He returned the jeans to the dark water with a damp thud then sat next to his band mate on the edge of the tub. "Suppose you'll blend in with the rest of us on stage, now, too."
"On stage?" Skwisgaar scoffed in a shaky voice, "I'll never be on stage again, look." He pushed his other thumb into the cut palm of his bandaged fret hand. It sent a hot throb all the way up to his elbow, but his fingers didn't curl properly. "See? It's all over for me."
"The swelling will go down eventually but not if you keep messing with it. It was damn near sliced to the bone, it's going to take time." Toki reminded him for the umpteenth time.
"Even then, it won't be the same." He pushed harder, "I'm never going to be the same." Skwisgaar stared at his unresponsive fingers then shifted his gaze down to the dark water. He, like his symbol of purity bobbing in the black dye, was now permanently tarnished. He would spend every day pining for the talent he once had and the dream attached to it. How pathetic. He was right to sully that symbol. To defile any part of the dream he could no longer reach. He would destroy it. He would mangle it so that it was so hideous he no longer wanted it. His wings had been clipped before he could even take flight. He would rip them off so they could never tempt him with their soaring heights again.
Skwisgaar stood, tried to close his hand around the bandage and threw his half fist into the tiled bathroom wall. "Arh!" The pain rippled all the way to his shoulder. Toki's mouth dropped.
"What the Hell are…?!" Toki leapt when he saw Skwisgaar's arm coil back for a second punch. He grabbed it before it could spring toward the tiles again, "Stop it! Stop it you crazy fucker!" Toki had recently developed an interest in Nathan's gym weights set and so had just enough strength to forcibly make the other man face him.
"Fucks off! Don't stop me!" He squirmed under Toki's grip but Toki held him fast against the wall. "If I'm not the best then I'm nothing." Skwisgaar thrashed enough to break his arm free. "So just let me be nothing!" He brought it forward then swung it backwards into the tiles again. An even stronger scream of defiance pushed from his lungs. He felt that one all the way to the base of his spine.
"Damn it, STOP!" Toki scrambled to regain control of Skwisgaar's limbs but the towering Swede mustered all his strength to push him away. Skwisgaar eyed the free-standing bathroom sink as his next point of contact. "Don't you dare!" Toki grabbed his band mate around the middle to pull him away. He tripped and both of Dethklok's guitarists fell backwards into the bath with a splash. Inky water overflowed out onto the floor as their collective body mass displaced it. Skwisgaar slid off Toki to the shallow end of the tub but Toki splashed and scrambled towards him. He grabbed Skwisgaar's arm with the injured hand and turned to curl it around his body. He held it tightly against his chest and pressed back into Skwisgaar, pinning him against the tiles.
"Let me go!" Skwisgaar tried to tug his arm free.
"Nei!" Toki squeezed the arm tighter.
"I fucking mean it."
"So do I! I won't let you do this. Not to yourself and not to the band."
"I'm no use to the band if I can't Play!"
"Then why the hell are you trying to break yourself?! Do you realise how fucking insane you sound?"
"You don't get it! You'll never get it. You just slid in here on a shrimp sandwich! I have to be the best, if I'm not then we all suffer. If I can't play to my best then I won't play at all! I won't play mediocre music. I won't hurt Dethklok!"
"You're hurting Dethklok right now! Me and Nathan and Pickles and William. If you break yourself permanently then we won't ever get to hear you play again!" He squeezed the lead guitarist's arm but more like a hug than in restraint this time, "It doesn't matter if you're in Dethklok or not, the world needs the music of Skwisgaar Skwigelf. I won't let you take that away from us." Skwisgaar stopped his escape attempt and Toki's voice softened, "You need to believe that you'll get better because if you do then you will." Toki gave the arm a reassuring squeeze, "You'll heal up and everything will go back to normal. And the best part is that when it finally does all close over," he moved his left hand to grasped his own shoulder and pressed his fingers into his scared back, "you can forget that it ever happened at all."
Usually, Skwisgaar detested the teenager's optimism but the honesty in the kid's voice gave him a last thread of hope he could cling to. "Do… Do you really think so?"
Toki released Skwisgaar's arm and cradled it in his own. "I know so."
Skwisgaar slowly brought his other arm around Toki in a kind of loose hug then rested his forehead on the teenager's back.
Toki cradled Skwisgaar's damaged hand in his and turned the palm up to inspect it. The bandages were grey, water logged and torn.
"Come on, I'll redress this for you." Toki frowned at the blood seeping through the bandage. "God help you if you've busted the stitches, though." He made a small movement to leave the tub but Skwisgaar quickly tightened around Toki's chest, hugging him in earnest this time.
He allowed a simple "Tack" to pass his lips before releasing the warm body clutched to his own and sloshing inelegantly out of the bath.
Skwisgaar stared at the scar with what seemed like new eyes. Maybe Toki was right, he really was fucked in the head, because calling Toki his muse for the most recent album now seemed an understatement. The truth was simple; without Toki, the Skwisgaar the world knew today would not exist.
No matter how hard Skwisgaar pushed people away, Toki always came back. No matter how high he built his wall, Toki broke through. No matter how far he retreated into himself, Toki pulled him back out. Skwisgaar cradled his fret hand in his right as if the scar were something sacred. Toki had stopped him destroying himself all those years ago, now he had to do the same for Toki.
Although, this would be a much tougher battle. Toki's monsters were like nothing he had encountered. They were beasts that only the gods dared to fight, raw and powerful and terrifying. He was so stupid to think that he could collar and chain them, twisting Toki's anger, and rage, and hatred to feed his creativity. But he was more stupid to think he was extracting them from Toki's heart and drowning them in the burnt water of the album.
Skwisgaar shuddered and craved nicotine like never before. He pulled a soggy mass of disintegrating cardboard from his pocket and rummaged through it to find a dry survivor. He lit it, took one draw, and nearly hugged the toilet bowl himself (on top of the smoke from the dragon's snout it nearly choked him). He spluttered and looked at the tiny paper stick in disgust.
Toki heaved a few deep, chesty giggles at Skwisgaar as he reached over to take the cigarette with unsteady fingers.
"Just look at us, Skwisgaar." He clung to the porcelain with one hand as he brought the cigarette to his lips with the other, "Two Peas ins the sames fucking pot. Both completely scrambled." He drew back on it and had the same spluttering reaction, although he went back in for a second draw.
Skwisgaar looked at him. His shoulders were weak, his once proud chest flattened and his jeans barely clung to his hips. Wet hair stuck to his gaunt face and thin neck. This was the cost of neglect. He had taken what he needed from Toki and not fed him back. He thought his toll for this album had been steep but Toki had paid the highest price of them all.
Toki winced as his wound throbbed in pain. Skwisgaar pushed his lips together again then moved down from the lip of the tub to crouch in front of him.
"Turn around." He said with all the tenderness of a hospital ward matron.
"Nei, it's fine." Toki pushed his fingertips against his shoulder again.
"Just turn around." Skwisgaar turned him forcefully. Dark stripes ran down the back of Toki's t-shirt. He peeled it upwards to inspect the wound. Blood oozed from water logged bandages and ran down his back. Sections of the gauze no longer stuck to his skin and bubbled up around the edges.
"Hel's tits. This has to be re-dressed."
"I said it's fine."
"Well, it's not. It's soaked through and so are you." He pulled the gause off in one quick movement which made Toki push some choice swear words from his blue tinged lips. "It had to happen." Skwisgaar stood and searched through the bathroom closet for robes and towels. "Now you need to get out of those wet clothes before you catch a cold as well."
The pair peeled off their soaking clothes and threw them not the Tub. Toki sat on the edge of his bed with a luscious, deep-red robe slipped down to his elbows and his damp hair thrown over one bare shoulder. Skwisgaar sat behind him, wrapped in a matching robe, as he gently patted at Toki's back with a fresh towel and convinced himself he knew what he was doing. The wound was bright pink with the opening raised around the stitches where the skin had ripped and continued to bleed. What a mess.
Skwisgaar rummaged through half the medicine cabinet he had piled on the end of the bed. He pick out a larger blue bottle then dab a liberal amount of the liquid onto a large cotton ball.
"Hold still, this is going to sting." He said and ran the damp swab over the exposed wound.
"Jesus fucking Christ! Do you know what you're doing?" Toki yelped as the pain pulsed across his back.
"I warned you it was going to hurt." Skwisgaar held the towel to Toki's back to catch the bleeding the alcohol had caused. He squeezed out the excess alcohol from the cotton ball and wiped the squashed little drab delicately around the wound instead of in it.
Toki brought his knees up to his chin as Skwisgaar fumbled with the sterile packaging of a fresh gause strip.
"Why are you doing this for me?" Toki's voice changed to the melancholy tone from the roof and Skwisgaar's hands twitched.
"Well it's not like you can do it yourself." He pressed the gause strip into place and ran his shaky fingertips over the adhesive edge to seal it.
"But why would you help me, after what I did." Toki buried his head in his knees, "I would have just let me fall."
"Don't start with that shit again. I don't want to hear you say anything like that." He pulled Toki's robe up to cover his back.
"I don't think it really matters what I say anymore. I shouldn't be talking right now anyway."
Skwisgaar frowned, "And why's that?"
"Because I should be dead."
Toki's words dropped like a guillotine on Skwisgaar and his hands fell away from Toki's shoulders. "What did I just say about hearing that kind of crap?"
"I hate myself for it, you know." Toki continued, ignoring him. "But it didn't even seem like me doing it. It was like, I was there but not in control of my own head. Like there was, another Toki. A different one." His voice broke, "And he did what he did to you." Toki hugged his knees tighter, "Or I did it. I don't even fucking know anymore!" He held a hand to his head as his back shuddered with shallow breaths.
"Look just calm down, I don't even know what you're talking about."
"Oh, for fucker's sake." He stood and turned to face Skwisgaar with his fists at his sides and robe half open. "Don't play these bullshit games with me! This is what I mean, you fuck with me then watch me tear myself apart, smiling ear to fucking ear the whole time."
"And why do you play this cryptic shit with me?!" Skwisgaar slammed his palms into the edge of the mattress. "Do you know how infuriating it is having to piece together the shit you do and say into anything that makes sense? By the gods, just say what you mean for once!" He glared up at Toki and curled his fingers into the mattress under him.
Toki's chest rose and fell quickly with his short breaths. He looked down at Skwisgaar, clenching and unclenching his fists as if in thought. "You want it plain? Fine! How's this? I fucked you! I held you down and I fucked you." He brought his fists up to chest height then threw them back to his sides to accent his point. "And I did it to hurt you, so why the hell did you save me?"
Skwisgaar turned away. He'd asked for this. He could feel Toki's expectation filling the space between them like static electricity.
Skwisgaar closed his eyes for a moment as he remembered that morning. He remembered being on his back. He remembered the feeling of pain through his head, the smell of vomit in the room and the taste of his own filthy sweat. He remembered Toki's power holding him down. He remembered Toki's rage, his anger and the brutality behind each thrust into him. He remembered the burning black flames of Toki's hatred and how he had harnessed them and twisted them back on Toki before taking them into himself. Finally, he remembered a kiss; the signal their duel had come to an end.
"So, we're finally going to talk about that fight?" He said slowly as he opened his eyes again.
"'Fight!?" Toki looked at him incredulously, "That's not the word for what happened. What the hell is wrong with you?"
"Wrong with me?! Fucks you, I'll use whatever word I like!" He wasn't going to acknowledge Toki's version of events, not after using those events to forged the most powerful, intricate and emotive riffs of his career. "I'm not a victim and don't you ever think that I am."
A lump formed unexpectedly in Skwisgaar's throat and one of his monsters pushed its way to the surface of his consciousness:
"If you're not my soul mate then just stick this through my heart right now." Pelle held sixteen-year-old Skwisgaar's hand to the knife handle as he pressed the blade to his own bare chest. He loomed over Skwiswgaar's naked body lying on his bed, blankets pulled half way up his back. The winter moonlight glinted in Pelle's eyes, making them even more wild as his hand twisted further. "You're my other half. You fill all this emptiness inside me. I can't live without you so if you don't feel the same I'd rather die. I can't keep going if you don't feel the same." Pelle rested his palms on either side of Skwisgaar's head. Skwisgaar didn't dare pull away the knife in his trembling fingers.
His heart was racing but he didn't know if it was the right kind of racing. He wanted this, didn't he? He hadn't done this before so he was just nervous, right? Pelle held Skwisgaar's knife hand to keep it trained on his heart as he positioned himself against his younger lover.
Skwisgaar still didn't dare pull the knife away, but why did he have the sudden urge to push it forward? "I can't go on without becoming one with you. If you don't want that too then just kill me now." Pelle Pushed Skwisgaar's hand harder into his chest until the blade drew blood and his young eyes went wide, "You have all the power here. You make the choice."
Skwisgaar's fingers shook from tension as they dug deeper into the mattress. What sort of bullshit was his mind throwing at him? He wasn't a victim then and he wasn't one now. Victims don't become guitar gods. Victims don't create the greatest music the world had ever heard. Victims don't command the financial power that brings nations to their knees. So, his mind could just fuck off because it was impossible for him to be a victim.
"You can't just call it something else and hope it goes away, that's not how it works." Toki brought his fists up and threw them down to his sides again. "You think I don't want to just pretend it didn't happen? That I could just wish it away and not live with what I did?" He looked down, "I nearly didn't have to. I suppose you didn't really 'save' me at all." Toki closed his eyes against his thoughts.
"It was a fight!" Skwisgaar said more desperately as he stood to face him.
"It wasn't." Toki shook his head as he looked at the floor.
"Yes it fucking was!" Skwisgaar's desperation had hit its peak. He was so young back then he didn't know what else to do but rationalise the abuse. But this wasn't the same, it couldn't be. He wouldn't let it be the same. "Don't you dare say it was anything else. I couldn't bare it, Toki." An image through an Akavitt lens of Toki on his knees in the studio and tufts of brown hair between his fingers flashed through his mind. "It was a fight, and you know how I know? Because I started it." He looked at Toki and felt hot tears pick at his eyes, "I started it." His voice trembled as his throat clenched tight.
Toki sat on the edge of the bed again lest his knees give way. He grabbed a hand full of hair either side of this head, "I'm sorry." His voice crackled as tears hit the floor, "I'm so fucking sorry."
Skwisgaar stood motionless as his own tears rolled down his cheeks without him even noticing. He looked down at a shaking Toki, both the abuser and the abused. And there he stood, shaking just the same, both the abused and the abuser.
He sat next to Toki again on the edge of the bed and they trembled together in silence. He didn't have the words to fix this. Victims became perpetrators who created more victims. He had turned a blind eye to their cycle of violence so he could use it to his own ends; for the good of the band. He put his face in his hands. This was too many layers of messed up.
He brushed his fingers against his cheek and was surprise at the amount of dampness it collected. How many more tears would their monsters push from their eyes? How many more times would they lash out at each other to mask their own pain?
Skwisgaar looked at Toki, his brown hair clumped together with soot and rain water, tears streaming, inhibitions lost in his despair. Skwisgaar didn't know what else to do so he did the only thing he knew how. He wrapped his arms around the shaking Norwegian and pulled him gently down to lay awkwardly together on the single bed.
"God damn it. How did things get so fucked up between us?" Toki whispered as his tears sank into Skwisgaar's robe.
Skwisgaar exhaled strongly as he fought back his own tears. His eyes fixed, unblinking, on one of the model planes hanging from the ceiling, an RAF bomber. He thought it was fitting to have it hovering above him as his heart felt like Dresden; a smoking ruin, razed to the ground.
He pulled Toki to him tighter. The little idiot was right, what the fuck had happened to them? A jab at one turned into a stab at the other, each fight escalating until it morphed into a type of violence that should have never been inflicted on each other. He didn't have to forgive Toki, he probably shouldn't, and Toki didn't have to forgive him. But here they were, like two warring nations that simply couldn't afford to keep fighting. They needed a peace agreement for the sake of their futures.
"Just, say it was a fight, Toki. It has to be a fight, because that's the only thing that makes sense." Skwisgaar's voice shook. "We can't survive anything else. So just say it was a fight." He took a rasping breath, "Please." He added in English and pulled Toki in so close to him that his arm jittered from the strain.
Toki's head shifted slightly against Skwisgaar's chest to tell him without words that he was thinking about it.
Skwisgaar closed his eyes. He had no plan B if Toki refused. He didn't even know what a plan B could entail? Would Toki leave the band for real? Drift off into the world of regular Jack offs again? Into a world of pill bottles and fan attacks and roof tops that Skwisgaar couldn't protect him from? His anxiety mounted and he held his breath without realising.
"It was a fight." Toki finally said, slowly and deliberately, thereby accepting the terms of their truce. Skwisgaar could feel himself fall deeper into the mattress as the tension in his chest snapped and unfurled. A small smile of relief found its way to his lips.
"Just a fight." Skwisgaar said, verbally co-signing their agreement.
"And we don't ever fight like that again. Not ever."
"Agreed."
"And you gotta stop drinking Aquavit." Toki added as a sub clause, "It makes you do some fucked up things."
"Pfft, look who's talking."
"You just proved my point." Toki shifted his arm to hug across Skwisgaar's chest and held his left hand next to his head.
Skwisgaar pressed his lips to Toki's forehead and they lay there together in comfortable silence for what could have been a minute or a year, he didn't know. "You should get some sleep." He said, his own exhaustion taking hold.
"That's the last thing I want to do." Toki's body tensed, "The monsters, they're worst in my dreams. And I just can't fight anymore."
Skwisgaar wished it could be as easy as ripping off the monster's arm and nailing it above the door like the sagas of old. But monsters of the mind weren't so easy to kill.
He lay there, feeling the slow thump of Toki's heart resonate with his own. The steady beat connected them on a level deeper than the subconscious, deeper than instinct, somewhere closer to the soul. He could feel himself calming and taking back control of his thoughts as the monsters of his own mind settled back into their pools. He laced the fingers of his fret hand in Toki's and pushed their palms together. Maybe the trick to keeping the monsters at bay was as simple as fighting them together?
"Well I'm going to be right here." Skwisgaar squeezed Toki's hand in his. "I'm not leaving you alone, not ever again."
"You'll give up after the first day." Toki sighed, "Besides, you have to finish the Album." His body went tense, "And there is no way I'm going back in the studio."
"The Album can fucking wait. After the stunt you pulled tonight, you can't be trusted." He hugged Toki to him again. "You go to sleep, I'm going to be there. You wake up, I'm going to be there. You have breakfast, watch TV, fucking take a shit, I'm going to be there. I'm not letting you out of my sight. Got it?"
Skwisgaar felt Toki's facial muscles twitch into a small smile against his chest.
"You know, Skwisgaar," Toki let his eyes close and relaxed his body into the man below him, "I really hate you."