Hey, this is a morning after chapter, and you finally get to learn more about a certain character. It appears that alcohol loosens her tongue. YAY!
I think I wil take Lunagoddess fox whatever's advice. Toki deffinitely likes Jo. Problem is she's jailbait... in the US anyway. Just read.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
The next morning Nathan woke up with one massive hangover and wasn't all too surprised, therefor, to see the curve of Nate's bare back lying near him. They were in his bed.
Beside him lay his portable tape recorder. The red light was on. Wierd.
He decided to ignore it for the time being.
He rolled over and, draping an arm lazily across the girl next to him, fell back asleep.
When he next woke up, he could smell bacon. Why would that be? Unless Jean Pierre knew they had had a long night yesterday and taken the liberty of delivering breakfast to them all.
Looking up from his bed, sure enough, there sat a silver tray of what looked like eggs bacon, toast and assorted cheese snacks.
Looking beside him, he saw that Nate had gone. Probably back to her own room, he figured. It was too bad he couldn't remember having sex with her the night before.
He got dressed and ate his breakfast, then grabbed his mini recorder and made his way towards the main room of Mordhaus. Joanna was gone, although he couldn't remember sending her home on the Hatredcopter the night before. He couldn't remember anything.
The others were seated in varikous spots around the main room. Nate lay sprawled on her back in front of the fireplace behind one of the couches. She wasn't sleeping, but she wasn't hurt.
"Jo is still here," she said blankly, seeing him come into the room. She tirned her head on her neck to look up at him.
"Where's Toki?" he asked.
"With Jo," said Nate and to his surprise, she began giggling. It wasn't her usual laugh and it sort of creeped him out. There were deep bags under her eyes and her skin was too pale.
"Great. I meant to send her home," Nathan muttered.
He took a seat on the couch and turned his tape recorder up to full volume, interested to hear what he sounded like drunk and what they had all done.
He hit play.
"Wooo hoooo! Hey Charles, check this out! Look what I can do!" came the sound of Murderface. There was the sound of something falling and Murderface cursing. The rest of them were laughing.
"Dude, is dat from lastnight?" asked Pickles, eyeing the tape recorder.
"Yeah, I uh. Wanted to hear what we all sound like when we're drunk," he replied.
"Sssh!" said Murderface.
They all listened.
"Hey, who wants'zanother drink?"" came a woman's voice.
"Is that me???" said Nate from the floor, suddenly interested. She took a seat beside Nathan.
There came the sound of Charles telling one of them off for something that sounded like "Murderknobs" and then the sound of insane laughter, shrieking, cutting the silence of the morning. It was Nate.
"Dude, you got a scary laugh," said Pickles.
"I was drunk," she said offensively.
"Shut up!" said Nathan.
"Wooooooo, kiss her Toki, Kiss her! Birfday kish!" came Murderface's voice over the tape.
"No way!" slurred someone Nathan recognized as Joanna.
"Well, now we know what happened to Toki lastnight," said Pickles.
"Shutsup!" scolded Skwisgaar.
There was silence for a moment and then cheering. Apparently Toki had kissed Joanna.
Hey, who wants ta hear something bout me?" called a stunted voice, thick with alcohol and a little too unsteady. It was Nate.
"Nots me!" called Skwisgaar, laughing.
"Tough shit, twiggy!" came Nate's sharp response.
"Heys! You calleds me Twiggy!" accused Skwisgaar, staring accusingly at Nate.
"Don't remember," she said quickly. Now her face was the color of fresh milk, making her hair stand out more vividly than ever. She looked damned unhealthy.
"Are you okay?" he asked uncertainly.
She said nothing.
"Aw, c'mon, let's all LET'S ALL HEAR IT!" came Nathan's voice. He sounded almost lucid.
There was the sound of incomprehensible muttering, the sound of vomiting and then Nate began to talk. Nathan cranked the volume up to full.
"Did you guys know I was born in Ireland?" she called.
No one answered her. She carried on in a drunken voice, somehow strange and bare. She had stopped hiding behind her anger and whatever shame she had. It made her voice sound somehow more vulnerable. Nathan didn't like it.
"Yeah, was born ther...and... yeah... mum moved us all ta Russia, some FUCKED UP REASON!" she screamed these last words. Apparently she was angry at her mother.
"Ya,'n uh... she suffocated m'baby siss in a pillowcase an' torched the house, an' I gots adopted out ta friggin' I dunno... Norden? Swedway?"
"Norways?" came the sound of Skwisgar's voice.
"Ya, that's the one," Nate slurred.
Nathan looked beside him. Nate had sat back in the couch and merely stared straight ahead, her eyes blank, her features slack. She was trying very hard to keep her emotions in check, Nathan noticed.
They all continued to listen. No one had ever heard the bodyguard speak of herself before.
"What's happensed?" came Skwisgaar's voice.
"I was adoopted,...adoopted? adopted... yeah that, Skwiggy what else?? Spent fucking three, four years there but they got sick of me, so I went to Alaska, and by that point, couldn't speak a word of nuthin', no one understoods me, cause I wasn't speakin' any language anyone knew, it's was jumbled up..."
The sound of vomiting very close to the recorder and a sick splattering sound.
"Ugh... too much... "
"Speech therapy sucks, by the way... so tha's how I know Russian and Norwegian and stuff...Knew Gaelic already before that, so's not a problem... I'm not smart!" she yelled.
Nathan made a noise in the back of his throat at this. If she was unintelligent, he would eat his shirt. She always made him feel stupid in comparison.
As if to prove a point, she made some sort of incomprehensible syllable. Apparently she was trying to read something.
"You look wierd, Toki... hahaha you got like ten eyeballs... weeeeeee!" came Nate's voice.
"Ya, you do!" said Nathan's voice.
"Dude, is all this true?" asked Pickles as Nathan hit the pause button on the recorder.
Nate didn't answer for a moment.
She looked up at them all with somber eyes and in the firelight her skin looked like white wax stretched across her face. She looked more than hung over; she looked half dead.
"Yes."
"You sure you're okay?" asked Nathan again, putting a hand on her shoulder. She shrugged it off, but half heartedly, as if she didn't really have the energy. He was surprised to feel her shivering like a wet cat.
"Tired... feel shaky. Can't eat anything," she said.
"Oh, crap," said Pickles, suddenly looking at a pill bottle.
"What? Wrong medication?" asked Nathan.
"Who the hell uses Trazadone?" he called out.
Nate weakly raised a hand and indeed, it was shaking badly.
"Oops."
Pickles tossed the pill bottle to Nate and she caught it, fumbled it, dropped it and sighed.
"Don't play the rest, Nathan. I'll explain," she said wearily.
He bent down and retrieved the bottle, handing it to her. 2oo Miligrams of the stuff was enough to knock him out cold. How could she withstand this stuff? It was prescribed to her, he realized, reading the lable. Insomnia.
She took the pill bottle and stuffed it shakily into a pocket.
She began her story.
"I was born in Ireland, like I said on the tape. Everything else was true, too. The people who adopted me gave me a new name and I was there for awhile. They were beauty pageant coordinators or something, but I wouldn't bend. They put me back up for adoption and I was shipped out to Alaska. My languaeg skills were worse than Skwigaar's and Toki's put together. I was speaking a mixture of Gaelic, Norwegian and Russian. I had to take years of speech therapy, and it DID suck. In the process of untangling all the different languages, I learned English. I was about 6 or 7. Kids learn languages easier than adults. They're like spnges," she explained dully. All the while she talked, she played with her fingers and didn't look at any of them.
Finally the story was coming out and she wouldn't look at any of them. As if she was embarassed to talk about it at all.
Nathan shifted his butt closer so they were directly side by side, hoping she would look up at them. She didn't. She did, however, lean her head on his arm.
"The people in Alaska only adopted me for the welfare money that usually follows adopted kids to help care for them. They shunned me and whenever they went out, they left me with a abysitter who would lock me in the basement and then leave herself. I remember her because at this point I was going through a lot of stuff. Mentally, you know? Psychotic breakdowns and stuff. No one wanted to put up with me," she continued.
"Pfft. I woulds have kickeded dem in zeh balls," said Skwisgaar.
She attempted a weak smile but it just made her look even worse. Nathan didn't care who saw him at the moment or what anyone called him. Was he really going soft? How much did he care for her, really?
He put his arm around her and allowed her head to rest against the side of his chest. She shifted her position, getting more comfortable, before speaking again. No one called him a pussy.
"After that, they started running me on all sorts of medications, some that made me throw up, some that made me even worse. They finally decided on Trazadone, it helps me sleep and takes care of my appetite problem. I ate a lot as a kid. The people in Alaska got sick of me eventually, too and I was adopted out again, this time to Florida. It's amazing how far some people'll go just to adopt a kid. I was in Florida for a little over a year and I hated it there. It was too hot and muggy and I wasn't used to the warm temperatures at all. They got sick of me complaining so they shipped me off to a friend of theirs in Connecticut. I stayed there for a few months before they shipped me off to a group home, and that was a nightmare.
The kids there... you have no idea. They were even worse than me, those places are like dog kennels. State care is no fun at all. The kids there were retarded or just plain vicious. They were really horrible to me. At this point, I wasn't into metal yet, but I was into rock and I dressed like any other girl, even if my clothes were a bit baggier than usual," she said. Her voice was starting to crack from overuse and Nathan handed her a nearby glass of water.
She thanked him and took a sip, handing it back to him. He set it back on the floor where it had been to begin with.
"After that, someone in Vermont decided to take me and I graduated from high school there," she said, and to show it, she held up the ring on her little finger. Nathan could just make out a shamrock and the year 2006 on the side of it. It had been a class ring all along.
"I made a few friends there. Nick, Andrew, Craig and Eric. We formed a sort of band but it didn't go far. We only recorded a couple songs before Andrew blew his head off and Eric got committed for drug abuse. The band split up. I started looking for crappy part time jobs, anything to get me the hell away from my life, cause I couldn't drink legally. I didn't do that stuff, and I still don't, really. Drugs... just never appealed to me. I finally saved up enough and I just decided on Sweden. After I got there, I started getting paid under the table, so to speak, because I'm not a legal citizen and couldn't really get paid legally. It was there that I saw you guys in concert for the first time."
"I was 19."
So she had brought them to just a year before they had all met. While she had been talking, Toki and Joanna had entered the room and caught the tail end of what she was saying.
"I hung around Sweden and the border of Norway for awhile and then you guys met me the next time you stopped in. And here I am."
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
PLEASE REVIEW!!!!!