The members of Dethklok were involved in enough savage accidents on a daily basis to warrant a small hospital being built within the Mordhaus grounds—its name was Saint En's. (Yeah I know, it's a terrible pun but they were all stoned when they came up with it.) Having an emergency room practically next-door comes in pretty handy for those normal, everyday injuries like severed digits or alcohol poisoning or skin grafts. Just the usual playground boo-boos.

By the time the band arrived Toki's ulna had already been set (much to Muderface's dishappointment) and he now sported a blue camouflage cast on his right forearm. He had matching knee-high casts on both legs, too. He looked bright and chipper when they entered his room: he was sitting up and coloring in a Gummi Bears activity book with a black crayon that was down to the last few centimeters of wax; of course, this might have just been the morphine they were seeing.

He glanced up when they shuffled in. "Hi guys!" he greeted with a glazed grin and a little wave.

Yeah. Definitely the morphine.

"We heards what happen," Skwisgaar murmured, walking over to the hospital bed and tapping at the bloody bandage around Toki's forehead. "I hopes you is not retarded now. We sorts of needs you."

"Fer the new album," Murderface amended grimly, then went back to searching the room for something fragile to break and/or stab, and mumbling about the beauty of medical-assisted suicide.

The Norwegian looked at his bandmates with a face of horror. "You is makings a new one already? But we just-"

"Yeah yeah," Pickles interrupted, "I know it's sooner n' we planned, but Nate'n says it's gonna be real kick ass compared to the last one, and we all thought that it'd be-"

Toki flipped. It brought back horrific memories of endorsement-candy-induced mania for everybody. "YOU CAN'T MAKES ANOTHER ALBUM NOW!" he ranted, sending crayons spraying into the air when he reached up and grabbed Skwisgaar by the shirt collar. "MY BONES IS BROKEN IN MY ARM! I CAN'TS PLAY DE GUITAR WITS A FUCKING CATS ON ME!" His voice was cracking hilariously. "ARE YOU TELLINGS ME IT'S OVERS! YOU IS GOING TO PUTS ME TO SLEEPS! I NOT DEAD YET, YOU FUCKING SON OF BITCHES!" Then he proceeded to shake Skwisgaar to the point of dislocating every disc in his spinal column. Whatever pain killers Toki was on, it wasn't enough. He needed tranquilizers…or possibly a prescription for a good anti-psychotic.

"Jeezez Christ!" Pickles screamed, watching the attempted homicide take place from a safe distance away. He would never be out of his mind enough to get involved in a long-haired Scandinavian bitch-brawl.

"This was your ideas, wasn't it!" Toki shrilled, wrenching the Swede around. "You is trying to gets rids of me! No competencetitions anymore! I goings to KILLS YOU! JÆVLA SVENSKE!"

"Togrrukiyu diyerghkildohhrgh-!" replied Skwisgaar.

"HOSHPITAL FIIIGHT!" Murderface declared, hurling a visitor's chair through the door and kicking over an IV pole. Skwisgaar was screaming. Toki was screaming. Pickles was screaming. It was a three part harmony of screaming—tenor, alto and soprano respectively—and it actually sounded quite good. Too bad they could never do this on stage, otherwise they'd be the first heavy metal barber shop triplet in the history of music.

Nathan stood by and glared silently at everyone as the situation quickly deteriorated into pandemonium. Only when he realized that Toki just might be capable of shaking Skwisgaar into full-body traction did he decide to jump in.

"EVERYBODY SHUT THE FUCK UUUUP."

Utter silence descended. Seismographs in the surrounding region picked up a 2.5 on their Richter scales. The four other members of Dethklok froze.

Nathan wiped a bit of bloody spittle from his jaw and brushed back a strand of hair. "Thank you. Now that I…that I've got your attention. Murderface. Bedpans are not helmets. Toki. Let go of Skwisgaar before you both choke to death on each other's hair. And for the love of Rhoads, everyone STOP THE DAMN SCREAMING."

Skwisgaar let out a wheeze like folding accordion bellows and slipped from his assailant's grasp, crumpling to the floor. Toki had passed from the anger stage and into the acceptance stage: he laid down with a soft moan and drew the covers over his head like a corpse. He pronounced himself dead to all in the room.

"Would you calm the hell down, Toki," Nathan muttered, stalking over to the bed and throwing back the sheets. "We're not getting rid of you."

"Yeah," Pickles added with a nervous laugh. "Wouldn't be right, y'know, cannin' the guy who inspired it all."

Toki looked adorably stupid. "What?"

"You tell 'im, Nate'n, it was yer vision."

Nate'n stared down at Toki with no facial expression whatsoever. All he saw in his mind were blood buckets and rat guts and the F-word spoken on cute little mustachioed-framed lips and protruding bones and oh fucking sweet holy shit he was not getting turned on again, not in the goddamned hospital in front of everyone…but he was. And he was quite certain he could hear the stitches in his jeans starting to pop.

"Nate'n?" Pickled inquired, one red eyebrow arched. "You okay? Yer face looks weird."

"Uh. I gotta…crap." Pause. "Be right back." And he left the room, just like that.

"Well that wazsh peculiar," Murderface noted, crossing his arms.

Pickles nudged Skwisgaar's body with his foot. "Hey uh, guys. I think Skwiss might need some medical attention…er a mortician."

"Forgets about him, what's about me!" Toki cried. "How is I goings to play? Ahhh-haaaa-rhhhhh!" And then he made the mistake of throwing an arm to his forehead in dismay, and ended up giving himself a really awesome blowjob. Flat out on the bed again. Snot and bloody chiclets everywhere.

"Kid'zsh gettin' pretty good at that," said Murderface appreciatively.

That was looking on the bright side of things. Toki earned his 2nd concussion of the day and another 24 hours at Saint En's Hospital.

a few days later

Nathan wasn't at the point of panicking yet. It was no secret that he got off on blood and gore and extreme violence, and if his dick was as stupid or stupider than he was, then he had nothing to worry about. Just a natural reaction to what turned him on. It wasn't about the person, it was all about the context. 'Cause Toki Wartooth was not a sex symbol.

Throb. Ache. Swell.

Nathan's note to self: Never use that name with that description ever, ever again.

The Dethklok frontman was sitting in bed at some ungodly hour, properly smashed for the night and bearing his trusty voice recorder in hand, scribbling lyrics in a composition notebook carved all to hell and illustrated with skulls, knives and dead bleeding daisies. Perhaps he was a little too smashed—his thoughts kept returning to a Norwegian brunette with ice-blue eyes and a poor grasp of English and…

"-something…uh, something heavy with the, the, the…the bass in that last, uh, bridge, like a…goddammit." Nathan clicked off the recorder and stabbed his pen in the center of the page he was writing on. "I can't fuckin concentrate."

Of course, he was far too wasted to realize that it might just be the fact that he was far too wasted to realize that it might not have been Toki Wartooth alone disrupting his thoughts, but rather the volatile cocktail of illegal substances that was his customary nightcap.

But let's not get all technical. The big issue here was that Nathan was extremely worried that he might be becoming attracted to Toki, and the band was too young to have its members coming out of the closet just yet. Maybe 25 years from now, sure, but right now would be awesomely sucky timing. Of course, pretty much everyone was prepared for the day when Skwisgaar would show up wearing his hair in braided buns and a dress right out of his mother's Miss Sweden wardrobe, sequins and all. Nope, no surprises there. But if mother Nathan fucking Explosion was at all suspected of being a prancing, weepy little Bryan Adams-squealing fairy…

"I'm not gay." There. He said it. Sounded good enough, and he never had a problem believing his own words before. He clicked the recorder back on again. "Okay…where was I. Oh yeah. So the bass line'll be-"

A knock on Nathan's bedroom door cut his sentence short. Who the FUCK was knocking on his door at this fucking hour of the night.

"Nate'ns?"

Oh hell no it wasn't.

"Are you sleepings?"

Go away go away go away goddammit just go away please fuckin go away.

"I knows you awake because I heards you talking before."

What the hell is he doing out there? How the hell is he doing out there? Didn't the doctors banish him to crutches for the next two months or something? He doesn't need to be hobbling all over the house with both of his frigging ankles broken, the dumbass. What could that idiot possibly want? A spinal injury? Partial paralysis? Nathan didn't wanna fuck a goddamn cripple—OH NO GOD, NO. HE DID NOT JUST THINK THAT. Nathan didn't wanna fuck anything or anyone (not right now anyway), especially not the cripple outside his bedroom door. Thought gone. Deleted. Erased. Eradicated. Destroyed-

"Nathan? I wants to talk to you." Informalities gone. Playful accent overridden. He was getting annoyed. This was serious.

Nathan Explosion was most definitely at the point of panicking right now. And when Nathan Explosion panicked, he did stupid shit that he always regretted later. And this is exactly why he sprang out of bed, stomped to his door, threw it open hard enough to splinter the wood, and snarled, "What the fuck do you wanna talk about right now, Toki, I'm kinda busy."

The world's second-fastest guitarist, posed awkwardly on a pair of crutches, tried to mask his initial terror at seeing Mr Ultimate Darkness pissed off and in his skivvies, and somehow managed to look aggravated in spite of this pants-shittingly frightening image. "De new albums."

"…that's all? Can't you just wait till tomorrow, when I don't feel like breaking whatever isn't already broken in your frickin body?"

Toki raised his right arm, displaying his cast. "You says I inspires it all. Nobody's else is telling me anythings, when I thinks I needs to have at de leasts a good reason. Why you such mean bitch to me all de suddens?"

Wow. That hurt, especially coming from such a sweet guy like- NO. No, nonono. Fuckin ay no, Nate, just slam that goddamn door RIGHT NOW and dude you're panicking like a teenage girl who just got dumped the night before prom, for the love of Christ calm down before you—

"I'm sorry."

Where the shit did that come from?

Nathan looked anywhere but Toki's face. "I've been avoiding you 'cause I feel really bad about you getting hurt. I mean, it was sorta my fault anyway…kinda. The guilt's just been real bad."

What the hell is this? Some kind of gay-ass emotional heavy metal soap opera? Get a hold of yourself, Nathan! Don't puss out like this!

But Toki. Was just. Too damn cute when he smiled like that.

"Reallys?" Smiling like his day had just been made. "That's not too much bad. Why didn't you just tells me before?"

Because I think I've got the hots for you.

Because you make me hard enough to break a brick on my dick.

Because I'd rather saw my skull open and eat my own brains with a fondue fork than say anything to you. Yeah. Go with that one.

"Because I'd rather saw my sk-"

"So tells me about de new albums!" Toki cheerfully invited himself into Nathan's room, stumbling hilariously on those crutches. Nathan would have been holding back snarls of laughter at any other time, but he was too horrified by the fact that Toki seemed to be making right for the bed and—oh dear God he just sat down on it. He didn't seem at all fazed, putting his crutches aside and picking up Nathan's composition book.

"So you already startings on de lyric? Vomit on My Boots, that sound like real cool titles. Was that whens I throwed up all over your shoes? Ha ha! That's kinda fun-"

Nathan marched over and swiped his notebook from Toki's hand.

"Ah! Hey, what's de hell, man?"

"I don't like people seeing my work in progress."

"Why not?"

"I. Because I…because."

Toki rolled his eyes and pffted in a perfect Skwisgaar imitation. Nathan was slightly offended. Toki never imitated him…wait wait WAIT. Just shut up. Jesus Christ, this was going to be impossible. Nathan just needed to toss that little bastard out of the room right now, before something really bad happened.

"You gots anythings to drink?" Toki asked, rolling over on his stomach and beginning to dig around under the mattress. "I wants to see what is happen whens alcohol meet de pain pills de doctors give me."

"Heyheyhey HEY. The hell do you think you're doing? That's my stash!"

"I know. Is where I keeps mine too, but I ain't gots nothings good left. Oh boy, I thinks I find somethings…whiskey, wowie!"

Nathan paled when he saw his special flask with the skull and crossbones on it. "Woah. Wait a minute, Toki, that's uh, that's some really powerful stuff right there. I'm not kidding, it'll fuck you up after-"

But Toki had already unscrewed the cap and taken a hearty swig. Ohhh good. The situation had just gone from bad to worse to having diarrhea at a public library where you swear to God everyone can hear you in the bathroom taking the most violent shit of your life. This was a fucking nightmare.

"Ahh!" Toki sighed, wiping his mouth and wincing. "No kidding, I thinks my tongue is sizzles!"

I really don't wanna hear about your stupid tongue right now, Toki.

Another huge gulp. "So tells me more abouts de songs of…boy, is heating up in here."

I really, really don't wanna hear about your stupid body temperature right now, Toki.

"Are you gonna writes a song about de rats I kills? I thinks that be nice. I kills a lot of them, so it can be likes a funeral song for-"

And then Nathan just couldn't stand it anymore—he turned on his heel and pounded out of his room, slamming the door closed on his way out. There. Nathan heaved a sigh of relief once he was out in the hallway. Crisis averted. It felt better knowing that there was now a big thick piece of wood between him and Toki…OH GOD. OH MY GOD. No no no no no no not wood, not wood, knock wood NO don't knock wood, don't knock wood, don't cock wood OH JESUS NO not cock knock wood would knock cock FUCK COCK KNOCK TOCK TOKI'S COCK—

Nathan Explosion wasn't much for sprinting, not ever since high school football, but he quickly found that complete and utter terror lent him surprising swiftness; he was suddenly barreling down the corridor in his underwear, bellowing like a birthing rhinoceros and fighting back the million Norwegian penises with Fu Manchus that were chasing after him.

This was also the last night that Nathan would ever drop acid before bedtime.

I'm sure there's something deeply psychological about the way that Nathan ran straight to Pickles' room. But hang on, I think we're about to find out why:

BANG BANG BANG BANG. "Let me in, Pickles. Hey! Pickles! You hear me? Wake up in there, you dick!" BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG-

The door flew open and Nathan accidentally punched the Irish-American drummer right in the forehead.

"Oh Jesus, Pickles! Get out of the way next time! …uh, are you okay?"

The redhead looked as if he had just woken up from an alcohol-induced coma, and from his position sprawled out on the floor he rubbed his forehead and answered, "Gee. Let me think…um, NO."

"Huh?"

"Ya fuckin wake me up in the middle 'a the fuckin night, fuckin beatin my door off its fuckin hinges and then fuckin nail me right in the fuckin skull…are you havin a midnight panic attack 'r somethin?"

"I need your help," Nathan confessed (but brutally).

"What? Why run to me?"

"Because I'm going crazy."

"But why run to me?"

"Because I think I'm falling in love."

"…but why run to me?"

"Because it's another guy."

"BUT WHY RUN TO ME?"

"Snakes n' Barrels."

Silence. Enough said.

Pickles sighed and crawled off the floor. "Alright. Get in here, I'll see what I can do."