What to say?

He was speechless.

Songs about love and suicide . . . dedicated to Nathan, no less.

Was this why Toki wouldn't let them see it?

Toki buried his face in his hands, refusing to show his face to Nathan. The singer was weirded out at this, of course, but what else was he going to do? He hesitantly reached up and patted Toki on the shoulder, saying, "It's . . . er, okay . . ." He twitched at that. It wasn't his thing to comfort people.

Toki finally looked up, his eyes red and his face blotchy. "Noes, its isn'ts," he snapped. "It'll never bes."

Nathan raised an eyebrow. "W . . . what're you saying?" he asked.

Toki looked at Nathan for a long moment before sighing. "Listens to numbers two." Toki instructed, burying his face in his hands once more.

"'Breakdown'?" Nathan questioned. He'd never heard of the song before; then again, he hardly listened to anything outside of his own music. This, to him, was actually a pretty good song; and he could immediately tell what it was about.

"Toki . . ." Nathan began, looking at the sobbing Norwegian. He shook his head, refusing to look at Nathan; the singer sighed. "Is this . . . true?" he asked, face serious.

You probably wouldn't be able to tell from Toki's current position, but he nodded and sniffled a little bit.

Oh come on, Nathan thought to himself. Help the poor kid out.

Nathan wasn't one to show affection. Hell, he hardly said anything when he was with Rebecca.

Then again, he hated Rebecca.

Toki knew this, and that made Nathan's hug all the more . . . well, what was the right word? It was like having your parents get back together after a divorce.

Especially because of Toki's emotions.

The Norwegian didn't dare hug the other man; hell, he didn't want to die today. He knew what Nathan was capable of.

Then, he changed his mind.

Nathan was a little disturbed about it, but he didn't really want the band to fall apart; as if the rhythm guitarist being in love with the lead singer didn't make it bad enough. But hell, Toki was hurting. And they couldn't have a depressed bandmate. It just wasn't right. Though he did squirm a bit when Toki hugged him back.

The guitarist immediately pulled away and averted his eyes. "I--I's sorries . . ." he muttered.

"Don't worry about it," Nathan replied. What the fuck are you doing? he thought. Stop being so sympathetic!

Toki continued to stare away, though. "I must's," he explained. "You don't's returns my feeling." Toki just knew in his heart that Nathan wasn't in love with him. He just knew.

Nathan sighed. "Maybe not before, but . . ." he couldn't believe he was about to say what popped into his head. "Maybe we can . . . try . . . it?"

Toki beamed, then turned to face the singer. "Is you's serious?" he asked incredulously.

Nathan hesitantly nodded. How bad could it be, right? It made the kid happy, and no-one had to find out.

Oh, shit. He didn't think Toki knew that.

"Look," Nathan began. "Nobody can know about this. We'll lose our popularity, we'll lose the band . . . everything."

Toki frowned, but he understood. He didn't want to lose the band . . . or the fans.

Nathan couldn't believe what he'd done, but it was better than a depressed guitarist.

Was it really?