A/N: Wow, talk about jumping all over the place here! But I still managed to do an alright job of connecting all the mini-stories. Hopefully the person who gave me the challenge, MidnightNimh, will think so to.
Bullet In My Hand by Redlight Kings -
The room is dark and cold and, just like many other nights, Pickles can't bring himself to care. He can't summon up the strength to get up off the rickety bed he used to share with Tony, just to cross that room and turn on a light. The blankets are too far away, and they're ratty and torn anyway. It's not enough to keep away the cold. Not when the cold is coming from the inside just as much as the outside.
His band is gone. Broken up. Lost from him forever - because they'd sullied their appearences with alcohol and ruined their voices with drugs. Hair had thinned as they aged and, though Pickles doesn't want to admit it outloud, it just isn't the same as when Snakes 'N' Barrels was first formed.
But it still left an aching hole in his heart. For so long, the band had been his family. Now - he would have to find a different way to survive.
Or maybe, Pickles thinks wryly, looking across the room at the small bag of white powder sitting on his desk, maybe he doesn't have to find a new way to survive at all.
I'll Make A Man Out Of You from Mulan (and I'm not afriad to admit that this is on my Ipod or that I frequently listen to it) -
They're good, Pickles can't help but think. It's almost a boastful thought, or as boastful and full of pride as a drug-addled mind can be.
But it's a true one.
The small rag-tag band that he's been dragged into is turning out to be good. Real good. Good enough that Pickles is starting to forgive them from stopping him from overdosing himself on drugs. Or at least, he's starting to forgive Nathan. Charles not so much. And certaintly not Magnus - who is filled with so much pride that it hurts.
Still, Pickles can't help but think that something is missing. They have drums. They have guitar. They have the most brutal vocals he's ever heard. But their music still lacks.
They need a bassist. And Pickles thinks he knows just who they should go to.
Devil's Dance Floor by Flogging Molly -
"You're, uh, you're kidding, right?" Nathan asks, peering out of the window of the car that Charles had rented them.
From out of the slightly tainted windows, he has a perfect view of a park that has long fallen into ruins. Old oak trees have twisted and curled, most of their leaves now scattering the ground. The stone statue in the middle of the park has moss growing up one side, the other side chipped in so many places that the form it had once been carefully carved into is now unrecognizable. Paths are over-grown with weeds. Trash cans buzz with flies - a perfect testament as to how long it has been since they were emptied last, the garbage inside now rotting away to nothing.
And, sitting on a decrepit stone bench just off the side of one tangled path, is a man who looks just as gnarled as the park he sits in. The man's head is lolling back, a small shoe-lace of drool trailing down his chin. The clothes he wears are ragged at best; looking as though they haven't seen a washing in many, many days.
His name? No one rightly knows. Most people just call him Murderface. Mad Murderface.
Pickles grins from the seat across from Nathan and swings his door open. "Nope. That there's gonna be our bassist. Trust me on this, Nate, it'll work out."
On The Back Of A Broken Dream by Flogging Molly -
He isn't a handsome man, that's for sure. Never had been one, except maybe in his youngest days, back before the world grew cruel and the hate tainted both his body and his soul. He never will be one again, not with the scars marking him now.
Yet Pickles finds him enthralling.
It's in the way that he acts like he doesn't care when the rest of the band, now with a second guitarist, treat him like he's less. In the thinly vieled insanity that lingers behind chartruess eyes. And in the way that, though he now lives a life of somewhat luxury, Murderface is still ready to fight for everything that he gets.
The Story Of Us by Taylor Swift (as if this doesn't make the whole pairing awkward) -
It starts out slowly, at least as far as Murderface is concerned. For Pickles, it is an out of control ride from the day they find the fifth and final member to their band - replacing Magnus with Toki and then, in a splendid display of music and passion that shocked the world, they began to take over.
The bumps are many. They are large; between the drummer's chronic need to constantly be drunk and to often be high, and Murderface's need to bleed out the imperfection he sees in himself, it makes for a courtship filled with twists and turns. But, somehow, the two manage to make it to a point where they can both grin and go - yes, that man right there is who I'm dating. And when they are given odd looks and disgusted scowls - don't like it, well, fuck you then.
And then they both cackle loudly, throw their heads back, and grab each other a new bottle of beer.
Because that's how they're relationship goes. That's what their story is. Not simple, not a challenge, and far from over.