Toki sat quietly in his room. Things had gone back to normal around Mordhaus, or as normal as they got, anyway. Pickles, Nathan, and Murderface were bullshitting in the hot tub, the latter two maybe still participating in an argument of some sort over something trivial. He knew that Skwisgaar had been in there for a little while—as had he—but Skwisgaar now retired to his room to get away from Murderface and his paternal determination. When Toki left their company to work on the new airplane he'd gotten that day, he heard Skwisgaar practicing as he passed his bedroom door. Now that he was there, though, he couldn't concentrate on the model. He was sitting in the chair at his desk, the box unopened before him. His arms hung limply at his sides. He couldn't seem to do anything. He could only think.
He'd rarely concerned himself with Skwisgaar and his affairs or temperament, but this was really bothering Toki. For one, he was at least ninety-nine percent sure that he'd been threatened. With what, exactly? What would happen to him? What kinds of things were Skwisgaar capable of? The Swede had never seemed the underhanded type before, but. . .maybe he was mistaken?
Rather abruptly, Toki got up from his chair and left the room. He passed Skwisgaar's quarters quickly and quietly, not wanting the Swede to know he was there. When he got back to the recreation room, though, it was empty. Toki shrugged and carried on. Pickles' room was closest, and he liked the drummer. He was more comfortable talking with him about what Skwisgaar may have meant on the Dethkopter than Nathan or Murderface.
He knocked on Pickles' door, hoping the redhead hadn't passed out by now. "Pickle? Pickle, ams you awake?"
Pickles had just been lounging in his underwear, preparing to sit down with a cigarette or ten while he watched some of his favorite cartoons. He took a quick inhalation off his first one before speaking. "Oh. Yeeuh. Come ahn in."
Toki let himself in, carefully closing the door behind him. He paused for a second, and then moved over to where the drummer was sitting, plopping down next to him.
Pickles cocked an eyebrow. "You okee? Look kinda twitchy dere."
"I's—" Toki stopped himself there. He didn't want to admit right off the bat that he was worried. "You remembers what Skwisgaar saids to me when we were ons the Dethkopter, rights?"
"Ehh. . ." Pickles trailed off, rubbing at his forehead. "Was kinda drenk. Meight need a reminder. Heh."
Toki worked the bottom of his lip and looked away from Pickles. He couldn't think of anything funny about it, but all right. "He saids I should watch myself because I don'ts know what he's capables of."
Pickles blinked a few times, then nodded slowly. "Oh. Yeeuh. Thet."
Toki didn't bother to hide just how worried he was when he looked back at the other man. "Whats do you think he meants by that? What ams he capable of, Pickle? I don'ts get it."
He pressed his lips together. He didn't even know if he wanted to, but damn it, he had to know what he was against, if anything.
Pickles took a thoughtful drag from his cigarette, brow furrowed. He could see just how much this was bothering the Norwegian and wanted to be able to provide his friend the best possible answer. "Naht too mech, thet I knoow of. He's naht very strahng, bett he kin hold his oon in a fight. He took oot a few'a them Revenge dicks whin Mordhaus caught fire. I'onno, Tokee. I don' theenk it's rilly thet mech ta werry aboot. It was prahbly jest an empty threeat. Ya know him. He's jest a dick."
Toki nodded, but really wasn't sure. It hadn't sounded empty. Not in the least. He tried to embrace what Pickles was telling him, but that feeling of unsettlement that he'd had ever since they retrieved Skwisgaar from his hometown still lingered. Sighing, he thanked Pickles for his time and left.
In the hallway, Toki shoved his hands into his pockets and kicked the floor as he drug his feet along. He hadn't really wanted to ask Nathan, having set his hopes high that Pickles might be able to make him feel better. The more Toki thought about it, the more he felt that there was a gap in what he knew. That look that Skwisgaar had sent Nathan, the way the frontman took it into consideration. . .had something happened between them? To them?
It took Toki a little bit of searching, but he finally found Nathan. He'd passed through the recreation room a few times, but on the final time when he was heading back to his room, giving it up for another day, he heard a grunt and crack of a beer. He slowed to a stop, looking towards the couch. Nathan was indeed there, free hand behind his head and eyes stuck to the television.
He sat down next to the American and looked up at the television. Another documentary, this time about the Mayan civilizations. He gazed at it wide-eyed, not paying attention. "Hi, Nat'ans. Whats you watchings?"
"Hm. Discovery Channel." The frontman shrugged and downed half of his beer. "I dunno. Not really anything on."
"Oh. That sucks. You wants to drink?" Toki asked, glancing at Nathan surreptitiously out of the corner of his eye. Nathan didn't like to talk too much when he was sober, and if this was heavy subject manner than the need for the frontman to be drunk became much more imperative.
"Uh. Yeah. Sounds fucking good." Nathan glanced down at his beer. This was the fourth or fifth one he'd had already but he definitely had plenty of room for more.
"Okays! I gets you lots of beers," Toki offered. He got up and went to the closest Klokateer, requesting that lots of Nathan's favorite beer be brought to him. He himself wouldn't be having any.
Toki set them out before Nathan on the table, relieving his full arms. Nathan watched him, expression not indicative in the least of his thoughts. "There you goes. I gets you lots of beers. Start drinking, Nathans."
Nathan stared at the beer a little while longer, and then looked suspiciously to Toki. "Aren't you having any?"
Toki shook his head. "No, these am your beers."
The frontman grumbled, but shrugged. He took it at face value that Toki was just trying to please him, something that he actually did rather often. It was working so far. He was feeling rather amiable towards the Norwegian for bringing him a stockpile of his favorite drink, and finished the one he was currently working on so that he could begin on the collection sitting on the table.
Toki folded his hands neatly in his lap as he watched Nathan. With how fast the man was drinking, this would take hardly any time at all. Nathan began to slow, but he didn't stop until all the beer had been ingested and glass bottles littered the floor and couch cushions around him. He blinked blearily at the television. Yeah, he was starting to feel pretty drunk now.
"Hows you feel, Nathans?"
Nathan blinked again. "Pretty good. Hm. Yeah."
Something Toki hadn't considered was that maybe while Nathan was drunk he wouldn't have any idea what he was talking about. Oh, well. There was only one way to find out and if Nathan didn't, he could give this a shot when the man was sober the next day or quite possibly later that night. "There ams something I wants to knows about. Nots about you. Abouts Skwisgaar."
"Uhhhh, 'kay?"
"Does you remembers what Skwisgaar saids to me before we landeds?" Toki asked.
Nathan bowed his head in thought, eyes darting a little slower than they usually did when he was thinking. Eventually, Toki jogged his memory a little better. "He saids that I didn't know what he was capable ofs. Then he looks at you, likes you knew something. You was thinking about it when he dids. Whats was you thinking abouts?"
"Hm." Nathan's slow mind was worse than usual, but he could definitely remember such a thing taking place now that the Norwegian had been so specific. "Uh. Something that happened a long fucking time ago. Some band bullshit. Couldn't drink. Had to sit down and shit, doctor said. Liver transplant."
It had been at the time of Nathan's first one, when he, Pickles, Murderface, Skwisgaar, and Magnus, the guitarist they had before Toki, were sharing the rent on some place before Mordhaus was even in the construction stages. They'd become popular in the metal scene and had just been found by Offdensen. Nathan could remember being severely disgruntled that he hadn't been allowed to celebrate that fact with Pickles and Murderface.
He remembered that he'd been parked in front of the television, just as he was now, but instead of watching documentaries he was watching shitty weeknight programming. He wasn't amused by the news once the leading stories had been covered and any brutality that may have made its way onto the show passed, and he sure as fuck didn't like Wheel of Fortune. He'd settled on Cops, something of which was much more his kind of mindless entertainment.
While Murderface and Pickles had gone out to celebrate, Magnus and Skwisgaar remained behind. Magnus had things to show Skwisgaar that he'd written, and Magnus wouldn't allow Skwisgaar to go anywhere until he had done so. Nathan was used to the guitarists being at each other's throats when it came to their instruments, and so he only rolled his eyes when he heard elevated voices coming from the basement. Eventually, he turned up the television. They were going on forever, and just growing louder. He could finally block them out and be at peace with his stupid TV show.
Nathan came to a stop in telling the story when he remembered the next part. He and Skwisgaar had vowed never to speak about it again—by Offdensen's request—but he was reasonably drunk and had good momentum and. . .it felt good to talk about this.
Nathan stared at the television, silently rooting on the criminal that tried so hard to flee. Normally he would be on the cop's side when watching this show just because he didn't give a shit about the idiot that was dumb enough to be caught. The cop was being a real jackass though, and so here he was, going for the underdog. This guy seemed to have an actual chance at escape, anyway.
"Hm."
His vision was obscured by Skwisgaar, still seemingly white in the stream of the television even though the room itself was getting dark as night fell outside. The Swede seemed rather fidgety, his eyes wide and his mouth gaping like a fish as he tried to find the words he wanted to say.
His voice was rather small. "N-Nat'ans?"
Nathan's arms were now crossed tightly across his chest, his gaze fixed to the floor. Toki looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to go on. When he realized that the frontman had spoken himself into silence, he cleared his throat. "What happens, Nathans?"
The American blinked a few times, shifting uncomfortably. He knew there had been reasons that he didn't like to think about this.
"He killed him."