I don't really like this chapter but oh well. I want to say that there'll be another update sometime before the summer is up (preferably in August) but probably not, who knows. I updated really scarcely over the last year due to several reasons but I'm trying to get better on that I promise! Also wow I've gotten through seven chapters of this story. This is the most I've ever written of something, original or unoriginal, and I'd like to take a moment to thank you all for your support and lovely reviews. I hope you continue to enjoy this story and also that you have a really nice day.
Thanksgiving was of no importance to the Wartooth family. As far as Toki could tell his parents were almost completely apathetic towards America, interested in the country solely for the opportunity to expand their brand of Protestantism beyond the borders of Norway. Toki liked America well enough; he didn't know shit about the politics, but he loved his friends, appreciated how much more there was to do here than in his old abandoned village, and thought his life had improved with the move. Toki wanted to give thanks for that, but if he was going to give thanks to the cause of the upturn in his life, it was going to have to be his parent's religion, not the country that it decided to move them to. Toki didn't like Thanksgiving for an entirely separate reason-he had a week's break from school.
Breaks made Toki nervous. He tended to get the most severe punishments over breaks, lashings across his skin that would weep blood for hours after the whip hit, baskets of stones placed on top of his shoulders to build up strength and break down soul, constellations of big and ugly bruises running down his arms and legs. The previous summer alone he had received black eyes so swollen he couldn't see through them twice and has his arm twisted something nasty that hurt for the most of the two months he had off from school. He supposed that his parents saw the days off as an opportunity to separate him from society, and once separated nobody would be able to see the marks. Toki knew it made sense and somehow that made it so much worse.
This particular break Toki found himself lucky. He was extra careful in his daily chores and whatever other nonsense his parents decided to throw at him (he would never understand why they liked for him to put odd pieces of furniture together just to return them to the store later) to the point that they could literally find no fault. His age and increasing strength and stamina aided in this greatly; what would've broken the back of his younger, scrawnier self only gave his current self a good workout. His father was absent for a lot of the break, on religious excursions, and when he was home Toki was quiet, not speaking a word to his parents at all and making no noise in the house. He ate his meals with meticulous manners and spent time in his room, though not too much time as to not raise suspicions. He played the role of model son. He went to church and sat in the front pews, hair braided down his back, hands folded and head bowed in prayer. He prayed to a god he didn't believe in that the time would pass by as fast as fucking possible.
He could feel irritation under his skin and a scream sitting just underneath his chin. He scratched at his own skin, restlessness taking roost in all of his nooks and crannies. His thought pattern devolved into a series of snarls and shouts. He tried to exert the excess energy through his chores and failed. He couldn't just sit inside all day in quiet meditation, rereading the same books and stooping to redoing his homework three times each, going to bed at eight just to wake up at eight and repeat the cycle over and over again. He hoped that his friends (and Skwisgaar) were growing concerned for him. but he knew they weren't. They knew that Toki's parents were sort of weird, that they liked having their son home. They didn't know why of course, but years of experience (in the case of his friends) led them to understand that when school was not in session, Toki would not be in their presence. Toki was inwardly moody, outwardly the perfect son, and on the verge of something drastic.
He found solace in the ringing of a phone. He was in his room, door open, sitting at his desk and staring at the wall, when the sound crept into the house. That was rare. Very few people called and their phone number was unlisted. Hope started to bloom but Toki stuffed it down, swallowing it back like the bile it so often turned out to be. His mother began to speak in English and hope fucking its way fought through his throat and sprang out his mouth-he bit down hard on his bottom lip to prevent himself from screaming in joy as his mother's raspy voice gave life to the words Mrs. Explosion. His mother came into his room five minutes later and stared at Toki in a way that usually deeply unsettled him but today did not; he nodded his head once and waited for her to leave before, as quietly as he could, throwing his fists into the air in triumph and twirling around his room. He shed the pressed white button-up he'd been wearing in favor of the first shirt in his pile of Going Out clothes, laced up a ratty pair of black low-top Converse, untied his hair from the ponytail it had been in, and fled. His father was not home; he was away for a few days, in another state, on church business. Toki suspected that had something to do with his lack of severe punishment so far this break and the excursion he was about to take.
He waited on his porch step for Nathan's truck, thanking every deity his brain could scrape up for the hot sun bathing him and whatever he was about to partake in. They could drag him to somewhere he would completely hate so much that he couldn't even think of such a place and he'd probably hug everybody who came several times over. He was seconds away from getting on his knees and rejoicing towards the sky when Nathan's truck pulled up to the curve. Windows down, Toki could see the usual three in their usual positions. He grinned-Pickles was the only one to return the gesture-and picked himself up from the steps, unable to hide the excited bounce in his walk as he got in the backseat.
"Operation Reschue Toki complete," Murderface said, voice flat. He rolled his eyes as he said it, but that didn't diminish Toki in the slightest. He vibrated with excitement and joy from head to toe and repeated "Thank you thank you thank you" over and over again until the words devolved into Norwegian. The others tolerated it for a minute until Nathan and Pickles sighed and Murderface slapped his hand over Toki's mouth.
"Do you know what today is, Toki?" Pickles asked. He had his knees to his chest in the passenger seat, fiddling with the radio; he was unable to find a station he liked and listened to each for about five seconds before moving to another.
Murderface withdrew his hand from Toki's mouth, allowing him to respond to Pickles's question. Toki thought for a second. "No clue," he said. He had lost track around Tuesday. He'd been avoiding clocks, too. They were painful.
"Dude, it'sch fucking Thankschgiving," Murderface said. He balked at Toki. He wasn't wearing a seat belt and had his legs splayed in a lewd fashion, phone between them. He drummed his fingers on the back of his phone and would flip it around to check for what Toki presumed to be a message every half-minute.
"Really?" Toki asked. Murderface and Pickles both nodded. He shrugged. "It's not that big of a deal."
There was a chorus of agreement. Murderface and Pickles exchanged a look that Toki interpreted to mean that he was right."I love the food," Nathan said. He turned onto a familiar street, and Toki recognized where they were headed. Dimmu Burger. Perfect. He was almost starting to believe in God.
"Anyway," Pickles continued. He seemed to have found a radio station he liked, sow low-grade and staticky metal swelling inside of the car, and leaned back, letting his legs down in front of him and stretching. Murderface pressed himself into the seat behind him to avoid getting hit with Pickles's hands as he stretched, though considering the size of Nathan's truck in comparison to the size of Pickles, that probably wouldn't have happened. "It's five o'clock in the evenin', so, you know, Thanksgiving's done. Dimmu's Burger open and doin' some holiday special thing. Here, to help with your appetite." Pickles bought his arms back to himself and dug a joint out of his pocket, turning to pass it to Toki and smiling. He lit it between their hands.
Toki inhaled and closed his eyes. "Perfect," he said, drawing the word out. "I love you guys." He exhaled, opened his eyes, and watched the smoke twist in the air in front of him before slowly fading out, then inhaled again to repeat the process. He'd missed weed in the last six days, even if he'd gone longer without it while having access to it. It was the idea, the meaning behind the marijuana, and the freedom to bring it into his body, he thought. He examined the joint between his fingers-Pickles had rolled it with pumpkin flavored rolling papers in the spirit of the holiday season-and decided that, yes, that was it. That, and he loved the drug, he really did.
"Could you not be scho gay for juscht one day, Toki?" Murderface said. He checked his phone again, then flipped it over hard enough that it bounced off the seat Toki shrugged and took another drag, pinching the joint between his fingers. He wasn't high at all yet, but he felt too high to care about Murderface's half-assed insults. Murderface was preoccupied with grumbling and groping about the floor of Nathan's truck for his phone; his message seemed to have finally come as a loud vibration came from somewhere below.
"You know," Pickles said, "I could ask of you the same, William." Pickles took a drag from a joint he had procured for himself, smoke rolling from his mouth as he began to laugh at his own joke. The entire truck was becoming clouded with smoke, air thick with the smell of marijuana and pumpkin, a gray haze hanging in the air. Murderface suffered a coughing fit; Toki didn't know if it was from the air quality or because of what Pickles said, but he felt safe in saying it was probably a combination of both. Murderface looked particularly gross, red and sweaty in the face with his hair frizzing out of control, and with his social consciousness lowered with every puff, Toki moved away from him.
"I'm," Murderface said, grunting as he paused in his groping and the muscles in his arms tightened like he had wrapped his fingers around something, "not," he sat up, pulling a half-empty bottle of tequila with him, "the one with a boyfriend. What the fuck isch thisch? Where the fuck isch my phone?" He held the bottle of tequila by the neck and turned it around, reading the label. From what Toki could see it was legitimate Mexican tequila, amber liquid sloshing inside as Murderface looked at it, the label written entirely in Spanish.
"Hey, cool, you found my tequila," Nathan said at the same time Pickles said, "Are you sure you don't have a boyfriend?" Nathan took a hand off the wheel and reached back. Murderface put the tequila in his hand and Pickles grabbed it, giving Nathan a look and screwing the lid off to drink from it. Pickles made his way through half of what remained and put the bottle between his legs, all the while staring at Nathan quite pointedly.
"You guysch schuck," Murderface said. He returned his arm to beneath the seat, brows furrowed. He was working up a ridiculous sweat just from the task and had his tongue between his lips in concentration. Toki wanted to inch further away but his back was against the door, seatbelt twisted around his body. Becoming aware of his uncomfortability, Toki unwrapped himself from his seatbelt. It proved to be a harder task than he anticipated.
"I think you guys are great," Toki said, finally extricating himself from the seatbelt. It was true though at the moment he was repulsed with half of the contents of the car. He reclined in his seat to the point that his knees were pressing into the back of Nathan's, his chin on his chest, much more comfortable, and inhaled again. He rolled the joint around in the palm of his hand, fascinated with how something so small could have such a profound effect on his mood.
"Thank you, Toki," Pickles said, turning to smile at him.. Pickles stashed the tequila underneath the passenger's seat and drew his legs into the seat again, feet perched on the edge and arms around his knees. He smoked on.
Murderface sat upright, his fingers wrapped around his shitty phone, and howled in success. He checked the message and constructed a short reply before returning his phone to its position between his legs. Toki watched it with half a smile on his face. All of the stress from the past six days poured out of him like blood from a lashing wound; his wound-up brain began to unwind; his muscles relaxed. Murderface and Pickles were strung in activity on their side of the car but on Nathan and Toki's there was calm, and Toki was content. There was maybe only one thing that could make this better and that would be Skwisgaar sitting beside him but for now he was ecstatic to just be amongst people that he liked, smoking a blunt and on his way to good food. They were close to Dimmu Burger and he'd be eating greasy, unhealthy, utterly delicious shit soon. The emptiness he felt would be filled.
"So, guys, have I missed anything?" Toki asked. He readjusted himself so he was sitting normally, having had been in danger of slipping out of his seat. He held the joint in one hand in his lap, feeling sufficiently stoned.
"Skwisgaar called me, looking for you," Nathan said. Toki listened for signs of annoyance in his voice and there were none; it just sounded like Nathan. Toki's half-smiled turned full and something inside of him perked; it felt like hope but happier, maybe. Fueled by it, he was able to ignore Pickles's eyes rolling. "I told him, you know, that your parents are really weird and shit. And that they, like-Pickles, what was the word?"
"Sever." Pickles said through a mouthful of smoke, his head flat against his knees and turned towards Nathan. His eyes were lidded and unfocused in the direction of Nathan's face, a couple of different expressions formed halfway on his own. Toki didn't spend too much time trying to figure out what they were, as Nathan was speaking about Skwisgaar, and that took priority in Toki's mind. He leaned forward and listened to the rest of what Nathan had to say.
"Yeah. How they, like, sever you from other people over the holiday." Nathan jerked his head to get some hair out of his face and pulled the truck into the Dimmu Burger parking lot. Toki was absolutely buzzing with excitement.
"That was all?" Toki may have felt disappointment had the day not already been so perfect. He leaned back into his seat and, realizing where he was, unbuckled his seatbelt. He gave the joint back for Pickles to store away.
"That was all," Pickles said, yawning and unrolling his body. Murderface snorted, his thumbs moving across his phone. They all exited the truck and fell in line side-by-side. The parking lot to Dimmu Burger was void of vehicles despite their holiday special which was just fine to Toki. Toki slung an arm around Murderface and Pickles on both sides of him; Murderface screeched and removed himself from Toki's grip at once while Pickles put an arm around Toki's waist. They were stoned out of their fucking minds at this point, eyes rimmed red and faces drawn into two equally lazy grins.
Nathan paid for Toki's portion of the food. The four of them didn't order separately, instead purchasing mounds of greasy, unhealthy shit that almost glimmered with appeal. Nathan and Pickles carried the two trayfuls of paper bags and polystyrene cups to a booth against the windows. They dropped the trays on the table and slid themselves into one side of the booth, Toki sitting opposite Nathan and Murderface opposite Pickles. Four sets of teenage hands grabbed for the mountain of Dimmu Burger's delicious food; Toki came back with a carton of eight chicken nuggets and a cup of what he found to be vanilla milkshake upon sipping. Another blind groping found himself a large container of French fries that he pulled just seconds before Murderface's fat fingers could wrap around it. Toki withdrew his arms and sat back, sticking his tongue out at Murderface while he made a show of lowering a single French fry down upon it. Murderface mumbled something incoherent and insulting before busying his mouth with the huge hamburger now clasped in his hands.
"This is fuckin' awesome," Pickles said, sucking on the end of a straw. He had the lid off of his own chocolate milkshake and two things of fries beside him, waiting to be dipped. Toki watched as Pickles tongued the end of the straw, his eyes on Murderface, begging him to say something. Murderface did not deliver, rolling his eyes and averting them somewhere behind Pickles, munching non-stop on his hamburger.
"Totally," Nathan said. He secured an equal forth of the food with one beefy arm curled around his pile, protecting it. His other hand was shaking the remains of a carton of French fries into his mouth.
"We just spent sixty bucks at Dimmu Burger," Pickles said, lowering a French fry into his milkshake. He waved it around and made a dramatic show of plopping it into his mouth before saying, "and it was fuckin' awesome."
"You guys are fuckin' awesome," Toki said, smiling as wide as his face would allow as he ate his food. He made eye contact with his friends one by one-Murderface shifted in his seat before gnashing his teeth at him, Pickles returned his smile, and Nathan did nothing of note-and sighed. "I just, I loves you all so much!"
"Love," Nathan said, the word coming out as a disgusted grunt. "The word is love."
"That's what's I says," Toki said. He wasn't really see the problem, language skills cloaked in the haze of his high and happiness. He looked at Nathan, confusion in every feature in his face, and sucked his milkshake through the straw in loud and continuous motion..
"The fuck is wrong with the way you're talkin'?" Murderface said, giving Toki a strange expression. He used Toki's confusion as cover to take his fries from him; Toki dipped his hand into the space where a carton of French fries was and looked down.
"De fucks, Moidaface!" He screeched, lunging at Murderface to retrieve his French fries. Murderface fell to the floor, corpulent body pinned between Toki and the cheap, stained tile, their legs tangled and hooked on the booth. Murderface's fingers were wrapped around the carton of fries, though the contents of the carton was splayed on the ground behind him. Toki didn't notice that and took the carton from Murderface's hand while Murderface foamed at the mouth with general rage. That was when Toki noticed the carton was empty, noticed that his stomach and Murderface's were pressed together in an uncomfortably tight way, and also that there were precious French fries on the floor. He rolled off of Murderface, who sprang up and stood dumbfounded. Still on his stomach, Toki tried, in vain, to collect the scattered French fries.
The staff of Dimmu Burger paused in their duties behind the counter to watch the events play out, mildly amused. This was not the first time Toki and his friends had caused a ruckus in the restaurant. Sometimes, if there were a lot of customers around to bitch about the boys, they were kicked out, but sometimes, if they were the only ones there or they knew the customers wouldn't bitch, they'd just let Toki and his friends do whatever. So they went on doing whatever, Toki shuffling French fries back into the carton and Murderface going on about things that nobody could understand through his lisp.
"Dude," Nathan said, "and you say Toki talks weird." He shook his head.
Pickles was laughing hard, head down and fist banging the table. Toki finally collected all of the French fries and stood. Nathan had the sense to tell him that he probably shouldn't eat them and Toki, trusting Nathan, threw them away in the nearby trash can. He straightened his clothes and his hair out, brushing filth from his pants and fixing his precious over-the-shoulder hairstyle, before maneuvering around a slowly quieting Murderface and sliding himself into the booth again.
Toki took another carton of French fries from the mound of food in the middle of the table, which was diminishing at a depressingly fast rate, and grabbed a fistful to shove in his mouth. Murderface reached a state of calm and sat back in the booth, though at an angle and distance away from Toki, and returned to his own food, still red in the face. Pickles noticed the lack of commotion and raised his head. There were tear stains running the length of his face, he'd been crying so hard, and the part of the table where his head had been was damp. He wiped away the moisture with a napkin, both on his and the table's face, that he then crumpled up and threw behind him. It landed on the ground.
"Ah, man," Pickles said, a hint of a wheeze to his voice.
They ate in silence for a few minutes, everybody enjoying their food and seemingly in competition as to who would eat the most, though it was obvious the winner would be either Nathan or Murderface. Toki had to pause after his fourth milkshake, feeling a little fuzzy around the edges and sort of lightheaded. The problem fixed itself when he made his way through a cheeseburger but after that he was finished, feeling full and, as he often did after large meals, sleepy. He rested his head on the booth beside him and had almost fallen asleep when he heard the conversation turn to something that he was quite interested in talking about: his boyfriend.
"Toki, how long have you been dating Skwisgaar?" This was Pickles. Toki snapped his head forward and opened his eyes to see Pickles looking serious, his fingers interlocked on the table in front of him. Combined with his scraggly attempt at a goatee, Pickles looked like a mafia boss from a cheap knock-off of the Godfather or maybe a corporate boss from a film where he'd end up with his ass kicked by the female worker he'd been sexually harassing.
"What's today's date?" Toki asked in response, resting an elbow on the table and inserting his cheek into the palm of his hand. With his other hand he twirled a strand of his hair around.
"The twenty-eighth," Pickles said.
"Wells," Toki began, all the while twirling his hair around his hand, "almost a month, den. I says our anniversary ams de thirty-first, 'cause it was aftermidnights, but Skwisgaar says it ams de thirtieth, because dat's when our date was and dat's when he had de intention to ask me outs."
"Okay, seriously, why the fuck are you talking like that?" Nathan said. He'd been content in his corner with his food, but now he became interested in the conversation, eyes on Toki as he pushed around empty fast food cartons on the table.
"Yeah," Pickles said, eyebrows narrowing. He sucked his cheek in. "You're talking like-Skwisgaar! Like your boyfriend!" His face lit up like he came to a realization and he jumped in his seat.
"Didn't you use to talk thisch way when you firscht moved from Norway?" was Murderface's weary contribution.
Toki began to feel claustrophobic, like all of his friends were closing in on him, and he shrank in his seat, sliding down and against it. He really hadn't noticed the lingual slippage he'd been prone to lately, especially not when stoned or around Skwisgaar. He thought for a few seconds that he was going to burst into tears, then dismissed that as ridiculous and probably a side effect of his high.
"Well?" Pickles said, asking for an answer to a question that none of them had really pinpointed. He hadn't taken his hands out of their interlocked state and flexed them upwards as he spoke. "What do you have to say for yourself?"
Toki ran a hand through his hair and used the other to push off his seat and return him to a normal sitting position. He smiled, sheepish, and concentrated on using the correct English in his reply. "I hadn't really noticed," he said, and he it said it slow, but he said it correctly.
"It's weird that Skwisgaar has, like, the same English thing as you do," Nathan said. He paused in pushing around wrappers and cartons after discovering a forgotten handful of fries and dipped them in barbecue sauce before eating them.
"Maybe it'sch schome gay Schcandinavian thing," Murderface suggested.
"I didn't know you knew what Scandinavia was," Pickles said, and he turned his attention towards Murderface. Toki felt relief at that and expressed it with a sigh that went unnoticed in his friends.
"I'm not a retard," Murderface said. Pickles seemed to consider this, finally taking his hands out from each other and stroking his chin. "I know schtuff! Eschpeschially, like, hischtory schtuff! Schandinavia hasch really brutal hischtory. The World Warsch! Vikingsch! It'sch a wonder how Toki ended up so unmetal."
Murderface waved his hands around in the air while he ranted. Toki, engaged by the mentioning of his precious homeland, surged with anger at being called unmetal and grabbed one of Murderface's wrists between his thumb and index finger at it went flying through the air. between their heads Murderface's wrist was as girthy as the rest of him but Toki's fingers were strong and he pinned it between them with ease, bringing Murderface's hand slamming into the table. Murderface yelped and then swallowed, turning to look at Toki; Toki stared him down, eyes narrowed. "Don't you ever fucking call me unmetal," Toki said. He released Murderface's hand and put his own in his lap, a smile returning to his face.
Nathan and Pickles were unsurprised by Toki's actions, Pickles's lips drawn up into an amused and satisfied curve, Nathan leaning against the window, bored. They'd seen Toki act in violence before and the situation in front of them wasn't even that interesting or great of a display. Toki hadn't meant for it to be.
"Well," Murderface said. He seemed a little shaken and was rubbing at his hand. Toki snorted; he hadn't even handled Murderface that hard, and could've done a lot worse if he meant it. "I think it might be time for usch to go."
The only things left in the middle of the table were scraps, half-eaten hamburgers and cartons with the inedibly charred French fries poking out, things they'd bought but hadn't actually wanted. They exchanged nods with each other in agreement to Murderface's suggestion and removed themselves from the table. On the way in they'd been bustling with energy, knocking against each other and eager for the food; on the way out they were sluggish and moved slow, heavy food in their stomachs lugging them down. Toki felt three steps from sleep and dozed off in Nathan's truck, cheek against the window and knees having fallen open to the sides, too lethargic to even sit with a semblance of decency. He was not the only one; Murderface snored, waking Toki up every few minutes with his horrible nasal sounds, but even Pickles was unable to withdraw Murderface from his food coma with that fingernail trick he was prone to using. Pickles sighed and turned around. Toki might've dreamed it during his nap, or imagined it in the seconds between waking up and returning to sleep, but he thought he saw Nathan's arm around Pickles's seat.
Pickles was able to wake Toki up long enough to exit Nathan's truck when they were at his house. It was getting dark outside, the sun nowhere to be seen and everything tinged a bluish gray but not black, and Toki rubbed at his eyes while he walked up the pathway to his porch. He watched Nathan's truck grow smaller and then disappear down the street before opening his door. He took his shoes off and carried them to his room, where he somehow had the sense of mind to set them down noiselessly, remove his clothes, fold them in the laundry bin, turn off the light and shut his door before passing out again. He slept the rest of his high and whatever ill side effects he might've suffered from an indulgence in fast food off and awoke later the next day than he had all break, sometime around nine-thirty in the morning. He woke up feeling confused, certain that he'd dreamed the whole experience. It took seeing his battered old Converse at the foot of his bed to convince him that it had actually happened and when he was convinced, he smiled.
Nothing interesting happened on Friday or the majority of Saturday. His father returned from his religious excursion late Saturday evening. The first thing he did was check Toki's chore progress but he was unable to find a fault. Toki expected this to be a good thing, but his father seemed upset by this, and granted Toki two sentences about his lack of godliness and whatever other contrived bullshit he believed to be plaguing Toki. Toki endured it-his father could make two sentences into five minutes of torture-and retired to his room for the night feeling grateful that his father hadn't expressed his dissatisfaction via more corporal means. He fell into an easy sleep that night, laying on his side with a knee drawn up and an arm wrapped underneath his pillow.
Toki often slept through the nights, plentiful and refreshing deep sleep, with dreams that he couldn't remember in the morning. He had figured this to be a result of his constant physical exercise, which he had heard resulted in good nights' rest. Combined with the fact that he was a teenager, he never found it hard to sleep and sleep for upwards of eleven uninterrupted hours every night. Thus, when something hitting his window woke him up in the middle of the night he was alarmed, but alert. He removed himself from his bed with caution, padding to the window from a safe distance and peering out into the darkness.
He jumped, a hand fleeing to cover his mouth and mask his exclamation of surprise, when he saw a face in the window.
He calmed only the slightest amount when he realized he recognized the face. Skwisgaar Skwigelf had a way of standing out in a featureless black landscape, probably because of the general lightness of his feature, pale skin glowing in the moonlight and blond hair turned almost transparent. He tapped against the glass again and mouthed something that Toki couldn't read; Toki sighed. Before he did anything he slipped on the shirt he'd been wearing the night before, a plain white t-shirt that came in packs from a department store, and stuffed some more underneath his door to block out the light he turned on in case his parents decided to come downstairs and wander past his doorway. He then turned on the light, flipping the switch and watching the yellowish-orange imitation of daylight spill across his furniture and floor. Once properly prepared to let Skwisgaar into his room he actually did it, lifting the window open and moving back to give Skwisgaar some room. He offered his arm for Skwisgaar to support himself as he slid through the window but Skwisgaar didn't take it until he was fully into the room, at which point he yanked Toki towards him and buried his head in Toki's hair, wrapping his arms low on Toki's waist.
Toki pulled back soon after Skwisgaar did that, giving him an incredulous look. "What the hell?" He hissed, but its dramatic impact was lessened by the fact that he had to whisper.
"It ams de thirtiest," Skwisgaar explained. He wasn't looking at Toki but around his room, surveying Toki's dwellings. There wasn't much for him to look at and Toki didn't feel embarrassed or anything. "Dis ams your room? It ams so...depressingks." He spoke at his normal volume, which was sort of loud for a human being anyway, and Toki reached up to put a hand on his mouth to muffle his speech.
"Be quiet!" He whisper-hissed again. He could feel the muscles of Skwisgaar's face moving and saw a smile reach his eyes. Skwisgaar licked Toki's hand, moving his tongue in a slow, deliberate fashion, and Toki felt blood surging both northward and southward. Toki took his hand away at once. "What ams you doing here?" He asked, no longer hissing but still speaking quietly.
Skwisgaar stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Toki again, this time keeping a distance so they could look at each other while they talked. "It ams our anniesvarsity," he said.
Toki wanted to be mad at him, he did, but the endearing mispronunciation of anniversary and the way Skwisgaar was looking at him was making it very hard to. "It's not our anniversary," he said. He counted the days since Thursday, dinner with his friends, the twenty-eighth, and then looked at the clock he had in his room, confirming that it was still before midnight. "It's the thirtieth. And November doesn't have a thirty-first."
"Silly Tokis," Skwisgaar said. He withdrew a hand and bopped Toki on the nose, which is something Toki knew Skwisgaar wouldn't be caught dead doing in public, once again making it hard for Toki to be mad at him. "Our anniesvarsity is de thirtieth."
Toki sighed and put both hands on Skwisgaar's chest, freeing himself of his grip as gently as he could. He walked to the bed and sat down, indicating in what he thought was a coy manner for Skwisgaar to join him. Skwisgaar, always eager to be on a bed with a romantic partner, joined Toki, and put an arm around him.
"We ams not goingks to be one of dos ecouples dat ams sappy about anniesvarsities," Skwisgaar said, tilting Toki's chin up with a single finger to ensure he looks him in the eyes, "but dis ams an important one. For mes."
"Why?" Toki asked. "It's only a month. Not even really a month, since our anniversary is the thirty-first, even."
"Dis ams de longest relationships I ams ever beingks in," Skwisgaar said.
"Really?" Toki said. He was surprised at that, for such the sexual being Skwisgaar was.
He was even more surprised to see Skwisgaar avert his eyes, lips turning down just the slightest bit. "If I ams goingks to be honest," he began, speaking more to the floor than to Toki, "dis is de only real relationships I have been in." Toki found this endearing and took ahold of Skwisgaar's face, bringing it back so that he could kiss him for the first time of the night. Toki continued to be surprised as Skwisgaar broke the kiss off-Skwisgaar didn't tend to do that until at least five minutes had passed. "I mights-ugh-I has somethingk for yous," Skwisgaar said. His lip curled like he was appalled at himself.
"Really?" Toki said again, eyes widening and face brightening. He liked gifts. His face fell when he realized that he didn't have anything to give back to Skwisgaar, but before he could tell him this Skwisgaar had produced a package from the pockets of his jeans and placed it in Toki's hands.
Toki looked down at the thing in his hands. It was an unwrapped and unopened plastic sheath containing a shitty pre-bought cell phone that looked like it cost twenty bucks from a department store. To Toki, it was the best thing in the world, and he put it on the bed as he went to kiss Skwisgaar again. This kiss lasted longer but was still quite chaste and, again, Skwisgaar broke it off. This was beginning to frustrate Toki. He wasn't used to being cockblocked by his own boyfriend.
"It ams gettingks old to talks to yous friends all de time," Skwisgaar said. "Not dat I ams not likingks dem," he added when he noticed Toki's distressed face. "But now we ams ables to talk on de phone and makes plans and what has you." He seemed torn between self-satisfaction, trying to appear haughty, and disbelief and disgust at himself for actually doing something nice, and the result was a cute, socially stunted face.
"I loves it," Toki said into Skwisgaar's ear, a hand on his thigh. He drew back as Skwisgaar went to neck him, thinking that was the end of their conversation on the matter. It was his turn to be a tease. "I don't have anything for yous, though." He furrowed his brow in sincere frustration. He liked giving-though he did also enjoy receiving-and didn't much appreciate the awkward situation of being given a gift when he didn't have one to give in return.
Skwisgaar only shrugged. "I really do not cares," he said. "I prefers dat, actually." Toki studied his expression and deemed it neutral enough to conclude that Skwisgaar really did not care. There were a few seconds of silence in which Skwisgaar leaned down to kiss Toki, drawing a leg up on the bed and moving towards the other boy, but Toki leaned back, smiling.
"It was so nice of you to get me something," Toki said. It was, but he was really just trying to get Skwisgaar riled up. He found that if they spent more time bantering than sweet-talking, their make-out sessions would be ultimately more rewarding, and it was fun to poke and prod at Skwisgaar. For all he claimed to be, carried himself to be, and built himself up to be, Toki could break him down and get him rather ruffled
"Well, you do acts like a lady, and de ladies always like de gifts," Skwisgaar said. He leaned into Toki so that he was noticeably leaning forward and Toki noticeably leaning back, making an angle of their spines to the bed.
"I think you am de ladies," Toki said. He leaned in so that their bodies pressed together but his forehead rested on Skwisgaar's shoulder and he was speaking to his collarbones. "Remembering when de anniesvarsity is."
Skwisgaar didn't bother responding to that, just put both hands on Toki's shoulder and moved him down into the mattress. Toki reminded him to be quiet as they shifted their bodies into something more comfortable, Skwisgaar leaning against the wall behind Toki's bed-he didn't have a headboard-and Toki sitting in front of him. They'd been doing this for long enough that any awkwardness, if there had been awkwardness in the beginning, had disappeared. Toki leaned down into Skwisgaar and connected their mouths, putting both hands flat against his chest but keeping their lower halves apart in a taunting amount of distance. They wasted no times in moving their tongues into each other's mouths, rubbing them against each other and licking across the other's teeth. Skwisgaar tasted like he always did, mint that had gone a bit stale during the course of the day, and Toki was certain that his mouth probably tasted like shit even if he had brushed his teeth before going to bed, but Skwisgaar certainly didn't seem to mind. Skwisgaar's hands were on Toki's hips in such an arousingly casual way, his thumbs hooked into the waistband of Toki's flannel pajama pants, like they belonged there. Toki bought himself closer at the same time Skwisgaar pulled, like they'd both come to that realization simultaneously.
Toki wrapped his fingers in Skwisgaar's hair and tugged, whining the quietest he could make his whine into Skwisgaar's mouth, and Skwisgaar responded by taking his mouth from Toki's and placing it on the place where his neck and shoulder met, instead. He moved the neckline of Toki's shirt, which was already too big and slipping anyway, down, and started to lap at his skin, getting it slick before nibbling and then, finally, sucking. Toki mirrored his action but higher on Skwisgaar's neck, somewhere just below and behind his ear, to stop himself from making any noise that would attract his parents. Though the worry remained in his mind he did the best he could to push his parents out of his mind at this particular moment in time. Toki wrapped a hand around Skwisgaar's shoulder-he was wearing a wifebeater, so Toki slipped his thumb beneath the thin piece of fabric and rubbed-and bit his neck.
They continued at this pace, adjusting hands to rub and feel at various parts, mouths working on each other's faces and torsos, until Toki had ended up on his back with Skwisgaar above him, supporting himself with a hand on either side of Toki's head. They were both hard by now and Toki wasn't sure what was going to happen, their hips quirking against each other's in search of friction. It was past midnight and he'd yet to be caught and had come to the conclusion that unless one of them screamed he wasn't going to be, which was sort of liberating, and definitely information useful to the future. Skwisgaar had lost his wifebeater at some point, now located somewhere on the floor to the right of Toki's bed, and Toki's own shirt was pushed up to expose his stomach and the beginning of what would become a good set of abs, though he never removed his shirt. (He wanted to have the conversation about the scars at a time when they weren't making out, and a good time had yet to present itself. He wasn't avoiding it so much as he was putting it off). He wasn't about to protest when Skwisgaar's hand lowered between them, a single finger pulling at the band of Toki's pajama pants.
Skwisgaar withdrew his face from Toki's, asking him the silent question, and Toki craned his head up so he could provide an adequate nod. His dick somehow seemed to harden even beyond its current point, which was pretty goddamn hard and visibly leaking precum into his pajama pants-Toki didn't wear underwear when he sleep-at the prospect of actually getting some relief. It would be the first time. They readjusted themselves so they could be comfortable, Skwisgaar laying beside Toki on his side while Toki remained on his back, Skwisgaar leaning up. Toki looked at him like this, his legs curled up because they were too long for Toki's bed, and thought that he looked so great like this, that this was the best thing ever, as began to knead Toki through his pajama pants. Toki closed his eyes at that moment, too overcome with sensation, his hips already beginning to buckle. Skwisgaar stopped rubbing then and Toki cracked his eyes open, watching Skwisgaar's face so intent on what he was doing as he snuck his hand inside of Toki's pants, and then Toki's eyes were closed again, his hands grabbing fistfuls of his sheets, because somebody's hands were on his dick and they weren't his own and holy shit it felt good.
He'd expected Skwisgaar's hands to be cold for some reason but they weren't, they were as warm as the rest of him as he wrapped his long fingers around the base of Toki's cock and gave a quick, almost experimental, stroke. Toki opened his mouth, prepared to cry out, and Skwisgaar seemed to sense this, as he immediately stuck three of the fingers from the hand he wasn't using to jack Toki off into Toki's mouth. Toki didn't know what to make of that-his first instinct was to suck, but he was having a hard time making any part of his body that wasn't his hips move-so Skwisgaar removed his fingers from Toki's mouth, drew them around Toki's lips, smearing his own saliva around his mouth, and then put his palm over Toki's mouth to keep him quiet. Toki went back to focusing on Skwisgaar's hand on his dick, working up and down at a steady pace, long and strong guitar player's hands, God, he didn't have thoughts for this. Any coherent thought was long gone, replaced by acting on primal instinct in response to stimuli, and a foreign hand on his cock was the single most stimulating thing Toki had ever felt. Skwisgaar took his hand from his mouth to roll Toki's pajama pants down his hips, exposing his cock to the light of day. Toki didn't bother looking, keeping his eyes squeezed shut. He knew what his own dick looked like. He only made a noise of indignation, begging Skwisgaar to replace his hands, and Skwisgaar did.
Skwisgaar put his fingers back in Toki's mouth, only two this time, and Toki played with them with his tongue while Skwisgaar continued to stroke up and down. He stopped doing that near the top, and Toki was about to whine in protest, until he realized that Skwisgaar was rubbing his thumb around the head while moving his hand up and down in shorter spurts, and Toki wasn't about to protest that feeling at all. He snapped his hips upward, fucking Skwisgaar's hand again and again, until Skwisgaar got the message to go back to working the entire shaft. Within seconds of the combination of moving his own hips and Skwisgaar's increased rapidity Toki was cumming and for this his eyes bolted open, fingers grasping his sheets so hard that one fitted corner popped off his bed, his head tilting back and Skwisgaar's fingers shifting from being inside his mouth to covering it to suppress the groan that Toki could not.
Everything quieted, the flashes of lights that Toki saw when he came dulling, and Toki looked to see Skwisgaar's knuckles coated with Toki's cum and Skwisgaar looking at Toki from his position beside him. Skwisgaar looked smug, of course, but he almost leaned into Toki and kissed him, licking around his lips, in almost a fond gesture.
"You likes dat, ja?" Skwisgaar said. He withdrew his hand from where it had been resting against the crevice of Toki's thigh and put it into his back pocket, apparently wiping the cum off there. It was gross but kind of hot, Toki guessed. Definitely grunge. Toki was glad to have not gotten any cum on his pants or sheets-the majority of it seemed to still be on him or now in Skwisgaar's back pocket. Remembering that his pants were still a thing, he pulled them up.
Toki nodded in response to Skwisgaar's question when he remembered he asked one and bit his lip.
"I wishes I could says I remembers my first handjob," Skwisgaar said, still looking at Toki, "but I ams not ables to." Skwisgaar had the hand that had been in Toki's mouth on his chest, finger absently drawing a circle around one of Toki's nipples.
Toki eyed the bulge in Skwisgaar's jeans, which looked almost painful, and blurted, "Can I does you?"
To this Skwisgaar quirked an eyebrow and stopped drawing circles on Toki's chest, laying his hand flat. The others was resting on his own hip, the tips of his fingers still in his pocket. "Ams you ready to?"
Toki only looked at him, subtly implying that his boyfriend was an idiot with the way he drew his eyebrows.
"Of course you ams," Skwisgaar said. He took his hands from Toki and himself, rolling onto his back and putting his arms behind his head. This was apparently the signal for Toki to start.
Toki spent more time palming at Skwisgaar through his jeans, teasing, making a big deal of unbuttoning them, going back to palming, zipping them down just a tad, twisting, zipping a bit more, drumming his fingers lightly against the tip of the bulge, zipping again, squeezing hard. He was almost making a game of it, trying to elicit a response from Skwisgaar, who had his mouth open and eyes closed, seemingly experiencing pleasure but not voicing it. Toki yanked Skwisgaar's jeans and boxers down with force as opposed to the gentle way the other boy had rolled his own down and employed two hands in jerking Skwisgaar off, one to move up and down the shaft and the other to, at first, rattle his balls a bit. This, Skwisgaar seemed to enjoy in such a manner that called for vocal response, groaning just a bit in the back of his throat. Toki stopped stroking and squeezed, reminding Skwisgaar not to make noise, then went back to the task at hand. He moved his other finger from Skwisgaar's balls to the tip, smearing precum about while still using the other to move up and down. Skwisgaar thrashed his head to the side and slammed his mouth shut, hips beginning to buckle, and Toki took that hand away, using his right to move faster and faster until Skwisgaar came. It was weird watching somebody else cum in real life and Toki took the opportunity to fully take in Skwisgaar's dick: longer than his own but thinner, circumcised like his, generally an attractive specimen. It fit Skwisgaar, Toki thought, as he flounced on the bed beside him. He looked at his hand, covered in Skwisgaar's cum-he came less than Toki, and it was a few shades darker, which was sort of interesting-then at Skwisgaar himself.
"You're not going to leave now, are you?" Toki asked, voice small.
"Noes, of course not," Skwisgaar said, and he smiled. They were both on their backs, long hair splayed behind them in a sweaty mess, heads turned towards each other and looking at each other. Skwisgaar reached a hand out and stroked the outline of Toki's cheekbones, then realized that Toki's own hand was suspended between them, covered in semen. He let Toki wipe it off on Skwisgaar's jeans; Skwisgaar took the opportunity to pull them back up but left them unbuttoned and unzipped.
They were both spent, emotionally and physically, and so they laid on their backs on Toki's bed with their hair hanging off the mattress behind them and heels on their feet resting on the wall because they were too tall to stretch out, hands held between them. The room smelled like semen, but Skwisgaar said that would fade through the night. It was only one in the morning. It was weird to be up so late in his own house, artificial light contrasting against the starless blackness visible through the window outside, somebody else in his bed. The entire situation was weird if Toki put enough thought into it, but it was weird in such a wonderful way, a way he could get used to.
"How did you find my house?" Toki asked. The question had occurred to him when Skwisgaar had first come through the window, but he hadn't really had a chance to ask it until now.
"Yous friend Nathan," Skwisgaar said. He squeezed Toki's hand. "I talks to him sometimes. He ams a pretty cool guy."
"Yeah," Toki said, not sure why they were talking about Nathan of all things. He looked at Skwisgaar, who looked at him, and they smiled before returning their heads to the more comfortable position of looking straight up.
"I think he ams de only one of yous friends dat actuallies likes me," Skwisgaar said. Toki started to rub Skwisgaar's hand with his thumb, though Skwisgaar didn't seem affected by Toki's friends' lack of fondness for him. Toki thought they would warm up eventually, that they were always mistrustful and judgemental towards new people at first.
"I wish I could disagrees with yous," Toki said, and they both laughed, but it was quiet laughter with not a lot of gusto behind it.
"I wish I could stays here and sleeps with you-actuallies sleep," Skwisgaar said, hurrying to clarify himself. He sounded tired, voice a bit lower and more rumbling than usual, and Toki knew that that alone was more emotion than Skwisgaar spared in a normal day. Toki stopped rubbing his hand and gave Skwisgaar's an appreciative squeeze. Toki's other hand was on his stomach, covered again by his shirt, and Skwisgaar's was on his chest, still bare. Skwisgaar had no muscle definition but wasn't a skeleton; a fine body, Toki thought.
"Yeah," Toki said. "Me too." He let his eyes ease closed, let the muscles in his face relax.
"Yous parents musts be pretty cuckoos."
"They are," Toki said, and he signed, a long, deep sigh. He thought of bringing the scars up then, explaining everything, but it was late and he was tired. He barely had the energy to keep his eyes open, much less get into all of that.
Toki heard movement and cracked his eyes open just the slightest; Skwisgaar let go of Toki's hand and propped himself up on his elbow, placing a hand on Toki's stomach. He leaned into him and kissed him, but it was a soft kiss, not a hard one. "You has a nice O face," he said to Toki, and by the tone of his voice and the sincerity of his expression, Toki knew it to be true.
"You moved your head to the side," Toki said. He let his eyes open fully to watch Skwisgaar raise his eyebrows at him. Toki shrugged.
Skwisgaar laid back down on his back, but jumped a bit when his thigh seemed to hit something. He pulled whatever it was out from underneath him-the phone he'd given Toki, encased in plastic. "So dat ams what happened to dat," he said, handing it to Toki.
"We should sees what my new number ams," Toki said. He went to pull the plastic apart and failed, hands worn out. "Or not."
"Worry about it laters," Skwisgaar said, swatting his hand at the phone.
"Okays," Toki said, and he set it down by his bed. He'd put it underneath when Skwisgaar left, but he didn't want to think about Skwisgaar leaving at the moment. They rejoined their hands between them and moved closer so they could rest their heads together. They couldn't fall asleep and they knew that, but it was nice to pretend that they could for a little bit.
"Toki, you cant's falls asleep." Skwisgaar moved their entwined hands to nudge at Toki's hip, rolling more towards his side. Toki didn't open his eyes and Skwisgaar used his other hand to do that for him, keeping Toki's lids up with his thumb on one eye and his middle finger on the other.
"Okays." Toki tried to blink and couldn't, which made Skwisgaar smile a little bit. He moved Skwisgaar's hand away and vowed to keep his eyes open himself.
"Let's talks about somethingks," Skwisgaar said. He moved his thumb across Toki's face and down his jaw line, tracing Toki's finer features, and hooked a finger on his bottom lip just to do it. Toki did the best he could to give Skwisgaar a what the fuck expression.
"What did you do for Thanksgiving?" Toki spoke with Skwisgaar's finger hooked in his mouth, talking about the first subject that came to mind. Toki himself never did anything for Thanksgiving but he had this year, so it was fresh on his brain.
"Mark made us has a 'tranditional' Thanksgivingks. He cooked." Skwisgaar crinkled his nose. "Mark can'ts cook good.." He took his hand away from Toki's face and let it rest on his chest again.
"You knows, I do nots give a single fucks about Thanksgiving," Toki said. They held eye contact for a few seconds then burst out laughing,
"Me either," Skwisgaar said as the laughter died. He went back to stroking Toki's face.
They enjoyed each other's company for another half an hour, just lolling about and tracing patterns on the other's skin, before they made the decision that Skwisgaar had to go. Toki was tired and yearning to go back to sleep, but he pushed the phone underneath his bed and handed Skwisgaar his wifebeater with sadness written all over his face. Skwisgaar frowned in response, still holding his shirt in his arms, kissed him between his creased eyebrows. He slipped his shirt on and uttered a goodbye as he went out the window; Toki shut it as gently and as quietly as he could and watched Skwisgaar's pale figure disappear into the undefined darkness of the night. He wanted to give the events of the night decent thought, sort out feelings about what had happened, but he was tired, and all he could do was fix his sheets, retrieve his blanket from the floor, curl beneath it, and think about how weird and wonderful everything had been.