I'm not nearly as fond of this chapter as I was of the last two ones, wah, whatever. Don't expect two updates in one month again, but I myself was distressed after that cliffhanger and had to get through it, you know? I will be taking a bit of a break from this story to focus on my big bang fics, sorry! It won't be drastic, I promise. Most of my favorite parts of this chapter involve Pickles, hmm. I wonder if you guys will feel the same way I do.
He had pushed too hard. He was greedy, selfish. He had taken the little that his parents had given him and asked for a lot; he had disregarded their boundaries, travelled far out of them. He had fucked up and now he had to pay the consequences. In addition to the grounding the Bible was forced on him once more, his father setting the air to a low temperature and stripping Toki naked, sitting him at the kitchen table and placing the book, written in Norwegian, in his hands. He asked Toki to read passages out loud, to give him answers, to provide him with commentary. If Toki stumbled over the text his father would slap the back of his hands with a ruler; if Toki said something to his father's distaste he would be belted; if Toki answered a question wrong he would receive a lash to the back with the whip. He did this for two hours a day in addition to his regular chores, as well as anything else his mother and father came up for him to do. One day it was to stand holding a box filled with rocks for an hour; another day it was to rearrange the living room and then put it back exactly as it was, which he failed at and received further punishment for.
Toki was raw, physically and mentally. He hurt, everywhere, all the time, and he was back to stewing inside of himself. He was unable to communicate with Skwisgaar, having made the decision to hand over his phone to Pickles while he was grounded, instructing Pickles to inform Skwisgaar of the grounding and instruct him not to visit him. His friends were as sympathetic as they could be, which was barely sympathetic at all. It wasn't their fault that they were ignorant to Toki's condition, and maybe they would've been a little better if they knew, but Toki was not about to tell them. He hid the physical evidence of his parents' discipline with clothing appropriate to the weather, wore fingerless gloves like he sometimes did anyway to hide the back of his hands.
His exam results, and thus his semester grades were in. He had gotten straight D's on his first four exams, bogging his semester grade down to C's in those classes, a B in German (and thus a B for the semester), a C in World History (another semester C), an A in Home Ec (with a B for the semester), which was a little worse than he normally did. His parents had no way of checking his grades—they didn't even care about his grades, those hypocrites. They only added another weight to Toki's shoulders. Toki considered himself a happy person, but the longer this punishment went on, the unhappier he became. Anger flared up first, hot and blinding, then dimmed into a depression that hollowed out into a numbness. After almost two weeks it got to the point where his friends noticed.
"Dude, Toki, you okay?" Pickles asked as they walked from their math class to lunch. Toki's hands, shoved into the pockets of his jeans, ached, his back stinging. He'd been biting his lip and the knuckles of his fingers all day to distract himself from the pain.
Toki shrugged. "Am just a little bummed about bein' grounded," he said,
Pickles scrunched his eyebrows up. "Skwisgaar's really concerned about you, you know," he said, speaking slowly, tentatively. "Askin' about you and stuff. And you've been kind of quiet. I know it's gay to be worried—"
"Is not gay to worry about your friends," Toki mumbled. Something about that pissed him off, more than it usually would. "Is gay to suck cock, Pickles."
"Whoa, okay." Pickles put his hands up and stopped walking. Toki took a few more steps before realizing that Pickles had stopped and turned around to look at him. Toki stood hunched, his hair hanging, and scowled. "C'mon, Toki, cheer up. It's depressing to hang out with someone who's unhappy, alright? You aren't going to be grounded forever."
"I might be," Toki said. To Pickles this might've sounded melodramatic, but it was an idea Toki could see becoming a reality with ease. "Ain't nothing you can do, Pickles. Come on, let's go lunch, am hungry." He stood up straight and let a smile pass over his face. Pickles sighed but resumed walking beside Toki, changing the conversation into something about what his other friends had done last weekend when they were tweaking. Toki didn't pay attention, too distracted by his own distress.
The next day was a Friday. Sourness twisted inside of Toki's stomach at the thought of spending another weekend alone in the house with his parents. The last two had been tortuous, chores from sun-up to sun-down, sitting through all the sermons in church, extra punishments and assignments set on top of his shoulders. Even Rockzo, who usually cheered Toki up with his colorful appearance and personality, was irritating him as he sat in Chemistry. Nathan and Pickles were late, that Emmy chick was making eyes at him, Rockzo was babbling on, and Toki was done, so done. He groaned and dropped his head to the desk, thought about bashing it in until his brain bled from his broken skull.
He sat up when he felt something poke into his side and was immediately blinded by something being shoved into his face. Whatever it was dropped into his lap and he saw Nathan taking his seat in front of him, Pickles still absent. Toki took the thing from his lap and saw that it was a sweater, an oversized cable-knit black sweater with the tag still in. He straightened it out on the desk and found a note stuck between the folds, a piece of what looked to be sheet music covered in handwriting he didn't recognize. He read the note and bit back both a smile and tears, a mix of intense forlornness and intense felicity surging forth inside of him. Dis ams old swetters frum Sweden. Shuld fits yoo. Needed git rids ovs it. Ta hand om dig själv. All min kärlek, Skwisgaar. Toki didn't recognize kärlek, though he had an idea of what it meant.
Toki slid the sweater over the long-sleeved shirt he was already wearing. It did fit, as Skwisgaar liked to wear his clothes baggy, and it smelled like him, honeysuckle shampoo and that scent that was indigenous to only Skwisgaar's skin. He folded the note and put it into his pocket, thinking that he might start a scrapbook, somehow. Wearing the sweater cheered him up—it felt like being hugged, and the note that Skwisgaar had included with it gave him an idea.
"Hey, Nathan," he said, leaning forward to tap Nathan on the shoulder. Nathan turned around and grunted in response. "Did Skwisgaar have you give this to me?"
"Yeah," Nathan said. "You guys are such fuckin' fags."
Toki beamed. "I know," he said, sitting back into his chair. "When did you see him?"
"Yesterday. He met me after school and, like, gave it to me. Then he left. I don't know." Nathan sighed; the bell started to ring.
"Oh, okay," Toki said. He stuck his tongue between his lips and considered the idea. "So, can you do me a favor?" he asked, approximating his face into the best puppy dog look he could manage.
"What?" Nathan asked. The bell finished ringing and the door to their classroom opened, Pickles stumbling in, Nathan watching.
"Tell you at lunch," Toki said. Nathan grunted in response and pulled Pickles's chair out for him, as Pickles appeared to be intoxicated and was swaying on his feet.
Toki spent all of Chemistry and the better part of English working on the letter he'd decided to write to Skwisgaar. He wrote in English, slipping some untranslatable Norwegian phrases in, and instructed Skwisgaar to please write in Swedish in any future correspondences. The gist of his letter was that he missed Skwisgaar, it sucked to be grounded, his parents were mean, his friends sucked when it came to this, and he really, really missed Skwisgaar. 3D Art gave him the idea to include some drawings and so he went back through his letter, illustrating the main points with doodles in the margins, and included a depiction of them laying in the grass together that covered an entire page. He folded the papers together four times and wrote Skwisgaar's name across what he guessed to be the front, decorating every side with hearts and music notes and anything else he could think of.
Pickles started laughing and banging his fists on the table when he saw the letter as Toki handed it over to Nathan. Nathan regarded the thing with disgust, holding it between two fingers and putting it into his front pocket, his lip curled. Murderface didn't seem to notice, preoccupied with his food and his cell phone, chewing loudly.
"I really appreciate this, Nathan," Toki said. He hoped that, by expressing that, Nathan would be more inclined, or at least feel more pressured, to get the letter to Skwisgaar faster. Though it was an ancient and archaic way of communication it was effective, and Toki was itching to hear back from his boyfriend. His sex drive had disappeared in light of his punishment and the pain he felt because of it, but the combination of even those short sentences and the sweater encasing Toki and flooding him with Skwisgaar's scent every time he moved his upper body was doing things to his dick. He was horny, lonely and sad and the letter residing in Nathan's possession could help to lessen at least one of those things.
The rest of the day passed by much more quickly than Toki would've liked for it to. He took the bus home to delay the inevitable, dreading a weekend of chores and punishment with every inch of his being. His toes curled, his forehead wrinkled, his fists tightened, and not even the sweater he wore helped. He took it off and stuffed it in his backpack before entering the house, certain that if his parents found it they would somehow destroy it, and Toki couldn't bear the idea. He got to work on his chores immediately and waited for his father to return from the church for their Bible Study, his mother hovering around the stove as usual. They hadn't started restricting Toki's food intake yet but he was afraid that they would if he fucked up too badly—they did that sometimes in Norway, nights without dinners and mornings without breakfasts, days of labor in between.
After his session with his father, his back and his hands stinging with pain on the surface of his cold skin, he snuck into the shower. He stood with his forehead pressed into the tile of his bathroom wall, his back angled away from the stream of water. With the door and the windows shut and the shower curtain snug against the wall he let the steam and the heat build up and warm him, let himself cry tears of pain and frustration. He would've curled his hands into fists and beat them against the wall if it didn't hurt to flex the skin on the back of them. Instead he let the negativity, along with blood from recent wounds, leak from his body and slither through the shower drain. He knew that the next night he'd be in the same position, doing the same things, but for now he let a pleasant numbness overtake him. He got out of the shower and dried off, went back to his room so that he could dress in three layers of clothing and fall asleep underneath a thin sheet, alone.
ne.
d off, went back to his room so that he could dress in three layers of clothing and fall asleep underneath a thin sheet, alo Saturday passed by much the same. Toki went through the motions of chores, followed by being strapped to a chair in the shed, his face covered with a cloth and freezing water dumped over his head. Afterwards was more Bible Study extending late into the evening, Toki trying not to shiver in fear of further punishment though he was so, so cold. His mother served them dinner, Toki's portion of the most unappetizing soup he'd ever seen served cold. He tried to warm himself up after dinner by spending forty-five minutes in a scalding shower and largely failed, resorted to pulling Skwisgaar's sweater over three other shirts and crawling into bed. He didn't care about the possibility of further punishment—for shivering, for showering, for the sweater—he just needed the comfort, the smell, and he wrapped his arms around himself and slept.
In the morning he woke to his mother shaking his shoulder. She stared at Toki's sweater but regarded it with passivity otherwise. Toki realized that most of his clothes came from his friends, but he felt protective and paranoid about the sweater, as if it would clue his parents into Toki's relationship with Skwisgaar. Nonetheless he got up and shed it, stashing it again in his backpack when his mother left the room so that she wouldn't wash it and the smell wouldn't dissipate. He dressed for the day, khaki's and a nice button-down, as today his parents were hosting some sort of church social. His mother returned in a few minutes and he stood in front of her, letting her braid his hair. She did not try to be careful, yanking a brush down his hair, untying particularly stubborn knots with her knobby fingers, pulling and tugging strands into place. Toki didn't have a mirror in his room and was glad for that, his eyes stinging.
He attended the early morning service at his father's church alongside his mother, spent the entire time feeling sorry for himself and miserable. It reminded him so much of being back in Norway between the cold and the chores and the lack of communication with the outside world that he sometimes found himself thinking in Norwegian, thinking he was literally in Norway, that he would never get out. His father's voice crawled down the pews, scraped scalps, infected ears, and Toki kept his hands folded in his lap, his eyes set straight ahead. He almost expected it to be snowing outside the stained glass windows.
Toki and his mother returned to their house before his father, who stayed behind to give the later service, making sure that the house was ready to serve. He set the backyard up for his parents, dragging out the folding tables and chairs from the shed and draping nice tablecloths over their hard, plastic surfaces, setting them, and doing some minor landscaping. He carried trays of food from the kitchen to the buffet table, swept the floors from the entranceway to the backdoor of the house, cleaned both the downstairs and upstairs bathroom. The first guests trickled in shortly after, a family with a young boy who seemed genuinely happy and that Toki hated on first sight. He welcomed people at the door, showed them to the backyard, offered to take their coats as the midday sun warmed the earth. The weird kids that also went to his school—Ravenwood, Crozier, Orlaag and Salacia, who was a senior and acted as the leader amongst the others, who were sophomores—passed by and sneered at him. Toki smiled back.
In the backyard Toki piled a plastic plate with food. It tasted weird to eat such American things like chicken wings and potato salad prepared by his mother's hands, but the food wasn't bad and he was hungry, having made the decision to forego breakfast to make it to church on time and then to help with the party set-up. He stood by himself with his back against one of side of the shed, obscured. His parents had a fence taller than Toki outlining the backyard and Toki stared at it as he ate. He listened to the sounds of the party behind him: the high-pitched squealing of children, the low grumble of adults, the rustling in the leaves as wind drifted through, plastic silverware scraping plastic plates. It felt foreign to him, fake. This wasn't the life they lead, instead the one they pretended to. He suppressed the urge to sigh and stood up straight, going to throw away the remnants of his lunch before rejoining the party.
His father and his mother talking in English, dressed in friendly American clothes, made the entire thing all the more unnerving. Toki's father ushered him to his side so that he could compare him to the teenage son of Mrs. Crozier, the hard bite in his father's voice telling him that he was not the victorious one in that comparison, Crozier on both the football and debate team. After that Toki flitted over to his mother, helped her serve food and clean up. He watched his father try to wheedle people into joining the church or donating more money, acted the part of good minister. He took people aside to talk to them personally, put his hands on the shoulder of youths, even smiled. It made the hairs on the back of Toki's neck rise, his skin prickle, his scars sting.
The party wound down after a few hours, when the sun began its descent and the temperature began to play follow the leader. People put hands over their stomachs, thanked his mother for the good food, thanked his father for the festivity, pledged money or membership. They exited through the careful path of backdoor, landing, kitchen, entranceway, front door. Toki stood and said goodbye, shook more hands than he cared to, suffered the stares from that strange group of teenagers and couldn't find the energy to shoot a sarcastic smile in response. Toki pulled the door shut after the last guest and reached a hand behind his head to undo the braid in his hair.
Bible Study was extra-long that night, his father drawing it out as the evening turned over to night, never getting sick of that God shit. Toki was sick of it, though; his voice shook with fear that he'd slip up and say something that revealed his true feelings about religion. While inside he boiled with rage on the outside he was petrified with fright, afraid that the slightest gaffe might end in his permanent disfiguration or death. He gave in, let himself shiver openly in the cold, far too wrecked to put an effort in. His father noticed and swung the whip harder, hard enough that Toki's back bled, that he passed out.
He woke up early in the morning, still in that chair and still naked, blood crusted on his back. A glance at the clock on the stove told him that it was four-thirty in the morning but he felt alert and awake. As quietly as he could manage he led himself into the bathroom, marveling at how he failed to die of hypothermia or anything else. He gave himself a sponge bath out of the sink, afraid that the noise of water pounding the tile in the shower would wake his parents, and had to stop several times to grip the edges and cry. Too many thoughts were bouncing around in his head to make sense of them, stirring too many feelings to identify, and he was going to have to leave to catch the bus for school in an hour and forty-five minutes.
He realized that he had failed to do any homework as he pulled Skwisgaar's sweater from his backpack to finish dressing. The sweater had not lost the strength of its scent or its comforting nature and Toki spent the remaining time waiting for school sitting with his back against the wall on his bed, hugging himself, letting the light from a slow sunrise fill the room and cast stunted shadows. He heard his mother moving around and realized he'd forgot to clean off the chair and the floor, dread sinking deep into the pit of his stomach.
When it was time to leave for the bus he did, swinging his backpack over his shoulders and slipping his feet inside of his Converse. He didn't see his father on the way out, probably in his study doing whatever it was that he did. Toki walked to the bus stop as he did every morning, his hands on the straps of the backpack and his eyesight directed down, wind whipping his hair around and air brisk. There were other kids that waited at Toki's bus stop along with him but he didn't know them, as they had refuted his attempts at making nice in the beginning of the year. He stood with his arms crossed over his chest, sometimes uncrossing them and bringing the sleeves of his sweater—they hung over his hands, Skwisgaar's arms longer than Toki's—to his face, rubbing them over his cheeks and nose. It probably looked mildly creepy but Toki just didn't care.
The bus rolled up and opened its door, sucking students inside for a fun day of hell at school. Toki sat in the middle, by himself at a window seat, and rested his forehead against the cold glass. He shut his eyes though he wasn't tired for the duration of the ride, suspended in a daydreaming state. He thought of old memories and meshed them with fantasy, thinking about his friends, about Skwisgaar, about all the fun they'd had in any combination. He arrived at school and went to Murderface's locker where he normally hung out in the mornings, Nathan and Pickles in a perpetual state of lateness.
"Hey," Murderface said, failing to notice the expression of complete and utter depression and despair on Toki's face. He closed his locker and turned to face Toki, clunky headphones around his neck and emitting a static screech of metal.
"Hey," Toki said. He dropped his backpack to the ground and leaned back against the lockers. He ran a hand through his hair, turned his head to look at Murderface. "What time is it?"
Murderface pulled his phone, to which the headphones were connected, out of his pocket. "Like schix-fifty," he said.
"Okay, alright," Toki said. "What're you listening to?" He gestured to Murderface's headphone, sparking a conversation between them that lead them up to the ringing up the bell. They split ways then, Murderface going in the opposite direction for his first period of Gym and Toki going to Chemistry. Without the engagement of socialization Toki's happiness (and lips) fell, his hands curled on the straps of his backpack, the wind painful on his skin. He'd forgotten to wear gloves and kept tugging the sleeves of his sweater over his hands, though the marks of the ruler weren't bad and easily excused.
The door to his chemistry class was locked, a few students loitering in the hallway and waiting for the teacher. Toki sat on the floor opposite the door beneath a poster advertising the Gardening Club, which would be of interest if gardening wasn't a chore forced upon him. Nathan showed up with a thermos of what Toki assumed to be coffee in his hands and a beanie over his hair in disregard of the dress code and kicked Toki in the calf to get his attention.
"Lover boy wrote you back," Nathan said, reaching into one pocket of his jeans and depositing the keys he'd been holding to retrieve a folded piece of stationary. Toki reached up to grab it, not getting off the floor, and moved his feet back and forth to exert some of the excitement he was feeling, the rubber tips of his Converse hitting each other. Nathan remained standing, sipping from this thermos and looking disinterested.
The letter was written in simple Swedish with words that were either the same in Norwegian or close enough that Toki could figure out what they meant. It covered the fronts of two unlined pieces of paper, Skwisgaar's handwriting slanted and loopy in a careless way, lines too long and hanging off letters. Toki beamed as he read it—I miss you too, I apologize for your parents, Ritchie and Mark are about to drive George and me crazy, nice drawing but I don't think you captured my good looks well enough—and kicked his feet some more before he refolded the papers and put them in his backpack. He was going to start on the next one as soon as he could though at the end Skwisgaar had pointed out that they could text in school via Nathan or Pickles's phones, or even talk during lunch. Something about the letters appealed to Toki, though. He'd be able to read them at home, a sort of mental escape from his parents, and he liked Skwisgaar's handwriting, liked the way he scrawled over words he'd somehow fucked up on instead of crossing them or drawing an x through them (as Toki did), liked the way he didn't dot his i's and how he signed his name at the end as if he were signing an autograph.
The bell rang and their teacher still didn't appear. Rockzo showed up and took his insane clown posse over by the huge floor-length window in a corner in that building, generally being nuisances. Pickles showed up—sober—and fell to the floor beside Toki, pulling a Sharpie from his pocket and drawing on the toes of Toki's Converse. Toki reread the letter three times, recapping the thing to Pickles as Pickles worked way too hard to create a mandala on Toki's right shoe. Pickles looked up from his work, clapped Toki on the back, which hurt, and beamed at him. "You kids," Pickles said, fondness in his voice, and he returned to his work. Nathan finished his coffee and put the thermos in his backpack, announced that he was going to go use the bathroom and walked off.
The teacher never showed up, the kids in the hallway for fifteen minutes into first period before another teacher came walking through and got somebody to come unlock the door and call up a substitute on short notice. That teacher returned to their class, leaving a bored maintenance worker in charge of the classroom. Toki took Pickles's cell phone and texted Skwisgaar, going through all the pictures Pickles liked to take when he was drunk while waiting for a response. They were mostly close-ups of various parts of Pickles's face, a dreadlock framing an eye or the freckles on his cheekbones, but Toki found a few of himself, even one of him and Skwisgaar from the last Fuckface Academy show he wasn't aware Pickles had taken. It was them on stage talking to each other, his hand on Skwisgaar's arm and Skwisgaar looking off to the side. It broke Toki's heart a bit and he stayed there, his thumb frozen in the swiping position. Ten minutes after he'd texted him Toki received an incomprehensible message back from Skwisgaar and he called him, figuring their impromptu sub wouldn't really care.
"You wokes me up," Skwisgaar complained as soon as he answered the phone, his voice croaky.
"Sorry," Toki said, though he was smiling and his tone of voice indicated that he clearly was not sorry. He was sitting on top of his table, facing Nathan and Pickles who were involved in a gossipy conversation about Abigail and Charles and he swung away from them, laying on his back on the table. He counted cracks in ceiling tiles while he listened to Skwisgaar talk.
"Eh, whatsever, Mark woulds probablies wakes me up soon anyway. Speakingks of Marks, he ams not lettingks me writes songs. He says my English amns't goods enough, but what's you needs English fors to write de music?"
"You don't," Toki said.
"Dat's what I says," Skwisgaar said. "George agrees wit me, but Ritchie agrees wit Mark, so dere's dat. What ams you up to? Why can yous calls me, aren't yous in class?"
"I am," Toki said. He hadn't stopped smiling since the conversation began, but he smiled so large it hurt his face. He kicked his legs, which were hanging off the desk, idly. "But our teacher didn't show up so we have a sub that doesn't care about using our phones. Or Pickle's phone, I guesses."
"Very cools," Skwisgaar said. "Dis one times in Sweden I screwed mines teachers for de whole periods. Everybody loveds me after dat."
Toki felt a small twinge of jealousy but stifled it, far too happy to care about Skwisgaar's past sexual escapades. "My teacher probably dieds. He's olds."
Skwisgaar laughed. "Brutals," he said.
They talked for the rest of the period. Toki gave a reluctant goodbye and hung up when the bell rang, giving Pickles back his phone. He went to English and ignored the lecture and Murderface's annoyingly cheerful Monday ramblings about his weekend to work on his next letter to Skwisgaar. For Skwisgaar's benefit he drew Mark and Ritchie getting stabbed in the head at the top of the page, coloring the blood with the red pen Murderface liked to write with. Murderface protested and stole the pen back from Toki quite violently, attracting the attention of their teacher and earning Murderface detention; Toki snorted into his hands. In 3D Art Toki worked on the letter some more, having finished his sculpture ahead of the rest of the class. In Math he texted Skwisgaar from Pickles's phone underneath the desk, missing a lecture on asymptotes. At lunch he called Skwisgaar again, talking for a shorter amount of time as Toki heard Mark calling the band to practice over the phone and Skwisgaar sighing, telling Toki goodbye with irritation in his voice. Toki gave Nathan Skwisgaar's next letter, begging him to get it to him as fast as he could; Murderface rolled his eyes and told Toki how dramatic he was being. The rest of the day passed by much more boringly than the first half.
The week took a similar pattern. Toki would text Skwisgaar in Chemistry and not receive a response until Math, where they would hold a conversation that would turn verbal as soon as fourth period turned into lunch. Skwisgaar complained about Fuckface Academy; Toki gave him small details of his parents, omitting specifics and Bible Study, and the subject always seemed to sour the conversation. Toki got another letter from Skwisgaar on Thursday which opened with Skwisgaar expressing annoyance at having to write letters back and forth but going on to provide Toki with three pages of flowery Swedish text that Toki had to consult an online translator for at points, deciphering the letter in Math after taking a quiz. Toki wore the sweater nonstop, telling this to Skwisgaar in a letter. His friends made fun of it but he continued to wear it, relishing in its literal and metaphorical warmth.
The pattern of that week became the pattern of the following weeks. But Toki was an anxious person and despite the façade of happiness his life had taken on, worrisome things lurked under the surface. His parents continued to punish him, though the pain had become a constant he'd learned to live with, and he had no hope of becoming ungrounded anytime soon. Charles and Abigail joined them at lunch one day when their usual group of friends were on a field trip they'd elected not to go on as to not miss any more of their school, and though they exhibited no public displays of affection the obvious closeness between them made Toki burn up with jealousy, as that day happened to coincide with one of the days where Mark had Skwisgaar occupied during the time they would usually talk. Toki spent that lunch thinking about his correspondences with Skwisgaar, the pages-long letters and the back-and-forth text conversations, the long talks over the phone in the middle of a school day, and became convinced that they were not enough. He grew paranoid—he hadn't seen Skwisgaar in weeks, February was in just a few days, Skwisgaar was a physical, a sexual, person, and surely Toki was no longer enough. He chewed on the inside of his cheek and focused on this specific subject so much throughout that lunch that he lost track of the conversation, his eyes rolling back in his head, an immense negativity taking hold of him. It got to the point where he couldn't stand it and he gestured to Pickles, asking him to accompany him to the bathroom, giving himself a sense of déjà vu.
Toki pulled Pickles aside once they exited the cafeteria. He wasted no time in getting to the subject, chewing on his lip, his hands tight on Pickles's shoulders and eyes bugging out, focused somewhere behind the other boy. "I'm scared that Skwisgaar am—is going to break up with me," he said.
Pickles removed Toki's hands from his shoulders. He sighed, like he'd been expecting this conversation for a long time, and established eye contact with Toki. "Don't worry, dude. We talk to him now, you know, we hang out with him some, we like him. We gotta, you know, if he's our friend's boyfriend and they're doing some Shakespearian rom-com shit and expecting us to help 'em talk to each other. Anyway. He's too far in, Toki. He's so deep. He cares about you a lot. He wouldn't say that to your face, but you have no idea how pissed he is about your parents. He says he's not even thinking about whatever sex stuff it is that you guys do, he's just thinking about, like, your smile, and a bunch of gay shit like that." Pickles groaned, then, but kept talking. "Don't expect another speech like this again, okay? This is so gay, Toki, this is the gayest, most melodramatic shit you douchebags have put me through in my entire life. But—hey. Hey. Don't give me that look. I'm doing it, ain't I? Doing it for you, 'cause you're our friend." He patted Toki on the shoulder, awkwardly, before retracting his hand and giving it a look as if he wasn't sure why he just did that.
"Thanks, Pickle," Toki said. He let his body fall into a hug with Pickles, not even caring about looking gay or whatever, just squeezing Pickles tight. "You's such a good friend."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let go of me, dude." Toki did, and Toki couldn't help but to look a little sad, because though he felt reassured the worries were still there and he was still grounded and suffering. Pickles seemed to pick up on this. "Stop looking so fuckin' sad, dude. Hey. Hey—remember that time freshman year when Murderface fell into that shower thing in Biology and got totally soaked?"
The memory came to mind as quickly as flicking on a light switch—Murderface jackassing around in Biology around that time last year, stumbling over some girl's backpack and catching his arm on the huge ring hanging down from the emergency shower, releasing a torrent of water over his body. He'd had to go to the office, where he waited shivering in wet clothes for two periods before his grandmother could arrive and give him new ones. Toki had heard from the person working in the office as an attendant that period that it had caused a huge scene, Murderface's grandmother yelling at him in a lisp for fifteen minutes about how irresponsible and foolish he was and how he'd interrupted her bingo game down at the senior center and there would be hell to pay when he got home. The clothes she'd brought had been too small and didn't match at all, and Toki was doubled over in laughter now just thinking about it. "Oh my God, Pickle," he wheezed, "I'd totally forgotten about that." He hadn't, obviously, but he hadn't thought about it in months.
Pickles grinned, proud of himself. "Okay, Toki, is your gay crisis over? What is this, your second one? Third? Are these gonna be a regular thing?"
"I hopes not," Toki said. He wiped tears of laughter away from his eyes and frowned, then shook his head to get rid of the frown. The bell rang, cafeteria doors bursting open and spilling the student body into the hallway. "Oh, heys, almost forgots. I have another letter for Skwisgaar. Can you give it to Nathan for me?" Pickles nodded and Toki gave him the letter.
January became February and Toki was still grounded, though he suspected his father was growing bored with it. He no longer gave extraneous chores or particularly superfluous and unique punishments for the slightest incident. His mother had stopped participating in general. They hadn't even bothered to restrict Toki's food, instead ignoring him at dinner all together. Toki chanced sneaking painkillers sometimes, found the time to start doing his homework again and even jacked off in the shower one night, the lessening pain from the lessening punishments and the return of Skwisgaar as a fixture in his life restoring some of his sex drive. The sweater from Skwisgaar contained only a trace of his scent now, which was sad, and he stopped wearing it every day, but the fondness he felt when he looked at it folded over his chair or crumpled up in his bed only increased. His life was climbing out of his nadir, his depression and anxiety lessening somewhat.
It culminated when, on a Thursday eight days before Valentine's Day, Toki arrived home to meet his father in the doorway. He felt that familiar fall in his stomach, certain he was about to be choked for death for existing, but the atmosphere was surprisingly light. His father led him into the kitchen and sat him down at the table. It was weird to be at the kitchen table with his father fully clothed and without the pretense of Bible Study, even weirder to watch his father knit his fingers together and exhale—not quite a sigh, not quite a normal breath.
"Toki," his father began. "Can you tell me what you learned from these last few weeks?"
Toki stared at the table and tried to come up with the right answer. He hadn't learned anything besides what isolation felt like and how much his body could physically take. He supposed he learned the thrill of writing and receiving letters and wearing your lover's sweater, but he wasn't about to tell his father that. He'd learned that his friends most likely cared even if they pretended not to. He'd relearned that he could survive. He looked back at his father. "I learned the value of Christian ideals," he said, speaking in Norwegian, his voice as steady as he could make it. "Of hard work, honesty, and dutifulness to God."
His father nodded, curt. Toki hadn't believed a word of what he'd just said. "I think," his father said, eyes intense on Toki's own, "that that is sufficient. I grow tired of this constant looking after you and your devilish soul. I hope that I have instilled in you the values to make the proper choices outside of my care and if I have not, I have failed as a parent. But listen here, child." He unthreaded his fingers and slammed his hand on the table; Toki, reminded of the ruler against the back of his hand, resisted the urge to twitch. "I do not fail."
"I understand," Toki said. He didn't. "Does this mean—"
"It means," his father said, interrupting him. The spite drained from his voice with the next words and he exhaled again, put his fingers back together on the tabletop. "I do not want to see you around here so often. Your presence makes it hard to work with those who actually care for the path of God. Go, be gone now."
Toki rose from his chair, pushing himself off with his hands flat on the tabletop. The ruler hadn't left scars, the marks all but faded now, but he felt permanently imprinted with the memory of the Bible Study. He went back to his room, resisting the urge to whoop and holler and scream for joy. He'd ask Pickles for his phone back, tell Skwisgaar he could resume the nightly visits, return to hanging out with his friends. That train of thought led him to remember that Fuckface Academy were playing again this weekend, as they'd been doing every weekend, one of the bands in the set-up to provide music for an art walk downtown on Saturday. And Toki would be able to go, be able to see Skwisgaar again, to touch him and feel him and smell him in full. Toki had been to Hell and now Toki was coming back.
He told his friends the good news tomorrow, Murderface uncaring at his locker, Nathan uncaring and Pickles happy in Chemistry. He told Rockzo, though Rockzo didn't give a fuck, too preoccupied with his new girlfriend, Emmy, that chick with the periwinkle puffballs in her hair that Pickles had tried to set Toki up with and had been continuously eying Toki until a few weeks ago. Toki found his day at school much more tolerable, so much that he paid attention in class. He asked Pickles for his phone back at lunch and Pickles gave it to him from the pocket he'd been keeping it in his backpack. Toki snuck off from the rest of his friends, going to a more secluded spot in the school outside the cafeteria, sat on the ground and called Skwisgaar.
"Tokis?" Skwisgaar asked, hesitant, when he picked up.
"Yeah!" Toki was grinning, had been grinning all day. "Guess whats?"
"Whats?" Skwisgaar asked, hesitation still present in his voice. Toki imagined him pursing his lips, popping a single eyebrow, and put a hand over his mouth to suppress a giggle.
"Gots ungrounded! Can goes to the show tomorrows. And you cans start coming back over in de nights. Amns't thats great?"
"Holy shits, Toki," Skwisgaar said, and Toki swore he could hear the smile in his voice. "Dat's…dat's pretty goods, actuallskies. I's come over tonight, ja? We's pick you up tomorrow, too, since you's our groupie or roadie or whatsever now. I've—de shows amsn't the same withsout yous dere to sucks me off and stuffs."
"I knows, I knows," Toki said. He lowered his legs to the ground and crossed his ankles, stretched, bathing in a wave of relief washing over him. "I misses yous so much, you doesn't even knows. Yous sweater doesn't even scents like yous anymore."
"I can gives to you another one," Skwisgaar said. "Does this means our letters ams overs now?"
"I thinks so, yeah. Ams dat a problems?"
"Oh, gods no," Skwisgaar said. Toki laughed, far too relieved to feel offended.
They talked for the rest of lunch as they normally did: Skwisgaar relating his problems with Fuckface Academy and their living arrangements, Toki relating stories of his friends and school. He was careful not to mention his parents, not wanting to spoil the beautiful conversation they were having, the joy bubbling inside of him. Toki lingered on the line for a few minutes after the bell rang, in no rush to get to his next class, but forced himself to move when he realized that his parents might somehow find out he was late and yank all of this away from him once more. Skwisgaar told him he loved him, something fast and attached to the end of a sentence, certainly a slip on his part. The small weight of the phone in his pocket felt like the best thing that had ever happened to Toki.
Nathan drove him home after school, Toki no longer feeling the need to postpone his return as long as possible. He got to work on his Friday chores, stashing his phone back in the old spot inside of his pillow case and throwing a raggedy old hoodie over his school clothes before getting to work. Chores carried him until dinner, which was an ordinary occurrence, baked lutefisk and spinach soup eaten in uneasy silence. Toki retired to his room for the evening after dinner. He'd forgotten what he liked to do in his free time after so many evenings of Bible Study and ridiculous assignments so he worked on homework until it occurred to him that he could get out his drawing supplies and work on that for a bit. He tried out different models for the next thing he wanted to work on in 3D Art, a kind of complicated take on one of his favorite Norse myths. That's what he was doing, sitting on his bed with his sketchpad in his lap, when Skwisgaar knocked on the window.
Toki threw the sketchpad and pencil he'd been working with off his lap and was at the window as quickly as he could be without running, undoing the latches and slamming the window up. Skwisgaar climbed in, both hands on Toki's shoulders to steady himself, and pressed his mouth to Toki's so aggressively that before Toki knew it his back was against the wall and the window was still open, a draft floating in. That wasn't what Toki was thinking about, however, as he knotted his hands in Skwisgaar's hair and kissed him as hard as he could, smiling and pressing his body into him only to be pressed back into. They kissed until their lips were sore and then separated, their foreheads resting against each other and mouths in smiles that hadn't faded since they saw each other.
"Helloes," Skwisgaar said, quiet, and he bopped Toki on the nose, took one of his hands into his.
"Heys," Toki said back, panting, out of breath. "Missed yous." He bopped Skwisgaar on the nose back.
Skwisgaar shrugged and laughed when Toki growled and connected their lips again. He allowed Toki to push him back, getting Toki off the wall and both of them onto his bed, rolling over and being happy and stifling each other's noises with their mouths, their hands. Toki sucked Skwisgaar off, making a lame joke about being the roadie-groupie-hybrid he'd become, and Skwisgaar took Toki into his lap, wrapped a hand around his cock and whispered in his ear, "Lets me tries somethings." Toki nodded, unsure of what was about to happen but trusting nonetheless.
Skwisgaar sucked two of his fingers into his own mouth—Toki involuntarily bucked his hips—and then took his hand from Toki's dick to push the jeans and boxers he'd been wearing even farther down. Toki whined and Skwisgaar kissed him, to shut him up if nothing else, sliding the fingers of his right hand down Toki's back, Toki's shirt somewhere on the floor. He reached Toki's ass and slipped his index finger into the cleft, testing, cautious. Toki caught on and broke the kiss to gasp and shiver; Skwisgaar took his unoccupied hand and made the shushing moment before hooking a finger under Toki's chin and bringing him closer. With his other hand he slipped his index finger inside Toki, slow, tentative. Toki closed his eyes, nerves in his body on edge, the sensation weird but not unpleasant. He nodded for encouragement or approval or something and Skwisgaar curved his finger, Toki letting his knees drop to either side of Skwisgaar's thighs. Judging Toki ready Skwisgaar inserted his other finger and started properly moving them around, Toki beginning to writhe. Though he'd known that this was a thing that people did and they had to do it for some reason, he hadn't expected it to actually feel this pleasurable (even if sort of uncomfortable), and he was cumming in minutes, one of Skwisgaar's hand on his cock and the other on his ass, both of Toki's hands flat against the wall behind Skwisgaar's head, their hair tangled between their faces, Toki's eyes shut and exploding with color. He rolled to Skwisgaar's left and flopped down on the bed, jeans and boxers around his thighs and body spent. Skwisgaar laughed; Toki cracked his eyes open to see him absently smearing the cum Toki'd left on his exposed stomach around.
"Dat's gross," Toki mumbled.
Skwisgaar raised his eyebrows and looked at him. "You sures bout dat?" he asked. He brought a finger to his mouth.
Toki watched him lick Toki's own cum off his finger. "Eh," was Toki's final assessment, and then he put his face in his mattress, wanting to sleep.
Skwisgaar moved off the bed, presumably to clean himself up with one of the handkerchiefs he kept in his pocket. Toki pulled his boxers and jeans back up, though he left them unbuttoned, and fixed himself so that he was laying on his back, his head propped up against the wall. Skwisgaar came back, still shirtless, body illuminated by moonlight. The window was still open, chilling the room even further, but they didn't notice, Toki laying his head on Skwisgaar's chest when he was back in bed and hugging around his midsection.
"I missed dis," Skwisgaar said, kissing the top of Toki's head.
"'Course you says you misses de sexs stuff," Toki said.
"De dick wants whats de dick wants, Toki," Skwisgaar said, shaking his head at Toki. Toki laughed and hit Skwisgaar in the chest. Skwisgaar tugged his arms around Toki so that Toki would look at him and then, seriously, he said, "Do you ever worries abouts yous parents findingks us in heres?"
Toki shook his head. "I don't think dey actually cares," he said. He felt Skwisgaar start to trace the scars on his back. "Besides, we's quiets enough." He returned his head to Skwisgaar's chest.
"Okays," Skwisgaar said. He reached over Toki and grabbed the sheet at the edge of their feet, pulled it over their bodies, then settled back into the position. "So, de shows tomorrows. Mark and us ams goingks to picks you up if dat ams okay."
"Sure," Toki said. He'd already gotten approval from his parents and despite his fear of getting grounded again felt rebellious enough to change up his ride. "Ams excited."
"Ja. So we's goingks to gets to de place before our set, and den we's goingks to just hangs out. We tries to get Marks to buys us drinks but he won't lets us, that dildo."
"Whats a dildo indeed," Toki said. His eyes were heavy and he was far too comfortable, falling asleep as Skwisgaar started to talk at length about things Toki had heard several times before.
Skwisgaar woke him up in maybe half an hour, coming to a sitting position. Toki mirrored his action and yawned, raised his arms above his head. Skwisgaar gave him a gray hoodie with STOCKHOLM on the front in white block letters, which Toki immediately slipped over his bare chest. He went through the motions of seeing Skwisgaar out, kissing him over the window ledge, then shut the window and returned to his bed. The cold of the room hit him, fiercely and suddenly, and he curled up under his sheet, wishing he was able to sleep with a bedmate.
He woke the next day and took Skwisgaar's hoodie off, folding it on his desk, intending to wear it out later. He went through his Saturday chores line-up, took a shower and ate lunch, dressing for the day and heading outside to wait for Skwisgaar, Mark, Ritchie and George. He wore the shoes that Pickles had drawn over, the mandala on the right toe and angel wings on the left one, and spent his time waiting by moving his feet around and admiring Pickles's handiwork. Mark pulled up in his van and Toki slid inside, sitting in the middle row of seats with Skwisgaar, George behind them and Ritchie in the passenger seat.
"This is so not a regular thing," Mark grumbled in the front seat. Toki smiled at Skwisgaar, fighting the urge to laugh.
Toki lived eighty avenues ahead of downtown and the drive was lengthy. Skwisgaar and Toki passed the time by playing a long, long game of paper-rock-scissors that Toki kept winning and Skwisgaar kept attempting to win and talking with George over the seats. Mark drove without music, which was weird to Toki, the sound of the road and their voices too loud without it. Ritchie seemed to be dozing, his head dropped at an uncomfortable angle. The entire drive a sense of euphoria swelled in Toki, a mix of joy, anticipation, excitement and relief, strong and real. If his grounding had been a return to Norway this time in the car was equivalent of the move to America, of meeting Nathan, Pickles and Murderface. On some logical level Toki knew this wasn't final, that his parents weren't going to forget about him and stop punishing him just because they'd lifted this particular one, but he pushed those thoughts away and chose to live in the moment. And the moment, his fist knocking on top of Skwisgaar and fingers splaying into scissors that beats Skwisgaar's paper, was good.
A little over fifteen minutes after leaving Toki's house, Mark parked in the parking lot closest to a stage capping the end of their main avenue, blocking off entrance from the street on the south end. The band currently playing was something lighter and happier than Fuckface Academy, folksy, making use of plucky string instruments and their singer's pleasant vocals, and Toki dragged Skwisgaar over to listen to them, not before Mark reminded them not to drink or get high before the show. Skwisgaar rolled his eyes at the both of them but allowed Toki to drag him over to the stage and presumably obeyed Mark as he failed to break out a bottle, a joint, a needle, some pills or anything else.
"I gets you back and you makes me listen to dis crappy music," Skwisgaar groaned, slapping both his hands over his ears and propping his back up against metal gates to the right of the stage. "De fucks I likes you for?"
Toki punched him in the side, pried one of his hands from his ears and stood beside Skwisgaar with his back against the metal gate as well. The recent lashings had healed enough that it didn't hurt, which he wasn't expecting, and made the day all the better. He laced his fingers through Skwisgaar's and smiled at him; Skwisgaar rolled his eyes again but bent to kiss Toki, small and swift, his hair brushing against Toki's face.
They hung out there for a while until somebody came around and told them they shouldn't be so close to the stage. At one point Murderface showed up alongside Dick, who went to find Mark while Murderface hung out with Toki and Skwisgaar outside a bridal boutique among huge paintings of floral landscapes, that band still playing and people passing through in the background. "Art isch scho gay," Murderface declared, crossing with his arms over his chest.
Toki leaned up to Skwisgaar and whispered watches dis in his ear before addressing Murderface. "So's yous," he said, plain-faced. Murderface grew red and threw out words of denial while Skwisgaar and Toki laughed away at him. Understandably, Murderface left them after that.
Nathan and Pickles passed by soon after, carrying water bottles of what Toki assumed to be vodka as they sometimes did while out in public. Pickles had his dreads in a bun behind his head and dangling clip-on earrings that ran the length of his neck and reminded Toki to check if Skwisgaar was wearing any. He was, each hole filled, a black triangle and white bulb in both ears. Pickles was obviously quite drunk, shooting a lopsided smile and tipping his water bottle at the both of the after he took a swig, liquid dribbling down its length. Nathan shrugged by means of explanation and the two of them moved on. Toki watched Pickles make Nathan stop outside a bunch of art pertaining to marine life, then turned back to Skwisgaar.
"You thinks Mark wants yous back yet?" Toki asked. The band had been playing for nearly half an hour, and despite Toki's first impression he was finding their music to be repetitive and brainless and not in a good way. He was ready for something heavier, something he could feel in his chest, and Fuckface Academy was closer to that, if not quite there.
Skwisgaar shrugged. "I thinks he'd comes to gets us, ja? You wants to head backs anyway? Dis music really sucks." Skwisgaar grimaced at the people onstage as if they had personally offended him with their music, which knowing Skwisgaar, they probably had.
"Yeah, okay," Toki said. Skwisgaar linked their fingers together and they walked off from their spot in front of the bridal boutique. They wandered past another pair of men holding hands and attracted no stares, which was sort of cool. They met Mark halfway between where they were and where he was, as Mark had been on his way to get them, and went back to the van, Mark running a hand through his hair to fix his fringe and not talking. Something in his body language was off-putting, tense, his back rigid and steps small.
"Set up, roadie and George," Ritchie said as soon as they came into earshot. He was smoking a joint despite Mark's insistence that they not do that and sitting on the ground beside the van, both his shoes and shirt shed and beside him. He tipped his head back and breathed out a cloud of smoke in the most obnoxious way Toki could think of.
"Yeah," Mark said. He started talking to Dick, whom Toki noticed was standing off to the side, his fingers still working at fixing his fringe. Toki wasn't really getting that—as far as he could tell it looked fine.
Toki did as he was told. Skwisgaar walked with them back and forth to the stage as they set up but refused to help, saying that he didn't want to injure his precious fingers. "For the music or for Toki?" George asked, looking proud of himself when Skwisgaar and Toki both laughed. It had warmed up and Toki was almost hot inside of Skwisgaar's hoodie. Nobody had noticed that he was wearing it yet, though that wasn't surprising considering his company. When he finished setting up he pecked Skwisgaar on the lips and exited the stage, taking his position in the crowd in front. The rest of the band climbed on and Mark took the microphone, launching into one of his usual pre-show tirades, and after a few minutes they began to play.
Pride entered Toki's bloodstream fast as a drug when he heard the music. He felt the typical impulse to grab the nearest person and tell them about how he was dating the lead guitarist, instead expressing his excitement through whooping and jumping. He wasn't the only one, a decent flock appearing to listen to Fuckface Academy. They were at the awkward stage in their small music career where they were on the verge of becoming well-known but were too far off to play covers and instead they went through a track list of songs Toki had heard before: Ex-Knife, Bite Me Baby, Superhuman, Addled Intercourse and Illegal, Trusty, Damn. They all sounded better and more professional and by then Toki knew the words, mouthing along with them, watching Mark pivot himself over the stage while the other guys remained stationary.
They played for about forty-five minutes, ending their set with the mildly offensive Fuck Love, Let's Fuck, Skwisgaar smirking at Toki and Toki scrunching his nose back. Murderface, Nathan, Pickles and Dick found Toki in the crowd and congregated towards him. Nathan and Pickles were good and drunk, the vodka in their water bottles gone, and Pickles had added a familiar-looking kitty ears headband to his ensemble. Nathan was the only person to boo at the end of Fuckface Academy's set, shrugging and looking unapologetic when everybody but Murderface (who gave a slight nod of agreement) looked at him.
Toki helped George to pack up without being asked to, though Mark looked at him and opened his mouth like he was going to say something before he saw Toki scooping an amp into his arms. They did so in relative silence, George's face glistening with sweat, but George thanked him when Toki complimented the gig, sighed at random intervals, shook or nodded his head at whatever comments Toki proffered him. He took the bass drum from the stage, the sloppy anarchy A in need of being repainted, and dumped it in the back of the van alongside the cymbal George was carrying. George smacked his hands together and smoothed his shirt, looked at Toki. "You went missing for a while," he said, face expressionless.
"Yeahs," Toki said. He shut one of the doors to the van. He left the word hanging there, not wanting to get into the subject, not sure what to say.
"Skwisgaar was sort of a wreck," George said. He said it passively, like he would give the time, but Toki's pulse quickened. "Long story short Mark got, like, all pissed at me, so try not to disappear, okay?" George rolled his eyes and pulled a lighter and a joint from his cargo shorts, offered them both to Toki. Toki shook his head, wanting to get back to Skwisgaar as soon as possible. "Suit yourself. I'd say that you and Skwisgaar and I should hang, but Mark's a Nazi, you know."
"Literallies?" Toki's eyes went wide.
"Oh my God, no, not literally." George bought the back of his hand that was holding the lighter to his mouth and laughed into it, then lit the joint, staring out into the avenue.
"Wells, I'ms gonna go find Skwisgaar. Sees you." George nodded and continued to stare out into the avenue, more zoning out than watching the next band set up.
Toki retrieved Skwisgaar from the conversation he was having with Dick, Mark and Ritchie, Skwisgaar giving Toki a look of reprieve and gratitude. He and Skwisgaar wandered away from both groups then, leaving Toki's friends and Fuckface Academy to sort themselves out. They walked through all of the art, mostly making fun of it but sometimes admitting that something was sort of cool, holding hands and generally not giving any fucks. They visited the sex shop that Skwisgaar took Toki to on that first date and laughed about it, messing around with the toys and causing a ruckus. The same cashier chick was working and seemed to recognize them, recommending a particular brand of lube with a sarcastic bite to her voice. They didn't buy anything and returned to the art walk, going through it once more before realizing that they'd lost their friends and their rides, the sun starting to sink in the sky and the temperature along with it.
"Guesses we's stuck heres forsever," Toki said, and it was a lame joke that elicited an appropriate look of disgust from Skwisgaar, but it got the point across.