Woo boy, this feels good. After three months, I'm back! I'm going to try to return to my monthly update schedule, I really want to finish this story by the end of this year. This chapter is short, and sort of mostly filler fluff, and some parts are better than others, but what can you do. Happy Valentine's Day, everybody.
To Toki, Valentine's Day had been, since he came to America, a day to celebrate his friendships. His friends were never as keen as him, brushing him aside, calling him gay and refusing to participate, but that never stopped him from hand making cards and picking out little individual trinkets that they would all enjoy. This year, though, was obviously different, because now Toki had an actual valentine in Skwisgaar. There were expectations for what they would and should do, and Toki wanted to indulge in them.
But like Toki's friends before him, Skwisgaar wasn't too keen on the idea. They were laying on their backs in the grass of one the parks downtown, smoking idly and talking with their hands, skies as overcast as their eyes. Nathan, Murderface, Pickles and Dick were playing (and failing at playing) a game of Frisbee, running around the park and shouting and laughing at each other. It was a chilly Wednesday afternoon, Toki having come down there after school instead of going home with the excuse of working on a Chem lab with Nathan and Pickles. His and Skwisgaar's conversation had turned to Valentine's Day, of course, because the holiday was that weekend, and Toki moved his head to see Skwisgaar scowling as their fingers played together between them, dancing and stroking.
"It ams de sappies holidays for de saps," he said, scoffing. "If you wants to celebrates it, dat's fine, but we ams not goingks to be sappies saps."
"Saps ams for trees," Toki said, giggling. He was a little high, a joint burning between the fingers of his other hand, with which he was also picking at grass. Everything tinged gray and the sounds of his friends nipping at him, he felt like the world was a blanket he had pulled over himself and Skwisgaar, trapping him.
"Wells, dinks of a better words, den," Skwisgaar was saying, and he was moving their joined hands up towards Toki's face, stroking at the ridge of his jaw like he'd forgotten Toki's hand came along with his. "We amns't goingks to be sappies," he said again, and Toki nodded, but his attention had shifted to Skwisgaar's fingers on his face, the intensity of his high zoning in on that particular sensation.
Toki snuffed the joint out and rolled over on top of Skwisgaar, sitting on his thighs in a manner that wasn't really sexual. Skwisgaar raised his eyebrows, skeptical, and Toki put a finger to his mouth. Skwisgaar dropped his hand from Toki's face and Toki took the one of the strands of hair Skwisgaar wore over his shoulders in his own hands, starting to braid the strands.
"De hells you doingks," Skwisgaar said, his flat.
"Braidin's you's hair," Toki said, an implicit duhs hanging off the edge of the sentence. "Mines mother does dis for me when we goes to de church, I dinks I can does it from memory." And he could, separating it into three equal strands and crossing them over each other.
"Tokis," Skwisgaar said, and he pushed Toki's hand away and sat up, forcing Toki to move down from his thighs to his calves. That was much more uncomfortable, and Toki pouted as Skwisgaar continued, "Dis ams de veries definitions of sappies."
"Is it ams goin' to be dere if I looks it up in de dick-missionary?" Toki asked, crossing his arms over his chest. Skwisgaar started laughing, so hard that Toki felt it vibrate into his ass as he sat on Skwisgaar's calves, falling backwards and throwing his hands up. His hair, half-braided over his left shoulder, unraveled.
"I's gives you de dick-missionary," Skwisgaar said, and Toki cocked his head.
"Dat's not a good Valentines present," Toki pouted. He moved off of Skwisgaar's legs, sat Indian-style beside him and resumed picking at the grass.
"It ams was a—whatsever, Toki," Skwisgaar said, rolling onto his stomach and propping his chin in his hands. "We has de dates on Friday, ja? I picks you up from school, we does de stuff."
"What's de stuff?" Toki narrowed his eyes at Skwisgaar, looking at the way the sunlight hit his hair, made it a lighter color. Toki wanted to run his fingers through it, so he did, twisting strands around his thumbs and scraping at Skwisgaar's scalp. Skwisgaar hissed at first, which faded into a sort of contented mewl, his limbs twitching.
"It ams—de stuffs, Toki," Skwisgaar said, nudging his head into Toki's touch. He sounded distracted. "You's finds out laters. Wants to makes out?"
"Dere it ams," Toki said, his face splitting into a smile. Skwisgaar looked at him, his head tilted and the light catching his eyelashes in a way that made them visible, this little shit-eating grin across his lips and the network of his fingers forming a mesh against his face that was driving Toki mad. He straightened up and took Toki by the hand. They glanced over their shoulders at their friends, still tangled up in their ridiculous game of Frisbee, laughed and walked off.
They found a nice secluded alleyway, a corner formed by three conjoined buildings on a stashed away brick path, and they melted their sides together against the wall of some high-end boutique, mouths connected. Lazy, slow, hazy, eyelashes against cheeks, teeth against teeth, fingers locked between their bodies. Every second a small infinity. Dull white noise of squawking birds, tires on the road and carried conversations that Toki felt attuned to. Colors on the back of his eyelids. He loved making out while stoned, loved the way it slowed time down and dulled some things while heightening others, loved the way Skwisgaar's hair brushed against his face and he bunched the hem of Skwisgaar's shirt in his hands.
They returned to the park some time later with swollen mouths and hooked pinkies, finding Nathan, Pickles, Murderface and Dick slumped against each other in a sweaty mess, skin glistening in the dull winter sun, hair sticking to foreheads and frizzing out of control with chests heaving and faces ruddy. They walked over to them and kicked at their shins, drawing their attention.
"Where have you douchebags been?" Pickles asked, rolling his eyes up. His back was against Nathan's, supporting each other, sitting adjacent to Murderface. His dreads were out of place, the strap of his ghastly tie-dye tank top falling off his shoulder.
"In an alleys," Toki said, shrugging a shoulder, while Skwisgaar said, "Makin's out," and Murderface dry-heaved, though that could also be attributed to his recent physical activity.
"That's nice," Nathan mumbled, heavy eyelids drooping. He seemed close to sleep, chin dropped to chest.
"Ams we gonna's leave or stays here?" Toki asked, interlacing the rest of his fingers with Skwisgaar's and swinging their hands between them.
"What time is it?" Nathan dragged his eyes up to meet Toki, as if the effort pained him.
Toki pulled his cell phone out of his pocket with the hand that wasn't holding Skwisgaar's, thumbing a button on the side that caused the small screen on the front to light up. "Four-thirties," he said, sliding the phone back into his pocket. He looked up at the sky; storm clouds were gathering ahead, everything damp and gray. "Ams gonna storm, we should leaves," he said.
"Yeah, yeah, I guess so, alright." Nathan pushed himself off the ground, causing Pickles to fall backwards and burst into laughter. Murderface and Dick rose as well, shaking their limbs and twisting their bodies, before announcing their departure and walking off in the opposite direction Nathan, Pickles, and Skwisgaar had come from.
"Cans I gets a rides home?" Skwisgaar asked. Nathan nodded, pulling his keys from his pocket and striding away. Skwisgaar, Toki, and Pickles followed suit.
Thunder crackled overhead and Toki jumped. He wasn't a fan of storms—they brought him back to the hole in the ground in Norway. Storms there had been the absolute worst; rain would filter through the overhead gate and fill the hole, and on those days he almost wished to be chained up, just to escape the pooling water and get out of the way of the rain. Of course, he was never so lucky, and every time it stormed and his father had the slightest excuse he would toss him by the scruff of his neck towards the hole. Toki shuddered once, remembering that, and as if he had unlocked a gate it all came rushing towards him. He started to shiver as thunder popped again and rain began to fall.
Skwisgaar, who had been talking about something Ritchie had done that day that had pissed him off, stopped walking. They were only ten feet or so from where Nathan had parked, Nathan and Pickles walking a few steps ahead of them, their gaits having increased when it had started to rain. But Skwisgaar put a hand on Toki's shoulder, looked at him, eyes narrowed. "Toki, ams you okay? You's shaking a lot but it amsn't that cold."
"Ams fines," Toki said, or at least meant to say, because what he ended up doing was constructing a ghastly grin that jerked as he pushed the A sound between his teeth. He blinked raindrops out of his eyelashes and Skwisgaar put a finger to his lips, pulling them shut and shushing him.
"Comes on, let's gets you back," Skwisgaar said, rubbing Toki's shoulder and then running a hand down to take his and lead him into the truck.
"'s wrong with Toki?" Pickles asked from the front seat when they slid into place, Skwisgaar doing Toki's seatbelt for him. Toki felt ridiculous, incapacitated, on some level, but on every other level was feeling more like a skinny seven-year-old shaking in a Norwegian summer storm.
"Ams nothing," Skwisgaar said, putting on a smile. "He ams will be fine." He patted Toki's leg and settled back into his seat.
"Okay," Pickles said, dubious, but a shiver ran through him and he whipped around to place his hands over the air conditioning vents, from which warm air filtered through. Nathan put the truck in gear and took off, and the familiar rumbling sound of the engine, rushing sensation of the tires on the road and Skwisgaar's hand wrapped around his knee was helping Toki a bit, grounding him. Still his vision flickered in and out, split between that of a child's and that of now, and he slammed his eyes shut, put his fingers to his temple.
"Toki." Skwisgaar's voice was near his ear, close enough that he could feel the hot fluttering of breath on the back of his neck, and Toki twitched. "Toki, ams you here?"
Toki cracked his eyes and shook his head. He put a hand over Skwisgaar's, on his knee, and squeezed it. Thunder rumbled, so loud and so close it was like it was knocking on the roof of the truck, and Toki flinched. Skwisgaar layered his other hand over Toki's on his knee, stroking his fingers, and Toki focused on that point of contact. His was is racing, fast as the rain coming down, and the knowledge that Skwisgaar was soon to leave wasn't helping. Panic burst in his chest, a firework, when Nathan stopped the truck outside of Skwisgaar's apartment. Skwisgaar pressed a kiss to Toki's cheek, uncharacteristically chaste, and gave a final squeeze of his hand before slipping them away and departing from the truck. Nathan and Pickles shouted goodbyes that Toki didn't hear, and the truck started up again, presumably to take Toki home. It was still raining, even harder, the world gray and Toki's vision black, swimming with the memories of Norway.
Three minutes later he felt the twinge of his phone in his pocket and he pulled it out. Du är okej.
It was still storming by the time they got to Toki's house. Nathan and Pickles hadn't noticed his silence—Pickles was watching the rain from the window, Nathan focused on driving in the inclement weather. Toki let himself out with a whimper of a goodbye and trudged to his front door, rain pummeling him. He didn't see his father's car, which he was glad for, and he headed to the downstairs bathroom to take a shower without seeing his mother. He realized, stripping naked in the bathroom, how cold he was, and when he looked in the mirror he saw his eyes were bloodshot, though he had just been lighting up. He turned the shower the hottest it would go and slid his body under the stream of water. Pain flowered across his back, but it was the good type of pain, the type of pain that pulled the wool down from his eyes and brought him back.
After his shower he went about his Wednesday chores, feeling a little shakier than usual but otherwise alright. It had stopped raining, the sun back in the sky, and he texted Skwisgaar back a thanks before getting started on his chores. The routine was soothing, dinner was a mild affair, and by the time he tucked himself into bed with the book he was supposed to be reading for English he felt recovered, exhausted. He read until his eyes gave out and he rolled over on his side, tucking his knees up to his abdomen and falling asleep. He dreamt that night, dreamt he was flying on a magic carpet with all of his friends, their hair billowing and their voices boisterous, happy.
Thursday passed by slowly and painfully, Toki alight with anticipation for Friday. That afternoon, he perfected Skwisgaar's gift—another highly personalized mixtape with aid from Pickles, two drawings of them, and nudes, also with the aid of Pickles. He'd debated the last part for a while, but eventually settled on it being a good idea, using Pickles's brother's old Polaroid and that free Monday afternoon at Nathan's to take them, utilizing the mirror in the upstairs bathroom. It was a strange experience, and hiding the pictures in his pillowcase almost physically burned him while he slept, but it was kitschy and unique enough that Skwisgaar would probably like it on both an ironic and genuine level. Hopefully. He hid the pictures inside a manmade card in an envelope that he wrote for later on, folding the drawings and slipping them inside it as well. Friday morning he wore his shorts with the huge pockets and tucked the gifts inside.
Throughout Friday he was antsy, jiggling his leg and slapping beats against his thigh, fiddling with his pencil. The flowers, balloons, stuffed animals and chocolates that dotted his school, evidence of a well-celebrated Valentine's Day, didn't help. In Chemistry, his focus on the test they were taking was nonexistent, and he spent a handful of minutes drawing the face of a cat on the back of his hand after seeing the word cation before he realized what he was doing. In English, he was too entangled in his own thoughts to prevent Murderface from pestering the girls in front of him; Murderface ended up with the dredges of an iced coffee in his face and down his shirt after one too many innuendos, which did catch Toki's attention, and he laughed heartily, recounting the story to Pickles in Math.
At lunch he called Skwisgaar to finalize their plans, which climaxed with him in the handicapped stall of the scantly used boys' bathroom in the corner of the second floor of the building his art class was in, his hands down his shorts and phone pinched between his shoulder and ear. Phone sex wasn't new, but in school it was new, and Skwisgaar was describing the blowjob he intended to give later in such painstaking, second-by-second detail. Toki bit the inside of his bottom lip hard enough to draw blood when he came, which he sucked into his throat, the explosion of taste on his tongue enough to make his head fly back and hit the wall behind him and his phone fly forward, escaping underneath the wall of the stall. He heard the static of Skwisgaar's voice, panicked, and gave himself a few seconds before cleaning himself up, flushing all evidence down the toilet and exiting the stall. He bent to collect his phone as he went to hover by the sinks and look at himself in the mirror.
"De fucks, Toki," Skwisgaar was saying, and he sounded breathless. "What happens?"
"Oh, you knows," Toki said. He pulled his bottom lip down and inspected the sore, pressed his finger against it to quell the bleeding. "Came, bites my lip, just lost my phone in de struggles, I guess."
Skwisgaar groaned from the other end and Toki grinned, imagining him somewhere in Fuckface Academy's apartment—which he had yet to visit and envisioned as some sort of dark cave of delinquency and astonishment, like Dick's but more successful in what Dick was trying to do—with his long cock in his long fingers, filthy. He grabbed a paper towel to press against his lip while he listened to Skwisgaar crash and climb out of the crash, his breath coming in ragged spurts and then evening, his face probably falling back to its natural, smug, slightly disgusted arrangement.
"Should does dat more oftens," Skwisgaar was saying, blissed. "Good thing to does before de dates, you knows? Keeps de erections around for longer times when doing de other stuff."
Toki shrugged, remembered he was on the phone, and then made the vocal equivalent of a shrug, a humming low in his throat. He blotted the paper towel to his lip a few more times and threw it away, leaving the bathroom and working his way back to the cafeteria. "High school ams so lame," he bemoaned into the phone. "Keepin's me all lockeds up and aways from what I really want to does."
"Likes me?" Toki could hear the rise of an eyebrow in Skwisgaar's voice.
"Likes you," he said, adding an annoyed inflection on you, "but, likes, other stuffs too, you knows. What use I got's for Chem or English or whatsever? Nones! I wants to…I doesn't know, does shit dat isn't dis."
"I understands," Skwisgaar said. "I was you, backs in Sweden. What's de English word? Restlists?"
"Restless," Toki said. He pushed the doors to the building open and walked into the sun. Outside it was disgusting, cold and damp and humid, the sky gray and looking ready to leak at any moment. "Ams reallies gross outside, Skwisgaar. Ams we doin' anything dat means for us to be outsides?"
"Noes," Skwisgaar said, "alls ams inside. Dat's all I'm goingks to tells you, stops asking."
"Sorries," Toki whined into the phone, sidestepping a leftover puddle as he walked back to the main building. "Don'ts like surprises, Skwisgaars."
"You'll likes dis one," Skwisgaar said, shushed and hurried, and when Toki heard something slam and Mark shouting about lazy rehearsal schedules and George seriously needing to stop smoking his nasty-ass pot in the apartment all the goddamned time he understood why. "Gots to go, sorries, little Tokis," and the line went dead.
Toki slid his phone back into his pocket and whistled the rest of the way to the cafeteria, a song he'd put on Skwisgaar's mixtape. When he returned to his friends Nathan was talking about the trip he'd been wanting to take during Spring Break forever, spending the majority of the week on the beach in Daytona.
"Oh," Pickles said, turning his head to him. "Is that, like, a thing now? Your parents say yes?"
"I think, yeah," Nathan said, lifting a chip to his mouth. "Since I can, like, fuckin' drive, now. I mean, I could last year, but they weren't comfortable with it or some shit. They're comfortable now. But, like, between Knubbler, Charles, and me, that's enough to get us all out there, right? Can Abigail drive? I don't even fuckin' know."
"Abigail can drive, yeah," Pickles said. "She just has Charles whipped."
"Now, Picklesch," Murderface said, with that tone of voice he always used when he thought he was smarter than somebody, leaning into the conversation. "That isch a dischguschting, schexischt thing to say. Abigail isch a schtrong, independent—"
"If the next words out of your goddamned hypocrite mouth are black woman, so help me God, I will kill you with this plastic fork." He jabbed it in Murderface's direction for effect, and his eyes widened when he noticed Toki. "Hey, Toki! What do you think of Daytona?"
"Sounds good," he said, and he screwed his face up in worried confusion, trying to keep the sadness away. "Whats about mines parents?"
"Leave that to mine," Nathan said, and he waved his hand. "We'll say we're going on, like, a fucking church retreat, or something." That garnered laughter from Pickles; Murderface was huffing from Pickles's debasing of him and Toki just didn't find it funny. "Anyway—yeah, I think it's gonna happen. We gotta look at hotels and shit and make reservations. I'll talk to my parents about it."
"Cool, cool, cool," Pickles said. He stood up from the table. "I'm gonna go outside and smoke before the bell rings, care to join me?" The group nodded, and Toki once more left the cafeteria, this time to walk around to the student drop-off and sit on the cement as Nathan and Murderface both laid across benches and Pickles walked around, holding one of his elbows in his hands and smoking with the other. Toki took the time to touch up the cat on the back of his hand, pulling markers from his backpack and giving himself a crude approximation of a tattoo.
"What does you think?" he asked when Pickles paced back towards him, brandishing the back of his hand in his direction.
Pickles appraised it and nodded. "Remind me and I'll take you to get a tat for your eighteenth birthday," he said, and the combination of approval and a promise of future friendship and joy made Toki's face break into a grin.
The bell rang shortly afterwards and they split to their respective classes, Toki trudging towards German. There, he read and translated the first few pages of a dull short story he could care less about, going through the motions of switching languages and instead thinking about later, about what Skwisgaar might have planned. His mind went to sex, of course, which was something they had only mentioned in passing, in jokes, but was the next logical step. Toki didn't know to feel about that, only knew that he would kill Skwisgaar if he tried to do that on Valentine's Day, as it would be the pinnacle of the sap that Skwisgaar was trying to avoid.
He and his friends regrouped in History, where Toki bullshitted an essay about the international effects of the Great Depression, and then Toki moved on to 2D Art, where they were doing self-portraits. Toki spent the majority of the class staring into the mirror, trying to figure out how to replicate the asymmetry of his face, wondering why nobody had told him how askew his one eye was. When the bell rang he jumped up from the table, nearly knocking into the mirror and almost breaking it. He ignored the glaring from his teacher, thanked his good luck, and rushed from the room.
He went to the front of school, where he was to hang out with Nathan, Pickles and Murderface as he waited for Skwisgaar. They spread themselves on the side of the wide concrete steps, Toki jiggling his leg again. He remembered, seeing his friends like that, that he had gifts for them, and he pulled the handmade valentines with chocolate attached from his backpack to pass out.
"Thisch isch sho gay," Murderface said.
"You're just so insufferable today, William," Pickles said, narrowing his eyes at him and unwrapping one of his chocolates. He turned his attention towards Toki, smiled at him. "Thanks, Toki. I appreciate it." Pickles had been the one that bought the chocolates for Toki, and his surprise was clearly feigned, but Toki smiled back anyway.
"Valentine's Day fucking sucks, man," was Nathan's contribution, though he continued to unwrap the chocolates and plop them in his mouth one-by-one. "Fucking height of consumerism and stupid-ass chick romance shit. Fuck it all."
"Amen," Murderface said, and Toki twitched at the religious reference, but his smile didn't falter.
"You's guys just bitters 'cause you doesn't has de significant others," Toki said, mustering up all the cheer he could. He stole a chocolate from Pickles's pile and took it for himself, figuring Pickles would be the least likely to protest.
"Not really," Nathan said, mumbling through a mouthful of candy. "Fuck girls, like, I have my hand, who needs them? Just cause a bunch of trouble and shit."
Pickles nodded, and Toki's mind went back to the Abigail fiasco of a few months ago. He wondered if that's what they were thinking of, too; Murderface was ignorant, chewing his chocolate and staring off towards the side, at a girl holding a large stuffed bear with a balloon tied around her wrist.
A few more minutes of lounging on the steps and Skwisgaar materialized, looking as glorious as ever. Toki leapt up and ran to him, threw his arms around his neck and smashed their lips together. In a sick sort of way he hoped everybody outside the school was looking at them, seeing Toki with his amazing boyfriend and being jealous of him. They separated, and Skwisgaar's hands settled on Toki's hips, resting there.
"You's happies today," Skwisgaar said. He pecked Toki's lips again.
"Ams Valentime's Day, of course ams happy," Toki said. "What's we gonnas do, huh? I's been waiting all weeks."
"Ams been like, two days, Toki," Skwisgaar said. He rolled his eyes, but continued. "Ja, ja, we go does de stuff now. Comes wit me."
"Lets me go says goodbyes to mines friends," Toki said, and Skwisgaar nodded. He waved at Nathan, Pickles, and Murderface on the steps, who all waved back. Toki returned to them and went to grab his backpack, then shook his head. "Can yous looks after it?" he said, gesturing to the thing.
Pickles nodded. "Be safe, use a condom," he said, sniggering into his hand, and Toki rolled his eyes.
He almost skipped back to Skwisgaar, but some socially conscious part of him pulled him back from doing so. When he arrived at Skwisgaar's side he slipped his hand into his and they took off, towards the location of the nearest bus stop. Toki had a flash of déjà vu, reminded of the last time they did this, when he had skipped school and had been punished so severely. He felt the familiar drainage of negative emotions through his body, infiltrating his system like a bad trip, but he shook his head and plastered a grin to his face, told himself not to let that ruin Valentine's Day.
"Tokis, ams you okays? You's quiet," Skwisgaar said, squeezing Toki's hand as they waited for the crosswalk at the intersection.
"Of course ams fine," Toki said. "Just thinkin's bout de last time we did dis."
"Oh, ja, right." The crosswalk changed and they started walking with no cautious glance beforehand. Little things like that made Toki feel dangerous, alive. "Goods memory. Wells, dis will be evens better."
"Ams holdin' you to dat," Toki said, glancing at Skwisgaar. A swell of emotions overcame him, pushing out any negativity he might have felt before—affection, pride, and love, definitely love, and they were trying so hard not to be sappy but Toki really, really wanted to tell him he loved him, walking across this crosswalk with the rush of cars on concrete filling their ears, a fierce February wind tossing their hair about their faces, a nip to the air that he didn't feel because of the smile on his face, the hand in his own. He restrained himself, for Skwisgaar's benefit, because they weren't going to be that couple, and because Toki cared for Skwisgaar. Instead, he said, "if it ams stupids, I'll dumps you."
Skwisgaar snorted. "Ja, you's goingks to be de one dat dumps me. Dat sounds possible," he said. He conquered the rest of the crosswalk in one long, arrogant step, extending his legs to their full length and yanking Toki along, and even that motion made Toki's chest constrict.
On the sidewalk, Toki shrugged. "You never knows," he said. "We's just gonna has to waits and sees about de dates."
Skwisgaar made a noncommittal hand motion, and they headed to the bus stop. Skwisgaar wrapped his hands around Toki's lower back, shielding him from the wind, and layered their heads over each other. And Toki was trying to fight it, he was, but it was Valentine's Day, and he was in love, and it was hard not to feel that, feel it from the soles of his feet to the core of his soul, and he worked his hand between their bodies, pressed it against Skwisgaar's chest. Listened to his heartbeat. Thought, this beats for me.
The bus came shortly and they boarded it, sitting beside each other in a row toward the back, their shoulders pressing into each other. Skwisgaar slipped into a spiel about Fuckface Academy, as usual: "It just dat Marks and Ritchies ams so…dey's both stricts, but in differ-rents ways, like Marks ams Stalin and Ritchie ams Hitler. And dey both has de ideas for de bands and George and me, we don'ts likes eithers of dem, but dey keep making dese rules and it ams suckingks."
"Sorries," Toki said. He put a hand on Skwisgaar's knee and squeezed.
"It gets worse de more betters and famousers we gets," Skwisgaar said. He put his head back on the seat, closed his eyes, his Adam's apple prominent and volleying when he spoke once more. "Honestlies, Toki—I dink we mights does de break up, soon, maybes."
"Maybe dat'd be for de better, doe," Toki said. Skwisgaar cracked an eye open, then sat up for himself. "If everybodys makes everybodys unhappies, and you can'ts fix it—you's tried to fix it, right?"
"We's trieds. Wells, Dick, he ams tryingks reallies hard but it just amns't workingks." Skwisgaar said this all mournfully, staring out the bus window like some sort of stereotype, watching the bleak urban landscape pass him by. Toki hurt for him, he did.
"Just waits and sees," Toki said.
"I hates dat." Skwisgaar looked back at him. Toki sighed, leaned forward to press his lips against his in a gentle kiss. When he leaned back, some of the lines had disappeared from Skwisgaar's face and he was no longer frowning, though his eyebrows remained drawn together. "Thanks, Toki," he said, a bit teasingly, poking Toki's side.
Skwisgaar notified him that they were at their stop outside of a shopping center containing a grocery store, a few fast food restaurants, a few outlets, a low-end department store and a pet shop. They descended the steps and Toki looked towards Skwisgaar, hopeful, because he was pretty sure Skwisgaar had enough class not to take Toki bargain shopping or to McDonald's for Valentine's Day, and Skwisgaar nodded, walking in the direction of the pet shop.
"Ja, we ams goingks to looks at de fishes and de cats and shit," Skwisgaar said, and he was trying to keep the smile out of his voice but Toki heard it anyway, his own growing ridiculously large. "Still wants to dumps me?"
"Fucks no!" Toki said, clutching Skwisgaar's arm. "You ams de best boyfriends ever. I loves de animals, especially de kitty cats! See, look." And he showed Skwisgaar the back of his hand, the cat drawn in ink and colored in marker, and Skwisgaar's lips quirked.
"I knows you does," Skwisgaar said. "Comes on." He held the door to the pet store open for Toki and Toki walked through.
It was marvelous. Although the front contained supplies, collars and leashes and beds and foods and toys, towards the back there were a myriad of animals you were allowed to play with, and behind that a darkly-lit aquarium showcasing the fish. Toki went into the aisle containing small rodents first, hamsters, gerbils and even a hedgehog, tapping the glass or watching them sleep in furry little piles. Skwisgaar mocked them, but it was in a loving way, using baby talk and peering into the glass with a modicum of interest. After that it was the reptiles, snakes coiled around fixtures in their cages and lizards flittering through woodchips, which didn't interest Toki as much.
"He could probablies kills a guy," Toki said, peering into the cage of a regal sort of snake, corkscrewed around itself. "I likes dat."
"What use is an unfunctionals pet?" Skwisgaar mused, nodding in agreement, and they moved on.
Next were the birds, available in several sizes and colors, the larger ones piddling around in huge pens and available for petting. Toki stroked a cockatoo, Skwisgaar in stitches from the terrible puns he insisted on making, Toki glaring at him. Toki next made his ways to the bunnies in their own pen, scooping a short-haired but long-eared gray one into his arms like a newborn baby.
"I wants you," Toki told the bunny, his eyebrows drawn up. He looked at Skwisgaar, then, eyes wide, as earnest and expectant as he could make himself appear to be.
"Ams not buyingks yous a rabbit and keepingks it in mines apartscent, Marks wills kills me." Skwisgaar crinkled his nose at the thing.
"Touches it," Toki said. He rearranged his arms with the rabbit inside so he could reach out to Skwisgaar and nudge the back of the hand. "Ams not gonna bite."
Skwisgaar deepened his scowl and did not touch it, so Toki grabbed Skwisgaar's hand and walked forward, forcing him to pet the rabbit. Skwisgaar's features softened, then tightened again. Toki smiled, once more victorious, and drew the rabbit back to him, nuzzling his cheek against it. After a few minutes of that and a handful of strange looks he put the rabbit back, his hand lingering in the pen, maudlin. He moved to the back wall, where at one end there was an entrance to the fish area and built into the wall itself cages with glass fronts showcasing various dogs. Most people were watching two Labrador Retriever puppies wrestling, but Toki pressed his palm up against the window to a lethargic foxhound lazing on its side. The dog lifted an ear and turned his head towards Toki, and Toki melted, his knees giving out.
"Wants yous, too," he said, and he turned to Skwisgaar. "Hurries up, gets de rich with de band, buys me pets."
Skwisgaar laughed, put a hand on the small of Toki's back and leaned in to look at the foxhound as well. "Ja, rights," he said, clearly sarcastic. He tapped at the window, and the dog turned away from Skwisgaar. Skwisgaar huffed.
"De animals don'ts likes you 'cause dey knows you's mean," Toki said, half-serious, and they moved down the line of cages. Shepherds, terriers, cute little balls of fluff, they were all present, and Toki pressed his nose against the windows and cooed at all of them. They had made their way towards the portal to the fish, and so Toki stepped inside that after he finished a one-sided conversation with a group of young Beagles.
Inside the section for fish it was around fifteen degrees colder and much darker; Toki, wary of such places, curled his fingers tighter in Skwisgaar's hand. Skwisgaar squeezed back, unaware of Toki's hesitance in relation to small, dark, cold locations, but Toki trudged on. The fish were fascinating, maybe even more so than the dogs, swimming around in their tanks with their silly bulbous eyes and bodies. Toki spent time assigning names to each guppy—a tedious and time-consuming task, but one he enjoyed thoroughly—and wondered at the betta fish with their graceful fins and deep colors.
"Oh, ja, dem," Skwisgaar said, staring at an elegant pure white one swimming in a lonesome bowl, "dey's real cools. Brutals, I guess. Dey's fightingks fish, dey kills each other if you puts dem in de same bowl."
"Well, dat's lonelies," Toki said, frowning. "Couldn'ts even convince dem to be friends?"
Skwisgaar shook his head. "Ams not possible." He reached down and picked the small fishbowl up with one hand, bringing it close to his face. He checked the price. "I think Mark mights allows dis, at least."
"You's gonna buy a fish?" Toki said, screwing his face up at Skwisgaar. "Seriouslies?"
"Shuts up, Toki. Let's go looks at de kitties cats." With Toki in one hand and his soon-to-be-purchased betta fish in the other, Skwisgaar led Toki out and to the cats, who were their own cages built into the wall adjacent to that of the dogs. They'd been avoiding them, purposefully, saving the best for last. Toki's heart grew heavy, staring at all of them without any ability whatsoever to own one, all the puffy gray kittens curled around in tiny balls and the sophisticated adult cats that still came up to the glass and rubbed against Toki's palm. He felt tears pricking at his eyes, swallowed them back, and sort of forgot Skwisgaar existed until he tugged at his hand and said, "Toki, we has to go, ams gettingks late and we's not done yet."
Toki stood in line with Skwisgaar as he purchased his fish, along with a larger bowl, a bag of black rocks to put in the bottom of that bowl and some food.
"Where's we goin's now?" Toki asked. He didn't think they were going anywhere in particular if they had gained a fish as a companion, but Skwisgaar had indicated that they weren't done yet, thankfully. Toki hadn't given Skwisgaar his gifts yet, and he became aware of the weight in the deep pockets of his shorts.
"Mines apartsments," Skwisgaar said. He accepted the bag containing his purchases, cradling the fishbowl housing the betta fish in his other arm, from the cashier and they went on their way. "Ritchie and Mark ams out at some parties, I doesn't knows, I dink Mark's sister ams throwin's it, and George ams wit his goilfriend." He pushed the door to the pet stop open, the bell ringing above his head.
"George has a goilfriends?" Toki felt only mild surprise; he wasn't attracted to him in the least bit, but George was not objectively unattractive. He hadn't really seen him as the girlfriend type, was all.
"She's new," Skwisgaar said, shrugging. "I hasn't met hers. Anyways. What should we names de fish?" He glanced at the thing, which was swimming in slow circles, almost showing off his flowing white fins. Something about it reminded Toki of Skwisgaar, and hearing it referred to as our fish instead of my fish by him stirred primitive, possessive, family-making feelings in Toki.
"Whities, maybe?" Toki asked. He poked the glass of the fishbowl, but the fish was uninterested in Toki's attention.
"We can'ts fuckin's name a fish Whities," Skwisgaar said, rolling his eyes. "Maybes somethingks reallies brutal, you know, likes Odin or—evens better, Odin's spears, you knows, 'cause it's a fightingks fish, what's dat called? Gungnir?"
"Gungnir, yeah, dat sounds right. Good names for de fish." He did look like a Gungnir, his fins shining like the glint of a spear when the light filtered through the water of his bowl and hit them. Skwisgaar and Toki watched him in a silent stupor until the bus chugged up and they boarded it. Gungnir rested in Skwisgaar's lap, both large hands curled around him, protective. Toki tried not to feel jealous of a fish.
They passed the time to Skwisgaar's apartment just talking. Skwisgaar told Toki about a guitar he'd been thinking of buying, maybe; Toki told Skwisgaar of the self-portrait they were doing in 2D art, his discovery of the asymmetry of his face. Skwisgaar looked at Toki, cocked his head. "Huh," he said, squinting. "You's eyes ams asymmetricals. Weirds."
"Weirds?" Toki asked, grimacing.
"Weirds dat I hasn't noticed befores," Skwisgaar corrected himself. "Really amns't dat bad, very subtles."
"If you says so," was Toki's skeptical answer.
They arrived at the nearest bus stop around Skwisgaar's apartment. The temperature had dropped considerably, to the point where Toki sort of felt the sting on his skin, and he was looking forward to getting inside, both for the heat and just to finally see the place. He opened the door for Skwisgaar, his arms full of his purchases, and they headed towards the elevator. The place was similar to Dick's apartment, a little nicer, no smell or peeling wallpaper but definitely with the atmosphere of destitution. Skwisgaar instructed Toki to press the button for the third floor, which he did, and the elevator kicked to life, climbing its way up. It threw them into a small hallway that seemed to be in a T-shape, and Skwisgaar led them to the first door on the left in the longer part. He gave the bag with everything in it to Toki to hold, pulling a key from his front pocket and unlocking the door.
Toki was met with a surprisingly plain apartment when Skwisgaar flicked the lights on. There was a small enclave with a round dining table and folding chairs, a doorway leading to the kitchen adjacent to that to Toki's left, and to his right a living room that consisted of a cheap fat couch, a small television, and lots of notebooks, pens, sheet music and other memorabilia scattered on surfaces and the floor. Skwisgaar put the fishbowl with Gungnir inside down on the table, and Toki dumped the bag beside it, looking at Skwisgaar.
"I sleeps on de couch," was the first thing Skwisgaar said. Toki raised his eyebrows. "Hey, ams better den George, he gots de bathstub."
"I was…expectin's somethin's different," Toki admitted, looking around as if the walls might dissipate and reveal the really cool, awesome apartment that he had been visualizing, all raw brick walls plastered with posters, guitars in every corners, spikes on the furniture, or something. They didn't, and all he saw was the same drab was-it-gray-or-was-it-white wall color, lifeless furniture, a small clock announcing that it was a little past four in the afternoon.
"Ams Mark's influence, mostlies," Skwisgaar said. "Plus, ams expensive to decorates. If you follows me, I can shows you Ritchie and Mark's rooms, dey am so intersetingks. Likes museum relics or somethingks. And den, you knows, our practingskings room." Toki nodded, trailing after Skwisgaar as he disappeared into a hallway.
Mark's room was first, which was much the same as the rest of the apartment but much more disorganized. "He likes to calls himself a genius or somethingks to explains de mess," Skwisgaar narrated as Toki observed piles of laundry of unsure freshness, notebooks open to display their innards, a bass guitar thrown laying on the floor and looking dead. "He reallies ams just a slobs."
Next was Ritchie's room, which was more akin to what Toki had thought the apartment would be like. Ritchie's walls were covered with posters, half-naked women and intimidating men staring at Toki. He had the skeleton of an electronic drum set in one corner, and the closet was open to reveal a mound of clothes, more pants than shirts, a pair of combat boots spilling out. It was still much neater than Mark's room, and Toki nodded with approval. Skwisgaar rolled his eyes, pulled Toki out, and prodded him towards the end of the hallway.
The practice room had everybody else's instruments in it. Toki recognized Skwisgaar's guitar, reclining beside George's, and Ritchie's drum set taking up half of the room. It was a small space, good acoustics, a fancy desk chair shoved in one corner where Toki assumed Dick would sit and watch them play. He looked at Skwisgaar, nodded his approval once more, and then surged up to kiss him, because this seemed as good a room as any. He ended up sitting on that desk chair, his shorts and boxers around his ankles, Skwisgaar's head between his legs. He shouted when he came, because he could, and that was amazing. Afterwards Skwisgaar looked up with him, lips impossibly fat and pink, and Toki bent down to kiss him. He fell out of the chair and rolled on top of Skwisgaar, and they both laughed, until Toki bit into Skwisgaar's mouth and reached a hand between their bodies, into Skwisgaar's jeans.
They laid on the floor of the practice room for a while in their boxers and shirts, Toki's right ankle crossed over Skwisgaar's left, laughing in spurts. Toki felt good, unbelievably, illegally good, sort of like he got high but without the drugs part. He crawled his hand off of his stomach, found Skwisgaar between his, and remembered with a jerk that he had gifts for Skwisgaar. He found his shorts, which had ended up about five feet from his head, and dug through the pockets. Flushed and with warm ears, he thrust the mixtape and the envelope towards Skwisgaar.
Skwisgaar propped an eyebrow, accepting the items and laying them on his chest. He went to open the envelope, but Toki yelped. "Reads de fuckin' front," he said, pointing to the words.
"Ja, okays, whatsver, Toki," Skwisgaar said. He found his jeans, which were closer to him, stood up and pulled them on, putting the items in one of his back pockets. He offered a hand to Toki. "Comes on, I has to gives you you's gifts, now."
"You gots me something?" Toki's eyebrows shot up.
"Ja," Skwisgaar said, giving him a look that clearly he said he found the question strange. "Why wouldn'ts I? You's my valiantimes,"
"I doesn't know," Toki said, moping. He took Skwisgaar's hand, stood up, and let go of it to put his shorts on. "I was expectingks, likes, you's to try to fucks me and den say dat dat was my gifts."
"Oh," Skwisgaar said. He tilted his head. "So you doesn't want to do dat? De fuckingks?"
"Not today," Toki said. His ears started to warm up again, and he swallowed. "Not on Valentimes Day, dat's so lames and sappies, Skwisgaar. Ams against everythings you stands for."
"Whats about next weekends?" Skwisgaar said, and his voice was serious. He rubbed the back of his head. "We coulds…ja."
"Yeah, um, okays," Toki said, and his ears were ablaze. "Shows me de goddamneds presents you gots me, dildoes." He pursed his lips and furrowed his brow, trying to fight off embarrassment and awkwardness with feigned anger, and of course Skwisgaar saw right through that, because he started guffawing.
"Noes, Toki, I didn'ts gets you dildoes. Follows me." He took Toki's hand again and pulled him out of the room, and something about the way they left their shoes there made Toki feel at home. Skwisgaar led Toki to the enclave near the front of the apartment and sat him down at the table, telling him to close his eyes. Toki did that, resisting the urge to peek the best he could, and listened to the sounds of rustling and Gungnir swimming in the center of the table. Skwisgaar returned after a few minutes, placed something on the table, and told Toki to open his eyes.
And he did. In front of him was a large teddy bear, not furry but smooth, holding a velvet heart-shaped box of chocolates, huge black eyes glinting and face drawn up into a dopey smile. Toki ripped the chocolate box out of its arms and pulled the bear towards him, hugging it, and discovered its tail was forked like a devil's. He looked at Skwisgaar for explanation.
"Ams a deddy bear," Skwisgaar said, looking sort of sheepish. "Gets it?"
Toki nodded. "Gots it." He hugged it tighter. "Loves it."
Loves you.