FIC: May I Have This Dance (Charles/Pickles; R) +BONUS poem: Transcendental (Charles/Pickles; PG13)
Title: May I Have This Dance?
To: Matsunaga
From: gossamerstarsxx
Beta: ladyelwen
Characters/Pairings: Dethklok and Charles Ofdensen; Charles/Pickles; implied past Tony/Pickles.
Timeline: Post-Renovationklok.
Rating: R.
Warnings: Language, including the Lord’s-name-in-vain variety. References to sex. References to drug abuse.
Notes: I took a bit of artistic license with Pickles’ past, specifically his SnB years.
It wasn’t something anyone really knew, but it also wasn’t as if he kept it from anyone, either... at least not consciously. It was just a part of him, an extension of his self-expression. He could sing; even after years of inhaling the smoke of cigarettes and weed and God only knew how many other substances, he could still sing, in some instances even better than Nathan, although his voice had gotten deeper and raspier over the years. He could play the drums of course, but he could play bass too, and guitar, though his fingers lacked the force and ferocity of Will’s playing and the two Scandinavians made him look like a blind man trying to play with broken fingers. He was better with a keyboard, even pretty good with stuff like flutes and trumpets. Musical sounds just made sense to him, and losing himself in music, any kind of music, was as close to therapy as he would ever get. He knew how to pull melodies out of almost anything, so really, why should it surprise anyone that he could translate the music through his body? Hell, Tony knew it; he knew it all too well. And Candy and Bullets had seen it and so had God only knew how many other men and women that barhopped or club-crawled back in the eighties and early nineties.
It occurred to Pickles that most of those people were probably dead now and it made him shudder slightly, despite the sweat clinging to his skin. He still wasn’t sure how he had escaped those years without anything worse than that one case of the clap, especially when he remembered all the needles. Thank God Charlie never found out about that, he thought as he scrubbed his wristbands across his freckled face to wipe away the sheen of sweat. He wasn’t sure why the manager was staring at him like that, with his hazel eyes so wide that his little crow’s feet had all but disappeared and his stern mouth opened just enough to show his red tongue behind his teeth, but he was fairly certain it had to do with what he’d just been caught doing. He wasn’t embarrassed exactly, just startled... and hot and sweaty and kind of half-naked. Unfortunately it wasn’t his half-naked paleness that Charles was standing in awe of, and Pickles knew it.
“What’s up, dood?” he asked and felt his heavy breath hitch in his throat. He coughed into the crook of his arm. Damn cigarettes.
The manager didn’t answer. He was still gazing at him and Pickles watched his Adam’s apple working for a moment before he realized that his music was still blaring at near-painful decibels.
“Shit, sahry!” he cried and crossed the room to his stereo system. He twirled the knob to the left and Night Train faded away to a dull roar.
“Sahry ‘bout that, dood,” Pickles said again, hands on his hips. “I ferget normal people can’t hear over th’ Bose speakers. Didja need somethin’?”
“Need... need something?” Charles parroted, blinking a little as he finally remembered how to speak. “Need... no. I was just, ah... well, I was going to ask if you’d like to go out somewhere tonight? The rest of the boys are getting, ah... well, they’re getting restless, since I’ve been keeping you all so cooped up since I came back. It’s been a media fiasco, you know...”
Pickles watched Charles’ hand creep toward the back of his neck, scratching lightly at the short, neat hairs there. He had dropped his eyes away from Pickles and was currently chewing on his lower lip as if he knew just how much of a sore spot his disappearance still was for the drummer.
Oh, he knows all right, Pickles thought. He couldn’t keep his pierced eyebrows from furrowing together, couldn’t hide the way every muscle in his body tightened itself in a mix of hurt and anger and betrayal. He knows good and damn well.
“Tryin’ t’ make it up to us, Charlie?” he asked, and though he fought to keep his voice light it still came out sounding like an accusation.
Charles winced and Pickles was perversely glad to see it. He supposed it was childish of him that he wanted so badly to make Charles feel bad, to make him feel guilty, since Charles had made it plain to him the first night he returned that he felt absolutely miserable over the whole affair.
“It had to be done, Pickles,” Charles says, standing with his arms crossed and his back to him. It is late, incredibly late; the show has been over for hours and the after-party is well underway by the time Pickles finds him. He is standing in the same room as before, exactly where he said he would be, looking like an utter stranger with his shaggy hair and scarred face. He is wearing contact lenses and a green leather jacket, neither of which Pickles has ever seen before. He is staring out of the big glass windows. He knows that it is Pickles coming into the room without even turning around.
“Had t’ be done, right,” Pickles answers as he crosses the room to stand beside him. He sways as he walks. He has a Solo cup full of Jack Daniel’s and Coke dangling loosely from one hand. “Right-o dere chiefy, ten-fackin’-four, had t’ be done. That oughta be good enough for the likes a’ us, huh?” He takes a long sip. His hands shake.
Charles turns toward him. There is misery in his face, etched into the lines of his eyes and forehead and mouth, and Pickles clutches at the locket under his shirt and tries not to hate him.
“It’s not good enough,” the manager mutters and he reaches up to touch Pickles’ corpse-painted cheek. “It’s not good enough for any of you... but especially not for you.”
“Yer right, it ain’t,” Pickles snaps and jerks his head away from the gentle touch. “It damn sure ain’t good enough for any a’ us and it damn sure ain’t good enough fer me. It ain’t never gonna be good enough fer me, goddammit!”
“You think I don’t know that?” Charles counters fiercely, clenching his fists. “You think I don’t know how fucking bad I’ve hurt you, Pickles? It was bad enough, awful enough, to have to leave all of you, to let all of you think I was gone for good, but you--you were the worst, all right? I wanted to contact you so many times--”
“But ya didn’t,” Pickles says, slamming his cup down onto the table. “Ya didn’t. So don’t fackin’ wax poetic ‘bout how bad ya missed me, all right Charlie? Just don’t fackin’ do it, ‘cause no matter how bad ya missed me or how much ya worried about me or how much ya fackin’ loved me you still let me believe that you were a fackin’ DEAD MAN!”
“Pickles...I...” Charles opens his mouth then closes it again. He has begun to tremble as well.
Pickles laughs. Charles rendered speechless is a rare thing and Pickles is often the only one who can reduce him to such a state. Tonight he is reveling in it.
“Ya got nothin’ t’ say fer yerself, Charlie,” he remarks. “I bet ya won’t even tell me what you were doin’ that was so important you let me go fackin’ ape shit from grief fer nine goddamn months.”
Charles is silent, looking down at the drummer with pleading eyes, and Pickles nods his head.
“Knew it,” he mutters and turns away. He has only taken one step when a warm hand closes around his forearm, pulling him back toward Charles and into an embrace so fierce and strong that Pickles doesn’t even try to escape.
“I had no choice,” he whispers. “I know you’re angry and hurt, and you have every right to be, but you’re not going to leave this room until you understand that I. Had. No. Goddamn. Choice! I have to protect you boys, I have to keep all of you safe, I have to keep you safe--”
His eyes are so fervent and fierce that Pickles almost acquiesces; he almost says ‘It’s okay,’ almost lets Charles’ mouth close over his, almost lets himself melt into Charles’ body. His solid, hard, physical body.
Almost.
He ducks out of Charles’ arms and heads for the door, snatching at the chain of his locket. It snaps and he tosses it behind him, slamming the door before he even hears it clatter to the floor.
“...you know that, Pickles.”
The redhead jumped slightly, startled out of his recollection by the sharp inflection of Charles’s voice.
“Sahry, chief, what’d ya say?”
Charles rolled his eyes. He was leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed over his chest, but Pickles could see the way he was working the nails of his forefinger and thumb against each other.
“I said, I can’t make it up to you boys, you know that,” Charles repeated. “But you don’t deserve to be, ah...bored out of your minds just because the media is up in arms about my miraculous reappearance, either. So...well, ah, I was thinking we’d all go out tonight. I’ve bought out a club for the night and ah...the owners and employees have signed privacy agreements.”
Pickles raised an eyebrow, grinning. “How’d ya word those, chief? ‘Anything you guys say that I don’t like is punishable by death?’”
Charles’s lips twitched into a brief smile. “Sort of. Anything they see, repeat, or share that isn’t expressly backed up by me is slander, libel, or Photoshop, and punishable by a fine of no less than four million dollars. Or death, but that part isn’t exactly in the contract. Anyone who comes into the club will have to sign one as well.”
Pickles nodded. “Impressive. But ya keep talkin’ like yer comin’ with us. Won’t that be bad, like, media-wise? Fer ya t’ be seen partyin’ with us?”
“I have a plan,” Charles shrugged. He stood up from the door frame, dropping his hands into his pockets and taking a step toward Pickles. “No one will even know I’m there.”
“Can’t wait t’see this,” said Pickles. He let Charles come closer to him, closer than he’d let him come while sober for weeks now; these days he would usually only allow himself to give into Charles’s attentions when he was too stoned or drunk for the pain and anger to flow through the love.
Charles wrapped his arms around Pickles’ waist and paused, giving the redhead ample opportunity to push him away. When he wasn’t rejected, Charles lifted him off his feet until they were nose to nose. The vertically challenged drummer rested his forearms across Charles’ shoulders and tried not to think about how much it still hurt.
“Want to be my date tonight?” the manager asked, and Pickles actually laughed.
“Dood, I thought ya were all worried about the media bullshit,” he replied. “Do ya really need t’ add a gay scandal?”
“I think I’ve covered my bases,” Charles said. “Besides, after that little Snakes N’ Barrels documentary I’m pretty sure the entire population of the world knows that you’re bi. At least bi. I mean, come on, those red leather high-heeled boots...?”
Pickles snorted laughter. “Fack you, Ofdensen. I was thinkin’ the old concert footage a’ me and Tony makin’ out onstage woulda been more convincin’ than those damn boots, but if yer gonna stereotype...”
“I’m messing with you,” Charles said, and he was smiling. “So--is it a date?”
Pickles swallowed hard, breaking eye contact with the man holding him and trying not to let the emotions of betrayal bleed into their moment. When he caught Charles’ searching eyes again, the smile on his lips was a little stiff.
“Yeah, sure,” he replied, hoping his voice didn’t sound as false to Charles as it did to his own ears. “Why th’ fuck not? Now will ya put me down, chief? I ain’t a baby doll, ya know.”
Charles kissed him on the bridge of his freckled nose and set him down.
“I’ll see you there tonight, Pickles,” he said as he turned toward the doorway. “And, ah... thank you.”
“Yeah, sure,” Pickles mumbled again as Charles shut the door behind him. He took a few deep breaths then went and turned his stereo back up, thrashing the tension out of his body as he danced.
* * *
“Ya see ‘im, dood?”
Pickles sat perched on one end of the club’s bar, an eighteen-ounce beer between his legs, twitching the toes of his tennis shoes in time with the music. They had been at the club for nearly two and a half hours but none of them had so much as glimpsed their manager in all that time.
Skwisgaar sighed, rising from his slouch against the edge of the bar and squinting into the smoky haze lingering over the heads of the crowd. Pickles craned his neck as well but it was useless; even sitting on top of the bar he was too short to see anything except the bodies in front of him.
“I’s don’ts be seeingks hims, stills,” the Swede said a minute or two later. “He’s probsalies busy doesingks somes robots t’ingks.”
Pickles closed his mouth around the head of his beer bottle and chugged, not trusting himself to speak. Charles’ absence was gnawing at him, needling him with sharp, doubtful thoughts. It had been fine to begin with; Pickles had hung out with the guys for awhile, losing several hands of poker to Murderface and knocking back Flaming Dr. Peppers with Nathan. He had even joined Toki and Skwisgaar in a shot race, but Toki had poured the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse down his throat as if they were the My Little Ponies of the liquor world. He’d asked Skwisgaar if he was sure it was such a good idea to let Toki go on like that, but the blond had only shrugged his shoulders and said, “I’s watchingks hims.”
He was still watching him now, nearly an hour later, and before he could stop to be disgusted with himself Pickles was jealous. Toki had somebody looking out for him, at least.
The fuck is the matter with me? he thought to himself, waving his hand at the harried bartender and pointing to the empty beer bottle in his hand. I don’t even need somebody to watch me like the kid does because I don’t go batshit and rearrange dudes’ faces.
Pickles received his fresh beer with a nod of thanks. He shifted one foot underneath him, pulling his knee up to his chest, and tried not to brood.
“Why’s yous beingks so worried ‘bouts de robots, anyways?” Skwisgaar asked, standing up for a moment to trace the sound of Toki’s joyous “Wowee!” Once he ascertained that the kid wasn’t making trouble, he sank back into a slouch next to the drummer.
“Er--” Pickles chewed his lip for a moment, trying to decide just how pathetic ‘we had a date tonight and I’m upset because he stood me up’ sounded, when he was saved by a booming, gravelly voice that was all too familiar.
“Why the hell shouldn’t he be worried?” asked Nathan, shouldering out of the crowd and past the hoods standing watch near Pickles and Skwisgaar.
“Give me one of those, uh... the, like, the huge purple beers or whatever the fuck? Pickles, what are they again?” Nathan turned away from the bartender, peering down at Pickles in confusion.
“Four Loko?” Pickles supplied, a little incredulous. “But Nathan, that shit is--”
“Four Loko, yeah!” Nathan was nodding to the bartender. “The purple kind, whatever the hell it is--yeah, there we go.”
He received the purple can and popped the top with his teeth, sucking down a fruity froth that smelled to Pickles like grandmas and old cough medicine. He nearly gagged just watching Nathan take a sip.
“Still ain’t seen the Robot, huh?” Nathan remarked after he had swallowed. “I don’t blame you for, uh...for, like, being worried and shit.”
“Huh? An’ why not?” Pickles asked, raising an eyebrow. Nathan was notorious for not caring and, last Pickles had checked, worrying was definitely a sign of caring.
And I’m not even worried about him, dammit, he thought. I’m just--
But Nathan was talking. “It’s like, fuck, the thought of him disappearing again is, uh...well, it’s, uh, it’s fuckin’ scary as shit,” he said. He was more than a little drunk but Pickles hated him for a moment. He hated him for even hinting that Charles might go MIA again or, worse, actually die.
“I mean the dude does fuckin’ everything and we had no fuckin’ idea,” Nathan continued. He was laughing, and Skwisgaar was smiling, but something had clenched tightly in Pickles’ chest. It felt all too similar to the way he had felt for those nine months, as if he could never take a full breath for the pain in his chest, and Nathan was still talking.
“The scariest fuckin’ part of it is that now we, uh...we know what we can lose and shit,” the frontman remarked, then burped into the crook of his elbow and crumpled the empty purple can.
He’s right, Pickles thought, pulling his other knee up to his chest and slinging his arms loosely around them. It’s a whole fuckin’ lot scarier.
His whole body felt like it was in a state of déjà vu as he thought about those nine months, those interminable hours and minutes and seconds that he’d had to just fucking exist from one instance of time to the next, feeling every single moment of the sickening sense of absence and knowing that it would never, ever end because dead and gone meant gone for good. It enveloped him in that moment as acutely and completely as it ever had, nearly suffocating him, and then it was gone.
What came next was familiar and bitter, like the smell of your own sickness. It was that same anger, blunt and burdened with hurt, disappointment, betrayal, confusion...
Pickles ground his teeth together, hating the feeling of so many feelings. It frustrated him nearly to the point of rage but he almost preferred that; at least that was only one feeling.
Nathan and Skwisgaar were still talking, probably still about Charles, but Pickles wasn’t listening. He refused to listen. Instead he dangled his legs over the bar again and beckoned the bartender.
“Crown an’ Coke,” he said. “Mostly Crown. An’ put it in somethin’ bigger than those little plastic cups, got it, chief?”
“Yes sir, right away sir,” the young man stammered, scrambling off to do as he was told. Pickles watched him go, drinking the rest of his beer in long swallows.
“Man, I’m just so fuckin’ glad he’s back,” Nathan said, and Pickles began to chew the inside of his lip.
“Now we don’t have to do shit,” Nathan added.
“Really, boys, I’m touched,” said a voice from behind them. Pickles choked on his last mouthful of Fat Tire.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” Charles said, slapping him on the back with one hand and pressing a large red Solo cup of Crown and Coke on him with the other. “Drink something.”
Pickles obeyed, but only because Charles’ appearance had rendered him momentarily speechless.
“Yous nots be lookingks likes de Robots tonight,” Skwisgaar said, sounding a little thrown off.
“Yeah, you look...uh, well, you look like a regular jackoff,” Nathan muttered. He scratched the back of his neck with short black nails. “It’s...weird.”
“Well, that’s what I was, ah, what I was going for,” Charles replied. “So I’ll attempt to take that as a compliment.”
He smiled as he spoke; without his glasses it was easy to see the smile reach his eyes. It made him look more approachable even if the colored contacts obscured his hazel eyes to a dark, dark brown.
“Have you boys been enjoying yourselves?” he asked, pushing his hair back with his fingers. It kept straying against his forehead, giving him a disheveled look that Pickles was not used to seeing outside the bedroom.
The redhead felt his cock stir in his jeans and shifted positions. That is the last damn thing I need, he thought, on top of all this other bullshit going through my head.
“Has been good, ja,” Skwisgaar replied, but his voice was absent; he was standing up straight again, peering over the heads of the crowd toward the sound of Toki’s voice spluttering in a strange language that could only have been Norwegian. Skwisgaar excused himself and began to slip through the crowd toward the younger man.
“He’s fine,” Nathan said, seeing the look on Charles’ face as he watched Skwisgaar leave. “Skwisgaar’s got him under control. D’you, uh, wanna play poker? Murderface just texted me. He’s been, uh...he’s been rackin’ it up all night; not many people will play with him now.”
Charles cocked an eyebrow. “I think I’ll pass I’m afraid. But, ah...you can go lose your money to him if you like. I’ve heard he’s quite the card shark.”
“Who the fuck knew Will was good at anything besides bass?” Nathan grumbled, but he went off to join the game anyway.
For a long moment a silence hung between them in which Pickles tried to make sense of himself and Charles simply leaned on the bar next to him.
Pickles continued to stare straight ahead, out into the nameless mass of people in the booths and on the dance floor. The whiskey was hitting him hard; his myriad of emotions were chasing themselves in circles and the more Pickles tried to understand them the dizzier he became. I’m just so fuckin’ glad he’s back, he heard Nathan saying. And they all were, weren’t they? The other four members of Dethklok were perfectly accepting of Charles’ explanation that he couldn’t explain, and they accepted it because he was back. That was all that mattered as far as they were concerned.
So why don’t I feel the same way? Pickles thought darkly. Why can’t I?
His vision was beginning to blur softly at the edges and he was far too aware of Charles’ arm lying close next to his thigh. It looked naked and almost erotic without its usual business suit sleeve to cover it. The music was louder, or so it seemed, and the beat had infected his feet and fingers; he was tapping his heels against the bar and his fingers against his cup almost without realizing it.
“Something on your mind?” Charles asked and Pickles could feel the hairs on the back of the neck prickle at the words. The manager had moved; he was standing behind Pickles now, his hands splayed over the bar on either side of the redhead’s hips and his mouth a breath away from the shell of his ear.
Goddammit, Pickles thought. He leaned back into Charles’ warm body as his cock began to nudge softly against the fly of his jeans. Just goddammit.
Charles turned his head, brushing against the drummer’s ear with his lips as he mumbled, “You don’t have to. I know you’re angry.”
“Fackin’ furious,” Pickles replied, his voice dull. He sighed, leaning further back, letting Charles support his weight.
“If it helps I can tell you where I was this time,” Charles said quietly.
“So that means it ain’t got nothin’ t’ do with where ya were before, then,” Pickles said. “Am I right, chief?”
Charles shifted uncomfortably behind him. Pickles sat up again, hunching forward over his big red Solo cup.
“You’re right,” Charles answered at length, leaning over the bar again, his bare arm now a little farther away than it had been before.
“So where were ya t’night, then?” Pickles asked, taking a too-big gulp of whiskey and crunching the ice that flowed into his mouth.
Charles glanced up at him, his lips quirked in a strange little smirk. Without the glasses Pickles could see the ruddiness that had suddenly suffused his cheeks; the scar stood out plainly.
“Okay, chief, spill it,” he said. “Yer blushin’ and that’s just fackin’ weird, dood.”
Charles chuckled quietly for a moment, shaking his head. “Yeah, well,” he said. “It is sort of, ah…sort of embarrassing.”
“I ain’t laughed at ya yet, Charlie,” Pickles said then bumped the manager’s shoulder and added, “Not t’ yer face, at least. I know better’n that.”
Charles rolled his eyes as he straightened up. Pickles watched as his hand rose to touch a nonexistent tie then continued upward to adjust nonexistent glasses before finally going on to push away those straying strands of hair. For a moment Charles looked severely uncomfortable standing there in his jeans and black t-shirt. It was plain that he missed his tie and his glasses, his two favorite things to fidget with when he was tense. After a moment he sighed and extended a hand to Pickles.
“Wanna dance?” he asked, and Pickle’s raised his pierced eyebrow.
“What does that have t’do with why ya were late, exactly?” he asked. He glanced over his shoulder at the dance floor, which looked like nothing so much as a single mass of undulating bodies, and added, “Also, I didn’t know ya knew how t’dance t’anything that wasn’t some kinda ballroom shit. This is like, club music, dood.”
“I’m aware,” Charles said and he looked rather uncomfortable as he shifted both hands into his pockets. “I was, ah…taking lessons.”
Pickles felt his mouth drop open. He stared at the manager as if he had suddenly grown an extra head.
“Do…do they even, like, have club dancin’ lessons? Like is that a thing? ‘Cause I’ve never heard of it,” Pickles said after a few moments. He was trying not to snicker into his whiskey drink and failing miserably. “D’they have like dance studios an’ shit? Didja have t’ wear a leotard? Was it leopard print? I had one a’those once; I wore it onstage.”
Charles leaned over the bar again, covering his face with his hands. For a moment Pickles was afraid that he had actually offended him but then he saw that the manager was actually giggling into his hands.
“No,” he said finally, propping up on his elbow and wiping underneath his eyes. A few more stray snickers escaped him and he continued. “No, I did not have to wear a leotard and no, they don’t have studios. Unfortunately. If they did I would not be two and a half hours late for our date.”
“Then where the hell didja go, dood?” Pickles asked, still trying to get the image of Charlie in a leopard print leotard out of his mind.
At this, Charles dissolved into another fit of laughter; it took him a few minutes to gather himself but when he had, he began to relate his unfortunate adventure to Pickles.
“I naturally did not want anyone on the face of the planet to know what I was doing,” he began. “So I agreed to meet my instructor at a club called the Roost, rather than just summoning one to the ‘Haus. It wasn’t listed anywhere on the internet so I thought that it was sufficiently small and unpopular enough for me to get in and out without being recognized or encountering any trouble…or at least any trouble I couldn’t handle on my own. I told him I wanted to learn to dance like…well, like people do in clubs, I suppose that’s what I said. I don’t remember now. Anyway, when I arrived at the Roost I realized that it was not a normal club. It was, in fact, a gay strip club, as I realized when I saw naked men on poles. I thought perhaps this was only an unfortunate meeting place for me and the instructor, but I was wrong about that too. He took me into a back room. At first it wasn’t so bad. I actually learned a little; it wasn’t difficult and it didn’t involve a pole-”
“Bummer,” Pickles interjected, smirking wickedly. Charles glared at him.
“Anyway,” he continued. “He eventually declared me ‘ready’ and said that he would ‘send someone in shortly.’ I had no idea what this meant, but he left too quickly for me to ask. So I waited, thinking perhaps someone else was coming in to teach me something else-so far nothing had happened to make me believe that I wasn’t just being given a dance lesson-a very, ah, unorthodox dance lesson, of course, but just a lesson nonetheless. And, ah…well, eventually, someone did come in. And he, ah…he demanded that I role-play his boss and, ah…step…on his, ah. Well. Anyway. It turns out that the Roost is not listed on the internet because it is a gay brothel. And it also turns out that my ‘instructor’ believed me to be applying for a job…which I apparently received without my knowledge, resulting in a strange little bald man demanding that I step on his genitals.”
Charles cradled his forehead in his hand and laughed ruefully. “Since I took no hoods with me I spent nearly two hours trying to rectify the misunderstanding before I finally knocked them both out and left. They don’t have my real name and I was dressed in this, so they shouldn’t figure it out. And that is why I was late for our date, Pickles.”
This last part Pickles didn’t hear; he was too busy laughing into his knees, tears running from the corners of his green eyes. He was laughing so hard that he wasn’t making any sound at all; it was as if he could not get the breath to laugh, a welcome change from the clenching, suffocating feeling he had previously endured. It was a long time before he could sit up and face Charles without imagining his face when he was asked to walk all over some old man’s crotch.
“I d-don’t get it, dood,” Pickles eventually managed to splutter, “W-why the f-fack didja wanna learn t’dance? Or hell, why th’ hell didn’t ya ask me? I p-promise I wouldn’ta asked ya t’ curbstomp my junk,” he added and then began giggling again, kicking his legs in glee.
“If you can contain your hysteria for a moment I’ll tell you,” Charles said, but he was still smiling himself.
“Okay, okay okay okay,” Pickles said and took a deep breath. “Go ahead, dood.”
Charles shoved his hands back in his pockets. “Well, to be honest,” Charles said, “after I saw you dancing in your room, I decided to take you dancing, for a date.” He paused for a moment to push his hair back then continued. “I just had to, ah…learn to dance first. Or learn to dance like a man who has heard any kind of music other than instrumental or classical.”
Pickles stared at him, no longer laughing. In truth he wasn’t sure what he should do; whether he should laugh or thank him or act like it was no big deal or what. It was the strangest thing, the strangest feeling, but he eventually found something to say.
“Dood…ya coulda just asked me t’ teach ya. I wouldn’t’a minded, seriously,” he said, wondering suddenly if Charles had chosen his particular awkward path because he believed Pickles was too angry at him to help him. “I ain’t that mad at ya, dood, really,” he added and suddenly he wasn’t mad at him at all, couldn’t be mad at him, and then Charles smiled at him and shrugged his shoulders.
“I wanted to surprise you,” he said.
Pickles had a moment of legitimate confusion at that. That anyone would want to do anything so silly and yet so thoughtful just for him, of all people. That anyone would go out of their way for him in such an extreme manner. Then he remembered Charles, broken and bleeding and, for all Pickles knew, dead. All because he had been protecting Dethklok, protecting his boys, his friends, and his lover. Then there was Charles again, alive, gloriously and impossibly alive, and he was saying I had no choice. I have to protect you boys, I have to keep all of you safe, I have to keep you safe.
And now here was Charles, going out of his way again, and not even for anything so noble as protecting the band. It was just to make Pickles happy, just to make him smile, even though he knew how Pickles felt, even though Pickles had been pushing him further and further away ever since he his return. And that was when he started smiling.
He knew that the smile on his face made him look as giddy and stupid as a thirteen year old girl but he didn’t care. He couldn’t care. He couldn’t help it. All he could do was smile because Charles was there, with him, and that was all that mattered.
“Well, ya definitely surprised me, all right,” he said and he leaned back against Charles’ shoulder and kissed his scar. “That was a hell of a story, dood…but ya did say ya learned somethin’, right?”
“Ah…I did say that, didn’t I?” Charles laughed uneasily; he knew what was going to happen next.
Pickles slid off the bar and grabbed Charles’ hand, his grin full of mischief. “So show me whatcha got, chief,” he said and dragged the manager out into the crowd.
Transcendental
A Metalocalypse Fanfiction
Written as a Bonus Ficlet for the Hearts and Guts Gift Exchange
To: Matsunaga
From: gossamerstarsxx
Characters/Pairings: C/P. Presence of the rest of Dethklok is implied.
Timeline: After the end of Season 2 up to Renovationklok.
Rating: PG13.
Notes: Short and not very sweet. Written in stanzas.
Every little attempt to live is pain.
Breathe in, pull down air, swallow it.
Nothing but life-giving poison
and he can’t stop drinking it.
None of them can.
They don’t know how.
Chaos crawls after them,
as always. Hell stalks them;
they flinch. He drinks.
He wants to drown.
He does drown, daily.
Endlessly. Constantly.
It envelopes him. It is him.
The pain transcends
the emotional.
Brutal, he thinks.
It’s no consolation.
Should it be?
Dreams destroy him.
Skin on skin, lips and
hazel eyes, smile now shattered.
And his freckled hands are
tracing the intricacies of a Gear
tattoo that he still doesn’t understand.
Of course I have one,
he says that first time.
I took the same vow.
Die for Dethklok.
Of course, of course, of course.
He wakes up repeating it.
Of course. Shaking, he smokes
more poison and he’s still alive.
Of course. His skin goes bright.
Burns. He watches.
They watch together.
Floundering at sea, they sink
and they watch. Who knows
how to swim? None of them do.
They never did. He kept them
afloat and now they’re sinking.
They’re drowning.
The locket pulls him lower.
He stares at the picture,
his anchor; betraying him,
drowning him, but he can’t let go.
Down with the ship, he thinks.
He went down with the ship.
There is no ship now.
Not their ship. A pirate,
he thinks. A pirate,
yes, the earring.
Then…
Then the light. He squints.
So bright and so long
with nothing but darkness.
The light…it’s not light,
not normal light.
It’s his light.
His light. And Pickles forgets
how his body works. I died,
he thinks. I’m dead. Of course.
And dead is okay. Dead is okay
because Charlie is dead. Isn’t he?
I faked it, he says.
He doesn’t look Pickles
in the eye. He can’t. Of course.
Of course, of course, of course…
So Pickles pretends.
But he knows.
And doesn’t care.
To: Matsunaga
From: gossamerstarsxx
Beta: ladyelwen
Characters/Pairings: Dethklok and Charles Ofdensen; Charles/Pickles; implied past Tony/Pickles.
Timeline: Post-Renovationklok.
Rating: R.
Warnings: Language, including the Lord’s-name-in-vain variety. References to sex. References to drug abuse.
Notes: I took a bit of artistic license with Pickles’ past, specifically his SnB years.
It wasn’t something anyone really knew, but it also wasn’t as if he kept it from anyone, either... at least not consciously. It was just a part of him, an extension of his self-expression. He could sing; even after years of inhaling the smoke of cigarettes and weed and God only knew how many other substances, he could still sing, in some instances even better than Nathan, although his voice had gotten deeper and raspier over the years. He could play the drums of course, but he could play bass too, and guitar, though his fingers lacked the force and ferocity of Will’s playing and the two Scandinavians made him look like a blind man trying to play with broken fingers. He was better with a keyboard, even pretty good with stuff like flutes and trumpets. Musical sounds just made sense to him, and losing himself in music, any kind of music, was as close to therapy as he would ever get. He knew how to pull melodies out of almost anything, so really, why should it surprise anyone that he could translate the music through his body? Hell, Tony knew it; he knew it all too well. And Candy and Bullets had seen it and so had God only knew how many other men and women that barhopped or club-crawled back in the eighties and early nineties.
It occurred to Pickles that most of those people were probably dead now and it made him shudder slightly, despite the sweat clinging to his skin. He still wasn’t sure how he had escaped those years without anything worse than that one case of the clap, especially when he remembered all the needles. Thank God Charlie never found out about that, he thought as he scrubbed his wristbands across his freckled face to wipe away the sheen of sweat. He wasn’t sure why the manager was staring at him like that, with his hazel eyes so wide that his little crow’s feet had all but disappeared and his stern mouth opened just enough to show his red tongue behind his teeth, but he was fairly certain it had to do with what he’d just been caught doing. He wasn’t embarrassed exactly, just startled... and hot and sweaty and kind of half-naked. Unfortunately it wasn’t his half-naked paleness that Charles was standing in awe of, and Pickles knew it.
“What’s up, dood?” he asked and felt his heavy breath hitch in his throat. He coughed into the crook of his arm. Damn cigarettes.
The manager didn’t answer. He was still gazing at him and Pickles watched his Adam’s apple working for a moment before he realized that his music was still blaring at near-painful decibels.
“Shit, sahry!” he cried and crossed the room to his stereo system. He twirled the knob to the left and Night Train faded away to a dull roar.
“Sahry ‘bout that, dood,” Pickles said again, hands on his hips. “I ferget normal people can’t hear over th’ Bose speakers. Didja need somethin’?”
“Need... need something?” Charles parroted, blinking a little as he finally remembered how to speak. “Need... no. I was just, ah... well, I was going to ask if you’d like to go out somewhere tonight? The rest of the boys are getting, ah... well, they’re getting restless, since I’ve been keeping you all so cooped up since I came back. It’s been a media fiasco, you know...”
Pickles watched Charles’ hand creep toward the back of his neck, scratching lightly at the short, neat hairs there. He had dropped his eyes away from Pickles and was currently chewing on his lower lip as if he knew just how much of a sore spot his disappearance still was for the drummer.
Oh, he knows all right, Pickles thought. He couldn’t keep his pierced eyebrows from furrowing together, couldn’t hide the way every muscle in his body tightened itself in a mix of hurt and anger and betrayal. He knows good and damn well.
“Tryin’ t’ make it up to us, Charlie?” he asked, and though he fought to keep his voice light it still came out sounding like an accusation.
Charles winced and Pickles was perversely glad to see it. He supposed it was childish of him that he wanted so badly to make Charles feel bad, to make him feel guilty, since Charles had made it plain to him the first night he returned that he felt absolutely miserable over the whole affair.
“It had to be done, Pickles,” Charles says, standing with his arms crossed and his back to him. It is late, incredibly late; the show has been over for hours and the after-party is well underway by the time Pickles finds him. He is standing in the same room as before, exactly where he said he would be, looking like an utter stranger with his shaggy hair and scarred face. He is wearing contact lenses and a green leather jacket, neither of which Pickles has ever seen before. He is staring out of the big glass windows. He knows that it is Pickles coming into the room without even turning around.
“Had t’ be done, right,” Pickles answers as he crosses the room to stand beside him. He sways as he walks. He has a Solo cup full of Jack Daniel’s and Coke dangling loosely from one hand. “Right-o dere chiefy, ten-fackin’-four, had t’ be done. That oughta be good enough for the likes a’ us, huh?” He takes a long sip. His hands shake.
Charles turns toward him. There is misery in his face, etched into the lines of his eyes and forehead and mouth, and Pickles clutches at the locket under his shirt and tries not to hate him.
“It’s not good enough,” the manager mutters and he reaches up to touch Pickles’ corpse-painted cheek. “It’s not good enough for any of you... but especially not for you.”
“Yer right, it ain’t,” Pickles snaps and jerks his head away from the gentle touch. “It damn sure ain’t good enough for any a’ us and it damn sure ain’t good enough fer me. It ain’t never gonna be good enough fer me, goddammit!”
“You think I don’t know that?” Charles counters fiercely, clenching his fists. “You think I don’t know how fucking bad I’ve hurt you, Pickles? It was bad enough, awful enough, to have to leave all of you, to let all of you think I was gone for good, but you--you were the worst, all right? I wanted to contact you so many times--”
“But ya didn’t,” Pickles says, slamming his cup down onto the table. “Ya didn’t. So don’t fackin’ wax poetic ‘bout how bad ya missed me, all right Charlie? Just don’t fackin’ do it, ‘cause no matter how bad ya missed me or how much ya worried about me or how much ya fackin’ loved me you still let me believe that you were a fackin’ DEAD MAN!”
“Pickles...I...” Charles opens his mouth then closes it again. He has begun to tremble as well.
Pickles laughs. Charles rendered speechless is a rare thing and Pickles is often the only one who can reduce him to such a state. Tonight he is reveling in it.
“Ya got nothin’ t’ say fer yerself, Charlie,” he remarks. “I bet ya won’t even tell me what you were doin’ that was so important you let me go fackin’ ape shit from grief fer nine goddamn months.”
Charles is silent, looking down at the drummer with pleading eyes, and Pickles nods his head.
“Knew it,” he mutters and turns away. He has only taken one step when a warm hand closes around his forearm, pulling him back toward Charles and into an embrace so fierce and strong that Pickles doesn’t even try to escape.
“I had no choice,” he whispers. “I know you’re angry and hurt, and you have every right to be, but you’re not going to leave this room until you understand that I. Had. No. Goddamn. Choice! I have to protect you boys, I have to keep all of you safe, I have to keep you safe--”
His eyes are so fervent and fierce that Pickles almost acquiesces; he almost says ‘It’s okay,’ almost lets Charles’ mouth close over his, almost lets himself melt into Charles’ body. His solid, hard, physical body.
Almost.
He ducks out of Charles’ arms and heads for the door, snatching at the chain of his locket. It snaps and he tosses it behind him, slamming the door before he even hears it clatter to the floor.
“...you know that, Pickles.”
The redhead jumped slightly, startled out of his recollection by the sharp inflection of Charles’s voice.
“Sahry, chief, what’d ya say?”
Charles rolled his eyes. He was leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed over his chest, but Pickles could see the way he was working the nails of his forefinger and thumb against each other.
“I said, I can’t make it up to you boys, you know that,” Charles repeated. “But you don’t deserve to be, ah...bored out of your minds just because the media is up in arms about my miraculous reappearance, either. So...well, ah, I was thinking we’d all go out tonight. I’ve bought out a club for the night and ah...the owners and employees have signed privacy agreements.”
Pickles raised an eyebrow, grinning. “How’d ya word those, chief? ‘Anything you guys say that I don’t like is punishable by death?’”
Charles’s lips twitched into a brief smile. “Sort of. Anything they see, repeat, or share that isn’t expressly backed up by me is slander, libel, or Photoshop, and punishable by a fine of no less than four million dollars. Or death, but that part isn’t exactly in the contract. Anyone who comes into the club will have to sign one as well.”
Pickles nodded. “Impressive. But ya keep talkin’ like yer comin’ with us. Won’t that be bad, like, media-wise? Fer ya t’ be seen partyin’ with us?”
“I have a plan,” Charles shrugged. He stood up from the door frame, dropping his hands into his pockets and taking a step toward Pickles. “No one will even know I’m there.”
“Can’t wait t’see this,” said Pickles. He let Charles come closer to him, closer than he’d let him come while sober for weeks now; these days he would usually only allow himself to give into Charles’s attentions when he was too stoned or drunk for the pain and anger to flow through the love.
Charles wrapped his arms around Pickles’ waist and paused, giving the redhead ample opportunity to push him away. When he wasn’t rejected, Charles lifted him off his feet until they were nose to nose. The vertically challenged drummer rested his forearms across Charles’ shoulders and tried not to think about how much it still hurt.
“Want to be my date tonight?” the manager asked, and Pickles actually laughed.
“Dood, I thought ya were all worried about the media bullshit,” he replied. “Do ya really need t’ add a gay scandal?”
“I think I’ve covered my bases,” Charles said. “Besides, after that little Snakes N’ Barrels documentary I’m pretty sure the entire population of the world knows that you’re bi. At least bi. I mean, come on, those red leather high-heeled boots...?”
Pickles snorted laughter. “Fack you, Ofdensen. I was thinkin’ the old concert footage a’ me and Tony makin’ out onstage woulda been more convincin’ than those damn boots, but if yer gonna stereotype...”
“I’m messing with you,” Charles said, and he was smiling. “So--is it a date?”
Pickles swallowed hard, breaking eye contact with the man holding him and trying not to let the emotions of betrayal bleed into their moment. When he caught Charles’ searching eyes again, the smile on his lips was a little stiff.
“Yeah, sure,” he replied, hoping his voice didn’t sound as false to Charles as it did to his own ears. “Why th’ fuck not? Now will ya put me down, chief? I ain’t a baby doll, ya know.”
Charles kissed him on the bridge of his freckled nose and set him down.
“I’ll see you there tonight, Pickles,” he said as he turned toward the doorway. “And, ah... thank you.”
“Yeah, sure,” Pickles mumbled again as Charles shut the door behind him. He took a few deep breaths then went and turned his stereo back up, thrashing the tension out of his body as he danced.
* * *
“Ya see ‘im, dood?”
Pickles sat perched on one end of the club’s bar, an eighteen-ounce beer between his legs, twitching the toes of his tennis shoes in time with the music. They had been at the club for nearly two and a half hours but none of them had so much as glimpsed their manager in all that time.
Skwisgaar sighed, rising from his slouch against the edge of the bar and squinting into the smoky haze lingering over the heads of the crowd. Pickles craned his neck as well but it was useless; even sitting on top of the bar he was too short to see anything except the bodies in front of him.
“I’s don’ts be seeingks hims, stills,” the Swede said a minute or two later. “He’s probsalies busy doesingks somes robots t’ingks.”
Pickles closed his mouth around the head of his beer bottle and chugged, not trusting himself to speak. Charles’ absence was gnawing at him, needling him with sharp, doubtful thoughts. It had been fine to begin with; Pickles had hung out with the guys for awhile, losing several hands of poker to Murderface and knocking back Flaming Dr. Peppers with Nathan. He had even joined Toki and Skwisgaar in a shot race, but Toki had poured the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse down his throat as if they were the My Little Ponies of the liquor world. He’d asked Skwisgaar if he was sure it was such a good idea to let Toki go on like that, but the blond had only shrugged his shoulders and said, “I’s watchingks hims.”
He was still watching him now, nearly an hour later, and before he could stop to be disgusted with himself Pickles was jealous. Toki had somebody looking out for him, at least.
The fuck is the matter with me? he thought to himself, waving his hand at the harried bartender and pointing to the empty beer bottle in his hand. I don’t even need somebody to watch me like the kid does because I don’t go batshit and rearrange dudes’ faces.
Pickles received his fresh beer with a nod of thanks. He shifted one foot underneath him, pulling his knee up to his chest, and tried not to brood.
“Why’s yous beingks so worried ‘bouts de robots, anyways?” Skwisgaar asked, standing up for a moment to trace the sound of Toki’s joyous “Wowee!” Once he ascertained that the kid wasn’t making trouble, he sank back into a slouch next to the drummer.
“Er--” Pickles chewed his lip for a moment, trying to decide just how pathetic ‘we had a date tonight and I’m upset because he stood me up’ sounded, when he was saved by a booming, gravelly voice that was all too familiar.
“Why the hell shouldn’t he be worried?” asked Nathan, shouldering out of the crowd and past the hoods standing watch near Pickles and Skwisgaar.
“Give me one of those, uh... the, like, the huge purple beers or whatever the fuck? Pickles, what are they again?” Nathan turned away from the bartender, peering down at Pickles in confusion.
“Four Loko?” Pickles supplied, a little incredulous. “But Nathan, that shit is--”
“Four Loko, yeah!” Nathan was nodding to the bartender. “The purple kind, whatever the hell it is--yeah, there we go.”
He received the purple can and popped the top with his teeth, sucking down a fruity froth that smelled to Pickles like grandmas and old cough medicine. He nearly gagged just watching Nathan take a sip.
“Still ain’t seen the Robot, huh?” Nathan remarked after he had swallowed. “I don’t blame you for, uh...for, like, being worried and shit.”
“Huh? An’ why not?” Pickles asked, raising an eyebrow. Nathan was notorious for not caring and, last Pickles had checked, worrying was definitely a sign of caring.
And I’m not even worried about him, dammit, he thought. I’m just--
But Nathan was talking. “It’s like, fuck, the thought of him disappearing again is, uh...well, it’s, uh, it’s fuckin’ scary as shit,” he said. He was more than a little drunk but Pickles hated him for a moment. He hated him for even hinting that Charles might go MIA again or, worse, actually die.
“I mean the dude does fuckin’ everything and we had no fuckin’ idea,” Nathan continued. He was laughing, and Skwisgaar was smiling, but something had clenched tightly in Pickles’ chest. It felt all too similar to the way he had felt for those nine months, as if he could never take a full breath for the pain in his chest, and Nathan was still talking.
“The scariest fuckin’ part of it is that now we, uh...we know what we can lose and shit,” the frontman remarked, then burped into the crook of his elbow and crumpled the empty purple can.
He’s right, Pickles thought, pulling his other knee up to his chest and slinging his arms loosely around them. It’s a whole fuckin’ lot scarier.
His whole body felt like it was in a state of déjà vu as he thought about those nine months, those interminable hours and minutes and seconds that he’d had to just fucking exist from one instance of time to the next, feeling every single moment of the sickening sense of absence and knowing that it would never, ever end because dead and gone meant gone for good. It enveloped him in that moment as acutely and completely as it ever had, nearly suffocating him, and then it was gone.
What came next was familiar and bitter, like the smell of your own sickness. It was that same anger, blunt and burdened with hurt, disappointment, betrayal, confusion...
Pickles ground his teeth together, hating the feeling of so many feelings. It frustrated him nearly to the point of rage but he almost preferred that; at least that was only one feeling.
Nathan and Skwisgaar were still talking, probably still about Charles, but Pickles wasn’t listening. He refused to listen. Instead he dangled his legs over the bar again and beckoned the bartender.
“Crown an’ Coke,” he said. “Mostly Crown. An’ put it in somethin’ bigger than those little plastic cups, got it, chief?”
“Yes sir, right away sir,” the young man stammered, scrambling off to do as he was told. Pickles watched him go, drinking the rest of his beer in long swallows.
“Man, I’m just so fuckin’ glad he’s back,” Nathan said, and Pickles began to chew the inside of his lip.
“Now we don’t have to do shit,” Nathan added.
“Really, boys, I’m touched,” said a voice from behind them. Pickles choked on his last mouthful of Fat Tire.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” Charles said, slapping him on the back with one hand and pressing a large red Solo cup of Crown and Coke on him with the other. “Drink something.”
Pickles obeyed, but only because Charles’ appearance had rendered him momentarily speechless.
“Yous nots be lookingks likes de Robots tonight,” Skwisgaar said, sounding a little thrown off.
“Yeah, you look...uh, well, you look like a regular jackoff,” Nathan muttered. He scratched the back of his neck with short black nails. “It’s...weird.”
“Well, that’s what I was, ah, what I was going for,” Charles replied. “So I’ll attempt to take that as a compliment.”
He smiled as he spoke; without his glasses it was easy to see the smile reach his eyes. It made him look more approachable even if the colored contacts obscured his hazel eyes to a dark, dark brown.
“Have you boys been enjoying yourselves?” he asked, pushing his hair back with his fingers. It kept straying against his forehead, giving him a disheveled look that Pickles was not used to seeing outside the bedroom.
The redhead felt his cock stir in his jeans and shifted positions. That is the last damn thing I need, he thought, on top of all this other bullshit going through my head.
“Has been good, ja,” Skwisgaar replied, but his voice was absent; he was standing up straight again, peering over the heads of the crowd toward the sound of Toki’s voice spluttering in a strange language that could only have been Norwegian. Skwisgaar excused himself and began to slip through the crowd toward the younger man.
“He’s fine,” Nathan said, seeing the look on Charles’ face as he watched Skwisgaar leave. “Skwisgaar’s got him under control. D’you, uh, wanna play poker? Murderface just texted me. He’s been, uh...he’s been rackin’ it up all night; not many people will play with him now.”
Charles cocked an eyebrow. “I think I’ll pass I’m afraid. But, ah...you can go lose your money to him if you like. I’ve heard he’s quite the card shark.”
“Who the fuck knew Will was good at anything besides bass?” Nathan grumbled, but he went off to join the game anyway.
For a long moment a silence hung between them in which Pickles tried to make sense of himself and Charles simply leaned on the bar next to him.
Pickles continued to stare straight ahead, out into the nameless mass of people in the booths and on the dance floor. The whiskey was hitting him hard; his myriad of emotions were chasing themselves in circles and the more Pickles tried to understand them the dizzier he became. I’m just so fuckin’ glad he’s back, he heard Nathan saying. And they all were, weren’t they? The other four members of Dethklok were perfectly accepting of Charles’ explanation that he couldn’t explain, and they accepted it because he was back. That was all that mattered as far as they were concerned.
So why don’t I feel the same way? Pickles thought darkly. Why can’t I?
His vision was beginning to blur softly at the edges and he was far too aware of Charles’ arm lying close next to his thigh. It looked naked and almost erotic without its usual business suit sleeve to cover it. The music was louder, or so it seemed, and the beat had infected his feet and fingers; he was tapping his heels against the bar and his fingers against his cup almost without realizing it.
“Something on your mind?” Charles asked and Pickles could feel the hairs on the back of the neck prickle at the words. The manager had moved; he was standing behind Pickles now, his hands splayed over the bar on either side of the redhead’s hips and his mouth a breath away from the shell of his ear.
Goddammit, Pickles thought. He leaned back into Charles’ warm body as his cock began to nudge softly against the fly of his jeans. Just goddammit.
Charles turned his head, brushing against the drummer’s ear with his lips as he mumbled, “You don’t have to. I know you’re angry.”
“Fackin’ furious,” Pickles replied, his voice dull. He sighed, leaning further back, letting Charles support his weight.
“If it helps I can tell you where I was this time,” Charles said quietly.
“So that means it ain’t got nothin’ t’ do with where ya were before, then,” Pickles said. “Am I right, chief?”
Charles shifted uncomfortably behind him. Pickles sat up again, hunching forward over his big red Solo cup.
“You’re right,” Charles answered at length, leaning over the bar again, his bare arm now a little farther away than it had been before.
“So where were ya t’night, then?” Pickles asked, taking a too-big gulp of whiskey and crunching the ice that flowed into his mouth.
Charles glanced up at him, his lips quirked in a strange little smirk. Without the glasses Pickles could see the ruddiness that had suddenly suffused his cheeks; the scar stood out plainly.
“Okay, chief, spill it,” he said. “Yer blushin’ and that’s just fackin’ weird, dood.”
Charles chuckled quietly for a moment, shaking his head. “Yeah, well,” he said. “It is sort of, ah…sort of embarrassing.”
“I ain’t laughed at ya yet, Charlie,” Pickles said then bumped the manager’s shoulder and added, “Not t’ yer face, at least. I know better’n that.”
Charles rolled his eyes as he straightened up. Pickles watched as his hand rose to touch a nonexistent tie then continued upward to adjust nonexistent glasses before finally going on to push away those straying strands of hair. For a moment Charles looked severely uncomfortable standing there in his jeans and black t-shirt. It was plain that he missed his tie and his glasses, his two favorite things to fidget with when he was tense. After a moment he sighed and extended a hand to Pickles.
“Wanna dance?” he asked, and Pickle’s raised his pierced eyebrow.
“What does that have t’do with why ya were late, exactly?” he asked. He glanced over his shoulder at the dance floor, which looked like nothing so much as a single mass of undulating bodies, and added, “Also, I didn’t know ya knew how t’dance t’anything that wasn’t some kinda ballroom shit. This is like, club music, dood.”
“I’m aware,” Charles said and he looked rather uncomfortable as he shifted both hands into his pockets. “I was, ah…taking lessons.”
Pickles felt his mouth drop open. He stared at the manager as if he had suddenly grown an extra head.
“Do…do they even, like, have club dancin’ lessons? Like is that a thing? ‘Cause I’ve never heard of it,” Pickles said after a few moments. He was trying not to snicker into his whiskey drink and failing miserably. “D’they have like dance studios an’ shit? Didja have t’ wear a leotard? Was it leopard print? I had one a’those once; I wore it onstage.”
Charles leaned over the bar again, covering his face with his hands. For a moment Pickles was afraid that he had actually offended him but then he saw that the manager was actually giggling into his hands.
“No,” he said finally, propping up on his elbow and wiping underneath his eyes. A few more stray snickers escaped him and he continued. “No, I did not have to wear a leotard and no, they don’t have studios. Unfortunately. If they did I would not be two and a half hours late for our date.”
“Then where the hell didja go, dood?” Pickles asked, still trying to get the image of Charlie in a leopard print leotard out of his mind.
At this, Charles dissolved into another fit of laughter; it took him a few minutes to gather himself but when he had, he began to relate his unfortunate adventure to Pickles.
“I naturally did not want anyone on the face of the planet to know what I was doing,” he began. “So I agreed to meet my instructor at a club called the Roost, rather than just summoning one to the ‘Haus. It wasn’t listed anywhere on the internet so I thought that it was sufficiently small and unpopular enough for me to get in and out without being recognized or encountering any trouble…or at least any trouble I couldn’t handle on my own. I told him I wanted to learn to dance like…well, like people do in clubs, I suppose that’s what I said. I don’t remember now. Anyway, when I arrived at the Roost I realized that it was not a normal club. It was, in fact, a gay strip club, as I realized when I saw naked men on poles. I thought perhaps this was only an unfortunate meeting place for me and the instructor, but I was wrong about that too. He took me into a back room. At first it wasn’t so bad. I actually learned a little; it wasn’t difficult and it didn’t involve a pole-”
“Bummer,” Pickles interjected, smirking wickedly. Charles glared at him.
“Anyway,” he continued. “He eventually declared me ‘ready’ and said that he would ‘send someone in shortly.’ I had no idea what this meant, but he left too quickly for me to ask. So I waited, thinking perhaps someone else was coming in to teach me something else-so far nothing had happened to make me believe that I wasn’t just being given a dance lesson-a very, ah, unorthodox dance lesson, of course, but just a lesson nonetheless. And, ah…well, eventually, someone did come in. And he, ah…he demanded that I role-play his boss and, ah…step…on his, ah. Well. Anyway. It turns out that the Roost is not listed on the internet because it is a gay brothel. And it also turns out that my ‘instructor’ believed me to be applying for a job…which I apparently received without my knowledge, resulting in a strange little bald man demanding that I step on his genitals.”
Charles cradled his forehead in his hand and laughed ruefully. “Since I took no hoods with me I spent nearly two hours trying to rectify the misunderstanding before I finally knocked them both out and left. They don’t have my real name and I was dressed in this, so they shouldn’t figure it out. And that is why I was late for our date, Pickles.”
This last part Pickles didn’t hear; he was too busy laughing into his knees, tears running from the corners of his green eyes. He was laughing so hard that he wasn’t making any sound at all; it was as if he could not get the breath to laugh, a welcome change from the clenching, suffocating feeling he had previously endured. It was a long time before he could sit up and face Charles without imagining his face when he was asked to walk all over some old man’s crotch.
“I d-don’t get it, dood,” Pickles eventually managed to splutter, “W-why the f-fack didja wanna learn t’dance? Or hell, why th’ hell didn’t ya ask me? I p-promise I wouldn’ta asked ya t’ curbstomp my junk,” he added and then began giggling again, kicking his legs in glee.
“If you can contain your hysteria for a moment I’ll tell you,” Charles said, but he was still smiling himself.
“Okay, okay okay okay,” Pickles said and took a deep breath. “Go ahead, dood.”
Charles shoved his hands back in his pockets. “Well, to be honest,” Charles said, “after I saw you dancing in your room, I decided to take you dancing, for a date.” He paused for a moment to push his hair back then continued. “I just had to, ah…learn to dance first. Or learn to dance like a man who has heard any kind of music other than instrumental or classical.”
Pickles stared at him, no longer laughing. In truth he wasn’t sure what he should do; whether he should laugh or thank him or act like it was no big deal or what. It was the strangest thing, the strangest feeling, but he eventually found something to say.
“Dood…ya coulda just asked me t’ teach ya. I wouldn’t’a minded, seriously,” he said, wondering suddenly if Charles had chosen his particular awkward path because he believed Pickles was too angry at him to help him. “I ain’t that mad at ya, dood, really,” he added and suddenly he wasn’t mad at him at all, couldn’t be mad at him, and then Charles smiled at him and shrugged his shoulders.
“I wanted to surprise you,” he said.
Pickles had a moment of legitimate confusion at that. That anyone would want to do anything so silly and yet so thoughtful just for him, of all people. That anyone would go out of their way for him in such an extreme manner. Then he remembered Charles, broken and bleeding and, for all Pickles knew, dead. All because he had been protecting Dethklok, protecting his boys, his friends, and his lover. Then there was Charles again, alive, gloriously and impossibly alive, and he was saying I had no choice. I have to protect you boys, I have to keep all of you safe, I have to keep you safe.
And now here was Charles, going out of his way again, and not even for anything so noble as protecting the band. It was just to make Pickles happy, just to make him smile, even though he knew how Pickles felt, even though Pickles had been pushing him further and further away ever since he his return. And that was when he started smiling.
He knew that the smile on his face made him look as giddy and stupid as a thirteen year old girl but he didn’t care. He couldn’t care. He couldn’t help it. All he could do was smile because Charles was there, with him, and that was all that mattered.
“Well, ya definitely surprised me, all right,” he said and he leaned back against Charles’ shoulder and kissed his scar. “That was a hell of a story, dood…but ya did say ya learned somethin’, right?”
“Ah…I did say that, didn’t I?” Charles laughed uneasily; he knew what was going to happen next.
Pickles slid off the bar and grabbed Charles’ hand, his grin full of mischief. “So show me whatcha got, chief,” he said and dragged the manager out into the crowd.
Transcendental
A Metalocalypse Fanfiction
Written as a Bonus Ficlet for the Hearts and Guts Gift Exchange
To: Matsunaga
From: gossamerstarsxx
Characters/Pairings: C/P. Presence of the rest of Dethklok is implied.
Timeline: After the end of Season 2 up to Renovationklok.
Rating: PG13.
Notes: Short and not very sweet. Written in stanzas.
Every little attempt to live is pain.
Breathe in, pull down air, swallow it.
Nothing but life-giving poison
and he can’t stop drinking it.
None of them can.
They don’t know how.
Chaos crawls after them,
as always. Hell stalks them;
they flinch. He drinks.
He wants to drown.
He does drown, daily.
Endlessly. Constantly.
It envelopes him. It is him.
The pain transcends
the emotional.
Brutal, he thinks.
It’s no consolation.
Should it be?
Dreams destroy him.
Skin on skin, lips and
hazel eyes, smile now shattered.
And his freckled hands are
tracing the intricacies of a Gear
tattoo that he still doesn’t understand.
Of course I have one,
he says that first time.
I took the same vow.
Die for Dethklok.
Of course, of course, of course.
He wakes up repeating it.
Of course. Shaking, he smokes
more poison and he’s still alive.
Of course. His skin goes bright.
Burns. He watches.
They watch together.
Floundering at sea, they sink
and they watch. Who knows
how to swim? None of them do.
They never did. He kept them
afloat and now they’re sinking.
They’re drowning.
The locket pulls him lower.
He stares at the picture,
his anchor; betraying him,
drowning him, but he can’t let go.
Down with the ship, he thinks.
He went down with the ship.
There is no ship now.
Not their ship. A pirate,
he thinks. A pirate,
yes, the earring.
Then…
Then the light. He squints.
So bright and so long
with nothing but darkness.
The light…it’s not light,
not normal light.
It’s his light.
His light. And Pickles forgets
how his body works. I died,
he thinks. I’m dead. Of course.
And dead is okay. Dead is okay
because Charlie is dead. Isn’t he?
I faked it, he says.
He doesn’t look Pickles
in the eye. He can’t. Of course.
Of course, of course, of course…
So Pickles pretends.
But he knows.
And doesn’t care.