7- Toki relocation
Previous parts: And the Devil will set you free, The streets of Norway, How many more sins? Paradise lost, Music is freedom, Girl trouble
An American asks Toki to play with his band, after an accident leaves them short a guitarist.
Warnings: OC’s, and don’t read while driving
AN: Yes, this is Silas and his band from Changes, same guy, different back story. I’ve been wanting to reuse him for a while now.
*Also, none of these bands are Dethklok, so don’t break your brains thinking they might be.*
Disclaimer: I do not own them, and all that stuff.
Lina was gone, her dad had driven her back home without letting him see her, not even once.
Toki was physically fine, although he’d missed a couple days of work while recovering from that incident. But he wondered, was this some sort of punishment? When he’d finally found someone he cared about, she was taken from him. She’d almost died.
He loved her. He didn’t want to admit it even to himself, but that changed nothing.
Terje had said several times that he’d saved her, that he was a hero, but somehow he still felt responsible.
Although a little depressed, Toki had fallen back into the pattern of his life.
He went to work, he played on Thursdays, and he slept a lot when he wasn’t doing either of those things.
He’d tried to call Lina, but her dad had refused too let him talk to her and told him not to call again. That sucked, but he obeyed.
He wasn’t messing with the chicks at all anymore, he just didn’t want to, but otherwise things were back to normal.
The local music scene was changing now.
Terje was excited because a multi-band tour was actually going to stop in the next city. He thought most if not all of the bands were American. He was going, of course, this was too big to miss.
Apparently the American metal scene had been changing, getting heavier. Most of these bands probably wouldn’t last though.
Toki couldn’t go, he had to work. He could have gotten off, but he just didn’t like to ask.
But it turned out that it was just as well that he hadn’t been there, a fire had broken out while the last band was playing.
Terje was fine, he’d gotten out with no real problem, but several people had been hurt or killed. It was all anyone was talking about, it seemed that everyone had been there, or knew someone who was.
It sounded scary, yet really exciting. Toki couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for that band, watching from the stage as everything went all to hell around them.
The next night, Toki was at work when he got a phone call. Rune came back with an odd expression, and told him Terje needed to talk to him.
Worried that it was something serious (Lina?), Toki answered the phone and was instantly confused by the excitement in Terje’s voice.
“Toki, you gotta get down here right now! I’m not kidding man, get over here! I told Rune, he’ll let you leave.”
“Okay?” He had no idea what was going on. Toki looked at Rune, who just waved him to go, so he did.
At the club, Terje was sitting with some guy that Toki had never seen before. “So what’s going on?”
“Toki, man, this is your lucky night. This guy here is your ticket to the top, and now we’ve got to speak English because he has no idea what the fuck we’re saying.” Switching languages, Terje continued. “This is Silas, it was his band on the stage when the fire happened. The other guitar player got a burn and is not allowed to play, they need a player to keep finish the tour. Silas, this is my room mate Toki.”
Silas looked him over. “I hear you’re a pretty good guitarist, and you’ve got a passport already?”
“Yes, I gets it a whiles back. Never uses it though. Why you wants me?”
“Well, this tour was our big chance. We’re really lucky to even get included, ya know? And then last night, Jon, he’s my rhythm player, got burned when shit started falling and his arm’s all wrapped up. We don’t wanna have to quit. This place has a reputation, so I came here to ask around for somebody to fill in, and this guy said you could do it.”
Toki shook his head sadly. “I can’ts do it.”
Terje switched back to Norwegian. “What the hell, man? Of course you can do it, you can’t pass up a chance like this!”
“But I have a job, and you need me too, to help pay the rent! I can’t just leave everybody!”
“Yes you can, this is your ticket out of here! I can find another roommate if I need to, and Rune’s gonna tell you the same thing. You can’t pass this up.”
Silas was just waiting, having no idea what they were arguing about.
Toki sighed, and turned to him. “How does you even knows you wants me, you hasn’t heard me play.”
“I was getting to that. Can we use the stage for a few minutes? Can we play?”
Terje nodded, it was a slow night so nobody would really care. “Go ahead.”
Toki didn’t have his guitar with him of course, so he grabbed ‘the loaner’, as they called it. It was just a spare that was kept for anybody who didn’t or couldn’t bring theirs, nothing fancy but it played alright.
“My band’s Assassination Time, I guess you’ve probably never heard of us?” Toki shook his head, as expected. “That’s okay, can you just play what I play?”
Of course he could, that’s how he learned every song he knew. “Yes.”
And so they played. It was fast, but still well within Toki’s capabilities.
Silas was indeed impressed. “Yeah, you can do it alright. Will you? We’re supposed to leave here in three days.”
“Can I tells you tomorrows? I gots to talk to some people.”
“Fair enough. Oh, and you’re twenty-one, right?”
Uh-oh, was that a requirement? “Noes, but I’s almost twenty.”
Terje did a double take. “Shit, Toki, you’re only nineteen? I thought you were my age!”
Silas just shrugged. “It doesn’t really matter that much, not here in Europe anyway. Here’s my number where we’re staying, talk to who you’ve gotta talk to and let me know, okay? We really don’t want to have to quit the tour, and the odds of finding another good guitarist who already has a passport... I hope you’ll do it.”
Later that night, Terje was still way too excited. He wouldn’t shut up about it, and Toki was having a hard time tuning him out so he could think.
Finally he just went to his room. Silas had told him that the tour ended ‘back in the US’, and that he could either stay or they’d get him a plane home.
He didn’t still have that much stuff, if he sold his practice amp he could easily carry everything. And he didn’t really need the amp anymore anyway, he could practice without it now.
The next day, Toki talked to Rune. He was worried about leaving him shorthanded.
Rune wanted him to do it, in fact he threatened him. “Son, if you don’t take this opportunity... I’ll fire you if you don’t go on your own. You’re very talented, you need to be on stage, not washing dishes. Go, and take your stuff with you, you probably won’t come back.”
It was decided then. If everybody thought he should do it, he was going to do it.
Toki called Silas and accepted.
In the morning, Terje drove him to the place where their bus was. People were loading stuff into it.
To Toki’s surprise, Terje gave him a hug. “You’ve been a great roommate, now go be famous.”
Toki hugged him back, then grabbed his bag and his guitar from the car.
Silas greeted him as he walked over to the bus, and some guy took his things and put them away.
There seemed to be too many people, but it was explained that they were sharing the bus with one of the other bands. Everyone seemed to be in a hurry, so they all got on and found a seat.
Assassination Time apparently wasn’t very friendly with strangers, they stayed separate from the other band. And other than Silas and Jon, the guy he was standing in for, they didn’t show much interest in Toki either.
After introductions, Silas and Toki sat alone in the back, playing guitar. He only had a couple days to learn the songs. After a while, Jon came back and watched. He was a little high from the painkillers he was on, but clearly a bit depressed that he couldn’t play.
****
Toki’s first big concert was unlike anything he’d even imagined.
The sheer size of the crowd... it didn’t matter that most of them had come to see other bands, they were still there.
Even though he wanted to remember every little detail, it was so overwhelming that it all wanted to run together.
Still, he loved it. This was where he wanted to be, in front of the audience.
By the time they were finished, there was no turning back.
There was a big after party when it was over. Just the bands, and a lot of chicks that had been allowed to stay. Without the crowd, the place was huge and mostly empty.
One guy, Toki recognized him as the singer from the headlining band, was going around with a big tray of shot glasses. “One each, only one! Special shots, we’re partying tonight!”
Special? It tasted like regular alcohol. And why only one?
He was already pretty drunk though, they’d all started drinking as soon as their set was finished.
Not long after, time quit working right, making odd jumps and even stopping for periods.
Toki found himself on the floor making out with some chick, he had no idea how he’d gotten there. Or where his shirt was.
Everything had taken on an unreal edge, he felt completely disconnected from what he was doing.
Things blurred out.
Looking around- how much later?- bodies writhing everywhere. Naked people.
He was laying on the floor.
With surprise, he noticed he was naked too, and that some chick was riding him. Was she even real? Everything kept shifting.
Surreal tableau of skin and shapes, was this hell?
Someone had turned all the lights to red.
Two guys, don’t know who, naked together.
No, that was wrong, father shot the dogs. Dogs that did that, evil he said.
Two chicks, fighting over him. Pulling, dragging, why? Can’t get up.
The new one, the same one, he couldn’t tell. Doing things to him.
Everything still unstable, pulsing and insane.
He closed his eyes and tried to make it stop.
****
Toki woke up on the bus, slumped in his seat with a blanket thrown over him. Somebody had put his clothes next to him, that was nice.
It was oddly quiet. He quickly got dressed, still feeling just a little strange, and stood up.
Some of the others were awake. Silas saw him standing and waved him over.
He had to hold onto the seats to make it down the isle. What was wrong with him?
He dropped into an empty seat. “What happens last nights?”
Silas grinned. “Drugs, man. I’m not sure what kind, but on top of the alcohol... whoo I was gone.”
“Oh noes, we does drugs?!” That was evil, right?
“Chill, it’s no big deal. If you don’t wanna, don’t drink anything somebody calls ‘special’. I don’t normally, but that was the biggest show ever!”
Toki nodded thoughtfully. It hadn’t killed him, maybe it was really no big deal?
He decided to avoid the ‘special’ shots though, it had just been too strange and out of control. He didn’t even know if he’d liked it, not really.
Maybe some other time, but it was just too much to deal with right now.
He still drank of course, often heavily. He gotten fairly comfortable with that over the years. Sure it was ‘wrong’, (what wasn’t, by his father’s standards?) but he didn’t really care. His fate and his destiny were out of his hands, for the most part.
Toki spent his twentieth birthday on stage. He’d lost track of what country they were in now, but it didn’t really matter anyway.
There was another huge crowd, he loved playing for them.
He wanted a band like this, a big band where he could stand on stage and feel the eyes of the world upon him. This was where he belonged, the only place he’d ever truly belonged.
****
The last show, the ‘homecoming show’ as they called it, was in the United States.
Toki had heard a lot about the country, but at a glance it didn’t seem to be all that different than anywhere else they’d been.
It was time to decide, should he go back to Norway or stay and see what this country had to offer? The metal scene was growing, they would need good guitarists.
He had enough money to get a place to live, so he decided to stay and take a chance.
Too fast
An American asks Toki to play with his band, after an accident leaves them short a guitarist.
Warnings: OC’s, and don’t read while driving
AN: Yes, this is Silas and his band from Changes, same guy, different back story. I’ve been wanting to reuse him for a while now.
*Also, none of these bands are Dethklok, so don’t break your brains thinking they might be.*
Disclaimer: I do not own them, and all that stuff.
Lina was gone, her dad had driven her back home without letting him see her, not even once.
Toki was physically fine, although he’d missed a couple days of work while recovering from that incident. But he wondered, was this some sort of punishment? When he’d finally found someone he cared about, she was taken from him. She’d almost died.
He loved her. He didn’t want to admit it even to himself, but that changed nothing.
Terje had said several times that he’d saved her, that he was a hero, but somehow he still felt responsible.
Although a little depressed, Toki had fallen back into the pattern of his life.
He went to work, he played on Thursdays, and he slept a lot when he wasn’t doing either of those things.
He’d tried to call Lina, but her dad had refused too let him talk to her and told him not to call again. That sucked, but he obeyed.
He wasn’t messing with the chicks at all anymore, he just didn’t want to, but otherwise things were back to normal.
The local music scene was changing now.
Terje was excited because a multi-band tour was actually going to stop in the next city. He thought most if not all of the bands were American. He was going, of course, this was too big to miss.
Apparently the American metal scene had been changing, getting heavier. Most of these bands probably wouldn’t last though.
Toki couldn’t go, he had to work. He could have gotten off, but he just didn’t like to ask.
But it turned out that it was just as well that he hadn’t been there, a fire had broken out while the last band was playing.
Terje was fine, he’d gotten out with no real problem, but several people had been hurt or killed. It was all anyone was talking about, it seemed that everyone had been there, or knew someone who was.
It sounded scary, yet really exciting. Toki couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for that band, watching from the stage as everything went all to hell around them.
The next night, Toki was at work when he got a phone call. Rune came back with an odd expression, and told him Terje needed to talk to him.
Worried that it was something serious (Lina?), Toki answered the phone and was instantly confused by the excitement in Terje’s voice.
“Toki, you gotta get down here right now! I’m not kidding man, get over here! I told Rune, he’ll let you leave.”
“Okay?” He had no idea what was going on. Toki looked at Rune, who just waved him to go, so he did.
At the club, Terje was sitting with some guy that Toki had never seen before. “So what’s going on?”
“Toki, man, this is your lucky night. This guy here is your ticket to the top, and now we’ve got to speak English because he has no idea what the fuck we’re saying.” Switching languages, Terje continued. “This is Silas, it was his band on the stage when the fire happened. The other guitar player got a burn and is not allowed to play, they need a player to keep finish the tour. Silas, this is my room mate Toki.”
Silas looked him over. “I hear you’re a pretty good guitarist, and you’ve got a passport already?”
“Yes, I gets it a whiles back. Never uses it though. Why you wants me?”
“Well, this tour was our big chance. We’re really lucky to even get included, ya know? And then last night, Jon, he’s my rhythm player, got burned when shit started falling and his arm’s all wrapped up. We don’t wanna have to quit. This place has a reputation, so I came here to ask around for somebody to fill in, and this guy said you could do it.”
Toki shook his head sadly. “I can’ts do it.”
Terje switched back to Norwegian. “What the hell, man? Of course you can do it, you can’t pass up a chance like this!”
“But I have a job, and you need me too, to help pay the rent! I can’t just leave everybody!”
“Yes you can, this is your ticket out of here! I can find another roommate if I need to, and Rune’s gonna tell you the same thing. You can’t pass this up.”
Silas was just waiting, having no idea what they were arguing about.
Toki sighed, and turned to him. “How does you even knows you wants me, you hasn’t heard me play.”
“I was getting to that. Can we use the stage for a few minutes? Can we play?”
Terje nodded, it was a slow night so nobody would really care. “Go ahead.”
Toki didn’t have his guitar with him of course, so he grabbed ‘the loaner’, as they called it. It was just a spare that was kept for anybody who didn’t or couldn’t bring theirs, nothing fancy but it played alright.
“My band’s Assassination Time, I guess you’ve probably never heard of us?” Toki shook his head, as expected. “That’s okay, can you just play what I play?”
Of course he could, that’s how he learned every song he knew. “Yes.”
And so they played. It was fast, but still well within Toki’s capabilities.
Silas was indeed impressed. “Yeah, you can do it alright. Will you? We’re supposed to leave here in three days.”
“Can I tells you tomorrows? I gots to talk to some people.”
“Fair enough. Oh, and you’re twenty-one, right?”
Uh-oh, was that a requirement? “Noes, but I’s almost twenty.”
Terje did a double take. “Shit, Toki, you’re only nineteen? I thought you were my age!”
Silas just shrugged. “It doesn’t really matter that much, not here in Europe anyway. Here’s my number where we’re staying, talk to who you’ve gotta talk to and let me know, okay? We really don’t want to have to quit the tour, and the odds of finding another good guitarist who already has a passport... I hope you’ll do it.”
Later that night, Terje was still way too excited. He wouldn’t shut up about it, and Toki was having a hard time tuning him out so he could think.
Finally he just went to his room. Silas had told him that the tour ended ‘back in the US’, and that he could either stay or they’d get him a plane home.
He didn’t still have that much stuff, if he sold his practice amp he could easily carry everything. And he didn’t really need the amp anymore anyway, he could practice without it now.
The next day, Toki talked to Rune. He was worried about leaving him shorthanded.
Rune wanted him to do it, in fact he threatened him. “Son, if you don’t take this opportunity... I’ll fire you if you don’t go on your own. You’re very talented, you need to be on stage, not washing dishes. Go, and take your stuff with you, you probably won’t come back.”
It was decided then. If everybody thought he should do it, he was going to do it.
Toki called Silas and accepted.
In the morning, Terje drove him to the place where their bus was. People were loading stuff into it.
To Toki’s surprise, Terje gave him a hug. “You’ve been a great roommate, now go be famous.”
Toki hugged him back, then grabbed his bag and his guitar from the car.
Silas greeted him as he walked over to the bus, and some guy took his things and put them away.
There seemed to be too many people, but it was explained that they were sharing the bus with one of the other bands. Everyone seemed to be in a hurry, so they all got on and found a seat.
Assassination Time apparently wasn’t very friendly with strangers, they stayed separate from the other band. And other than Silas and Jon, the guy he was standing in for, they didn’t show much interest in Toki either.
After introductions, Silas and Toki sat alone in the back, playing guitar. He only had a couple days to learn the songs. After a while, Jon came back and watched. He was a little high from the painkillers he was on, but clearly a bit depressed that he couldn’t play.
****
Toki’s first big concert was unlike anything he’d even imagined.
The sheer size of the crowd... it didn’t matter that most of them had come to see other bands, they were still there.
Even though he wanted to remember every little detail, it was so overwhelming that it all wanted to run together.
Still, he loved it. This was where he wanted to be, in front of the audience.
By the time they were finished, there was no turning back.
There was a big after party when it was over. Just the bands, and a lot of chicks that had been allowed to stay. Without the crowd, the place was huge and mostly empty.
One guy, Toki recognized him as the singer from the headlining band, was going around with a big tray of shot glasses. “One each, only one! Special shots, we’re partying tonight!”
Special? It tasted like regular alcohol. And why only one?
He was already pretty drunk though, they’d all started drinking as soon as their set was finished.
Not long after, time quit working right, making odd jumps and even stopping for periods.
Toki found himself on the floor making out with some chick, he had no idea how he’d gotten there. Or where his shirt was.
Everything had taken on an unreal edge, he felt completely disconnected from what he was doing.
Things blurred out.
Looking around- how much later?- bodies writhing everywhere. Naked people.
He was laying on the floor.
With surprise, he noticed he was naked too, and that some chick was riding him. Was she even real? Everything kept shifting.
Surreal tableau of skin and shapes, was this hell?
Someone had turned all the lights to red.
Two guys, don’t know who, naked together.
No, that was wrong, father shot the dogs. Dogs that did that, evil he said.
Two chicks, fighting over him. Pulling, dragging, why? Can’t get up.
The new one, the same one, he couldn’t tell. Doing things to him.
Everything still unstable, pulsing and insane.
He closed his eyes and tried to make it stop.
****
Toki woke up on the bus, slumped in his seat with a blanket thrown over him. Somebody had put his clothes next to him, that was nice.
It was oddly quiet. He quickly got dressed, still feeling just a little strange, and stood up.
Some of the others were awake. Silas saw him standing and waved him over.
He had to hold onto the seats to make it down the isle. What was wrong with him?
He dropped into an empty seat. “What happens last nights?”
Silas grinned. “Drugs, man. I’m not sure what kind, but on top of the alcohol... whoo I was gone.”
“Oh noes, we does drugs?!” That was evil, right?
“Chill, it’s no big deal. If you don’t wanna, don’t drink anything somebody calls ‘special’. I don’t normally, but that was the biggest show ever!”
Toki nodded thoughtfully. It hadn’t killed him, maybe it was really no big deal?
He decided to avoid the ‘special’ shots though, it had just been too strange and out of control. He didn’t even know if he’d liked it, not really.
Maybe some other time, but it was just too much to deal with right now.
He still drank of course, often heavily. He gotten fairly comfortable with that over the years. Sure it was ‘wrong’, (what wasn’t, by his father’s standards?) but he didn’t really care. His fate and his destiny were out of his hands, for the most part.
Toki spent his twentieth birthday on stage. He’d lost track of what country they were in now, but it didn’t really matter anyway.
There was another huge crowd, he loved playing for them.
He wanted a band like this, a big band where he could stand on stage and feel the eyes of the world upon him. This was where he belonged, the only place he’d ever truly belonged.
****
The last show, the ‘homecoming show’ as they called it, was in the United States.
Toki had heard a lot about the country, but at a glance it didn’t seem to be all that different than anywhere else they’d been.
It was time to decide, should he go back to Norway or stay and see what this country had to offer? The metal scene was growing, they would need good guitarists.
He had enough money to get a place to live, so he decided to stay and take a chance.
Too fast