LOVE IS BRUTAL XII
Pairing: S/T, C/P.
Skwisgaar Skwigelf stood in the center of the courtyard, head down, a fall of lank blond hair shadowing the sides of his sharp face. The yard wolves circled him loosely. Their black snouts twitched as they scented him, and their jowls pulled back in fanged grins.
They could smell his blood.
It dripped from his bunched left hand into the dirt below, soaking into the ground and leaving a dark stain. Skwisgaar either did not notice or did not care. He paid no attention to the wolves that stalked him, their hunger whetted by his spilt blood. The veins in his forearms bulged outward in snaking cords as he clenched down harder with his bleeding fist.
Suddenly, the Alpha wolf stopped in his tracks. His ears twitched, then lay flat against his bullet-shaped skull. The scent of the man had changed-the smell of his blood, fresh and enticing, was being overridden by another smell. It burned in the wolves’ sensitive noses like vinegar, making their tales slip between their legs, making them cower and grovel on their bellies at Skwisgaar’s booted feet.
As Skwisgaar raised his trembling, dripping hand toward his face, the wolves began to whimper. The man’s fury-smell was overpowering-as his head rose, one wolf’s bladder let go in a flood of acrid urine. The creature wallowed in its own piss, too afraid to move.
Skwisgaar opened his wounded hand; he never once winced as the sharp barbs of Toki’s slightly wolf-gnawed Dethphone tore free from the skin of his palm. His sunken eyes burned brightly from his flushed face, like balls of crackling blue lightning.
As Skwisgaar’s rage burst out of him, the wolves began to howl.
Swearing in a torrent of furious, slurred Swedish, Skwisgaar rared back with his bloodstreaked arm and hurled the Dethphone into the distance. The wolves followed the arc of his throw with yellow eyes, then took off after it, still howling, harmonizing with Skwisgaar’s bellowed curses.
God damn it, Skwisgaar thought, as he turned and strode back toward the sweeping staircase that led up to the front door of Mordhaus. He’s left nothing.
Skwisgaar’s head, still stapled, throbbed darkly. He was going to pay for his angry adrenaline rush, but he could not care less. The Dethphone had been another dead end for him, another failed attempt at finding Toki, who had been gone for the better part of a week now.
Which means Pickles has been missing for almost a month, he reminded himself, absently wiping blood on the leg of his pants. We’re falling apart.
The ongoing search for Pickles had turned up very little. A few people thought they might have seen him a few weeks earlier, around the time he would have escaped the rehab facility, but the leads had turned into dead ends for each supposed sighting. One or two more thought they had seen him in the city outside of Mordland, but that report had been over a week ago, and absolutely nothing had been reported since.
“The only good news in this that I can see,” Ofdensen had said during a meeting the night before, “is that these reports come from only two areas: the city in which New Method Wellness was located, and the city outside our compound.”
The search for Toki was, if at all possible, going worse. There was not even the breath of a rumor that the kid had been spotted. Skwisgaar had suggested that they begin to pay attention to Toki’s internet pages-he liked to log in on his own Facebook fan page, despite the fact that he was forbidden to post anything-but so far, the hackers that had been hired to pinpoint the location of Toki’s logins had not seen so much as a single attempt.
Skwisgaar himself had personally interrogated the Klokateers that had been on guard duty at the front gate when Toki left, as well as the ones who had been stationed along the sweeping drive down which Toki must have walked. The guards admitted to seeing their Lord leave the Mordland compound, but explained that Toki had declined any offer of transportation, as well as bodyguards.
“My Lord, Master Wartooth simply walked away down the road,” Number 432, a front gate guard, had explained. He had been shaking as he knelt in front of Skwisgaar, head bowed in respect. “I regret now that we did not stop him.”
It had taken Nathan’s big arms and Ofdensen’s firm voice to keep Skwisgaar from attacking the guard out of sheer, furious disappointment. Instead, Skwisgaar wracked his brain for another day, until he came up with the idea try to pinpoint Toki’s location via the GPS on his Dethphone. The appropriate technical personnel had been hired, but the GPS had led them to Mordhaus’ own courtyard. Toki’s phone-still operational at that point-was being used as a chew toy by an adolescent yard wolf.
Skwisgaar had volunteered himself to go retrieve it, in order to hide his acute disappointment. He was out the door before Charles could warn him to be careful.
As Skwisgaar had stooped to pick up the phone, a wave of anger had engulfed him-all his frustration, all his self-hatred, all his disappointment had come to head there in the courtyard as the wolves looked on.
And now I’ve got nothing to show for it but a fucked-up hand, he thought, angry again. I won’t be able to play for weeks.
Of course, he had already gone nearly three weeks without playing. If Toki and Pickles weren’t found soon, Skwisgaar doubted he’d ever want to pick up a guitar again.
He trudged up the huge staircase, only now beginning to feel the sharp pricks of pain in his left hand. Skwisgaar briefly considered trying to shove it deep into his pocket, in order to hide the damage from Ofdensen, but he simply did not give a damn what Ofdensen said to him at this point.
“Skwisgaar?”
The Swede glanced up from the stone floor. Nathan stood in the foyer.
“Ja, Nate?”
“For Chrissake, don’t call me Nate,” Nathan grumbled. “Where the fuck did’ja go?”
Skwisgaar opened his mouth to reply, then hesitated when he realized he was about to speak in Swedish. That particular aspect of his concussion was still fucking with him.
“Wents to get Toki’s Dethphone,” he replied at length. “Wolves eatingks it now.”
“It’ll probably kill ‘em,” Nathan remarked, falling into step alongside the Swede. A moment or two later-
“Holy fuck, Skwisgaar-did you get bit or somethin’?!” Nathan stopped in mid-stride, grabbing Skwisgaar’s lacerated hand in his larger one.
“Phone dids it,” Skwisgaar replied briefly. “Nots hurtingks.”
“You gotta be more careful, man,” Nathan said. “It’s a good fuckin’ thing those hands of yours are insured for…uh… how much was it again?”
“I forgets,” Skwisgaar answered. “Ands it don’ts be matteringks nows, anyways.”
Nathan’s thick, dark brows furrowed together. “Why not?”
“I haven’ts pickeds ups da guitars in weeks, Nat’ans,” Skwisgaar reminded him. “Ands whats mores, I don’ts be wantingks to.”
Skwisgaar walked away from Nathan without waiting for a reply, taking each step of the staircase with weary movements. His left hand throbbed sharply, and he tucked it close to his chest with a hiss. The bitter smell of blood sickened him. It brought to mind Toki as he had last seen him, with rivulets of blood striping his face into a mask of savagery.
Will he ever come home? Skwisgaar paused halfway up the flight, gripping the rail with his good hand as he swayed on his feet. Never mind if he’ll ever forgive me, never mind if he’ll ever even speak to me again…but will he come home?
Logic answered yes. Toki had known only two homes: Norway and Dethklok. His life with Dethklok had been heaven compared with the way he had lived in Norway--so why would he not return to the most comfortable life he had ever known?
Because of me, came the miserable reply in Skwisgaar’s mind.
Shoulders slumped, Skwisgaar began to climb again. He had hardly set foot on the next floor when Ofdensen was upon him, strong fingers curling around Skwisgaar’s thin upper arm.
“You’re an idiot, you know,” Ofdensen muttered as he pulled Skwisgaar in the direction of his office. “Those wolves could have shredded you to pieces.”
Skwisgaar made a pfft sound under his breath, but made no move to resist Ofdensen as he steered him into his dim office. The manager pushed Skwisgaar into a chair, picked up his injured hand, and placed it gently on his desk before he began to rummage through the drawers.
“You need to get ahold of yourself, Skwisgaar,” Ofdensen told him, emerging with a bottle of disinfectant, cotton balls, and a roll of gauze.
“Eh? What’s dat be meaningks?” the Swede asked, watching the manager with wary eyes as he soaked a cotton ball in peroxide.
“It means I can’t hold you boys together with fucking magic,” the other man snapped, “Hold still.”
He began to press the cotton ball to the worst of the cuts in Skwisgaar’s palm, eliciting a surprised hiss from the guitarist.
“Dat shit burns!”
“It’s supposed to,” Ofdensen answered shortly. “It’s killing all the bacteria. There were wolves chewing on that phone, you idiot. God only knows what kind of germs you picked up.”
“Whats yous be meaningks ‘bout magics, anyways?” Skwisgaar asked, trying not to wince as Ofdensen attended to the other wounds in the same manner.
Ofdensen sighed heavily as he wrapped the gauze tightly around Skwisgaar’s priceless hand.
“You really don’t get it, do you?” he asked, sitting down on the edge of his desk. “Skwisgaar, have you looked in a mirror lately?”
The Swede shook his head.
“You’re a walking skeleton,” Ofdensen continued. “You’re not eating, you’re not sleeping. You walk around the Haus like a zombie. The only time you snap out of it is when we try something new to find Toki. When it fails, you slip right back into this damn waking coma of yours.”
The manager paused, pinching the bridge of his nose as if he felt a headache coming on. “Skwisgaar, you’re not the only person suffering here. I know you’re a selfish prick by nature, but William and Nathan are just as lost as you are right now. If the three of you would just interact with one another, you would all feel a little better about this whole situation. The three of you would all be able to think more clearly, maybe even come up with some new ideas to find Toki and Pickles. You guys aren’t just a band, Skwisgaar,” Ofdensen said. “You’re a family-the only family that any of you have. If you don’t start acting like it, Dethklok is done for.”
Skwisgaar(who had been staring fixedly at the floor ever since the words “selfish prick”)flexed his newly bandaged hand and said nothing. He was too lost in his own thoughts, too preoccupied with memories that hadn’t surfaced in years-absurd memories, for the most part, but they made him ache.
He remembered Pickles, drunk off his ass and giggling like a schoolgirl as he gave Toki his first condom; Nathan’s look of incredulity when Toki had come to him to ask just what the hell a condom was for; he and Murderface laughing until they couldn’t breathe when both Nathan and Pickles tried to mime how to put the damn thing on; Toki finally coming the conclusion that the condom was a balloon, blowing it up, and attempting to draw faces on it.
There was the time when Skwisgaar had found Pickles curled up in a corner of his hotel room, naked, trembling, and sweaty, muttering to himself that the dust bunnies were coming, the dust bunnies were coming…then screeching in horror and pointing madly under the bed when Skwisgaar had tried to explain that there were no dust bunnies. Pickles had been so fucked up that Skwisgaar had had to call Nathan, who had simply “swept up” the dust bunnies and put Pickles to bed. As far as Skwisgaar knew, Nathan had stayed with him all night.
Skwisgaar’s fists curled despite his injured hand as he remembered the first time he had ever seen Toki’s bare back; the scars crossed upon scars. He hadn’t been able to ask Toki what had happened, but he’d taken the younger boy into his bed that night…as if he could protect him from whatever nightmare had caused such wounds.
There had been a stretch of months back in the early days when Murderface had had a few more “knife accidents” than usual, and walked around with shallow cuts all up and down his arms. He had eventually come to band practice with gauze wrapped tightly around his wrists, and played bass until the blood soaked through the bandages. From that day forward, Murderface was flanked by one of them wherever he went; usually Nathan or Pickles, but Skwisgaar and Toki had kept him busy on more than one occasion.
The memories kept flooding him: trying to teach Pickles to speak Swedish; the first time Toki got drunk (it was a disaster); the night Murderface tried mushrooms and entertained them by having an elaborate conversation with a toad he found outside; Nathan’s first few botched attempts at painting his fingernails black, until Skwisgaar had taken over the job with his steadier hands; Toki learning to play football from Nathan and excelling so much that Nathan walked around beaming like the world’s proudest father; Pickles’ teaching them how to fucking ballroom dance because his mother had made him take lessons…and then Nathan, Nathan in the foyer, grabbing his bloody hand and asking with real concern in his voice if a wolf had bitten him.
“Skwisgaar? Skwisgaar! Did you hear a word I just said?”
Skwisgaar blinked, coming back to reality as Ofdensen snapped his fingers under his long nose. He stared at Ofdensen blankly for a moment, as if trying to figure out why this man hadn’t appeared in any of the memories he had just relived.
Skwisgaar smirked-it was no real smile, but it made Ofdensen’s eyes widen nonetheless.
“Dids you be knowingks dat Pickle coulds does da ballsroom dance?”
He was up and out the door without waiting for an answer, yelling for Nathan and Murderface with new strength in his voice.
.
Skwisgaar Skwigelf stood in the center of the courtyard, head down, a fall of lank blond hair shadowing the sides of his sharp face. The yard wolves circled him loosely. Their black snouts twitched as they scented him, and their jowls pulled back in fanged grins.
They could smell his blood.
It dripped from his bunched left hand into the dirt below, soaking into the ground and leaving a dark stain. Skwisgaar either did not notice or did not care. He paid no attention to the wolves that stalked him, their hunger whetted by his spilt blood. The veins in his forearms bulged outward in snaking cords as he clenched down harder with his bleeding fist.
Suddenly, the Alpha wolf stopped in his tracks. His ears twitched, then lay flat against his bullet-shaped skull. The scent of the man had changed-the smell of his blood, fresh and enticing, was being overridden by another smell. It burned in the wolves’ sensitive noses like vinegar, making their tales slip between their legs, making them cower and grovel on their bellies at Skwisgaar’s booted feet.
As Skwisgaar raised his trembling, dripping hand toward his face, the wolves began to whimper. The man’s fury-smell was overpowering-as his head rose, one wolf’s bladder let go in a flood of acrid urine. The creature wallowed in its own piss, too afraid to move.
Skwisgaar opened his wounded hand; he never once winced as the sharp barbs of Toki’s slightly wolf-gnawed Dethphone tore free from the skin of his palm. His sunken eyes burned brightly from his flushed face, like balls of crackling blue lightning.
As Skwisgaar’s rage burst out of him, the wolves began to howl.
Swearing in a torrent of furious, slurred Swedish, Skwisgaar rared back with his bloodstreaked arm and hurled the Dethphone into the distance. The wolves followed the arc of his throw with yellow eyes, then took off after it, still howling, harmonizing with Skwisgaar’s bellowed curses.
God damn it, Skwisgaar thought, as he turned and strode back toward the sweeping staircase that led up to the front door of Mordhaus. He’s left nothing.
Skwisgaar’s head, still stapled, throbbed darkly. He was going to pay for his angry adrenaline rush, but he could not care less. The Dethphone had been another dead end for him, another failed attempt at finding Toki, who had been gone for the better part of a week now.
Which means Pickles has been missing for almost a month, he reminded himself, absently wiping blood on the leg of his pants. We’re falling apart.
The ongoing search for Pickles had turned up very little. A few people thought they might have seen him a few weeks earlier, around the time he would have escaped the rehab facility, but the leads had turned into dead ends for each supposed sighting. One or two more thought they had seen him in the city outside of Mordland, but that report had been over a week ago, and absolutely nothing had been reported since.
“The only good news in this that I can see,” Ofdensen had said during a meeting the night before, “is that these reports come from only two areas: the city in which New Method Wellness was located, and the city outside our compound.”
The search for Toki was, if at all possible, going worse. There was not even the breath of a rumor that the kid had been spotted. Skwisgaar had suggested that they begin to pay attention to Toki’s internet pages-he liked to log in on his own Facebook fan page, despite the fact that he was forbidden to post anything-but so far, the hackers that had been hired to pinpoint the location of Toki’s logins had not seen so much as a single attempt.
Skwisgaar himself had personally interrogated the Klokateers that had been on guard duty at the front gate when Toki left, as well as the ones who had been stationed along the sweeping drive down which Toki must have walked. The guards admitted to seeing their Lord leave the Mordland compound, but explained that Toki had declined any offer of transportation, as well as bodyguards.
“My Lord, Master Wartooth simply walked away down the road,” Number 432, a front gate guard, had explained. He had been shaking as he knelt in front of Skwisgaar, head bowed in respect. “I regret now that we did not stop him.”
It had taken Nathan’s big arms and Ofdensen’s firm voice to keep Skwisgaar from attacking the guard out of sheer, furious disappointment. Instead, Skwisgaar wracked his brain for another day, until he came up with the idea try to pinpoint Toki’s location via the GPS on his Dethphone. The appropriate technical personnel had been hired, but the GPS had led them to Mordhaus’ own courtyard. Toki’s phone-still operational at that point-was being used as a chew toy by an adolescent yard wolf.
Skwisgaar had volunteered himself to go retrieve it, in order to hide his acute disappointment. He was out the door before Charles could warn him to be careful.
As Skwisgaar had stooped to pick up the phone, a wave of anger had engulfed him-all his frustration, all his self-hatred, all his disappointment had come to head there in the courtyard as the wolves looked on.
And now I’ve got nothing to show for it but a fucked-up hand, he thought, angry again. I won’t be able to play for weeks.
Of course, he had already gone nearly three weeks without playing. If Toki and Pickles weren’t found soon, Skwisgaar doubted he’d ever want to pick up a guitar again.
He trudged up the huge staircase, only now beginning to feel the sharp pricks of pain in his left hand. Skwisgaar briefly considered trying to shove it deep into his pocket, in order to hide the damage from Ofdensen, but he simply did not give a damn what Ofdensen said to him at this point.
“Skwisgaar?”
The Swede glanced up from the stone floor. Nathan stood in the foyer.
“Ja, Nate?”
“For Chrissake, don’t call me Nate,” Nathan grumbled. “Where the fuck did’ja go?”
Skwisgaar opened his mouth to reply, then hesitated when he realized he was about to speak in Swedish. That particular aspect of his concussion was still fucking with him.
“Wents to get Toki’s Dethphone,” he replied at length. “Wolves eatingks it now.”
“It’ll probably kill ‘em,” Nathan remarked, falling into step alongside the Swede. A moment or two later-
“Holy fuck, Skwisgaar-did you get bit or somethin’?!” Nathan stopped in mid-stride, grabbing Skwisgaar’s lacerated hand in his larger one.
“Phone dids it,” Skwisgaar replied briefly. “Nots hurtingks.”
“You gotta be more careful, man,” Nathan said. “It’s a good fuckin’ thing those hands of yours are insured for…uh… how much was it again?”
“I forgets,” Skwisgaar answered. “Ands it don’ts be matteringks nows, anyways.”
Nathan’s thick, dark brows furrowed together. “Why not?”
“I haven’ts pickeds ups da guitars in weeks, Nat’ans,” Skwisgaar reminded him. “Ands whats mores, I don’ts be wantingks to.”
Skwisgaar walked away from Nathan without waiting for a reply, taking each step of the staircase with weary movements. His left hand throbbed sharply, and he tucked it close to his chest with a hiss. The bitter smell of blood sickened him. It brought to mind Toki as he had last seen him, with rivulets of blood striping his face into a mask of savagery.
Will he ever come home? Skwisgaar paused halfway up the flight, gripping the rail with his good hand as he swayed on his feet. Never mind if he’ll ever forgive me, never mind if he’ll ever even speak to me again…but will he come home?
Logic answered yes. Toki had known only two homes: Norway and Dethklok. His life with Dethklok had been heaven compared with the way he had lived in Norway--so why would he not return to the most comfortable life he had ever known?
Because of me, came the miserable reply in Skwisgaar’s mind.
Shoulders slumped, Skwisgaar began to climb again. He had hardly set foot on the next floor when Ofdensen was upon him, strong fingers curling around Skwisgaar’s thin upper arm.
“You’re an idiot, you know,” Ofdensen muttered as he pulled Skwisgaar in the direction of his office. “Those wolves could have shredded you to pieces.”
Skwisgaar made a pfft sound under his breath, but made no move to resist Ofdensen as he steered him into his dim office. The manager pushed Skwisgaar into a chair, picked up his injured hand, and placed it gently on his desk before he began to rummage through the drawers.
“You need to get ahold of yourself, Skwisgaar,” Ofdensen told him, emerging with a bottle of disinfectant, cotton balls, and a roll of gauze.
“Eh? What’s dat be meaningks?” the Swede asked, watching the manager with wary eyes as he soaked a cotton ball in peroxide.
“It means I can’t hold you boys together with fucking magic,” the other man snapped, “Hold still.”
He began to press the cotton ball to the worst of the cuts in Skwisgaar’s palm, eliciting a surprised hiss from the guitarist.
“Dat shit burns!”
“It’s supposed to,” Ofdensen answered shortly. “It’s killing all the bacteria. There were wolves chewing on that phone, you idiot. God only knows what kind of germs you picked up.”
“Whats yous be meaningks ‘bout magics, anyways?” Skwisgaar asked, trying not to wince as Ofdensen attended to the other wounds in the same manner.
Ofdensen sighed heavily as he wrapped the gauze tightly around Skwisgaar’s priceless hand.
“You really don’t get it, do you?” he asked, sitting down on the edge of his desk. “Skwisgaar, have you looked in a mirror lately?”
The Swede shook his head.
“You’re a walking skeleton,” Ofdensen continued. “You’re not eating, you’re not sleeping. You walk around the Haus like a zombie. The only time you snap out of it is when we try something new to find Toki. When it fails, you slip right back into this damn waking coma of yours.”
The manager paused, pinching the bridge of his nose as if he felt a headache coming on. “Skwisgaar, you’re not the only person suffering here. I know you’re a selfish prick by nature, but William and Nathan are just as lost as you are right now. If the three of you would just interact with one another, you would all feel a little better about this whole situation. The three of you would all be able to think more clearly, maybe even come up with some new ideas to find Toki and Pickles. You guys aren’t just a band, Skwisgaar,” Ofdensen said. “You’re a family-the only family that any of you have. If you don’t start acting like it, Dethklok is done for.”
Skwisgaar(who had been staring fixedly at the floor ever since the words “selfish prick”)flexed his newly bandaged hand and said nothing. He was too lost in his own thoughts, too preoccupied with memories that hadn’t surfaced in years-absurd memories, for the most part, but they made him ache.
He remembered Pickles, drunk off his ass and giggling like a schoolgirl as he gave Toki his first condom; Nathan’s look of incredulity when Toki had come to him to ask just what the hell a condom was for; he and Murderface laughing until they couldn’t breathe when both Nathan and Pickles tried to mime how to put the damn thing on; Toki finally coming the conclusion that the condom was a balloon, blowing it up, and attempting to draw faces on it.
There was the time when Skwisgaar had found Pickles curled up in a corner of his hotel room, naked, trembling, and sweaty, muttering to himself that the dust bunnies were coming, the dust bunnies were coming…then screeching in horror and pointing madly under the bed when Skwisgaar had tried to explain that there were no dust bunnies. Pickles had been so fucked up that Skwisgaar had had to call Nathan, who had simply “swept up” the dust bunnies and put Pickles to bed. As far as Skwisgaar knew, Nathan had stayed with him all night.
Skwisgaar’s fists curled despite his injured hand as he remembered the first time he had ever seen Toki’s bare back; the scars crossed upon scars. He hadn’t been able to ask Toki what had happened, but he’d taken the younger boy into his bed that night…as if he could protect him from whatever nightmare had caused such wounds.
There had been a stretch of months back in the early days when Murderface had had a few more “knife accidents” than usual, and walked around with shallow cuts all up and down his arms. He had eventually come to band practice with gauze wrapped tightly around his wrists, and played bass until the blood soaked through the bandages. From that day forward, Murderface was flanked by one of them wherever he went; usually Nathan or Pickles, but Skwisgaar and Toki had kept him busy on more than one occasion.
The memories kept flooding him: trying to teach Pickles to speak Swedish; the first time Toki got drunk (it was a disaster); the night Murderface tried mushrooms and entertained them by having an elaborate conversation with a toad he found outside; Nathan’s first few botched attempts at painting his fingernails black, until Skwisgaar had taken over the job with his steadier hands; Toki learning to play football from Nathan and excelling so much that Nathan walked around beaming like the world’s proudest father; Pickles’ teaching them how to fucking ballroom dance because his mother had made him take lessons…and then Nathan, Nathan in the foyer, grabbing his bloody hand and asking with real concern in his voice if a wolf had bitten him.
“Skwisgaar? Skwisgaar! Did you hear a word I just said?”
Skwisgaar blinked, coming back to reality as Ofdensen snapped his fingers under his long nose. He stared at Ofdensen blankly for a moment, as if trying to figure out why this man hadn’t appeared in any of the memories he had just relived.
Skwisgaar smirked-it was no real smile, but it made Ofdensen’s eyes widen nonetheless.
“Dids you be knowingks dat Pickle coulds does da ballsroom dance?”
He was up and out the door without waiting for an answer, yelling for Nathan and Murderface with new strength in his voice.
.