Scandinavian Heartstrings, in Drop D.

Chapter 2.1 Kitchen Calamity

Nathan had a burst of inspiration when some guy on Kitchen Calamities actually pissed himself and dropped a knife through his foot, so he had gone upstairs to find his lyrics notepad. Murderface had presumably gone to take a shit, and Pickles was in the haus kitchen mixing himself a cocktail. This left Skwisgaar and Toki alone on the couch with the dwindling remains of two six packs of beer in front of them. Skwisgaar grabbed the packet of smokes off the coffee table then uncharacteristically lit two in his mouth and passed one to Toki. Toki looked at him suspiciously before accepting it.

"Nots for Babys, huh?" He said incredulously.

"Ja, wells, yous ams a big baby, so I gives you dis ones dis times." Skwisgaar leaned back into the couch, inhaled deeply, then exhaled to the ceiling. "Good to see you decided to stop being a dildo. You had us worried about you." Skwisgaar said still starring at the chandelier.

"Really? You were worried about me?" Toki asked from his slumped position next to him.

"Wells, you know. It's just dat tryings to finds a replaskments guitarists woulds have beens a big pains. So it's good for de band dat yous your normal selfs agains." He said, reverting to English and in doing so, to band mode. He flicked his ash and took a swig of his beer without looking at Toki.

"Oh, I sees." Toki said lamely and took another drag of his cigarette, staring at the television.

Skwisgaar glanced at him and then back to the TV. "Ja, wells, it ams not likes we be needings two guitars anyways. So I wouldn't bothers to be replacings you. But thens we couldn't plays any of de songs we has written so fars likes dey shoulds be, and that woulds be a bigs pain too." Skwisgaar looked over at Toki properly, "So I suppose, it ams better dis way."

Toki exhaled smoke as he leaned slowly forward to put out his cigarette. It was a warm night and he had not bothered to put the rest of his clothes back on, only his jeans. He'd untied his long brown hair and it shifted forward over his shoulders as he moved. Skwisgaar caught a glimpse of the very pale latticework of scars on Toki's back. They were so old now that you would not see them immediately but Skwisgaar had seen Toki shirtless many times over the years and had eventually noticed them. All of the band members had noticed them at some point, but no one had ever said anything about them, not even to each other. It just seemed like a story they didn't want to hear and each of them had stories they didn't want to tell.

Toki never seemed to be self-conscious about the scars. Skwisgaar had previously speculated that Toki may have been mauled by an animal when he was younger or that maybe a large tree branch had fallen on him. But the pattern was wrong, it was... repeated. Maybe it was something that had happened in Tampa before they met? Skwisgaar thought about how they had first found him. Some street kid with a gift for the guitar, not as gifted as himself, but not all that bad. He imagined what life would have been like if he had made a different decision all those years ago, but he kept coming back to the same conclusion.

"Ja, it ams better dis way." Skwisgaar said more to himself than to Toki and turned back to Kitchen Calamities.

They were both distracted by Pickles yelling from the haus Kitchen. He popped his red-head out the door gagging. "Blondie! You fecking nut case! What is this shit?!" He yelled and held out a bottle of alcohol with a Swedish label. Toki eyed it and his moustache twitched.

Skwisgaar glanced over his shoulder at Pickles grimacing at the bottle of Akvavit and laughed. "Whats? Nots sweets enough for yous American tongues? Wheres you even finds dat?"

"At the back of the pantry, and that's where it's fecking stayin'." He wiped his tongue on his shirt, "Tastes like turpentine and yellow snow! Blargh!" He returned the devil drink to the kitchen.