Scandinavian Heartstrings, in Drop D.

Chapter 2.6 Shark Piss

Toki was sitting up and smiling when Skwisgaar entered the hospital wing. He still looked a bit worse for wear but generally was on his way to a full recovery. The other band members were all sitting around his bed. Skwisgaar leaned with one foot against the wall and crossed his arms to give himself the best James Dean look he could.

"Oh, hi, Skwisgaar." Toki said trying to avoid any emotion in his greeting. The others turned to him and Nathan looked at Skwisgaar in very uncharacteristically neutral way. This is what he had struck the pose for.

"Hellos, Toki." He said looking straight at Nathan as he spoke. Nathan grunted some kind of greeting and looked away. Everyone (sans Murderface) was silently relieved there wasn't going to be another hospital brawl. This was the closest Skwisgaar was going to get to an apology, so he decided not to push it, for Toki's sake.

"Looks what Pickle brings me!" Toki said and held up a two month old wolf cub. Skwisgaar was intrigued and so broke away from his James Dean pose to take a look at the white and grey fluff ball rolling about bed. The little thing squirmed and nipped at Toki who seemed to find it perfectly adorable, but Skwisgaar had had some bad experiences with wolves as a child and eyed the tiny killing machine with distrust.

"Where did you gets dat?" Skwisgaar asked Pickles.

"From the other side o' tha hospital wing." Pickels said, "There's a vet there, great place to get ketamine. Anywho, they had the yard wolf pups in there for their shots, so I nabbed one for Toki." Skwisgaar threw him a questioning look. "Just fer a lil' while or tha mother won't take it back, or somethin'." Pickles quickly added to reassured him.

Toki invited Skwisgaar to pet her and he reluctantly went to touch the cub. It nipped hard at his hand and he drew it back sharply.

"Aww, she likes you!" Toki said affectionately.

"Yeah, bitches love him." Murderface jeered as Skwisgaar inspected the little bite mark.

Toki held the cub up to his nose and it latched on. He just smiled and gently shook his face side to side until it released him. "You ams goings to be de prettiest girl in da whole pack! Are you sure we can'ts keep her?"

"We can't keep wild animals in the house, Toki. It's not fair on them." Nathan said. Nathan liked to go hunting and so had an appreciation for wild animals. All the way up until he shot them.

"Yeah, I knows. She still reallys cute though." Toki rolled the wolf cub onto its back and rubbed her belly. The cub rolled back over, bit down on Toki's wrist and tugged. He laughed at it even though it was beginning to draw blood. Skwisgaar couldn't figure out if it was playing with him or trying to eat him.

"Be sures dat it don'ts be takings your hand off. We needs dem." He said, nursing his nip wound and making a mental note to get Charles to add 'acts of wolf' to his hand insurance policy.

"Oh, so yous can punch ons with Nat'an but I can'ts play wit de baby wolfs?" Toki said.

"Well, yeah, I suppose that was pretty stupid." Nathan said, rubbing in his victory. Skwisgaar glared at him but he wasn't looking.

"Fines. Let de wolflings be rippings your arm off." He said. Toki laughed at the tugging cub and Skwisgaar added, "If it makes you happys." Toki looked up from the fluff ball to smile at him, and Skwisgaar allowed the corners of his mouth to turn upwards in return.

Pickles thought that he should engineer some alone time for the two Scandinavians but also separate Skwisgaar and Nathan, just in case. "Come on, I gotta get this pup back to its mother." He said.

"Just a bits longers!" Toki said.

"Sorry, Toki, but It's already been like an hour 'n' I'll bet the lil' guy is hungry." Pickles insisted. Toki looked confused.