Scandinavian Heartstrings, in Drop D.

Chapter 2.7 I sleeps with Skwisy

Toki was discharged from the hospital wing just after seven that night. He was still a little woozy and so he refrained from running everywhere like he normally would. Skwisgaar stuck close to Toki all night, again, mostly to piss Nathan off but also for his own peace of mind. They sat on the couch as they had two nights ago and watched the latest episode of Kitchen Calamities. The others all had their after dinner six pack and Toki was starting to feel left out. He pinched the three quarters full beer out of Skwisgaar's hand and took a swig.

"Tokis, you shouldn'ts be drinkings." Skwisgaar said sternly.

"I's not. Dis ams your beer." He said cheekily and took another swig.

"Ja, it ams." Skwisgaar said as he took it back.

"Share with me then." Toki said in Snow Speak and leaned into the blonde man's side, resting his head on his shoulder. Skwisgaar's defences crumbled. He couldn't refuse and so passed the bottle back to Toki who took it as he sat upright again. They shared the beer until Toki started to nod off on the couch.

"Toki, are you alright?" Nathan called over when he saw him falling asleep. Skwisgaar poked him in the arm and he slurred something quiet and indignant. "What did you think you were doing giving him alcohol?" Nathan demanded.

"It ams halfs a beer." Skwisgaar said and took the bottle out of Toki' hand, placing it on the (new) coffee table. He shook Toki gently. Toki opened his eyes lazily and looked at Skwisgaar. He then decided that laying down would be a much better idea and gently fell sideways onto Skwisgaar's lap. Skwisgaar held both his hands up like Toki was a muddy dog.

"Ooooookaaay. Looks like the lil' guy's just tuckered out." Pickles said, watching him closely. "He really probably shouldn't have had any booze, though. Gone straight to his head."

Nathan glowered at Skwisgaar, got up and walked over to them. "Come on Toki, I'll put you to bed." He said and shook him gently (well, as gently as Nathan could shake anything, so just shy of dislocating Toki's shoulder). Toki opened his eyes and looked up blearily.

"Nah, Is promised to sleeps with Skwisy." He said sleepily. Skwisgaar went pink, the man actually blushed. Murderface's jaw dropped and Nathan froze for a moment before he straightened himself.

"'Skwisy'?" He said with a raised eyebrow. Skwisgaar narrowed his eyes and then defiantly placed one hand on Toki's shoulder and another on his head.

"I didn'ts tink it ams a good idea for him to bes alones tonight." Skwisgaar said ignoring Nathan's jab.

"Yeah, you got a good point there, Skwisy." Pickles said and chuckled. Murderface made some under the breath comments about gay Europeans but he agreed as well. Nathan grunted some kind of disapproving sound.

"So you'll roll one of your groupies off the bed to make room for him?" Nathan asked cynically.

"He ams comfortables where he ams." Skwisgaar retorted throwing a pout at a silent Nathan. He then added insult to injury, gesturing that he should pass him another beer, since, you know, Toki was asleep on him and shouldn't be disturbed. Nathan took a beer from the pack and menacingly flicked off the cap with nothing but his thumb. Skwisgaar took the beer and the hint and turned back to the (also new) TV.

One by one the other's turned in, leaving Toki under the watchful eye of Skwisgaar for the rest of the night. He gently lifted Toki's head up and extracted himself when the beer had caught up with him. Coming back from the bathroom, he found the hoods had already covered Toki with a blanket and put a pillow under his head. Geez, he really did look like a baby, all swaddled and curled into a ball.

Toki whimpered in his sleep and shifted under his covers. Skwisgaar frowned. Toki had said it was nightmares that drove him to seek a chemical calmness. But maybe the same natural trick that had calmed him down while he was awake could work if he were asleep? He knelt next to Toki, put a hand on his shoulder and gently press his lips to his forehead until he stopped squirming. Toki woke, panting, and shot a hand out from under the blanket to hold Skwisgaar's on him firmly.

"Bad dream?" Skwisgaar asked, running his thumb across the back of Toki's hand.

"I don't know. They're always like this." Toki said as his breathing slowed. "She's in them now. Another monster, chasing me."

"Well, I'm here this time," Skwisgaar said. Toki looked up at him with scared, sky-blue eyes, piercing his emotional armour. "Um, so don't even think about another midnight snack from Pickles's pill cupboard." He said defensively, desperate to patch the hole.

Toki scowled at him in the dark. "You're such a moron." He said, and rolled away to face the back of the couch instead.

Skwisgaar let out an exasperated sigh as he sat on the floor and leaned against the couch. He thought back to Toki screaming into the kitchen floor and what had started this whole fiasco. "Toki, you know, you didn't kill that little girl. You're not responsible for her death." He said.

"Then why does it feel like I am?" Toki muffled into the blanket.

"Look, she was sick and dying anyway. It sucks but it just happens sometimes. The Norns decide our fate for us long before we are born, so it wasn't your fault." Skwisgaar turned to look at Toki but his only response was silence. "That's right, you were raised a Christian, weren't you? Um, this is part of God's plan, or something?" Still nothing. Skwisgaar let his head fall forward. If the Norns had sealed Toki's fate that night, would he be so quick to accept their decision?

"You know, I actually have a better understanding of how you must feel than you probably think I do." Skwisgaar pulled up his legs and hugged his knees. "I thought that I was responsible for you, well, doing what you did, but as it turns out I wasn't and... Ja, okays, I was a jerk for thinking so, but if you.... Well, if you hadn't woken up, then I wouldn't have found out what really happened, and I would have gone on thinking that... that it was my fault." He turned to face him and tentatively placed a hand on the other man's shoulder blade, grounding himself as a sliver of honesty passed through the wall around his heart. "I don't think I could have lived with myself afterwards."

Toki's silence continued. Skwisgaar closed his eyes and focused on Toki's body warmth radiating through the blanket. It melted away the weight on his shoulders and allowed him to push down any thoughts of an alternate reality where Toki's body had gone cold. The Norns had spared them both.

Quiet snivelling broke the silence and Skwisgaar reverted to what he knew best, what he should have done in the first place. He slid his arm around Toki and hugged him as he quietly sobbed. Toki's lungs pushed into Skwisgaar's chest with each decidedly unrhythmic breath.

"You know Skwisgaar," Toki finally said, wiping his eyes and nose with the blanket, "Sometimes you're not that big of a dick after all." He held Skwisgaar's arm through the goose-down and cotton. "But you're still a moron. You should have known I'd never give up my life with Dethklok. Not for anything. It really was an accident."

A small lump formed in Skwisgaar's throat. He wanted to believe it, he needed to. He held Toki to him tightly and soaked in the warmth of his life a like cat in the sun. So long as Toki was breathing, they had a chance to fix whatever was broken inside him. Then they could start on the new album and everything would go back to the way it was; back to normal.