Scandinavian Heartstrings, in Drop D.

Chapter 6.1 Fish bowl

Since an agreement couldn't be reached, they decided to just throw all the animals in together and watch the carnage unfold, but to their disappointment nothing much happened. All the sea creatures seemed to either ignore each other or run away from everything. Even the camouflage octopus had hidden expertly in the rocks and was very uninterested in the passing potential snacks.

Toki had sat as far away from Skwisgaar as possible, drinking Mojitos with Pickles at the end of the table and watching the baby Tiger shark swim around the tank. Skwisgaar and Murderface sat at the other end and argued over how much or little (depending on whose side you were on) of the bass lines had been written by whom. Nathan sat in the middle of the table and switched between the two groups. He shifted back to the bass lines conversation when he noticed that Skwisgaar had managed to completely rearrange the food on his plate without actually consuming any of it.

"You freaking anorexic or something?" Nathan butted in and pointed to Skwisgaar's plate.

Skwisgaar was really not enjoying Nathan's new found concern for his welfare and let out an exasperated noise. He humoured him by consuming one tiny forkful of salmon and washed it down with another vodka lemon. He was managing to get through a good amount of alcohol if nothing else. Nathan raised an expectant eye brow and Skwisgaar proceeded to consume two more tiny forkfuls under his watchful gaze.

"You know, you schould schtock up for the comedown. It'sch gunna be schomething fierce." Murderface said, showing his concern in his own way.

"Ja." Skwisgaar said with a little irritation in his voice and tapped his fingers vigorously against his fork.

"Seriously man, you'll end up hospitalised at this rate." Nathan said.

"Ja." Skwisgaar said, more forcefully.

"It'sch like a bear preparing for winter, you schee?" Murderface added.

"Ja! I gets it." His heel jittered under the table.

"Good, so go on, eat. Or do I need to force feed you like a baby?" Nathan said.

Skwisgaar put one hand over his face and stabbed his fork hard into his fish. "Fuck damn it! I'll stab you both through the neck if you don't fuck off and leave me alone!" He released the fork and rubbed his face with both hands while his heel continued to twitch violently.

When he looked up the three Americans were looking at him with annoyed expressions and Toki was staring at him with wide-eyed unease through the tank. He didn't look away this time and they stared at each other, unblinking, through the glass. Skwisgaar was the one to break their staring contest when he stood and took a cigarette out of his packet.

"I amns't your fuckings baby, Nat'an." He said as he looked down with angry, blood shot eyes. He then strode away from the table, toward the far end of the balcony that wrapped in a semi-circle around restaurant.

"Looks like someone's startin' to come down." Pickles said nonchalantly as Skwisgaar left their sight. His phone bleeped a message at him. "But it looks like that person won't be me." He smiled as he read the message. "Sorry, guys. I'll be back in a few minutes." Stowing his phone, Pickles left the table as well.

Toki crossed both arms in front of him and rested his chin on them as he watched the sea animals in the tank. Nathan was still fuming silently over Skwisgaar's outburst, so Murderface took it upon himself to lighten the mood.

"I don't know why all of thesche damn fish won't juscht kill each other. They all fight all the time but put them in the schame tank and they juscht carry on co-exischting." Murderface stared into the tank, disappointed. "Look at the two lobschters, they're juscht hanging out, palling around together, right next to that damn octopusch and it'sch not doing a god damn thing about it!" An idea struck him. "Hang on, I'm going to liven thingsch up a bit." He took a knife from the table and stood on one of the chairs to hold his arm over the tank. The other two watched as the he ran the knife over the inside of his forearm. Red blood dripped into the clear, clean water of the tank.