Scandinavian Heartstrings, in Drop D.

Chapter 9.2 Broken Beowulfs

Toki pushed his bedroom door open and sloshed his way inside with Skwisgaar shivering behind him. He swayed over to the nightstand next to his single bed. "There you are." He said and pulled out a one third full bottle of vodka. Before Skwisgaar could snatch it from his hand, Toki had taken a full swig of the contents. His eyebrows furrowed and he held his hand to his mouth, "Nei." He pushed the bottle into Skwisgaar's chest then darted with amazing accuracy towards the bathroom.

Skwisgaar gripped the vodka bottle tightly around the neck, as if he was actually trying to strangle it. He eyed the nightstand with distrust; what other causes of harm to Toki did it contain? He raced over and rummaged through every square inch of it. It was filled with dog-eared comic books, broken crayons, half used tubes of modelling glue, and an old bar napkin with a characterture of Pickles drawn on it he vaguely recognised. But something poking out of a beat-up blue pencil tin truly caught his eye. Two strands of brown hair and two strands of blonde, perfectly entwined in a four-strand plait. He pulled it gently from the tin and held it delicately between his fingers.

Skwisgaar touched the shorter section at the front of his own hair absentmindedly and pieces of fuzzy memory from that night pushed through like a spring saplings from the vodka-frosted earth of his mind.

He remembered laying in the dark, a hollowness returning to his chest as the drugs wore off and the Vodka reminded him of his melancholy from Lyssie's dramatic departure that afternoon. He remembered the smell of fur and the warmth from Toki's body as he took his time fiddling with their hair. He remembered a feeling of connection and a moment when his wall was lowered by choice.

Finally, he remembered desperately reaching out to Toki, and using that feeling to shield his heart from Lyssie's words, because at his core he knew she was right: he would die alone.

He almost laughed at her words now. If his track record was anything to go by, he was going to die with Toki. Perhaps that was the fate the Norns had decided for them? To be entangled not only in life, but also in death. He held the shabby plait in front of his eyes with the reverence of holding two human souls. A symbol like this shouldn't be stuffed into the back of a drawer like a kid hiding porno magazines. It needed proper care and attention, something Toki was notorious for lacking. Skwisgaar folded the hair carefully and stowed it in the back pocket of his wet jeans. He'd figure out something to do with it later.

The sound of his bandmate vomiting drew his attention back to the present situation. He took a deep swig of the vodka to calm his nerves, then put the bottle back in the drawer it had come from. Hand on the drawer knob, he stared at the nightstand like an old enemy, then took the whole thing out into the hallway to sit outside the door like trash; He wasn't chancing anything tonight.

Skwisgaar went back into the room and stood in the open doorway to the bathroom as Toki hugged the toilet bowl, retching violently into it.

"That served you right." Skwisgaar said as he knelt behind Toki and began to act out a scene they had perfected from at least a hundred hotel bathrooms. He pulled back Toki's hair and put his other arm around his stomach, "Come on, all of it." He said and pressed in hard on Toki's middle. Toki convulsed, spat, panted then repeated this combination until there was nothing left to purge. He then slumped next to the ceramic toilet, a wet, spewy tangle of brown hair and denim, and scraped his tongue with the edge of his soaking T-shirt.

"They sent Emily's ashes back to England today." Toki said after catching his breath. He'd contacted Billy the moment he'd come out of his coma. Billy had reassured him that the band and the Dicks were alright, but then had sent him a list of everyone who hadn't made it. It was a long list. Toki moved and a crease formed across his wound. He held his shoulder, wincing, unable to reach the source of pain. "I still don't get it. I don't know what happened to her." He said, forlorn.