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It was great being famous. It meant many of the gifts Nathan got on his birthday were custom, expensive and rare. On the flip side, so many were also clearly gifts just for the sake of it. A pasta maker, a Subway gift card, an emoji pillow. He separated all of his birthday gifts into two piles. One had all the good gifts he planned to keep for himself, the other would be raffled off to the Klokateers.
He was handed a wrapped box, weighty, a bottle of liquid sloshing inside. It was either fancy olive oil or booze. He was excited when he opened a flap, saw the clear bottle and corked cap. When he pulled it out fully, though, he frowned. It was a bottle of Patrón. Not even a rare, limited run, it was regular jackoff Patrón Silver.
He glanced at the card. It was from the lead singer of a metal band that opened for them two tours ago. Not like they hung out much, but damn. Barring the fact that it was tequila, getting him booze that cheap was almost insulting.
He needed a break after that, needed a top shelf spirit to clear the bad taste in his mouth from holding a bottle of swill. He nodded at the Klokateer to wheel out the rejects so far and set the bottle down on his dresser. He figured the Klokateer would know to sort it into the reject pile.
-
Pickles laughed aloud at a video, turning his phone out to show the others. “Check this out. This guy gets hypnotized on stage and they make him bark like a dog.”
Skwisgaar dismissed it with a click of his teeth. “Hypnosis ams fakes, he ams just pretending.”
Toki watched, delighted and laughing. “This cant’s be fakes, it ams too funny.”
“Can you really be that naive, Toki?” Murderface hadn’t even bothered looking at Pickles’ screen. “Hypnosis is fake as shit.”
Toki shook his head. “I've been hypnotized befores.”
“Bullshit,” Murderface said. “Maybe you were so fucking wasted you did whatever someone told you to do, but you weren’t hypnotized.”
“It's real,” Pickles said, backing Toki up. “It's all about susceptibility. Some people are more susceptible than others.”
Nathan joined in, providing his opinion. “Those people are pretending. It’s like the people that died for a few minutes and then claim they saw the light, or Jesus, or some shit. It’s all bullshit.”
“Why don’ts I proves it?” Toki got up, waving the rest of Dethklok to follow. “Twinkletits has that stuffs in his office.”
Pickles followed behind immediately while the skeptical three traded glances, then shrugged. Real or not, they were not going to pass up a chance to watch Toki make an ass of himself.
Pickles and Toki rooted through the desk drawers until they found a ring on a chain. Pickles held it up. “Do any of you want to do the honors?”
Murderface snatched it. “I’ll do it! Sit down, Toki.” Murderface cleared his throat and swung the ring gently from side to side like a pendulum. “You’re getting very sleepy.”
“No wonder you think hypnosis is fake.” Pickles pulled up a how-to article and shoved it toward Murderface. “Don’t try shit you’ve seen on TV. Follow these steps.”
After some grumbling, Murderface followed the instructions. “Alright, Toki. Are you relaxed?”
“Yeps.”
“Good. Focus on the ring. Every time it completes a swing, you’re going to feel even more relaxed.”
Toki nodded, following the ring with the snapping of his eyes, at first clearly alert, until a few dozen swings caused his shoulders to dip and his posture to sink.
“You’re feeling relaxed, right?”
“Yeps.”
Murderface raised his brows, surprised, looking over to Skwisgaar and Nathan, but neither were impressed nor convinced yet. Murderface continued down the how-to article. “I want you to picture a place. A, uh, relaxing place.”
“Oh, nice one Murderface,” Nathan said. “A relaxing place.”
Pickles shushed him, then whispered a suggestion. “Bed.”
“Bed,” Murderface repeated. “You’re in bed. It’s the most comfortable your bed has ever felt. The pillows are fluffed, and the blanket is warm, and it feels like you’re sinking into the mattress and shit. You like this bed, right Toki?”
“I loves my bed,” Toki said, a delay and distance now, eyes still tracking, but in half time, catching every other swing.
“Are you relaxed?”
“Veries.”
“Good. Every time you breathe, you sink a little deeper. Can you feel yourself sinking?”
Even Toki's lids relaxed, a glaze appearing over his eyes. Occasionally, his eyes tracked the ring automatically, but more often held still long enough that it looked like he was moments from falling asleep. “Yups.”
“I'm going to count down from 10, and with each number, you're going to sink deeper until you're completely relaxed.” Murderface began his count, and the band watched Toki's head droop, his arms falling to their sides, a small, resting smile on his face.
“Do I keep going?” Murderface whispered to Pickles.
“Toki,” Pickles said. “What's your favorite animal sound?”
Toki, automatically and without hesitation, imitated an elephant.
“He's completely under,” Pickles confirmed.
“Okays, now whats?” Skwisgaar still was unimpressed.
“Well, whatever you want, within reason.”
“I know how to proves it once and for alls. Says I’m the best guitarists in the worlds and you’ll never hopes to compares to me.”
“You ams the best guitarists in the worlds and I will never be ables to plays like you.”
After a moment of brief awe, Skwisgaar turned to Pickles. “I believes you. He ams hypnotized.”
This opened the floodgates for Dethklok making Toki say or do stupid shit. Murdeface got Toki to say the filthiest, most degrading things to come to mind, while Skwisgaar puffed up his ego by getting Toki to shower him in praise.
Pickles just watched, self-satisfied that he’d convinced them, but Nathan still wasn’t convinced, and remained quiet and observant. Pickles caught this. “Nathan, you got anything you want him to do?”
“What else is there? Murderface and Skwisgaar already have him saying stupid shit.”
“It’s not just stupid shit. You can make suggestions, like,” Pickles suddenly faced Toki. “Toki, You’re going to start practicing regularly. Practicing will make you feel good, and you’ll need to record fewer takes.”
“That’s fucking boring,” Murderface whined.
“Well, it don’t gotta be boring. You can also get him to admit things.”
“Like secrets?” Nathan asked.
“Yeah,” Pickles shrugged.
There was something Nathan had been dying to know for months. “Did you eat the leftover tiramisu that I brought back from Italy?”
“Yes,” Toki admitted.
“I fucking knew it.”
“He blamed me for that, that asshole!” Murderface was ready to dive for Toki.
Pickles pulled him back by collar. “You’re going to snap him out of it if you do that.”
They went down the rabbit hole of just how many things Toki blamed on others. Skwisgaar's stolen shampoo? Toki, which he blamed on Murderface. Pickles' broken bong? Toki, though he got clever with that and planted the broken glass in Murderface's room. The ketchup smeared all over Murderface's original WWI rifles? Toki. In the absence of being able to blame Murderface for that one, Pickles was blamed.
After they’d exhausted all burning questions and found they were left too bitter to get anymore entertainment out of Toki, Murderface followed the instructions to bring him back up. Toki was vibrant, alert and completely ignorant to the guys all glaring at him.
Murderface held up a fist. “I’m going to beat the shit out of you.”
Toki tilted his head. “Whys? What dids I do?”
“Nevermind that for now,” Nathan said. “Pickles, you believe in this shit. Have you been hypnotized before?”
“Not all formally like that, but there are drugs that basically get you in the same state.”
“Oh, let’s see if it works on Pickle!” Toki suggested, blissfully ignorant to how the suggestion got him out of immediate trouble, distracting the guys with the chance to humiliate Pickles.
Pickles easily agreed with a shrug, swapping places with Toki on the lounge chair. Murderface went through the same steps of bringing Pickles under.
Curiously, Toki reached out, raised Pickles’ hand and released it, watching as it flopped back to his side. “Can you hear mes, Pickle?”
“Yeah.”
The guys looked at each other for the first prompt, and Murderface started with, “Pickles, who's your favorite?”
Immediately came a response of, “Nathan.”
While Nathan grinned to himself over that, Murderface sighed. “I knew that’d be the answer and yet I’m still disappointed.”
“Oh, I knows. Ams I good at guitars?” Toki asked.
“You’re not bad, you just don’t practice or learn your parts properly.”
Toki fixated heavily on the former half and swung around to Skwisgaar. “See? Pickle says I’ms good at guitars!”
Skwisgaar ignored him completely. “This ams lames. You ams asking him stuffs he woulds normallies answer honestlies anyway.”
“Uh,” Nathan spoke before he really had an idea of what he wanted to ask, but something came to him quickly. “What’s the most fucked up thing you’ve ever done?”
“Let Murderface talk me into coke being more powerful as a suppository. That fucked me up for days.”
Murderface laughed. “That was fucking priceless.”
The guys took a moment to reminisce and have a few laughs about that before Skwisgaar dug in. “What abouts any crimes?”
“Hit and run some old dude when I was 18 and wasted.”
“That's fucked up,” Nathan said. “But he's told us that before.”
“It’s cuz he doesn’t keep shit from us. This is boring,” Murderface complained.
“It ams cool,” Toki said. “He doesn’t keeps any secrets.”
“Yeah, but it’s boring when we’re trying to get something funny out of him.” Nathan looked around the room. “I don’t know, what do we do?”
Skwisgaar hummed thoughtfully for a moment. “Pickle, piss your pants.”
With nothing more than a slow blink, Pickles pissed his pants. Dethklok laughed over it for a bit before Murderface abruptly stopped laughing. “Wait a minute, he pisses his pants almost weekly.”
After some mild arguing trying to get each other to think of something funny, they collectively decided they were bored and left. Halfway down the hallway, Toki stopped and looked back. “Oh yeah, we never wokes up Pickle. You ams closest to the door, Nathans. You does it.”
“Ugh, fine.” He backtracked. Pickles didn’t really look asleep, just zoned out, the same thousand mile stare on him like whenever he decided to dabble in anti-psychotics for fun. He wondered how long he would’ve stayed like that if they’d completely forgotten, if Pickles would’ve woken up eventually. Now that would’ve been an interesting thing to find out, but there was no use when Twinkletits was going to find him the next day.
He didn’t have the how-to guide, so he approached Pickles ready to shake him by the shoulder. He stopped abruptly, smiling to himself about being Pickles’ favorite. “What do you really think about me?”
“You’re my best friend.”
“Why’s that?”
“We get along well. I respect you a lot. When push comes to shove, you have my back and do the right thing. You believed in me when the world thought I was a has-been. You taught me how to channel my rage into death metal.”
While Nathan basked in that, another question nagged him. More hesitantly, he asked, “Is there stuff you dislike about me?”
“Yeah.”
“Like what?”
“You don’t see what’s in front of you sometimes. You’re really selfish. I can tell when you’re keeping shit from me and it pisses me off when you do. You’re really sensitive even though you pretend not to be, and it causes you to make your problems our problems. You-”
Enough of that, Nathan wasn’t willing to contend with any of it. “Alright, I get the picture.” And although it wasn’t something Pickles was constantly hammering him with, it was still criticism he’d have been open about if Nathan had asked under normal circumstances. The real question was whether Pickles really didn’t hide things. “Do you keep secrets from us?”
“Yeah. Plenty.”
He felt like he struck gold, taking a seat in Twinkletits’ chair. “Yeah? Tell me one.”
“I want to do a prog album.”
“The last thing I need is you and Skwisgaar jacking yourselves off over 18 minute songs.” Nathan felt a little guilty prodding, but he didn't doubt Pickles would do the same if he had the opportunity. Besides, Pickles willingly let himself be put under after watching what they did with Toki. He had to have known the risks. “That’s as fucked up as it gets, huh?”
“No, not even close.”
“Yeah? What do you got?”
“I got this recurring fantasy, one I jack off to, about my brother.”
The anticipatory grin Nathan had fell. He reminded him, “You hate your brother,” as if Pickles didn’t already know.
“Yeah, that’s what makes it work. He’s his usual piece of shit self, finds something to blackmail me with. I think it’s money he wants, but he forces me to get him off. Even though I could probably get Charles to stop him or something, I don’t. I keep letting it happen.”
Nathan stared at him for a moment, the strange, placid response in stark contrast to the horror Pickles just laid out on him. “Uh. That’s fucked up, Pickles. Did something, like, happen between you?” He couldn’t believe he was asking it, but any justification was welcome to explain or excuse it.
“No.”
“Then why…” but he found he couldn’t finish the sentence, couldn’t actually repeat any part of what he’d heard aloud.
“It makes me hard thinking about it.”
Nathan couldn’t unhear it now. He stared at Pickles, wondered if he should bring him back up and try to pretend he’d never heard that. He didn’t stop him in time, because Pickles continued. “I think about one of those sleazy producer types bringing me to his trailer when I was still trying to break into the industry, and he brings out a camera. Casting couch type of thing, but he’s promising I’ll get my breakthrough if I just suck his dick. I’m all wishy-washy about it, but he convinces me to do it. Then I’ve got a video out there of me sucking this guy’s dick selling for a buck a pop.”
Nathan could not unpack this right now, he did not want to deal with knowing this, and only hoped to God that Pickles wouldn’t remember telling him this.
“There’s one where I go to a party, a real who’s who of the music industry at the time, and they get me wasted and have their way with me, like I’m a fucking doll or something. I OD. They don't know if I'm passed out or dead. They don't care. They fuck me like that. There are ones with you I think about a lot where-”
“Wake up. Snap out of it,” Nathan said, a snap reaction to being mentioned.
Pickles’ eyes widened, focus returning to them. He looked down at his wet pants. “You guys are assholes, goddamn.” He grabbed the tissues on Twinkletits’ desk by the handful to soak it up. “It’s all cold and shit too. How long have I been like this?”
“Yeah. Sorry." Pickles looked up at Nathan after hearing his quiet apology. Nathan turned before Pickles got a good look at his face. “I’ll get you new pants.”
“Would’ve preferred not to have pissed in them in the first place,” Pickles said, leaving with a dozen tissues stuck to him.
Nathan couldn't sleep that night. A fucked up theater played matinees in his head of Seth's sleazy grin, or of Pickles being thrown around as a limp party favor. It was the last sentence that looped the most, right where he stopped Pickles before airing out whatever fantasy of Nathan he was about to admit to.
What the fuck was wrong with Pickles?
Nathan told himself he couldn't sleep because it was so visceral, like watching a LiveLeak video. Something explored out of morbid curiosity, but later regretted once it stuck. And he did regret it. He helped himself to sleep by getting up, poking around through his pile of gifts for something with a high percentage of alcohol by volume. He found a bottle of whiskey and drank until it was lights out.
-
He tried being normal around Pickles. It should've helped that Pickles seemed to have no recollection of it, so he was exceedingly normal with Nathan.
Nathan found himself staring a lot, however. First in quiet contemplation, then in searching for the fantasies surfacing somehow, as if a hidden hunger would make itself clear in Pickles’ facial expressions or his body language. Of course none of it did, and Nathan knew rationally that it wouldn't, but that didn't mean he stopped looking for evidence of it.
They gathered around for movie night, watching the original Fame, and Nathan watched Pickles out of the corner of his eye for any reaction to the scene where something similar to his casting director fantasy played out on screen.
Surely, something would come up, some visible twinge of interest, some shifting, even just a crossing of his legs, and Nathan was almost frustrated to find Pickles wasn't observably reacting.
When he tried to examine why he cared so much, he liked to tell himself it was because Pickles was his friend, that now that he dragged this out, he was the bearer of some sort of burden. If he just bore the burden the right way, he’d absolve himself of it somehow.
That didn’t change the fact that he knew, and he only knew because he asked, so if he could fix it somehow, then it wouldn't matter that he'd asked and he'd stop losing sleep over the images unbidden popping into his head of Pickles forced to suck cock and ride dick. More importantly, it’d stop the thoughts about where he’d cut Pickles off.
Those were the troublesome ones, because ambiguity really fed the imagination. Was it another blackmail scenario? Staring holes into the ceiling every night, Nathan tried to imagine it from Pickles’ perspective, picturing himself in a situation where he’d blackmail Pickles for sex.
Or the passed out ones. That was easier to picture since Pickles was passed out more often than he was conscious. Purely from Pickles’ perspective, he’d reassure himself, he’d imagine himself plucking Pickles off the floor and using him like a fleshlight. He could sort of see the appeal, Pickles was small and pretty lightweight, Nathan would have an easy time bouncing him off his cock.
He ignored the weird stir he’d feel when his thoughts went down that path. This was psychology, or whatever. Nathan was doing earnest science, and he’d browbeat his own body over whatever it thought Nahtan intended with these thoughts..
The most troubling ones came when he imagined it was something else, something worse. Not knowing was actually worse than knowing, because Nathan knew the possibilities were endless, and once his imagination eagerly drummed up more than his discipline could handle, he’d reach into his pile until he could find something to drown the thoughts to oblivion.
All he knew was that he needed closure on this. He was going to have to hypnotize Pickles himself.
-
He spent a week reading hypnosis articles, learning everything he could to put Pickles under subtly and confidently. He took the ring on a chain out of Twinkletits' desk, pocketing it for the right opportunity.
That opportunity came on a free night, where Pickles ordered a bunch of cassettes of death metal and grindcore demos to then compare them to playlists he painstakingly made with the studio versions of those songs. He was brimming with excitement when he proposed the idea to Nathan, and Nathan felt bad, because he knew Pickles did it with him in mind.
It was the perfect time, though. They were alone in the main listening room, sitting in front of a pair of speakers that cost more than the average house. Pickles had a Klokateer fetch them cocktails, getting drunker and drunker.
“I actually had this demo in 96,” Pickles held up the tape as he swapped it in the player. “I wonder what happened to it.”
“I remember. You lent it to me. I had a fucked up tape deck in my car that broke it.”
“Oh yeah.” Pickles sat back in his armchair, laughing. “Finally got around to replacing it.”
“Are you feeling relaxed?”
“Yeah.” As if suddenly aware of how cushy the chair was, Pickles shifted in place. “These are good chairs. Why?”
“I picked them, “ Nathan lied. “Wanted something that felt like a bed, where you could really lay back.”
Pickles hummed, leaned back and closed his eyes.
“Does it feel like you're in bed?”
“Yeah, it does.” Pickles remained still for a moment. “You did good.”
“It's comfortable, isn't it? You can feel yourself getting more relaxed every time you breathe.” He let it be quiet for a minute, watched Pickles breathe steadily, even and rhythmic, his body sagging into the chair.
Slowly, Nathan turned down the music, one notch at a time so it was gradual, so Pickles wouldn't catch on to an abrupt shift that would bring him out of that state. He pulled the ring out of his pocket, swaying it before Pickles. “Where are you?”
“In bed,” Pickles answered in a flat, floating cadence.
After a few more affirmations, after getting the volume of the music down to the point it was silent, Nathan finally tested how deep Pickles had slipped under. “What's the most humiliating thing that ever happened to you?”
“When I accepted that Grammy for best new artist in 89 with vomit down my shirt,” he said with detached, factual indifference.
He was out. Enough of the softballing. “Do you still think about me when you jack off?”
“Yeah, sometimes.”
The one frustrating thing about doing this to Pickles while he was hypnotized was there was no hesitation or reaction, making it difficult to anticipate whatever bomb he was going to drop. “Is it, uh, normal stuff?”
“No.”
Nathan was so nervous he paused, his thoughts urging him to abandon this whole thing and bring Pickles back up, to live in the blissful ignorance of the unknown. He had not gone this far only to end it here, however, and got his prompt out before he balked. “Give me an example.”
“I'm jogging in the park. You suddenly grab me, drag me into the bathroom, bash my head against the sink every time I struggle until I submit. Then you have your way with me. I’m all out of it because you hit my head so hard, clinging onto the sink to keep myself standing while you fuck me.”
Okay, that was bad, but it wasn't that bad. These things were relative, but he braced for a fantasy like that. It was more violent than he’d anticipated, but he exhaled slowly and told himself that was probably as bad as it got. “Is that the only one?”
“No.”
Well, fuck. He paced around the room while he decided whether to keep pushing this. “What else?”
“We’re in early Europe. You're a viking raiding my village. You break into my house, and I think you're going to kidnap my wife. You throw me onto my table, and just when think you're going to finish me off, you tear off my clothes and rape me right in front of her. When you're done, you throw me over your shoulder and take me as a spoil of war.”
Nathan was beginning to think this was almost passe for Pickles' tastes. He didn't think he needed to hear a dozen different variations of this theme. One more, then, and he was done. He would put this behind him, learn to move past it somehow and secretly make it up to Pickles for invading his privacy. “What else?”
“You grab me by the neck, haul me up. Squeeze the life out of me. You could, with those hands. Maybe with one hand, fuck me while I'm gasping out, trying to escape, but I've got no chance of getting free. You’re too strong, it’s over for me. You're still fucking me when I go limp-”
He couldn’t hear anymore of this. It agitated something in him, but not nearly with as much disgust as he'd hoped. “Enough, Pickles. Stop. Wake up.”
Pickles sat up abruptly, a sharp intake like being shaken out of sleep. He blinked heavily at Nathan. “What happened?”
“You passed out.”
Pickles caught something in Nathan, staring at him. Nathan dropped his gaze to the floor. It was the sort of thing Pickles always caught onto, and as he got up, he asked, “You alright?”
“I drank too much,” Nathan said, and gestured to the martini glasses littered on the floor around them.
“Guess we went too hard,” Pickles said, smiling, but it dropped slowly as he waited for an acknowledgement.
Nathan finally nodded when he realized this. For a moment, he was worried he would ask why Nathan suddenly went so quiet, but Pickles just shrugged and left the room to ‘dry out a bit'.
Before bed Nathan stood in front of his bathroom mirror, looking down at his hands braced on the edge of the counter. He lifted them to a bottle of aftershave, about the thickness of Pickles’ neck. He squeezed lightly, a little give to the bottle. In a flash of a vision, he could see the skin, the freckles on the collar below his palms.
He released the aftershave. It got knocked over, rolled onto the floor. He stepped away from the mirror. He needed another drink, reached deep into his pile of gifts for any loose bottle, any oblong box, until he found glass and pulled it out. He pulled the cork without even looking, took three heavy gulps before he recoiled at the cheap burn and recognized the type of spirit. He pulled it back, saw he just drank a few shots’ worth of the Patrón.
Oh fuck. But maybe it was a good thing, he rationalized to himself. Tequila fucked him up like nothing else, so it could be what he needed to forget all the bullshit. He tipped it back into his mouth again for another large gulp and only hoped the hangover in the morning wouldn’t kick his ass too bad.
He gripped the bottle by the neck, holding it like a club as he drifted out of his room and wandered through the hallways. The Haus was quiet, the halls empty and dark, lit only by dim wall sconces. At first he was aimless, getting the energy out by walking laps around the building until Pickles crossed his mind again.
At that time of night, Pickles was probably asleep. Maybe passed out in his bed, sprawled out on his stomach, in his underwear. Nathan wasn't moving toward his room initially, at least not deliberately, until he was at the door. He grabbed the knob and opened the door a crack.
Pickles fell asleep with the bedside lamp on. He was out, snoring lightly, curled fetal on his side, phone in hand like he’d been scrolling until he no longer could keep his eyes open. Nathan pushed open the door and waited at the threshold to make sure Pickles didn’t move.
He took another step in, another, until he was in reach of the nightstand. He shoved the cork in the bottle, set it down, and climbed into bed. That was when Pickles really stirred, a slow opening of his eyes, twisting his body back to face his guest. Confused and groggy, he asked, “Nathan?”
Nathan covered Pickles' mouth, rolled his weight onto him, pinning him down. Pickles' eyes went wide and he tried to jerk out of the hold, the attempt laughable and pointless, as though he were paper beneath a paperweight.
Pickles' eyes strayed from Nathan, catching the bottle on the nightstand. He tried to speak, but it was muffled beneath Nathan's hand.
All Nathan could think was how easy it was, how quick it would be. Pickles was already undressed, only in his briefs. Nathan's free hand gripped the waistband and pulled, the elastic stretching until it gave in, splitting open. It took one hard tug to rip the seams of fabric and get it to fall away entirely.
Pickles gave up trying to appeal to Nathan by talking. His nails dug into Nathan's forearms, gripping into skin and scratching thin ribbons an eighth of an inch deep. Nathan's senses were too dulled to really care, feeling a small, dragging sting instead of any of the real pain.
He needed Pickles on his stomach if he wanted both hands free. He eased some of his weight off for enough space to turn him, laying him flat and sitting on the backs of his thighs. Pickles tried to angle back to swipe, punch and grab, but Nathan caught each arm, one hand easily restraining both wrists.
Pickles’ mouth was free, and he tried his appeal over. “Whatever you’re thinking of doing, Nathan, it isn’t you, it's the tequila.”
Nathan watched Pickles squirm, listened to him repeat himself a few times before speaking so quietly that Pickles stopped to listen. “This was all I could think about before I picked up that bottle.” Nathan was too drunk at the time to realize he was admitting this to himself. He wrenched Pickles’ arms down one by one, pinning them between his knees, his newly freed hand raised to the back of Pickles’ neck, pushing down, his face half muffled by the pillow as he tried calling out for help.
It didn't matter. Their rooms were far apart, the walls were thick. Someone would've had to have been walking by to hear, and at four in the morning, most Klokateers were off-duty. That was even if a Klokateer assumed anything was wrong and didn’t dismiss it as another late night drug-addled psychosis from Pickles.
Nathan shifted up, crotch level with Pickles' ass. Only then was he aware of how hard he was, the curve straining out against a bare thigh. He pushed his jeans and boxers down, lining the head of his cock up with the cleft. The ring on the chain fell out of his pocket, and he set it on the nightstand beside the tequila.
He paused. He had this exact image in his mind before when he was kept up at night by runaway imagination. In real life, the contrast was more stark. He was huge, he was going to hurt Pickles, but he knew that. At the moment, he really didn’t care.
He pushed in, sliding up between the cleft until the head caught on the rim of Pickles’ hole. He pushed again, lightly at first to get the tip in, but he was met with insane resistance both from the seizing of Pickles’ body doing everything it could to claw away, but also from the hole being tight and dry, pushing him out.
Pickles swore loudly, another shout out for help, sharp and irritating. Nathan grabbed the back of his head and turned him so he was face down into the pillow, the sounds absorbed and muffled.
He drew his hips back, pushed in again harder. This time he made headway, Pickles’ body jerking like a gasp. Around Nathan’s cock it was a tight, clinging feeling. He could see it hurt the way Pickles’ body writhed as he pushed, squeezed his way in.
Pickles managed to shift his head, enough to gasp out a frantic, desperate, “Please. Don't do this, please,” out of the corner of his mouth.
Nathan ignored him, released the hold on the back of his head, wrenched his hand in to wrap it around Pickles’ throat, feeling another seize before any attempted sounds, any attempted pleas were just the choked glottal stops of breath unable to enter or leave.
He could only see half of Pickles’ face, but saw it purpling between the lack of oxygen and the struggling. He needed to see him fully. He pulled out, released his throat, Pickles taking a series of deep intakes as he was flipped onto his back. “Nathan,” the pleading sounded guttural.
Nathan took a moment to look at him, to take it in. His eyes were bloodshot, his skin red, lightening again with his desperate gasps of air, diaphragm heaving. He was sweating, clammy palms on Nathan's chest weakly attempting to keep him back.
When Nathan’s eyes scraped further, he saw Pickles was hard, leaking on his own stomach, twitching once Pickles saw that Nathan noticed.
He pulled Pickles' legs apart, dragging him up onto his lap so his back curved so his bottom lined up. Pickles’ arms were too short to get enough leverage to push Nathan off, but even if they weren't, he didn't have the strength.
He pushed in again, still difficult, but easier to slide in, looser, wetter. He could do half thrusts by then, a little deeper every time. With his breath back, Pickles put his strength behind launching his whole body up, trying to throw Nathan off. Instinct or conscious fight, in him, Nathan didn't know.
Nathan laid a hand flat on Pickles' stomach, keeping him pressed down, but it slid up slowly, aided by the glide of sweat.
Pickles' hands moved away from Nathan's chest, wrapping around his forearm, trying to pry his hand off as it dragged across his ribcage, up his chest, clawing more frantically as the fingers closed softly around his throat again.
Nathan didn't squeeze yet. He watched, the desperate darting of Pickles' pupils, the almost twitching shake of his head, a whisper of, ‘no’ just as Nathan spoke over him, “Do you want me to kill you?”, clamping down again, cutting off airflow.
Pickles' nails couldn't embed themselves in his skin anymore, fingers only dragged against the cuts and shallow gashes. His elbows went weak, slipping to his sides. The kick of his legs were scrambling and slow against the full thrusts as Nathan used bodyweight to fuck into Pickles.
He went red again, then purple. “Do you want me to kill you?” Nathan repeated, loosening his grip long enough for Pickles to respond.
As Pickles inhaled and coughed, Nathan dropped his hand, stroking Pickles' cock. His body was active again, attempting to kick out, squeezing around Nathan's cock with every sudden, jerky movement. It pushed him over, Nathan came before he got his response, feeling himself come down. He got a few more rough tugs of Pickles' cock in before a tired arch into his hand, a groan made with resonance as Pickles sunk back again as quickly as he came up.
Only then, staring at the cum in his hand, was Nathan aware that he was exhausted. He pulled out, tossed a stray glance at Pickles' thighs. He saw a little blood, dried and streaked. He was too detached for cause and effect to set in. His only coherent thought at the moment was that he wanted his own bed.
He pulled up his jeans and left, forgetting everything behind him in his single-minded journey back to his room. He fell in, passing out for the night, black and dreamless.
-
He woke up with a mild hangover, but deep-seated dread. The first thing he thought was that last night was a dream, a distant fog his brain cooked up in torment and shame. He sat up. It was a dream. The grip of dread didn't loosen when he went to the bathroom, flicked the light on with one final, affirming thought that the previous night was just a dream.
Those thoughts stopped when he looked at himself. He saw the scratches down his forearms, saw how blood had smeared and dried overnight. Some penetrated deep enough, about finger width, and suddenly he distinctly remembered the nails digging troughs through his skin in struggle. And as that memory surfaced, more came with it. He remembered the sparse freckles on the backs of Pickles' hands, he remembered arms growing slack and flopping at his sides, he remembered as any fight in him was slowly lost through strangulation.
He lingered on that thought. Strangulation. He’d raped and strangled Pickles. He remembered his own hands, the knuckles sharp and whitened, his veins in his forearms upraised as he squeezed. Pickles' mouth was opened, gaped, drooling. He turned purple, eyes still wide, but went from sharp and terrified to unfocused and dull.
He felt nauseous. He threw himself into the shower, letting the wounds sting under the hot water. It was the least he deserved.
He spent some time sitting in bed before he braved leaving his room, knowing he couldn't hide there forever. He went to the kitchen. Skwisgaar, Murderface and Toki were up eating pancakes and arguing about stupid bullshit. Nathan felt a terrible guilt over feeling relieved that Pickles wasn't among them, but he wasn't ready to face him.
The guys barely noticed as he passed by, pouring himself a cup of coffee, too self-interested to notice his scratched up arms. He leaned on the counter, struck by how normal the guys were, pointing their forks at each other.
“Jacks Nicholson ams the best Joker,” Skwisgaar said.
Murderface talked while chewing, bits of pancake spraying out of his mouth. “No it wasn’t, it was Joaquin Phoenix.”
“You ams both wrong. It ams Heaths Ledger.”
He envied them, carefree and burdenless, completely ignorant to the storm looming overhead. He got distracted, stuck around too long watching them, living vicariously through their ignorance. Pickles walked in, and Nathan remained frozen as though Pickles wouldn’t be able to see him if he stood still.
His eyes fell immediately to the bruises on Pickles’ neck. That was when Pickles noticed him, meeting his gaze only for a second in real time, but the moment felt suspended and endless.
He reacted late to Pickles advancing on him, fist pulled back, but by the time he realized he was about to get punched, he let it happen, let himself get socked across the face.
The other three stopped mid-argument, all heads turned to stare at Nathan staying pliant as Pickles threw him to the ground, a few wordless kicks to the gut only punctuated by loud, angry grunts. Pickles put all his strength into them.
“Fuck you, you piece of shit.” Pickles was out of breath. He stared down at Nathan curled up on the ground before he took Nathan’s coffee for himself and left.
Nathan stayed down. He could get up. It hurt, but not so badly that he couldn’t sit himself upright again. He noticed the guys were quiet, felt them staring before Murderface braved speaking first. “Uh, what the fuck was that about?”
Nathan pulled himself up again. He ignored the question, ignored the stares following him as he lumbered out, retreating to his room.
He was prepared for worse, for some kind of reckoning. He didn’t know what form it would come in. He didn’t know Pickles to be a vengeful guy, but he could see the situation warranting something severe. He could see himself being visited by Charles, or called into his office, where news that he was kicked out awaited him. And that was the best case scenario. It could’ve been a massive lawsuit. It could’ve been jail waiting for him.
He was so anxious, there were multiple times over the weeks that followed where he almost went to Charles himself. The keyword being ‘almost’. He had to contend with his selfishness, that he wasn’t willing to ruin his own life in repentance, regardless of how much he knew he deserved it.
The only real consequence was that Pickles avoided him. If he could opt out of interacting, Pickles turned on his heel and went the opposite direction. When he couldn’t, like in practice, interactions were minimal and terse. Pickles always made sure to have another member between him and Nathan. For the most part, both of them kept to their own rooms.
If there were ever moments Pickles found himself suddenly alone with Nathan, there was a flash of that wide-eyed worry again, that fear, making Nathan feel both incredibly ashamed but also aroused in remembering how he’d earned that look in the first place.
All while both ignored the incessant prying of the others about whatever caused their ‘huge fight’ Murderface bet Nathan drank some of Pickles' prized booze, Skwisgaar was convinced it was a musical disagreement that spun out of control.
Nathan once overheard Toki, surprisingly astute, say, “Well, if it ams Nathans and Pickle, then it ams probablies something way worse than thats.”
Nathan hoped they would never know just how bad it was.
-
It’d been two months since the incident that he got a text. He almost jumped when he saw it was from Pickles. He hesitated opening it, thinking it was sent by mistake. It was short, and definitely intended for him. ‘Twinkletits’ office. Now.’ He'd already opened it, so Pickles had the read receipt. He couldn't ignore it.
He shouldn't have ignored it, because he wasn't a coward, and it was time to face whatever awaited him. He walked down the hallway like he was marching to his execution, preparing himself for the worst.
He didn't expect Pickles alone, sitting at Twinkletits' desk with his hands folded. He nodded toward the lounge chair. “Sit down.” Pickles waited for him to sit. He wouldn’t make eye contact with him. “That night, before you came into my room, you said I passed out in the listening room. I didn't feel that fucked up, but I believed you at the time, though I know how I feel after I pass out, and it isn’t like that. You hypnotized me again, didn't you?”
Nathan looked at Pickles again, this time meeting eyes with him. Nathan nodded.
“That’s what I thought. I looked up how to do it, I had to practice a bit with Toki, I needed to make sure I had it down. I’m going to put you under.”
“Pickles-”
“You owe me this, Nathan,” Pickles snapped. “I have questions I don’t trust you’re going to answer honestly. Do not fucking test me right now because you do not deserve this chance I'm giving you.”
Nathan nodded again. He didn’t want to hear the alternatives. Pickles pulled out the ring, holding it up by the chain. “Follow the ring.”
Nathan did. Even though he'd personally seen it, had known it was possible, he still wasn't entirely sure it would work, but he followed the swinging with his eyes.
“Every time this thing completes a swing, you're going to feel yourself grow more relaxed.”
After a few beats, Nathan felt what he'd seen, that slow sinking, reminding Nathan of sleeping pills. He grew warmer, welcoming the fear and anxiety slowly draining out of him.
Pickles counted down. Nathan wasn't unconscious, but he felt far away, like an observer inside his own head growing more and more distant. His eyes were open, seeing Pickles, but not watching him. His vision was clear, but not fixating on anything, not even noticing his eyes still followed the swinging automatically rather than consciously. It was the most at peace he'd felt since ruining things.
“Can you hear me?” Pickles’ voice was strikingly clear, like the voice of God speaking directly to him via telepathy.
Nathan nodded, although Nathan did not perform this action consciously.
“Why did you hypnotize me again?”
“The first time, I stopped you right before you said something about me. The second time, it was because I needed to know what it was.”
“So you didn't think to ask me about it?”
“I couldn't.”
“Why? What did I say the first time?”
“You mentioned all the fucked up things that get you off.”
Pickles hesitated, the gritting of his teeth coming through as he asked, “Like?”
“You started with getting blackmailed by your brother, then getting tricked by a porn producer, and then-”
“Alright, alright. So I told you fucking everything, and then you cut me off. Were the others there?”
“No. They left, I was supposed to wake you up.”
“But you didn't. You stayed and started asking me shit. What were you looking for?”
“I wasn't looking for anything in particular. At first I wanted to find out how you really felt about me, then I wanted to know if you had any secrets.”
“But that changed.”
“Not at first. I wanted to forget it, but I couldn't. I thought if I just knew, I’d stop thinking about it all the time. That was what I asked you the second time, about your fantasies involving me.”
“Is that why you drank tequila?”
“I didn't know it was tequila until I already had too much of it. I was trying to drink enough to black out that night.”
“Because you couldn’t stop thinking about it?”
“Yeah.”
“Nathan, sometimes I think you might be the stupidest motherfucker I've ever met. Do you have any remorse for what you did?”
“I do. I'm sorry.”
“Then why didn't you come to me with that? Why are you trying to pretend like it didn't happen?”
“Because I’m afraid of what will happen, and being sorry doesn't feel right when thinking about it still makes me horny.”
Pickles was quiet for a time, his finger tapping on the desk. “If there were no consequences, would you do it again?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve heard enough. Wake up.”
There was a flood of awareness when he came to. Aware of the room being a bit cold, aware of Pickles watching him. He had no memory of whatever happened while he was under, but the look on Pickles' face was still hard and serious. He must've said something that damned him, and ran his mouth when the panic surged. “I can talk to Charles about leaving the band. I'll-”
“Nathan, shut the fuck up. I’m thinking.”
Nathan snapped his mouth shut and nodded. He sat there for a bit, glancing up anxiously as the minutes stretched on.
“You know,” Pickles started. “You separate these things. You compartmentalize then. It’s what I’ve done. You’re not supposed to take these thoughts seriously.”
“I-”
“This isn't a conversation. Don't talk, just listen. I don't know everything I told you, but I know how bad it can get. I never entertained it before, because there was always the possibility I'd meet someone to take me up on my worst ideas. And then what?”
Nathan wasn't sure if that was rhetorical, so he waited, looking down at his shoes.
“Then I’ll do what I always do, which is take it too far, go overboard until I finally agree to something I can't undo.” Nathan looked up as Pickles pulled the bottle of Patrón from beneath the desk. “I was mad at you, I felt betrayed, I was terrified, but I also knew it was going to fuck me up.” He pulled the cork out. “I did think about going to Offdensen, but I just didn't.”
He pushed the bottle toward Nathan. “You asked me if I wanted you to kill me.” Nathan looked at the bottle, then looked at Pickles. “It's not my choice anymore.”
“What does that-”
“You know what it means,” Pickles said, managing to hold onto his irritation even as he was being vulnerable. “You're not that stupid. You know what this means.”
Pickles was right, Nathan did know. He stared at the bottle before he reached out, watching Pickles' brows lift as he grabbed it. He paused there, another look at Pickles, as if to ask, ‘Are you sure?’
When Pickles nodded, Nathan lifted it to his mouth and took a drink.