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Chapter Text

Nathan stared into the pile of purple goo in front of him. He could picture it staring back.

“You should try it, your mom worked hard on the cranberry-substitute this year.” His dad caught him having a staring contest with his plate, and now his eyes were twinkling.

“I Think I’m allergic.” Nathan said. His father snickered, but on the opposite end of the table his mother put a hand in front of her mouth. “Oh shoot,” she mumbled, “Nathan, I had no idea. You should have let me know, I would have bought regular cranberry sauce if I’d have known you’d have a reaction. When did you first try acai?”

Nathan’s eyes trailed over the tablecloth, the plates of food, the ornate candleholder shaped like a Christmas tree at the centre of the table. “I, uhh... I think I had them in Bazil. When we met the Yanimango. Sorry mom.”

His father was smirking, and not making any attempts to hide it. “Ahh, but those were raw acai berries, weren't they? Your mother boiled these for five hours. You’ll be fine.” His mother clapped excitedly in her hands. Bastard.

Nathan used to hate it when he’d try to act funny. He remembered it from being a teenager- his dad would make puns, talk about his made-up rivalry with the next door neighbour, go Hi stewing in rage, I’m dad! And Nathan would get so mad he’d punch holes in his bedroom wall. But he was older now, and he had learned that two could play at that game.

“Have you tried it yet, dad?” He asked. His father shook his head, plate still free from the purple stain. “I shouldn’t risk it, what with the diabetes. You go ahead and enjoy, though.” Nathan’s turn to raise his eyebrows. “Oh, so you’ll be skipping desert too?”

His father opened his mouth, then promptly shut it again. In the end, he folded. “I guess one bite won’t hurt...” The words hadn’t even left his mouth before Nathans mom lobbed a heap of lumpy purple goo onto his plate. It stayed solid for just a moment, then spread out slowly, like an oil spill. Nathan’s father carefully moved his turkey breast out of harms way with his fork. “Great,” he said slowly. “We’ll both try it together.”

As Nathan slowly brought the spoon carrying the purple load to his mouth, he was reminded that this was technically his own doing. He had told his mom about what grandma had gotten up to in Brazil a few months ago.

Unlike Nathan, she hadn’t liked all the stories about the Yanimango tribe- the cannibalism and the drugs weren’t her thing. But she loved the food and the clothes, and so they were stuck eating severely overcooked acai berry mush instead of cranberry sauce this Christmas.

“I don’t trust recipes from the internet, so I kind off tried to do my own thing.” She mused as the spoon drew ever closer to Nathan’s outstretched tongue.

Nathan had considered not telling her about being half-indigenous. He had this vision in his head, when he’d just found out himself, of his mom going around in a feathered headdress, telling everyone her father was an Indian chief or something equally horrifying.

But then, while his parent were stopping by at Mordhouse for album-launch, she had casually brought up how the girls at her school always used to make fun of how dark she tanned in the sun. How she still dyed her hair, from the deep-black growing on Nathan’s head to a dull chestnut, all because the kids at choir practice said she looked like the wicked witch.

Nathan had heard his fair share of jokes about looking like Tonto or Pocahontas when he was younger, and not quite so rich and famous. But the thought that his mom might have gone through the same thing had never crossed his mind, not even once. Somehow, he had never considered it.

It only seemed fair to tell her, after that. It was her heritage too.

 Even if she felt the need to process the story of her indigenous father through a casserole pot full of mashed and boiled acai berries.

Nathan swallowed the purple goo down. It felt slippery and gelatinous, like swallowing a live squid. But the taste wasn’t awful, he had to admit. It wasn’t exactly great either, but he’d live another day.

His father seemed to reach the same conclusion, his mustache bristling with initial disgust before he let it slide down his gullet. “Lovely, Rose. Michelin star worthy.”  Nathan nodded along, and was rewarded with a kiss on the cheek and a second serving.

*

Throughout dinner and dessert, Nathan could periodically feel his Dethphone buzzing in his pocket. He didn’t have to check to know who was flooding his inbox right now- Toki had a habit of spamming photo’s when he went on vacation.

Pickles had tried to talk to him about it, If you take ten pictures of the same building you don’t gotta send ‘em all, you can just pick your favourite, please dude you’re gonna brick my phone if you keep this up, but it hadn’t helped.

Nathan had considered telling Pickles there was a setting on his phone that stopped it from automatically downloading every photo in his inbox- but this was a lot funnier. Another loss for Pickles in his never-ending fight with technology.

They were in the Bahama’s now- that is, Toki, Murderface and Skwisgaar. It had been Murderface’s idea. Christmas sucked, it wasn’t brutal at all, so they’d go to the least Christmassy place they could imagine. Right now, they were probably sipping mojito’s in the sun and wearing those ugly Hawaiian shirts they all pretended to like ironically.

Murderface had dubbed it a 'no-father-havers-allowed' trip, to Pickles’ anguish. Price of admission, one dead or absentee dad.

Pickles tried to argue that he barely had a relationship with his father, so really he should totally be allowed to come with. But Murderface hadn’t budged.

It wouldn’t have mattered anyways. A few days after Murderface's announcement he got a letter in the mail inviting him to come to Wisconsin for the first time in twenty years. In the end, the drummer resigned to his fate.

Nathan hadn’t minded being banned from the trip. He liked seeing his folks. Sure, there had been a time where Nathan had sworn he’d never step foot in his childhood home again, eighteen and freshly dropped out of high school, buying a one-way ticket out of town.

But in the end he got what he went looking for, the most brutal death metal band in the world. Once he had achieved all that he set out to do, the things that had sent him running from his parents seemed pretty minor in retrospect.

His dad made dumb jokes, him mom said the wrong things, but wasn't he also guilty of that? They wanted their son to like them, really, and that was hardly the worst thing a parent could do.

And alright, seeing where the rest of his bandmates had come from also helped. There was just something about watching your bassist get smacked in the face with a wooden spoon by his grandmother that made you appreciate the cards you were dealt.

So when his father had reached out a few weeks after that first reunion, asking Nathan if he’d like to come to their barbeque, Nathan had gathered his courage and flown to Florida. There had been a pit of anxiety in his stomach as he stepped off the plane. Last time he had seen his parents had devolved into a screaming match. He had spent a good few years yelling into a microphone about his parents, but he hadn't considered they might have some stuff to yell about too.

Eight beers and a bottle of barbeque sauce later, Nathan had realised his dad wasn’t actually angry about him cutting ties at all. He was a little sad about it, though. His father had always been this distant mountain of a man, gone on long tours of duty and practically a stranger when he was at home. But now, Nathan was coming to the disorienting realisation that his dad had feelings and that Nathan had hurt them. That he was just a guy, really. A guy who hadn’t spoken to his son for over a decade.

His dad ended up apologising to him that night, for yelling with the other parents at Dethhouse. Nathan hadn’t apologised for never calling, never writing, never bothering to give them a sign of life. He wanted to, but apologising was still beyond him at that point. It felt like his jaw was wired shut whenever he tried to express regret.

But he could accept his father’s apology, and he could mumble something about how he maybe deserved it a little bit. It might’ve been the alcohol, but Nathan could swear he saw his dad's eyes light up with understanding.  

His father missed out on buying him his first beer- Nathan was long gone by the time he turned twenty-one. But he got to buy Nathan his first Bueneveza Lager that night.

It became a little tradition between them from that point onwards- every time Nathan stayed over, they’d drink a niche craft beer that Nathan hadn’t tried before.

Because it was Christmas, his dad had gotten them an imperial stout called Santa’s Little Helper, from California. It tasted surprisingly good for a festive novelty beer, dark and heavy on malts. They sat in the parlour while they drank their beers slowly, both pretending to be experts on things like mouthfeel and retention.

Once they polished their beers off, Nathan went into his dad’s old office to look for something a little stronger for the rest of the evening. He was just about to pick up the Wild Turkey when the first few notes of Play Dirty by Poison starting blaring out of his speakerphone.

That was his ringtones for Pickles- The song had this beautiful ability to piss the drummer off. Something about it being poser rock and no Nath’n, Snakes and Barrels don’t sound nothing like that. They had gotten into multiple scraps about it over the years.

Nathan plopped down into his father’s old leather desk chair and fished his phone out of his pocket. But right before he could press answer, Pickles hung up again. Nathan frowned. How quickly did Pickles expect him to pick up? It had only been a second or two.

Had he called him by accident?

He opened his notifications- 124 heavily-filtered photo’s of the beach by Toki, and a single unread message by Pickles.

>Sorry nvrmind lol

Nathan smirked to himself and leaned back in the chair. Pickles’ grammar usually got worse as he got drunker. It looked like he hadn’t reached the keysmash and unrelated gifs phase yet, good for him. Christmas must be going well in Wisconsin.

>Buttdial? he texted back

>No jst forgot you err busy”

Nathan clicked on his name at the top of the screen (picture of Pickles looking high as a kite at that six AM morning show) and called him back. The phone rang six times, and Nathan was starting to worry about going to voicemail when Pickles finally picked up.

“Hey man,” Nathan began excitedly. “Did you get a white Christmas in Wisconsin yet?”

“Nah dude, ’s just cold and miserable here. Didn’t snow last year either- thanks global warming, amiright?”

“I keep saying we should do an album about climate change. The earth slowly dying and taking us all down with it, how brutal is that?”

“The kids would love it, I heard they’re all fackin’ depressed about it. It’s, like, a whole new flavour of depression.” Pickles didn’t sound nearly as drunk as Nathan thought he’d be. But still, there was something off, he could hear it in his voice.

“Yeah, it’s an untapped market...” Nathan trailed off. “So how are you? Everything alright back at home?”

A pause. “Yeah, it’s okay. Or, it’s pretty fucked, actually, but it is what it is. Merry Christmas, yaknow, home sweet home.” Pickles laughed like he had told a joke, but there was no humour in his voice. Nathan stayed quiet and waited for him to continue.

“ahh, I’m technically not home right now, I’m staying at a motel for the night. Seemed best, with everything going on.” Pickles then seemingly remembered himself. “But you don’t want to hear all that.”

Nathan heard the creaking of a box spring. He wondered what the motels in the Midwest looked like, if they were anything like the cheap meth houses he knew from Florida. Nathan remembered the early days of the band, and the times Pickles would crawl into his dingy motel bed and complain about the matrass until Nathan threatened to make him sleep on the floor.

“It’s cool anyways,” Pickles continued, “there’s a liquor store that’s open 24/7 right across the street, so I’m just going to get super drunk. See what sad dildo they’ve got standing behind the counter right now. Enjoy your Christmas bonus you pathetic fack, right?”

Nathan swallowed down his comment about how being a patron tonight wasn’t much better. No need to kick a dog while he’s down. He tried a different angle instead.  “You know I love hearing about your family drama. Beside, I already finished dinner with my parents. You should tell me .”

“Awright, if that’s how you wanna spend your evening. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya...” Pickles said.

“So first of all, my mom’s cracked. She’s completely lost it, it’s actually insane. The entire house is filled with these facking boxes, cause she’s started hoarding.”

“Hoarding what?”

“Anything, dude. Clothes, Tupperware, goddamn junk mail. She’s got stacks of gluten free cooking magazines, and I don’t she’s looked at them once.”

The box springs creaked again, followed by the sound of Pickles pacing back and forth rapidly. A habit of his, Nathan knew, he couldn’t stay still when he got fired up. Nathan had spent many hours in the sub watching Pickles walk back and forth, back and forth while they workshopped the album.

“Ya know, I thought she’d be able to handle it when Seth moved out and started working in Australia. She was fine when they jailed his ass for three years. But I guess her sanity was entire dependent on whether she’s able to visit during the weekends or somethin’”

“Did you try and talk to her about it?” Nathan asked.

“Get this, I’m not allowed to. Before my dad even let me through the front door he told me not to bring up the crap she’s got stashed everywhere, and that they’re working on it. What the Hell does that even mean? It’s all so goddamn typical, they haven’t changed at all.”

“So you had a fight about that?”

Pickles sighed. “Nah, I kept my mouth shut. Like they’d ever listen to me. They can live in a garbage dump if they want to, no skin off my back.”

“It was actually going pretty well at first,” Pickles continued. “Despite the, uhh... despite it all. I was sure they’d go off on me for not offering Seth a job closer to home, but they didn’t bother me about it. I think they had their hands full with Amber, cause they’ve now decided she’s a terrible mom. Her turn to play lighting rod, yaknow?”

“Why do they think Amber’s a bad mother?”

“My mom’s convinced she’s neglecting the kid. It’s all so goddamn stupid.”

“neglecting how?”

“Too much time on her phone. Bottle-feeding. Letting the kid watch too much Peppa Pig- I don’t know man. It’s little things, nothing serious. Never mind that she used to lock Seth and me in the closet during her book club, cause ‘mamma needs time to herself too." Nathan quietly decided not to unpack that one.

"I guess I feel bad for Amber,”  Pickles continued, “But honestly, it was kind of great, too. If they fixate on Amber I can just kick back and spike the eggnog. At one point my mom even gave me an eyeroll. But it wasn’t a ‘what’s wrong with you’ eyeroll, it was like ‘are you seeing this shit.’ Like I was in on it. I swear dude, that’s never happened before.”

“So how’d you end up in a motel, if everything was going great?”

“Okay, so Amber and Seth are trying this cry-it-out thing right now. So when we heard the kid wake up and start wailing upstairs, they had to set a timer for six minutes and wait until either the crying stopped or until the time was up.”

“And your parents didn’t like that?” Nathan asked.

“Oh my God, my mom wouldn’t shut up about it. She just kept needling her, and you could tell Amber was getting really fed up. We can hear the kid crying, and my ma starts going off on how everyone is forcing their kids to grow up too soon. Then Amber goes ‘I am not forcing him to grow up, I am just making sure that when he does grow up he’s not some whimpering brat. Which, I mean, me and Seth are sittin’ right there, but whatever.

Nathan chuckled. “She married one of the whimpering brats, didn’t she?”

“Guess mommy and daddy didn’t raise her to have good taste, huh? But anyways, she adds that she read about it in some book, and of course my mom takes that as a big insult, like Amber’s implying she shoulda read more books about parenting. So she starts listin’ all the books she read when she was pregnant with Seth, ya know, like a normal person would. And Amber starts asking about the chapter where your kids become felons or get hooked on smack in LA.”

Nathan barked out a laugh. “Pickles I think I’m in love with your sister-in-law.”

he relaxed a little when he heard Pickles snicker on the other end of the line. He was upset and doing a shit job of hiding it, but at least Nathan could still make him laugh.

“So my mom completely loses it,” Pickles continued. “She’s yelling at Amber, and Amber’s yelling at her, and they’re both a little drunk, so it’s a total facking mess.”

"Almost like someone spiked the eggnog or something." Nathan said.

"Yeah, what kinda idiot decided to do that? Seth offers to quickly go check on the kid for mom, and Amber accuses him of picking him mom over his wife. And mom takes that as a good opportunity to start venting some feeling she’s been repressing or something. About how they didn’t accept this foreigner- her words- into their house only to be disrespected, and how Amber don’t get to be in charge just cause she got knocked up behind the strip joint-

“Jeeesus,” Nathan breathed out. “Fun party.”

“They’re both accusing each other of being the worse mother, and they’re louder than the kid at this point. Plus they’re both screaming at Seth ‘cause he isn’t saying anything. Amber wants him to stand up for her, Ma’s furious because why couldn’t he just het her set him up with the girl from church, total clusterfuck. Then Amber goes ahead and accuses her of being way worse than she is, cause she wouldn’t give up on her kids. And my mom shoots back that she never gave up on Seth, and she didn’t give up on me either, I left.”

Nathan had heard the story of Pickles and his father and you belong in a garbage can years ago. They bonded over it when Pickles had just joined the band. Back when Nathan was young and still dealing with the residue angst and vitriol he had felt as a teenager.

They used to get drunk on cheap liquor, affirm to each other how everyone sucked and families were the worst, and then make out about it. Nathan used to think he could relate, that his experiences with his dad were basically the same thing. He was reminded that it had been a decade since then.

“I thought they did kick you out. Didn't they?”

“Ehh, it was kind of a mutual decision. One of those rare moments where we all agreed with each other.”

“But, didn’t you have that... whole thing with your dad?”

Pickles mumbled something that Nathan couldn’t make out on the other end of the line. “No, look- I started getting into trouble a lil’ too much for their tastes, so they were gonna send me to one of those correctional reform schools for kids with, like, issues. One of those facked up Christian therapy things, I’m sure you can imagine. They had threatened to do it before, but they were actually serious this time. My dad was supposed to drag me there in the morning, and if I didn’t comply I’d get disowned and kicked outta the family."

"That’s when I decided fuck it," Pickles continued, "and I got outta dodge. My dad saw me leaving that night, and he basically told me not to come back.” He paused for a moment. “We don’t really talk about it, it’s kinda a sore spot.”

Nathan could tell that Pickles had tensed up again, could practically see him clenching his jaw just from listening to his voice.

But Nathan sucked at this bit. Other people would just know the right combination of words to bring comfort. Not Nathan- he always ended up tongue tied in these situations.

He had sucked at his childhood friends funeral, he sucked during Toki’s mental health crisis, he definitely sucked while trying to propose to Abigail. His mother used to  coach him through these types of things, let’s all try to be normal today, but it hadn’t done him any good. He simply didn’t know what to do in these types of situations.

While Nathan tried to weigh that sucks man up against sorry to hear that dude, Pickles filled the silence again. “I always thought it was dad’s idea, to send me away. That he was the one who wanted me gone. And so I tried to speak up a little. All of this was only being directed at my mom, and that didn’t seem fair to me. Not her fault that everything went sideways."

"And my mom immediately jumped on that, cause she wanted support and if she couldn’t get Seth to back her up I guess she’d settle for me. Then she starts making comments about Seth’s taste in women, and how he’s kind of fucking up his life with Amber. I guess that was too much for Seth, cause he does that thing where he leans back and acts like he doesn’t give a fack when he’s really fuming mad. And then he decides to drop that it wasn’t my dad’s idea to send me to that institution. It was my mom’s. He overheard them talking about it when we were kids. So he thinks mom and me shouldn’t act like we’re on the same side. Dad throws a wineglass and starts yelling at him to shut the hell up, but mom goes all white and sits back down.”

"So I ask her if that’s true, and she starts tearing up.” Pickles paused. “And she says that she thought it would fix me.”

Nathan was reminded again that he didn’t get this family, not at all. He had gotten through his own childhood without any vindictive siblings and having to pick sides. His parents made decisions together- had Pickles thought his mom didn’t have a say in whether he got disowned? Did she not have a say in other things? Would it really have been better if she had quietly accepted rather than played an active part?

But he kept his mouth shut, now wasn’t the time at all. It sucked that they were doing this conversation over the phone, Nathan wished he could see Pickles’ face. He wished he could reach out.

“I left after that.” Pickles continued. “My dad was still losing his goddamn mind at me cause I made my mom cry, Seth’s smug fucking face, I wasn’t gonna stick around for all of that. Too old to be putting up with that crap.” He coughed, awkwardly.

“So now I’m here! Kinda nostalgic in a way, it’s almost like I’m running away again. Except I got money on me now, more than enough to avoid sleeping on the bus stop. Guess we’re moving up in the world, huh? I’ll probably get back to the studio tomorrow, hold down the fort while you guys get back from your trips. Hey, maybe my dad will have an anger-induced heart attack or something, and I’ll be able to join the guys next year! So how’s your Christmas going so far? Having a good time in Florida?”

Pickles continued to babble aimlessly about the chances of snow in Florida while Nathan sat with his thoughts. He could feel the anger simmer just underneath his skin, like the distance between them was an affront.

Pickles might have a harder time than he thought getting back to Mordhouse. Nathan had taken their plane all the way to Florida.

Nathan glanced up, at the objects on his father’s desk. Just behind the old desktop and the Airforce recruitment mug filled with chewed-off pencils, there stood an atlas globe. 

On the other end of the line, Pickles had stopped rambling. “Nate?” he asked, “you still there, dude?”

“Where did you say you were staying?” Nathan asked, without taking his eyes off the globe.

“Some motel near Tomahawk-“

“Send me your location.”

“Uhh, hang on a sec,” Pickles mumbled. It took him a good few minutes to figure out how to work Google maps, but eventually Nathan’s phone dinged.

“Cool.” Nathan said. “I’m gonna come get you.”

Pickles stayed quiet for a beat too long, then he laughed. “...Oh yeah, totally, can you pick me up a sixpack on your way over?”

“Don’t think so, I’m taking the plane”

“Nate, I’m in Wisconsin. That’s at the top of the map, remember? You’re all the way at the bottom. That would be, what, a four hour plane ride? And it’s eight O clock on Christmas eve, dude. It’s not that simple.”

“I’ll take the Dethplane. Shouldn’t be too much trouble.” Nathan said, confidently.

“Okay but-... Nate. C’mon. You’re not actually gonna try to come over, are you?”

“I’m not gonna try. I am going to come get you, like I said.” The more he repeated, the better he felt about his resolve.

He was reminded of one of the strangest compliments he had ever received, ofcourse coming from Pickles. The drummer had once told him you’re not stupid, you’re slow. Nathan had asked, a little offended, what the hell he meant by that, and Pickles had explained that it sometimes took him a while to get there, but once he reached a conclusion he was thorough, and he saw it through to the end. Slow but steady, like a freighter pulling ahead.

Nathan was mulling it over now, and he could see no reason why it would be impossible to get to Wisconsin. The plane was fuelled up and at his disposal, The staff would be ready to fly it in a snap of his fingers, the weather was good.

And he truly couldn’t be bothered to give a fuck about time or money. It had been a long time since those things had played a factor in Nathan’s decision-making. He knew that he could and he wanted to, he knew that he could, so he would.

Meanwhile, Pickles was still rambling about how it was fine, really, Nathan didn’t have come over. “I’m okay man, I was just venting, you don’t gotta-“

“Sure, sure.” Nathan interrupted him. “Still going to come get you, though. Go pack, and don’t get so drunk you pass out. I don’t want to carry your ass again. See you in about four hours.”

*

Nathan was so caught up in the rush that he almost left his parents' house without letting them know.

Again.

But right before he rushed out the door, he suddenly saw his dad sitting in his armchair, staring at him curiously. Suddenly he remembered where he was.

“Hey, uhm, I have to go. Get my friend Pickles. Sorry.” He started.

His father hummed, surprised. “Is he alright?”

“Yeah probably, his family is just shitty and I don’t want to leave him by himself tonight. So I’m gonna go pick him up, okay?”

His father sat back in his chair. “Pickles, that’s the ginger one, right? From the band?”

Nathan nodded, a little entertained that his father identified him as the ginger one and not the one that beat the shit out of his brother infront of them that one time. “Yeah, that’s him. He’s my, uhm... My drummer.”

His dad smiled. “You’re a good friend. Do what you need to do. You should bring him over.”

Nathan nodded, grabbed his coat and stepped out into the cold. While alone on his parents’ front porch, he paused for a second, and considered.

Then, he opened the front door up again and poked his head into the living room. His dad started cracking a joke about him being back rather soon, but Nathan stopped him.

“Hey, so... You’re, uhh, a really cool dad. Don’t think I ever told you that before,” Nathan said, with all the eloquence of the world’s most famous lyricist.

His father’s whole face lit up all the same. “Thanks, kid. You’re a really cool son, too.”

“All right.” Nathan said. “Oh, my friend’s in Wisconsin, by the way, so it might be a while until I’m back- okay see you!” He called out as he rushed outside again, not waiting for a response. Outside, the sky was starting to darken. But the Christmas lights that decorated the front of the house emanated a warm, yellow glow that stubbornly continued to fight the darkness. It filled Nathan with a fuzzy sense of fondness that lingered even as he began walking. It might be kitschy, not his taste, pretty much the opposite of brutal. But a light in the dark was a light all the same.

Chapter Text

Pickles pulled on the off-white pull cord of the window blinders, trying to right the warped panels. They aligned briefly, giving a glimpse of what the blinds would have looked like twenty odd years ago, before the decay set in.

But as soon as Pickles let go of the cord the whole thing collapsed in on itself again. It hung in front of the window like a misaligned ribcage.

The motel room he found himself in was still caught up in some type of passe pseudo-homeliness that had gone out of style decades ago. The type of faux authenticity that led to taxidermy fish mounted to the wall, and pictures of Tomahawk that were only from the springtime.

It was more or less what Pickles expected of a place like this- the first motel he ran into while speeding away from his parents’ home.

He wasn’t waiting for Nathan. If he was waiting for anything, it was another phone call, telling him what he already knew. That this was a bad idea, and that Nathan had to cancel.

Maybe the plane would be under-fuelled, maybe the weather would be too rough. Hell, maybe Nathan would wake up to the fact that he could either be with his family or spend eight hours in the sky. Should be an easy choice, especially with how chummy Nathan had suddenly become with his parents.

So no, Pickles wasn’t sitting around and waiting for him. He stubbornly refused to check the time just to prove it.

He had turned on the television in hopes that time would pass a little quicker. But across all channels, the only thing on right now appeared to be Christmas movies. Workaholic dads with ties learning the importance of family, and endless retellings of A Christmas Carol. Not something capable of capturing his attention for long. At least, not while he was one drink shy of being as sober as a priest on Sunday.

So he laid in front of the television, head hanging off the foot of the bed, barely paying attention to what Kermit the Frog’s dying son was saying about the meaning of Christmas.

His initial plan for the night had consisted of two bottles of red wine, maybe three. Something expensive that would look as out of place in this beat-up room as he did. He’d drink it straight from the bottle, turn on the television and see how long it’d take him to forget what day of the week it was.

But in the end Pickles couldn’t get himself to go out and stock up on wine. He was stuck in the in-between, not quite waiting and not quite resigned, continually talking himself down. He wished he could go for a walk, go anywhere, but it was cold and dark outside. He had forgotten his jacket at his folks’ place.

He wondered, despite his best efforts not to, whether his parents were talking about him. Probably, with the way he stormed out of the house. Another basket-case freakout, as Seth had once called it.

Skwisgaar thought he was paranoid. Why do you always thinks we ams talkings about you behind your back? You thinks we do not has better things to talks about? Pickles usually brushed him of, they shouldn’t have tried to kick him outta the band that one time if they didn’t want him to ask questions.

And so what if his stint in rehab was three years ago now? It had taken the guys from Snakes N Barrels twenty years to decide to fuck him all the way over. These things could come outta nowhere, he knew that all too well. There were times Pickles felt as if there was a lightning rod strapped to his back.

Replace me one shame on you, replace me twice don’t replace me.

No, that wasn’t fair to the guys. They weren’t like that. Fuck, his thoughts were all over the place tonight. His parents were definitely talking about him. Things had been going so well, too.

Pickles switched off the television, shifted further up the bed until his feet were against the headboard, and he was left staring at the smoke-stained yellow ceiling. God, he wished he had a cigarette or something on him.

Normally, this wouldn’t have been a problem. In the past, whenever he had to deal with his family, he made sure to be get properly wasted and baked beforehand. It made it a hell of a lot easier to cope, and it wasn’t as if they expected anything different from him. He had been pouring out coke-cans and filling them up with Heineken since elementary school, and as long as the neighbours didn’t notice nobody cared.

It gave them a permit to indulge in their ow substances – his father would pour himself finger after finger of whiskey, which in the olden days always eventually led to fists. More recently, Seth had developed a habit of excusing himself to the toilet and coming back with twice as many awful ideas.

Everybody’s Dionysian take on life had made it so that breakfasts were always their best moments as a family - all of them being too hung-over and crashed-out to pick fights.

But Pickles had shown up sober today, old family-tradition be damned.

He had entered the Christmas celebrations with a different outlook, after all. He was going to try for once. Trying had come up a few weeks earlier, when Nathan had just been invited to Florida for Christmas. He had come into Pickles’ room, asking whether the drummer thought his mom would like Dior perfume.

Pickles told him that he didn’t know, and also, who in the hell cares? Why was he running around playing Santa, when Pickles thought he hated their guts?

Nathan had gotten all pissy after that, because that was his mom Pickles was talking about, and also, he wanted to have a good time with his parents, so sue him.

But Pickles had asked him again, more sincerely this time, and Nathan had sat down on his bed, brow knitted together.

Eventually, he simply told Pickles that they were trying. He kept repeating that word as he clumsily strung a story together about maturity and reconnecting. They were all trying their best to repair what had been broken, what else could Nathan ask of them as a son?

So okay. Pickles could see that his parents were trying. Or at least, his mom was, and she was the only one that mattered to him. He wasn’t particularly interested in having a relationship with his father, and he sure as shit wasn’t travelling all the way to Wisconsin for Seth.

But his mom had invited him, hadn’t she? That was her trying. She was trying to do the pronouns thing, she had even stopped telling the other board members at the Home Owners Association that her youngest had passed away.

Could the same be said about him? He showed up drunk, got into screaming-matches with his father and fistfights with his brother. Surely, he could stand to try a little harder, too. They might as well have stayed no-contact if he was going to put zero effort into their relationship.

So Pickles stayed off the liquor, he left the cigarettes at home. He returned the second blender he was planning to give Seth. He resolved to not talk about music, or politics, or Mom staph telling the HOA I’m dead for fack’s sake.

He was getting alarmingly close to forty, that teenage contrariness stopped being cute a long time ago. His family chose their battles like they were gladiators, and Pickles just felt tired of it all.

If Nathan could try, and fix his relationship with his parents, Pickles could too.

His resolution to try had immediately taken a hit when he showed up at his parents’ front door. Things had gotten off to a weird start, what with all the boxes and his dad blocking the front door like a bouncer until he solemnly swore to keep his mouth shut about the trash.

He let him in eventually, but before Pickles even had the chance to say hey to Seth and his new little family, his mom had pushed her way into the hallway and shoved a cardboard box in his arms.

“I need you to take this home with you.” She had said, in lieu of Merry Christmas how ya doing.  

“It’s your old crap, and we need more space. I can’t keep putting up with this, not at my age. This house is not a storage unit. If you don’t want it I’m throwing it out.”

Now normally, Pickles would probably have shot back something akin to More space for what, ma? What the fack are you gonna do with the space, get a new scrap-metal collection going?

But then he remembered that he was trying tonight. So he kept his mouth shut, and took a look at the box’s content. Even a cursory glance showed that half this stuff wasn’t even his, it seemed Seth’s belongings had gotten caught in the mix.

When he pointed it out to mom, she mumbled something about that ‘not being right’, and took some of the items back upstairs with her. No box to take home for Seth then.

Ouch.

But those weren’t the thoughts of someone trying, so Pickles had ignored it and put the box down right next to the front door, where he couldn’t possibly forget on his way out.

Presently, that cardboard box was just about the only thing he had brought with him to the motel. The box, his wallet, his phone and his jolly fucking good mood.

He wasn’t sure why he had even grabbed the thing as he had stormed out. His thoughts had been in such a jumble- it just sort of happened when he saw it blocking his way out. He wasn’t particularly happy to have the box with him. It served as another reminder of how well today was working out for him, and he didn’t need any more of those.

But then again. Unpacking was something to do, and Pickles could use a distraction.

He heaved himself up from the bed, and sat down on the brown carpet. There were some stains on the carpet that he didn’t really feel like examining too closely. Whatever, he’d ask one of the servants to incinerate his jeans later.

Pickles began pulling stuff out of the cardboard box, trying to sort between the chuck-able and the stuff he’d like to keep.

The chuck-it pile grew rapidly; couple of Emma comics that he never asked for, but that somehow kept turning up in his room anyways. Cassette tapes that he couldn’t be bother to find a cassette player for. Creamy pink seashell from some long gone holiday he could barely remember.

Empty bottle of Aquanet hairspray. Gee mom, thank God you held on to that. Sex pistols patch he never got around to ironing onto his jacket. A guitar for intermediates book that had once been bought for Seth, but had only ever been used by Pickles.

Lazy bastard couldn’t be bothered go to his lessons or practice, and he sure didn’t have the raw talent to make up for it like Toki did. Somehow still thought that Pickles owed his success to him, just because he didn’t pick a fight when Pickles stole his guitar out from under his bed, blew the dust off and taught himself how to play.

Pickles was about to add an empty lighter to the pile when his fingers brushed a secret button on the side, and- oh shit, never mind, that was a switchblade. The sharp tip had almost nicked Pickles in the palm of his hand.

In a flash, he remembered buying the switchblade after his Swiss Army Knife was taken from him by a teacher, during Chemistry. Had to circumvent that no-knives policy somehow. Alright, the secret switchblade could stay. Maybe he’d give it to William, let him add it to his collection.

The box was pretty close to empty now. Pickles took out one of the final items- an old Barbie doll. Pickles remembered this poor ol’ girl, Seth had once taken a lighter to her blonde hairdo until the plastic had melted together into the blackened atrocity he was currently holding in his hand.

When he was three or four years old, his mom had bought the doll for him. He remembered not liking it, and going  back to playing with Seth’s toy dinosaurs immediately. Later that day, while sitting on the carpet, he had pulled on the hem of his mother’s skirt.

He had asked his mom if she thought they would have been friends, back when she was a little girl. His mom had stumped out her cigarette, looked at him for a long time with an expression Pickles couldn’t begin to understand at the time.

“When I was a little girl, I liked to play with dolls. Do you like to play with dolls?”

“No.”

“Well. There’s your answer.” Then she had collected her magazine, and had left the room.

Pickles had tried his best to play with the doll, afterwards. He still didn’t know what he was supposed to do with the damn thing, but he made sure to carry it everywhere with him. He’d performatively manoeuvre her stiff plastic joints around whenever his mom paid attention to him, trying to imitate the type of play you were supposed to do with a doll.

His mom mostly seemed put off by the whole thing, despite his best efforts. Pickles overheard her talking to his father once, about how she thought the way he played with the doll was ‘disturbing.’

When Seth had burned the plastic hair off her head, it had been a relief to both of them. The scorched barbie was never replaced.

Back in the hotel room, Pickles placed the doll squarely in the chuck-it pile. With stiff joints, she sat on her little throne of garbage and cast-away memories. He turned his attention back to the box.

At the very bottom, he founds what appeared to be an old yearbook. The cover was spotty and water damaged, but Pickles could still make out the angry snout of their high school mascot, as well as the date- 1985. His first thought was that Seth’s shit had once again gotten mixed up with his.

He changed his mind once he cracked to book open. Someone had scratched the anarchist logo all over the school motto in blue ballpoint ink.

Yeah okay, that belonged to him alright.

Pickles began leafing through the book, not caring too much about the young, shiny faces printed upon the pages in black and white.

He had spent most days of his high school career drunk, baked or both. His friends hadn’t been the types to join the school-choir, the debate club or the swimmers’ team. They were more the vandalise-the-lockers and threaten-you-behind-the-bleachers kind of kids. There weren’t any pages dedicated to the kids that were voted most likely to see the inside of a jailcell.

His buddies had organised the anti-voting party for one glorious semester during sophomore year, but the principal had vetoed them from appearing in the yearbook. Yet another example of the system failing the people.

Occasionally a face struck him as vaguely familiar. Teacher that lectured him about wasted potential here, kid that bought a fake ID from him there, but nothing that really jumped out.

That was until he passed by the sports candids page. Not because those skinny-armed track runners were anything special- no, what caught his attention was the polaroid picture wedged into the seam of the page. Couple of kids he used to hang out with, captured in instant print. He recognised the studded leather jackets, the smudged eyeliner and safety pins pricked through their earlobes to prove that they were really punk.

Pickles wasn’t in the photograph, but he must have been in the room. Most likely, he was the one holding the camera when it was taken.

Despite all his bravado, he had been horribly camera-shy back then. He would  duck out of sight when someone tried to take a picture, cover up mirrors with a towel when he got the chance, and threaten to break the nose of any boy who dared to try and boost his confidence. Achne-faced arbiters of beauty, coming down from the heavens to absolve him with a nobody ever tell you you’re pretty before? Transparently hoping that Pickles would fall on his knees in gratitude, and maybe give them a blowie while he was down there.

There were rumours Pickles was easy, because he had a lot of guy-friends. Curtesy of his older brother, and his complete inability to not be a creep whenever the opportunity presented itself.

Most of the kids in the photo were boys, but there was a girl there too. In the photograph, she was excitedly holding up her dog for the camera. Everybody had called her Advert, cause she looked a little bit like that chick from The Adverts, but her real name was Alison.

It was strange to see her here, in this hostel room, the way she used to be. In particular because Alison had come up during the Christmas celebration earlier today. Pickles’ mother had brought her up, without prompting, after announcing dinner would take another hour at least.

“That girl you used to spend time with. With the crazy eyes.” She had told Pickles.  “Your... friend, Alison. She got married, last November. So I suppose she turned out alright in the end.” For a split second, trying went out the window.

“What is that suppose to mean, turned out alright?” He had asked, before he could stop himself.

“Hmm? Oh, nothing at all, just thought you’d be interested.” She said, raising her palms in mock-surrender. An awkward silence had fallen over the table.

Seth stopped sipping his coffee. “Wait. Married to who? To a dude?”

Three drops of coffee spilt from Seth cups when he jolted. They left a yellow stain on the crisp white table cloth.

Mom shifted in her seat, presumably being the one who had just delivered a kick to his shins. Pickles could make an estimated guess- usually he was the one leaving the dinner table with bruises on his legs.

“She married a mechanic.” She hissed. Like that answered the question. And then, like nothing had happened, she went on harping about Amber’s weight loss progress, after having the baby.

Pickles wasn’t sure what had happened to Advert after he had left town. They hadn’t kept in touch. He had been pretty mad at her, too. They were caught together, making out in the gym locker room. But while Pickles got the boot, Advert walked away with a slap on the wrist.

He imagined it had something to do with her crocodile tears, the way her inch-thick eyeliner had run down her cheeks while she cried about how she hadn’t known any better, it wasn’t her fault, Pickles had told her he was a boy so it wasn’t even really gay on her end.

So yeah, Pickles had gotten a little mad. And when his screaming match with the principal resulted in a permanent expulsion, he hadn’t exactly felt eager to check up on Advert.

Being kicked out of school had been the final straw. That was when his parents – his mom, apparently – decided they were going to send him away to the reformation school, some places with nuns and uniforms and padlocks on every door.

His dad told him that If he would behave himself he’d be allowed to come home for Christmas, and if he didn’t they had no qualms about disowning him.

The revelation that it had not been his father but his mom that had decided to send him to the school was still burned into Pickles’ mind. Part of him almost didn’t believe it, wanted to call Seth to figure out exactly what he had overheard.

Pickles remembered when he was a teenager, his parents used to tell him they were going to get divorced over him all the time, that he was destroying their marriage. It wasn’t just that there was something wrong with him, he was what was wrong with them.

It used to keep him awake alot, but underneath the existential horror of feeling like the root cause for his family’s total disintegration, there had been a sliver of comfort too. His parents argued about him alot, which meant they disagreed about him. Their loathing was not singular.

His father hadn’t given a damn about him since he had been six years old, so of course that man would try to get rid of him. That made sense. But his mom, despite all their fights, wasn’t like that. She cared about maintaining a relationship with him, in her own batshit way.

She wouldn’t just throw him away, would she? She-

She was trying.

...But trying to do what, exactly?

What version if Pickles did she have in her head? One that played with dolls, and didn’t drink or do drugs, or care about music? That came home from the reformatory school sweet and non-confrontational during Christmas, that married a mechanic and turned out alright in the end?

Pickles was trying, he had tried his best but he would not and could not be those things. If his mom’s version of trying meant trying to fix him he would be better off without her in his life.

Goddammit, Pickles thought as he slipped the polaroid into his wallet. He could really use a drink right now, anything to get rid of the stone-cold clarity in his head.

He had told himself to wait until after Nathan called him to cancel, but his phone stubbornly stayed silent. Maybe Nathan had forgotten to tell him. Maybe he simply couldn’t be bothered.

Pickles tried calling him back, nonchalance be damned, but the bastard had turned off his phone. He got up and started pacing, aimlessly.

Realising that he was in a spiral had never actually helped him get out of it, it just added a touch of dread, like looking out the car window and realising they were going off a cliff. He should have left, he didn’t know why he was still here, he could have been wine-drunk right now.

Fuck it, the night wasn’t over yet.

Pickles would go out, get three bottles of wine, maybe four, and then he was going to drink until his liver begged for mercy.

Freefalling as he was, he wouldn’t mind getting his hands on something stronger too. Did he know anybody in Tomahawk that would be able to hook him up? Probably not. Goddamn meth-dealers, they had a monopoly over the entire Midwest. Still, he would go out and ask around. He’d love to prove to his sister-in-law that you didn’t need to run away to LA to get hooked on smack.

Pickles looked around for his coat, remembered he hadn’t brought it, and then simply pocketed his wallet. Maybe he’d also get some dark rum, warm himself from the inside out. He looked around the room for anything he had missed, picked up the lighter-knife just to be sure, and then resolutely headed for the door.

He threw open the door, stepped out onto the balcony and promptly walked into a wall of flesh and black nylon.

“Oh.” Pickles said.

Nathan had grabbed his upper arm when he had stumbled straight into him. His grip had loosened once he realised Pickles was steady on his feet, but he hadn’t let go yet.

“Hey.” He said, looking down on him curiously. “Ready to go?”

“Oh,” Pickles dumbly repeated, still gaping at him like a goldfish. “I, uhh, I didn’t really pack, dude.”

“Why the fuck not?”

“I didn’t think you were actually going to show.” Pickles was suddenly hit by the sheer ridiculousness of it all.

“Christ, you’re a lunatic man. What the hell are you doing here?” Pickles wasn’t waiting on an answer, it was an existential question, more than anything.

“Idiot,” Nathan said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I told you I’d come.”

“Yeah, but c’mon. Who does that.”

Nathan pushed past Pickles, into the small motel room. Pickles stayed where he was, lingering in the doorway, like the space had turned hostile against him.

Nathan spotted the box in the centre of the room immediately. He knelt down so he could dump everything back in the box, but then he paused.

“You want me to bring, uhh... What is all this stuff, man?”

“Some old things my mom gave me. It’s not important,” Pickles removed himself from the open doorway, walked over to Nathan and nudged the chuck-it pile with the nose of his shoe. It created a minor avalanche. Barbiedoll landed with her legs up, head hidden underneath the seashell, like some sexually deviant hermit crab.

“let’s just leave it.”

“You sure? Think about it - if one of the motel-workers finds out this stuff belongs to you they might try to sell it on eBay for a hundred K," he said.

"Authentic Pickles the Drummer- actually, what the hell is this thing?” he was holding up the doll by the ankle, her burned gunk-head sticking up in the air.

“What, you didn’t burn any barbies as a kid?”

“If I did I wouldn’t carry them around with me.” Nathan smirked.

Pickles didn’t meet his eyes. He walked back inside, pulled the doll out of Nathan’s hand by her melted hair-tangle, and threw her into the little trashcan the motel had provided. It was a score, her plastic body hit the lid, bounced off of it and landed in the trashbag. The lid fell shut after her.

“Just put the rest back in the box.” He mumbled. Nathan shrugged, and scooped all the items on the floor with his big arms, then dumped them back in the box.

“This all you brought?” he asked. He was so hard to get a read on him, Pickles could tell. But he was too worn out to give him much of anything.

“I, uhh, don’t got a lot of stuff with me. Kinda took off in a hurry.”

“I guess we can send one of the klokkateers tomorrow-“

“Yeah, nah, let’s not do that- I’ll get some new shirts to cut the sleeves off.” Situations like these generally weren’t de-escalated by having a bunch of goons in black hoods show up at someone’s house.

“God, it’s so weird that you’re actually here, dude. You sure you wanna get back onto the plane? It’s already super late.” Pickles pinched his brow.

“Fuck, I’m ruining your whole Christmas with my crazy bullshit.”

Nathan looked around the room once as he got, his nostrils flaring.

“I’m not spending Christmas morning here. This place is a shithole. C’mon.”

Wordlessly, Pickles followed him out. The biting cold outside didn’t help get rid of his feeling of unreality, nor did the warmth of the Parka that Nathan shrugged off and threw in his direction.

But Pickles was shook out of his thoughts when he actually saw the parking lot in front of the motel. He burst into laughter.

“Nate, dude, are you facking forreal? What are these poor fucking guests supposed to think?”

The parking lot was really just a stretch of cold asphalt, around which the arms of the motel curled protectively. There hadn’t been alot of cars, when Pickles had arrived – most people didn’t spend their Christmases cooped up in dingy off-road motels.

But the thing that really caught Pickles’ attention was the gigantic, onyx-black plane smack in the middle of the stretch of asphalt. Whatever cars had been scattered across the parking lot had suffered a gruesome demise underneath the airplane’s wheels and metal belly.

Some poor sap’s mangled yellow Prius was still sounding it’s car-alarm, a mechanical death-rattle that sounded like it could die off any moment. The motel’s sign had gotten felled by the left-wing, and had crashed into the railing on the front-balcony.

“It’s a parking lot.” Nathan said, while Pickles caught his breath. “We used it to park. You got issues with that?”

“I think we both got issues, man.” Pickles said, leaning into him a little as he took in the wreckage below.

The smell of motor-oil permeated through the air. He breathed in deep – it always had a strangely grounding effect on him. He had never been one for setting fires, no matter what his family and the rest of Tomahawk thought, but there was comfort in the scent.

Disrepair, devastation and the feeling that nothing he did would ever make up for it, so he might as well do what he wants.

A hand on his shoulder. He shouldn’t be able to feel the warmth of that hand through the stuffed nylon of the parka, but Pickles could swear that he did.

"Hey." Nathan said. "Do you need, like, a hug or something?"

Yes, he actually did need a hug. He let Nathan draw him in with one arm, the other arm still carrying the cardboard box. Pickles let himself melt into his broad chest for a moment, not really caring whether anybody was watching them from their motel windows.

“You want to go?” Nathan sort of mumbled into his hair.

“Yeah.” Pickles said. “I want to go.”

Chapter Text

It was half past four, and the sleepy streets of Spring Hills Florida were abandoned.

Technically, it was Christmas morning. But it had crept in unnoticed, a much anticipated but as of not unnoticed guest, comfortably settling down but in no rush to draw attention to itself just yet. It would still be a good few hours until the pale winter sin would rise over the terracotta pool-homes, picket fences and dried-out grassy lawns. For now, the tranquillity of the not-quite morning remained unbroken. There was nobody to mind the two voices traversing the dark, safe for the blowup-santa tied to one of the front porches.

“Dude, we’re gonna have to can that environmental album.”

A disgruntled noise, like a guard dog unwilling to get up out of it’s spot. “Why?”

“Cause we’re flying all over the place man, for the stupidest goddamn reasons. If DieforDeathklok.com finds out they’ll tear us a new asshole.”

“How would they even find out?” Laughter, now.

“They’re gonna know, dude. They got ways of knowing. Remember that country chick with her private plane? They facking smashed her to pieces, she’s like the new Humpty Dumpty now. They’re never putting her back together again.” The clinking of keys, a missed attempt to jam them into a front door.

“Fuck it, we’ll just get Charles to bury it.” Nathan’s heavy hand pushed the front door open, and he held it open for a moment, letting Pickles head in before him. He paused in the doorway when he realised they weren’t alone.

His mother was by herself in the open livingroom, a sillouette in the dark that he would always recognise. She sat curled up on one of the armchairs, brown morning coat drawn over her shoulders and a cup of tea between her palms. The television had been turned on, and was playing a video recording of the inside of a fireplace.

“Oh, uhh, hey Mom.” He asked, voice ascending from its deep baritone as if he’d asked a question. “You’re still up?”

“Ofcourse I am!” She chirped. “I wanted to meet our guest.” She put down her mug of tea and heaved herself up out of her chair. Then she pulled Pickles, who had just pulled Nathan’s parka over his head. She pulled him into a hug that he underwent diligently, confused by the warmth in her voice. “Merry Christmas, dear.”

“It’s great that you’re here, actually-“ She continued as she pulled the parka out of Pickles hands. He kept holding them out infront of him, awkwardly, like a singer-songwriter suddenly trapped onstage without his guitar.

“Did you try your mother’s cob-salad? She posted the recipe on our groupchat, it looked very interesting.” Nathan’s mother smiled broadly when Nathan raised an eyebrow. “Dethklok-moms” We’re all on there, although Anja has to get Surfetta to translate for her. She doesn’t speak the language all too well, poor dear. But I play online chess with her, so we do keep in touch.”

“I do not like that you have a group chat” Nathan said.  His mom tsked at him, and hung the parka back onto one of the hooks. The innermost one, where Nathan’s coats had gone for as long as he had been able to reach.

“I am allowed to have friends, sweetie. Just wait until you’re my age, you’ll see how hard it is to meet new people.” She turned her attention back to Pickles. “So, did you try it? The salad?”

Pickles shifted, apologetically. “Oh, I kind of took off before dinner.” He suddenly seemed to remember that he was still holding out his hands, and quickly stuffed them into his jean-pockets.

“So you haven’t eaten yet?” Something sparked in the eyes of Nathan’s mother, a bright flash of excitement that melted away the sleepiness like early-season snow. Nathan thought it sounded like a threat.

“Oh no, Don’t worry ‘bout it please, I’m not that hungry-“ Pickles said, retreating back into the wall, but Nathan’s mother cut him off.

“I have so, so many leftover! Come on, I’ll get you something.” She raised a finger before Pickles could say anything else.  “I’ll think it’s rude if you don’t, I’ll get terribly offended.” She winked.

Pickles conceded, and was ushered into the kitchen by Nathan’s mother, presumably to get acquainted with the purple goo. Nathan was in no rush to help him out – why not let his mom live her Julia Child fantasy for a moment? It had been eight long hours since he had dared to try the açai berry sauce, and he hadn’t keeled over. Pickles was the most poison-proof person he knew, he didn’t need Nathan to rescue him from this one.

Instead, he found a spot to stash Pickles’ cardboard box in the living room, someplace where nobody would trip and break their neck over it. Then he fished the remote out from its usual spot n between the sofa-cushions, and turned off the fireplace-video his mother had left playing on the television. The room was bathed in darkness.

Standing alone in the darkened living room, a nostalgic sort of alienation came over him, like he had become unstuck in time. He remembered standing here, just like this, as a child. He’d come down in the middle of the night, accepting defeat after hours of lying awake, or otherwise waking up in a cold sweat from ill-remembered nightmares. Inexplicably, his mother would always be awake, cup of tea in her hands. She’d make him a cup of tea as well, and they would drink it in the dark, neither of them saying much of anything. The absence of his father had loomed, intangible to Nathan, and all-encompassing to her. He was suddenly overcome with gratitude, that she had stayed up to meet him and Pickles tonight.

After Pickles had been amply supplied in the kitchen, Nathan’s mom came to find him in the living room. She didn’t seem to mind the fact that he was standing by himself in the heavy darkness, didn’t reach for the light switch.

“Your father told me about your friend,” she started. “You’re a sweetheart. I prepared your room for the two of you.” A pause. “Unless... do you think he’d prefer sleeping on the couch?”

“Oh, you didn’t have to do all that.” Nathan said, not sure what to make of the look she was giving him. “We can share my room.”

Nathan’s mother smiled curiously. “I thought so.”

She glanced at the direction of the kitchen, then back at Nathan with a curious twinkle in her eyes. “You know, If you want to bring your... friend to join us for Christmas next year, me and your father wouldn’t mind it all. We’d be happy have you both.”

“You, uhh, want me to bring my friends over for Christmas?”

She laughed a little. “Well, I didn’t mean all of your friends. I’m talking about you and your... special friend.”

“Huh, okay. Thanks mom. I’ll let him know.”

*

Stepping into he bedroom at the end of the hallway felt a bit like stepping back into 1989. Bulky little television crammed in the corner, a VCR precariously balanced on top. Dusky shelves filled with helicopter figurines, football trophies and a dangly plastic skeleton overseeing it all from its spot on top of the dresser.

Every inch of the wood-panelled walls was covered in posters. Little rips along the sides betrayed how they must once have been pulled out of teen-magazines, like the sweet, briny meat of an oyster.

Pickles had to laugh when he walked in. For one, he realised he had forgotten how brown the 80s were. For him, the latter half of the decade had been filled with the snakeskin leather-covered, tramp-chic, LA opulence that was now remembered as quintessentially 80s. The everyday, seventies overhaul aesthetic that he had left behind in 1986 had all but faded from his memory. He breathed in, and almost expected the air to smell like Marlboro and Jean Nate.

“Damn. Is this room the same as when you were a kid?” he asked.

Nathan shrugged. “Pretty much, yeah. I think my mom puts the laundry-rack here when I’m not staying over.” Pickles turned around and saw that Nathan was blushing. It was like he felt the need to justify it, the continued existence of this shrine to his teenage years. Like it was something to be embarrassed about in the face of Pickles’ uprootedness.

“Crazy how your parents kept it like this...” Pickles mumbled.

“Yours didn’t?”

“Well, they sold the house we grew up in in ’95. But I think they got rid of all of my stuff a few weeks after I hitchhiked my way outta town.” Pickles grinned at him “Revenge for me pawning my dad’s golfclub.”

He took a closer look at the poster-plastered wall. For every side, he was being stared down by the faces who used to be more famous then him, long ago. He couldn’t help but think of their Grammy's acceptance speech. Back when the grammy’s were still a thing, before they gave Jethro Tull the award over Dethklok, and the fans staged a public execution of the board. The audience there had been full of faces just like these, staring at them slack jawed, unsure whether there was still a place for them in the new world Dethklok was shaping in its image. A former glam starlet himself, Pickles had been distinctly aware of how lucky he had been to find himself speaking into the microphone next to Nathan.

Taking the faces on the posters in one by one, Pickles could pinpoint the period when Nathan had begun plastering the posters all over his walls pretty well. Slasher-movie icons, the guys from Diamond Head, and about a million other angry looking young men with guitars. A surprising amount of half-naked chicks with their legs wrapped tightly around Harley Davidson’s.

Then Pickles felt a big hand on his shoulder, coaxing him away from the wall.

“What are you staring at?” Nathan asked, looking slightly flushed.

“It’s nothing, man. ‘S just funny, imagining little Nat’an in this room. Sometimes I forget you weren’t always this death metal manbeast, is all.”

“I was already pretty metal in high school.” Nathan grunted.

Pickles cast a pointed glance at the trophies. He had seen enough pictures of Nathan in his letterman jacket. “You played football. Jocks aint metal.”

“They can be. I was.” Nathan shrugged. He walked over to his closet and started rifling through one of his drawers.

“You lookin’ for a pair of jockstraps?”

Nathan wordlessly flipped him off. He then took out a dented metal lunchbox, which he flung onto the bed. When he opened it up, Pickles could pick up on the faintest traces of a familiar funk.

“Dude, are you forreal? How long have you been holding on to that? Tell me that’s not actually from ‘89.”

Nathan chuckled, but when he offered Pickles a joint he put up his hands. “I dunno man, I’m not sure I’m drunk enough to be smoking twenny year old pot with you. That stuffs older than Dr Rockzo’s new girlfriend.”

“It’s not even two years old, asshole, some kid recognised me on the street while I was helping my dad out with the lawn, and he shared his stach. C’mon, you’ve been jittery all evening.” Pickles scoffed, but he followed Nathan towards his bedroom window all the same.

They sat down on opposite ends in the windowsill, Pickles’ leg casually thrown over Nathan’s knee. They lit up, and Pickles took his sweet time taking a drag and letting the smoke settle in his lungs. Nathan hadn’t been wrong about him being jittery – he hadn’t been able to fully shake the feeling of homelessness during the flight. Being near Nathan helped, more than Nathan probably even realised. He was deep, lung-filling breaths, honest green eyes, sturdy like a statue carved out of marble.

When he exhaled, he tried to blow the smoke out into the night. But the wind was strong, and about half of it got blown into Nathan’s face, right back into the bedroom.

“Dude, your parents are gonna frigging hate me.” Pickles chuckled, hoarsely.

“No they’re not. I used to smoke out of this window all the time in high school, and they could never tell. It’s not a big deal.”

“They could absolutely tell dude,” Pickles laughed, almost choking on smoke. “There is no way your clumsy ass managed to hide that from your parents. You’re as subtle as a Gibson to the head.” He took another hit, then threw his head back for a moment, closing his eyes and enjoying the feeling of the winter-wind on his skin. It was so much warmer in Florida, the night air had felt like whiplash when he had just gotten off the plane.

“Are you sure your folks don’t mind me stayin’ over?” He passed the joint back to Nathan, taking advantage of the moment by brushing his thumb over the thin skin of Nathan’s wrist.

“Yeah, they’re  cool with it. My mom wants me to bring you over next Christmas, actually. Y’know, for dinner and everything.”

“Huh, she said that?” Pickles frowned, and cracked an eye back open. Nathan was looking at him with that dopey, soft smile he only wore when he was high, or when he thought nobody was looking at him.

“Yeah. Cause your my special friend or something.” He said, fondly, like he had taken quite a liking to her phrasing.

 “‘Special friend?” Pickles laughed. “Dude, that’s code for queer if I ever heard it. Your mom’s totally clocked us.”

“Hmm? No way, my mom hasn’t clocked shit...” But Nathan furrowed his brow, seemingly lost in thought for a few moments. Pickles patiently waited for the gears to stop turning in that big head of his. “I got tons of cheerleaders in Highschoolers,” was what he finally came up with.

“Oh yeah Tom Brady? Then why’d she pull out the bedframe and turn your single into a double?” Pickles asked, pointing at Nathan’s folded out bed with the big quilt. “She coulda just thrown a matrass on the floor, ya know?” Pickles took the joint back and blew more smoke in Nathan’s face, who seemed wholly unbothered.

“Uhh, cause then we wouldn’t have enough blankets, duhh. Besides, I always pulled the bedframe out like that when I had a sleepover, nothing gay about it. Did you make your guy-friends sleep on the floor?”

“My parents didn’t let me have sleepovers with boys.”

“Oh, shit, yeah of course.” Nathan mumbled, looking away. “Sorry, that’s dumb of me.”

Don’t worry ‘bout it. And nah, my lady-friends and me just cuddled up on my twin matrass during sleepovers.

Nathan nodded slowly. Suddenly, his eyes flashed. “Wait. Woah, you must’ve gotten so much pussy.”

“Worked out pretty good for a couple o’ years, yeah.” Pickles said, laughing. They continued to pass the joint back and forth in a comfortable silence. It was one of the reasons they had clicked the way they had, Pickles thought to himself. Unlike the rest of the guys, Nathan was actually able to shut the hell up once in a while, and not have it be awkward. It had actually taken Pickles a little while to figure it out, when they had just met – the fact that Nathan was one of the few people he could be off around. Partake in the comfort of just existing near each other.

A particularly strong gust of wind blew some more smoke back into Nathan’s room. Pickles watched the loose tendrils swirl and then disappear from sight. Suddenly, his eyes narrowed. He jumped off of the window sill, feet landing on Nathan’s carpet.

“Dude, hold on a moment. Is that me?”

Amidst the collage of Metalheads and pin-up dolls, Pickles could suddenly see a flash of red hair that seemed awfully fucking familiar. Same pair of eyes that he saw in the mirror every morning, looking a little blown-out, a little less self-assured. He saw himself draped over an amp the way sex-icons of the past had draped themselves over grand pianos. Head thrown back, wearing one of those stupid goddamn crop tops that left his glistening midriff exposed, furiously jamming on a guitar at crotch-level.

“what the fuck?”

“No, okay- there’s a lotta context around that photo that you don’t know-“ Nathan stammered.

“You said you hated S-n-B! That was, like, the first thing you ever said to me!” Floridan house-trashing party that Pickles had only gone to for the drugs, hot nights’ air and mosquitos everywhere, and some greasy darkhaired behemoth following him outside and telling him his music sucked. That was their beginning.

“I did hate it! I do!” Nathan thundered.

Pickles pricked him in the chest with a pointed finger. “Po-ser. Oh, I’m Nathan, I only listen to Cryptopsy and audio recordings of people bein’ decapitated,  ‘cause that's how heavy and brutal I am. You are a goddamn poser.”

“Just- Pickles listen to me. I had this girlfriend that was really into Snakes and Barrels, and she was gonna come over one night, so I put that thing up to get her- no Pickles, don’t do that-“

Pickles had fished his phone out of his pocket, and turned off airplane mode. He ignored the immediate influx of messages in his notifications, and google maps bugging him to turn off auto-roam. Instead, he took a picture of Nathan’s wall and sent it to the Dethklok group chat, throwing in a quick “>lol found Nagthans old spankbank” to accompany the picture. He then walked back to the window sill and stumped out the joint. Nathan had his head buried in his hands, ears flushed bright red.

“Hey. I’m flattered, really. You want me to sign it? Love, Pickles?”

“You’re not gonna let this go, are you?” Nathan asked, peeking up at him through his fingers.

Pickles snickered. “Nope. So what’s your favourite song? Go on, I wanna know.”

“I like the ones with Rikki Kixx, I miss that guy. They really peaked with him.”

If it had been anyone else saying that, Pickles would have been pissed enough to push him outta the windowsill, onto the lawn below. As it stood, he felt content to lightly flick the centre of Nathan’s red forehead. “C’mon, poser. It’s like five in the morning, I’m tired as Hell.”

Nathan took one last look outside, like he was considering jumping to get away from the embarrassment. Then he got out of the windowsill, sighing theatrically. Teenage-Nathan suddenly didn’t seem to hard to picture.

Pickles took off towards the bathroom to take a leak and wash some of the motel-grime off. When he came back, Nathan had already stashed the lunchbox away. He was looking over the folded clothed in the closet.

“I don’t think I’ve got anything that’s the right size for your, uhh, little body”

“Just gimme a shirt.”

Nathan shrugged and threw a faded Iron Maiden shirt at Pickles’ head. Pickles pulled his own shirt over his head, then put the clean one on. It fell around his body like a Greek toga.

“Y’know,” Pickles began, ignoring the way Nathan was snickering at him. “The number one thing I hear from fans is that I’m taller than they expected.”

“Bullshit. Nobody’s ever said that to you.”

“But they do! Everyone say that all the time-“

“I Don’t believe you.”

 “-And it makes a lotta sense if you think about it. I’m always standing next to your goliath ass, and Skwisgaar Skwigelf taller-than-a-tree. And, you’re all wearing boots.” Pickles continued, undeterred. “I’m five foot 6, that’s pretty much as tall as your average douchebag.”

“Don’t believe you.” Nathan said as he sat down on the bed, next to Pickles.

“You don’t believe that I’m five foot six, or that that’s average?”

“Both, man!”

“Nobody ever thought I was short when I was in Snakes N Barrels.” Pickles argued.

“Okay one, Snakes N Barrels was filled with itty-bitty, little guys.” Nathan said, skilfully dodging the jab of an elbow aimed at his side. “And two, you were probably wearing those stiletto heels during- ow, goddammit-“ He grabbed at the offending arm, catching Pickles in a vice. Pickles threw his other elbow into the fight as well, but quickly ended up with both wrists pinned to the bed. Once he had stopped struggling, Nathan let go of his wrists and pushed his big hands flat against Pickles’, comparing the size difference between the two. Every one of his finger was a full joint bigger.

“Like I said.” Nathan said. “Tiny. I don’t know why you’re acting all tough about it – it’s cute.”

“Tiny compared to your meaty paws, maybe.” Pickles said, nuzzling into the exposed nape of Nathan’s neck. “If you weren’t in Dethklok you coulda made a career shovelling coal into a furnace with those things.” He was about to press an open-mouthed kiss against his warm skin when he was taken out of it by the aggressive buzzing of his phone. One look at the screen, and his heart sank.

“Oh shit,” Pickles breathed. “My mom’s calling. Should I pick up?”

“I dunno man, it’s your fucked up family.” Nathan said, shifting further back on the bed.

Pickles stared frozen at the lit-up screen of his phone. Four more rings and it would go to voicemail. His wished furiously that it was twenty years ago, back when he could ignore his parent’s late-night calls and not worry that they might be having some kind of medical emergency. Goddamn his father’s donkey-liver. “Okay, I’ll answer. Get out.”

Nathan bristled. “We’re in my bedroom. You get out.”

Pickles cursed him out under his breath, then curled up amongst the pillows on Nathan’s bed. He held the phone at some distance from his face, a little like he was dealing with a live explosive.

“Turn on speakerphone.” Nathan whispered. Pickles glared, but did as Nathan asked.

As it turned out, speakerphone wouldn’t be necessary.

“For God’s sake, why are you in Florida!? Unbelievable!”

Pickles took a moment to formulate a response to that. “You’re not s’posed to tell people you microchipped them, ma. It defeats the whole purpose o’ microchipping’.”

“You live-shared your location to all your contacts, Christ.” Pickles blinked, a little flummoxed that him mother, of all people, had beaten him at tech-savviness. Goddamn, he should get Charles to organise one of those tech-trainings for him, this was getting out of hand.

“Your brother says one thing and you flee the goddamn state again?” His mother continued, undeterred. “What is wrong with you?”

“I didn’t flee the goddamn state, a goddamn friend came to goddamn get me. It wasn’t even my idea.”

“Came to ‘get you’?”

“Yeah”

“Came to get you, crossing five state lines?”

Pickles hummed, exasperated. Nathan’s big hand reached out again, and came to rest on his knee. Fingers digging into his skin, like an anchor dragging over the ocean floor.

“Well, that don’t make any sense to me.” His mother scoffed.

“Look, can we not do this now?” Pickles said, pinching his brow. “It’s almost five O clock in the morning and it’s Christmas and we’re- I don’t want to be yelling at my elderly mother over the phone, okay? If you have a heart attack in the night this shit is gonna haunt me forever.”

He knew it was a mistake the moment he said it. The voice on the other end went up another octave. “Elderly? Heart attack? How old do you think I-“

“You’re in your mid-sixties, how is that not elderly-“ Pickles tried, but there was no stopping her.

“With the way you’re drinking yourself to death-“

“Mom.”

“-I wouldn’t be surprised if-“

“Mom. Ma. Mother.”

“-I end up the one being haunted by you -“

“Mom!!” Pickles yelled.

“What?!”

Pickles took a deep breath. The voice of the doctor in rehab echoed through his head, count to ten, you are master of your own emotion. The thumb on his knee was drawing tight little circles over the joint. “I don’t wanna fight with you.”

“First time for everything.”

“Oh my facking god-“

“Alright, alright!” She snapped. “Don’t use that goddamn language with me.”

“I don’t want to fight either,” she continued. “It’s just... you always make everything so difficult! I am not a bad mother! Seth loves me.”

Just like that, guilt came crashing over him, like it always did in the end. For as long as Pickles could remember, things went this way. He’d go to battle with her, stand his own, and then the second he took a step back he’d feel horrible about the things he had said to her. He wondered, suddenly, whether she had ever felt that wave crash over her, too. Whether she also struggled staying afloat when it came.

“I love you too.” He said, trying and failing to keep the whine out of his voice. “And you’re not a... You did your best.” He trailed off. “You’re okay.” He added, quietly, because he couldn’t stand to let it hang in the air, unsaid.

“It wasn’t always like this between us, you know.” His mom said.

Pickles chewed his lip. “I don’t know, mom. I don’t know ‘bout that.”

“Before you started drinking, and setting fires, and- hanging out with those awful boys. We got along. Remember?” She asked, quietly. Pickles couldn’t stand it, the sincerity in her voice.

“I found your doll.” He said, before he could stop himself.

“You found a doll?”

“Yeah, the doll you gave me. Remember- you said it was unnatural.”

“I’m not sure-“

“The one that Seth burned.” Pickles tried. “Remember?”

“Seth never burned any dolls. You were always making up stories about him.” And there she was. There they both were.

“Yeah, okay mom...” Pickles trailed off, feeling something intangible slip away, right out of his fingers. He could reach all he wanted, it wasn’t coming back, not tonight. “I just- I’m thinking the whole ‘us getting along’ thing was maybe a long time ago. The fire happened when I was six, yeah?” He didn’t really have to ask, there was nothing wrong with his memory.

“You were a very cute baby...” She said lightly, like it was an ill-timed joke. But her voice suddenly sounded very weary, and very old. “You know, you have one child, and you expect it to be one way, and then you have another...”

“...Ma, I’m gonna hang up, okay? Just- Try and get some sleep.” Pickles said. “We can talk later.”

Goodbyes were exchanged quietly, and impersonally.

As soon as Pickles was sure she was gone, he childishly threw his phone at the foot of the bed. It bounced, and landed on the soft carpet below with an unsatisfyingly soft thud.

“Well. What do ya think?” Pickles asked.

“What do I think?” Nathan stuttered, caught off-guard, eager to observe but never wanting to get involved. A proper anthropologist, observing the scarred Midwesterner far outside of his natural habitat. “...About that?”

“About all of it. Sometimes, I feel like I shoulda just stayed no-contact with them. Maybe that woulda been best.” Pickles flopped down on the bed, lying face down on the quilt.

“What she don’t seem to get is that I’m doing this for her, ya know?” He mumbled straight into the fabric. “I don’t give a fack about Seth, or my dad. But it’s so clear that she doesn’t want anything to do with me. She’s only still talking to me because- I don’t know.” He raised his head again, wanting to gage Nathan’s reaction.

“I’m pretty sure she actually just hates my guts, yeah?” Nathan looked at him long and hard.

“I don’t think she hates you.” Nathan gently grabbed his shoulder, pushed at it until he got up, and laid down next to Nathan. Pickles let himself flop down again, this time landing his head on Nathan’s chest. He felt the other man’s heartbeat against his cheekbone, wished he could sink into him, lock himself into his ribcage. He felt grotesque.

“Maybe not.” Pickles said. “She doesn’t like me, though.”

“Do you like her?”

“I dunno. Maybe I do, maybe not. That awful of me?”

“No, I don’t think so. It’s real.” Nathan paused. “I mean, maybe don’t tell her that.“

Pickles shut his eyes for a moment. Even now, he felt the push to call her back,  just try a little harder, try to move past it, to find the combination of words that would stop her from sounding so devastatingly sad when she talked to him.

But this was not a problem he was fit to solve. Maybe someone else could have, that mirage of a second child she had once envisioned, back when he was too young to really be a person. Back when the way he needed her was simple, unconditional, the kind of need she had heard in her grandchild’s voice while he cried the night away. Before Pickles began needing someone who was her and also not her in equal measures. Maybe, he thought, she would have been happier if she had kept that doll for herself.

“Are you going to break off contact again?” Nathan asked, softly, like he was trying to approach an animal without spooking it. Pickles breathed out hard against his chest.

“God, I don’t even know anymore. I was really hoping we could just all be adults this Christmas. You got your shit together, I really wanted us to be like that too. But it’s like, we’re so stuck.” He turned his head to the side, making it marginally easier to breath. As much as he’d like to suffocate in Nathan’s chest right about now, it would make him a pretty shitty houseguest.

“It’s all so facking childish.”

“I don’t know. Taking a step back – I think that’s pretty mature, man.”

Pickles looked up at him. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, that sounds, like, the exact type of thing Twinkletits would love. Setting boundaries and all that shit.”

“M just so tired of having to think about it.”

“Then don’t.”

Without pushing Pickles away from him, Nathan put their phones on the nightstand, then flicked a light switch and covered the room in darkness. It wouldn’t be all that long until the sun came up again. Pickles knew that when he’d wake up, the dread, guilt and grief would take hold. But for now, with Nathan’s arms settling around him, he let himself be okay for a while.

“I think this is the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me.” He said, keeping his eyes closed. He let the truth of that statement settle around the two of them, heavy like a winter blanket.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s nothing.” From where he was lying, he could feel Nathan’s heartbeat speed up a little.

“It’s not really though. Fucking love you, dude. You’re a great guy, willing to go through all this for someone else.”

“Wouldn’t do it for just anyone. Just you, actually. And maybe the rest of the idiots, but mostly you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. ‘Cause we’re, uhh, special friends, remember?”

Pickles laughed softly, feeling childish and ancient in equal measures. He leaned forwards, pressed his mouth against the exposed strip of neck he had been planning to kiss earlier, promise fulfilled. Nathan caught him by the jaw before he could lie back down, and pulled him in for a real one. His other arm encircled Pickles’ waist, solid and stable in a way that Pickles always craved when he felt this untethered. It didn’t move when Pickles finally pulled away, a little out of breath.

“Special friends,” he confirmed, already feeling himself drift off.

*

Nathan woke up to a persistent buzzing near his head. Pickles’ phone was lighting up on the nightstand.

The Floridian suburbia that lay outside his bedroom must have already woken up– light was pouring in through the open window, and if he focussed he could pick up on voices outside, the motor of a lawnmower chugging away. He realised, belatedly, that they had forgotten to close the window, before they went to bed. The breeze that came in through the window was pleasantly soft and mellow. But Pickles had twisted the covers high around his shoulders, body glued to Nathan’s like it was freezing outside. Nathan had half a mind to follow his example, to tuck his head back down and ignore the buzzing of the phone.

It wasn’t letting up, though.

 Nathan cracked a sleep-crusted eye back open, and saw how the screen of Pickles’ phone continued to periodically lit up. With the body curled up against him still fast asleep, he reached out and picked up the phone.

Pickles’ notifications were blowing up. Couple of texts from Skwisgaar and Murderface, calling Nathan a simp on their groupchat over the goddamn poster. Eighty-seven pictures of Toki’s tropical bar drink order. But these were all from earlier – the thing that had Pickles’ phone vibrating in his hand was the string of texts his brother Seth was still firing at him in quick succession. Nathan watched them pour in, one by one.

>And I can barely afford a good lawyer with the fucking salary you people pay me

>I need 300K, just venmo me the money ASAP

>you owe me anyways bro

>If she takes half my money I’m gonna go ballistic

>I don’t have prenup

>This is pretty much all your fault btw, hope you’re happy

>I know you’re reading these prick

>Does that guy you ran off with know you’re a skank

>I’m telling mom you’re ignoring me

Nathan watched them continue to pour in, vitriolic waterfall spewing from the screen. Suddenly set on what he wanted to do, Nathan sent Seth a single clown-sticker, then blocked his number. He then shut Pickles’ phone off and dropped the thing on the nightstand. The thing stayed silent as a rock. He let his head fall back to the pillow, long raven hair fanning out, feeling Pickles’ hot breath hit the nape of his neck in hot burst. Before long, his own breathing evened out again, joining the other man in its slow, sleepy tempo.

The phone was quickly forgotten, and so were the sounds of the world coming alive beyond the secluded bedroom; the woman downstairs wondering if she should even bother with breakfast, the older man drinking his coffee on the front porch. Outside, the world stayed untouched by snow.