Chapter Text
The Devil isn’t a man, it is a place: a gaping defect of the self like a tarpit, warm and soft and sticky. When Toki allows his thoughts to get too close to it, things happen to people — because the Devil has always been in him.
Toki’s father has permanent indents on his left hand from a child’s savage bite — he paid Toki back a dozen times over, left wounds for every tooth in his mouth, because the Reverend Aslaug Wartooth knew a good man had to beat the Devil out. There’s a tramp missing both eyes somewhere in Tampa because he thought a homeless teenage foreigner was easy prey, and all the belated pleas for mercy in the world can’t sate the Devil’s lust for blood.
When Toki got everything he ever wanted he thought maybe the pit would recede. That it was a consequence of being miserable and helpless and unloved. But now he is none of those things, and that violence is still in him, and it’s become something terrible and new. And worst of all, its target isn’t his cruel father or a predator on the streets. It’s the bandmate he owes everything to, the person who gave Toki his first kiss, the man whose bed he sneaks into once or twice a week so they can make each other feel good.
Before Skwisgaar Toki didn’t, really, understand what went into touching another person without hurting them or being hurt. Now he’s heard Skwisgaar moan when Toki takes his shirt off and kisses down his chest. Heard his breath catch when Toki feels between his legs. Heard him stifle a cry of pleasure when Toki unzips his jeans and wraps fingers around his cock. Skwisgaar says he’s just helping Toki practice doing what girls like, but Toki’s not sure how often that particular skill transfers.
Toki’s room shares a wall with Skwisgaar’s, and from keeping his ear close to it and hearing things at parties, Toki knows girls don’t draw the noises out of Skwisgaar that Toki does. In rehearsals, Skwisgaar’s never anything but composed — it feels like he critiques Toki’s every note and chord sometimes, and god forbid he depart from Skwisgaar’s lines. It’s a privilege, nearly a miracle, for Skwisgaar to invite anyone through this narrow gap in his perfect self-control.
But Skwisgaar only does it because he doesn’t realize Toki has the Devil in him, and if he ever learned the things that Toki sometimes wants in the dark, he’d never let Toki touch him again.
The first time Toki ever kissed Skwisgaar, he misunderstood the instructions and pinned Skwisgaar to the bed with his full weight. When Skwisgaar hadn’t moved fast enough to respond, Toki had grabbed his hair and pulled until Skwisgaar cried out in pain. Skwisgaar had elbowed him off and ordered him out, and it had all been a mistake they’d tacitly agreed to never talk about again.
Except sometimes at night, Toki remembers it, and his body stirs. He replays the scant seconds that he did something Skwisgaar hated, laid hands on him in ways he didn’t want while Skwisgaar seemed helpless to stop it. He barely even has to touch himself to finish — and then he does, and guilt overwhelms him, and all that’s left is knowing that he’s let the devil swallow his soul.
It might be all right if he could keep it to those late-night moments. But occasionally he’ll take Skwisgaar’s wrist to move his hand somewhere, and in a flash he’ll imagine twisting it behind Skwisgaar’s back while Skwisgaar begs him to stop it. He’ll feel Skwisgaar pass the point after climax where he gets oversensitive and think he could keep going, could hold him down and make him cry. He’ll wonder what it would take to make Skwisgaar feel as small as Toki feels sometimes around him, completely powerless in Toki’s hands.
Skwisgaar has told him that some girls will want him to hurt them — when he was sober it was one of those pieces of masculine wisdom he apparently feels honor-bound to pass on; when he was drunk and they were both in bed later, he complained: all dis work, and what she t’inks I get out of it? Toki thinks of finding one of those girls, but… he knows, deep in his Hell-touched heart, that he doesn’t want somebody to ask for it. He doesn’t want it with some groupie he doesn’t care about, and he doesn’t want it with any girl he’d ever love like a girlfriend. No — the only person he wants to hurt is Skwisgaar. Extraordinary, annoying, beautiful, haughty Skwisgaar, who snipes at Toki like he’s a misbehaving child and then kisses him like he’s a decent person, not a damned creature constantly resisting the pull of that tar.
Toki doesn’t actually believe in the Devil anymore, is the funny thing — but it’s unquestionably inside him. He doesn’t believe in Hell — but if he gives in to this feeling, he’s going there. He renounced God and embraced nihilism at a black metal bar in Lillehammer, but the idea that this thirst for cruelty means nothing feels uglier than he can bear. At least sin grants the possibility of penance: the trespasses he commits against Skwisgaar in his thoughts, he absolves on guitar.
Crystal Mountain Records — a distant entity to which the band sends demos and from which they receive money — is apparently ready for them to record an album. Skwisgaar and Nathan have impressed on him over and over that it needs to be perfect, and Skwisgaar in particular expresses frequently that Toki is anything but. Usually, Toki tells him to relax, reminds him they’ve always done just fine on stage. But when he’s had an impure thought about Skwisgaar he goes to their soundproofed practice room and plays one of their songs till his fingers are sore.
It’s a good system. Everyone’s happy.
Until the label invites them to a party and everything falls apart.
It’s not really a party, is the first problem. Charles calls it one and that’s a filthy lie: it’s a bunch of old guys at a beachside country club who keep cornering Toki to talk about concerts they went to thirty years ago, while snatching up the champagne from those waiters’ little trays before he can grab a glass. Toki takes it for as long as he can stand. But after the eighth narration of something called Woodstock he mumbles that he’s got to use the bathroom and scurries outside, ending up out on a marina strung with glittering lights. A single tethered boat bobs in the water, and Toki thinks at least it will be quiet and no one will ask him to give their son guitar lessons there — he makes the short leap to its stern and climbs inside.
When Toki attempts to pull back the cover, though, it resists his attempts. He yanks harder and realizes that’s because Skwisgaar’s underneath it, suit jacket stripped off, sitting in the boat’s long, shallow hull.
“Gets down,” Skwisgaar snaps, grabbing Toki’s sleeve and pulling him out of sight. “What the fucks you doing here, anyway?”
“Uh… coulds ask you the same question.”
“I ams having a nice little drink, on the high seas.” He picks up a bottle of champagne and takes a showy swig from it. “Totallies normal.”
“Why you gots the cover on?”
“Ams more instimates!”
Toki frowns, and Skwisgaar finally gives an irritated huff.
“Fine — I maybe rekronizes one of those rich guys in there.” His voice has the loose, relaxed tone of light inebriation. “Hads a little fun with his wife a while back. And his girlfriend. Ats… the same time.”
“So?”
“Well, he said he gonna shoots my brain out with an eklephant gun, he sees me again.” Skwisgaar shrugs, stretches to lie propped on an elbow against the boat’s floor, and throws the cover over both of them. “You’s gotta be here now too till he leave, I guess. Champagnes?”
In the newly darkened hull, Toki lies down next to Skwisgaar, accepts the half-empty bottle, and takes a warm, stinging gulp of alcohol. It fizzes through his blood as he feels the boat rock — the motion reminds him unpleasantly of his trip to America. He tries to think of a distraction before the memory of seasickness sets in.
“Amn’t no fun there back there anyway,” he says. “Just bullshit.”
“Ja.” Skwisgaar sighs. “The waitresses don’ts even got enough break time to come outside with me.”
It’s impossible to speak with Skwisgaar about anything for too long before sex comes into it, and out here, Toki’s excruciatingly aware of how close the man is. When Skwisgaar reaches for the champagne, his fingers close over Toki’s, long and firm. The touch seems to change the trajectory of whatever Skwisgaar’s doing — instead of taking the bottle, he runs his fingertips languorously across Toki’s knuckles.
“We probably gots a while stuck in dis boat, you know. Ams gonna get real boring if we don’t finds something to do.”
Someone could walk by at any second and hear them. Someone who owns this boat could approach at any second and find them. But Skwisgaar’s hand works along the sleeve of Toki’s ill-fitting jacket and the danger burns hot. Skwisgaar feels for the buttons and undoes them, and Toki aches while he waits for those graceful fingers to reach into his pants. Instead, Skwisgaar stops at the belt buckle.
“You know… I know you’s been practicing, Toki.” Skwisgaar murmurs the words straight into Toki’s ear, in the tone he uses to make women all but dissolve under his touch. “You’s angling to get somesing special from me, maybes?”
Toki feels Skwisgaar’s other hand in his hair, and his brain starts having trouble functioning. He barely registers the first words — all he’s thinking about is something special and Skwisgaar’s fingers just shy of his flesh. Skwisgaar’s tongue explores his ear canal and Toki swallows hard, trying to keep quiet as he whispers:
“Specials?”
Everything Toki does with Skwisgaar is special. But if Skwisgaar means new… well, they’ve kissed, enough times Toki can’t count it on his fingers. Toki’s taken Skwisgaar’s shirt off; Skwisgaar’s taken Toki’s pants off. They’ve both used their hands. Anything beyond that is such uncharted territory between them that Toki’s not even sure what it could include.
“You still amn’t getting with the girls much, are you?” Skwisgaar pushes Toki’s shoulder gently till he’s resting on his back, kissing down his jaw and neck. “Amn’t gotten one to, you know…”
He keeps moving downward, and Toki, far later than he ought to, realizes what he means.
“N—noes.” It’s a little odd Skwisgaar knows that — then again, Toki knows a lot about what Skwisgaar does with girls, for no particular reason.
“So I gets to be little Toki’s first blowjob, ah?”
He sounds just drunk enough that Toki wonders for a second if this is some kind of mistake, but his fingers are sure as he undoes Toki’s belt and unzips his suit pants. The boat shifts underneath them as he reaches in and frees Toki’s cock, and Toki’s breathing stutters.
“Well?” Skwisgaar says, running a teasing finger up it. “Does I?”
Oh my god. Yes. Please.
What he actually gets out is more of a whimpered mhm, but apparently it’s enough.
There’s usually some agreement about who’s the girl when they do this, and Toki’s not sure it gets much more girl than Skwisgaar moving his lips up Toki’s dick, his tongue dragging along it, slow and hot. But Skwisgaar’s also told Toki that girls want a guy to take over and tell them what to do, and right now that seems like the last thing on Skwisgaar’s mind. He holds Toki’s hips down and feels along the tip of the head, tongue slowly probing its slit.
Toki wants to ask if it’s Skwisgaar’s first blowjob from that side; can he possibly be this good if it is? But he’s got the self-preservation to know that would amount to asking Skwisgaar if he’s gay — and it’s blindingly obvious that none of them are gay. So he only lets his head fall back and moans loudly when Skwisgaar licks along his foreskin.
“Shh,” Skwisgaar whispers. “I gets my brain blowed out with the elkesant gun, dis gets a lot less fun, ja?”
Toki wishes he could see Skwisgaar, but maybe it’s for the best; if he could actually watch as those full lips part and slide over him, he’s not he’d last long enough to enjoy anything after that. His tongue slips out as Skwisgaar’s mouth engulfs him, and he stuffs a knuckle between his teeth to stifle the noises he’s making. His other hand grips the champagne bottle, its glass clinking against the hull.
Skwisgaar takes him deeper and seems to hesitate for a second, and Toki wonders, again, if this is all new to him, and guiltily hopes it is. He imagines his lead guitarist’s infuriating confidence faltering and feels himself get somehow even harder, a strangled sound of pleasure making it past his hand. Skwisgaar pauses and pulls off him.
“You tells me when you’s gonna come, okej? Don’ts want to make a mess on the suit.”
Toki nods, realizes Skwisgaar can’t see it, and starts to say yes — only to lose the word when Skwisgaar closes his lips around Toki again and sucks a breath in. He works over Toki’s shaft slowly, with something less than his usual self-assurance. In the distance, above the noise of the waves, a door slams. One of the stuffy old guys yells something, and Toki’s mind flashes to the thought of the cover being pulled off them, of someone discovering Skwisgaar Skwigelf sucking his—
“Fuck — now…”
Skwisgaar slides Toki to the hilt into his mouth, and another stroke of tongue brings a climax crashing over him. His fingers convulse around the bottle as Skwisgaar swallows, and the knowledge that a part of him is still in Skwisgaar feels like a second orgasm. He wonders what he did to deserve this — and then he remembers those first words, the ones he wasn’t really listening to: I know you’ve been practicing. His head clears, and he realizes Skwisgaar’s just rewarded him for all the awful sins he’s committed in his soul.
The guilt comes down a hundred times worse than usual. The knowledge of how disgusted Skwisgaar ought to be with him. He feels like he’s violated Skwisgaar — lied by omission to get something from him, something that, as Skwisgaar grabs the bottle and washes his mouth out with a gulp of champagne, Toki’s suddenly sure he’s never done for anybody else.
It’s okay — Toki can make it up to him. He’ll do what Skwisgaar just did, and Skwisgaar will never have to know. But he opens his mouth to offer, and all that comes out is a sob. He doesn’t deserve any of this. Not just to feel good, but to be able to make someone else feel good. The Devil’s works are never kind.
“Toki?”
Toki tries again to say something seductive or kiss Skwisgaar to shut him up, but he’s sobbing uncontrollably. He presses his hands to his eyes and tries to wipe his face clean, but new tears just replace the old. If it wouldn’t get Skwisgaar discovered and murdered probably, he’d try simply jumping from the boat.
“Toki, what the fuck is wrong with you?” Skwisgaar is audibly failing to sound callous.
“Shuts up!” Toki manages to choke out. “Ams fine. Just lets me fucking blows you.”
“Uh… I mean, crying amn’t reallies a turn-on…”
Of course it isn’t. What kind of monster would enjoy the idea of their partner not liking something. The thought sets off a fresh round of tears and makes it even harder to convince Skwisgaar he’s all right.
“Ams this like… some kind of the Christian bullshit? ‘Oh, hands on dick are fine, mouth means I goes to Hell?’” Skwisgaar pauses, and his voice gets softer as his hand finds Toki’s shoulder. “Or dids you — dids you not like it?”
That’s what does it. That Skwisgaar thinks he’s done something wrong.
“I ams going to Hell,” Toki says, holding his sobs off long enough to say it. “Ams going to Hell because I wants to hurt people, Skwisgaar. I thinks about hurting them like normal people thinks about this.”
He waits for Skwisgaar to understand what he means and pull away. For all he knows, leave the boat and take his chances with the elephant gun.
“I, ah… look, I don’ts know a lot about Hell,” Skwisgaar says. “But sounds like you’s already gonna go there once you’s fucking, t’inks the kinky shit just means you’s getting your money worth. Amn’t hard to find a girl what likes that—”
“I don’t wants someone to like it.” Toki needs Skwisgaar to grasp why he should despise him. It’s the only thing that’s fair. “And… amn’t wanna do it with a girl.”
“What’s… that mean, Toki?”
Toki thinks of everything he’s not going to get to have with Skwisgaar anymore, because he doesn’t deserve it.
“I amn’t practice because I wants some reward. I does it cause I feels bad, because sometimes I — I thinks about hurting you.”
Skwisgaar makes an uncertain noise. “So when we does t’ings like this, you amn’t really…”
“No! I wants… I wants all of this.” He at least can be honest about that. “Ams just this… other t’ing in me, too, sometimes. Dis horrible t’ing.”
Woe to those devising iniquity and working evil on their beds, says the Book of Micah — and what word is there for what Toki wants to do, but evil?
Skwisgaar lies silently next to him in the gently rocking boat, where Toki’s just confessed the worst thing he can imagine.
“When dis… other t’ing’s in you… would you hurt me if I tells you not to?”
“Skwisgaar, I thinks about—”
“Not thinks about. Woulds you actually hurts me. When we’s together, like dis.”
Toki considers the question. He’s hurt people who told him not to. His father, who was threatening to beat him. That man, who was trying to touch him. He can’t remember doing it to anyone who was being good to him.
“No,” Toki says. “I wouldn’ts.”
“And if we don’ts never do none of that stuff, you gonna be okej with it?”
“Ams gonna be fines.”
If anything he’ll be relieved to never talk about it again.
“Den… I don’ts know.”
Skwisgaar’s quiet a long, long stretch, and Toki tries to anticipate the worst thing he could possibly say, over and over, with every fresh lap of waves in from the ocean… and then Skwisgaar still doesn’t speak, and he starts the process again. Until, finally, the others pass the marina calling their names, so the false party must be done.
“T’ink ams safe out there?” Toki asks.
“Ja. Probablies.”
Skwisgaar lifts the cover a fraction, but before getting up, he pauses.
“Toki…” His face is still mostly in darkness, a single pale slash visible in the light — beautiful, and strangely, unsure. “You… you does likes it, doesn’t you? Tonight?”
Toki doesn’t trust himself to speak. He nods, and he imagines what a beautiful evening this would have been, for someone who wasn’t a monster.