Drabbleklok 2
Part One: Here Kitty Kitty
Part Two: Musings
Part Three: One Man's Trash

Rating: PG, PG, PG
Category: AU
Pairing(s): Pt1: Nathan/Charles, Pt2: Nathan/Charles, Pt3: None
Warnings: Pt1: Irate Managers, Pt2: M/M lovings, but you expected that. Pt3: Kids in dumpsters.
Summary: Pt1: Charles wants an argument, Nathan doesn't. Pt2: Charles thinks about his new relationship. Pt3: Badger thinks back on the psat.
Notes:

Here Kitty, Kitty.

If there was one thing Charles hated, it was fighting with Nathan, because the big dork invariably retreated while Charles steamed. Nathan had no idea how to argue with Charles. His usual method of solving a debate was to punch the thing irritating him, but punching your lover was just wrong, especially if he was little and wore glasses. It didn’t matter that Charles could rip Nathan’s arm off and shove it up his ass; you didn’t hit little guys with glasses. A verbal assault was not even worth considering. Not with a guy who could use “parthenogenesis” in a sentence and know what it meant. So Nathan hid. Small wonder the man liked cats; they had so much in common. The problem was it made Charles insane. He was a man accustomed to dealing with things head on and getting them out of the way. Well he couldn’t do that if Nathan was off somewhere under the proverbial sofa.

Charles paused in the hallway and narrowed his brown eyes in thought.

“Now if I was a three hundred pound metal head with an intellect roughly comparable to that of a sauropod, where would I hide?”

There would need to be food, hot water, internet, and would be a place Charles was unlikely to check. Right. The tour bus.

Charles Foster Offdensen marched off in quest of his quarry, a thin vapour trail of smouldering anger following after him.

Nathan looked up as Charles came in, thoroughly pissed off. Nathan was out of places to go, unless he wanted to sink to the bottom of the hot tub and drown himself. Of course this was Nathan they were talking about. He might just do it.

“Nathan,” said Charles in a clipped tone.

Nathan’s eyes darted around the room as if searching for a way of escape. For a moment he did seem to be considering sinking.

“Uh… I didn’t do it?”

Charles crossed his arms. “You didn’t post me naked on the internet?”

“Oh. No I did that. I thought you meant the other thing you clearly haven’t found out about yet. That I didn’t do.”

“Well that’s just swell. What the hell were you thinking?”

Nathan just stared. “Oh come on, Charles, you know the answer to that.”

“Nathan…”

“It’s a beautiful picture! You look beautiful!”

“I’m naked!”

“So what? No one can see anything!”

“I did not give you permission to post nude photos of me on line!”

“Because I didn’t ask because you would have said no!”

Charles closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Nathan…”

“It’s a beautiful picture! Why can’t I show everyone how beautiful you are? You're beautiful and I'm lucky to have you. I just want other gay jack-offs to look at you and eat their hearts out because they're losers.”

“Well, I'd really rather no one else was looking at me.”

“They can look but if they TOUCH then I'm gonna have to force feed them their own dicks.”

“But I DON'T want them looking.”

“I can't stop people from looking at you unless I blind the whole world. Which would be pretty metal but yeah I don’t think that’s possible.”

“I don't mean THAT. I mean I don't want people looking at me naked.”

“Well you should have said so before I put the picture up.”

“I DIDN'T KNOW YOU WERE GOING TO PUT IT THERE!” Charles realized he was screaming and composed himself. Funny how he managed to go his entire life without screaming at people until he hooked up with Nathan. “Nate… would you have done the same thing if I were a woman?”

“I wouldn’t have to, there's naked pictures of girls all over.”

“Nathan ...that makes absolutely no sense.”

Nathan held his ground. “I put it up because you're beautiful, and I'm proud of you, and I love you, and I want the whole fucking world to rip their own eyes out in envy that a big fat useless loser like me could get something they can only hope to dream about, because even dreams as good as you are rare. That's all.”

Charles sighed quietly. What could he do? What could he say? The big hairy oaf just wanted to show off the man he loved. It wouldn’t occur to him for a moment that it might make Charles uncomfortable. To Nathan he just had something beautiful, something treasured, and he just wanted to show the world.

“I’m still mad at you,” said Charles.

“I won’t put up any more. Promise.”

Charles nodded, and undressed, getting into the hot tub with Nathan, and smiled as he was drawn close and kissed.

“You’re very naughty you know. What if I posted naked pictures of you on the net?”

Nathan snorted. “Oh no, naked pictures of me on the net. Gee that’s never happened before, along with photo-shopped pictures of me doing Toki and me doing Skwisgaar and the bad fan fiction and the weird artwork of me doing Toki and Dr. Rockso and….”

“I get the point.”

“You’re sexy you know.”

Charles smiled as Nathan nibbled his neck. “You think so?”

“Yeah! And your picture got like twenty thousand hits in the first hour and most of them totally said they would do you.”

Charles sighed heavily. “I hate you so much right now.”

Nathan nuzzled him affectionately. “I know.”

* ~ * ~ *

Musings

Charles really wasn’t sure what he was thinking, or feeling. The part of him that had graduated from exclusive private schools, prestigious universities, and had walked away with every academic accolade available thought this was a very bad idea. The man on top of him was barely literate, could hardly make himself understood, had once drunk bleach, and had taken yoga classes in order to learn how to perform oral sex on himself. For crying out loud what the hell was he doing having sex with him, slumming?

On the other hand, the part of Charles that was just another guy really liked the big oaf a lot. Nathan was utterly without guile, or malice. True he was shockingly juvenile at times, but he wasn’t mean or underhanded. He didn’t have a thousand schemes in play, all designed to spread harm and take what he was not entitled to. He just was what he was; a big happy lummox, content to eat chips and write songs and go with the flow. He wasn’t bright and he knew it, but he had a huge heart, and he was capable of a level of caring and concern that touched Charles. His own family had been cold and aloof, and a little boy who was glad to see his daddy at the end of the day was to be reprimanded for being weak. Nathan thought nothing of travelling thousands of miles to help one of his band-mates, even if it was actually the last thing he wanted to do. But they were his family, and he loved them. And that was really attractive to Charles. He knew that whatever Nathan’s short comings were, there was nothing that Nathan would not do to keep him happy, and all he asked was a little understanding in return.

Charles had dated men with more intelligence, higher educations, more eloquent vocabularies, but he’d never dated a man who made him feel cherished.

“Charles?”

“Hm?”

“You’ve gone all still and quiet. That’s usually a bad thing during sex.”

“Sorry. I was thinking.”

“Oh yeah?” Nathan lowered his head and kissed him softly. “Then I’m not trying hard enough.”

Charles gasped softly as Nathan thrust harder and deeper, and he wrapped his arms around his neck as Nathan growled and bit, then made a startled sound as that enormous dick probed deeper.

“Ah-ah!” Charles pressed his face against Nathan's neck, shivering. “Mm-hmm! Ooh... That's... nice.”

Nathan growled quietly, nipping his neck, then kissed him, his breathing becoming ragged. "Never thought.... you'd let me touch you."

Charles grinned shakily, his face becoming flushed. “You proved surpris- oh... surprisingly hard to resist.”

Nathan then eerily echoed Charles' own thoughts. "I thought you'd think I was too much of a loser. I mean you're all educated and.... stuff."

Charles felt a brief rush of shame, wondering if Nathan had somehow picked up on his feelings. “You're not a loser, Nathan. And... education isn't everything.”

Nathan made a quite 'hrumph'. "It is when you spell your own name E-K-S-P-L-O-S-H-U-N in grade eight." He kissed him. "I'm totally not worthy of you. And you know it. But you love me anyway. That makes you the most awesome human being on the planet."

Charles held him closer, drawing his legs up higher. “Nate, you're the sweetest man I've ever known. And the most talented. And the most attractive. I'm lucky to be wi- OH!”

Nathan grinned. "Then maybe I just better shut up and get busy at making you happy."

Charles moaned softly in pleasure. “Ohh, I'm happy. I'm getting very happy.”

“Good.”

Charles closed his eyes and just concentrated on the feel of the large man on top of him. Maybe some things didn’t have to be analyzed. Maybe sometimes it was just best to accept things as they were.

* ~ * ~ *

One Man’s Trash

Badger was old, and Badger was tired. Okay maybe he wasn’t that old; fifty-three was hardly ancient. But the road to fifty-three had been a long and hard one, and it had ended with his being a Gear in the house belonging to a kid he found in a dumpster.

Badger had just quit his job hauling equipment for a country band, fed up with the good old boy bullshit, homophobia and stupidity. He wasn’t the brightest man on the planet, but hanging out with five hicks whose necks were so red they would offend Jeff Foxworthy was just more than his sensibilities could bear. This was shocking enough because six months ago when he met the five members of Bottle Neck he would have sworn he didn’t have any sensibilities. But he did, and they were offended. So Badger told them he was done hearing about what a joke he was because he actually cared about other people and what was going on in the world, took his pay that he was owed and walked out of the bar and into the pounding rain. He was a thousand miles from home and without a place to stay, but he could always get a motel room for a night or two and see where he wanted to go from there.

That was when he noticed a skinny little figure hop into a dumpster and pull down the lid. His heart sank at the thought of what was obviously a kid living in an alley, and he walked over to the dumpster. He pushed up the lid, and looked inside. There, hunched down amidst the trash and dead rats and broken glass, was a bony little kid with wild red hair. He was dirty, and he looked like someone had recently beaten the hell out of him. His small face was bruised, his nose was crusted with blood, his lip was split, and something about the way he was seated told Badger his ribs hurt. To add insult to injury someone had dumped what looked like a jar of sweet pickle relish over him. Despite that, the little waif was hardly intimidated by the enormous man he saw before him.

“GIT YER OWN DUMPSTER!”

“Actually I was thinking of getting my own room at the Motel Six down the road and ordering pizza. You wanna join me?”

The kid gave him a cold look. “Why?”

“Look kid, it’s no skin off my ass if you wanna sleep in broken glass and maggots. But my daddy taught me that it’s bad karma to leave a kid in a dumpster without at least offering him a chance to rinse the pickles out of his hair.”

“How do I know yer naht a pervert? How do I know I won’t be back in this dumpster in an hour in pieces? The last guy who offered me food…”

The kid’s voice trailed off, and he started to shake. Badger sighed quietly.

“What’s your name?”

“Who wants to know?”

“You can call me Badger. Now come on. What’s your name?”

The skinny kid in the filthy punker clothes climbed out of the dumpster. “I ain’t telling you my name.”

“Well I gotta call you something. Come on, Pickles.”

The kid didn’t object. Badger took him to the motel, let him get cleaned up, fed him, and put him to bed. Two days later, roadie and boy were in LA, looking for work.

Badger looked after Pickles as well as a middle-aged roadie could look after a feral teen, but as much of a handful as Pickles was, his madness seemed to have a direction, and it was heading straight for the heavy metal glam bands of the day. Before Badger knew what was up, he was ankle deep in itty bitty metal heads with way too much fucking hair. There were days he left the apartment coughing from hairspray and covered in glitter; a terrific way to show up for work at the local greasy spoon where he was flipping burgers during the day to feed the five little brainless tittering asshats. He personally had no idea how well Snakes ‘n’ Barrels would do – Badger had been raised on Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Yes, The Doors, and Badfinger; long hair was hardly a new thing to him, but this was the first time he’d seen it standing three feet in the air, dyed white and covered in sparkles.

Badger just flipped burgers and collected pay cheques in order to keep Snakes ‘n’ Sparkles fed, and at night lugged amps and guitars and drum kits. Then, one fine clear June evening, Pickles sheepishly handed him a pay envelope back stage.

“For all the work you been doin’, an’ rent we owe, an’… y’know.”

There had to be ten grand in there, and an itemized list of all the expenses. Pickles had kept track of every nickel. Badger was astounded.

“Does this mean I’m a roadie again?”

“Well you can always stay at the diner if you want,” said Pickles. “But I’d rather have you on the road with me.”

Badger quit the diner and went back to his first love – music.

He stayed with SnB throughout the whole brief skyrocket ride across the sky. He watched with sadness as the band fell into chaos and exhaustion and fighting from lack of proper management, and still remembered the night Pickles climbed into bed with him to cry under the covers when Tony, Candy and Bullets split, leaving Pickles behind. Once again Badger found himself looking after a lost, sad kid, abandoned to his fate by people he loved and put back in the proverbial trash.

“It’ll be okay, Pickles,” said Badger, cuddling him close. “You’re always gonna have me. I promise.”

Pickles was heartbroken, and it was weeks before Badger saw any signs of life. Unlike his former bandmates, Pickles hadn’t blown his wealth, he’d actually managed to save it, keep his house, and have enough left over for partying. But lying around drunk and wallowing in self pity seemed to be getting old, and Badger was thrilled when Pickles went out shopping for instruments.

He was unprepared for the drum set.

“What the fuck are you gonna do with that?” asked Badger as Pickles gleefully set it up in the living room.

“Learn to play it! Being the lead singer blows chunks, everybody blames you for everything.”

“And nobody ever suspects the drummer, huh?” said Badger.

“Nope!”

Badger just sighed and shook his head, and quietly crept off to a part of the house where he didn’t have to listen to ‘bang whomp pound bash bash bash DOOD! What th’ fuck does this thing do?’

Maybe he shoulda left the kid in the dumpster…

He was glad he hadn’t when Dethklok formed, and exploded across the horizon like a nuclear winter.

Badger stayed on, hauling equipment, setting up lights, checking the sound, managing single-handedly for a long time until one day he had to face the cold angry fact that it was too big a job, and he was too old. He’d done his own share of fighting, drinking and hell-raising back in his day, and he was beginning to feel it in every joint, each time he hauled out those drums, each time he dragged up those lights, and each time he moved the massive amplifiers onto the stage like a lone slave trying to build the Pharaoh’s pyramid. Dethklok hired more and more roadies to keep up with the vastness of their empire, and Badger became just one more worker ant in a sea of black – an ant that couldn’t carry his weight anymore, forgotten by the god he had found in the trash one dark rainy night.

Badger sat in his chair in his apartment in Mordhaus, drinking a beer and waiting for Offdensen to approve his resignation papers. He couldn’t do the heavy hauling anymore. In fact some days it was all he could do to get his own arthritic ass out of the chair. Outside, the Gears packed up the semi-trucks for the latest tour. For the first time ever, those trucks would be leaving without him.

Badger looked at the clock on the wall. They better get their asses moving. They were late. He wondered idly where he would live after he quit his job. Did they make retirement homes for old roadies?

He finished his beer and got another one. Damn those trucks were taking way too long to pack up….

There came a pounding at his door, and Badger went to answer it. He opened the door to find the same short skinny kid he’d hauled out of the bin – a little older, a little balder, but still with the same red hair and intense green eyes.

“What th’ fuck are y’waiting for, Christmas?”

Badger blinked. “I’m not on the trucks. I’m quitting. Didn’t Offdensen tell you?”

“He told me a lot of shit about you thinking you can’t do your job anymore.”

“I can’t,” said Badger. “I can’t lift that stuff anymore. I’m too…”

Pickles had to get on his toes to look Badger in the eye. “Yer job ain’t lifting shit, yer job is staying with me, always! Like you promised! THAT’S yer job! I had Ahfdensen promote you to head Gear, yer now third in command in the food chain. First is the band, then Ahfdensen, then you. Yer number three. None of these other doosh-beags know how this circus works – you do! An’ I ain’t going anywhere without you! So yer coming on the road with me like always an’ yer gonna tell these dildos how it all works.”

Badger just blinked. He was head roadie? Like… HEAD? Of HOW MANY?!

“I want a raise.”

“Yeah sure, just get in the bus, Toki’s all upset no one knows how to make peanut butter and jam sandwiches like you.”

Badger grabbed his coat, and, beer in hand, followed Pickles into the hall and began walking towards the loading bay.

“I thought you forgot about me,” Badger admitted quietly.

Pickles wrapped his arms around one of Badger’s and pressed his face to his shoulder. “You never threw me in the trash. I ain’t doing it to you. Besides, who else is gonna look after me if this all falls apart?”

Badger grinned. “I wouldn’t worry much about that, kid. I think the hard times are passed.”

A year later Mordhaus was invaded, Charles was dead, and Badger was back to flipping burgers to feed a group of long haired dorks with the collective IQ of a sea slug. Funny how the more things changed, the more they stayed the same.