Nots Scared

Rating: PG
Category: AU
Pairing(s): None
Warnings: Scandinavian monsters and rampant imaginations
Summary: The guys survive a rough night
Notes: Rei so help me I will hunt you down and HURT you for this...

Vetter – Supernatural spirits and beings.
Underjordiske – subterranean creatures of a supernatural nature who occasionally drag humans down to their dark world.

This story is illustrated by FTW302.

It was dark, and it was late, and he never could sleep well in a strange bed.

Toki was used by now to the inevitable death and chaos that ensued whenever Dethklok toured, but this time the large-scale destruction was not their fault, it was nature’s. The storm had exploded halfway through the second encore. Rain tore down from the sky, lightning crashed, and within moments there was a mud slide, a flood, and multiple electrocutions. All in all a fairly standard concert for them, other than almost losing Pickles in the flood water. They had managed to catch him and haul him out of the dirty water, coughing and puking, and with him in tow climbed to the only point of safety they could find; the ruined remains of a partly-collapsed speaker tower. There they had been trapped on the wrong side of the flood, wet, filthy, cold, for seventeen hours.

Ofdensen, safe at the bottom of the catastrophe in the rescue center, was absolutely beside himself. No one could reach them. A dam had burst somewhere, making it impossible for rescuers to reach them by any means other than helicopter, but with the near hurricane-force winds blowing and howling, even that option was lost. There was no way of even finding out if they were still perched on the tower, leaning against a high hill over which water now cascaded, or if they had been swept into the flood and lost.

So they perched on the tiny island in the rain, in the storm, listening to Pickles’ breathing become a wet wheeze that they all knew could not be a good thing.

It was Murderface who first noticed the dead wire in the stream. The waters had subsided a little by now. Cold, hungry, and immensely pissed off, he grabbed it and followed it up through the crashing water until he reached the top of the hill and dry land. He shouted down to them, but they could not hear him, so instead he waved them up, then pointed to something behind himself. Knowing they could not stay there, Nathan grabbed Pickles up as if he weighed virtually nothing and slung him over his shoulder. He caught hold of the wire and made his way up through the waterfall and onto the top of the hill. He spied what Murderface was pointing to, and began walking towards it. He paused briefly to look down at Toki and Skwisgaar still on the remains of the tower, then continued walking. With Murderface still staring down at them, Skwisgaar reached out and caught the wire, then swung into the falling water. His boots slid in the mud, and as Toki watched in horror the tall Swede briefly disappeared beneath the brown water. He re-emerged a few yards down, shaking his long hair out of his face, wire held tight in his strong hands. Toki watched as Skwisgaar climbed up to safety, then turned to look down at him, both he and Murderface perched at the top on the hill like the worried parents of a not-terribly-bright baby bird. Toki swallowed.

“Nots scared,” he told himself. “I is nots being scared. Dey all dids it, I can dos its, too.”

Toki caught hold of the wire, and began to climb. He could hardly believe it when he felt Skwisgaar’s hand on the back of his shirt, dragging him out of the water. He stood, shaking and a little surprised at himself, so cold he could hardly move, so dirty his hair crunched when he pushed it out of his face.

The place Murderface had found was a small house, Victorian style, converted by the owner into a bed and breakfast. Nothing creepy. Just a simple little house, standing alone amidst the debris of what had once been other quaint little houses. There was no one inside, but there was food, and a bath, and beds. Nathan was so damned cold he overlooked the beer in the fridge, making coffee instead. No one said anything. They were all just a little too aware of their own mortality at the moment for comfort. They put their dishes in the sink, wiped up after themselves, and took turns getting into the shower. Ofdensen would not have recognized them, but the last seventeen hours had effectively cowed them into behaving, at least temporarily. Likely once they were back in their own home and the memory of this event faded, they would be back to what passed for normal.

The storm picked up, and the house shuddered. They flinched, nervous, afraid their little sanctuary may cave in on them. They looked for a room to sleep in; all five of them, reluctant to let each other out of their sight. Exhausted, Nathan shoved the door opened to the first guest bedroom, and all five stared in horror.

"It's worse than we thought," said Nathan.

"I can't shleep in there!" Murderface was aghast. "There... there's... frillsh! And they're everywhere!"

Nathan tried another door. More frills, these ones pink. Then pink and blue. Then yellow and pink. Then they reached the last door, and the ensuing shriek was in five-part harmony. Not only was the room pink, it was filled to the ceiling with bows and lace and dollies.

"Theshe people are shick," Murderface mumbled.

Skwisgaar picked up a teddy bear from a shelf and showed it to Toki. The bear was wearing a frilled pink dress with petticoats and a bonnet, holding a bouquet of silk flowers.

"You is cans brings dis bear home for Deddy. No reasons boths of you is to be virgin for life."

Toki stared at him sourly. "I hates you, Skwisgaar."

"I knows."

Pickles coughed. "Let's just go back to the first room; it's the least offensive."

There were only two beds in the room. Nathan settled on the one closest, lying on his back, staring up at the floral canopy.

"I am so gonna have nightmares."

Murderface opted for the floor before the fireplace, in no mood for Victorian style beds with dust ruffles around the edges. Pickles was too sick to worry about it. He would need a couple weeks in the hospital when this adventure was over, and he was already showing signs of respiratory distress. Skwisgaar climbed into bed beside Nathan, leaving Toki the spot beside Pickles. Soon the room was dark and quiet, lit only by the low flame in the hearth. Nathan’s voice growled in the dimly-lit chamber.

“No one tells anybody we all slept together in a room with frilly beds.”

There were mumbles of agreement, and then the room was silent again. One by one, everyone fell asleep. Everyone, that is, but Toki.

He huddled under the covers, blue eyes large. The wind moaned and screamed, making the house shudder. Lightning flashed, and a few times the thunder boomed so loudly that he swore the bed jumped. Beside him, Pickles gasped and wheezed, and that was scary too because Toki began to fear the wheezing would suddenly stop. Then Pickled dragged himself out of the bed to sleep by the fire, where the air was warmer and his lungs could operate more easily, and that was worse because now he was alone in a strange bed in an old house in the middle of nowhere, and there was no way of telling if there was anything under the bed because of those stupid dust ruffles.

The storm slammed into the house, making it shudder. Downstairs there was the sound of a window breaking, and something dropping to the floor. Monsters. It had to be monsters. The tiny village in Norway where he had grown up had been full of myths and legends about the kinds of things that crawled out of Hell to play when the night was dark and the storms raged. He knew in his little heart of hearts that every damned one of them was surrounding this isolated house, capering, squeaking and gibbering in the hellish night, creeping closer and closer, finding their way up under that damned bed…

The wind beat itself in a violent gust against the house, and Toki cringed, fearing the room would suddenly be filled with monsters. Across the room, Nathan briefly raised his head, as if wondering what that noise was. Skwisgaar sat up, bleary, puzzled, long golden hair askew. Deciding it was nothing, he stretched, then settled back down to sleep. Murderface snorted and rolled over, and Pickles simply failed to react, far too ill to be concerned.

Toki huddled beneath the covers and shivered, blue eyes huge. The vetter would surely be out in force tonight, perhaps the underjordiske were creeping up from their hidden world, looking for one who lived above ground to drag down beneath the earth with them. He didn’t want to live underground with the underjordiske, forced to exist in darkness and drudgery, endlessly searching for a way home. He wanted to stay here…

Something hit the window and scraped across it, sounding very much like the long fingernails on the small, withered hand of some evil fairy being. Toki huddled under his blankets.

“I is nots scared,” he told himself firmly. “Is nots der underjordiske ats da window. Is just… tree branch. Dats all. Tree branch.”

Something ran across his pillow, small and quick, the sound of its tiny feet bouncing over the clean white cotton of the pillow clearly audible. Toki did not see what it was. He did not care what it was. He was not sleeping in that bed a second longer. With speed worthy of a Warner Brothers cartoon, Toki shot out of his bed. He reached the foot of the bed Skwisgaar and Nathan were sharing and hauled up the covers, scooting beneath them and up between the warm bodies of his friends. There he huddled in a ball beneath the blankets, trembling uncontrollably.

Nathan swore and sat up, pulling back the covers, staring sourly at a pair of enormous round blue eyes.

“Toki, what are you doing?”

“Well,” said a small voice, “I is nots hiding in your bed ‘cause I is scared, dat’s for sure.”

Nathan stared at him, raising one eyebrow. Skwisgaar rolled over to blink sleepily at Toki.

“He gets this from your side of the family, you realize,” said Nathan.

Skwisgaar swatted at him, too tired and bleary to verbally spar with Nathan. He settled into the soft bedding and closed his eyes. Nathan pulled the covers up over Toki and flopped back down. A few minutes later, Murderface got up to go sleep in the bed Toki had abandoned. Toki huddled and shivered, and did not care if he was teased mercilessly for the rest of his existence by his band mates. He squeezed his eyes shut and prayed the underjordiske did not get them.

Nathan rolled over, the bed creaking beneath his impressive weight, and Toki felt a large, powerful arm go around him, a strong body resting against his back. Moments later another arm slid across him, and he was drawn close to a lean, slim frame. Toki felt Skwisgaar’s chin against the top of his head, and Nathan’s breath against the back of his neck, and suddenly the storm didn’t seem as frightening. He stopped shaking, and a warm, sleepy feeling began to creep pleasantly over him. He blinked drowsily, eyes slowly shutting, until finally he relaxed and dropped into a deep, exhausted slumber. Skwisgaar gently tugged at Toki’s long brown hair, fingers tangling into the mop and remaining there.

“No one finds out about this,” growled Nathan.

Skwisgaar made a sleepy noise of agreement, and briefly toyed with Toki’s hair, then fell into a deep sleep. Moments later Nathan was snoring quietly, and Pickles, for the time being, seemed to be doing just fine in his nest on the floor before the fire. Unnoticed by his four sleeping band-mates, Murderface sat up and reached for his phone, grinning.

At 12:47 in the morning, twenty-one hours after Dethklok went missing and were presumed drowned in the flood, Ofdensen breathed a sigh of relief as he received a collection of photos on his cell phone; Pickles, asleep before the fire, Murderface looking a little worse for wear but all right, and several painfully cute ones of Nathan and Skwisgaar protectively cuddling Toki in a Victorian style four-poster bed with a pink floral dust-ruffle. Adorable. Also a little troubling. Cell phones were not known for their security.

“I really hope this doesn’t end up on the front page of a newspaper somewhere,” Ofdensen said.

At 5:40 a.m. the first newspapers hit the street…