Parentklok

Rating: G
Category: AU. This story takes place in the AU created in ' Dethfantasy' and continued in 'Babyklok'. A future appearance of Lydia can be seen in 'Messin With the Kid'
Pairing(s): Nathan/Charles.
Warnings: None, really, just me trashing the fandom again. And having fun.
Summary: Lydia proves she can keep up with the big boys.
Notes: Song used is ‘48 Crash’ by Suzi Quatro. I highly recommend it.

This story has accompanying illustrations by Animama

It was half past twelve, and Nathan was picking at his breakfast, keeping one eye open by sheer force of will. The other members of the band also sat at the table, half dead with exhaustion and saying very little to each other. It had been a late rehearsal, flavoured by fits, tantrums, and fifteen minutes of Skwisgaar having hysterics over a small garden spider that dared sit on a speaker and stare at him. After all, with that many eyes it had to be planning something.

The door to the dining room opened, then drifted closed, having admitted apparently no one. Tiny foot steps could be heard crossing the floor, and then a chair moved back of its own accord. After a bit of struggling a little girl of seven climbed onto it and peered across the table at the giants she lived with.

“Hi Daddy,” she said brightly.

Nathan gazed at her with red-rimmed eyes. “Aren’t you supposed to be in school?” he asked.

“Nuh-huh. It’s ‘Bring Your Child to Work’ day. I’m supposed to be watching you work. I’ve been watching you work since seven but so far all you did was drool on your pillow and snore. Oh, and you scratched your butt once.”

“Daddy works nights,” said Nathan.

“I’m not sure anything we do counts as work,” said Murderface.

“That’s what I said!” said Lydia, as Charles came into the room to take his own place at the table. “But the teacher said I had to do it anyway. Uncle Pickles said it’s just an excuse to get rid of us kids so the teachers can smoke weed and play with the toys they take away.”

“Uncle Pickles is what we refer to as ‘jaded’, dear,” said Charles, seating himself.

“Well I’m supposed to go to work with Daddy and do a video project on it to prove I actually went and didn’t just say I went when really I just stayed home and taught the yard-wolves to headbang. And I think Uncle Pickles is right.”

Pickles looked pleased with himself. Toki and Skwisgaar were exchanging glances.

“Some of whats we do is work,” said Toki. “Tourings not easy. I mean ja we is gets da perks an’ da murdered macaroni ladies an’ stuff, but four hour show under dose lights, beings away from home, spendings days in bus an’ nots knowing where we is an’ you has to ask people what city you in… dats not fun. Who calls dat fun?”

“Roger Taylor,” said Nathan.

“Yeah well he’s dildos ins da heads anyways. What’s guy wit’ degree in biology doing playings da drums?”

“Having fun,” said Pickles.

“Points being,” said Skwisgaar, “we does too works.”

“Yeah, we do work,” said Nathan. “And we are flying out to do that open-air concert tonight, that’s not even an over-nighter, we’ll be back in time to watch ‘Robot Chicken’.”

“So we take Lydia, she watches you whirl you head around for a few hours, problem solved,” said Pickles.

“Can I go?” Lydia asked, looking towards Charles, vibrant green eyes huge. “Puh-leeeeeeze Mummy?”

Charles made a noise of uncertainty that sounded a fair bit like Marge Simpson. His brown eyes met Nathan’s green orbs.

“Only if your father promises not to do anything I’ll have to make him sleep on the couch for.”

“He won’t. And if he does we just won’t tell you.”

“Thank you, that’s… not reassuring in the least.”

“Aw we’ll be good,” said Toki. “Promise.”

Charles gazed at the five bleary, stinking, and hung-over sacks of humanity with whom he shared his home, and, in one case, his bed.

“No you won’t,” he said.

***---***

It was shaping up to be a fantastic concert. The band was in great form, the day was not too hot, and the fans were in a good mood. Charles sat at home, feet up, a cup of tea in one hand, watching the show on the TV. He would have liked to have gone, but on the other hand it was nice to have twelve solid hours of peace. He caught up on some business he had been neglecting, had a bubble bath, and now watched his husband windmill his way through the infamous Lake Troll song. After all, why waste a perfectly good song just because it summoned trolls, and, as they discovered when playing near sacred Native American land, Wendigos.

Charles made a mental note as he had so many other times to write a book. He already had a title; ‘Well it was Your Idea – my life with Dethklok by C.F. Ofdensen.’

Had a rather nice ring, he thought.

The song ended. Nathan was panting heavily, clearly exhausted. He batted at a beach ball that came too close, sending it back into the crowd, then turned as something out of the camera’s line of sight caught his attention. He looked back at the crowd.

“It’s uh… bring your kid to work day at my daughter’s school,” he said.

Charles felt the tea cup slip out of his hand and the slight smile fell off his face.

“Oh, Nathan, tell me you didn’t decide to bring the child on stage. What am I saying. Of course you did. Your entire mission is to make my life hell.”

“So… anyway…” Nathan said, “we thought… y’know… she’s seven, so… yeah. Time to put the kid to work. Here in her first public appearance… my daughter… Lydia Explosion.”

The crowd went mental with appreciation. Charles slapped his hand over his face, then suddenly noticed he had a lap full of hot tea as the steaming liquid penetrated his brocade housecoat. Swearing softly he picked up the cup and set it aside, then turned his attention back to the TV screen.

Hundreds of miles away, Lydia came out from behind the drums, stomping along in the manner small children employ when annoyed and mildly embarrassed by one’s parents. She was dressed in full Dethklok regalia; corpse paint and all, wearing a tiny version of Nathan’s usual black t-shirt, jeans and boots. Given her fondness for pink ankle socks and ‘Hello Kitty’ anything, Charles could only assume the get-up was someone else’s idea.

Charles watched as on-screen Lydia accepted Murderface’s bass from him, and he stepped off stage to have a breather while she approached the microphone. A roadie had brought a small platform out for her to stand on so she could reach the microphone, but even then Nathan had to adjust the microphone’s height for her. She climbed onto the platform, both hands on the massive bass, letting Skwisgaar adjust the strap for her. She was small for her age, and next to Skwisgaar she didn’t seem quite real. With her long black hair falling down to her backside she seemed like some sort of diminutive creature of the fey realms.

At last the strap was of a length better suited for her size. Lydia then announced morosely to the crowd; “My dad made me wear this.”

“You look great,” said Nathan as Skwisgaar took his place beside Lydia while Toki moved over to the keyboards.

“I feel like a dork,” she stated, the microphone picking up every word beautifully. “This makeup smells terrible. Why do you wear this? I thought ‘corpse paint’ was just what you called it.” She made a face and began picking something off the bass. “It’s covered in hair!”

“You wants mine?” asked Skwisgaar.

She rolled her eyes. “No that’s a guitar not a bass, don’t be silly. And then it will just be your hair instead of Uncle William’s and yours is harder to see.” She picked out a handful and let it fall to the stage. “Eyew.”

There was some laughter. Lydia glanced up at the crowd.

“Yeah you can laugh, you don’t have to use the bathroom after these guys. The tour bus looks like someone blew up a wig. Sometimes the groupies break in and vacuum but the roadies make them stop.”

The crowd was in hysterics. At home Charles just smiled, reaching for the tea pot.

“And thus we have confirmation of the age-old adage about never working with children or animals,” he said, pouring himself some more tea.

“Is nots dat bads,” said Skwisgaar.

“It is! And Uncle William leaves the bathroom smelling of dead cow and hair dye.” A thought seemed to occur to her, and she looked around. “I’m in trouble now, aren’t I?”

Nathan, Skwisgaar, Toki and Pickles were trying desperately hard not to laugh. Murderface spluttered from off-stage.

“IT’S NOT HAIR DYE!”

“Great,” said Lydia. “You don’t care about leaving a smell like a cow but you don’t want anyone knowing you dye your hair.” She looked up at Nathan. “Now I’m in trouble, right?”

Nathan snorted in amusement. “Play the song.”

“’Kay.”

Lydia looked over her shoulder at Pickles, letting him know she was ready. She had thought this was going to be scary, and she was right. This had to be the scariest job in the world, because if you stunk there were a bajillion people who saw you mess up. It would be like the time Sidney Mortimer farted in class only a million billion times worse. This time everybody really would know. But Lydia had been playing both bass and guitar for five of her seven years, and had recently started playing the drums. She doubted any of this would help in her future career of superhero, but maybe she could be a superhero and her secret identity could be rock star. Uncle Toki thought it was a great idea.

The drums started and she waited for her cue, then joined in. To her left Skwisgaar began his usual windmilling, but she could handle that. She had played alongside him often enough that it wasn’t a distraction. She was however suddenly painfully aware of why Jim Morrison used to sing with his back to the audience at the start of his career.

She hadn’t chosen a Dethklok song to perform. There was absolutely no way she could do anything even remotely resembling Nathan’s low snarl. She had chosen a song more in her own range. She couldn’t do her father’s low gravely pitch, but she could get up to Suzi Quatro’s hellcat vocals just fine.

"Well you got the hands of a man and the face of a little boy blue,
And when you stand you're so grand there's a case just for looking at you.
You're so young; you could have been the devil's son.
You're so young, but like a hang up I'll be sad when you're old, and you're gone…"

Well no one was booing or throwing things. That was good, right? She found her rhythm and got into it, the way she’d been taught, black hair whipping, flogging the bass and pushing her vocals to the point where her throat burned. She screamed her way through the refrain, Pickles doing back-up, and during the bridge swung her hair as if she had been on stage all her life. In many ways she had.

"You've got the kind of a mind of a juvenile Romeo,
And you're so blind you could find that your motor ain't ready to go.
You're so young; you're a hot shot son of a gun.
You're so young, but like a teenage tearaway soon you'll be torn and you'll run…"

It was exhausting and nerve-wracking, but incredibly exciting. The only slight problem was keeping up with Skwisgaar; he was considerably faster than she was, and for one brief moment he got ahead of her, but he pulled back before she lost her place and panicked. The brief guitar solo was a welcome chance to swallow and draw breath. Then she sucked air and did what little seven year old girls did best; scream. Her daddy wouldn’t approve and would tell her all about the time Meat Loaf had to have his vocal cords scraped again, but it felt good to just belt out a tune at full volume.

Finally the song wound down and was done, and Lydia was completely drained, her small body trembling and running with sweat. She shoved her hair out of her face, and grinned shakily at the reaction she was given. She then looked at her father and Skwisgaar to see if they approved.

“Zat okay?” she asked.

Skwisgaar tossed his head. “Well didn’t sucks too badsly. We can edits an’ remixes for da lives album.”

She stuck her tongue out at him, then smiled as he lowered his head to her level so she could hug him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and said quietly into his ear; “This is really scary.”

“Can be, ja. You wants do one more?”

“Can we do ‘Devil Gate Drive’?”

“Ja we can do dat one.”

“Good because that’s the only other one I know well enough, after that I have to make like the Blues Brothers and sing ‘Rawhide’ until the real musicians show up.”

He made a quiet sound of amusement. “Lydia, real musicians already here.”

***---***

Charles met Nathan in the hall, watching as he walked towards him, carrying a tiny doll-like bundle in his arms.

“How did it go?” he asked.

“Great,” said Nathan. “I mean other than Murderface now thinks he’s going bald and Pickles is doing his best to make him insane about it. Oh and Lydia got a couple bits of thread stick in her teeth that were driving her crazy.”

“Thread? How did that happen?”

“I dunno, but I made her floss her teeth before performing. She’d been eating Oreo cookies and… yeah. I don’t want my kid on camera looking like she’s got rotten teeth. So I’m assuming that’s what it was.” He lowered his head and gave Charles a kiss, and together they walked towards Lydia’s room.

Charles returned the kiss. “And you made sure to get her performance taped?”

“Oh. I knew I forgot something.”

Charles stopped. “Tell me you’re joking.”

“I’m joking. I had her part of the show cut and send to editing right away, she’ll have the video in the morning.”

“Nathan it’s not supposed to be a professional rock video, just her and you on stage together.”

“Yeah well home-made is good enough for regular jackoffs and their kids. Mine is better than that.”

“Ours, you mean. I did do most of the work, you know.”

“There you go, making me feel guilty again.”

***---***

Oh god could this get anymore painfully dull? AUGH! How could twenty kids have such boring parents? There was a doctor, a vet, a mechanic, an accountant! Her mom was an accountant sorta, but at least he could break a man’s neck with his bare hands. And he was a man. But Lydia wasn’t supposed to mention that part because apparently it almost never ever happened and people would think she was a freak if she mentioned it.

Lydia continued to watch the videos. One guy delivered plants, another had a nursery, one had a job in IT… to make it worse today was Reverse Day, which was when the kids whose last names began with letters like X and Y went first. So the kid to get her tape viewed first was Daniela Yarrow. Fifteen minutes of watching Daniela and her dad write a sermon was probably more brutal than anything her father could come up with. After her was Nancy Xander. Lydia liked Nancy a lot but her dad was a house painter. Hardly riveting stuff, though she did enjoy watching her best friend get covered in pink paint. Most of the videos were ten or fifteen minutes, and the one of Sidney Mortimer and his dad was only four minutes. It was of Sidney and his dad grooming a poodle. They had a boarding kennel.

“Well we have time for one more tape before the day is over.” The teacher, Mrs. Myers, consulted her list. “Lydia, will you bring yours up please?”

FINALLY.

“What’s it gonna be?” asked Dougie Oxford, which was a strange last name for a kid who was in grade 2 and still couldn’t spell ‘cat’. “You and your dad haunting a house?”

Lydia rolled her eyes. “Don’t be stupid, we have roadies for that, gawd.”

“I bet it will be great,” said Sidney. He was a nice boy. Lydia liked him a lot. In twenty years he would create a female superhero character that Lydia would portray at a science-fiction convention. It would end in a movie deal and a marriage, and Nathan attempting to kill Sidney with a chainsaw for turning his daughter into a nerd. But that was well in the future.

Lydia smiled at him, then walked up to the teacher and passed in her video. She hadn’t seen it yet. Feeling a few butterflies in her tummy, she went back to her desk and watched as the Dethklok logo appeared.

“Oh real smooth, Dad!” she said, rolling her eyes, then leaned forward and began pointing things out. “That’s Badger, he’s our oldest roadie. He used to haul stuff back when Uncle Pickles had hair. That’s our dressing room. Oh, and that’s the murdered macaroni lady. She’s tradition.”

Miss Myers was clearly appalled but said nothing about the ‘macaroni lady’. “Who is that, Lydia?”

“That’s our music producer, Mr. Knubbler. He’s Uncle William’s friend. Dad says he’s so good at his job because he can hear a gnat fart in a windstorm. I don’t know what that sounds like. Here’s me going towards the stage. And this is where the camera crew takes over because I can’t film myself playing. You can’t really see Uncle Toki; he’s over by the keyboards. That’s Uncle Pickles. That’s Uncle Skwisgaar. That’s my Dad. Wow. I’m really short.”

“You’re also seven,” said Mrs. Myers.

“I’ll never be that big,” said Lydia.

She watched the video, fascinated to know she had been an active part of what she was seeing, watching her fingers work the strings of Murderface’s bass, she and Skwisgaar whipping their hair in perfect time, his long fair silk flying, the sun making it glint like pure gold. He was so tall and pretty, and his hair was so beautiful she could hardly take her eyes off it, going round and round and round, the length great enough that it occasionally caressed her face…

Lydia stood bolt upright and screamed. The teacher and her classmates leapt to her feet, and Mrs. Myers ran to her, hugging her close.

“Lydia! What is it sweetie?”

Lydia clutched her teacher, eyes huge. She drew a deep breath then pushed back, looking up at her teacher with enormous green eyes and a look of complete horror on her face.

“I just realized what those long threads I found in my mouth were.”