Leaving the Cocoon

[Anonymouse]

This is loosely based off the episode Rehabklok except I altered the ending. It's also slightly Charles/Pickles. Kind of angsty. I wrote this because I'm fascinated with drug addicts and I haven't really seen a lot of mention on this forum about sneezing from heroin withdrawal. It is actually one of the symptoms and I think it's so interesting. When you're addicted to heroin your whole body dries up, you don't produce as much saliva, you get constipated, stuff like that, but once you kick the habit it's like a floodgate opens. Your nose gets really runny and there can be a lot of sneezing. So that's what's making Pickles sneeze in this.

Side note: It's really hard to write in a Yooper accent.

Enjoy!

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Mordhaus had been a lot quieter since Pickles left for rehab. It was strange how the absence of just one band member had resulted in exponentially less chaos than usual, but then again Pickles had always been the chief troublemaker.

Charles found himself with shorter stacks of paperwork and fewer angry phone calls from the various people and organizations who regularly took offense to the drummer’s antics. This should have been a dream come true but he found himself for the first time in years to be positively bored. Before Pickles left Charles would have never allowed himself to muse over such a ridiculous scenario, but he decided now that if he had been offered the opportunity to clone the drummer or send him away for good, he would have definitely opted for the two-for-one deal.

He decided it was time to pay Pickles a visit.

Charles stopped by the living room to see if any of the other boys would like to join him. He found them strewn across the floor, each hand clutching an empty bottle, the air so thick with the smell of booze that Charles felt like he was getting drunk just standing there. He didn’t even bother trying to wake any of them. Most likely nobody would want to go, and even if they did it wouldn’t be fair to Pickles to have to see what he was missing out on. Hangovers were probably a walk in a park compared to detox.

As he rode in the back of a sleek black dethcar Charles mulled over his decision to make Pickles the scapegoat. He knew that Pickles was nearly immune to the effects of alcohol by this point, and while that was still dangerous at least he didn’t become as obnoxious as Nathan or as destructive as Murderface when he drank. A stint in rehab could have done them all good but what appeal was there is a band that wasn’t being torn apart by rampant alcoholism? Charles was well aware that a lot of Dethklok’s charm was vested in their addictions. As long as he could keep the boys physically healthy with a vast supply of livers for transplants all would be well.

The only other one he was concerned about mentally, besides Pickles, was Toki. Ever since his dad died the rhythm guitarist had taken to drinking nonstop, sometimes waking up as early as five in the morning just to get a head start. But Toki, as much as anyone would deny it, had the moral support of his band. The others knew about his issues, and try as they might to hide it, they cared and helped out in their own subtle ways. They were including him a lot more than they used to, and Skwisgaar, in a rare gesture of kindness, had even announced that he was seriously considering letting Toki play one of his solos during the next practice.

They had all gone to Norway with him. They had all been with him when his father died. It was recent and fresh in their goldfish memories. Even Nathan didn’t have too much trouble putting two and two together and linking Toki’s increased alcohol consumption to his loss.

But Pickles had something deeper driving his sickness. Charles, more attuned to the subtleties of human nature than every member of Dethklok combined, always noticed the way Pickles would tense up whenever his brother called to check in from Australia. The green eyes that were usually devoid of hostility would fill with repressed anger, and Charles could see him struggling to keep that rage from breaking out. Everyone knew Pickles hated his brother, and they would tease him about it relentlessly, but only Charles seemed to know that his fucked up relationship was Seth was probably the driving factor behind the drummer’s alcoholism.

Coincidentally Pickles had been wasted beyond belief the night he recounted every specific memory his drunk mind could recall to Charles. Every story, the one about how Seth committed arson in their family’s own home and blamed it on his six-year-old brother, or the one about how Seth successfully convinced his parents that Pickles’ birthday was a month later than it actually was, or the one about how Seth ‘accidentally’ left Pickles’ pet hamster outside on the hot pavement to fry, was punctuated with Pickles’ fervent utterances of “I really feckin’ hate that guy.”

What most concerned Charles was that Pickles didn’t even seem to realize that Seth was the reason he drank. And this, more than anything, was why Pickles was the one sent to rehab. Charles was no therapist; try as he might, he couldn’t get Pickles to open up beyond the wasted confessions of that one night. He needed professional help.

When Charles arrived at the center he pulled off his coat and hung it on the rack. He was dressed more casually than usual; no doubt Pickles was sick of being surrounded by people in suits and uniforms. After Charles checked in at the front desk he made his way down the hallway to the recreation room. He hoped that Pickles would have calmed down and gotten used to the place after a few days, but the battered and bruised attendants that passed him, some bleeding from fresh wounds, suggested otherwise.

He spotted the bright red dreadlocks at once. Pickles was sprawled in an armchair, breathing heavily, his hair falling out of place and his forehead dappled with sweat. Another attendant was hurrying away from him, pressing a mass of paper towels against a gash in his arm, no doubt the most recent victim of Pickles’ rage. Charles stood there calmly, waiting to be noticed. One of the attendants seemed to be having a word with Pickles from a safe distance but the drummer was cathartic and unresponsive. She gave up and left, muttered a “Good luck” to Charles as she passed.

The drummer’s green eyes met briefly with Charles’ brown ones before lowering abruptly. He began to fiddle with a magazine, flipping through the pages so quickly that Charles knew he wasn't really reading it. Pickles had the distinct look of a child who had just been caught doing something it had been told so many times not to do. Charles approached him, trying a small smile to let Pickles know he wasn’t upset. The redhead didn’t look up as his manager sat in the armchair across from him.

“You’re into baking now I see?” Charles asked wryly and Pickles, who had settled intently on an article about perfect pecan pies, lowered the magazine and stared at Charles silently.

“Not talking to me?”

Pickles continued to stare, then sighed as he placed the magazine on the side table to the right of his chair. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, looking as though he would prefer to be anywhere but in Charles’ presence. Charles persisted. “How are you feeling?”

As if by way of an answer Pickles twisted suddenly to the side, his body jerking with a “Hnnx-gt’shiew…”

“Bless you.”

Pickles rolled his eyes and looked as though he were about to say something when another sneeze took him by surprise; he just barely brought his hand up in time to avoid spraying Charles with a slightly louder “HNGXXT’shoo!”

“Are you sick?”

Pickles stared at him dully. Charles cleared his throat, leaning forward expectantly, but Pickles didn’t say a word. He didn’t blame the drummer for feeling betrayed, for giving his manager of all people the cold shoulder. After all, Charles was the one in charge. He could make this situation go away just as easily as he created it. But Pickles needed to be here.

Charles leaned back in his chair, patting the overstuffed arms. “These are comfortable,” he said conversationally.

“Why are you here?”

Pickles’ voice was small and trembling. He actually sounded scared. A sense of guilt tugged at Charles’ heart but his expression remained stoic as he said “I just wanted to see how you were doing.”

“Why?”

Those unrelenting green eyes had him pinned. Pickles had always been the one to ask difficult questions like that, to pester Charles with ‘whys’ like a child trying to learn about the world. “Are you here so you can give the press an update?” Pickles persisted more loudly, more steadily. “Keep the tabloids happy? ‘Cuz you can jes’ tell them I ended up hangin’ myself in the bathroom. Hell, it’ll probably be true soon enough!”

He ended this brief tirade with three tired-sounding sneezes. “Heh-nxgt’shiew! Hnxgt’shoo! Heh-NXGTH’shoo!”

A couple of brittle clumps of hair slid out of his dreadlocked combover but he made no effort to sweep them back into place. He was glaring now at a poster on the wall with an image of a colorful butterfly bursting forth from its cocoon, accompanied by the caption “Be willing to surrender what you are, for what you could become.”

Charles couldn't help but feel slightly disturbed by Pickles’ last comment. It was always hard to tell whether the drummer was being serious or not, especially when he said things like that. “Is it really that bad here?” he asked softly, having a hard time keeping the emotion out of his voice. It was times like these that he wished he really was the heartless robot that the band believed him to be.

Pickles shrugged noncommittally, his eyes only breaking away from the poster when he smothered a soft “Hnk'shoo” against his fist. Sighing, he slowly pulled his legs onto the armchair to sit Indian-style. Charles noticed how small he looked and wondered if the armchair was just really large or if Pickles really was that small. He also noticed Pickles’ bare feet, the bottoms of which were dusted with dirt, and quirked an eyebrow. “Where are your shoes?”

Pickles sniffled, giving his nose a quick rub before turning back to look at Charles. “They took’em,” he said with another shrug. “I guess to keep me from runnin’ away.”

If this was the reason it didn’t seem to be stopping him. Those bare feet must have seen the pavement and the grass outside on more than one occasion since he’d been brought here. Charles wouldn’t put it past Pickles to make a run for the door when the attendants weren’t looking or to even break a window and scale the side of the building in an attempt to escape. Still, the idea of them taking Pickles’ shoes made Charles a little angry; perhaps more than it should have, considering they probably had good reason for doing so.

Pickles snatched a tissue off the side table and blew his nose. “Feckin’ everything starts leakin’ when you stop doin’ heroin,” he lamented, dabbing with another tissue at the droplets of sweat that formed on his skin like condensation on a glass.

The drummer had mentioned heroin so casually that Charles wondered if this should have been something he was aware of. As far as he knew he was only sending Pickles here for alcohol abuse. He raised an eyebrow. “Heroin?”

“Yeah, I mean, I dabbled, y’know.”

It was Charles’ turn to feel betrayed. “I had no idea.”

Pickles got a faraway look in his eyes. The manager wondered hopefully if he was having a moment of introspection but was proven wrong when Pickles’ body bent forward suddenly, violently. “Heh-ESCH’shoo! ESSHOO! Feck!”

He lashed out at the side table lamp in frustration, knocking it to the ground, where it smashed. At once he looked deeply ashamed; he slumped forward, hiding his face in his hands. It seemed they had managed to condition him into feeling remorse over his tantrums in only a matter of days. Charles again felt indignant; they should have been focusing on teaching him how to let go of his guilt and forgive, not reinforcing negativity.

The attendant standing in the corner peered over suspiciously but Charles raised his hand to draw his attention away from Pickles. “That was my fault,” he lied. “Tripped over the cord. I can pay for it.”

Pickles peeked out from behind his hands, the green irises clouded with tears. “Charlie,” he said softly, and Charles almost felt tears well up in his own eyes as he glanced back at the drummer. “I want to go home…”

Charles took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You know you can’t do that…”

“Yes I can!” Pickles exclaimed, his body shaking now as well as his voice. “I’ll be good, I prahmise! I’ve quit all this shit cold turkey so many times. I can deal wit’ it.”

“But you keep going back to it, Pickles,” Charles countered. “That’s a problem.”

“Why though? Why?”

Again with those ‘whys’. “Because there’s something wrong,” Charles explained. “Something you need to get resolved before it destroys you. I’m worried, Pickles. That’s why I sent you here. That’s why I’m here now. You don’t talk to me, you don’t talk to anybody, so I thought if you were stuck with the choice to say what you need to say or stay here you’d talk.”

“Talk about what?” Pickles asked in desperation. “What do you want me to say?”

“Anything. I don’t know. I don’t care about the drinking. You wouldn’t here right now if you were only drinking because it was fun. You drink because something’s wrong. I know something’s wrong. I just wish you were willing to fix it. You're the only one who can.”

Pickles was shivering, his eyes glistening with fresh tears. “Charlie, please...”

The sight made Charles’ heart wrench. If Pickles would just open up to him he wouldn’t need to be here. “Look,” he began calmly. “I’ll take you out of here but we’re going to have to talk.”

Pickles looked uneasy. “We’re talking now.”

“We need to talk about you. About what got you here in the first place.”

Tears were streaming down the drummer’s face now. “Okey, okey, fine,” he choked. “I jes’ don’t wanna be here anymore. I miss the band. I miss you. I wanna go home.”

He buried his face again but Charles stood up, gently prying one of his tear-dampened hands away from his face and clutching it tightly. “C’mon,” he said gently, and Pickles pushed himself weakly to his feet, quivering as he leaned into Charles for support.

Some of the attendants looked on, surprised to see this redheaded tornado of rage reduced to tears by such an unassuming man as Charles. Those covered with bruises and scrapes watched hopefully as Charles escorted Pickles out of the room, but one large, unscathed attendant stepped before Charles to block his path just before he could reach the desk. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Charles drew the trembling drummer closer and gazed up fearlessly at the hulking man. “I’m taking him for some new shoes and then we’re going home. Good day.”

He brushed past the attendant easily and grabbed his coat off the rack before continuing on out the door. As they stepped into the cold sunlight outside Pickles stifled a “Hnkxt’choo!”, his body shuddering against Charles, who draped his coat around the smaller man’s shoulders. The dethcar was waiting at the end of the drive, and when the chauffeur spotted Charles he drove up to the front of the building. The two men slid into the backseat of the car, Pickles drawing Charles’ coat tightly around his body and nuzzling the collar, seeking comfort in the familiarity of the smell of it.

Charles shot some instructions at the driver and fiddled with the vents in the ceiling until warm air began to flow. Soon Pickles stopped shivering and relaxed a little, slumped against the door of the car, his eyes unfocused as he stared blankly ahead. Charles gazed down at his lap, wondering if he had done the right thing when Pickles suddenly spoke.

“I had my first beer when I was six, y’know… can you believe that? Six years old.”

Charles glanced up and saw Pickles gazing at him, eager to have an audience for the story he was about to tell. It would take some time, but Charles knew everything was going to be okay.

---

Edited because I can't spell.

[murphy dee]

HOW AM I JUST NOW READING THIS?!

Oh my goddddddddd. You actually made me cry! Poor, poor Pickles. Picturing him all curled up and sobbing in that armchair was too much. And they were both so perfectly in character and that just made the whole thing all the more heartbreaking.

This is, like, my favorite Charles/Pickles fic now, you have no idea. I just loved how patient and tender Charlie was, and how fragile and angry Pickles was. Le sigh...as I said, perfection.