FIC: StitchKlok

[tikific]

In which I try to write something a bit shorter. And sort of fail.

Title: StitchKlok
Author: tikistitch
Rating: PG
Warnings: Naughty language. Explicit crafting. Much abuse of baked goods.
Summary: Toki attends his Stitch n Bitch meeting. Somehow, The Boys go along.
Notes: Because wikdsushi wanted to know what Charles was doing with those knitting needles. Also, I don't knit. Or have any crafting talent of any kind. Which will become obvious as soon as you start reading. Oh, and there's also some reference to events I wrote about here, but I doubt it will ruin your enjoyment if you're not familiar with the weird personal continuity that lives in my head.



StitchKlok


It was a dark and stormy night.

William Murderface sat behind the wheel of his prized 1961 Lincoln Continental stretch limo. Despite the promise of inclement weather, he drove with the top down.

“T’ank yous for drivin’ me to my Stitch n Bitch meetin’, Moiderface,” Toki, riding shotgun, eagerly told the bassist. He was already busily knitting some kind of large, all white creation, which was now flapping freely in the wind.

“You thay there will be … ladieths there?” Murderface asked.

“Hey you guys keep it down up there! Don’t you know there are HUNG OVER PEOPLE BACK HERE!” Nathan Explosion boomed from directly behind the rhythm guitarist. Toki shook off Nathan’s spittle without complaint and continued knitting and perling. Sitting beside Nathan, Pickles, looking very green, looked up briefly from where he had been hanging over the side of the limo. A thin trail of vomit lined his door, which would have greatly annoyed Murderface, if he weren’t distracted by the notion of meeting, he imagined, a bevy of willing females at Toki’s club meeting. Pickles moaned and dropped his head back over the side, his long red braids furling in the breeze.

“Ja, you ams mighty inconsiderates to drunks peoples!” Skwisgaar, sitting in the very back, chimed in, eagerly fingering an angry riff on his Explorer. Directly beside him, Ofdensen lolled, apparently unconscious, jacket unbuttoned, and sans his trademark red tie. The boys had escorted their manager to a night of drinking that had somehow turned into several days of nonstop mad alcohol abuse. It was all quite metal. Dethklok’s manager had apparently passed out following either the second or third bottle of vodka they’d force fed him. As he seemed to be still alive, more or less, when Pickles had poked him with a drumstick, they decided not to worry too much over it, and had simply tossed him in the back of Murderface’s limo when Toki insisted it was time to depart.

Suddenly, there was a noise like a far off cannon blast. Pickles wearily raised his head once again. "Dood, do you got a top on dis t'ing? Dat sounded like t’under just now."

"Thunder? It'th much too late in the thummer for a thtorm," Murderface laughed confidently.

A flash arced across the sky, and the cannon fire sounded again, a bit louder now.

"Dude, dat ams sounds likes da glightenings, ja. It ams not brutal to plays in da kalectrical storms," Skwisgaar warned.

"The thunder should GO AWAY. I HAVE A HEADACHE. I CAN'T TAKE LOUD NOISES," Nathan boomed.

"That'th not thunder," Murderface explained.

"What ams it den?"

"Obviousthly, thome kind of weather anomalieth."

"We ams here!" Toki called from the front seat, causing a new round of complaints about keeping his voice down. Murderface pulled the vast limo to the curb in front of an idyllic looking suburban house located on a quiet, tree-lined street. Toki immediately bounced out of the car, trailing his equally vast knitting project behind him.

"T'anks for da rides, everybodies," Toki called to them.

"Yeah, um, don't stay out too late, knitting, or whatever the fuck," Nathan growled after him as Toki ran off.

There was another flash in the sky, and almost immediately, a boom of something that, Murderface's reassurances notwithstanding, sounded an awful lot like thunder.

And then the skies opened up.

In an amazing demonstration of physical prowess, Dethklok as one leapt out of Murderface's limo and sprinted up to the covered porch at the front of the house. They looked up to the sky, having barely missed getting soaked in the downpour. It was really pretty brutal.

Nathana's face grew a puzzled expression. Carefully, he counted his bandmates: Murderface, Pickles, Toki and Skwisgaar. Then he counted on his fingers. Then his bandmates, then his fingers. After several rounds of this, he finally cast his eyes back to Murderface's Continental.

"Oh. Oops."


COUNCILMUSIC COUNCILMUSIC COUNCILMUSIC COUNCILMUSIC

The shadowy Council was in session.

Except for the even more shadowy Mr. Selatcia, that is. He was off this week. As he had a slight head cold, he had decided to stay home and catch up on Oprah. Oh, and plot world domination. But mostly catch up on Oprah.

“DETHKLOK are going to try their hands at CRAFTING,” Senator Stampingston intoned. “Here to talk about the possible implications on mixing death metal and cozy wraps and shawls is our expert, Klander McWorrelson….”

“Can we just cut to the chase?” Gen. Crozier broke in. He had a migraine, and was not in the mood for blather from experts with silly names. “Can we just go in and, you know, stop them?”

Sen. Stampingston paused. At length he said, “Um, sure, I guess so.”

“I can send a strike team in?”

“Hey, sure, why not.”

“And maybe kill them all?”

“Well, if you feel you need to.”

“Cool!”

And so, he did.

COUNCILMUSIC COUNCILMUSIC COUNCILMUSIC COUNCILMUSIC


Toki introduced his bandmates to the slightly deaf little old lady who owned the house. "Mrs. Desmond, dis ams Nathan, and dis ams William," he told her.

"How lovely to meet you, dears. Your friend,Toki, is our favorite member." Nathan and Murderface grunted greetings. Mrs. Desmond looked like she once might have been a rather glamorous woman. That is, if you’d had the good fortune to meet her four or five decades previously.

From behind Toki, Skwisgaar noisily cleared his throat and strummed nervously on his Gibson. Evidently, Mrs. Desmond was a GM he would very much L to F. "Toki? Ams you gonna introduces me to dis stunning lady?"

"Oh. Yeah. Dis ams Skwisgaar."

"Oh, how charming you are, Swisscar."

"Um, actuallys, it ams...."

"Toki, is this lovely lady your girlfriend?" asked Mrs. Desmond. For Mrs. Desmond was also a little bit blind.

“Ja, Skwisgaar ams lovely,” Toki agreed. He was a bit puzzled, but wanted to be polite.

"Uhhhh..." stated Skwisgaar.

"How nice, dear," Mrs. Desmond cooed, putting an arm around Toki. "Now why don't you all come to the kitchen for some of my nice, hot cocoa?" And so saying, she led Toki into the next room.

Nathan and Murderface convulsed with laughter.

"Oh, man, that was BRUTAL," laughed Nathan, through tears.

"Sthot through the heart/And you're to blame...." sang Murderface.

Skwisgaar was still sputtering with indignation.

"After you, Swiss Car," sneered Nathan.

"Thow us your titsth, Thwiss Car," needled Murderface.

Skwisgaar started fingering the riff to “Kill You” and followed them into the kitchen.



Ofdensen opened his eyes, and immediately regretted the decision. His current environment, wherever it was, shone brighter than the sun.

He felt like he had been hit over the head with a sledgehammer, and then perhaps run over by a truck. Or, maybe the other way around. He cast back in his mind for his latest memory. Drinking with Dethklok. Oh, lord.

He experimentally tried to open his eyes slightly again. He cast a glance cautiously around the room. It looked very much like a suburban home, though out of a distant era. His eyes finally rested on a big red blob sitting in a nearby overstuffed chair. It was a measure of his disability that he had no fucking idea whether or not he was still wearing his glasses.

"Hey, dood!" called Pickles. Ofdensen had never noticed this fact before, but Dethklok's drummer possessed the world's most ear-splitting voice. "Are ya back among da livin'?" Much like at the Dethklok band meetings, Pickles didn't bother to look up from whatever he was bent over doing.

Ofdensen struggled mightily to make his vocal chords work. What came out seemed very much like, "Blaaaaaarrrrgh?"

"Da strip club?" chatted Pickles, as if he understood perfectly. "Nah, we left dat place two bars ago. Da girls was kinda skanky. Didn't you notice?"

"Wlarrrgh?"

"Yeah, dey did have good Scotch dere, dat's true."

"Lalalala?"

"Oh, we're at Toki's Stitch an' Bitch." Pickles finally broke from his task to glance around the room. It indeed looked like somebody's sitting room, circa 1954. "It's some old lady's house. I t'ink Skwisgaar prob’ly wants ta totally do her, hahaha."

"Gloooorrrb?"

"Oh, dis is my special hangover cure!" Pickles had finished rolling up the giant spliff he had been intently assembling while he chatted and proffered it. He extracted his Phish Zippo from a pocket and lit up. "Yeah, dis is da stuff," he moaned. "Wanna hit? It's just what da doctor ordered!"

What came out of Ofdensen's mouth just then sounded very much like a negative answer to Pickles' entreaty, but regardless, he found himself forcibly breathing in smoke from god knows what kinds of exotic substances. His subsequent coughing fit nearly succeeded in splitting his aching head in two.

"Yeah, dat's da stuff," repeated Pickles, lazily putting his feet up on a divan as he sat back and smoked contentedly. Ofdensen leaned forward, fruitlessly struggling to catch his breath. It was at this point that he realized he was dressed not in his business suit bit rather a fuzzy pink bathrobe.

“Rrrragle!” he said.

“Dood,” puffed a contented Pickles, “It’s not MY responsibility to keep track of your pants.”



Toki’s group was sitting around in a circle in Mrs. Desmond’s large, finished basement, showing off their latest projects. Toki was explaining how he was knitting a cosy for their Dick Knubbler statue. Which was actually a petrified Dick Knubbler, turned to pure alabaster through misadventure. Who, Toki worried, also got cold sometimes. Evidently, between his thick Norwegian accent and the oddness of the project, he was having some trouble communicating the thrust of the endeavor, although the other club members all seemed to regard him with a great deal of affection.

Nathan and Skwisgaar stood awkwardly at the back gripping delicate china teacups filled with cocoa.

“Dude,” whispered Nathan, or at least tried to say in his best imitation of a whisper, “This stuff is so not brutal.”

“No,” agreed the still pouting guitarist. “Knittings ams definitely not brutals.”

They stood for a while.

“Ummmmmmmm.” said Nathan, looking about the room. “Is everybody else in Toki’s Stitch n Bitch group a girl?”

Skwisgaar looked up from his Gibson. He too looked carefully around the shag-carpeted basement, to the many women, old and young, seated around. “Um, yeah, dat ams true.”

The two band mates looked at each other.

“You know…” said Nathan.

“Ja,” said Skwisgaar.

“Maybe there is a metal side to this.”

“Ja, it ams maybes slightly metal.”

“Like, maybe we made a MISJUDGEMENT.”

"Ja, we ams misjuggled da brutality."



Attracted by a pleasant smell, Dethklok’s drummer had wandered into the house’s kitchen. “Hey, dood, are you making BROWNIES?” he inquired of the owner.

“Yes, dear,” answered Mrs. Desmond.

“Dood, I have da best recipe!”

“Would you like to help, dear?” asked kindly Mrs. Desmond. “That would be really lovely.”

Mrs. Desmond’s doorbell rang again unexpectedly, so she bustled off from where Pickles was extracting the first batch what was evidently his quaint old family recipe for brownies from her oven, and opened her front door. It was a group of darling, if rather large, young men.

“We’re here for the, uh, Stitch and Bitch,” the largest young man boomed at her. He scratched his thick neck and looked nervous.

“Oh how marvelous!” gushed Mrs. Desmond. “It’s always so nice to welcome such pleasant young men to our little group. Would you like some hot cocoa?”



Nathan sat in an overstuffed chair in the basement, with two other, quite winsome, and also quite female, Stitch n Bitch members perched on either arm. Nathan was intently peering through his reading glasses into something in his lap.

“Wanna brownie, dood!” Pickles chirped, startling Nathan from his work.

“PICKLES CAN’T YOU SEE I’M BUSY?” Nathan roared.

“Whatcha doin’, dood?” Pickles inquired, holding up the tray so Nathan’s new friends could sample his brownies. “I t’ought you said craftin’ wasn’t brutal?”

“This is brutal! THIS IS CRUEL!” Nathan said, holding up some embroidery work.

“Yeah, dat’s crewel.”

“THIS IS CRUEL!”

“No, dat’s crewel.”

“That’s what I said, CRUUUUUEEEEL!”

“Uh….” Said Pickles. He peered more closely at Nathan’s work. “Uh, dood, is dat a puppy?”

“THAT’S A HELL HOUND!”

“Oh. Yer doin’ Lars da Hell Hound?”

“SHHHHHHH!!!” Nathan boomed. “I DON’T WANT TO UPSET TOKI! He’s still SENSITIVE about WHAT HAPPENED TO LARS.”

“Um, if it’s Lars, shoudn’ it have two more heads dood?”

“DON’T INTERFERE WITH MY CRUELTY!”

“Yeah, but…”

“A Cerberus puppy just has ONE HEAD! They grow TWO MORE when they grow up. EVERYBODY KNOWS THAT.”

“Dood, dat’s not how Cerberus’s grow.”

“HOW DO YOU KNOW?”

Just then, Mrs. Desmond bustled into the basement, leading a group of several very large young men. “These nice young gentlemen would like to join our group!” she sang.

“DOODS! Would you like brownies?” inquired Pickles, shoving his heavily laden tray up into their faces. The thick-necked young men looked at each other, uncertainly.

“Dears, we will be completely offended if you don’t try these lovely creations,” scolded Mrs. Desmond, taking a rather large slice for herself. The large men all shrugged and grabbed some fresh baked treats for themselves.



Ofdensen, though still clad in the pink robe, had sobered up enough to locate his damp clothes where they were drying in Mrs. Desmond’s laundry room. He had spread his jacket out on the coffee table in Mrs. Desmond’s living room and was going through the pockets, which was not helping his sour mood. Dethphone: dead. Handgun: filled up with water. Cigars: ruined. The last particularly stung, but his head hurt too much to work up a sufficient level of fury.

Then a thick-necked bastard appeared, looming in the living room door. It was pretty damn clear what he was up to. Crozier's "undercover" men were always so fucking obvious. Dropping his characteristic stutter, Ofdensen warned him, “You can try it, but I am having a very bad day. A. Very. Bad. Day.”

The goon smirked and rushed him. Ofdensen sighed. He suddenly kicked out the coffee table into the guy’s path, tripping him so that he went flying face-first into Mrs. Desmond’s shag carpet. Grabbing a knitting needle from the basket on Mrs. Desmond’s coffee table, Ofdensen leapt atop the still prone man and jammed the needle just below the base of his skull, boring deep into the middle of his brain. The man quivered briefly, and then stopped moving.

Ofdensen extracted the bloody, gore-encrusted needle, glanced at it, and tossed it back on the coffee table. Then he laboriously wrestled the man into a sitting position in one of Mrs. Desmond’s overstuffed chairs, threw a quilt over his lap, and tossed some knitting stuff into his lap. Other than some shag carpet burns on his face, he looked much like he’d fallen asleep knitting or crocheting or whatever the fuck it was Toki’s group was doing.

He felt in the man’s shirt pocket, and extracted a pack of cigarettes. Well, it wasn’t a cigar, but it would have to do. Striking a match on the dead man’s head, he lit up. “TOLD YOU I was having a bad day,” he grumbled.



The summer shower having eased up somewhat, Toki and a couple of the other Stitch n Bitch members had retreated from the crowded basement to Mrs. Desmond’s back porch. Toki was demonstrating some kind of rather complicated knitting techniques to his clubmates. “And when you ams get to da turning row, den you ams holding stitches on da cable needles,” he was explaining.

Skwisgaar ambled out to the porch. “Hello, Toki. Helloooo, lovely ladies.”

Toki sighed. “Ja, dis ams Skwisgaar,” he grumbled.

“Hi, Squishjar,” said one of the girls.

“Actually, it ams….”

“Is Squshjar your boyfriend, Toki?” asked the other girl.

“Oh, ja, he ams my friends!” Toki readily agreed.

“Toki!” wailed the stung guitarist.

“Whats?” inquired Toki, still regarding his needles intently. “You ams interfering with da knittings lesson, Skwisgaar.”

“Heehee, oops!” said the first girl.

“They’re having a little spat,” whispered the second.

“Let’s go in and get more brownies,” suggested the first.

“We’ll see you in a bit, Toki,” called the second. “You boys work it out while we’re gone.”

“You ams ruins everything, Skwisgaar,” Toki scolded, knitting furiously.

“Dis craftin’ ams dildos!” huffed Skwisgaar.

"No, you ams dildos!" shouted Toki.

Just then, a rather large man staggered out onto the porch.

“Hellos!” sang Toki. “Is you ams knittings?”

Without a word, the man lunged at Toki. But since, thanks to mass consumption of Pickles’ old family recipe special brownies, he was currently seeing at least three of everything, the large man's lunge was a bit off, and instead of grabbing the Dethklok guitarist, he only grabbed his knitting needles out of his hand. He sent the needles flying, the stitches Toki had so carefully cast on unraveling all over the porch.

Toki stood, incandescent with rage. “YOU AMS UNRAVELING MY STITCHES!” the incensed guitarist screamed. He grabbed his needlework and threw a loop of yarn over the man’s head, and then, winding the knitting needles, started to tighten the loop around his neck, as with a garrote. The man sunk to his knees, clawing at his neck, and struggled for breath.

Skwisgaar swung his Gibson at the flailing man’s head, and he fell to the ground with a thunk.

“Douche bags,” muttered Skwisgaar.

“Ja, whats a douche bags,” agreed Toki.



William Murderface had just contentedly relieved himself out of one of Mrs. Desmond’s guest room windows, spraying her garden. He was zipping up when he heard someone behind him in the doorway.

Mrs. Desmond was leaning against the guest room door. She finished Pickles special recipe brownie she had been eating, and lazily licked the crumbs from her aged mouth.

“Uh, hello, Mittuth Dethmond,” Murderface said.

“Oh, William, dear, you can call me Norma.” Was it his imagination, or had she just winked a wrinkled eyelid at him?

“Uh, Norma.”

“Would you like a drink, dear?”

“Uh, no, I was jutht…”

“Have you tasted my nice, hot, cocoa?” she purred.

“Uh…..”

Mrs. Desmond drew her aged body closer. “Have I told you, you remind me a lot of my husband, the late Mr. Desmond.”

“Er, no.” Murderface started to make for the door. “Well, I gueth I need to….”

“Are you leaving so soon, William?” The kindly old lady suddenly put one still shapely leg up on the guest bed, blocking Murderface from his exit.

Murderface found himself cringing. “Mithuth Dethmond, you’re trying to theduce me!” sputtered Dethklok’s bassist. Usually, he would have been completely enamored at so much female attention, but really, this woman was old enough to date Skwisgaar.

“Would you like me to, William?” laughed the elderly hostess.

Just then, a rather large man showed up at the guest room door. Having just consumed several of Pickles’ special brownies, his pupils were a bit wide, and he was swaying from side to side. Nevertheless, he eyed Murderface, and charged, in a zig zag, into the room, knocking Mrs. Desmond aside. This, unfortunately for him, was not a good choice of action, as the old lady suddenly let out a cry and, in a surprising demonstration of spryness, jumped up on his back, evidently attempting to claw his eyes out. The large man started to scream, trying to knock her off. He ran screaming out of the room, Mrs. Desmond still holding fast.

Murderface heaved a heavy, traumatized sigh, and swiftly escaped the guest room, making sure to head in the opposite direction from Mrs. Desmond and the mysterious man.



Ofdensen had mostly gotten himself back into his damp clothes, and stood just outside the basement door, holding the automatic weapon he'd taken off the guy who had rushed him. He quietly entered the room, but immediately lowered his weapon, realizing it would not be necessary.

One of the big intruders sat on the floor, banging his head into the wall. Another was now completely naked, and lay, apparently unconscious, on the floor beneath one of the couches, where several Stitch n Bitch members merrily rested their feet on him as they knit.

The last one sat stock still, draped in Toki's statue cozy. He seemed to be muttering something. And he was rocking. Slowly rocking.

As for the various members of Dethklok, Pickles sat comfortably on another couch, two knitters, in various states of undress, on either side, one under each arm, happily clicking needles. Nathan sat alone in an overstuffed chair, squinting through his reading glasses at something he was doing with a needle and thread.

"Wanna brownie, dood?" offered Pickles. There were plates of brownies scattered everywhere in the basement.

"Are these brownies that YOU, uh, personally baked, uh, Pickles?"

"Yeah, dood, I'm personally baked!" Pickles' new friends started to giggle.

"Guys," said Ofdensen. "We need to get out of here. We have a, uh, situation."

"NOOOOOOOOOO!" exclaimed Nathan. "I need to finish my CRUELTY."

"It's a puppy, dood!"

"SHUT UP I'M CRAFTING!"

The two Scandanavians entered the basement, just behind Ofdensen. "Whoa, what ams happened heres?" Skwisgaar temporarily ceased his bickering with Toki to ask.

"My yarns ams all snarled," Toki moped.

"Guys, I was just telling Nathan and Pickles that we should leave...."

"But we ams just gots here!" protested Toki.

"And I ams not been introduced yets to all da beautiful ladies," noted Skwisgaar.

"I MUST CRUEL," Nathan grumbled.

“Have anudder brownie, dood!”

Just then, Murderface appeared, breathless, at the basement door.

"Guyths!" he said. "We gotta get out of here. We got a thecurity thituation."



Murderface peeled out before the boys even had the limo doors shut.

"That was AWESOME! We gotta do this again!" rumbled Nathan, this time riding shotgun. With a real shotgun. It was not entirely clear where he'd picked up.

"Maybes next Wednesdays, we go drinkings again," agreed Skwisgaar.

There were several grunts of agreement, with one notable exception.

"What about you, Ofdensen? ARE YOU GONNA COME DRINK WITH US OR NOT?"

"Uh, unfortunately, Nathan," the manager said, from his seat in the far back, "next Wednesday I need to, uh, be at a PLACE. And, uh, do STUFF."

"You know," mused Murderface, "we'll be driving by that thtrip club on the way home."

"What, the one with the real skanky girls?" asked Nathan.

"Yeah, that'th the one."

"Ja, dey was reals skank," agreed Skwisgaar, strumming his miraculously unharmed Gibson from the middle back seat.

"Deys is skanks," chimed in Toki, already busily clicking his cable needles.

Nathan and Murderface exchanged a quick glance.

"Wait!" wailed Ofdensen from the back. "Guys...."

"It wouldn't be at much out of our way...." Nathan reasoned.

"Only a few minuteth."

"Guys, we need to get back to, uh, MORDHAUS...."

"And we did have to leave that last place early," Nathan remembered.

"To esthcort Toki to Thithch and Bitch."

"We'll just visit there for A COUPLE HOURS," Nathan decided.

Murderface was already executing a left hand turn from the righthand lane. In lieu of laying on the horn, Nathan triumphantly fired off his shotgun.

"Guys!" The manager was still protesting impotently from the back seat.

"Ofdensen, why are you being such a PUSSY?" Nathan barked. "We're just going to drink for A COUPLE HOURS."

"And then maybe go to that other plath," Murderface ventured.

"Oh yeah," agreed Nathan. "That place! That was a good place. We should GO THERE."

"Don't worry, dood," Pickles told Ofdensen. "Da skanky strip club had good Scotch, remember?"

Ofdensen, head in hands, peered through his fingers at Pickles. "You don't have any more of those, uh, brownies, do you?" Pickles, with a wicked smile, whipped out an entire platter of the delicacies. Ofdensen picked one. It couldn't possibly be worse than his headache, he reasoned.

"Just keep track of your pants dis time, dood. I can't be responsible for everything!"

"Theriously, guyth, she wath trying to theduce me," Murderface was saying.

"NO FUCKING WAY," said Nathan.

"Dat old ladies ams crazy. Dis ams proves it!" Skwisgaar insisted.

"Dude, you just got mad because she thought you were pretty," Nathan laughed.

"Skwisgaar ams pretty!" Toki piped up, to raucous laughter.

"Shut ups, Toki."