Warning: Contains mini golf and exactly one hug. Slash-if-you-squint, I suppose.
Pairing/Characters: Skwisgaar, Charles
Word Count: 1856
Disclaimer: I own nothing.

This was originally going to be slashy but the closest it ended up getting to that was an inappropriately long hug, which I guess could be taken as pre-slash if you want. I mean, Skwisgaar's GMILFs could easily remind him of his mother, so why not. And I continue to be amused by the apparent prevalence of mini golf being seen as the default family bonding activity.

After his little "talk" with Toki, Skwisgaar tried everything he could to not think about anything. He sat on his bed, playing his guitar and glaring off into space, with the door locked.

Usually, this worked pretty well. It had worked in his youth, when he'd still lived with his shameless whore of a mother – but it wasn't working now, and that association was precisely why. He'd barely had a mother (and made up for it by having at least a dozen a month, now). But, as "Toki" had pointed out, he'd never had any kind of father at all, and it wasn't fair.

Skwisgaar didn't expect life to be fair; he was too famous for that. He simply expected to get whatever he wanted, when he wanted it.

Charles didn't flinch as the door to his office was thrown open and against the wall with a bang.

"I don't wants to be the onlies guy here who don't never gots a fathers no more!" Skwisgaar glared at him from the doorway, not even bothering to further into the office. "You ams the butlers here, you go gets me one!"

With a sigh, Charles hit SEND on the email he'd just finished typing and slowly looked up over the top of his computer. "Skwisgaar, I don't think—"

"Gets out of heres! Finds me a fathers!"

It was unfortunate, Charles reflected, that he had taken more than the recommended dose of Advil already less than an hour ago and had very little options for taking care of the headache this was clearly going to leave him with. Resigned, he raised an eyebrow at Skwisgaar and calmly said, "I don't think that will be possible. Why don't I just save us all some time and tell you to eat your vegetables, clean your room, and stop sleeping with so many women?"

Skwisgaar responded instantly by stomping his foot like a petulant child – very much like Toki throwing a fit, actually, or one of Nathan's tantrums minus the destructive throwing of furniture. "Noes, I don't wants to! You can't tells me whats to do. Fucks you!" And then he turn and ran back to his room.

Sighing again, Charles massaged his temples with both hands. He hit the intercom button on his phone and, still perfectly calm, requested a cup of very strong black coffee.

That had helped. Skwisgaar paced back and forth in his room, feeling empowered. That was what dads did, right? Told you what to do? "And thens you tells them to fucks off, it ams you's own life and you does what you wants to does in withs it," he muttered to himself excitedly, clenching his fists. If anyone had walked in then they might've thought he looked angry. And he probably would have punched them in the face just for the hell of it. Just because he could. He could do anything he fucking wanted.

It was like being a teenager again, feeling like he owned the world, only better – because that was pretty much true. And he was officially really good at getting bras unhooked, so it was better than being a teenager.

But something else was starting to nag at him. He knew from what Nathan sometimes mentioned in passing that hanging out with a father could, under the right circumstances (whatever those were), be fun, and he remembered seeing Toki hugging that old guitar teacher father-friend dildo. So maybe there was more to this having a father thing than the handful of drunken rants he'd seen Pickles go into had led him to believe.

Maybe he and Charles should hang out.

The office door swung open again, but this time didn't bang. Skwisgaar stepped into the room looking, as always, like a man who automatically assumed he was going to have his way, and Charles wondered what the guitarist had come for now.

"I wants to says that I's ams sorries," Skwisgaar announced.

Charles nearly choked on his coffee.

"Ands," he continued, "since you ams mines new friend-father, I wants to does somest'ings wit' yous."

Very carefully, Charles put his cup down before he spilled on anything important. "I… see. And, ah, what…" What. Just what. "What did you have in mind?"

Skwisgaar shrugged. "I was thinkings that tinies littles golf place…?"

"You mean mini golf?" Charles asked. Mini golf. He wondered if this was some sort of cry for help. The last time any of the boys had gone mini golfing was with their families, and they'd hated it. All the more reason to avoid whatever Skwisgaar had in mind. "Well, Skwisgaar, as you probably know, I am quite busy right now. With Toki's father dying, he's asked me to make arrangements for a trip to Norway—"

He could see the guitarist's face darkening as he spoke.

"You don'ts ackspreciates me!" Skwisgaar yelled. He ran out of the office, adding a bitter "I hates you!" from the hallway.

Charles shrugged and went back to his work.

The third time his office door swung open unexpectedly, Charles was forced to stop and consider that for whatever reason Skwisgaar seemed to be in a peculiar state of mind. He was clearly nervous, eyes fixed on the toes of his boots as he shuffled in.

"I… uh," Skwisgaar mumbled. "You sures you don'ts wants to does mini golfs?"

Charles sighed. The chances of working uninterrupted if he said no seemed slim.

"Mini golf. You're absolutely sure?"

"Ja."

"What about regular golf? We can do that right here on Mordhaus property."

"No, ams gots to be the small kind for to's be a friend-fathers son thing."

Charles wasn't sure what that meant, but he knew better than to ask. "All right," he said, resigned. "One quick game of mini golf. Give me half an hour to wrap up some things and rearrange my schedule."

No one else tried to tag along because Toki was still upset about his dad being nearly dead and the rest of the guys were lying low to abuse various substances and avoid working on the new album. And it was the middle of a weekday, so they had the entire course to themselves. It was pretty much perfect.

Skwisgaar decided he liked playing mini golf with Charles. They both sucked at it, so they had that in common, and Charles was content to manage the scorecard without complaint or cheating. As opposed to the last time Skwisgaar had played mini golf, when Pickles' douchebag brother had rigged the fuck out of everything.

Pft, real families. Who needed them.

"FORE," Skwisgaar yelled, and knocked his special black and silver golf ball off the bridge and into the stream. Again. It was a really good thing that no one was waiting behind them.

"You could hit from the other side of the bridge next time instead of starting over," Charles suggested. "If you want."

"No, I does it."

"That was your fifth try."

Skwisgaar crossed his arms. "You thinks you can does betters? Fine, you goes."

So Charles put his golf ball (red and black) down, lined up the shot, and putted.

Right off the bridge and into the stream.

After the ninth hole they took a lunch break. Charles bought them each a hot dog and a soda (the lunch stand was out of burgers and didn't serve alcohol), and they sat at one of the shaded picnic tables to the side of the course.

"Who's am winnings?" Skwisgaar asked eagerly.

Charles glanced at the scorecard. It was a sad, sad thing – some of their scores for individual holes were in the double digits. "Technically, I think we've both lost. But your score is slightly lower, which means you're… losing less."

"Oh, so I ams beatings yous. Ams that the blush of shames I sees on you's face?"

"No," Charles replied in a tone that clearly said I still have some of my dignity intact, thank you. "That's the beginning of a sunburn."

The eighteenth and final hole was shaped like a volcano. After a certain point they'd given up on taking turns and were just putting at the same time, Skwisgaar because he was annoyed and Charles because he was already running late for a teleconference he thought he'd rescheduled with plenty of time to spare.

"Will this stupids volcano erucps alreadies, puts the ball outs of their miseries," Skwisgaar grumbled, frowning in concentration as he hit his golfball - and watched it roll right over the hole and down the other side.

"I could have some lava flown in and make that happen," Charles said dryly. He was almost not kidding. His next shot sent his ball only seven eighths of the way up the incline, then back down again.

They stood next to each other, lining up their shots. Skwisgaar went first, because he was in Charles' way, and hit exactly the same way he had the last time. "Shits, I thinks I lost the counts of how many times I does this."

Charles took his shot, this time hitting too hard. His eyes narrowed as the ball went shooting up the side of the volcano, flew off the top, bounced on the edge of the curb, and went flying into another decorative stream that ran pointlessly past.

"Ha!" Skwisgaar slapped Charles on the shoulder. "That means I ams win, I thinks. For a robots, you really sucks at this!"

A man of lesser value probably would have lost an arm for that, but Charles let it pass. Dethklok needed that arm. He graciously conceded the game instead and hustled Skwisgaar back to the car.

The ride back was uneventful - Skwisgaar gloating over his relative victory was, Charles felt, more of an occupational hazard than an event - and Charles mused idly as they pulled into Mordhaus' vast parking garage that he might not have too much of a sunburn after all. From what he could see from his reflection in the nearest window it could easily be passed off as a slight blush, and, although he wasn't the type to blush often, he wasn't above using foundation.

"Hey," Skwisgaar said as the car pulled to a stop. "I just wants to be sayings... thanks yous. You ams a goods friends-father. Ways betters than my moms." He leaned over and gave Charles a hug.

It was rather awkward. Charles wasn't really facing him, and Skwisgaar was leaning over the armrest/minibar, but... he meant it. In fact, he was getting really into the hug. It was getting a little long. And tight.

Then it was suddenly over, like a cramp letting go. Skwisgaar left to find his bandmates and watch them play arcade games or something, looking completely at ease - which was certainly an improvement over a few hours ago. Charles was fairly sure that the lead guitarist would go back to more or less ignoring him. That's how things had usually gone with his own father. Though there had never been any hugging, just solid, dignified handshakes.

Charles returned to his office, feeling oddly accomplished in spite of himself, and went back to work.