Dedicated to tumblr user darkmistyday, who suggested that I write a fic based off of the fanart "Makeup removal" by Aryblack.

It became a ritual and from a ritual a source of comfort for them. It started with the first time they decided to wear corpse paint, before they had a dozen servants for every finger on their hand, when Skwisgaar and Toki still shared a room before shows. Skwisgaar applied his makeup fast and efficient, fingers trained for minute detail, helped by the fact that he went through a period in his late teens where he wore heavy eyeliner every day. He was sitting on the bed in their hotel room, boots propped up on a suitcase and guitar in his lap, practicing. He could see Toki in the bathroom standing on his toes and holding a sponge in his hands, furrowing his brow at his reflection in the mirror. His bottom lip stuck in a pout, the beginnings of facial hair gleaming with sweat in the florescent lighting and his knuckles whitening from holding onto the sink, Toki looked close to tears.

"What ams de problem?" Skwisgaar had said, annoyed after watching Toki watch himself for a few minutes.

"Doesn't know how to applies de paint," Toki mumbled, casting his eyes down. He lowered his heels back to the floor and, almost as if he predicted Skwisgaar's next move, turned from the sink. Skwisgaar sighed and thrust his guitar into the sheets of the hotel bed, got up and walked to Toki.

Without words he took the sponge from Toki's hand and got to work on his face, applying the whitish foundation, the thick liquid, the black powder. He traced the lines of Toki's jaw, his cheekbone, the dip between his nose and lip. It was then, holding his chin with one hand to steady him while he dragged the sponge across his skin, that Skwisgaar realized the full extent to which he was attracted to Toki. He ignored it, shoved it down inside of himself, darkened the area around Toki's eyes and threw the sponge in the sink.

"Deres," Skwisgaar said. He turned Toki towards his reflection in the mirror with a spindly hand to the shoulder.

"Wowee, Skwisgaar," Toki said, at first amazed and then breaking into a lecherous smile, "you's real good at dis makes-up business. Almost likes a real ladies."

After the show, stumbling into their hotel room at three o'clock in the morning with a bottle of vodka in one of Skwisgaar's hands and the hip of a pretty young thing in the other, their makeup half-melted off anyway and dripping down their chins, Toki had made his way to the bathroom by feeling along the wall for support. He lurched towards the sink and puked into it before looking up and making eye contact with Skwisgaar, sending that uncomfortable bolt of electricity straight through Skwisgaar's bloodstream. Skwisgaar told the groupie to sit and look pretty while he went to the bathroom and closed the door, held Toki's hair for him while he threw up into the sink and took one of the hotel's washcloths, wetting it with warm water and rinsing Toki's face off. "I's just startingks to thinks of you as an adult," Skwisgaar said, aware that Toki wouldn't remember a second of that night and his voice lacking any maliciousness, "and you goes and does dis." When Toki finished retching, his face now clean and shining, Skwisgaar let go of his hair and left him to his own devices, returning to the waiting groupie outside. He fucked her and fell asleep, found Toki sleeping in the bathtub the next morning when he went to take a piss.

The next show followed a similar pattern. Another city, another hotel room, and though this time Skwisgaar couldn't see the bathroom from where he practiced, he knew that he had to do Toki's makeup. Another thing that Skwisgaar was better at, another thing for Toki to complain about, another reason for them to touch each other, get on and under each other's skin. Afterwards there were no groupies or alcohol—they'd snorted some cocaine and Skwisgaar had gotten three blowjobs backstage—and Toki tried to take the paint off himself, came out of the bathroom with the black rings of death still around his eyes. Skwisgaar told him to close them, wiped away the remainder with care, tried to think of some sort of trick to play and couldn't come up with anything.

Occasionally Toki would grunt and gripe more than usual, saying that he could do it himself now, and Skwisgaar would tell him to shut up and hold still lest it smudged. At the same time Toki would wait in the bathroom besides Skwisgaar while he did his own corpse paint, sitting on the closed toilet lid, the edge of the bathtub or even the sink if he felt daring enough. They started to talk in these minutes before the shows, first about the usual band shit, then sliding into the normal friendly banter, stories about their lives before each other, gossip about their bandmates or friends, a conversation about the television shows they were tracking. And still every time Skwisgaar took Toki's face in his hand he felt that same tug of attraction, knew that Toki felt it too in the way he would hold his mouth, perched to take action but not quite there yet.

They got famous and they got personal servants. Skwisgaar sent the Klokateer assigned to do their corpse paint away without even thinking about it, realized what it look like only after they had left. When Charles asked him about it Skwisgaar said that he could do it better than any second-rate Klokateer and that he would be doing Toki's, too. He and Toki didn't share a room anymore, sometimes not even staying on the same floor, but still they would congregate in the bathroom of Skwisgaar's room every night before a show and every night afterwards. Half the time Toki passed out in the bathtub, on the floor, or in the other bed of the room if the room had one, while Skwisgaar fucked groupies three at a time. Once, one of the girls asked why Toki didn't join in, and Skwisgaar had pulled out of her and sent her away, no longer in the mood for sex and his cock going haywire.

Toki grew a beard first, a fuzzy cluster of fine inch-long brown hairs covering the sides of his face and his chin that proved difficult to apply makeup around, doubling the application process. But Skwisgaar was loyal, the pads of his fingers scraping the prickly hairs, and he had to admit that it suited Toki, made him look masculine and even like a Viking. He never told Toki this, instead teased him for it, told him he looked like a kid trying to imitate his father. After that particular comment they both fell silent, morose. It would be years before they discovered each other's daddy issues. Toki's beard grew longer, thicker and wilder, the band split on opinions, and eventually Toki shaved it into a Fu Manchu and told everybody to go fuck themselves. The corpse paint process got easier, cutting the time that they spent together before the show.

The next logical step was to begin to apply the paint to all visible skin, not just their faces. It was Pickles's idea, promptly supported by Nathan, and now Skwisgaar would have Toki sit on the sink in front of him while he rolled up Toki's sleeve, worked his way down the length of his muscled arms with the sponge. Toki was capable of doing this himself and voiced protest but Skwisgaar would press a thumb into the crook of his elbow, tell him that he wanted the performance perfect, that he was better than Toki in every regard. This frequent conversation was empty and meaningless on both of their parts, the attraction between them strong enough that at times it felt like something physical Skwisgaar carried in his throat, his chest, his crotch. His touches lingered on Toki's skin, elicited goosebumps they didn't talk about, another excuse to touch each other and spend time together. Every night for the hour before their show in their room, whether it was in a hotel or backstage or even at Mordhaus, Toki would watch with rapt attention and appreciation as Skwisgaar applied artificial death to his skin and then Skwisgaar would go over Toki's body, his face, neck and arms, cover them with corpse paint, feel taut muscle and skin. The ritual would occur in reverse after the shows, them sitting cross-legged on the bathroom floor or even on Skwisgaar's bed as Skwisgaar wiped away the remainder from their bodies.

It was like this for years, mutual attraction festering and camaraderie growing between them. Only after a series of drastic events did life show inklings of change to come. Things got tense after the first attempt on their life. They didn't play a show, didn't so much as enter the recording studio, and their ritual died. Skwisgaar missed it, Toki missed it, but they didn't voice that. Toki would wander into Skwisgaar's room sometimes, sit on his bed, start talking about anything from how the last show scared the shit out of him to what he had for breakfast that day, and Skwisgaar would allow it, practicing his guitar to the rhythm of Toki's words. He would find excuses to touch Toki again, placing a hand on his arm while he said something to him, providing touches along with teasing, occasionally escalating into a fistfight mockery of sex that would leave them both panting and glaring. Months upon months stacked up with occurrences like this, about to drive Skwisgaar insane with paranoia and boredom.

Before the first show they played after that attempt on their life Toki was in his room once more. Skwisgaar was careful in his application and it took him twice as long as usual to do both of their makeup, the two of them mutually shaking and scared and not willing to talk about it until Toki's chin was in Skwisgaar's fingers and he looked at Skwisgaar and said, "Skwisgaar, I ams scared."

"Fucks dis," Skwisgaar had said. He paused in rubbing the corpse paint by the empty space next to Toki's right ear. "Fucks dat." He leaned in, pressed their lips together, resumed sliding that sponge over Toki's face while they kissed. He was an expert at multitasking, after all.

But they couldn't kiss forever and they didn't. It didn't escalate, no tongues or touches other than the usual, and they played the show. The usual death and destruction followed but not of them, proving that they were invincible and capable. In the emotional high following that show Skwisgaar and Toki fucked for the first time, against the wall backstage, and afterwards they sat in the bathroom as Skwisgaar went through the process of taking the makeup off, adding little pecks to clean skin as he went.

Surprising little changed between them. They weren't exclusive, they weren't boyfriends or even lovers. They were Skwisgaar and Toki and they had sex with each other. Sometimes three times in one day, sometimes in Skwisgaar's room, sometimes in Toki's, sometimes before a concert, sometimes after, sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the evening. Sometimes Skwisgaar would top, sometimes Toki. It started to feel like that one children's book, Red Fuck Blue Fuck, one of the ones that Skwisgaar had read in private when trying (and failing) to get a good grasp on English. The corpse paint ritual persisted, Toki in Skwisgaar's room before and after every show, their thighs brushing against each other or pressing against the other's dick, the touches long and hard. Skwisgaar expected the tension and attraction he felt to dissipate or disappear entirely after they resolved it but it did not; it only strengthened, Skwisgaar now aware what the heaviness of Toki's dick felt like on his tongue or pressing into him, the noises that Toki would make when Skwisgaar would lap at his skin or stretch him, always with care. Toki was tighter than a virgin, better than even the most experienced of Skwisgaar's lays, and it was always a joy to sink into him or be sunk into.

The times they fought during a show, usually during Toki's insipid insistences for solos, they would sulk off in opposite directions and remove their makeup themselves. The tears that occasionally found their ways into Skwisgaar's eyes and down his face were more a result of pure and hot anger than any sort of sadness at predicaments with Toki. Anger pricked his eyes and his face, real as needles, when he saw that Toki had missed some spots of the corpse paint, a streak down his arms or a splotch under his chin. The most notable fight culminated in the death of that stupid father friend guitar lessons teacher and after that they were okay again, sneaking off as soon as they returned to Mordhaus to fuck in Skwisgaar's room and then take a bubble bath together.

When things would get tense again they would have each other. Before the big, impactful shows Skwisgaar would spend time with Toki, talk their feelings out. When Toki's dad died Skwisgaar even let him spend a few nights in Skwisgaar's bed, sleeping with his back to Skwisgaar but not refusing when Skwisgaar would take him in his arms, spoon him with no sexual overtones. But caring was gay (and so were they, a truth Skwisgaar was failing to squander) and they lived in fear of being found out. Skwisgaar had to let him go, had to make that decision, had to cut contact. The other guys weren't suspicious but Skwisgaar's paranoia simmered at the back of his brains, had been simmering for so long. Toki grew pensive and silent during the corpse paint sessions, during their sex, let Skwisgaar top exclusively. Skwisgaar did not voice this worry.

The night of the concert that coincided with the drop of their newest album, the night Mordhaus burned down and things changed once more, Skwisgaar took Toki's face in his hands. They were in Mordahus, getting ready for the show before departing, in Skwisgaar's bathroom, makeup jar resting on the sink. "Ams you okays?" Skwisgaar asked, looking Toki dead in the unfocused eyes, Toki's pupils moving without purpose. Toki was drunk as fuck. "I doesn't wants yous drinkingks to affects de show," Skwisgaar added after, scoffing more at himself for letting some caring slip than at the idea that Toki would perform badly.

"I's good," Toki said. He jerked from Skwisgaar's grip, his hair swinging around his face, and gripped the sink to steady himself. "Does de makeup already."

After the show they held the same conversation as they got ready for the party, this time in reverse. Running a cool wash cloth over Toki's sweaty, slightly green face, Skwisgaar asked, "Ams yous sure yous okay?" without bothering to mask the crinkle in his forehead, the concern in his voice, Toki too intoxicated to remember at this point. He had this sick sense of déjà vu sitting in his diaphragm, couldn't locate the source.

"I's fine," Toki slurred. He lurched forwards; Skwisgaar moved out of the way to avoid being puked on in case Toki retched, but he didn't and they returned to their previous positions. "Besides, does't wanna gets too gays! Caringks! Alls dat! No, doesn't wants dat!"

Skwisgaar only sighed and lowered the washcloth, job now finished. He pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers. "Lets gets you cleaned up for de parties," he muttered.

Nine months passed before the next show. They passed through the stages of grief and they passed through stages in their relationship. After the attack that had gravitated towards each other, Skwisgaar the one to tell a sobered Toki what had happened to Charles, Toki sobbing into the front of Skwisgaar's shirt. They held hands in front of the band, always touching, always together, and nobody said anything because they didn't have Charles and they might die at any moment and they were living out of a hotel while Klokateers reconstructed the bare bones of their house. They moved back into Mordhaus and Nathan took over power, the band collectively pushing the events of the last month behind them. Skwisgaar and Toki drifted apart, literally and figuratively, Toki the one perpetuating the distance. Skwisgaar hadn't the slightest clue. They didn't have a term for their relationship, a name for whatever was going on, because they hadn't needed one. Skwisgaar would've liked to have the ability to ask in a succinct sentence what the fuck was going on with Toki, why he refused sex and even Skwisgaar's company, but he didn't. Instead he acquiesced. He let it happen.

But they came together once again, after the novelty of a restored Mordhaus faded, and they settled into a routine. With nothing to fill their days they occupied themselves with each other, spending long afternoons in one of their rooms, lying in bed together. Sometimes talking but mostly not, sometime practicing guitar but mostly not. It wasn't living. It was existing. Together, alone, separate, existing. With the other guys they stuck close to each other, whether subconsciously or on purpose even Skwisgaar didn't know. All he knew was that if he were to look to his side Toki would be there, close enough that the back of their hands would brush as they walked. And it was okay, they didn't have to worry, everybody was working with a thin line of emotion and a lot of uncertainty.

"I doesn't wants to does dis," Toki admitted to Skwisgaar as Skwisgaar applied his corpse paint with care for the first time since Charles had died. Toki stopped Skwisgaar in his process, put a hand on his wrist. "It ams justs not rights."

"It ams whats we musts does," Skwisgaar said. He moved Toki's hand off his wrist, dipped a sponge in black makeup and started to ring Toki's eyes. Toki's watery eyes.

Toki sighed and leaned into Skwisgaar, let the sides of their heads touch as to not fuck the corpse paint up. Skwisgaar allowed it, arranged his arms around Toki in a light embrace. Toki smelled clean and pure, his hair a little damp from the shower they'd taken together earlier, soft from the conditioner Skwisgaar had ran through the strands himself. Skwisgaar closed his eyes, remembered the harsh light of the bathroom cast rainbows off of the droplets on Toki's skin. Toki had looked perfect like that, natural and Five, maybe even ten, minutes slipped by, the clock moving on as it normally did but their sense of time warped.

After the show Skwisgaar was thinking of nothing but surrender, of returning to Mordhaus and crawling into bed and holding Toki tight and rearranging their image and making less money and being different, so different. Nathan's hand on the pen on the line and Charles bursting through the door the thought of surrender vanished, left behind no traces. A swelling charge of energy replaced it, a reaffirmation of a life previously lived. Those nine months behind him, Skwisgaar pulled away from Toki once more. No room for open physical affection with no reason, he reasoned to himself, practicing guitar in his room alone. Sure, he still did Toki's corpse paint and they still fucked, but not with nearly the frequency or fervor they had when they first started. Toki spent time with Murderface, Skwisgaar with his whores, and all was right in the world.

Or so he thought. Until Toki started his hitting thing and Charles caused even more distress. Skwisgaar had grown as a person by coming to the revelation that he was not actually, not technically, a person. From that Skwisgaar had rebirthed, a phoenix from its fetal flames, mature and enlightened. More of an extension of his former personality than anything else, Skwisgaar kept stumbling upon realizations, and after the mess with the double booking and Toki's lack of attention Skwisgaar took him aside, told him he loved him, asked if he would like to stay together forever.

"Evens in Valhalla?" Toki had asked, eyes wide. Skwisgaar swallowed a ball of mixed emotions in his throat and nodded. "Wowee, Skwisgaar, you really does care!" Arms around him, Skwisgaar returned the hug, put his nose in Toki's hair. His lips twitched into the beginning of a smile he managed to force back.

He had never felt as much relief as he did then, nudging his nose along the periphery of Toki's face until he connected their lips, working his hands between them, unzipping their jeans and then tangling his hands in Toki's hair, his palms flat against Toki's skull. They kissed their way through the corridors until they reached Skwisgaar's room, falling into the bed, Skwisgaar pulling Toki into his lap and then Toki having Skwisgaar on his back. They laughed until they cried, or perhaps laughed to cover up the crying, but they laughed and they cried and they bathed in the golden sunlight that leaked through Skwisgaar's window and all was right in the world.

Skwisgaar's narcissism increased as he watched the lives of his bandmates fall apart while pulling his own together. He was immune to Nathan and Pickles's fighting and though he would have loved to see them reconcile and maybe even find happiness among themselves in a similar fashion to how he had done with Toki, the only real and weighty worry in his chest was that the band might break up and he'd be out of a job. He had no doubts of Toki's loyalty to him. Running off to camp was about friends, not lovers. Toki might hang out with Magnus and Rockzo in the daytime but in the nighttime they would be together, entangled in each other. Simple and uncomplicated, the way Skwisgaar liked it. He continued to do Toki's corpse paint, continued to take it off after the show, sitting cross-legged opposite each other on Skwisgaar's bed, their hair up and off their necks. It was as it had always been.

Skwisgaar told Toki to stop worrying with a steady hand and a steady voice the night before what might have been their final show as Dethklok. "You still has mes," Skwisgaar said, feigning annoyance for Toki's benefit. "I's not goingks anywhere. Every band breaks ups eventuallskies, I knows dat, I has been in so manies. We has a good run. Things will works out in de end."

"You's so smart, Skwisgaar," Toki said, and it was halfway mocking and halfway earnest. He forced a smile to the front of his face for Skwisgaar's benefit, though the upturn of his lips looked unnatural.

The longer they stood on stage the more Skwisgaar's nerves rose in a crescendo and then they were attacked, their lives endangered in a very physical and present way this time, and Skwisgaar couldn't stop denying himself any longer. When they settled down and he got a chance to be alone with Toki, wiping both make up and tears from his face, taking his chin in his hands in the most delicate manner he could muster, peppering Toki's corners and crooks with kisses, he felt shaky all over. He felt fucked, even as they actually fucked, Toki on his back beneath Skwisgaar in Skwisgaar's room on the submarine, Toki's hair splayed, Toki's fingers curled in the fur of Skwisgaar's blankets, Toki's eyes closed, Toki's spine arching, Toki's jaw tipping back, Skwisgaar pressing down hard enough to interfere with both of their breathing. It felt so drastic, so final, so very important. Skwisgaar had this nasty sense of foreboding deep in the pit of his belly that not even the warmth of arousal could quell. They both came with shouts and flourishes and then they clung to each other hard, hard enough that they left bruises the shape of their fingers on each other's backs, fell asleep and woke up in the tightest grip they had ever put on each other.

And not without good reason because in less than twenty-four hours Toki would be gone, Skwisgaar lacking his other half. He didn't know that at the time. He woke up with a few blinks of his eyes, feeling unrested and unsettled. He breathed out through his nose, clung to Toki, tried to ease his body back to sleep. He wished, selfishly and stupidly, for some sort of mutual and painful death. Something that would allow them to stay in this bed for the rest of eternity, to not have to face the future. But he hadn't known the whole weight of those thoughts at the time. He had only let go of Toki, nudged at him and coaxed him awake, told him to get up. Told him he would help him get ready for the funeral.