Metalocalypse: Impending Doom

Chapter Twenty Five: Pickles

A few days ago...

 "There's something I have to tell you..."

"Okie?" Pickles watched Tobias cautiously from his position on the bed, his sore and drugged-up head making it difficult to concentrate on the other. At the same time, his body felt tingly with a need to move. To let out a random burst of energy now that it was awake. Which he found odd, considering he wouldn't feel like this after waking up in the hospital, usually. In fact, he didn't think most people would.

Tobias took a deep, shaky breath. He looked so nervous that Pickles started to reach to pat the man on the knee in comfort. However, the rhythm guitarist's words made him freeze in his movement.

"Pickles, we're brothers."

"E- eh?!"

Tobias' leg started bouncing so hard that Pickles thought he would start flying to the moon at this rate. "I talked to Abigail. About a letter that I got from my mum. And... she supposedly heard about the upcoming collab (which doesn't seem to be happening anymore anyway). She saw you, did some searching, and found out you were her child that she gave up for adoption a few years before I was born."

Pickles was stunned, his head reeling as he stared at the other. The sluggish memories of his parents- no, the people who adopted him- and said that he wasn't theirs, poked the drummer from the back of his mind and he winced. But more than that, it was bewildering to think that this information would be so close together and back-to-back. Almost like the universe had lined this up perfectly; like it had been planning for this. No... like someone else had been. "I..."

"The birth record seemed to confirm it, but we can always take a DNA test if you don't believe it..." Tobias shrugged a little. Pickles swallowed as he slowly looked at this person he barely knew, up and down. This person he had just barely met. In his 30 years of life and he didn't even know the guy for 6 months but had grown more closely with him than most of the family- fake family- he had grown up with. Pickles studied him. Thicker, heavier-set eyebrows; large nose; shorter; awkward-limbed; pale; a sort of square-looking jaw; thick facial hair. Sure, he hit a lot of points, but...

This also reminded Pickles a little more of what had happened before he ended up in the hospital bed. He remembered going up to the roof. He remembered wanting to kill himself. He remembered Murderface following him up there, and he remembered falling.

Now after trying to die because he felt he had no family, he was finding out that he did have a brother, and it was conveniently this random guy he had just met, what, a few weeks ago? A month now? Maybe two? He couldn't remember. His head hurt from this info, and if he wasn't so tired, he might even feel a little suspicious about it. He also felt a little overwhelmed and slowly moved one of his arms to rub at his face in exasperation. Brother... the word terrified him. Hurt him.

Tobias looked anxious. "Sorry if I mentioned it at the wrong time. I just felt like I couldn't wait... but I understand if it's too much to process right now-"

"Shh," Pickles whispered as he moved his hand to bump Tobias' face gently to get him to stop talking, and closed his own eyes as he processed. Tobias' face seemed genuine, but he wasn't so sure Abigail's would be. At this point though, why bother starting a fight? He could fake it, just like he had been. It couldn't break him any further to find out if Abigail was just spouting a lie to make him feel better. Now the real puzzlement would come to be if this turned out to be true...

Once silence had filled the room for a good minute or two, and he managed to focus on what was happening, Pickles opened his eyes and grinned weakly. "Is dis how it feels ta be de older brot'er? I'm ganna have ta listen ta yew yapping anxiously?"