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He rolled away from the window and yanked the sheet up over his head. Nathan was still trying to sleep, but the sun was all bright and his throat felt all tight and scratchy. After a few minutes, he was more awake, and he started to realise why his throat was feeling all irritated and crappy.
It wasn't his place and he wasn't paying rent or anything, so part of him felt like he didn't really have any room to complain. But at the same time, fuck that- Pickles was the one who told him not to worry about the rent, like he had it covered and stuff, and Nathan wasn't going to live in fear or like discomfort or some shit like that. He had to take care of his voice- it was his livelihood and all. Or at least it was going to be, and anyway, how many times had Pickles told him to think about the music before anything else?
So he finally pushed the sheets off of him and shoved his way out of bed, but he tried to reign back his irritation by time his knuckles met the wood of Pickles' door. There was no answer, no sound of movement from inside.
"Pickles," Nathan growled at the door. He knew that little fucker was in there. He knocked again, but still nothing.
With a hard sigh, Nathan's fingers closed around the doorknob, mentally preparing himself. If he opened that door, there was no telling what he was going to see in there. Pickles did stuff sometimes with guys, and that was cool and all for him; Pickles was an adult, he could do what he wanted, but Nathan didn't really want to see it or anything. But barging into his room put him at that risk sometimes. Maybe he should just wait until later. He'd already talked to Pickles about this, though, so he kind of wanted to say it now, while he was probably sober enough to remember it.
So he looked down at the floor as he turned the handle, figuring that if there was something he should look away from going on in there, he at least wouldn't get a whole eyeful of it. But when he opened the door, he just found Pickles sprawled across the bed in nothing but his underwear, headphones covering his ears, and a cigarette dangling between two fingers as he stared at a book in front of him. His head was bouncing a little bit to whatever he was listening to, though, so Nathan wasn't really sure he was actually reading. It seemed kind of complicated to do both at once.
"Hey." Nathan tried to speak over the music, but Pickles still made no indication he even knew Nathan existed, so Nathan went right over and grabbed the headphones off of Pickles' dumb head. That got his attention.
"Nate! What the hell?" Pickles asked, grabbing for his headphones, but Nathan held them up out of reach.
"I knocked for like five minutes and you didn't answer," Nathan said plainly. Okay, maybe it hadn't been five minutes, but he still didn't answer.
"Yeah, well, I was listenin' to shit. What d'you want?"
Oh, yeah. He had to actually say... something... about that...
"Uh... Your dumb smoke woke me up," he said, suddenly feeling stupid, and he hated that feeling. "I thought we agreed that you would at least open a window or something. When you, uh, smoked."
Pickles stared at him blankly for a minute like he was trying to remember when he could have possibly said that. Maybe he didn't remember. Maybe he was too drunk or something. But then he kind of shrugged. "Oh, yeah. Sorry, dude." Pickles reached over and stabbed the cigarette out in an ashtray.
"Uh... it's fine... or whatever," Nathan muttered, looking away. He felt like he was the bad guy and he didn't like that. But his voice was important.
"It really bothers you that much?" Pickles asked, leaning up on his elbow to look quizzically at Nathan.
"Yeah, I mean, I gotta take care of my voice."
Pickles' eyebrow raised skeptically. "Dude, I've been smoking forever and can still sing just fine. You're overreacting."
Nathan's brow furrowed and he grumbled something incomprehensible. He didn't want to argue when he wasn't paying rent and shit, but it really bothered him a lot. Damn.
Pickles sighed at him before Nathan said anything else. "Look, if it's that big'a deal, I'll go outside when I do it. Don't wanna hurt my singer's delicate little lungs."
Nathan was tempted to tell him to fuck off, but instead he grunted, "Thanks." And then he dropped Pickles' headphones next to him and left the room. He was still fucking tired.
---
Nathan had watched Pickles take three different pills before downing two glasses of Jack, but the guy's excitement for the song they were working on was only growing by the minute. Pickles was talking about ways he wanted to record it and some new programs or some shit, but Nathan didn't really know that much about recording, just knew a lot about what he wanted his music to sound like, and Pickles seemed to get it, so it was fine.
When Pickles' hand wandered away from his fretboard to grab a crushed pack of Pall Malls from his back pocket and a lighter from the table, Nathan gave him a look, but Pickles didn't notice it until he had a cigarette hanging from his lips and the flame at his fingertips.
He sighed. "C'mon, dude! We're at a good part, we can't stop now!"
"Then don't smoke right now," Nathan said, standing his ground.
Pickles' face twisted into a look of disgust, but then with an irritated sigh, he pushed his guitar aside and stepped out onto the balcony, shutting the door behind him a little harder than necessary.
While Pickles was outside, Nathan picked up his guitar and tried to strum it a little bit, but it just sounded like garbled noise. Not at all like music.
Pickles was wiping his hair back off his forehead when he came back in. "God, it's muggy as shit out there, dude," he complained, but then he saw Nathan hastily putting his guitar aside, like a kid who'd been caught, and he laughed.
---
A few days later, Pickles was cleaning the apartment when Nathan woke up. And not just cleaning like picking up the empty beer bottles and shit from the coffee table, cleaning like vacuuming the carpet and mopping the bathroom and washing the windows and shit like that. Nathan awkwardly asked if he needed any help, not really wanting to help, but figuring he should. Pickles told him it was fine, to not worry about it, and he seemed kind of shaky or something, so Nathan figured he was probably on some kind of drug and he went back to his room.
When he came out again later to take a shit, the place was really clean, and Pickles stopped him.
"Look, check this out," Pickles said, showing him a jar. Nathan looked at it, confused. It was full of coins, a couple wads of cash thrown in amongst the silver and copper.
"So?"
"I found all this while cleaning, dude. That's a shitload of change. Anyway, I'm gonna quit smoking. Goin' outside to do it fuckin' sucks, dude. So I'm just gonna stop."
"Okay... cool." Nathan didn't really feel guilty about that. At least, he didn't want to feel guilty, so he was trying not to. Feeling guilty wasn't metal at all.
"An' I'm gonna use this as my, like, budget or whatever," Pickles continued explaining. "So when this jar runs out, I ain't buyin' no more cigarettes. It's a change jar. Get it, like a jar of change. To change shit." He smirked, seeming pretty self-satisfied.
"Yeah, uh. Good idea, Pickles." Nathan awkwardly pulled away, and he went to the bathroom, ignoring the fact that he'd barged into this guy's apartment and made himself at home and made him change his lifestyle for him. Whatever. Wasn't his problem.
---
Pickles started smoking pot more often, even though Nathan saw him pawing through the jar of change for a pack a couple times a week. Nathan didn't mind him smoking pot inside; the smoke didn't linger the way cigarette smoke did and get stuck to everything.
Even though the change in the 'change jar' had been pretty substantial at first, it was only about a month later when Pickles was scraping at the bottom of the barrel. He slipped up once or twice and ended up smoking inside, but Nathan tried not to push the issue, especially when he could tell Pickles was getting a little snappy with him from lack of nicotine.
He was trying, and even though it was pretty gay of him, Nathan appreciated that.
It was one of the weeks that Pickles' friend came to stay with them. He did that sometimes. Nathan always felt like maybe he shouldn't be around when that guy came- they had some kind of weird relationship or something, like maybe he was Pickles' boyfriend or something, but Pickles still fucked around with other people, so Nathan didn't really get it. But that guy, Donny, he always tried to include Nathan and shit, too, so he didn't really feel unwelcome. Just... kind of weird about it all.
Nathan was in the living room watching the fucking Saturday morning cartoons, not because he wanted to, but because when he was in his room, he could hear the two of them fighting about something through the wall and he didn't want to listen to it. Pickles sounded upset or something, and he didn't like it, it was hard for him to hear. So he came into the living room and turned up the TV loud enough that he didn't have to hear any of it.
It was less than an hour later when he heard Pickles' bedroom door open, and that guy came out, slinging his backpack over his shoulder. On his way out the door, he nodded to Nathan. "See you later, kid."
From Pickles' room, Nathan heard something crash even over the sound of the TV. A few minutes later, Pickles came out, just wearing a pair of jeans unbuttoned, and without a word to Nathan, he rummaged around in the change jar, looking over what he had. Nathan kept his eyes glued to the TV trying not to get involved, but Pickles swore and aimed a halfhearted kick at the wall before stomping back to his room and slamming the door.
Yeah, he kind of felt guilty. Fuck.
Nathan grabbed his wallet from the coffee table, and there wasn't a lot in it, but he pulled out a couple dollars and dropped them in Pickles' stupid change jar.
And then he went back to his room. If those guys were done fighting, he was fucking going back to sleep.