CHAP 8: Ashes In The Sink And Vinyl Screams
playing: "bruises" - Ethel Cain unreleased
Burzum was signed. Mayhem rehearsals grew intense. And Helvete became louder, sharper, more dangerous. There was something new in the air â the scent of ash. Of smoke. The sick sweetness of destruction clinging to Euronymousâs clothes when he stumbled into her apartment, hours before dawn. He never told her where heâd been. But she could smell it. The first time, she said nothing. The second time, her hands trembled when she touched his jacket. The third, he smelled like soot and church paint and left her sheets blackened. Helvete was alive with it. Euronymous had been immersed in it all, working late, meeting with Varg, managing tapes, and sketching ideas for the next wave of their "movement."
But when he was with her, none of that followed him in.
They were at his apartment for once â her legs stretched across his the couch, her back leaned into him as they sat curled up on his battered sofa, watching an old horror movie on VHS. The grainy film flickered across the walls in bluish-gray light. She wore his beige turtleneck sweater, far too big on her, the sleeves covering her hands, and a pair of black jeans cuffed at the ankle. Her hair was a little messy from where she'd tugged it back. He thought she looked better than anything on the screen. The two of them laughed at the awful acting, his head tilted down toward hers. No tension, no shadows. Just the warmth of a shared blanket and a bad movie.
Euronymous groaned, trying to shift â but she leaned more of her weight onto him, grinning into his shoulder. they both laughed, his eyes narrowing at the ringing phone across the room behind his glasses. She giggled. âOkay, asshole,â he added under his breath with a smirk, carefully untangling himself and slipping out from under her. He kissed her forehead on the way up â a brief, automatic gesture â and padded over to pick up the receiver, still chuckling as he answered. âYeah, what?â His tone shifted as soon as he heard the voice on the other end.
She didnât hear everything â just his half of the conversation, the way his posture subtly stiffened. She sat up, brushing her hair back, watching him quietly. âYou want to what?â he asked, voice flatter now. A pause. He turned away from her slightly, rubbing the back of his neck. âYou think going public is smart? Now?â Another pause. His jaw tightened. âNo, Iâm not scared,â he said calmly, but there was an edge underneath. âBut maybe Iâm the only one here whoâs actually thinking. you could put the black circle in shit as well as Faust for what he'd done.â it was silent for a while. "then why did you call me?"
He hung up with a quiet click, slower than usual. Not a slam, not a muttered curse. Just... stillness. The kind that made the hairs on the back of her neck rise. When he turned back to her, something in his expression had shifted. Not angry. Not sad. Just⌠distant in a way that wasnât physical. âWas that Varg?â she asked, adjusting the sweater on her arms as she sat upright on the couch. He nodded. âYeah.â âWhat did he want?â Euronymous ran a hand through his hair, then dropped it to his side. âHe wants to go public. With the church burnings.â Her breath caught. She blinked. âWait â what?â He shrugged, too casual for her liking. âHe thinks itâs time. He says itâll shake people awake. Make them realize black metal isnât just a genre. Says we need to make a real statement, that Itâs a war.â
âA war,â she repeated flatly, staring at him. âYouâre not actually considering that, are you?â He didnât answer, but that silence was the answer. She stood up from the couch, wrapping her arms around herself. âYouâre not a soldier, Ăystein. Youâre not a revolutionary. You run a record store. You scream about Satan. And now you're burning down churches with Varg like itâs some twisted rite of passage?â That hit. His face darkened. âIâm not just some kid playing dress-up. This is bigger than the shop. Bigger than you. You wouldnât understandââ âBecause I did know about Mayhem or Black metal before I met you?â she snapped. âBecause I wasnât in love with some made-up version of âblack metal purityâ? Sorry I liked you for who you were underneath all the bullshit â the guy who gets coffee stains on his journal because he somewhat a klutz, who forgets to replace his guitar strings for weeks and wonders why his guitar sounds like shit, who actually laughs and loves when heâs not trying so hard to be a legend.â
His mouth opened, then shut again. For a second, he looked almost heartbroken. âYou donât get it,â he said, his voice dropping. âThisâthis is all I have. Mayhem, Helvete, the scene â itâs the only thing that means something. Itâs the only thing that ever did.â She stepped toward him, her hands shaking now. âYou have me, Ăystein. You had me. And Iâm not going to stand by while you destroy yourself just to impress Varg and a bunch of teenage boys in fucking face paint. Youâre turning into exactly what you said you hated â a poser. A fake revolutionary who thinks fire and murder are the only way to make a point. You sound just like him.â He flinched, That pulled a reaction. His jaw clenched, and he stepped forward. and for a moment, she thought he might cry. But instead, he laughed â a bitter, cold sound. âDonât compare me to him. Iâm the one who built this. I gave him a platform, A voice!" âAnd now youâre letting him lead it.â Her voice cracked with disbelief.
âYouâre letting a delusional narcissist with a fucked savior complex dictate what this all means. You think that makes you real? That makes you brave? I saw you. Not the band. Not the hype. You, Ăystein. and I think youâre losing who you are.â She gulped, wrapping her arms around herself "You think youâre better than me? Sitting there in my clothes, sleeping in my arms, pretending like youâre not just as fucked up as the rest of us? You never talk about your past â you act like youâre above all this, but youâre not. youâre just hiding. Behind film, behind photos, behind me.â
She stared at him for a long time. Something inside her twisted, hard. âYou want to talk about hiding?â she said, her voice flat and steady. His expression shifted â wary, curious, unsure. âI was eight. My dad was an addict. My mom was working late, and I was in the bath. He ODâd in the hallway. Right outside the door. I stepped out in my towel and found him there â eyes open, mouth blue. I sat next to him for hours, freezing, until my mom came home and found me, shaking so hard I couldnât speak. Thatâs why I left, came hereâ she added, softer now. âThatâs why she took me far away and tried to rebuild something. And then she⌠you know the rest.â
She continued, voice cracking but rising. âI came here because I didnât want to rot in that house. I came here because I needed to be anywhere but there. And youâyou made me feel like I had a place again. But now all I see is you pulling away from everything that made you human. From me. Youâre not the only one whoâs lost people,â she whispered. âBut you donât see me burning the world to prove it.â She swallowed hard. Her chest hurt. Her eyes burned, but she didnât cry. âI canât watch you set fire to the world and call it art,â she whispered.
He stood, quiet and cold. âYou donât understand what Iâm trying to do,â he muttered. âNo,â she said, tears stinging her eyes now, âI understand exactly what youâre doing. Youâre trying to out-suffer everyone. Like if you burn brighter, scream louder, people will think you matter more.â He glared at her, face raw. âAnd you? What are you doing here, really? Playing house with the guy who sells misery in his little satanic store? You think this is going to end any differently than everything else in your life?â She flinched like heâd struck her. Something between them shattered. Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just⌠broke. She bit the inside of her cheek nodding, she slipped his sweater off, fixing her shirt as She grabbed her coat. When she left, she didnât say anything at all.
He didnât move for a long time after the door closed. Didnât light a cigarette. Didnât pace. Didnât scream or smash anything. Just stood there, her weight gone from the sweater, the scent of her tea still lingering in the air. The silence swallowed him. And it wasnât comforting. He sat down on the couch where they'd fallen asleep together so many times. The TV still hummed with the paused movie they hadnât finished. He picked up his sweater and held it in his lap, staring at the muted images on the screen. His head was buzzing with the memory of her voice â the way it cracked when she told him about her father. The way she looked at him like she still believed in him, even while walking away.
What the fuck was he doing? He wasnât sure if he was more furious with her for saying the things he hadnât wanted to admit⌠or with himself for knowing she was right. The phone rung again. He didnât answer. Instead, he reached for the tape deck beside the TV â the one theyâd used to play demos. He pulled out a worn cassette of old rehearsals with Pelle. Sat back. And pressed play. Dead's voice flooded the room. Echoing. Hollow. He leaned forward and buried his face in his hands. And for the first time in a long, long time, he whispered, âIâm sorry.â He didnât know if he meant it for Pelle⌠or for her.
The night air stung more than usual. Not just from the cold. But from the hollow ache that spread in her chest like frostbite. Her boots echoed sharply on the wet pavement, and every step away from his apartment felt both too heavy and not far enough. She didnât go home right away. Instead, she wandered â the way she did after she found her mother died, like if she just kept walking long enough, the grief would dissolve in her wake. When she did finally unlock her apartment, it felt foreign. Like a film set once filled with warmth now abandoned between scenes. She didnât cry right away. Instead, she went to the camera still sitting on her desk, the one he'd asked about. The one he said she should use to take his picture.
She turned it on. Flipped through the images. There he was â blurry, sharp, grinning, frowning. Her Ăystein. Staring into the lens like he saw her and didnât mind being seen back. She set it down gently. Then curled up in the chair with one of his records spinning quietly â something older, rawer, a Vinyl he had made just for her. His voice distant, distorted. And thatâs when she broke. Silent, breathless tears. The kind that hurt worse than screaming. Because even with everything theyâd said⌠she still loved him. And it terrified her.
She doesn't go back to Helvete. The thought of seeing him â standing behind the counter where they once shared quiet, unspoken moments â feels like picking at a wound too fresh to touch. So she starts walking different routes. Skips the side of town with the red door and blacked-out windows. Trades leather for layers. Trades loud for silence. The apartment is too quiet now. She leaves the radio on low just to fill the space, flipping between stations even though none of it feels right. Her camera stays untouched on the desk, a film roll still inside with photos she canât bring herself to develop.
Instead, she takes to writing little things on scrap paper â memories she has of him. The way he looked when he first took his boots off at her door. The weird way he poured tea. How his voice dropped an octave when he talked about music. How heâd sometimes hum under his breath without realizing. She stuffs the scraps into a shoebox beneath her bed, telling herself itâs not about keeping him close. But it is. Late at night, she thinks about that last fight. Rewinds it over and over. The look in his eyes when she told him about her father. The tension in his jaw. The way his voice broke for just a second when he shouted, "Thisâthis is all I have. Mayhem, Helvete, the scene â itâs the only thing that means something. Itâs the only thing that ever did."
He's short-tempered at the store. Snaps at Faust for breathing too loud. Doesnât even look up when customers come in unless they ask for black metal tapes. Even then, he gives them the coldest version of himself. He hasn't touched his guitar in a week. Every time he thinks about picking it up, he sees her â sitting cross-legged in front of him, her eyes focused and set on him, listening like his music meant something beyond blood and fire. The flat is a wreck. Dishes stack up. Takeout containers litter the counter. But he doesnât care. The smell of burnt coffee clings to everything. He still wears the beige turtleneck sweater â the one she stretched out a little at the sleeves. It's comfort now. Ghost-like.
When Varg shows up unannounced, talking about more burnings and press and power, Ăystein just stares at him like he's underwater. Muted. Faint. âYouâre distracted,â Varg says. He doesnât respond. Because distracted isnât the word. He's haunted. Heâs haunted by the way she made even the silence feel warm. The way her touch didnât feel like a weakness, but like armor. He plays the demo she liked on repeat some nights. The one he never finished. The one she said sounded âlike snowfall if it could bleed.â He doesn't know how to fix it. He just knows she was the only thing in his life not soaked in performance or pretense. And heâs starting to realize that if he lets her go, he might lose whatever is left of who he really is.
Oslo in late autumn. Cold enough to make your fingertips numb, wet enough that the city feels smeared and blurred at the edges. Sheâs got her hood up, headphones in, camera slung around her neck again â her first time out shooting in weeks. She hadnât meant to walk this far, hadnât planned to end up on this street. But she sees him before he sees her. Heâs standing beneath the awning of a coffee place two blocks from Helvete â just a cafe with a hand-painted sign and stacks of vinyl in the window. Heâs got a cigarette between his fingers, a cup of black coffee in the other, wearing that same beige turtleneck under a battered leather jacket.
She almost turns around. Almost pretends not to notice. But then he turns â and their eyes lock. The breath catches in both their throats. Itâs only a second, maybe two, but it stretches wide like a chasm. His lips part, like heâs about to say something, but nothing comes out. She tugs her headphones down slowly. ââŚHey,â she says, just loud enough to be heard over the rain. He stares for a second longer. Then âHey.â Itâs awkward. Itâs awful. Itâs everything. They both laugh a little â not because itâs funny, but because what else can you do when the world cracks open like this? âYou, uh⌠been taking photos again?â he asks, nodding to the camera like itâs some fragile piece of proof that sheâs still herself.
She shrugs. âTrying. You look the same.â âSo do you.â They both know itâs a lie. They both look tired. Thinner around the eyes. Grayer at the edges. âYou wanna⌠come in for a minute?â he asks, gesturing to the record store behind him. She hesitates. The rainâs coming down harder now, cold seeping into her sleeves. âOkay.â They duck inside. It smells like coffee and vinyl and old wood. The kind of place where time pauses. Thereâs nobody else inside but the bored kid behind the counter. They sit down in a booth in the back, near the jazz section. Close, but not touching. âIâve been meaning to call,â he says after a long silence. âHave you?â âYeah.â âWhy didnât you?â He swallows hard. Looks at her. Really looks. âBecause I didnât think youâd want to hear from me. After what I said. After⌠all of it.â
She bites her lip. Looks down at her hands. After a while of silence filled by the rain drops outside âI didnât mean to tell you about my dad like that. I didnât mean for it to be⌠ammo.â His voice is hoarse when he answers. âI never saw it like that. I just⌠I didnât know what to do with something that real. Iâm not used to⌠real. I mean I am from you but just.... not in like thatâ Silence again. The air is heavy with it. âI missed you,â he says softly, the truth slipping out before he can stop it. His hand twitches, like he wants to reach for her but doesnât trust himself to. âI think I forgot how to breathe when you left.â And just like that, the distance between them doesnât feel so wide anymore.
They donât talk for a few moments.
Just sit there listening to the rain drum against the windows and the occasional scratch of a record someone forgot to flip. Her fingers are resting near his on the bench, not quite touching, and it drives him a little mad. Finally, she whispers, âYou said you forgot how to breathe when I left.â He turns to her, heart skipping a beat. âI meant it.âThereâs a tremble to her voice when she says, âI couldnât breathe either. Not for a while.â He leans back against the booth, legs stretched out, looking like he hasnât slept properly in days. Thereâs a flicker of guilt in his eyes. âYou were right, you know,â he says eventually. âAbout Varg. About me trying to be something Iâm not. A revolutionary. A legend. Whatever the hell it is I thought I was doing.âShe tilts her head, watching him carefully. âWhy did you?â
He shrugs, the leather of his jacket creaking with the movement. âI donât know. Maybe I thought if I made something big enough â loud enough â it would drown out everything else.â âLike what?â âLike the quiet. Like being alone.â He pauses. âLike Pelle.â She nods slowly. âI know that kind of noise.â His eyes meet hers again. âI hated myself for hurting you.â âI hated you for a little while,â she replies, gently. âAnd then I hated myself more.â He flinches. She notices, but doesnât pull back. âI shouldnât have left like that,â she says after a beat. âBut I was scared. I didnât want to watch you disappear. Not like them. Not like my mom. Not like my dad. I couldnât do it again.â âYou wonât,â he says quietly. âIâm still here.â
They look at each other. Really look. That same gaze from her balcony, from the cigarette shared on the carpet, from the morning after they first fell asleep on her bed. Itâs all still there. Every quiet second of it. She leans in slightly, voice barely a breath âI want you to be. Still here, I mean.â âI am.â They sit in that for a while â in the sharp ache of honesty. He pulls off one of his rings and starts to fidget with it nervously, and she watches the way his fingers shake just slightly. âIâve got stuff I need to fix,â he admits. âThe music, the band. Me.â She nods. âMe too.â âBut maybe I donât want to do it without you,â he adds. That lands between them like a match in dry grass. She swallows. âI donât know if Iâm ready for everything to be okay again.â âIâm not asking for okay,â he says. âIâm just asking for⌠a second chance.â Her lips twitch â almost a smile, but it doesnât quite make it there. Still, she shifts closer, their knees brushing now.
âCome on,â she says softly, standing. âWalk me to the bridge.â He follows her out, back into the cold, and they walk side by side under one shared umbrella, the rain still coming down. Their hands brush once. Then again. And then, slowly, fingers laced, like they were never meant to let go in the first place.
The streets are slick underfoot, reflecting the amber streetlights in long, trembling streaks. She doesnât let go of his hand as they walk â not even when the wind picks up and tugs at the edges of her coat, or when her boots slip slightly on the damp pavement and he catches her with a soft laugh. Thereâs something gentle in the silence between them now. Tired, maybe, but no longer sharp. The worst has already spilled between them like blood in water. All thatâs left is what they do with it. When they reach the bridge, she slows. It's quiet here â only the sound of water rushing below and the distant echo of some dog barking in the suburbs. The sky is heavy and bruised, but clear enough that a few stars peek through.
He rests his elbows on the cold iron railing, hands still fidgeting, that same silver ring between his fingers. She watches him for a moment before joining him. âYou always come here?â âSometimes.â He turns the ring over once more in his hand. âItâs stupid.â âWhat is?â âThis place. I mean, not stupid. Just⌠predictable. Overdramatic.â She leans against the rail beside him. âMaybe. But itâs yours.â He looks over at her, then down at the ring again. âIâve had this since I was sixteen. Itâs cheap. I think I stole it from a flea market. But Iâve always kept it. Like⌠I donât know. A dumb reminder that I exist.â She reaches out, brushing her fingers along his wrist.
He holds the ring out to her, palm open. She blinks. âWhatâs this?â âI want you to have it.â She stares at it for a second. âWhy?â âBecause you remind me I exist. Not Euronymous. Just⌠me.â Her throat tightens. He smiles, just barely. âBesides, youâve always worn rings that are obviously too bigâ He nods towards the three rings she was already wearing. She laughs, soft and a little wet around the edges. Then takes the ring and slips it onto her middle finger. Itâs a little too big. It doesnât matter.
They stand like that for a while, looking out over the water. The wind cuts through their coats but neither of them moves. Eventually, she says, âDo you ever think about what comes next?â âAll the time.ââAnd?â He shrugs. âIt used to scare me. Now⌠maybe not so much. Not if Iâve got someone to walk toward it with.â She looks at him then, really looks, and despite everything â the fight, the distance, the grief â something in her chest softens. âIâm still here,â she says. He reaches out slowly, carefully, and brushes a strand of wet hair from her cheek. âSo am I.â They donât kiss. Not yet. Just lean against each other, foreheads touching, the city breathing around them. Two strange, wounded people â not quite whole, but no longer broken apart.