Tuomas was sitting behind his keyboard, just staring into space. How could everything have gone so wrong? He tinkered with his fingers, then tried to play a few notes, but his fingers only pounded out chords of anger and pain. Everything was such a mess. The Finn stood up, pushed his keyboard bench in, and went to pour himself a drink. He selected a nice Scotch, 1923 vintage, and slowly flowed the liquid into his glass. He took a few paces to the window, rested his arm up against the pane, and swirled the alcohol in his hands.
"Everything was perfect. We had just found our niche. But then, everything was ruined."
Tuomas could feel the thoughts swelling up in his mind. Soon he was consumed, lost in the memories of last night.
It was late, almost midnight, and the members of Nightwish were gathered in their favorite Kitee hangout spot: Arttu's Tavern. Tarja was at the bar, flirting gently with the barman while he poured her a beer. Emppu and Jukka were looking through the jukebox, trying to find their campy old favorite they liked to play whenever they had a little too much to drink. And there it was: "It's Raining Men"
Jukka and Emppu ran up to the bar's stage, begging with their eyes for Tuomas to join them. Tuomas gave a slight smile and thought "What the hell?" as he trotted up to the stage. Arttu, the barman, knew of the guys' antics, and he didn't take bother with it since the bar was pretty much empty on this Tuesday night, and, hey, the guys' schtick was pretty entertaining.
As the three men pranced around on stage, lipsynching, and doing their most fabulous dance moves, Tarja looked on laughing. She loved when the guys let loose and let their craziness out. But there was one member missing...
The bar's door opened. A haggard looking figure stumbled in. The man's shirt was torn, and one shoe was missing. The guys stopped their stage play, and watched the figure move closer. The jukebox was still playing in the background. Tarja bit her lip. She was nervous about the events that were about to unfold. She knew it wouldn't be pretty.
The man stepped up to the bar and slurred at the bar man "Gimme a beer, fast, my buzz is wearing off!"
Tarja caught a whiff of the man's breath. It already reeked of alcohol, surely Arttu would refuse the man a drink. But then the figure pulled out a medium-sized dagger, and started waving it haphazardly throughout the air.
"I said get me a drink, damn it!"
Arttu looked into the man's eyes.
"Sami, you know I'm not allowed to do that."
Sami made a horrible grimace, one that would not be out on place on the Joker, and craned his head up to the stage.
"You!" He pointed a quivering finger at his three bandmates, "You did this! You told him I have some kind of problem, when I don't! You're all liars!"
Sami stormed into the toilets. This behavior was not out of the norm for the bassist. Emppu, Tuomas, and Jukka exchanged glances and went off of the stage. They made their way towards Tarja, who was visibly shaking.
"I hate it when he gets like this. I just hate it!" she whispered as a tear swelled up in her left eye.
Tuomas put his hand around Tarja's shoulder. Sami had hurt the woman he loved. For this he would pay. Deeply.
The rest of the guys huddled up around Tarja and consoled the shaken woman.
"It's alright guys, I'm fine now, thank you," she said after a few moments, "I'm going to go speak with him."
Tarja stood up, and made her way toward the men's toilet.
Her fellow bandmates said nothing, but were sure to follow close behind. Jukka touched the scar on his right wrist. He knew how violent Sami could get when he was angry.
Tarja knocked on the door of the restroom.
"Sami?" she said softly, "Sami, I just want to talk to you!"
There came no reply from behind the door. Tarja pushed the door in to see the bassist staring at his reflection in the mirror.
"Look at me Tarja," he said calmly. Tarja just stood in place, her glance down.
"Look at me!" Sami bellowed.
Tarja's eyes darted up to meet Sami's reflection. She gasped. The was a gash going horizontally across the man's neck. Blood was dripping into the sinks.
Tarja ran up to Sami, took her sweater off, and started patting the blood off of Sami's neck.
"My goodness, Sami, why have you done this? We have to call an ambulance right way! You know all of us love you, right? We just don't love the way you act sometimes. But you're our friend! You're our bandmate! You're a fellow artist!"
Sami slowly looked toward Tarja.
"Quit overreacting, you sentimental bitch! It's not even deep. Not deep enough to feel... but since when can I feel anything?" the man's voice drifted off into a reverie. Tarja tried her best to keep her composure. She could feel the tears welling up again.
Tuomas and Jukka busted in, while Emppu ran up to the bar's telephone.
"Sami! How dare you talk to Tarja like that! I've known you a long time, and frankly, I've always thought something was a little off about you. But I never thought you'd go this far. You don't insult Tarja and get away with it!"
Tuomas swung a punch at Sami's chin. Sami moved backward from the impact, but then walked right up to Tuomas, their eyes not a centimeter apart, and started to laugh. Tuomas was shivering. He was afraid of what Sami was about to do. But the keyboardist knew he must stay strong. He initiated this fight, and he knew he'd have to take what was coming to him.
Sami let his breath loose on Tuomas' face. Tuomas blinked his eyes quickly, the scent of alcohol making them water. Then, very slowly, Sami opened his mouth slightly and kissed Tuomas gently on the lips. Sami tried to force his tongue into Tuomas' mouth, but the keyboardist was rigid; he had completely frozen up due to shock. Sami lifted his mouth away, and gave Tuomas a quick swat on the bum with his hand.
"How's that, lover boy?" Sami smirked, as he pulled the hidden dagger out of his jean pocket. He lifted the blade up once more to his neck. Jukka reacted quickly, and tackled Sami to the ground. Sami was fighting back, though, tried to regain his composure. Jukka had Sami's right hand, along with the knife, pinned to the floor. But Sami was strong, stronger than Jukka, and soon the hand and razor were flying toward Jukka's head. Sami slashed a wide gash onto Jukka's skull. Blood started flowing quickly as Jukka's hands sprung up to the wound. He let out an audible sigh of pain.
Sami stood up, looking down at he knees as he dusted them off. But then, out of nowhere, he was back of the ground again. Tarja was standing before him, her stiletto boot in one hand.
"Finally these heels give someone other than me a taste of pain!" Tarja said, smiling at her Bond-like quip.
But the feeling didn't last. Sami quickly came to, and he had the most terrifying look in his eyes. Tarja was frozen, she could see all the pain, all the hate, and all the anger in the man's quivering eyes.
"Get down now!" boomed a voice. It was a policeman, pointing a gun at Sami.
Sami gave a half smile, dropped the knife to the ground, and looked up at the policeman. The officer stood his ground.
"You think you can do anything to me? Please, I'd like to see!"
Sami lunged at the policeman, his hands level with the officer's neck. He was prepared to kill or be killed.
Three shots rang out. Sami dropped to the ground. Tarja screamed and fell to her knees. Tuomas was still in a glassy haze, but tears were falling quickly from his eyes. Jukka was just staring. Staring at the body now before him.
"It will be fine... everything will be fine, just come with me please."
The policeman escorted the band back out to the bar. The jukebox was still playing in the distance. Emppu and Arttu were just staring at the group. Arttu was shaking his head slightly. The group made their way up to the bar, and Emppu threw his arms around his bandmates. He was on the verge of tears.
"What... why... what?" Emppu didn't have control over the sounds his mouth was making. He had no words to say, none of them did.
A medic came up to take Jukka to the hospital. There were many other policemen coming into the bar now. One of them held a yellow tape, and wrapped it around the restroom door. The policemen took turns speaking to all of the band members and Arttu, but one thing was in common with all of their replies. It was unbelievable. Nothing was right. And nothing was fine.
Tuomas was awoken from his fantasy by a loud knock on the door. He looked through the peephole, and saw it was Ewo, the band's manager, along with the rest of the band members. The remaining band members, that is. Tuomas opened the door and invited them inside.
Everyone was quiet, the awkwardness hung in the air, smothering them all. Tuomas cleared his throat.
"Well, there's chairs... you can... sorry. What I mean is... feel free to..."
Tuomas' had no words, quite a rare occurance for the poet, so he just extended his arm toward the chairs and sofa. His guests took a seat.
Ewo looked a Tuomas. He stared long before he was able to say what he had to.
"Look, Tuomas, this is a horrible situation for us all to be in. There is no easy way to go about this. To go about the future. But the tour is in a few weeks, your first big, headlining, European tour. Do fans really want to come watch the freak show, the band with the psychopath?"
Tuomas sneered, "You know the public, Ewo. They love a good tragedy."
He looked a way again, then took a swig from the scotch glass.
Ewo tried again, "I guess there's no easy way to put this, but what I'm trying to say is, the fans and the media, and the general public, shouldn't know about the details, or about what happened at all. It takes away from your music. You'll never be taken seriously in the industry again!"
Tuomas thought for a moment. He was thinking through what he was about to say.
"Well, what do we tell everyone about S- him?" Tuomas couldn't bring himself to say the name.
Ewo gave a little laugh, "We'll just use the oldest excuse in the book: artistic differences. That is so vague, it could mean anything. In the industry, we like to call it 'Complete Bullshit'!"
Tuomas smiled. The first true emotion he felt since the incident. And the first time he thought that things could go back to normal. Well, nothing would ever be normal again. But Tuomas felt that, in time, he could move past this. After all, he had his music. He could work out any emotion with his music.
Tuomas suddenly looked up and around at his guests.
"I love you all. Truly," Tuomas stated as a tear fell from his eye. He didn't bother to brush it off; he was no longer afraid of feelings.
Tarja looked at Tuomas. She stared straight into his eyes, and he stared back. Tarja's eyes spoke a special language that only he could understand. He could feel her, every bit of her.
Tuomas snapped out of it, and looked at Jukka.
"Jukka, I must ask, are you alright? You were the most hurt... well, physically injured, out of all of us."
Jukka gave a little smile.
"79 stitches! And the nurse gave me this to cover up the wound for now!" Jukka pointed to the bandana around his head.
Emppu laughed, "Jukka, you look like such a pirate! Even more so than Tuomas!"
The group let out a hearty laugh. The tensions were already fading.
"You should keep it Jukka, it looks good on you!" Tarja said, still half laughing.
"Well, of course, everything does!"
Jukka then struck a pose, and the whole group was laughing again. Tuomas felt more tears come to his eyes. But these weren't like the others. These were tears of reassurance. Reassurance that Nightwish would be back, and stronger than ever.