Windless.... That got me thinking even harder when I thought of the way that the curtain had fluttered in a nonexistent breeze. All of this had happened while Tarja was losing control of her emotions. I began to wonder if it had been a coincidence or if maybe she was a mutant like I was. I rolled onto my side to sit up and hissed as pain seared through my arm.
Looking down, I saw the deep cuts that the shattered glass had left had barely healed over and looked suspiciously like I had inflicted them myself. Well, long-sleeves today. I wondered what would happen if any of the others saw them. They would probably assume that I was loosing it after I had inadvertently revealed to them my feelings for her. Who knows, maybe I was. After hearing her voice in my head, I was slightly worried about my sanity as well.
I managed to get up with out interruption this time, and after showering, stretching my wings briefly before taking them out of existence again, and getting dressed, I made my way down to the lobby where we had planned to meet. I wasn't the first present. Tuomas was there already, looking like he had been run over by a cement truck. I could sympathize, all of us guys were going to be hung over.
"Hey, you alive, man?" I caught his arm as he jerked, apparently waking up from a daze at the sound of my voice.
He grinned sheepishly, "It depends on your definition of 'alive'. I'm up and moving... sorta.... Aren't you gonna be warm in that jacket." I sighed, it was the only thing that I had that covered my lower arms and I was now forced to wear a leather jacket on a eighty degree day. "Yeah, probably. I just felt like wearing it, that's all." I hoped my expression was neutral because I was a really shitty liar. It truly was a miracle that we didn't have a gig today because I wasn't sure that I would be able to stand wearing this jacket on stage under all of those lights. Actually, while I was worrying about things like that, could I even play? That thought freaked me out enough that I completely missed the arrival of Jukka and his greeting to me.
A hand waved in front of my eyes, "Marko.... hey, wake up."
"Sorry, I was thinking." I made a decision that I realized could get me downhill quite fast. "I just realized that my own clumsiness may have jeopardized my playing."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Tuomas grabbed my arm and jerked me around to face him. "We're in the middle of a tour and you might not be able to play?! What?" This last was said when he saw the pain reflected on my face. He'd grabbed my arm alright, the one that was sliced to ribbons. "What did you do to yourself?" He now looked incredibly menacing.
"I didn't do it on purpose. I said clumsiness remember. I squeezed the glass I was holding last night too hard and it shattered all over my arm. The cuts were pretty deep." Inside I was praying that they would believe me. The look in his eyes dashed that hope quite fast.
He unzipped my jacket and walked around me as he pulled it off. I didn't try to stop him, there was no point. Jukka gasped as he saw my arm. He was about to say something but Tuomas got there first, "Why did you do this?"
I closed my eyes, trying to keep myself from showing my frustration that they didn't believe me. "I told you, I didn't. The glass did. Ask Tarja, I called her at around one because I'd freaked out and started worrying about her." I opened my eyes again. "Can I have my jacket back now? I kinda don't want media publicity to blow my inability to hold onto a water glass out of proportion and decide that I'm mentally unstable or something like that."
"Would they be right?" Jukka added this softly as a pair of women walked past, conversing loudly in Spanish.
"I'm a composer, of course I'm not completely right in the head! I'm not into self-mutilation though." I shook my head, snatching my coat back from the keyboarder and shrugging it on again. "Where the hell is Emppu? I want to eat."
"Right here. What did I miss that made these two look like such sour pusses?" The man himself came out of the elevator behind us. He alone looked like he hadn't been out drinking to all hours of the night. Looking at him, I felt old for a moment. I shook it off quickly, knowing what was coming.
"We'll tell you over breakfast." -
I had been right. They didn't believe me. For the rest of the day I could feel their eyes on me as though waiting for me to.... I don't even know what they were waiting for but it was pissing me off. I sat in the back of the tour bus as we plowed our way through the traffic on the highway and killed my ears. I basically had my DS and my mp3 player for company. At one point, Jukka came back to talk to me but his eyes kept on landing on my right arm where the leather hid the marks that had become the bane of my existence. I could only hope that when we stopped for lunch that they would talk to Tarja and that I would be vindicated.
That relief came sooner than I thought. At around 10:30, I was broken from my video game and music haven by Tuomas unplugging my headphones. I glared up at his looming figure, "What, come to accuse me some more. Frankly, I'm tired of it."
He sat down next to me, "I called Tarja, she asked it if you were alright. You had broken a glass just before you called her. I'm sorry, I overreacted."
"So I can stop being treated like a mental patient now? It's about time." I turned of my game and crossed my arms defensively over my chest.
He sighed, running a hand through his hair, " Yeah, sorry about that. The only thing I can say is that we're all tired and stressed out. " He seemed to look slightly less guilty when I managed a thin smile.
"Nothing good happens when you can't think straight anyway. Did you tell the others that I haven't turned suicidal?"
"That was the first thing that I did. Emppu was asleep, so I didn't get to him yet. Jukka knows." Tuomas looked at my arm pointedly, "Can I see it? I need to know whether we'll have to cancel the next gig or not. You know how Ewo can get with tight deadlines."
I managed to get the jacket off with some difficulty. The cuts had reopened with the natural movements of life and had gummed themselves to the lining. My eyes watered with the pain when I had to peel of the fabric that had bonded to the new layer of scabs. I was almost afraid to show him, even though he had already seen because of the effect that they could have on the tour. I didn't know if I could play or how long they would take to heal.
When I held out my arm for him to look at, I watched his expression go carefully blank and cursed my self-imposed limits. It would be so easy to open the solid barriers that I had erected inside of my mind and to instantly know what it was that he was thinking. To just know what was going on behind that inscrutable mask was such a burning desire that I actually began to lower my mental shields before snapping them up hastily. No, stop it now. You are a freak of nature and this is an abnormal quirk that is not to be used. I stopped myself once again, Wrong. It isn't abnormal, just inhuman. But that's fine because I'm not human.
A gentle touch along the ragged edge of one of the gashes made me shiver and take a deep, hissing breath between my teeth. He looked up at me, "Sorry, I...." His eyes caught mine and I thought I felt a mental 'brush' against my walls. A moment later it was gone as though it had never been and he was turning his gaze to Emppu as the smaller man came over to us.
The guitarist's eyes went wide as he saw the damage to my arm. I don't think I'd ever seen him look so serious. It looked quite a bit worse than it felt, I realized. While it was throbbing heavily, there was no real pain unless I aggravated the scabbing process. I flexed my fingers and wrist, watching how the tendons pulled at my muscles under the skin. It hurt, yes, but not as much as I had feared.
"I think I'll be fine. Just don't grab me again, OK?" I caught the keyboarder's eyes again and we shared a wry grin.
"Why?"
It took me a second to realize that Emppu was asking about the cuts not about what I'd just said to Tuomas. I looked up at him for a moment, "I didn't do it on purpose. Tuomas just called Tarja and confirmed what I said."
His eyes cleared, "Whew, I was trying to figure out why you would.... Well, I can think of one recent reason...." He mumbled this last bit and I shifted uncomfortably as I remembered what I had told them. Tarja, damn.... I had royally screwed up this time.
"Christ, I'm married. I have a wonderful wife and twin sons. I have no reason to do something like that at all!" He smiled at me, nodding, and I knew that I had convinced him. He wandered back down the aisle and left me with the strangely silent Tuomas.
"Do you love her?" His voice was soft, uncertain.
"Every time that she would go through a breakup she came to me for comfort. Why, I don't know. I can't even count how many times I ended up in bed with her, letting her burn her anger and grief and God only knows what else in sex. Seeing those sides of a person can make you learn to love them."
"Wait," he turned toward me slowly. "You've slept with her? How did we miss that?"
I laughed, "You could just have been extremely drunk. I have no clue, it's not like we were quiet or anything. That woman has a set of lungs and she proves it in other places than the stage. We had to be really careful that I didn't leave any mark on her. It's a habit, you might say."
"What, love bites?" He looked amused.
I shook my head, "More like bite bites. Teeth marks are a bit noticeable and might break the skin. I told you I'm bloodthirsty." We laughed at the memory of when a fan accused me of being a bloodthirsty animal because of my stage act. The conversation degenerated into senseless teasing that lasted for the rest of the drive that day.
