Wings & Hearts

Good Mother of God and all things Holy! The fucking plane must have bounced eighty-three times upon landing - this pilot, I had decided, had no fucking clue about what he was doing (it also turned out that Burton, Bazie and I should have sat together with all of the barf bags on the plane between us, the turbulence we hit over France did nothing for my stomach).

“Get me off this tin can,” I clutched Jyrki’s arm for support; he had been kind enough to take my duffel bag from me, shouldering the girly-looking thing with his own bag. Behind us, I could hear Burton and Bazie (my new best friends!) reiterating the sentiment. “That was horrible, Jyrki!”

“You know, I only think you puked because you needed a cigarette. Look at you, you’re all shaky.” The tall, black-haired man grabbed my arm and held it out from my body so he could watch my twitching hand with a wry grin. Damned man, he knew everything. How was it that I was the one suffering from withdrawal symptoms when Ville fucking Valo was just striding off the plane like he did the flying internationally thing all the time? I tried to remember to ask him what his secret was.

As it were, we all rushed to the baggage claim - while Ville, Jussi and I rushed outside for a hasty, shared smoke before we descended upon the carousel. My bright red bag was easy to find (thus why I chose it - sometimes, Sini does make smart decisions!), but the nondescript black pieces the boys had brought were not so. Jyrki kept pulling bags off that definitely weren’t his, and he grumbled about his ineptness as he threw them back on the carousel. Finally, everyone had a bag each (three, in my case, but this has already been discussed). Everyone but Jussi. And he was not happy about it.

“Are you kidding me! Ei Vittun Saatana, where is my goddamn bag?!” The little boy looked more like a monkey than usual - an extremely disgruntled monkey, ready to sling dung at anything and anyone nearby. I sighed as I watched him hop around, checking bags that obviously weren’t his, just to be certain the airline hadn’t somehow disguised it.

“Come on, let’s go up to the counter.” Jyrki guided the much shorter boy by a firm grip on his shoulder blade. With another sigh, I traipsed with the rest of the men out to the loading area, listening to the rapid Spanish all around me with rapt attention - it wasn’t like I understood much at all, but my knowledge of French allowed me to catch the drift of what people were saying. One person was complaining about a similar problem to ours, one wanted to hit up a tapas bar - whatever that was.

Ville offered me a light for my cigarette, and I accepted as I watched Jussi and Jyrki - two very recognizable figures - stride up to the concierge desk through the clear windows of the building.

“Could this trip have started any worse?” Ville cocked an eyebrow at me, so I took a deep breath of smoke and elaborated. “The last thing I want to deal with is an angry Jussi - the kid’s a maniac!” I sighed yet again (I found I sighed a lot around the guys, it had something to do with exasperation).

“On the contrary, dear, I think this trip is going to be fantastic!” I spared him a sympathetic smile - really, all the booze must have gone to his head for him to think like that - and watched as Jyrki and a very dejected-looking Jussi made their way out the terminal building. Jyrki’s arms wrapped around my shoulders the instant he strolled out the door; I could have sworn he was attempting to squeeze all of the cancer-causing (according to him) smoke from my lungs.

“Well? What of the bag?” I inquired, re-filling my lungs with the toxic version of air I so preferred. The black-haired man at my back sighed and laid his head atop of mine, obviously surrendering the floor to the puffed-up porcupine that was Jussi.

“It’s headed to fucking Egypt or something. Kyrpa otsassa, my favorite drumsticks were in there!” The spiky-headed boy seemed to inflate as he grew angrier and angrier as he dwelt on his lost luggage - I tossed my pack of Marlboros at his head, and was startled when it stuck in his spikes. Usually, Jussi would catch the thing, he had the reflexes of a fox. He plucked the box from his hair and glared at me (I thought his dark gray eyes would light me on fire) as he pulled a cigarette out. “We’re to come back tomorrow and get it. Saatanan runkkari!” His swearing made me raise an eyebrow as Jyrki caught the pack of cigarettes for me, and pocketed them.

“Hey! Those are mine!” Jyrki simply shrugged as I frisked him - I searched each pocket for the pack, and found nothing. How the hell had he caused them to disappear? I glared up at him, wondering if Jussi’s fire-igniting skills had transferred to me somehow; they hadn’t, but my powers of observation persevered, I caught Ville grinning like an idiot behind Jyrki’s back before he made an attempt to straighten his face. Before I could take off after him, Jyrki had folded me up in his arms and held me against his chest as I squirmed desperately.

“Fine, fine. I give up.” I let myself go limp, leaning against Jyrki for support. “So are we all just going to stand here? Where are we going?” Nobody had seen fit to explain our travel situation to us, and when I had asked Jyrki had informed me we would take a magic carpet through Europe; the image of ten men and little old me crowded onto an old shaggy carpet in a carpool lane somewhere on the autobahn had me in stitches for hours.

“I dunno where it is,” One of Ville’s bandmates, Mikko, who I remembered meeting quite a long time ago, shrugged his enormous shoulders. The man was corpulent, there was no two ways about it - he had hit the alcohol a little too hard and the gym too lightly. He ran a hand over his bald head. “Seppo said he would be here.”

“Seppo said, Seppo said. I’ve heard quite enough about this old man, Gas,” Ville’s voice was a vicious bite at “Gas,” who stuffed both hands into his pockets and nearly began to pout.

“Oh, don’t bitch Ville,” Archie smacked reedy Ville on the back with a meaty hand, a well mannered smile crossed his face. “I’m sure someone will show,”

Just as Archie began to reassure Ville, an enormous black SUV streaked by in the fast lane around the airport, followed by two identical, out-of-place SUV‘s; we all stood in stunned silence as our ride completely passed us by.

“Seppo?” Ville asked Gas, sounding exasperated.

“Seppo.” Gas nodded, looking quite vindicated. I, however, seemed to be the only one who was concerned that the driver had plowed right past the most gothic-looking group ever seen in Madrid.

“Uh, guys? Shouldn’t he have stopped?” But Jussi - bagless Jussi, lightweight Jussi - had already taken off running down the loading area, past little old ladies trying to get their cat- and hat-boxes into bright yellow taxi’s and natives who looked like they might have shot him if there weren’t anti-gun laws in Europe. I couldn’t tell if he was trying to make the driver stop or if he was just making an attempt to follow him to his destination - the former wouldn’t have been so effective, though; short Jussi, easily enveloped in a crowd Jussi.

“Now what?” Jyrki’s deep rumble nearly startled me. The entire group looked to Gas, who shrugged, picked up his bag by the handles, and crossed the lane of traffic on the crosswalk to wait at a partition in the middle of the two lanes - he glanced over his shoulder and shrugged at the group of gaping people.

Sure enough, the first enormous car swung around the corner and came to a screeching halt right in front of the second car - which nearly smashed into the back of the first. I lifted an eyebrow - I was going to travel in that, with five men and drivers who didn’t understand the concept of inertia? As I debated weather or not I should follow the rest of the group, Jyrki dragged me closer to the screaming death machines by the hand as Jussi jogged up behind the convoy - barely even out of breath.

“You chased it around the entire terminal?” I asked, eyes wide.

“Yep.”

“Was this fun for you?”

“Yep.”

“Are you in the least bit tired?”

“Nope.”

Oh God, I was done for. He was going to bounce around the SUV all day, every day. It was all I could do to keep from swearing under my breath at him, and duct-taping him down to a chair somewhere (perhaps on the roof).

“Come on, kultaseni, get in!” Somewhere in the twenty steps from the edge of the sidewalk of the loading area to the side of the SUV’s, someone had lifted my duffel bag and unceremoniously shoved it into the trunk of the vehicle with all of the guitars and luggage.

Once again, I settled down onto Jyrki’s lap - I couldn’t help but wonder if I would ever merit my own seat in the car, but Jyrki’s lap was comfortable enough to dissuade the thought. Instead of making an attempt to burrow in between Jyrki and Ville (who sat in the middle), I nestled my head between Jyrki’s chin and collarbone. His fingers entwined themselves in a fistful of soft blond hair as he murmured sweet nothings into my ear. It was all well and good, but I wanted my cigarettes back, and was too absorbed in wishing for them to really notice the “thrust” of what he was saying - and it was definitely a thrust and naught else.

“Jyrki, you pig!” I playfully slapped his shoulder, as hard as I could in the narrow swing space between the seat of the driver and the black-haired man’s thick chest.

“What?” A wry grin was plastered across his face, his icy blue eyes glittered mischievously.

“In a car filled with your friends?” I hissed as quietly as I could, pulling on a long black lock of hair as if it would help reign him in.

“They could give two shits,”

“But I give lots of shits! Stop it!” A moment passed - I seemed to have lost the staring contest which had ensued when I wrapped my arms around his thick torso. Jyrki wasn’t thick like my brother was thick, nor was he thick like my father was thick - muscle existed underneath a thin layer of fat. I liked that he wasn’t a body builder or anything of the sort, it gave him more time to spend with me.

“So, uh, where are we headed?” Timo sounded ashamed to ask the question from the backseat, but I was glad he had asked rather than me - I wouldn’t have been able to stand the ridicule. As it were, Timo gained a set of disbelieving stares, and an ass load of curses. Jyrki’s deep, rumbling laugh tickled my cheek as I listened for the answer.

“The gig, dumbass!” Archie answered from the front seat - he had turned around in his seat to join in the cajoling of poor Timo (who had turned bright red, as was his tendency).

“I know that, molopaa! I want to know what the name of the place is!” I shifted in Jyrki’s lap as he pressed a bottle of black nail polish into my hand, taking his hand in mine as I gripped the bottle between my knees. As I drew the brush from the little bottle and began on Jyrki’s naked thumbnail, a brace of hands appeared in front of my face.

The brush slipped from Jyrki’s thumb down the side of his hand and down my leg.

“Ei, vittun! Get your hands out of here, ass holes!” With his spare hand, Jyrki shoved Jussi, Timo and Archie aside as Ville giggled through a cigarette (which I envied him for - some wanker had stolen my pack of smokes) while he stayed well clear of Jyrki’s well-aimed pinches. He knew almost as well as I how adept Jyrki was with his pinching - he had seen the aftermath of drunken nights displayed on my arms all too often.

“Look at this mess,” I seized Jyrki’s hand again and began painting anew. By the time I had finished one hand, the driver (who still didn’t understand how long it took for this vehicle to stop) had come to a halt behind a shabby-looking building - unpainted concrete block surrounded a door that looked like it might have belonged in a prison.

Well this looked promising.