Wings & Hearts

Someone pushed a bottle of water into my hands, but I shoved it away - all I wanted to do was sleep. I had been sleeping quite well; the nice, dreamless kind of sleep. It had been like - well, it was like I had passed out.

“Has she done anything?” It was Jyrki, but for some reason my eyelids felt like lead and wouldn’t open at my command like they usually would have.

“She just tried to beat me when I went to give her water,” Oh, it was Ville’s hands I had so viciously - or viscously - slapped away from my face. Probably the latter more than the former, seeing as I couldn’t open my eyes I couldn’t have moved very quickly at all - but I felt bad nonetheless. The sound of Velcro ripping and the feeling of a weight depressing the soft surface I laid on was followed by a pair of warm hands gripping the sides of my face.

“Sinikka? Sini love, are you alright?” I willed myself to move, every muscle in my body ached and screamed and attempted to make itself contribute to the movement of the whole… and ended up just laying there. Couldn’t. Even. Twitch. “I dunno, it’s been hours. She should have come ‘round by now.” So the show was over; I had missed the first show of my boyfriend’s first tour. How marvelous.

Again, I mentally screwed up my face and attempted to make something move, anything, a fart, a twitch, something. It was another failed attempt.

“I don’t understand what happened,” Jussi’s voice, now. “I drank from that fucking bottle, and I’m fine. Tama on perseesta.”

“I agree.” Jyrki’s rumbling bass made me attempt to move once more; someone laid a heavy jacket (I could feel the studs and a zipper) over my chest and Jyrki’s palm laid against my face once more. “Vittun runkkari!”

He shouldn’t swear so vilely, it simply wasn’t becoming.

“Wait, did she… did she say something?” Yes! Yes! I could have jumped for joy. One of Jyrki’s huge hands laid on my chest, the other on my cheek - another cold hand rested on my forehead, and someone’s strong hand gripped my arm firmly. “Sinikka? Sini darling.”

“Sinikka?” Ville’s voice was almost as deep as Jyrki’s, but not quite; and it wasn’t nearly as comforting as my black-haired boy’s.

“Wake up!” The strong hands - Jussi’s, obviously - mate grabbed my shoulder and shook me firmly.

“Stop shaking her you idiot! You’ll break her fucking neck!” Jyrki smacked away Jussi’s hands, a note of disgust in his voice - but I had been thankful for the movement, it seemed to loosen up a few muscles.

“Sometimes it helps,” Poor Jussi, always with the best of intentions… he sounded dejected and slightly hurt. Jyrki’s hand moved from my chest to grip my fingers in his.

Ah, yes! A twitch! A twitch! I never thought I’d have been happy about something so tiny.

“She’s waking up, I think,” Jyrki murmured, stroking my hair gently. “Come on love, tell me you’re there,”

“Hey Sini, wake up or I’ll dress you like Patricia Morrison!” They definitely thought I was dead at that point, if they hadn’t before - being shoved into a sky-high teased black wig, some sort of gothic pinup outfit and forced to play bass for Sisters of Mercy was probably about my worst nightmare (even though I did love the band, Patricia had always been a little much for polo/chino-wearing me). I managed another twitch of the finger, my middle finger.

“Come on Sini, you can wake up now, we already found your collection of Playgirl magazines,” Ville chided, following Jussi’s vein of teasing. Vicious, vicious men.

“We know you’re only dating me because you think I look like Peter Steele,” Jyrki crooned, gripping my hand harder as he did so. I managed to return the gesture as the feeling returned to my body - pins and needles as if my entire being had been asleep but now returned.

“That all your ‘good girl’ shit is just covering up for your job as a hooker,”

“We know that it’s not daddy paying for your schooling,” Ville finished Jussi’s vile thought; I really gripped Jyrki’s hand at that one.

“You’re just trying to style us after Sisters of Mercy and ruin our ‘street cred.’” The black-haired man holding my hand smiled down at me as I opened my eyes, his icy blues resting somewhere between my chin and my nose (Sini, that’s called a mouth; apparently I lost the ability to form cohesive thoughts while I was out).

“Molopaa,” I barely managed the curse - my lips felt like lead. Now I’d done it, Jyrki regarded me as if I was possessed, a single eyebrow arched high over his baby blues.

“Hey, you think if I shake her again we’ll actually get Sinikka this time?”

“Don’t,” It was barely a breath, but Jyrki and Ville were already trying to force me into a sitting position - something I definitely wouldn’t have been able to stomach. Carefully, they laid my back against the couch once more - the diseased, disgusting couch, one I never would have sat on of my own accord. God I was going to have to shower for days to get the stench off my skin.

“What the hell happened to you?” Jyrki’s brows knitted together as he brushed long black hair out of his face; his deep bass a touch higher than normal because of his concern. “One minute you were perfectly fine, then you went all nuts - tried to walk out on stage! - and then you were all over the floor.”

“Yeah, brainiac here wanted to cancel the show!” Jussi thwaped Jyrki upside the head - Jyrki shot the shorter boy a vicious look I had never had the pleasure of receiving and attempted to avoid at all costs.

While the pair (Jussi and Jyrki were great opposites, they interviewed well together - everyone loved to see them argue and bounce off one another for some reason) got into a slap fight reminiscent of fifth-grade girls fighting over a ball on the playground, I began feeling like my stomach might like to vacate my body for a time. My doting boyfriend and overly-annoying younger brother figure were too busy beating one another about the head and shoulders, so my wide eyes fell to Ville - I gave him a look as if the fate of the world rested on his shoulders. His green eyes widened as much as mine had, and he immediately darted for a trashcan.

Too late.

I felt extremely guilty, but it was only a pair of ratty old tennis shoes, nothing really important. They hadn’t even been on anyone’s feet! But none of that mattered, they ended up in a trash can with the rest of the contents of my stomach. Jyrki had even graciously surrendered to Jussi (who never, ever consented defeat if he could help it) in order to rub my back and tether my hair out of the way with an elastic, the likes of which my hair had probably never seen before.

“Done yet?” Ville asked, holding the old trashcan at arm’s length from his body. Jyrki had lifted my head out of the can when I couldn’t summon the strength to raise it myself and had come precariously close to getting my face stuck in the narrow opening of the thing.

“Yeah, I think the eye motions she’s making are the equivalent of a nod,” The black-haired man sat me up on the couch, and perched beside me, holding my still semi-limp body upright with his arm. “I think she needs to lay down somewhere cleaner than this couch,” Jyrki guessed, a hand on the side of my face.

“I think she needs a cigarette and a glass of wine, but perhaps it’s just my gentleman’s perspective.” Ville joked, producing a familiar pack of smokes from his back pocket; he was always saving my ciggys from clear and present danger, which included but was not limited to squishing by sitting, liquidation by laying down, and mashing by moshing. As slowly as I could manage, I nodded into Jyrki’s neck - where my head lay because apparently my own neck wasn’t strong enough to hold it up on its own.

“Smoke’d be nice,”

“Did you say something, Sin?” Jussi produced a lit cigarette out of thin air behind my ear - like I was some child who could be made to feel better by cute magic tricks. He did manage to make me giggle a little, before I weakly took a breath of smoke and I let my hand fall to my lap with the fag in it.

“We just want to figure out what the hell was wrong with you, darling,” Jyrki breathed in my ear, his fingers plucked the smoke from between mine and held it for me - as much as he hated the habit, I figured he didn’t want me to accidentally burn myself, or him, or even light the couch on fire (I was sure it was filled with enough combustible substances like alcohol, sweat and gasoline to make a pretty little foreign arson charge).

“My insides are corroding,” I muttered, reaching for the trashcan again. Ville stuck the thing between my legs and allowed me to bury my face in it without his support, Jyrki stroked the back of my head while I vomited. Someone pressed a bottle of water in my hand, one of Jyrki’s large hands yanked my head out of the trash can and Jussi tipped the bottle to my lips. “Ugh. Do. Not. Want.” The water that traveled down my esophagus was met by the bile that made its way up from my stomach and was ejected almost instantly.

“We can’t stay here all night,” Jussi murmured as he hastily yanked the water bottle out of the way of my projectile vomit.

“Let’s find a new trash can and get in the car,” Ville suggested and cast about the room as if there would be a second trash can. I watched the pair scramble over the brim of the can, feeling like an overly-protected child. Jyrki lifted the cigarette to my lips for me; greedily, I sucked on the filter like a newborn babe.

A fist pounded on the door, I didn’t have enough time to turn my head (it would probably have taken hours, the way the muscles in my neck felt) before Archie burst into the dressing room. He seized my duffel bag and purse as he spoke, giving the room a quick once-over to see if the men hadn’t forgotten anything in their haste to go get plastered after the show. That was supposed to be my job, but it was decidedly difficult to survey anything over the rim of a trash can.

“We need to leave!” With that, Archie blew back out of the room.

“He’s right, we’ll never make the next gig,” Ville sighed, and yanked the trashcan from my not-so-firm grasp. “Can you not vomit for a few minutes, hon?”

“Yeah, don’t yak on your boys, Sin,” The spiky-haired youth was at my elbow as Jyrki stood; the pair bore me up from the couch. I hadn’t regained motor function enough to do anything but allow myself to be carried by Jyrki to the waiting SUV. Ville already sat in it with a now-empty trashcan, Jussi helped Jyrki maneuver my legs into the middle seat before he hopped over my head into the back row, my black-haired man settled beside me, running his hands over my hair, over my face.

“That was just a sketchy place, Jyrki,” I couldn’t place the voice, it must have been one of Ville’s boys. A bottle of water distracted me from the reply, and immediately prompted me to empty my guts into the nearby stolen trashcan (arson, petty theft…).

“Great, we’re in the car with the puking girl,” Definitely Ville’s boys - The ‘Eyes knew me would never have dared incur Jyrki’s wrath with such an insult. Jyrki let me have a breath of smoke and followed it quickly with a sip of water - I managed to keep it down… for a few seconds.

“Can’t you get your woman to hold her alcohol, Jyrki?” My head had been buried in the trash can, but I felt Jyrki shift behind me as Jussi made an attempt to join whoever was in the front seat, fists flailing.

“Shut the fuck up, molopaa!”

“Stop running your mouth, Mige,” That was Jyrkt. I heard a fist connect with flesh and groaned along with poor Mige in the front seat - sure, he hadn’t been the nicest person to me, but that didn’t mean I wanted Jyrki or Jussi (or both!) to beat him to death!

“I want to go home,” I mumbled, and covered my eyes with my hands as I leaned back against the seat; the cigarette found its way to my mouth again.

“It can only go uphill from here, honey.”