Lets try this one more time...
Title - Pulvis de Sidus
Genre - Drama
Fandom - RPS, Villinde, Lindunn.
Rating - R
Summary - "An end has a start."
Disclaimer - Character are property of themselves; writing and storyline my own. Fiction.
For Emma, Mica (mi vida), and Heart Love you girls! <3
My psychiatry's and his rather fucked up exercises.
So. Shrink is making me write a story to express my feelings. No harm in that. The problem is that I decided to back-fired him and am currently writing a bloody long homosexual fanfic to make him suffer, when I'm not even a writer. So doc finds it amusing to no end and asks me all this sort of stupid questions, as if how do I'd managed to break myself in two characters and make them be me without being me. Eh. Well sir, I'm bipolar - two persons in one, ya know. 2/3 of god if you want it to see it like that.
Anyways. Now he has given me a new assignment. He wants me to show it to people and let them tell me a) what do they thing about it, b) do they think I'm one of the characters, and c) does they perception of me has changed at all. Stupid doc.
So here is where you enter. If you could please read at least one bit of it and answer one question or all of them, it will be a huge help.
Yes, my lj is about to be invaded my more of my nonsense.
I would REALLY REALLY REALLY APPRECIATED YOUR HELP, cuz is kind of comforting to be showing this to people that only know bits and pieces of lil' old me...
Last but not least. Another thing you MUST understand, is that this two characters are me in my best and in my worst, more so in the further one. Their actions and thoughts are thinks that happened to me during my depression/maniac episodes. So please, if you have something to say, that I HOPE you do, have that little thing in mind. (THANKS HEART!)
Can you really see I DON'T want to post it? *sigh* Whatever, all in the name of... sanity.
Prologue
Mikko’s fingers took the paintbrush and dipped it in the glue. He was working on the moon he and Ville had made of dry ice for their solar system mobile, the one they had to hand in the next day for their science class. Mikko sprinkled the bristles with silver glitter and slide them carefully on top of the smooth, white moon`s surface, making it sparkle.
“Why did your mom get us silver and green glitter? Wouldn’t it have been better if she had gotten us silver and blue? We could have done some stars with both of them.” Mikko’s grey eyes focused on his friend who was currently entertained by gluing the sun to its wire, leaving large amounts of green sparkles on the yellow paint.
“Because she said that by using these colours everybody would know this mobile was ours; something to do with our eyes. I don’t know. The woman is weird.”
“So where exactly are we gonna use the green glitter? Stars aren’t green…”
“You and your bloody stars, Linde. How old are you again? You’re ten, ‘kay? Ten. You need to start thinking about something else… something manly. Kiss. Yes, start thinking about Gene Simmons and… his bass… and tongue, or something.”
Mikko, or Linde, as Ville had baptized him, liked stars. He`d always liked them. He had always wondered how it would be to be covered with their shine, with stardust, nothing but grey, sparking stardust. Yes, stardust was grey or blue; those were the only colours it could be made of. He dipped the brush back in the glue, leaving glitter residues on it. Some people were made of stardust. It was in their veins rather than blood, giving them a life full of shine instead of pain. Yes, stardust didn’t let you live an existence. Stardust granted these people the power of shining, letting them be human stars. Mikko looked at his finished work, a smile of pride on his face as he watched it sprinkle and shine with the slightest movement, making the moon a glittery ornament. Perhaps Mikko was wrong, perhaps stardust was of the colour of those people’s eyes, the ones that were human stars, colours like green. Just like Ville’s eyes; bright, shining green. Yes, maybe they could use the green sparkles after all.
“I like stars. They see everything.”
“Hey Linde, here’s your damn stars!” Mikko just knew Ville would find a way of throwing the glitter at him. In fact, he was kind of shocked that it had taken him so long to do so. Just as a cloud of green gleam hit his blonde, shoulder length, straight hair and face, the only thought on the boy’s mind was that maybe, he would be covered in stardust one time in his life.
Solar system forgotten, the two boys soon found their way to their feet, throwing handfuls of grey and green sparks at each other, laughing the whole time. Mikko had to shut his eyes to avoid having any sharp, tiny green squares enter them, letting Ville’s laughter guide the silver glitter bombs he threw back, imagining all the time that he was bathing his friend with a stardust he didn’t posses. The blonde had never admitted to anyone, but he liked to spend time with Ville a little bit too much perhaps. He liked it even better when the other one was laughing. Whenever he was sharing a laugh with Ville, Mikko felt that what they were doing in that moment was living. Yes, that laughter had become Mikko’s meaning of living. And it frightened him, how it frightened him…
Their private shiny war was over in a few minutes, leaving two ten-year-old boys covered with sparkles. Mikko looked at the grey glitter on his right palm, mesmerized at how it glowed whenever he moved it nearer to the light bulb. Stardust, his hand was finally covered with stardust. The urge to take the bottle of glue and varnish his palm with it made him feel a knot start to close his throat. He wanted to shine; he wanted to have a light of his own, something that would make him worthy and distinctive, something that would make him feel that he had been blessed by something, anything. Just like Ville had. He wanted to shine just like Ville. He sometimes wondered if the reason why he loved the green eyed boy`s laugh so much was because it felt as if he was being sprinkled with the boy’s shine. It felt like that sometimes.
“Hey, what’s this?” Ville`s voice broke Mikko’s train of thought. Without really noticing, Ville was standing in front of him, taking the Virgin Mary pendant his mother had just given him in his green glittered hand.
“It’s… it’s a Virgin Mary pendant. My mom gave it to me.” He didn’t know why, but Mikko didn’t like the way Ville was examining the pendant, nor how close he was standing to him. He could almost feel his body hit Ville`s, almost hear the thoughts formulating in his mind.
“Why? I mean, why did she give it to you?”
“So I would always be protected…”
“Is that so? Cool. Lets go and see if dinner is ready.” He dropped the pendant as he walked to the bathroom while shaking his brown, slightly curly hair to try and get some glitter off of him.
Alone in Ville’s bedroom, Mikko took the pendant and looked at it. The Virgin Mary was full of a brilliant, sparking green lustre, giving it a look of a jade gem rather than a religious pendant. He turned it over in his hand. There in the middle of the smooth, silver surface was Ville’s thumb fingerprint in the form of green glitter. Ville had unintentionally given him some of his shine. Looking at the shiny fingerprint, Mikko knelt on the floor, searching for the brush he had been using. Dipping it once more in the glue, he carefully placed the silver bristles on the surface of the pendant, giving it a resplendence finish and capturing the brunette’s shine forever. He blew on it a few times as he waited before sliding it back around his neck and tugging it under his shirt just in time, as Ville was re-entering the room.
“Ready?’
“Yeah, sure. Eh. Won’t your mom be mad when she sees this?’ Mikko asked as he pointed to the sparkling mess the floor had been reduced to.
“Nah. And, anyways, her fault for leaving us unsupervised. Come on, hungry.”
Mikko could almost distinguish his pendant`s change while wearing it. Letting Ville take the lead as they headed towards the stairs, he took it off again. There, in the middle of the green shines, were a few grey glitters shining right back. He stopped himself as he watched it, confused as to what he had just done. Just as the knot started to appear again in his throat, the voice of Ville’s mother undid it:
“Ville Hermmani Valo! Why are you covered in glitter?! And I pray to God that you put a sheet on the floor as I told you.”
Mikko was lying on his bed watching the glowing green stars that were shining back at him from his ceiling. He and his mother had put them there on his sixth birthday. Well, it had been his mother, he just sat on the floor pointing to where he wanted each one. He looked at one particular shooting star. If he closed one of his eyes and moved his head from side to side, it seemed as it was moving while leaving a trace of stardust. He liked that shooting star, it was his favourite.
His fingers were moving slightly in the air; touching, bending, flexing, and pulling six imaginary steel strings. He could almost feel the coolness of those strings in his fingertips, a coolness that was already marked on his callused tips, consequence of the million times he had touched one of those six musical threads in desperation of hearing their mesmerizing hidden voice. He couldn’t help himself; his head was filled with that complex piece of swirl of sound, so bittersweet and grey that he just had to turn it into a riff, with or without a guitar in his hands. He had always been amazed on how the voice of those six straight steel strings could sing the most twirling and complex spirals of sound, and bythe way they could express his soul so accurately, like it was doing now as those memories unfolded in his mind.
The moonlight entering his bedroom window hit straight on his acoustic guitar, Asta; Old Norse for star-like. Though the irony of the name didn’t miss Mikko, Asta was indeed his shiniest star; he had made sure of that. The urge to get up and take it in his hands was too much, he could hear her scratching, sorrowful voice, with a touch of glassiness in it that hid inside safely on the chords waiting for his fingers to let it out and send everything else to nothingness. But he couldn’t. His mother thought he was sleeping, and if he started to play now he knew she would be right in his room asking him if everything was alright while she caressed his hair and called him her star. Mikko involuntarily rolled his eyes. Hell, even until this day, at his sixteen years, the woman still used that damn nickname, even in front of others. She even found it “so beautiful” that he decided to name his guitar Asta, trying to call him that for a while, until he had to put a stop to it.
His average length blonde, straight hair fell like a protective shield over his face, a habit he had acquired since he had started to let his hair grow long at six, used whenever he wanted to hide from the world or needed the music in his head to be the only thing his senses could perceive. His right hand reached inside his white t-shirt for the silver Virgin Mary pendant hanging around his neck. Stroking it with his right thumb, he felt those bloody sparkles on the back surface, ones that had lost their brightness over the years, making the memory once again come back more vigorously. He absently placed it on his lips and rubbed them with it, savouring its cold kiss; nothing but a mechanical movement triggered whenever he was deep in thoughts, though he knew that this time he was looking for something else in the lip contact with that glitter. He closed his eyes tightly, trying to avoid those thoughts consuming him, trying his hardest to go back to that riff.
And still, something was wrong with it; something was impeding him to get it right. The music was there, the melody was there, but the voice, well, it was still hidden inside the string’s core wire. No, that was a lie: the voice was hidden in the depths of someone else’s core wire, someone’s vocal chords to be more precise.
The thought of Ville, his sixteen-year-old androgynous friend and rock star by his own merits, brought a sad, bitter smile on his lips. He lifted his left hand and stared at it, there, written across with black market was the name ‘Ville Valo’ because, apparently, Mikko and his guitar skills belonged to that person from this day on for future uses. Yes, Ville would never dare admit to others that Mikko was a better guitarist than he was, but his relationship with his blonde friend was different, it had always been.
The music started to get louder in his head and so was the necessity to get it out. Without giving it a second thought, Mikko stood up and went to pick up Asta. Heading back to his bed, he placed the guitar on his knees, ready to let that riff flow from his veins.
Just as he was about to hit the first note, the bedroom door cracked open. The woman didn’t have these kinds of powers. He thought about it more and concluded that, yeah, maybe she did. He watched the door open more and more letting the rectangle of yellow light from the corridor challenge and kill the shadows that had taken sole custody of his bedroom. Just then, Ville`s head popped in, giving him a huge grin soon to be followed by a shout:
“He’s up Mrs. Lindstrom!”
“What are you doing here?” There stood his best friend of the pass six years, dressed in black from head to toe as per usual, with his school back on his left shoulder and a bag in his right hand. Apparently, Mikko wouldn’t be sleeping alone that night. Maybe Ville was the one with the powers.
“Jesse is sick, so I can’t sleep. I mean, that boy can whine for hours. So, I’m keeping you company tonight. Though your mom said you had gone to bed hours ago…”
He didn’t feel like having company that night, especially not from him. It wasn’t Ville’s fault; nothing was his fault, except perhaps refusing to let him take the floor whenever they stayed over at each other houses, which meant that they would both be sharing his single bed. Guitar still in hand, Mikko looked straight into those eyes, wondering what it would feel like to have them look at him just a little bit different, a look that would make them shine even more. He shook his head slightly, trying to scare off that thought. He wasn’t going back there, and the answer was always the same anyway: his veins weren’t filled with stardust.
“I couldn’t sleep, not tired I guess.”
“Well, I’m fucking exhausted, mate. Remind me never to offer to do inventory for daddy’s little sex shop, the pay ain’t worth it.”
Mikko watched as Ville closed the door behind him and walked towards the bed, letting the moonlight take over the small room, drowning it in shadows. He liked shadows; they had the ability of giving things the chance to become something else, someone else. And he took that chance whenever he could. Playing his guitar was like drowning in shadows for Mikko; no one knew how he really was, and no one could understood just how much of his soul he was letting out with the music. That’s why he always distorted the sound, giving it the ability to become grey, to become bittersweet.
Ville sat beside him on his bed as he started to undress, taking off his black Chucks, followed by his t-shirt, leaving him in his black trousers. The light from the moon entering the back window hit Ville’s semi-naked body, giving his milky white skin a glow that was almost blinding. It looked cool and Mikko wanted to find out if it felt cool. His fingertips started to reach for something else, something that was soft and smooth and… unreachable. His hair fell once more in his face, covering him from the sight of Ville. But right before the hair sheltered him completely from the sight of his friend`s skin, he saw something on Ville’s left palm, something shinny. Without thinking, he took the hand on his own and examined it. Silver glitter.
Flashes of that day started to assault his mind. The smell of the glue invaded his nostrils; the sight of a glitter covered Ville burnt his pupils; the touch of his hand inside the bag of silver sparkles ready to been thrown at Ville’s direction filled his mind, making him imagine that he was actually throwing stardust. The thoughts started to wound his palm; the savour of Ville’s breath as he stood right in front of him, examining his pendant, was covering his tongue; the carefree laughter rang on his ears. Yet, he couldn’t let go of Ville’s hand, just as he couldn’t let go of that memory. It was as if the glue of that day had found its way to his hands and to his mind, sticking together that past with this present, leaving him in the middle of it all.
“You don’t wanna know where the hell I got that from. Lets just say that there are some kinky fucks out there.”
But Mikko didn’t hear and didn`t let go. Instead, still looking at his friend’s palm, he asked the question that had been burning his tongue since the moment Ville’s presence had interrupted his own personal inquisition.
“What are you doing here?”
“What do you mean? I told you Jesse…”
“You could have gone to Mige’s, his is closer after all. I want the real reason.”
He wanted to trace that palm with his index finger, sharing that shine with him. But he didn’t. Instead, he stood there, hypnotised, not by the shine, but by the softness and coolness of Ville’s skin. Even his callused guitar fingers could perceive it. The thought that Ville hadn’t pulled his hand away wanted to entered the blonde`s mind, but he didn’t allow it. No, he was just going to allow that feeling to be engraved in his mind.
“It`s time, Linde. It`s time for it. Between you and me and Mige… we can make this happen, man. You are the best guitarist around, hell, the best one in all of Helsinki. So, we haven’t resolved the two bass players issue, but… I don’t know. It’s just time. Maybe I’ll sing, I don’t know. The thing will be ours, Linde, ours. How long have we been talking about it? Well, talking is bullshit, we must get to it. Linde, we need to do it. You feel the same way, right? You’ll do it, yes? Mige is in, I’m in, but we need you. Without one of us there is no band. You know that, right?”
He had heard him, and yet, he couldn`t find his voice to answer. ‘Have Ville’s shine’ he recalled thinking when he was ten. Was that what he really wanted? To have his friend`s shine? Yes and no. He wanted that shine, but not the bits he was being offered; he wanted every little sparkle to be his and his alone.
“You know… just before you came I was thinking about that day when we had our war of glitter. Do you remember it? We were ten and doing the most horrible solar system ever. You just threw me this handful of green glitter and…”
And he gave me a bit of his shine, just like he was trying to do now. Yet, Mikko would never tell him that.
“Yeah I remember. And I remember that you weren’t there with me when mom made me clean all of the bloody mess. Some friend you are. But Linde… the band?”
He looked at the brunette’s wrist, no glitter on there. And then it happened, it felt as if he was gluing those sparks on the back of his pendant once again, making sure they would never leave him without their glow. But now, now it felt as if he was about to settle his destiny with nothing but a small clue his soul was demanding for him to give. Moving Ville’s hand to his mouth, he kissed his wrist before releasing it.
“I’ll think about it.”
“Linde… what…?”
“I’ll think about it. You seem tired, get some sleep. Do you mind if I play for a bit? I have this riff in my head…”
“N-no. Play. I mean, it is your room after all.”
Mikko stood up, guitar in his left hand. A break of cold sweat dampened the middle of his back. His hair fell back to hide his face, his right fingers started to caress those imaginary strings that he was crushing in his left hand once again. But something was happening, that melody of a few minutes ago was transforming itself, going from Mikko’s veins to the tips of his fingers, telling a much darker story, one that wasn’t grey and melancholy but pitch-black and painful, having the wire swirls constituting its sound becoming tighter. Sitting down, he settled Asta on his knees and hit the first note. He already knew it by heart.
The Wretched. That was the name of the new riff: The Wretched.
“Eh, Linde? Sorry to interrupt but… didn’t we agree you were taking those bloody glowing stars off your ceiling? Sixteen, Linde; sixteen.”
Genre - Drama
Fandom - RPS, Villinde, Lindunn.
Rating - R
Summary - "An end has a start."
Disclaimer - Character are property of themselves; writing and storyline my own. Fiction.
For Emma, Mica (mi vida), and Heart Love you girls! <3
My psychiatry's and his rather fucked up exercises.
So. Shrink is making me write a story to express my feelings. No harm in that. The problem is that I decided to back-fired him and am currently writing a bloody long homosexual fanfic to make him suffer, when I'm not even a writer. So doc finds it amusing to no end and asks me all this sort of stupid questions, as if how do I'd managed to break myself in two characters and make them be me without being me. Eh. Well sir, I'm bipolar - two persons in one, ya know. 2/3 of god if you want it to see it like that.
Anyways. Now he has given me a new assignment. He wants me to show it to people and let them tell me a) what do they thing about it, b) do they think I'm one of the characters, and c) does they perception of me has changed at all. Stupid doc.
So here is where you enter. If you could please read at least one bit of it and answer one question or all of them, it will be a huge help.
Yes, my lj is about to be invaded my more of my nonsense.
I would REALLY REALLY REALLY APPRECIATED YOUR HELP, cuz is kind of comforting to be showing this to people that only know bits and pieces of lil' old me...
Last but not least. Another thing you MUST understand, is that this two characters are me in my best and in my worst, more so in the further one. Their actions and thoughts are thinks that happened to me during my depression/maniac episodes. So please, if you have something to say, that I HOPE you do, have that little thing in mind. (THANKS HEART!)
Can you really see I DON'T want to post it? *sigh* Whatever, all in the name of... sanity.
Prologue
Mikko’s fingers took the paintbrush and dipped it in the glue. He was working on the moon he and Ville had made of dry ice for their solar system mobile, the one they had to hand in the next day for their science class. Mikko sprinkled the bristles with silver glitter and slide them carefully on top of the smooth, white moon`s surface, making it sparkle.
“Why did your mom get us silver and green glitter? Wouldn’t it have been better if she had gotten us silver and blue? We could have done some stars with both of them.” Mikko’s grey eyes focused on his friend who was currently entertained by gluing the sun to its wire, leaving large amounts of green sparkles on the yellow paint.
“Because she said that by using these colours everybody would know this mobile was ours; something to do with our eyes. I don’t know. The woman is weird.”
“So where exactly are we gonna use the green glitter? Stars aren’t green…”
“You and your bloody stars, Linde. How old are you again? You’re ten, ‘kay? Ten. You need to start thinking about something else… something manly. Kiss. Yes, start thinking about Gene Simmons and… his bass… and tongue, or something.”
Mikko, or Linde, as Ville had baptized him, liked stars. He`d always liked them. He had always wondered how it would be to be covered with their shine, with stardust, nothing but grey, sparking stardust. Yes, stardust was grey or blue; those were the only colours it could be made of. He dipped the brush back in the glue, leaving glitter residues on it. Some people were made of stardust. It was in their veins rather than blood, giving them a life full of shine instead of pain. Yes, stardust didn’t let you live an existence. Stardust granted these people the power of shining, letting them be human stars. Mikko looked at his finished work, a smile of pride on his face as he watched it sprinkle and shine with the slightest movement, making the moon a glittery ornament. Perhaps Mikko was wrong, perhaps stardust was of the colour of those people’s eyes, the ones that were human stars, colours like green. Just like Ville’s eyes; bright, shining green. Yes, maybe they could use the green sparkles after all.
“I like stars. They see everything.”
“Hey Linde, here’s your damn stars!” Mikko just knew Ville would find a way of throwing the glitter at him. In fact, he was kind of shocked that it had taken him so long to do so. Just as a cloud of green gleam hit his blonde, shoulder length, straight hair and face, the only thought on the boy’s mind was that maybe, he would be covered in stardust one time in his life.
Solar system forgotten, the two boys soon found their way to their feet, throwing handfuls of grey and green sparks at each other, laughing the whole time. Mikko had to shut his eyes to avoid having any sharp, tiny green squares enter them, letting Ville’s laughter guide the silver glitter bombs he threw back, imagining all the time that he was bathing his friend with a stardust he didn’t posses. The blonde had never admitted to anyone, but he liked to spend time with Ville a little bit too much perhaps. He liked it even better when the other one was laughing. Whenever he was sharing a laugh with Ville, Mikko felt that what they were doing in that moment was living. Yes, that laughter had become Mikko’s meaning of living. And it frightened him, how it frightened him…
Their private shiny war was over in a few minutes, leaving two ten-year-old boys covered with sparkles. Mikko looked at the grey glitter on his right palm, mesmerized at how it glowed whenever he moved it nearer to the light bulb. Stardust, his hand was finally covered with stardust. The urge to take the bottle of glue and varnish his palm with it made him feel a knot start to close his throat. He wanted to shine; he wanted to have a light of his own, something that would make him worthy and distinctive, something that would make him feel that he had been blessed by something, anything. Just like Ville had. He wanted to shine just like Ville. He sometimes wondered if the reason why he loved the green eyed boy`s laugh so much was because it felt as if he was being sprinkled with the boy’s shine. It felt like that sometimes.
“Hey, what’s this?” Ville`s voice broke Mikko’s train of thought. Without really noticing, Ville was standing in front of him, taking the Virgin Mary pendant his mother had just given him in his green glittered hand.
“It’s… it’s a Virgin Mary pendant. My mom gave it to me.” He didn’t know why, but Mikko didn’t like the way Ville was examining the pendant, nor how close he was standing to him. He could almost feel his body hit Ville`s, almost hear the thoughts formulating in his mind.
“Why? I mean, why did she give it to you?”
“So I would always be protected…”
“Is that so? Cool. Lets go and see if dinner is ready.” He dropped the pendant as he walked to the bathroom while shaking his brown, slightly curly hair to try and get some glitter off of him.
Alone in Ville’s bedroom, Mikko took the pendant and looked at it. The Virgin Mary was full of a brilliant, sparking green lustre, giving it a look of a jade gem rather than a religious pendant. He turned it over in his hand. There in the middle of the smooth, silver surface was Ville’s thumb fingerprint in the form of green glitter. Ville had unintentionally given him some of his shine. Looking at the shiny fingerprint, Mikko knelt on the floor, searching for the brush he had been using. Dipping it once more in the glue, he carefully placed the silver bristles on the surface of the pendant, giving it a resplendence finish and capturing the brunette’s shine forever. He blew on it a few times as he waited before sliding it back around his neck and tugging it under his shirt just in time, as Ville was re-entering the room.
“Ready?’
“Yeah, sure. Eh. Won’t your mom be mad when she sees this?’ Mikko asked as he pointed to the sparkling mess the floor had been reduced to.
“Nah. And, anyways, her fault for leaving us unsupervised. Come on, hungry.”
Mikko could almost distinguish his pendant`s change while wearing it. Letting Ville take the lead as they headed towards the stairs, he took it off again. There, in the middle of the green shines, were a few grey glitters shining right back. He stopped himself as he watched it, confused as to what he had just done. Just as the knot started to appear again in his throat, the voice of Ville’s mother undid it:
“Ville Hermmani Valo! Why are you covered in glitter?! And I pray to God that you put a sheet on the floor as I told you.”
Mikko was lying on his bed watching the glowing green stars that were shining back at him from his ceiling. He and his mother had put them there on his sixth birthday. Well, it had been his mother, he just sat on the floor pointing to where he wanted each one. He looked at one particular shooting star. If he closed one of his eyes and moved his head from side to side, it seemed as it was moving while leaving a trace of stardust. He liked that shooting star, it was his favourite.
His fingers were moving slightly in the air; touching, bending, flexing, and pulling six imaginary steel strings. He could almost feel the coolness of those strings in his fingertips, a coolness that was already marked on his callused tips, consequence of the million times he had touched one of those six musical threads in desperation of hearing their mesmerizing hidden voice. He couldn’t help himself; his head was filled with that complex piece of swirl of sound, so bittersweet and grey that he just had to turn it into a riff, with or without a guitar in his hands. He had always been amazed on how the voice of those six straight steel strings could sing the most twirling and complex spirals of sound, and bythe way they could express his soul so accurately, like it was doing now as those memories unfolded in his mind.
The moonlight entering his bedroom window hit straight on his acoustic guitar, Asta; Old Norse for star-like. Though the irony of the name didn’t miss Mikko, Asta was indeed his shiniest star; he had made sure of that. The urge to get up and take it in his hands was too much, he could hear her scratching, sorrowful voice, with a touch of glassiness in it that hid inside safely on the chords waiting for his fingers to let it out and send everything else to nothingness. But he couldn’t. His mother thought he was sleeping, and if he started to play now he knew she would be right in his room asking him if everything was alright while she caressed his hair and called him her star. Mikko involuntarily rolled his eyes. Hell, even until this day, at his sixteen years, the woman still used that damn nickname, even in front of others. She even found it “so beautiful” that he decided to name his guitar Asta, trying to call him that for a while, until he had to put a stop to it.
His average length blonde, straight hair fell like a protective shield over his face, a habit he had acquired since he had started to let his hair grow long at six, used whenever he wanted to hide from the world or needed the music in his head to be the only thing his senses could perceive. His right hand reached inside his white t-shirt for the silver Virgin Mary pendant hanging around his neck. Stroking it with his right thumb, he felt those bloody sparkles on the back surface, ones that had lost their brightness over the years, making the memory once again come back more vigorously. He absently placed it on his lips and rubbed them with it, savouring its cold kiss; nothing but a mechanical movement triggered whenever he was deep in thoughts, though he knew that this time he was looking for something else in the lip contact with that glitter. He closed his eyes tightly, trying to avoid those thoughts consuming him, trying his hardest to go back to that riff.
And still, something was wrong with it; something was impeding him to get it right. The music was there, the melody was there, but the voice, well, it was still hidden inside the string’s core wire. No, that was a lie: the voice was hidden in the depths of someone else’s core wire, someone’s vocal chords to be more precise.
The thought of Ville, his sixteen-year-old androgynous friend and rock star by his own merits, brought a sad, bitter smile on his lips. He lifted his left hand and stared at it, there, written across with black market was the name ‘Ville Valo’ because, apparently, Mikko and his guitar skills belonged to that person from this day on for future uses. Yes, Ville would never dare admit to others that Mikko was a better guitarist than he was, but his relationship with his blonde friend was different, it had always been.
The music started to get louder in his head and so was the necessity to get it out. Without giving it a second thought, Mikko stood up and went to pick up Asta. Heading back to his bed, he placed the guitar on his knees, ready to let that riff flow from his veins.
Just as he was about to hit the first note, the bedroom door cracked open. The woman didn’t have these kinds of powers. He thought about it more and concluded that, yeah, maybe she did. He watched the door open more and more letting the rectangle of yellow light from the corridor challenge and kill the shadows that had taken sole custody of his bedroom. Just then, Ville`s head popped in, giving him a huge grin soon to be followed by a shout:
“He’s up Mrs. Lindstrom!”
“What are you doing here?” There stood his best friend of the pass six years, dressed in black from head to toe as per usual, with his school back on his left shoulder and a bag in his right hand. Apparently, Mikko wouldn’t be sleeping alone that night. Maybe Ville was the one with the powers.
“Jesse is sick, so I can’t sleep. I mean, that boy can whine for hours. So, I’m keeping you company tonight. Though your mom said you had gone to bed hours ago…”
He didn’t feel like having company that night, especially not from him. It wasn’t Ville’s fault; nothing was his fault, except perhaps refusing to let him take the floor whenever they stayed over at each other houses, which meant that they would both be sharing his single bed. Guitar still in hand, Mikko looked straight into those eyes, wondering what it would feel like to have them look at him just a little bit different, a look that would make them shine even more. He shook his head slightly, trying to scare off that thought. He wasn’t going back there, and the answer was always the same anyway: his veins weren’t filled with stardust.
“I couldn’t sleep, not tired I guess.”
“Well, I’m fucking exhausted, mate. Remind me never to offer to do inventory for daddy’s little sex shop, the pay ain’t worth it.”
Mikko watched as Ville closed the door behind him and walked towards the bed, letting the moonlight take over the small room, drowning it in shadows. He liked shadows; they had the ability of giving things the chance to become something else, someone else. And he took that chance whenever he could. Playing his guitar was like drowning in shadows for Mikko; no one knew how he really was, and no one could understood just how much of his soul he was letting out with the music. That’s why he always distorted the sound, giving it the ability to become grey, to become bittersweet.
Ville sat beside him on his bed as he started to undress, taking off his black Chucks, followed by his t-shirt, leaving him in his black trousers. The light from the moon entering the back window hit Ville’s semi-naked body, giving his milky white skin a glow that was almost blinding. It looked cool and Mikko wanted to find out if it felt cool. His fingertips started to reach for something else, something that was soft and smooth and… unreachable. His hair fell once more in his face, covering him from the sight of Ville. But right before the hair sheltered him completely from the sight of his friend`s skin, he saw something on Ville’s left palm, something shinny. Without thinking, he took the hand on his own and examined it. Silver glitter.
Flashes of that day started to assault his mind. The smell of the glue invaded his nostrils; the sight of a glitter covered Ville burnt his pupils; the touch of his hand inside the bag of silver sparkles ready to been thrown at Ville’s direction filled his mind, making him imagine that he was actually throwing stardust. The thoughts started to wound his palm; the savour of Ville’s breath as he stood right in front of him, examining his pendant, was covering his tongue; the carefree laughter rang on his ears. Yet, he couldn’t let go of Ville’s hand, just as he couldn’t let go of that memory. It was as if the glue of that day had found its way to his hands and to his mind, sticking together that past with this present, leaving him in the middle of it all.
“You don’t wanna know where the hell I got that from. Lets just say that there are some kinky fucks out there.”
But Mikko didn’t hear and didn`t let go. Instead, still looking at his friend’s palm, he asked the question that had been burning his tongue since the moment Ville’s presence had interrupted his own personal inquisition.
“What are you doing here?”
“What do you mean? I told you Jesse…”
“You could have gone to Mige’s, his is closer after all. I want the real reason.”
He wanted to trace that palm with his index finger, sharing that shine with him. But he didn’t. Instead, he stood there, hypnotised, not by the shine, but by the softness and coolness of Ville’s skin. Even his callused guitar fingers could perceive it. The thought that Ville hadn’t pulled his hand away wanted to entered the blonde`s mind, but he didn’t allow it. No, he was just going to allow that feeling to be engraved in his mind.
“It`s time, Linde. It`s time for it. Between you and me and Mige… we can make this happen, man. You are the best guitarist around, hell, the best one in all of Helsinki. So, we haven’t resolved the two bass players issue, but… I don’t know. It’s just time. Maybe I’ll sing, I don’t know. The thing will be ours, Linde, ours. How long have we been talking about it? Well, talking is bullshit, we must get to it. Linde, we need to do it. You feel the same way, right? You’ll do it, yes? Mige is in, I’m in, but we need you. Without one of us there is no band. You know that, right?”
He had heard him, and yet, he couldn`t find his voice to answer. ‘Have Ville’s shine’ he recalled thinking when he was ten. Was that what he really wanted? To have his friend`s shine? Yes and no. He wanted that shine, but not the bits he was being offered; he wanted every little sparkle to be his and his alone.
“You know… just before you came I was thinking about that day when we had our war of glitter. Do you remember it? We were ten and doing the most horrible solar system ever. You just threw me this handful of green glitter and…”
And he gave me a bit of his shine, just like he was trying to do now. Yet, Mikko would never tell him that.
“Yeah I remember. And I remember that you weren’t there with me when mom made me clean all of the bloody mess. Some friend you are. But Linde… the band?”
He looked at the brunette’s wrist, no glitter on there. And then it happened, it felt as if he was gluing those sparks on the back of his pendant once again, making sure they would never leave him without their glow. But now, now it felt as if he was about to settle his destiny with nothing but a small clue his soul was demanding for him to give. Moving Ville’s hand to his mouth, he kissed his wrist before releasing it.
“I’ll think about it.”
“Linde… what…?”
“I’ll think about it. You seem tired, get some sleep. Do you mind if I play for a bit? I have this riff in my head…”
“N-no. Play. I mean, it is your room after all.”
Mikko stood up, guitar in his left hand. A break of cold sweat dampened the middle of his back. His hair fell back to hide his face, his right fingers started to caress those imaginary strings that he was crushing in his left hand once again. But something was happening, that melody of a few minutes ago was transforming itself, going from Mikko’s veins to the tips of his fingers, telling a much darker story, one that wasn’t grey and melancholy but pitch-black and painful, having the wire swirls constituting its sound becoming tighter. Sitting down, he settled Asta on his knees and hit the first note. He already knew it by heart.
The Wretched. That was the name of the new riff: The Wretched.
“Eh, Linde? Sorry to interrupt but… didn’t we agree you were taking those bloody glowing stars off your ceiling? Sixteen, Linde; sixteen.”