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Niko’s crow dæmon, Riia, has been staring at Joel for minutes and it’s unnerving.
Joel is waiting in the studio for Niko to get back from where ever he disappeared to quite a while ago. And Riia just won’t stop staring at him, or possibly at his cheetah dæmon Galina who is laying on Joel’s legs where they are sprawling on the couch. Same level of unnerving either way.
The first thing that unnerves him about this situation is that she’s here in the room while Niko is somewhere else. He can’t have gone too far, obviously, but Joel can’t hear him wherever he is. He’s been gone awhile too. Galina goes everywhere with Joel – she’ll jam herself in the smallest hotel bathroom while he showers even if it means she gets a shower too, and a part of the unpleasantness of porta-potties is that she doesn’t fit in them, so there has to be a door between them. He’s seen Aleksi and Louhi be apart like this while one runs off to the bathroom or to grab a coffee or something while the other works but Riia is not doing anything, just perched on a lamp, staring at him.
The second thing that unnerves him about the situation is that Riia is just plain creepy looking sometimes. He’s not a big fan of birds and of course she looks like a bird-dæmon not a bird-bird, but still, she can be unsettling at times – such as now – in a way the dæmons of other people he likes aren’t.
Which leads to the third thing about this situation that unnerves him. He doesn’t know what to make of his relationship with Niko lately. He and Niko had kissed a few times in the last few weeks. Of course, all the guys had kissed each other occasionally (or more than occasionally in the case of Niko and Joonas) when on stage or when drunk for the fun of it. These kisses had felt different, for one thing he hadn’t been drunk the last time and he didn’t think Niko had been either. Also, they had been alone and the kiss had gone on for some time until Niko’s phone had rung. Joel’s not sure how it had happened. That had been last weekend. They’d not talked about anything and Joel wasn’t sure there was anything to talk about but having a staring contest with the physical manifestation of Niko’s soul was bringing those thoughts about their relationship to mind. Joel wasn’t sure what to make of it.
“Uh, hello? Am I interrupting something?”
Joel starts, not having noticed Niko’s return. He’s glancing between Joel and Riia.
Riia flaps over and lands on Niko’s shoulder and whispers something in Niko’s ear. This makes Joel nervous, what is she doing?
Now Riia and Niko are both staring at Joel. “Earth to Joel?”
Joel jumps again. Galina jumps too, knocking the phone out of Joel’s hand. Joel breaks eye contact with Niko to grab for his phone.
“Um nothing, just waiting- waiting for you to get back” Joel mumbles. He feels himself going red and feels like Niko caught in the act of doing something wrong. Not that he has any idea of what he might have done wrong, but he definitely has the feeling.
“Alright,” Niko says slowly. It’s clear Niko thinks something is up. Joel glances up in time to see Niko exchange another look with Riia.
Niko sits down in a chair next to the couch and sips the coffee he’d brought with him. Riia flaps over to perch on the coffee table that’s strewn with notebooks, their laptops, empty coffee cups, and other objects from the day’s attempted song writing session.
Olli and Tommi were in Oulu but the other four were going to try and get some work done. Then Aleksi couldn’t make it due to a family event he’d forgotten about until that morning and then Joonas had left for the day a few minutes ago with some excuse Joel missed because he was already distracted by Riia’s staring. They’d only been working for about an hour and functionally no progress had been made. With just the two of them now, Joel didn’t think they’d actually make any progress at all. Fortunately, it wasn’t urgent.
“Hey, Joel?”
“Uh what?” Joel realizes he’d been spacing out again staring at Riia who was staring at Galina. Or possibly at him, it was really hard to tell with her beady little bird eyes.
“I’d asked if you came up with anything while I was gone,” Niko says, “but I’ll guess by your zoning out that the answer is no. What’s up?”
“Um, uh” Joel stumbles to try to find a coherent thought. He glances at Niko then looks away. “Where were you?”
“Phone call, toilet, coffee – the machine is on the fritz again by the way. You know, the normal reasons one leaves the studio for a moment." Niko says “If this was supposed to answer my ‘what’s up,’ you need to connect your train of thought for me because I don’t follow.”
There is a pause while Joel attempts to form his thoughts into a narrative Niko might understand.
“You don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t want,” Niko continues, more gently “You have been staring at Riia though, so I thought it might be about me.”
“She’s been staring at me! All while you’ve been gone. It’s freakin’ me out.” Joel blurts out.
There’s a pause. “Oh, Riia told me Galina was staring at her,” Niko says. Joel is not sure what to make of his tone of voice and doesn’t want to look at his face.
“Speak up you two, what’s going on,” Niko addresses Riia and Galina. He’s ignoring the norm for not directly addressing other people’s dæmons but then they’re all friends and they do that all the time. Still, Joel has to squash his immediate defensive reaction of someone speaking at all harshly towards Galina.
“I- I-” Galina stumbles over her words and Joel can feel stress that is undeniably hers through their bond. Not that he isn’t separately stressed. Joel starts petting her with the hand that’s been resting on her shoulders this whole time.
“You were staring,” Riia says. She hops to the edge of the coffee table, then opens her wings to flap-hop over to perch on Galina’s back. Joel can feel her muscles tense.
“You’ve been different lately, but especially all today. You kept glancing at me and for the last half hour you’ve been flat-out staring. I don’t have anything on my face.” Riia sounds like she’s pushing for something. She’s using a teasing tone with something more serious underneath.
All the time she’s been talking she’s been slowly walking up Galina’s back. Joel lets his hand drop from Galina’s shoulder to hold her foreleg as Riia approaches; he doesn’t want to risk touching Riia. Joel can feel the anxiety bubbling up in his stomach and his heart is beating fast. He feels a need to move but Galina is lying on his legs and keeping him still. He doesn’t understand what’s going on but every moment is more stressful than that last. But the only way out is through.
“I don’t mind, I even stayed here to be stared at.” Riia says then pauses and continues so quietly Joel barely hears it, and is not sure Niko could, “I think I know. I think you know. But I don’t think they’ve realized yet.”
Riia stops – stops speaking and stops hopping forward. She grabs some of Galina’s thicker neck fur and runs it through her beak. That’s something Joel’s noticed her do with Niko’s hair when Niko is stressed.
“I like you,” Galina says stiffly to Riia, and Joel knows how she means. It strikes him suddenly as she says it, despite having been reflecting on his relationship with Niko earlier. Joel doesn’t know what to make of his feelings towards Niko. He doesn’t know if he feels the same way Galina does and that’s wrong. He and Galina should feel the same; if they don’t, then they’re more mentally fucked than Joel thought. Joel can feel himself going red and he looks at the back of the couch – away from Niko, away from Riia, away from Galina.
His dæmon has decided he should like Niko like that. Of course, he likes Niko – he loves Niko – but he’s not sure he likes him in the way their dæmons seem to mean. Niko is always there in his life, personal and professional. They have the same goals for their music and see the same path to get there, even more so than the others. When on-stage or giving interviews, Niko might as well be his other half; they’re so used to working together. And of course, Niko is attractive, but he’s his bandmate – Joel doesn’t spend time thinking that way about his bandmates. Niko’s fun to be around and they’re usually so comfortable around each other. And then there was the kissing. He doesn’t know what to think about that at all. It was just nice. It had just happened. He’d been happy with the attention. He didn’t worry about it until later and he’d not reached the correct conclusion it seems.
Joel feels a hand on his shoulder.
“Joel?”
Joel sighs. “I don’t know,” he says quietly, “I hadn’t considered it.”
“I’d been trying not to. Apparently our dæmons are ahead of us,” Niko says.
There is a pause and Joel puts his hand on top of the hand Niko has on his shoulder. Niko turns his hand over so they’re clasping hands. Joel is still staring at the back of the couch.
“I do like you. If you want, I’d like to see what this could be,” Niko says.
“I don’t know,” Joel says again, even more quietly. He doesn’t want to disappoint Niko but he’s really confused now. He needs to think about it longer at least.
“Hey, Joel. It’s fine. Whatever you’re comfortable with. There’s no rush to figure this out. I’m not going anywhere”
They sit like that for a moment – Riia leaning against Galina’s neck, Joel holding Niko’s hand with one hand and Galina’s leg with the other.
Then Riia hops up off Galina to fly towards Niko. Her wing clips Joel’s check and hair on the way. Joel hears Niko let out a quiet sigh.
“I don’t think we’ll have much success writing now. Wanna get lunch?” Niko asks, tone back to normal. He gives Joel’s hand a final squeeze and pulls out of his grasp.
“Yeah,” Joel agrees. He’s willing to let Niko pull his thoughts away from this heavy, confusing topic for now. To be sure, he’ll worry about that later. But that can be later. For now, Niko is his friend as he’s been for years.