A/N: Just for reference, I've actually listened to some of Nightwish's stuff in the past. Although I don't care for their pre-2007 stuff, I'm particularly fond of their next-to-last album Dark Passion Play, which I was listening to while writing this, and their last album to date, Imaginaerum.

Make no mistake, though. The opinion I gave Andy of their works midway through the chapter and toward the end is my own. I have no idea what his opinion of their works would be, if he's even heard of them, so I wanted to clarify that.
~Cyn


Three weeks later, Ash was beginning to get fed up with the sharp eye his husband was keeping on him. He knew he was doing it because he loved him and didn’t want to see anything happen to him, or worse yet, the baby, but it was annoying all the same. He was such an independent person at heart that he couldn’t stand someone watching over his shoulder like a child who’d burn themselves trying to bake a cake without parental supervision. It’d been a pet-peeve of his since long before he’d met his lover, and it’d stuck with him to this day, as well as apparently rubbed off on Rori a bit.

His twenty-sixth birthday was in two days, and he wanted to feel like the independent twenty-six-year-old he’d be for the next year after that day, not some invalid, despite being pregnant. With a sigh, he stretched out on their bed for a nap, hoping to get some alone time to cope with his thoughts. Not once had he thought about harming himself or his loved ones, but he just needed time to think right now.

When he finally managed to get comfortable, considering what a chore that was while pregnant, he heard his husband’s footsteps on the staircase. Ash somehow managed to suppress a groan of annoyance, knowing that he wasn’t trying to be annoying. Just as he closed his eyes to avoid getting caught rolling them, he heard their bedroom door click shut and felt the bed dip beside him moments later. The sensation of his husband’s arm wrapping around him and the gentle kiss he felt get pressed to his temple made him smile slightly.

“You okay, mio deviante?” Andy asked softly, knowing he wasn’t asleep yet.

“Ask me that again, and you’ll never be able to piss without a catheter again,” he growled, sick of him asking that same question.

“Yikes, babe.” He heard his husband wince. “I didn’t mean to piss you off.”

“Well, ya know, I’m sick of being asked if I’m all right,” Ash snapped, glaring at him in the mirror. “I’m sick of being watched like a hawk like I’m a suicide risk. It’s annoying as Hell, even though I know you mean well by it and are only doing it because you love me.”

“Ashes, you’ve gotta see things from my perspective,” his lover said, sighing. “When your sodium and potassium levels dropped and it landed you in the hospital, I was scared to Death that I was gonna lose you. You’re my other half, and if that were to happen, the only thing that’d keep me from ending my life to join you would be our children. Ever since the day I met you, and especially after we got married, I’ve felt like that, but your close call nailed that point home.”

“You’d really die for me? Whether you were protecting me, or ending your own life?” the bassist asked in shock.

“Why the Hell do you think I wrote the song ‘Die for You’?” Andy countered. “There are times that you do things to break my heart, whether you know it or not, yet I overlook and move past them. I love you with every fiber of my being, and I would die for you, regardless of the reason.”

“Ti amo molto, mio profeta,” he said, turning his head for a gentle kiss. “And just so you know, I’d die for you, too.”

“I’m sorry that I’ve been annoying you, though.” He scooted closer to spoon him so he wouldn’t make him uncomfortable now that he was finally comfortable. “I just don’t wanna have another scare like that, or I wouldn’t ask.”

“It’s fine, my love. I shouldn’t have snapped at you like I did,” Ash told him.

“It’s okay, tesoro. You have every right to be annoyed, and besides, your hormones are out of whack.” He gently kissed the nape of his neck, then moved his hands down low enough to massage his back.

“Mmm. You’re too good to me,” he groaned.

Chuckling softly, Andy kept rubbing his back until he dozed off for the nap he’d obviously wanted, then laid still until he was sure he was asleep. He was planning on throwing him a small birthday party, which included dinner and a movie, but he wasn’t sure if they’d go out or stay in. With him being pregnant, he wasn’t sure he wanted to take him out, just in case some hater or crazed fan tried to hurt him or the baby, but he didn’t quite think it was fair to keep him cooped up all the time simply because of that.

Once sure his sweetheart wouldn’t wake up, he gently crawled off the bed and headed back downstairs. Even though he was tired and wanted a nap himself, he had three little ones who were bound to be up soon that kept him hopping. He couldn’t bring himself to neglect them just so he could sleep, especially not with a fourth on the way.

He chuckled wryly as he recalled his mother telling him that, once one has a child, one never gets enough sleep the rest of their life. She’d only had one child and had been proven right by that, so having three with another on the way only worsened it. Course, the twins were unplanned, not that they’d have opted for an abortion, unless it was to save Ash’s life, or adoption, anyway. They loved their children, planned or unplanned, too much to do such a thing to them, and they proved that every day. Besides, he didn’t know what kind of man or father he’d be if he agreed to either of those options if it weren’t a life-saving measure.

“Daddy,” a little voice said, drawing him from his thoughts.

“What is it, Princess?” he asked, looking down at his older daughter.

“Can we go to the music room and sing?” Rori countered, looking cute as a button. “I can’t sleep, but I don’t wanna wake Mommy or the twins up.”

“Did you even try to take a nap?” Andy asked her, lifting her up onto his hip.

“I tried, but I couldn’t fall asleep,” she answered pitifully.

Looking at the clock, he realized it’d been an hour since he put the kids down for their naps, and she was usually asleep within half an hour. “All right, Princess. We can go to the music room and sing for a little while.”

Sighing softly enough that she didn’t hear it, the young singer walked down the hall toward the back of the house, where the studio and his mother’s suite were. Amy was in her office working, likely on something with Sammi for Ash’s clothing line, which had come out last year. Even if she weren’t a deaf-mute, they wouldn’t have disturbed her because they were going to be in the soundproof booth, which was exactly why he’d gotten it in the first place.

With his daughter on his lap, Andy sat down on the lone stool that was kept in there for the times that vocals were being tracked unless the guys wanted to stand for that or didn’t bring a strap with them. He’d fired up the equipment as they passed through the studio to the booth, so it was ready to go. Despite how immature her voice sounded, due to her young age, Rori was a talented vocalist in her own right, and they were working on teaching her how to play at least one instrument. So far, Jinxx’d had the most luck with guitar, as most anything else was either too big for her to handle, or too complicated to understand.

The little girl he loved more than life itself decided she wanted to sing the song they’d used as her lullaby since her birth, Saviour. He had no problems with that and waited until she was ready, then used the laptop he kept in the booth to start the music. It was a version from before the vocals had been tracked, that way she could hit her own notes since she wouldn’t be able to go as low as he could. Just as he’d suspected she would, his baby girl sang the song beautifully, not even realizing that he’d set it to record so he could play her own vocals back for her. What she’d do after she was done with Saviour would shock him, though, as it would show just how talented she truly was.

“What else do you wanna do, sugar?” Andy asked curiously after playing the recording of her vocals back to her.

“Have you ever heard the song For the Heart I Once Had by Nightwish, Daddy?” she countered, looking up at him with the same chocolate eyes her mama had.

“Nightwish?” he asked, confused yet curious.

“It’s a Finnish symphonic power metal band,” Rori explained. “They’re part heavy metal, like your band, but have some more symphonic sounding songs because they actually use a full symphony.”

“Oh, really now?” He thought for a moment, but couldn’t ever recall hearing of the band, much less their works.

“Look it up online,” she insisted. “I like that song, as well as the entire album it’s from.”

Nodding his agreement, he started Googling the song she’d requested, knowing that if she knew it well enough to want to sing it, she’d recognize it when she heard it. The first couple links he tried led to dead ends, or songs that weren’t the one he was looking for, but he finally managed to find it. He knew he’d found it when his little girl started gently bumping her heel against his shin in time to the music, and chuckled softly.

“Heaven today is but a way to a place I once called home. Heart of a child, one final sigh, as another love goes cold. Once my heart beat to the rhythm of the fallin’ snow. Blackened below, the river now flows, a stream of molten virgin snow. For the heart I’ll never have, for the child forever gone. The music flows because it longs for the heart I once had,” she sang, hitting every note perfectly. “Living today without a way to understand the weight of the world. Faded and torn, old and forlorn, my weak and hoping heart…”

Flabbergasted by just how vast the little girl’s vocal range was for her age, Andy could only sit there in shock as she continued to sing along with the song. Once she finished that song, she found the opening song for that album, which was apparently called Dark Passion Play, and he was even more shocked to find out that it was a fourteen-minute monster. He managed to close his mouth as he thought that if he’d ever written a fourteen-minute song, the rest of the guys would’ve skinned him alive for that. But as he listened to this monster, as well as his daughter’s beautiful voice, he realized that, although this wasn’t BVB’s thing and probably never would be, it worked for this band.

When she finally finished the monster she was singing along with, Rori stopped singing altogether, finally worn out enough for a nap. Thankfully, it was only one in the afternoon, so if he let her take one now, she wouldn’t be up too late tonight. Andy gently cradled her to his chest as he carried her upstairs, chuckling softly when she fell asleep in his arms. He gently tucked her into bed and kissed her temple before leaving her room, the door cracked slightly behind him. He checked on the twins and his husband before going back down to the studio, wanting to hear more of this band his daughter’d introduced him to.

“What is this fuckery?” he gasped, listening to their debut album from back in the late-nineties. They had a completely different leading lady, one who used operatic vocals, and if there was one thing that got on his nerves in the musical world, it was opera.

“What’s wrong, mio profeta?” he heard behind him.

“Sweet Jinxx!” Andy cried softly, slapping a hand to his chest. “You were still asleep when I went to put Rori down again a few minutes ago, mio deviante.”

“And I got woken up by a kick to my full bladder,” Ash grumbled. “But what’s being categorized as fuckery in here?”

“Just listen to this,” he said, unplugging the headphones he’d been using.

He took a seat in the padded office chair beside him and waited patiently while he restarted the opening song, entitled Elvenpath, and turned up the volume. With the first note the woman hit, Ash was cringing as bad as he’d been, soon reaching up to cover his ears as he scrunched one eye closed while he kept the other trained on his husband.

Andy started laughing as he paused the song, knowing he’d probably had a similar look on his face. “Lemme guess…your thoughts are the same as mine, aren’t they?”

“Damn straight,” he answered, uncovering his ears. “Why on Earth were you listening to that?”

“Because Rori had me listen to a couple of their other songs from a newer album called Dark Passion Play, which are called The Poet and the Pendulum and For the Heart I Once Had, respectively,” the frontman answered. “If you ask me, their newer album is a helluva lot better than this.”

“Lemme hear it and make the judgment for myself, mio profeta,” Ash told him.

Grinning, he started the opening track to the album he’d just named, quickly warning him that it was a fourteen-minute monster. He nodded, wondering what it would be like to have to track and perform a song like that live, but still listened intently. It was almost as if the older man was entranced by a siren’s wail as Nightwish’s second leading lady started to sing, although he mouthed “What the Hell is she saying?” to him.

Quickly, Andy pulled up the band’s website and discovered that they posted their lyrics on it. It didn’t take him long to find the album he needed, and as soon as he clicked on the image for its cover art, the lyrics to the song he’d been playing popped up. They both focused on the screen as he allowed the song to play, reading the lyrics as the woman sang them, and realized that, like the rest of the band, she was foreign. Her accent was what had kept them from understanding the lyrics clearly, but once they started reading them, it wasn’t hard to keep up at all.

By the end of the song, Ash was wanting to hear more, apparently liking their newer work much better than what was on their debut album. He chuckled softly as he let the next song start, having downloaded all of Dark Passion Play so he could listen to it in its entirety. The next few songs weren’t half bad, either, although they both agreed that the sixth one on the album, entitled Eva, was too slow and depressing for them. Other than that, though, they couldn’t really say anything bad.

“What about the next album?” his sweetheart asked, now that they’d finished all of the one they were listening to.

“I think it’s pronounced ‘imaginarium’,” Andy answered, clicking on its cover art to get the lyrics.

“What is this fuckery?” Ash asked, confused as he tried to read the lyrics to the opening song. “This isn’t even English!”

“Well, they’re a Finnish band,” he told him. “It wouldn’t surprise me if they wrote some of their stuff in Finnish from time to time.”

“Find the actual song,” the bassist demanded. “I wanna hear it so I can figure out how to pronounce this mess.”

“Sounds good to me,” he chuckled. “It’ll drive me crazy, too, if I don’t.”

The rest of their afternoon was spent listening to more of Nightwish’s music before the twins and Rori woke from their naps. As he listened to their works, he figured that it was probably Jinxx who’d gotten his little girl hooked on them in the first place, considering how much violin he heard in some of their songs, especially ones like Last of the Wilds. Like he’d said upon listening to Dark Passion Play all the way through, Imaginaerum wasn’t half bad, especially since the leading lady on it had used a melodic style rather than an operatic one.

This made him consider adding a bit more of a symphonic sound to their future works, especially songs that sounded quite a bit like Saviour and Overture. As a musician, he knew the importance of shaking things up a bit from time to time, and Ash agreed with him wholeheartedly. The only thing they’d have to do was get Jinxx on board since he played more symphonic instruments than anyone they could think of.

By the time they were ready for bed, neither of them could get the melodies from Nightwish’s next-to-last album out of their heads and decided to play it overnight while they slept. After starting a burnt copy of the album, Andy crawled into bed behind his sweetheart, spooning him once he was comfortable and settled. He heard a soft sigh as he felt him snuggle up to him, knowing it wouldn’t be long before he fell asleep. He gently kissed his temple, earning another soft sigh from Ash, before laying his head down on his own pillow. Not even halfway through The Poet and the Pendulum, he fell into a deep, restful slumber.

Notes