Becoming

Brighter Than A Thousand Suns

Knowing that Bruce and Emppu would want as much time as possible together before Maiden had to be on the bus in the morning, Dave dressed quickly and laid out the usual sweats and t-shirt outfit to get Ade into. After that, he packed both of their bags and brought them downstairs, leaving them with Steve, who already had his own bags, Nicko's, and Jan's piled on a trolley beside him.

"Since when did I become the bloody bellboy?" Steve laughed as Dave added his bag and Ade's to the pile.

"Since you're the one sitting down here and not Jan," Dave laughed in return. "You know you'd rather mind the bags than try to get Nicko into enough clothes to sleepwalk to the bus."

"S'truth," Steve admitted. "But at least Nicko's finally started giving us a spare key to his room so's we don't have to waste time getting one from the desk. I guess sending the Nightwish sprogs in to jump on him gave him a wakeup call, pun fully intended. Anyway, Jan's better at getting him on his feet and keeping him steady walking, probably cos he's nearly as tall as Nicko is."

"Makes sense," Dave agreed. "Well, I'd best get Ade dressed and moving as well. Don't wanna keep you lot waiting on us once the bus pulls up."

Steve looked as though he was going to say something pithy, but then he looked around the somewhat populated lobby and thought the better of it. "Right, well, off you go, then."

Dave headed for the lift, returning about fifteen minutes later with Ade shuffling alongside him, eyes closed and head resting on his shoulder. He saw Steve and the trolley full of luggage was gone, so he headed straight for the doors. Jan coaxed Nicko up the steps of the bus, with Steve right behind them, while Bruce held little Eeva in one arm and had the other wrapped around Emppu, the two murmuring softly together. He could see Milla talking to a couple of the younger roadies by the crew bus as he guided Ade up the steps and into his bunk. Yawning, he decided to follow his lover's example and crawled into his own bunk for some extra sleep.

*****

Over the next couple of weeks, Dave and Ade both spent quite a bit of time on the phone with their soon-to-be-ex wives or their kids, either hashing out the myriad of little details regarding their divorces or reassuring the kids with regards to custody and visitation. Tamar grew furious and sad when Tasha told her about the bullying she'd been through at Punahou, and the reasons she wanted to live with Dave after the divorce - furious at the teachers and administrators at the school who paid lip service to anti-bullying policies but who in reality turned a blind eye to bullying behavior and only rarely did anything to punish the bullies, and sad that Tasha felt the need to leave the islands altogether to get away from the bullying.

However, Tamar understood that Tasha wanted a fresh start away from the school where she'd been so uncomfortable, only enduring it as she knew that both her parents wanted her to have the best possible education. So, after some heart-to-heart talks with both Tasha and Dave, she agreed to let Dave have primary custody, and to Tasha living wherever he chose to settle. As Tasha herself put it, "I just turned sixteen, Mom, I'm perfectly capable of flying between wherever and here by myself to come visit you."

With those details on their way to being settled, and all the papers signed and filed, both couples just needed to wait out the mandatory separation period before the divorces became final. Unfortunately, that left Dave and Ade with the problem of where to go for the upcoming tour break between the end of the North American leg and Download and the start of the summer European tour. The couple sat in the back lounge of the bus, discussing the problem.

"I'm just... not sure where go," Ade confessed. "Sure, I could go visit mum or whatever, but I really want to spend the break with you, Davey. The problem is, where can we go that we'll not be spotted by paparazzi and questioned."