Type of work: Chapters of In Joy and Sorrow
Genre: Romance, fan fiction
Title: In Joy and Sorrow: Chapter Thirteen, Chain of pain and fear
Author: dreamsinfiction
Fandom: Ville Valo of -H-I-M-
Rating: R
Warning: language, sexuality


Links to previous chapters




Sitting across from Ville, Kat pushed her food around the plate. She hadn't been able to convince her stomach of more than a few bites since they had sat down for dinner. And she couldn't really explain why. Maybe it was all happening too fast. Yes. That was it. It was all too fast.

She had only wanted to meet the band. Not break up an impending marriage. Not wake up right there in his arms. Not have the sounds of the bus lull her asleep. Just get backstage and meet the band.

Oh how far away from that she was.

"Kat?" Ville's voice broke her thoughts. "Kat, are you okay?"

Her eyes snapped to his and she nodded cautiously, "I think so. This has all just happened so fast. I'm not entirely sure how to wrap my brain around it, you know?"

"I think so...." he replied, though his tone suggested that he didn't have a clue.

"A month ago I was sitting in a the only restaurant in town with a map spread on the table. The waitress, a girl I had gone to school with, who's about six months pregnant, well was then, barely talked to me, thinking whatever I was doing was bad or something. Small towns really don't do well with people who look different. You should have seen them when I shaved my hair off. But not the point," Kat digressed. "A month ago I sat in a small town restaurant, polishing my plans to get backstage to meet you and the band. And now I sit in a large town restaurant, across from the sexiest man I've ever met, travelling via his tour bus about the country. This is all very surreal, going from unloved loner to your lover. I just can't.... it's not real, Ville. It can't be. Things like this just don't happen to girls like me."

"Girls like you," he repeated. "And what kind of a girl are you, Kat?"

She thought for a moment, "Broken. Bruised. Battered. Left for dead."

Kat dropped her fork on the plate, "Can we walk somewhere? The walls are starting to get to me."

"Of course, darling."

Puffing on one of Ville's cigs, Kat smirked. Before him she hadn't really smoked at all, only now and then. But with him.... with him she couldn't help it. Handing the cig back to him, she leaned on the back of a bench, her back to the street.

"After my mother died, after we buried her, I returned home one night to find my father swinging from a rope in the barn," she declared. "There was no note, no explanation. But I needed none. I understood because I missed her too. I merely wiped the tears from my eyes, cut him down, and called the county coroner, who also happened to be our next door neighbor. I buried both parents within a week of each other. That alone would be enough to fuck anyone up. But I think I have some of my mom's resilency or something."

Kat paused, looking to the sky for a moment, "You see, my mother was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. But after she got her career and found her lifemate, she wanted nothing to do with the big city. That's why they bought the farm, literally. I was born on that farm, in their bedroom. That farm was my life until I reached school age."

"Mom had given up her job in the city for the farm and to raise me. But when I reached school age, she was enticed back to the city, for money, for the schools, to pursue her career again. So nine months of the year that's where we lived. The summers we spent on the farm.

"Until I started to get in trouble. By age twelve, I had been suspended half a dozen times and expelled once. Always for fighting too. I never really told anyone why I fought, not that they would have listened anyways. Started hanging around kids much older than me too around this time. Which concerned my mother, rightfully so, and she pulled me out of the city schools. Too late, as I was already damaged, but out of the city nonetheless.

"I don't have any grandparents or aunts and uncles. Or if I do, they're still unknown to me to this day. So when my parents both died, I became a ward of the state. For the next five years, I was bounced around that small town from family to family, each one leaving a mark on me, so to speak," she explained.

"Once I hit eighteen and my inheritance was released to me, I left. Found my way to Portland. Worked odd jobs here and there, the only one I consistently held was at a music store, where I was first turned onto HIM. But I lost that job six months ago when I refused to suck the new manager's cock. There was no way I was getting stuck in that cycle again. Had enough of that earlier in life," Kat stated.

"I did graduate high school. And I did graduate from a community college. But that's not really gotten me much of anything. I mean, right now, I've got nothing. I own the farm, but I've not seen it in years. All my other possessions are our hotel room, as I gave up my apartment when I left for Seattle.

Her eyes ventured to his, "I don't have anything in this world right now, Ville, but you. And that scares the shit out of me. Because I know, I just know, something's going to go wrong, and I'm going to end up on my ass in the middle of someplace foreign to me."

Ville held her gaze, "I can promise you right here, right now, Kat. I will fight the world to not see you hurt again. This chain of pain and fear ends here, Kat. Trust me. I won't let you down."

Though she yearned to believe everything he said, Kat couldn't quite accept his words at face value. And so she had remained silent after his promise. Seeing her struggle, Ville too had not spoken, merely staying by her side as she set off to walk the city again. Silence was oftentimes heavy, but not unbearably so with Ville. Maybe it was because she had allowed herself vulnerability around him. She wasn't certain.

"You guys play tomorrow, right?" Kat asked conversationally after a few blocks and a few cigarettes in silence.

He nodded, "That we do. Then it's back on the bus and further south to San Diego."

"How long is this tour?"

"Few months. We'll be done in about seven weeks," he answered.

"And then what?" the question was intended to be about the tour, though both knew she meant what would happen to them.

"We return to Europe. Play the circuit there," Ville replied. "I hope you're still along then. That you won't have tired of me by then."

She stopped, facing him fully, "That is nothing to be concerned with. I don't leave people. They leave me. So you've got me for a very long time."

A smile played with his lips, "I have no intentions of being like any else you've known, Kat."