Type of work: Chapters of In Joy and Sorrow
Genre: Romance, fan fiction
Title: In Joy and Sorrow: Chapter Four, Angel behind those eyes
Author: dreamsinfiction
Fandom: Ville Valo of -H-I-M-
Rating: PG-13
Warning: mild swearing
Summary: Did they become more than drinking buddies?
Disclaimer: There's a reason it's fiction, my dears. ;-)

Links to previous chapters


Curled up in a rather large chair, Kat watched Ville move around the room. They had breakfasted in peace and still had yet to hear from anyone. Well not anyone. As Ville was currently on the phone with his fiancee. He had obviously picked up that Kat knew little Finnish, so the conversation was mostly spoken in that language. Every once in awhile she would understand a word or two, but mostly what she watched was body language. That at least was easier to understand.

Placing her chin on her knees, which were tucked under the shirt, she smirked when Ville looked in his now empty cig pack, finding it empty. By her count he had smoked six since answering the phone. That alone told her things probably weren't going so well on the phone. With each pass of his pace, Kat became a little more uncomfortable to be sitting in his hotel room in nothing but a tee shirt and her panties. She assumed she could just 'borrow' some of Ville's clothes if hers never turned up, as they had yet to materialize, but she wasn't entirely sure it would be right to be rifling through his luggage at that moment.

Suddenly Ville was standing in front of her. His cell phone had been discarded on the other side of the room, laying on its side, practically staring at her. Her eyes flicked up to his and she was a bit surprised to see the intensity of his gaze. And had no clue what it meant.

"Ville?"

He squatted in front of her, placing his hands on her knees, "Do you know how wonderful it was to wake in the middle of the night with you curled up beside me?"

Her cheeks flushed at that, "I... I.... no... I don't think.... I...."

Ville smiled crookedly, his right hand reaching to touch her cheek briefly before returning to resting upon her knee, "You're so sweet and .... innocent. And not fake at all. I detest fake people."

"I... thank you," she breathed.

"You are a gift, Kat."

Words could not express how she felt when he said that, not at all. No one had ever made her feel special, important, anything before, just invisible. And she knew as she looked at him that they weren't just words he was muttering, but something he really meant. Because of that a single tear slinked down her cheek.

This caused Ville's face to fill with concern, his hand leaving her knee to catch the lone tear, "Why do you cry, sweetheart?"

"No one... no one has ever said anything as sweet as that to me before," Kat replied, barely audibly.

"Then they are all fools to not see you as I do," he claimed. "Do not shed another tear for them. They are not worthy."

"I...." her eyes dropped away from his, looking down at his hands.

He tilted her head back up, "You know who I was on the phone with, yes?"

Kat nodded.

"I will not go into detail of the conversation, but I will say, you have shown me more in the short time I have known you than... let us just say, I would rather not find your dress and have you walk out of this room," he declared.

Again Ville had struck Kat speechless. Had their drunken night of reverie meant that much to him? Or was it the waking next to a girl he did not really know? Or was there more he was not telling her?

"I don't have to leave.... if you don't want me to," she finally managed to say.

He smiled slightly, "I do not. I would love to spend more time with you, get to know the angel behind those eyes."

Melting. She was certainly melting. Becoming a human puddle in that chair.

"But don't you have to leave yourself? Get on the road for the next show?" she asked, trying to figure out when the dream was going to end.

"We have another day of downtime scheduled here," Ville replied, sadness touching his voice. "And then yes, we will have to leave. Travel down the road to another world. What of you, Kat?"

Her eyes wavered, "I have no where to really go from here. I have not a family to return to anymore and only an empty house where they once lived. I suppose... I suppose I go back and try to start some sort of life."

She saw questions in his eyes, but when his mouth did not voice them, she was rather grateful. She was not ready for those kind of conversations as of yet. It was better to keep the conversations closer to superficial than heartfelt. Though she knew in the depths of her soul that would not be a forever thing.

"Then let us spend today and tomorrow making memories to look back upon the rest of our lives," Ville declared, standing. "Which would include finding you something other than that shirt to wear."

He kissed her forehead briefly before heading over to his wardrobe. Opening it, Kat heard the sounds of hangers scraping along the closet bar. She shifted in the chair some to attempt to see what he was looking at, but to no avail.

"This will do well enough to get you to where you are staying and retrieve your own clothes," he stated, bringing over a different shirt and a pair of jeans. "You will probably swim in these."

Kat chuckled as she accepted the clothing, "And what would you have us do today? So I know what to change into at my hotel."

"Hotel? You're staying in a hotel," he stated a thought crossing his mind. "You should check out and stay here. With me. No sense in you wasting money paying for a room you are not using."

Her mouth fell open, "You want... you want.... you want me to stay here? Even though I li—"

He placed his finger upon her mouth, "Yes. I do. Now dress while I go tell the guys and see what they were thinking of doing today.... provided they are not too hung over."

Her hazel eyes stared at the door for a few breaths after Ville disappeared through it. How had her plan to meet the band end up with her staying the night... more than one night with Ville? How would she ever live this down? She had gone from fan to friend over the course of a night and he was asking her to stay longer with him. How could she even consider saying no?

Barely finishing dressing when the door opened again, her left hand holding the pants up, she smiled at Ville. In his hands were her boots. But just her boots.

"These I found. Gas had them. Why I have no clue. Your dress.... no one seems to know where it is," he commented, holding the boots out.

Taking one by one, and setting them on the ground before plopping down, intending to take out the laces to use to hold up the pants, her eyes went from the boots to Ville, "No one knows where my dress is? How could we lose a dress?"

"I do not even know how we managed to walk into the right hotel room, so I cannot answer that question," he answered, eyes twinkling.

She grinned at him, her fingers looping her shoelaces through the beltloops on her borrowed pants, "We got really trashed last night, didn't we? I don't think I've ever woken up and not remembered the night before."

He smirked, "Bits and pieces will start to come back, I'm certain."

"Perhaps," she replied, tying the laces in a bow before standing up to make certain it had indeed worked. "This isn't going to work very long. So let's hurry to my room."