Endlessly

Ville gently stroked Emilia’s long dark hair as she rested against him. He looked down at her and smiled, glad that at least one of them could enjoy a peaceful moment. He braced against a bump that the van they were in rolled over and then turned his attention to the darkness outside the vehicle.

It had been a long day but ultimately they were able to finish filming with plenty of time to vacate the area before the predicted storms had a chance to move in. He was happy with the end result, which was surprising to him considering how distracted he’d felt all day. All he had wanted to do was make a call to his real estate agent and find somewhere else to live, and fast, before Jonna had a chance to move into his building. The last thing he needed was for her to start impeding on the progress that he and Emilia were making.

He looked around at his band mates, all snoozing with the exception of Mige who sat hawk eyed and alert as the van made its way down the snowy road. He hated not being in control of the vehicle in such conditions and would likely not sleep until they reached Helsinki in the early morning hours.

As though feeling Ville's gaze, Mige turned around and made eye contact with his friend. Ville watched as Mige's eyes slid down toward where Emilia rested and a small smile formed on his face. The two exchanged a knowing glance before Mige spoke.

"So are you two done being idiots?"

"I wasn't aware we were being such a thing," Ville replied as he continued stroking Emilia's hair.

"Well, you aren't," Mige corrected. "With the exception of the Jonna thing but I think that was mostly Bam's fault."

"That was both of our faults."

Mige shrugged. "Either way, is she done being an idiot?"

Ville chuckled softly, so as to not disturb anyone who was sleeping. "She's just stubborn, Mige. You know that. She'll come around and when she does, I'll be here."

"So she's not done?"

Ville smiled and shook his head. "I think we made great progress this weekend. We didn't talk about it, we just enjoyed each other with no pressure."

Mige smirked mischievously. "Enjoyed each other, huh?"

Ville rolled his eyes. "Not that kind of enjoyed, you pervert. She's practically a sister to you. Shouldn't you be defending her virtue or something?"

"I think the time for that has long passed," Mige answered, an eyebrow raised high on his forehead.

"Could you guys talk about something else? Literally anything else," Emilia chirped from where she lay on Ville's lap.

Mige emitted a booming laugh, earning some disgruntled rumblings from the other passengers in the car. "Sorry to wake you, Em."

Emilia sat up and straightened her hair as best she could. She wished she could have slept but the troubling news she’d been delivered earlier that day had kept her wide awake. Still, she wasn’t about to deny herself the comfort Ville had provided by running his fingers through her hair. It was in times like these that she felt the two of them could eventually overcome any obstacles, however, reality had an unfortunate habit of setting in every time.

“I wasn’t really asleep,” she said with a shrug and turned to Ville with a soft smile. He looked disappointed that he hadn’t managed to lull her to sleep but he returned her smile anyway.

Mige seemed suddenly self-conscious. “So uh…you heard everything?”

“Yes and I don’t appreciate being called an idiot, you jerk.”

“Sorry, Em.” Mige replied solemnly as he hung his head in remorse. Emilia smiled, letting her friend know that all was forgiven.

The ride continued on in relative silence save for the whispers sometimes exchanged between differing members of the group as they fell in and out of sleep. Emilia stayed wide awake however, turning the weekend’s events over in her mind. She rested her head against Ville’s shoulder as he snored softly. He would periodically wake and proclaim that he had in fact not been sleeping – though no one had accused him of it. Emilia stroked the back of his hand gently, enjoying the feeling of his soft hands beneath her fingertips and thought that she could be happy like this forever.
’Then be with him, stupid.’ She could hear Essi’s voice in her head as though her sister were actually there. Throughout the weekend, she had thought about calling her sister on more than one occasion but ultimately didn’t, knowing exactly what her sister would say to her. She’d tell her to hang up the phone and do what she’d gone there to do – figure things out with Ville. If only it had been that easy.

This adventure had only seemed to further complicate things for Emilia, muddying the lines between what could be and what actually was. As though sensing her conflict, Ville flipped his hand and captured her fingers with his own and lacing them together.

“You haven’t slept at all have you?” He whispered in her ear, sending chills down her spine.

“No, not yet. I have a lot on my mind.”

She peered outside the window, she hadn’t realized how long they’d been driving for. The dawn was beginning to creep over the horizon and they were nearing the outer limits of Helsinki. Soon she’d be warm in her own bed and free to sleep the day away if her thoughts would allow it.

Ville cleared his throat and looked around at the other people in the vehicle. This particular conversation was best kept from their ears and so his questions died in his mouth and he instead asked a new one.

“Would you like to stay over?” Emilia looked at him with her brows knitted together. He smirked at her reaction and squeezed her hand gently. “I’m just not ready to let you go yet.”

“It’s already morning, Essi will wonder where I am…”

“That’s the magic of telephones, darling.”

Emilia pursed her lips and nodded. This would give them a much needed opportunity to talk and there were more than a few things that Emilia needed assurance on. Ville grinned at her response and she couldn’t help but to return it. It warmed her heart to see him happy.

She was such a fool.



Ville opened the door to his apartment and immediately regretted having had Emilia come over without cleaning up first. He’d completely forgotten that Bam and the crew had been over and to say the place was trashed would have been the understatement of the century. He turned red-faced to apologize to her for the state of things but she giggled and covered her hand with her mouth.

“Shall we spend the day tidying up?”

He opened his mouth to protest but she silenced him by laying a finger against his lips. “I’ll sleep better knowing that we aren’t napping in filth. Come on, I’ll grab the dishes if you get rid of all these beer cans.”

Taking the hair tie from around her wrist, Emilia gathered her hair into a messy bun atop her head and began to pick up the various cups and plates scattered about the living room. She watched Ville walk into the kitchen with a shake of his head and a smirk on his face. He emerged moments later with a roll of garbage bags and set about collecting the numerous empty cans that littered the entire place.

“You really don’t have to do this,” Ville protested once more as he picked up a can full of cigarette stubs. He wrinkled his nose at the scent of old beer and cigarettes before putting the it in the garbage with the rest.

“Trust me, I do.” Emilia moved a pillow from its place on the couch and found a pair of discarded boxers wrapped around a photo of Ville and Jesse. “Do I want to know?”

Ville looked over at what she gestured to and laughed. “Steve-O was pretty upset that Jesse didn’t want to come over, so he came up with the next best thing.”

“So…he wanted your brother to come over and party in only his underwear?”

“Trust me, it was a fight to have him leave the rest of his clothes on. We compromised with underwear.”

Emilia raised an eyebrow. “You have weird friends.”

Ville came over, picked the frame up and shook the boxers into the garbage bag. “True enough.”

Emilia giggled and took her stack of dishes to the kitchen where she settled them carefully in the sink and began to run the hot water. She looked around for soap and was frustrated to find nothing nearby. Leaning down, she opened the cabinet below the sink and found her prize along with a stash of unopened sponges. She smirked and took the things she needed and righted herself before beginning her work.

“Usually I just make them use paper plates. These are the consequences of having a friend like Bam, I suppose. I should really just be more prepared for him to drop in at any given moment and demand a party.”

Ville set his bag down and made his way to Emilia and wrapped his arms around her waist, hugging her from behind. He felt her stiffen briefly but she soon relaxed against him, allowing him to bury himself against her neck. She relaxed against him and set down the dish she had been scrubbing pizza sauce off of.

“You’re distracting me, Valo.”

“Good then my evil plans are working,” he murmured huskily in her ear causing a shiver to roll down her spine.

Emilia smirked. “You’re just trying to get out of cleaning this place.”

He removed himself from around her and groaned, leaning against the opposite counter. “Yes, I hate cleaning. Usually I just invite Linde and Manna over enough that they do it for me.”

“You’re a horrible friend,” she laughed as she set the clean plate in the drying rack. “Go, I’ll be done with these in a minute and then I’ll come and help you with the garbage.”

Ville made a few noises indicating his displeasure with having to clean, but he gathered his garbage bag once more and headed back into the living room to continue picking up trash. He would really need to hire someone to do this the next time that Bam came to town.

Emilia worked quickly at cleaning the dishes. Luckily they weren’t completely destroyed as it seemed they had only been used for pizza and beer, and no one had been drunk enough to use them as a place to relieve themselves. Once she’d finished with her task she took a peek in on Ville who had apparently worked double time at cleaning up the living room. The full garbage bag stood tied up in a corner near the front door and Ville looked quite pleased with himself, albeit, slightly disgusted by the things he’d found.

“I’m never allowing Steve-O in my house again,” he firmly declared with a shudder.

“That’s probably for the best honestly,” Emilia replied as she grabbed another empty garbage bag. “Come on, bathroom and then bedroom and then we can sleep.”

Ville followed her as she showed herself through the various doors in the hallway. First, into a closet but then into his bedroom. He looked around and wondered how long it had been since he’d actually slept in his own bed. The sheets were still in messy disarray and it was then that he recalled the last person to sleep in his bed had been…

“Should I assume this is part of your new casual wardrobe or is it that they don’t belong to you?”

Ville closed his eyes tightly and restrained himself from pinching the bridge of his nose. When he reopened then he found Emilia standing before him, her face made of stone, holding a bra dangling by the strap between her fingers. He could tell by her tone that she was less than impressed and the way her blue eyes pierced his flesh could have brought him to his knees.

“Jonna stayed in here when everyone was here,” Ville answered. “She must have forgotten it.”

“Mm. I thought you said nothing happened between the two of you while she was here.”

“Finding her dirty laundry is enough to make me a liar? That’s hardly fair, Emilia. You know better than to think I wouldn’t tell you the truth about that.”

“You know better than to leave evidence lying around,” she spat as she dropped the lacy undergarment into the garbage bag. He could see her seething beneath the surface of granite she presented to him. He shook his head in disbelief and threw his hands up.

“Two steps fucking forward and ten steps back, is that it?” Ville was surprised by the sharpness of his own tone but a combination of a lack of sleep and frustration with the woman standing before him had depleted his self-control.

“What do you mean?” She countered with venom dripping from her own mouth.

“This weekend was perfect, Em. It was like…” He stopped himself and took a deep breath to ease the shaking of his hands. “It was like things are supposed to be. Like we were together and happy, not like we are now with all of this…this bullshit. You keep creating problems where they don’t need to be.”

Emilia scoffed. “I find another woman’s lingerie in your bed, a woman with whom you’ve slept with fairly recently I might remind you, and you expect that I’ll just be cool with it?”

“No, but I expect you to believe me when I say that I didn’t fuck her while she was here. For crying out loud, I spent the night on that god forsaken couch out there so that she wouldn’t get the wrong idea.”

“Worked out well, didn’t it?” She replied harshly.

“You’re ridiculous, do you know that? Do you not want to be with me, is that it? Do you hate me so much for abandoning you all those years ago that now you’ll just dangle me on a string and torture me with the possibility that you’ll be mine one day?”

She dropped the bag from her hands and planted her hands on her hips. “Now who’s ridiculous? You think I would put myself through that? Do you know how miserable I was without you last week?”

“Then why do you fight me? Why do you find a way for us to not be together in every little thing that happens?”

The stone façade began to crack and Ville watched it with his own eyes as her stubbornness wavered. She was still on the defensive and he knew it well, but he could see her beginning to doubt her reasoning for it.

“Because, Ville.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. “You’re only going to hurt me.”

“Why do you think that?” His own voice softened but by no means did the fire within him die down. He was ready for this to be over, he was ready for things to change.

“You’ve done it before.”

A quiver in her voice and the armor she wore around herself fell away as she sat down in a chair near the window. She would not look at him, she simply stared steadily at her hands as though ignoring his presence in the room would cause him to disappear. He made his way toward her and took her by the chin, turning her face to meet his.

“Then let me make up for it.”

He pressed his lips to hers with such urgency that it took her breath away. Hot tears escaped their confines and tumbled their way down her cheeks as she moved her mouth against his. As soon as he received the response he wanted, he stooped down and picked her up from the chair all the while never breaking their kiss. Her arms wrapped around his neck as he carried her to the bed where he lay her down and continued to kiss her feverishly. He couldn’t get enough of her in that moment and she couldn’t continue to deny him any more of herself than she already had.

He broke away from her, his lips hovering just barely over hers. “Let me spend every day of the rest of our lives making up for it.”

She let out a whimper that he quickly silenced by placing his mouth on hers once more and she placed her hands on the side of his face. He pushed her to deepen their kiss and she quickly obliged him, allowing their tongues to dance in a way they hoped their bodies might be doing very shortly. He pressed himself against her leg and she groaned into his mouth, feeling herself growing very impatient.

“Promise me,” she said as she broke their kiss. She placed her hands on the hem of his shirt, ready to cross a line from which they could never return.

“Emilia, I swear on everything that I hold dear – I will never hurt you again.”

She captured his mouth once more before tugging his shirt off and tossing it to the other side of the room. He began his own work on removing her sweater and then wiggling out of his jeans, all the while sneaking rushed kisses and touches of Emilia’s now bare stomach. She was still such an incredible sight to behold, he never doubted she’d be anything less.

“I love you, Ville.”

“I love you, Em. Don’t ever forget that.”