In Joy and Sorrow

“No!” Anna was screaming and running away from Kosmo who was chasing her with a spider cupped between his hands, cackling madly as he followed her around and through their friends. It was late at night but they didn’t bother with keeping their voices down, nearly every restaurant and bar was crawling with other bands as rambunctious and noisy as their small group. Rob had decided to retire with Tilo back to the hotel which left the group with Anna, Ville, Kosmo, Linde, and Joakim. The others had peeled off to join in at bars and clubs as they had passed, and while Anna was reluctant to let them out of her sight, the other bands that were in town were causing nearly as much destruction as she knew her friends were capable off and worried a little less.

Anna ducked around Linde and tried to shove Joakim into Kosmo, but the large Swedish man was as dense as he looked and hardly budged, causing Anna precious seconds in her flee from the spider. She had always hated spiders, being a typical woman that would hide on her bed and scream for someone else to kill the eight legged abominations. So when Kosmo had decided to pick up a little friend from the side of a building Anna had all but fled right then, causing the current chase they were in now.

She weaved through their group a few more times before she ducked behind Ville and clutched his coat to her, using him as a shield. “Ville!” She whined looking over his shoulder at an approaching Kosmo who was sporting an evil grin. “Make him stop!” Her voice was shrill as Kosmo ducked to the left and Anna pulled Ville the same way to keep her human shield between them. Throughout their wandering Anna and Ville had talked quite a bit, him asking questions about her career, and her asking about his, often hearing facts she already knew, but she smiled at the fact that they were coming from his lips and not from a computer screen.

Ville chuckled and shook his head at their antics but did nothing to stop what was going on. “Since when am I the keeper of him?” He questioned looking over his shoulder at her but her gaze was focused on Kosmo making sure he didn’t try and find away around her defense.

“Since you’re older than him and the leader of HIM.” Anna defended sticking her tongue out at Kosmo who merely answered her taunt by lunging at her again and she screamed pulling Ville closer and hiding in his back. She could hear Linde and Joakim laughing in the background, obviously they found great humor in the pursuit.

Kosmo began circling them and Anna rotated her and Ville to keep her shield in place, in a sudden movement her attacker broke for the right in a run and then faked back to the left, Anna being too slow to stop the motion since she was directing two people. Kosmo was nearly to her when he tripped over his feet and went down hard, Anna wincing at his impact before the mother hen in her took over. Abandoning her shield and the memory of the disgusting spider she rushed over, fretting over him as he got back to his feet, checking for blood, feeling for a head injury, asking if anything felt broken of sprained.

“I’m fine Anna!” Kosmo assured her as she finally stepped back finding nothing out of place other than a few scrapes and a new hole in his jeans. “Except for,” Anna’s attention snapped back to him. “I do have something on my hand.” He dragged his hand down the side of her jacket and she was met with the sight of blood and crushed spider legs. She was out of her jacket in less than a second, throwing it as far as she could before she took off running towards the hotel, screaming at the top of her lungs, the loud laughter of her friends chasing her up the road.

The next morning Anna was rudely awakened by her cellphone blaring against her ear, Ville’s lovely voice trying to pull her from sleep. Her hand smacked around for a moment until it came in contact with the offending device and she fiddled with it blindly for a moment before it fell blissfully silent. She gave a soft sigh and snuggled into her pillow once more feeling her groggy mind start to slip back into sle- the little device blared to life again under her fingers. Without thought she once again pressed whatever button from before to silence her phone. There wasn’t even a moment of silence before it once again began to sing to her and she finally lifted her face from her pillow and looked at the offending device, her bleary eyes trying to focus on the too bright screen.

“What?” Was all she greeted the person calling with, letting her head fall back against the pillow after she placed it on speaker phone.

“Good morning to you too sleeping beauty.” Tilo’s chuckle from the other end was annoying rather than endearing as it usually was.

“What do you need Tilo?” She stressed trying to keep the cocoon of sleep still bundled around her mind but the longer she was on the phone the more she could feel it slip away.

“I was wondering when you were going to get your ass out of bed so we can go get some breakfast.” He supplied and her only reply was a loud groan. “Most of our friends are already awake.” He tried to coax her but she only gave another groan in reply.

“Give me an hour or so.” She finally grumbled out and hung up on her friend. With a dramatic flourish she threw the covers back from her body and sighed, as someone that natural ran very cold it was nice to have a hotel room to herself where she could jack up the temperature and not have to worry about someone lowering it or complaining. As it was she was able to keep most of her sleepy haze as she staggered into the bathroom and threw on the shower. She pulled off the shirt and panties she had slept in and kicked them over to a corner to be dealt with later, and whipped her hair up off of her neck with a clip before stepping into the shower.

She should have checked the temperature first as scalding water hit her skin and she let out a loud curse, her mind very much awake as she rushed to adjust the temperature to something her skin could handle. Once the water was perfect temperature she struggled to not relax against one of the walls, reminding herself that in about an hour she would have about a dozen rockstars waiting on her without booze or food to calm them.

Finally she was able to pull her clean body from the shower and drape it in a silk robe she had already placed in the bathroom. First step was her beauty routine, one she had down to an art: primer, concealer, foundation, brows, eyes, contour, highlight, and seal. Once her makeup was done and sealed tight enough that a waterfall couldn’t make it move, something that Tilo had “helped” her test once, she was ready for hair. She let her long chocolate locks fall free from the clip and finger combed them while she decided what to do with them today.

Finally she grabbed a comb and a can of hairspray and set to it, pulling her hair into a high flawless ponytail, she grabbed a strand from the side and wound it around the hair elastic and secured it with a bobby pin. She pulled out the curling iron and set it to heat as she returned to her room deciding on the day’s attire.

Today was the first day of the festival, meaning concerts would begin later in the afternoon once the day’s bands had the chance to do a sound test and set up for their sets. As far as she knew the only band that she knew the members of that was playing today was Tyr, but she would still like to wander around and see all of the amazing bands, since there were so many on the list this year and she knew she had only heard of half of them.

Finally Anna decided on a black strapless latex crop top that ended at her natural waist and hugged her like a second skin. For bottoms she grabbed a pair of black skinny jeans with a couple of tears in the knees, having to jump a couple of times before they fell into proper placement. She pulled her holster bag/purse from her carry on and switched the straps around, keeping one long one that wrapped around her waist, the little bag hanging on her mid thigh, and she attached a smaller strap to the lower portion of the bag to fasten it around her leg. She quickly jammed her feet into a pair of socks and then into a pair of black ankle boots before rushing into the bathroom.

She quickly curled her long hair, spraying the curls with hairspray before she let them fall long against her back. She turned the curling iron off and sprayed her neck and wrists with perfume, dabbing some behind her ears. She gave one last look in the mirror for good measure making sure she looked perfect before going in search of her phone, which was somewhere on her bed still. She was pulling the bed apart when there was a knock at her door and she sighed, someone must have been set to retrieve her.

“I know I’m taking forever!” She yelled as she went for the door, throwing it open but not expecting to see the very man whose voice had woken her up on the other side.

He gave a smile to her shocked expression as she stood in the doorway. “Morning to you too.” Ville’s voice broke her trance and she blushed.

“Morning, please do come in.” She waved him in only after he had stepped past her into the room realizing that it was currently a slight mess.

“Rough night?” He questioned raising an eyebrow at the torn apart bed.

“Oh no, I’m looking for my phone, I set it down this morning while still mostly asleep and I can’t remember where.” She rushed to explain as she moved for the bed once more.

Ville gave a sound of understanding as she once again began to peel back the covers and search for her rose gold iPhone. “Would you like me to call it?” He asked after a few moments of her searching and coming up with nothing. She almost very nearly agreed before she realized what her current ringtone was, and wouldn’t that be fun to explain.

“Oh if you could just text it that would be great.” She said to try and find away around him calling her.

“What’s your number darling?” Ville’s voice was closer than she expected as she was on her hands and knees on the mattress looking under the flat sheet to see if it had slid under there. She gave a slight jump, like a started cat, and turned around to see him standing right behind her.

“Oh, uh, here.” She reached for his phone and he easily handed it off to her allowing her to enter in her contact information and saving it. She gave him back his phone, feeling slightly giddy inside that he had her number, that Ville Valo would be able to contact her… of course that meant she would definitely have to change her ringtone. A little ping went off under one of the pillows and Anna lunged for it as soon as she heard it, finding her phone inside the pillowcase on the far side of the bed, how the hell it had ended up there she would never know. Giving a sigh of relief she climbed off the bed and slid her phone into her thigh holster bag.


“Ready for food?” She asked Ville brightly and he nodded, closing his eyes and she saw how sleep still clung to him, obviously he wasn’t much of a morning person.

“I need coffee more than air.” He murmured opening his eyes and he looked at her, their eyes meeting and it felt like he was staring straight into her. Anna didn’t want to break her gaze away, she was falling deeper and deeper into his eyes, finding little flecks of gold that she had never previously seen. “Oh, before I forget.” His voice broke their staring contest and he held out a small pile of leather towards her. It took her a moment to piece together that he was handing her back the leather jacket she had worn last night, the jacket she had been wearing when kosmo was chasing her, the one that had blood and crushed spider rubbed into it.

She gave a shriek and was across the bed and on the other side of the room in an instant, putting as much room between her and the soiled leather as possible. Ville raised an eyebrow at her before he let out a soft rumbling chuckle that had him smiling brilliantly at her, even though she was a little freaked out to appreciate such a sight.

“Ville!” She complained after he did nothing but laugh at her for a moment, this was surely no laughing matter, she would find a way to get Kosmo back for last night.

“I’m sorry.” Ville’s chuckles fell silent but the edges of his lips were still tilted up. “I cleaned Kosmo’s mess off of the jacket for you.” He explained holding it out to her again.

“No more crushed spider?” Anna asked hesitantly stepping towards him.

“No crushed spider.” Ville reaffirmed and she sighed, striding forward to take her jacket back.

“Thank you, that was very kind of you to keep it and clean it for me.” She smiled up at him and dropped the jacket down on the bed, she wouldn’t need it until this evening anyway. “Shall we go get some food and coffee?” Ville let out a soft groan at the mention of coffee and gestured for her to lead the way out of the room.