One week. Ville thought, staring at the clock. He had been there one week and he was already yanking out locks of his hair in frustration. He was already sobbing so loud that the nurses would run to his room thinking one of his organs had burst or something. He already refused to eat anything and thrown two trays of food at a wall. He had to eat something, but being in the hospital made him not want to eat. Which of course was a loop affect. The less he ate the longer he stayed and his rehabilitation was going no where. He had thrown up six more times, blanked out three times and forgotten who he was twice. Insanity was killing him more than anything at the moment, and he knew this. He had already come to the conclusion that he would die before the wedding even happened, or if he was unlucky, he would still be in the hospital long after the wedding was over. Bam had come to visit him everyday, but Ville refused to see him the last two times. He didn't want Bam to see him in that state. Plus, every time Bam would come over, he would sit there in silence, as if he was just there out of obligation. Bam had a wedding to attend to, he shouldn't have ever wasted time going to see Ville. His stomach still ached, and sometimes the pain, not just of his stomach but of everything, would cause him to scream.

Heartbreak, insanity, and disease were a lethal combination.

Bam didn't notice what he was doing until his cell phone rang, snapping him back to reality.

"Oh…God."

Bam's hand was shaking as he held the razorblade closer, in disbelief. No matter how hard he looked at it, it didn't change the fact that he had no idea what he was doing….

…and that there was a line of blood running down the entire length of his arm that he seriously didn't remember making.

He dropped the razorblade onto the floor and stared at it. He bolted out of the room down the stairs calling for Missy.

Missy was talking to April on the couch, laughing. Bam ran up to Missy, ignoring April, ignoring that they were going to see it.

"Missy!" he said, impatiently.

Missy and April turned to him, their faces going white.

"Oh my god!" They said in unison.

"What did you do?!" Missy asked, grabbing his arm.

Bam jerked away at the sting, Missy's thumb smudging the blood. "Where the fuck did you put the cigarettes?!"

"Bam!"

"WHERE THE FUCK ARE THEY?!"

"STOP IT!" Missy yelled. "What the FUCK is WRONG with you?!"

"Bam took in a deep breath. "I don't know Missy. Just, please, tell me where they are before I slit through a vein."
"Melissa, don't tell him." April warned.

Missy went silent. Bam shook his head. "I'll find them myself."

"Dearest Bam.

I wish you a happy … long life. I hope with all my heart that you will forever be loved by Missy, and vice versa, although I never truly accepted the fact that all you're love was hers….

And not mine.

For as long as I can remember I selfishly wanted your love, your heart, to be mine and mine alone.

I always believed that I belonged in your arms. I wanted that smile that lights up in your beautiful blue eyes to be directed at me, and no one else.

For this, I beg for your forgiveness with full sincerity. I didn't deserve you for myself, and although I tried to tell myself this,

I couldn't help loving you.

My death was my own fault and I hate the fact that I killed myself before I could let you know how much I adore you.

Goodbye my darling."

A few tears escaped onto the paper smudging the fresh ink. Ville quickly tried to keep from crying again, knowing that once he started crying again, he might not ever stop. Was this really goodbye? Ville closed his eyes, trying to imagine how long it would be before he was gone. Would he be aware of it? Or would it happen in his sleep, although he wasn't getting very much of that. Would it hurt, or would it just feel like relief? Ville felt his insides tearing themselves apart. Another burst of pain, another scream.

His body was killing him.

Bam felt as if he was going insane. He was going insane, and he didn't know why, but it scared him. Why did he have to hurt himself to let out his emotions?

His emotions were killing him.

Ville woke up to the sun coming in through the hospital room window. He had actually slept. It was the worst sleep of his life, but it was the first time had had really fallen asleep since he had arrived. The familiar nurse, Katie, walked into the room holding a tray of food. Food was over exaggerating. It was basically some type of soup and a small container of red Jell-O, a piece of toast and a napkin. Ville smiled to himself. There was probably a better chance of eating the napkin.

"Set it aside." Ville said quietly.

"You have to eat." Katie frowned.

"Not now." Ville curled up into a ball in the thin blanket. He didn't feel like eating, despite the fact that he had to. He felt like seeing Bam.

Bam flipped through his albums in his death metal jukebox. He pressed a few random buttons, until a song started playing, turning up the volume to the max, which would surely wake Missy, but he didn't care. He had decided to make another effort to get rid of it. All of it. The cigarettes, and now the razorblade which he was afraid he would turn to once he didn't find cigs. Bam picked up the razorblade and the pack of cigarettes from the floor where he had set it down, wondering how to get rid of it. Toilet? Burry it?

"Let me wake up in your arms. Hear you say it's not alright. Let me be so dead and so gone. So far away from life. Just close my eyes. Hold me tight. And burry me deep inside… your heart." Ville's voice seeped from the jukebox. Bam had always wondered how Ville wrote all his songs. Did he just sit there and make up the words? Were they just naturally in his mind, waiting to come out? Bam had always found something about the words to his songs strange. Bam shook it off, and turned back to his items. Then is when Bam realized, that he really wanted to go see Ville. The razorblade, the cigarettes… it was right in front of his eyes. Bam had thought he had nobody to talk to, when Ville had really been there the whole time.

Ville had been a bit more cheerful that day. He wasn't sure why. Maybe he had just been cranky the entire time from lack of sleep. Still, his mood did not last very long, and he found himself singing every one of his songs that he had written. He had given up on it though, mainly because it was too painful. They reminded him of a certain someone, and Ville scolded himself for creating so much love songs based on true feelings. He was bad at falling in love, mainly because he went over board. In Bam's case, he couldn't help it. He had stayed up several nights just singing at random, and writing songs with him in mind. Ville's very tattoos had a strong connection to Bam. It was Bam who had liked the tattoos and copied Ville, but it made Ville happy. It made Ville feel connected to Bam. His own tattoos had a whole new meaning. They weren't just tattoos anymore. They were tattoos that Bam liked. They were tattoos that had also been etched onto Bam's very skin. They had also gotten a few tattoos together, mainly really silly tattoos that other people would find embarrassing. Ville cherished them. They were little memories that made him laugh. Ville lifted his shirt a bit and touched the heartagram tattoo on his abdomen. Would Bam forget why he got the tattoos once Ville was gone? Ville's stomach ached again, and he buried himself under the blanket, wishing it was all gone. When was this hell going to freeze over?

Bam felt relief as the hour he had spent arguing with the nurse had paid off. He walked into the room, slowly, quietly, hoping not to disturb Ville incase he was asleep. What Bam found though, he was not ready for. Ville was curled up in a ball, a lump underneath a blanket, shaking, weeping hysterically, his back toward the door. Bam reached out to him, touching his shoulder.

"Ville?"

Ville jumped up, the blanket flying up before it landed over his head. Ville sat still, taking no action. Bam tugged it off of his head, revealing big, irritated red eyes that were glossed with tears. He looked as if he had been crying for three days straight, and right then it occurred to Bam that he had been crying for days on end, who knows how many. Despite the tears still outlined down his pale cheeks, he had completely stopped crying.

"Are you alright?" Bam sat on the edge of the bed.

"Your arm." Ville whispered.

Bam instinctively touched the line running down his own arm in embarrassment. "Yeah." he said quietly.

"What happened?" Ville asked carefully, his voice still catching from crying.
Bam went silent, thinking hard. He couldn't remember doing it, he didn't know why he did. He looked down at the tile floor.

"I don't even know." Bam sniffed.

Bam had completely blanked out for a while, and found himself crying, babbling, as Ville gently stroked his back, listening to every single word with the deepest fascination. He had told Ville everything. How he felt so unhappy, unsure. How he was having second thoughts about Missy, how he just wanted to curl up and die. How he had a smoking problem, how when he tried to stop he'd just end up doing something worse. Here he was, blabbering about his own emotional problems, while Ville was obviously dying. Really dying. Bam stopped crying for a second, blinking away the tears. Ville was dying. Ville was going to leave this earth. Bam would never get to run around some random country with Ville, drink with him until they passed out in the bars, do a silly dance with him, rock out with him on a concert stage, show him his new skate tricks, sing along to stupid songs with him… it was all going to be gone. He was losing everything.

Including his best friend.

"…you're fucking dying." Bam cried into his hands.

Ville's hand that was rubbing Bam's back wandered over to his arm, gently gripping onto him.

"Don't let that worry you," He whispered.

"But--"

"you have better things to worry about." Ville smiled. His smile, though, did not reach his eyes.

Ville woke up screaming for Bam at 1:05am. He had been held down by two nurses at 1:23am. Already a bad start to the day. Saturday, February 3 . The day of the wedding. Ville had thrown up twice in the past hour, screamed in agony four times, woken up seven patients, pissed off three nurses and given up once. He sat up in bed, completely still, staring at the wall with no emotion on his face. He didn't know why. Maybe, he figured, if he stayed still long enough time would stop. Of course, the clock ticked, mocking him with realization that there was no way he was going to stop it now. He smashed the clock on the floor and crouched down next to the shattered pieces, tears running effortlessly onto the cold tile floor.

Bam was already awake by 5am and layed still, listening to the soft breathing coming from Missy to his right. It was the day. He hadn't yet figured out whether he should cancel the wedding. He figured he was just going to go through with it, and hope that he'd be happy. Of course, he wasn't happy NOW, so how was he going to get happy after he was married? Plus, Ville had said he wasn't coming to the wedding. Of COURSE he wasn't coming NOW, being at the hospital, but the very fact that he hadn't PLANNED on coming in the first place confused Bam. What was it that Ville had been trying to tell him that night?

"I can't come to your wedding."

"I'm against--"

Had he have been trying to say he was against it? Why would he be? Everything confused Bam up to this point and he was sick of it. He emptied his mind of all thoughts, cleared his heart of any emotions. He hadn't realized that he had fallen back asleep until Missy shook him.

"Babe!"

"Huh?"

"It's 12am! We had to be ready by 9!"

"What?! Fuck it Missy you're the one that's SUPPOSED to get up on time!"

"Well I slept in, alright!"

Bam jumped up and stripped, running into the shower.

"Fuck." he whispered through the streams of water. "Today's the day."

Bam had been laughing all day, smiling, thanking people for the 'congratulations dude' that he kept getting. He had put on an act, forcing himself to believe that he really was happy. After a while, it actually worked. He felt happy. Was it because everyone else seemed to be that way?

"Hey babe, promise me you won't get drunk before the ceremony."

"You DO know there's alcohol EVERYWHERE--"

"Don't touch it. Please. At least until you say 'I do' alright?"

Bam grinned. "Yeah. I'm going to skip through the vows, yell out 'I do' while your just half way down the aisle and run off to go drink a bottle of Jack Daniels."

"Bam!"

Bam hugged her.

"I promise."

Bam stood at the alter, smiling, waiting for Missy. He couldn't help feel nervous as he saw Missy come in, walking gracefully down the aisle. God was it slow. Bam felt the impatience rising, he was going to throw up if he stood there any longer. He looked up at the glow of the two candles on the unity table. He couldn't help look around at the crowd of people, scanning for who he knew wasn't there.

But Bam really needed him to be there.

"The candles on either ends that were lit by both of their moms represent their two lives up to this point, being separate in all the challenges they've both seen and lived through and as they both take a candle, they'll light the unity candle together, symbolizing their lives now as one." Bam stared as the candles flickered, the flames dancing. 'I can't do this Ville.' He thought and he wondered why in he was directing his thoughts to Ville.

Bam and Missy walked up to the table and each picked up a candle. His own candle's flame was dying out. Bam felt his hand shaking, almost dropping it. He tightened his grip, and lowered it to the bigger candle along with Missy's and cringed…

Then the door burst open and both candles blew out before they lit.

Everyone turned their heads, looking back, gasps and whispers.

Ville Valo stood at the end of the aisle.

Bam dropped the candle onto the floor, a small stream of smoke came up before it faded away.

Everyone was chattering away at the spectacle.

"…Ville?" Bam's voice came shaky.

At that, everyone went dead silent.

Ville had a look of desperation on his face, his mouth was slightly open, trying to get words out.

The tension coming from the crowd wasn't making it any easier for Ville. There were tons of people, all looking at him, all silent, motioning him to say something. Anything. But as Ville stared at Bam, standing there frozen next to Missy who seemed to have a similar reaction as the crowd, he couldn't say any of the millions of sentences that were buzzing around in his head. His stomach ached, and he wondered why he ever ran away from the hospital in the first place. He decided to make something up. Apologize for his interruption and go sit somewhere in the way back, pretending to have shown up late to see Bam get married, and for that alone. He had the lie in his head, but what came out of his mouth was completely different.

"I…..I love you Bam!"

Ville bit his lip, his mind scolding him for saying it. There was no reaction from the crowd, and Ville started to prey that nobody heard him.

Bam though, his facial expression changed. Ville could already tell that Bam had heard. Ville started to back away towards the door. 'turn and run dammit.' he thought to himself.

"Wait!" Bam called out to him.

Ville froze.

Bam started to walk up the aisle towards him. Everyone watched, confused, amazed, a sea of emotions. Bam was smiling, looking down at the floor trying not to look up at the faces.

He stopped in front of Ville and looked up at him.

Then a smile spread across his lips.

Ville blinked, and before he knew it they were running out the door, leaving behind a mob of disbelief.

Ville couldn't help but smile too.