Lauri awoke to the sound of laughing. The laugh was cold, calculated, creepy, the type of sinister laugh that sent chills down his spine. But one thing alarmed him more than the laugh – the fact that he didn’t know who it belonged to. Someone was in his and Jonne’s hotelroom.

He opened his eyes, but the room was dark, and he couldn’t really see anything. But he swore something was lurking in the shadows over by Jonne’s bed; if he listened hard he could hear deep, labored breathing. He shuddered, his hands shaking. What was he going to do? He had to wake Jonne. Maybe they could get out of there…

He crept over to Jonne’s bed, but as soon as his hand touched the sheets, he yanked it back – there was something wet and sticky and warm on his fingers. He must’ve gasped quietly, for he heard the sinister laugh again. His immediate reaction was to reach for the lightswitch between the two beds, in a movement so quick that he knocked something off the nightstand as he did it.

With the lights on, he was horrified. There was… blood, everywhere. The color of it was a shocking red – was blood supposed to be that red? Lauri was in shock. He didn’t even look up to see who was in the room, his heart was pounding for Jonne. He threw back the covers, and cried out as he saw the slash across the blonde’s throat.

“Jonne! No!!!”

He gathered Jonne in his arms, cradling his body, his eyes finally daring to cross the room and see who had done this to his Jonne, his angel, his….

He stopped mid-thought as his brain registered what he was seeing. There was a bear of a man sitting crosslegged on the floor, red lipstick smeared on one side of his face, through thick stubble. His hairy legs peeked out of an obscenely short pink dress, and he was playing with a little of Jonne’s blood between his fingers.

“You can’t have him, now. He’ll always be my princess, and you can’t touch him,” said the man, giving Lauri a sick smile.

Suddenly, Jonne’s body started to shake in his arms. Lauri’s stomach dropped and his heartrate immediately increased; he didn’t know what was going on. It took him a moment to realize that Jonne was laughing.

Jonne was… alive? His Jonne?

“Lauri, oh my god, I wanted to keep it going but your face, my god, your face,” said Jonne, giving in to a fit of laughter at the annoyed frown that now curved Lauri’s lips. “Come on, it was funny, you fucking fell for it.”

“Guess I was convincing,” said the Strange Man, standing up, attempting to wipe some of the lipstick from his face with the back of his hand. “Name’s Jukka, by the way.”

Lauri just nodded, dazed. Jonne turned to the man, still laughing a little. “Thanks Jukka,” he said, standing up and giving the man a kiss on the cheek before ushering him out. He turned back to Lauri as he shut the door, fingers going to his neck and pulling off the bloody slashmark, which was apparently a layer of some kind of makeup. “It was all Kristian’s idea. I told him I wanted to scare you, and we were drinking, and he came up with this plan. I sobered up and realized it was still funny, so I knew I had to do it,” he said with a grin as he sat down on the bed, pushing the dye-stained sheets aside.

“Jesus,” said Lauri, only just now feeling his heartbeat slowing again. “Well, it worked.” He was silent for a long moment, then said challengingly, “You’d better watch your back, pretty boy.” He was feeling in good spirits, somehow; he couldn’t stay angry at Jonne, especially since this had made him laugh. He loved to see Jonne laugh. He gave the blonde a wicked grin. “I’m going to get you back for that.”

“Oh, I’m so afraid,” Jonne said, batting at Lauri – who had stood up and come over to him, leaning down to kiss him.

Lauri would not take no for an answer, and firmly pushed the blonde back to the bed as he claimed his lips. “I thought you were dead, and if you think I’m not going to fuck the hell out of you now that I have you back, you are insane,” he explained simply.

Jonne smirked, giving in with a happy little sigh into Lauri’s mouth – his prank would have some lovely consequences, as it turned out.