Chapter Text
Aleksi stumbled, when all of a sudden Robin grabbed his hand and shoved him closer to the stage. It was quite crowded in front of it, seemed like they had a lot of fans already. But they were deserved, their music was truly amazing.
Robin stopped in the middle of the club, not too far from the stage, but also not too close between all those people. It took Aleksi a moment to realise that one could hardly oversee them now. He tried to take a step back, but Robin’s grasp was firm.
“What’s the point of that?” He tried to wiggle himself out, but Robin didn’t let go. Instead, he stepped half behind him with the dark side of his suit, put both hands on his hips and snuggled up to his back. He began to move to the music and made Aleksi move with him, although he tried hard to resist. “Stop it,” he complained.
“Just relax,” Robin said way too close and way too loud into his left ear and continued his dancing, which was more of a stupid wiggling. “I want him to see you. I wanna see his reaction.”
“But I don’t want to be seen. This is super embarrassing. Robin, please.”
But Robin didn’t stop and then it was too late. Joel’s eyes fell on him and he clearly stumbled over his lyrics. Just a second later he had everything under control again and Aleksi wasn’t sure if it had truly happened. But he couldn’t deny that he had been seen. Joel’s gaze came back every few seconds.
Robin continued to do his stupid little dance moves behind him, while Aleksi could barely move at all. Joel didn’t seem too happy to see him, if he wasn’t mistaken? Of course there were a few meters between them, but still. Joel’s face showed no real joy since the first surprise had left his expression. And those lyrics. They’d been angry most of the time, but now it felt like Joel sang them with even more passion.
“I think he noticed you, that’s definitely a good thing,” Robin said, sounding quite satisfied and kissed him on the cheek. Aleksi had his eyes fixed on the stage and watched an angry Joel knock over the microphone stand. Whether it was on purpose or not, he couldn’t tell. But at the same moment Aleksi nudged Robin away. Definitely on purpose.
“Stop it! You embarrass me.” He blushed and Robin started giggling.
“I think he’s jealous. That’s exactly what I wanted to find out.”
“That was your plan? Well, surprise, he isn’t jealous, why should he be? I think he’s angry because I’m here and he had hoped to never see me again, after I made such a scene two weeks ago. And he’s afraid he might have to deal with me later. Let’s leave to spare him my presence.” All he wanted was to hide. He didn’t even want to imagine what was going on in Joel’s head. Because it definitely wasn’t anything good.
“No way! He’s so jealous, he’d like to run here and knock me over, I swear. Let’s wait for him over there, it must be their last song already.” He nodded towards the backstage door and started walking, leading an upset Aleksi by the hand.
“Please, let’s just go home.” He tried his puppy eyes on Robin, but this time they let him down. How – and when – had Robin become resistant to them?
The last song was over and they earned a lot of deserved applause and even some squees and shouts for an encore. Aleksi wished that he could just join those ordinary fans. Instead, he was forced by his friend – he should rethink that term – to make a fool out of himself by waiting for Joel like a shameless groupie, although he had already been turned down by him once.
The band left the stage and their drummer again took his time. The next band already set up their equipment, working around him. And Aleksi stood next to the fucking backstage door waiting for his doom.
But nothing happened.
Nothing at all.
No one went through the door. Neither from his nor from the other side. Clearly Robin’s plan didn’t work out.
“Let’s go, as I said, he doesn’t want to see me. And I don’t want to see him, all of this was already embarrassing enough.”
“Just have a tiny bit of patience, okay? They left the stage like three minutes ago. He will come through this door. Trust me.”
But no one came through the door. Not in this moment nor the next or within the next ten minutes. All that happened was Aleksi getting more and more nervous about the whole situation. He started to sweat and ruined his hair when he stroked through it. He tried to practice some conversations in his head, but his brain produced nothing more than a ‘Joel’. And that was it. He didn’t have the slightest idea what to say, if Joel ever came over.
And then the door suddenly burst open. But it didn’t offer the one he desired. Instead a super angry maybe-or-maybe-not-boyfriend stormed through it.
“Joonas! Stop it!” someone shouted behind him, but Aleksi couldn’t see who it was, because mentioned Joonas had planted himself right in front of him and didn’t seem willingly to stop anything at all.
“Are you happy now?” he exclaimed and nearly knocked Robin over when he waved his hands around. “First you don’t show up, then you run away, next you ghost Joel for two weeks straight, only to be here today, presenting your bloody boyfriend, while we are performing on stage? How much more does Joel have to bear with, huh?” He lifted his chin in a very aggressive way and Aleksi stumbled half a step backwards.
He tried to answer, because an answer was clearly demanded, but he hadn’t processed yet what had been said. So he just opened his mouth, but there were no words to leave it.
“Just leave it be.” A hand appeared on Joonas’s shoulder and in the next second Joel himself came in sight. Aleksi’s heartbeat raised, but he was still out of words.
“I’m not his boyfriend, actually.”
All eyes turned towards Robin. He smiled an innocent smile as if he enjoyed the situation. Maybe he did. He had caused the situation.
“You … are not?” Joonas seemed confused, he obviously hadn’t expected that.
“Nope. What about you? Are you Joel’s boyfriend?”
“What the heck? No! Of course not!”
“Great! Problem’s solved, right?”
Aleksi turned red again and looked down at his shoes. He still felt so embarrassed and all he wanted was to run away, but he couldn’t move and Robin most likely wouldn’t let him go anyway. So he just bit his lip and counted the shoelace-eyelets on his boots. Surprise, there were eight on each side of each boot …
“… so you are telling me that Aleksi is jealous of me? And there is no reason for Joel to be jealous of you?”
“I’d say that’s exactly what all of this is about.”
Aleksi hated Robin so much. He should just stop talking about him like he wasn’t there at all. And also, why didn’t Joel say anything?
Someone let out a loud squeak and Aleksi looked up only to realise that it had been Joonas. Of course, who else. It looked like he was about to freak out any moment, as he started to bounce up and down.
“Why are we still standing around like that? Let’s do the thing properly!” He grabbed Joel, dragged him to the front and shoved him closer to Aleksi. “KISS!” he exclaimed and grinned from one ear to another.
“Are you crazy? No!”
Robin and Joonas started laughing simultaneously just like Aleksi and Joel had shouted that sentence simultaneously. Where the fuck was Aleksi’s hole in the floor when he needed it?
“Awwww, they are shy,” Robin giggled.
Joonas joined him. “No problem, let’s give them some privacy to sort things out.” He painted some quotation marks in the air and before Aleksi could process what was going on, he and Joel were pushed towards the backstage door and as soon as they were through, the door was slammed shut.
… it took Aleksi a moment to adjust his eyes to the sudden darkness. It was also quite silent and all he could hear at first was his own heartbeat. Until someone’s breathing reached his ears. He blinked and finally dared to lift his gaze to look at Joel. Joel, who looked as overwhelmed as Aleksi felt.
“Sorry for Robin,” he mumbled just when Joel said “I’m sorry, Joonas is a dumbass.” And they both started laughing sheepishly.
“So, uhm …” Again, Aleksi had no clue what to say. He wanted to ask about Joonas, but it felt stupid and he didn’t dare to ask anything else, so he just played with his fingers.
It was Joel who started talking again. “I missed you on Thursday evenings.” Well, he missed Joel on every day of the week, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it. He only nodded and continued the lip-biting.
They stood in awkward silence for a moment and Aleksi desperately thought about something to say.
“I like your band,” he finally found a save topic to talk about. “Your music is really great.”
Joel smiled a little and Aleksi’s knees got weak. Still too handsome, too perfect. Nothing had changed over the last two weeks. “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”
“To tell the truth, you saved the night. Everyone performing before you was terrific.”
“Not gonna lie, but you and your friend nearly spoiled my evening …” Joel started to tug at the seam of his shirt and turned from I’m-a-hot-and-confident-rockstar to I’m-still-hot-but-also-a-bit-shy and how was this possible?!
Aleksi blushed again, just when he thought that his embarrassment had mostly left. “I’m sorry about Robin. I don’t know what he was thinking. He is so … I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
“But … did he tell the truth? You know, about you being jealous of Joonas?”
Aleksi looked bashfully at the ground and nodded. “I’m sorry … you were so close with him and it’s not like I have any right to be jealous, I’m so stupid, I don’t know, I’m sorry.”
“Actually … he just comforted me, because I was so down. You know, the guy I like just forgot about me and didn’t show up on our regular date night time without any excuse. And since Joonas is a very affectionate type of best friend, that involved a lot of cuddles.”
“I always had the feeling that you don’t like any kind of touching …” Aleksi stopped himself from drawing little circles with his foot. Joel just did say that he liked him, right? It must have been about him, right? Right?
“It takes some time until I get comfortable with it, but I know Joonas for ages now, I got used to his cuddles?”
But what if it wasn’t about him? “Hmhmm,” he muttered. He just couldn’t figure Joel out.
“I … I would have liked to touch you though? But … I was afraid that things might get awkward. Because I’m awkward. I’m not that good with … stuff like that, you know? Interacting with people?”
It was about him. He looked up again and met Joel’s incredible blue eyes. The way they looked at him warmed his heart “Interacting with you has been my favourite thing to do the last months,” he admitted. “Maybe I like awkward people? I’m pretty weird myself, I think …”
Joel laughed. “You? No, you aren’t weird at all. You are gorgeous. You are stunning. You are incredibly cute?! And oh my god, you are so beautiful, I mean: Your makeup?! Just looking at you kinda kills me?!”
If he could turn anymore red, he would, but most likely it wasn’t possible. “Well, I … I’d love to be touched by you?”
Joel laughed again, it nearly sounded a tiny bit mad. But then Aleksi didn’t care anymore, because he finally was touched?! He felt Joel’s arms around his back, one hand in his hair, their chests were against each other and …
… so that was what it really felt like to have his brain melted.
… Joel’s lips were on his and he kissed him with so much passion, Aleksi nearly blacked out.
He didn’t notice that the door opened and a curious voice asked: “You okay in there?” And another one was like: “Obviously.” And a third one: “Stop staring, you two are so insolent.”