Chapter Text
The first day of the semester is always a blast, Joonas thought to himself as he walked across the campus; the reunions with the people you thought you wouldn’t miss when you said your goodbyes back in May, the smell of the brand new student calendar journal that he was always so excited to see the cover artwork of but which always ended up sitting on his shelf for the next eight- or-so months, completely free of ink, and the crisp, September air delivering the farewell of the past summer. Joonas breathed it in, absorbing the smell of rain and soil, of anticipation of the unknown (and of slugs, eurgh, Joel would have probably added, had he not left for the lecture building two hours earlier, which gave Joonas a chance to snooze a little longer without his roommate stomping and rattling about in their small dorm room).
Joonas would lie, however, if he claimed that the absolute highlight of the first day wasn’t the traditional, legendary, mind-blowing party they would all attend at the frat house, officially at 7 PM onwards, although Joonas knew for certain that many of the partiers, himself included, would show up having gotten an impressive false start in terms of the partying spirit, if you will. The classes next day would always be pure misery, but Joonas wouldn’t have missed the celebration for the world, as the memories of that night, although somewhat blurry, were something Joonas held on to for dear life during the cold, dark January evenings spent stuck inside his bedroom pulling all-nighters, trying to convince himself (and Joel, more often than not) to not drop out the first thing the next morning (if it ever came). After least year’s party, Tommi had woken up in the gym showers, Olli had lost his entire backpack with all the new, crazy expensive course books inside that he had forgotten to take out before he left the dorm, Joel had made out with a girl who he only later realised was his ex from high school, and Joonas himself had ended up in the neighbouring city without the faintest idea where he was, a solid 3% battery left on his phone. He was glad his poor mother was blissfully unaware of half the escapades his son got up to during the semester, but if you worked hard, you had to also play hard, and Joonas certainly knew how to do both.
The familiar creak of the lecture hall door welcomed him as he entered the auditorium with a giddy smile on his face and a faint blush on his cheeks that may have been the combined result of the chilly wind outside and the flirtatious exchange with the guy working at the campus café, perfected with the ever so brief, supposedly accidental brush of their fingers as the guy handed Joonas his coffee. Joonas’ eyes scanned the hall and eventually found Tommi and Joel near the back row, their backpacks reserving the next two seats for Joonas and Olli. He started striding up the stairs towards his friends, but a sudden, burning sensation on his thigh made him halt in his tracks.
“Aarrg!” he cried out and looked down to find a fresh coffee stain decorating the pantleg of his skinny jeans.
“Shit,” an unfamiliar voice said next to him. “Shit, sorry.”
Joonas looked to his left and saw a young man with long, hazel-coloured hair picking up an empty paper cup off the floor where it lied in a puddle of steaming liquid, possibly the same dark roast Joonas was holding in his hand. The man muttered something about tissues and started rummaging around in his bag.
“Hey, it’s okay, I’ll get some paper towels for you, hold this,” Joonas said and, without waiting for the man to reply, handed him his cup and jogged down the stairs and to the nearest bathroom to basically empty the paper dispenser before rushing back to the lecture hall.
“There we go,” he panted as he crouched on the floor and started sweeping the coffee that had now cooled down enough to not give him blisters. The side of his leg was still soaked and would probably hurt like a bitch later, but Joonas figured he had missed the time frame in which adding cold to it would have helped by several minutes now, so he focused his efforts on something he could help. Thankfully his threshold of pain was, as Joel put it, inhumanly high.
“I could’ve done that mysel–“
“It’s fine, happens to me all the time, you can knock these fucking toy cups over by just looking at them, am I right?” Joonas laughed briefly and kept on patting the coffee splothces.
“I’ll take it from here,” the man said with clear tension in his voice and shoved Joonas’ coffee cup to his face. “...thanks,” he then added, probably more out of sense of duty and politeness than actual gratitude, if his tone was anything to judge by.
“Gee, sorry to have bothered you so,” Joonas said under his breath, almost dumbfounded by the rudeness of this complete stranger. The guy didn’t even seem to be the slightest bit concerned about how bad a burn he had caused on Joonas’ leg by spilling his morning coffee all over it.
Joonas stood up and took his first proper look at the man: his face was partially hidden by his wavy hair, but he could see a mouth that was pursed in a slight frown, a horrible waste of otherwise perfectly kissable lips if you asked Joonas, and below his nose there was a barely visible stubble. Going higher up the man’s face, Joonas’ eyes met his, green with a hint of golden yellow around the pupil, the colour scheme of the forest near Joonas’ childhood home where he had spent countless summer days chasing frogs and building forts, memories that always made Joonas feel warm inside. The look in these eyes, however, was ice cold.
A wise man would have gladly left the guy to his own devices and hoped their paths never crossed again, especially if this was how he repaid random acts of kindness, but to Joonas’ misfortune, his talents lay elsewhere.
You can’t flirt your way out of every situation, you know? Olli had once pointed out, and Joonas did know that, but he sure was going to have his fun trying. And these vicious eyes in front of him were just begging to be challenged.
“You know,” he said and took the coffee the guy was still holding for him. “Next time you want to get my attention, try saying hi.”
“What?” The guy eyed him incredulously, as if he had just started speaking gibberish out of the blue.
“Just some food for thought. And hey, you can have this,” Joonas set his coffee on the folding table in front of the guy. “Seems like you need it more than I do.”
Joonas winked for good measure and didn’t stick around to see they guy’s reaction before turning on his heels to join his two friends sitting six rows higher up the auditorium.
“Who the hell is that?” Tommi asked him once he had seated himself next to Joel.
“No fucking idea, but Jesus, what a bitch. Look at my jeans!” Joonas inspected the large, brown smudge on them. “Man, I bet it’s gonna leave a stain.”
“No, seriously, have you seen him around before?”
Now that Joonas though of it, he realised he hadn’t, in fact. The music department of their faculty was small and intimate enough to easily enable one to memorize most of the faces you see attending the same lectures and participating in the same projects, but this guy had not seemed one bit familiar, and Joonas, if anyone, would most definitely remember a bad-tempered, green-eyed brunet like him.
“I don’t know, maybe he’s a stray freshman lost from his group? Wrong place, wrong time? Happens to the best of us, right Joel?” Joonas grinned and poked at Joel who slid lower on his seat.
“Or maybe you need to pull your head outta your own ass for a second and pay attention to your surroundings every now and then,” Joel mumbled, clearly not in the mood for reminiscing his freshman year goofs.
“Excuse me? I pay plenty attention, thank you very much. I noticed at first glance that Tommi got laid last night, for example.”
“I did?” Tommi turned to look at him, not bothering to hide his amusement.
“ With your own hand, obviously, but same difference. Anyhow, is that to say you have seen that dude here before?”
Joel was silent for a while, appearing to be thinking.
“No,” he finally shrugged. “Not my point though.”
Joonas squinted his yes, wondering what Joel’s point had been, but before he got the chance to ask, Olli made his conspicuous arrival as he nearly stumbled over all their legs trying to get to his seat and finally collapsed next to Joonas, out of breath, mere seconds after the head of the department had begun her (hopefully brief) start-of-the-semester speech.
“Busy morning?” Joonas asked, although it was more an observation; his friend was panting heavily and drops of sweat had formed on his forehead.
“Alarm…didn’t go off,” Olli said in between breaths.
“Oh, it did go off,” Tommi corrected him. “You just didn’t go on.”
Olli groaned and Joonas rubbed his knee out of sympathy, letting his hand linger there a little longer that was probably appropriate at eight in the morning.
“Well, it ain’t gonna get any less busier, I’m afraid.”
Olli chuckled and leaned his head against Joonas’ shoulder, still trying to catch his breath. Joonas felt Olli’s palm press against his thigh, wandering back and forth slowly, dangerously close to the inseam of his pants, until suddenly flinching when it reached the wet spot above his knee.
“Eww, what happened to your jeans?!”
With no actual lectures on the first day (and with the conscious decision to ignore the pre-reading for the next day when lectures would start for real), it was collectively decided that the day was as good as any for the first proper band practice of the semester. The summer had been frustratingly unproductive in that sense, the four of them being otherwise occupied with summer jobs, family reunions and, well, partying.
Normally Joonas wouldn’t have been worried about the lack of new material, as it wasn’t unusual their personal lives got in the way of creation – in fact, whatever obstacles, victories and mishaps they faced in their day-to-day lives usually resulted in incredibly fruitful creative periods – but it had been almost six whole months since they had last come up with new music. Not a single fresh verse had been written on the lyric notebook, nor even the faintest trace of an original melody had left their guitar strings for the whole spring and summer. That was something that had started troubling Joonas recently, and he could feel the tension in the air as they took their places in the training room.
“Let’s just...try out some stuff and see if we can develop it further somehow,” Joel suggested and picked up his guitar.
“Yeah, keep it simple guys. No thoughts, just music,” Joonas tried his best to keep their spirits up, although he could see the creases on Joel’s forehead deepen as he was tuning his instrument.
Joonas began fumbling with his guitar strings for a plain melody. Soon enough, his fingers found a pleasant chord combination and, surprised at how good it sounded, he kept playing until Olli started backing him up with a bassline while Tommi added a simple comping to the mix. They kept jamming to the tune for a while, cautious smiles spreading on their faces as they strummed on, but when the piece came to its natural end, Joel brought them back to reality like a bucket full of ice dumped down on their necks.
“That’s a fucking MCR song.”
The other three looked at each other, reserved joy making room for awkward shame and frustration as they, too, recalled the obvious similarities to a hit song from their teenage years.
“Aaaarrgghh, fuck, this isn’t working,” Joel groaned, almost on the verge of tears judging by the sound of it, and buried his face in his hands. If Joonas didn’t feel bad enough a second ago, he was now even deeper down in the dumps upon hearing Joel’s hopeless moaning.
He took a breath and said something he had been contemplating over the summer months, on those dull Sunday afternoons spent in his childhood bedroom when he was visiting his parents, while everyone else was out and about.
“What if we just...took a break or something,” Joonas sighed.
“But…we just got here,” Olli said quietly and scraped on an invisible spot on his bass.
“No, I mean–“
“Don’t,” Tommi growled.
Joonas looked up at the drummer, despair pulling the corners of his mouth towards the floor.
“We’re not quitting the band,” Tommi said gravely.
“What do you suggest we do then, huh? We haven’t come up with any new content for god knows how long, and the little something we manage to scribble down once in a blue moon gets thrown in the trash in a matter of seconds because it’s either a rip-off or unusable garbage with no originality whatsoever. So what’s the point any more?”
There was no reply, only the loud bang of Joel’s guitar hitting the floor, followed by an equally ear-splitting slam of the door as he stormed out of the room.
Joonas closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. He should have run after Joel, explain him he wasn’t actually serious about proposing a break-up after so many years, that he did think their big breakthrough was just a matter of time, just a few more demos and EPs sent to just a few more producers. That’s what he liked to convince the others anyway, but the tragic truth was he wasn’t sure if he even believed it himself anymore. Thus, Joonas remained on his wobbly stool, feeling the expecting gazes of his two remaining bandmates on him.
“I can’t believe you just said that,” Tommi finally said, the disappointment in his voice evident.
“I just think we should...reconsider our options,” Joonas replied gloomily. “Like, what harm could it do?”
Tommi set his drumsticks aside and stood up.
“Well, I guess I’ll leave you to reconsider in peace. Let me know when you need a drummer again.”
Although Tommi’s exit wasn’t half as dramatic as Joel’s had been, it was just as heartbreaking, if not more. Joonas had grown used to Joel’s tantrums during the years they had known each other, but when even Tommi, the embodiment of composure and chill, chose flight over fight, you knew you were fucked.
As Tommi’s figure disappeared in the dark of the hallway, Joonas felt like crying.
He was left to sit in silence with Olli, and he didn’t dare even look at the other man in fear of seeing another downhearted face.
“You...you don’t actually want to quit, right?” Olli almost whispered and let out a choked little laugh that sounded more like a sob. “’Cause if you do–“
Joonas shook his head slowly and looked down at his guitar.
“Of course not. I’m just so tired of sitting here, wasting all our times coming up with nothing but half-arsed riffs and...fucking nursery rhymes.”
Out of frustration, he pulled his beanie deeper down on his head and let out a helpless groan similar to Joel’s just moments ago.
“Yeah,” Olli agreed with a heavy sigh. “It sucks. But it just seems so drastic to stop even trying, don’t you think? Like, you won’t get the job if you never send in your application, right?”
Joonas snorted at Olli’s clumsy metaphor, but he did get the idea.
“I guess,” he smiled and lifted his guitar off his lap to put it in the safety of its case before doing the same to Joel’s beloved six-string. He wasn’t looking forward to carrying two guitars all the way back to the dorm, but he reckoned it was the least he could do to make Joel not hate him completely.
“What if we just took a break for today, yeah? How does that sound?”
“Better,” Olli smiled at him, and the twinkle in his eye made something inside Joonas’ chest tingle with anticipation for the night to come.
“Where are you headed now? The dorm?” Joonas could have easily come up with 99 ways for them to pass the time while waiting for the real party to start.
“I was gonna hit the gym, actually.”
“Alright, I’ll come get you at six then?”
Olli agreed with a smirk that, likewise, bode well for Joonas’ plans for the evening, and they parted ways at the front door of the training building, one heading over to the sports building, the other towards the dorms.
The moment Joonas stepped in their dorm room, he realised there was no sign of Joel, and judging by how the room appeared to be exactly as they had left it an hour ago, it was likely his friend hadn’t stopped by at all on his way to wherever he had gone when he left band practice. Joonas hadn’t exactly been expecting to see Joel anyway; in fact, it would have been a bigger surprise to find him there, waiting for Joonas to come back so they could talk things through and make amends. No, it would have been very unlike both of them, if he was honest.
He placed both their guitars in the one corner of the room that wasn’t occupied with furniture or a pile of dirty laundry (despite it being the first day of semester) and started getting ready for the party.
At six o’clock when Joonas set out, he had still not seen a glimpse of Joel. His best guess was his friend was sulking away somewhere around the campus, possibly behind the old main building from the 1800s, sitting in one of the tiny alcoves in the brick walls of the building no one knew the original function of but which provided a perfect hideout for when you wanted to study outside without being bothered by others and, Joonas assumed, when you wanted to avoid your roommate.
(And when Joel sometimes wandered out at night, Joonas always knew where to find him, although he was sometimes unsure whether he wanted to be found in the first place, and whether Joel was avoiding him or something else.)
Joel wasn’t even the only one of Joonas’ friends avoiding him, he noted with sorrow, as he watched Tommi put on his cap and take off without saying a word the moment Olli let Joonas in their dorm room.
Joonas didn’t blame him.
“He’s in one of his weird moods again,” Olli mumbled, the expression on his face revealing a visible unease.
Joonas snorted, trying his best to pretend he hadn’t heard every word of the discussion that had been going on in the room while he had been standing on the other side of the door in the hallway, ready to knock. They were going to a party, after all, so now was not the time to dwell on how Tommi had referred to him as a bad apple and suggested that maybe it’s him who should quit the band if he’s not feeling it any more, I’m sure he can find groupies to fuck even if he wasn’t in a rock band. No, Joonas would save all of that for his next scheduled hour for wallowing in self-pity.
“I guess I deserve it,” he said with a casual shrug of his shoulders. “But you know what we both deserve right now?”
Joonas laid his backpack on a stool and took out two cans of beer, offering the other one to Olli who accepted it with a hint of a smirk. Then Joonas clicked his open and took a generous gulp, the first of many more he would undoubtedly down that night.
Joel can have his stupid alcoves for when he needs to avoid things, Joonas thought to himself as he took another gulp, the sweet burn of alcohol tingling his throat. Me? I have my old pal Mr. Heineken.
The party was as great as any Joonas had been to before, that was for sure. All the beer pong, the inside jokes and the brotherly banter felt so familiar it was almost like having just come back home to your loved ones after ten years of being a vagabond on the other side of the globe. These people expected nothing else from Joonas but witty one-liners, ridiculous stunts and simply being the biggest merrymaker of them all, which was exactly what he had been doing since his freshman year in high school; Joonas Porko, the class clown, always down for having a good time, revelling in the attention given to him by his peers.
And yet, without Joel and Tommi around, everyone at the party could have not even showed up for all Joonas cared.
Well, Tommi actually was around, brooding in the corner of every room Joonas and Olli entered, never approaching or acknowledging them in any way, yet always seeming to make his presence obvious, like an embarrassing memory from the past that came to haunt you whenever your mind was idle enough. It truly did wonders to Joonas’ party spirit, which is why he never wandered too far away from the liquor table.
Olli, on the other hand, seemed to barely leave his immediate vicinity, quite the contrary; with every beer or long drink the man downed, he snuggled closer to Joonas, clinging on to his arm and slurring nonsense in his ear, more than half of it completely unintelligible to Joonas. The warmth of Olli’s body next to him was about the only thing keeping him grounded at that moment, the only thing stopping him from practically inhaling all the alcohol he could find and wait for the heavenly bliss of unconsciousness take over. Yes, the wetness of Olli’s lips against the skin behind his ear made Joonas shiver with the need for something that made him feel even more intoxicated than all the tequila he had downed that night.
Joonas nudged his head against Olli’s and smiled at the way Olli mirrored his gesture.
“Wanna leave, hmm?” Joonas murmured into Olli’s ear and Olli looked up at him with dark eyes, pupils dilated, from the dimness of the room or something else, Joonas could only guess. Olli nodded, mouth partly open so that Joonas could smell the alcohol in his breath, but he withdrew when Olli’s lips tried to find his, mere millimetres from touching.
“Let’s get outta here,” he said, getting them both up the bench they were sat on and started making their slow way to the front door. Joonas was sure Tommi was hiding somewhere in the shadows, following the scene from afar, but he decided to text his friend a simple ‘leaving’ anyway before heading out.
Or he would have, if his phone hadn’t been knocked off his hand by a body bumping into him from his left side.
“Hey, watch where you’re going,” he exclaimed half-heartedly, all ready to shrug it off and be on his way with Olli, but his face fell when he recognized the man with the long brown hair who he had had the misfortune of encountering that morning, less than twelve hours ago, although at that moment it felt like a lifetime away.
“Oh, it’s you again,” he proclaimed his observation out loud. “We gotta stop meeting like this, honey.”
Confusion ran over the man’s face, soon to be replaced with something Joonas took as realization of who he was looking at, his mouth staying silent but his wicked eyebrows furrowing as if to say you.
“Wanna help me pick up my phone, dear? I kinda got my hands full here,” Joonas continued and pointed his free hand to Olli who he was holding up with his right one.
The man gave him a deathly glare and crouched for Joonas’ phone lying on the gritty floor of the hallway.
“This is the part where you say sorry, by the way,” he whispered exaggeratedly, like he was a prompter reminding the actor of his next line.
“Sorry,” the man said quietly and scurried away the way a disturbed spider would make its escape from the corner of a room it had been hiding in before you took out the vacuum cleaner.
“Nice talking to ya,” Joonas called out after him, shaking his head. Imagine being so impolite to people you have barely met, who have done absolutely nothing to cross you. Some people are just born with piss in their cereal, Joonas recalled Tommi’s truthful aphorism, and felt a sting in his chest from missing his friend so much, even though it had only been some hours since they had last talked to each other.
“Who was that?” Olli pronounced the words sloppily into Joonas’ ear.
“That was the dickhead who threw all his coffee on me this morning,” Joonas replied, knowing ‘threw’ was a definite exaggeration. ‘Dickhead’, on the other hand, seemed like an appropriate description of the guy.
“Prick,” Olli mumbled, and Joonas couldn’t resist laughing loudly, not caring the man would hear it.
It took them a long while to stumble their way to the nearest tram station, both of them having to stop numerous times to release themselves with certain, less graceful bodily functions in the bushes by the side of the pavement, deserving some disapproving looks from the late-night dog-walkers that passed them by. The vehicle was crowded with people of their age, possibly because pretty much every fraternity and sorority in the city was holding their season opening festivities that night. It didn’t seem to bother Olli in the slightest, however; the man leaned on Joonas’ shoulder, pressing so tightly against him that Joonas wondered if Olli was trying to pass through him like a ghost. Joonas allowed Olli to snuggle his nose in the hair behind Joonas’ ear and run his lips over his earlobe, his breath hot and heavy against it and growing more rapid by every stop the tram made during the journey to the university district, so that when they finally reached their destination, Olli was all but panting into his ear and Joonas had to man-handle him out of the tram.
Once they reached the door of Joel and Joonas’ room, Olli crashed into him, shoving them both in the room and pushing his lips on Joonas’ with such force that would have made him yelp out loud, had his mouth not been full of Olli’s tongue. For someone who had been consuming an impressive amount of alcohol throughout the evening, Olli was surprisingly determined with his movements, his lean fingers finding and opening Joonas’ belt buckle without struggle, his palms roaming the skin under Joonas’ t-shirt in exactly the places that made Joonas’ breath get caught in his throat.
(Maybe it was just a matter of practice.)
Joonas walked them to his bed, lips never departing from one another, bodies still clinging to each other as they fell down on the mattress. He hurried Olli’s shirt off as the need to feel his warm, bare skin under his palms became irresistible. The rapid pulse throbbing against his lips as he sucked on Olli’s neck and the breathless whimpering that escaped the other man’s throat as he did so were like electric shocks that kept Joonas going; like opium to an addict suffering from withdrawal symptoms; like that one more shot of vodka that made the film in your head break mid-scene, a chance to forget about what happened in the one before it and to ignore all that would happen in the next one. For now, all that mattered to Joonas was the hot mouth on his and the pulsing cock under his palm, both begging for redemption, and Joonas may not have been a saint, but he sure was merciful.