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Johannes can see colors. He can see the beautiful shade of the sky. He can see the colors of each of the biathlon suits surrounding them. Sometimes he truly wishes he couldn’t.
He wishes he could only see the gray world he had known for most of his life. Before he had met Martin. Martin and his exasperating smile, his will to always be better than him and his determination…Martin and the obvious lack of love there was between the two of them. They were certainly destined to be great rival really, but Johannes couldn’t see anything else happen between them. Martin must have felt the same, because despite how their world have both taken colors after their first meeting, he had never talked about it. He had found a girlfriend that had become his wife, that had given him 3 beautiful kids.
Johannes wasn’t jealous of her really. He didn’t wanted Martin in that way, no matter what the universe seemed to be thinking. But he was jealous of Martin. Of having successfully found someone that would love him despite his flaw, despite the fact the universe had destined him to someone else.
Johannes had never found someone like that. And he never would. Not many people would even look at someone that wasn’t their soulmate…But they would look even less at someone that could see colors and had purposefully put aside the chance given by destiny.
Or if someone did, it would never be someone that wanted the same thing as Johannes. That wanted the bliss of a domestic life, the reassuring embrace of a long-term love. People that had put aside their soulmates were rarely looking for that…And people that hadn’t found their soulmate were even more rarely looking for that. And even if someone like that did, Johannes would never take that risk. The risk of falling in love with someone that couldn’t see the world as it was. Falling for someone that could only see the gray, that would never see color because of him. Taking the risk of either getting his heart broken by the person leaving, or of ruining their life by preventing them for ever seeing colors.
Johannes can see colors. But most day he truly wishes he couldn’t.
Sturla can’t see colors. It’s not like Johannes had asked him, it’s not something you’re supposed to ask really. But it’s so easy to see, in the way he couldn’t differentiate between the old French skiing suit and the Italian one. In the way he always shrugs when someone ask him to pick the color of anything. Johannes knows Sturla can’t see colors. He knows his world is gray, just like Johannes wishes his own world could be.
Sturla doesn’t see colors, but he is different from most people surrounding Johannes. He doesn’t seem to care about it. He never looks at Johannes with that weird envy people seeing the world in gray sometimes get. He never looks at the sky with sadness, as if the fact of being unable to see its varying colors was nothing for him. Sturla never speaks about his potential soulmate, never wonders who they might be, where they are or when he would meet them. Vetle doesn’t care in a different way, because he knows his soulmate. Because the two of them are together. He doesn’t complain about the lack of colors, doesn’t question himself about his soulmate. But he can spend 20 minutes speaking of the colors of Florent’s eyes, the subtle variation in them. It tires Johannes more than he wants to admit. The idea that seeing colors can be so exceptionally beautiful. That it can be so lovely while it’s nothing to him. Colors are just there, like the gray was before. It’s nothing exceptional really.
Maybe that’s why Johannes and him like each other so much. Because they do not care about soulmates. Because they see the world around them as something mundane. Because whether there is colors or not in their life, they do not care about it.
Deep down, Johannes is quite sure he likes Sturla for other reasons too. Because the other biathlete is passionate yet so calm. Just like the sea in a way. Sometimes cold and calm, sometimes strong enough to destroy everything that comes in his way. Because Sturla always says the right thing, unlike Johannes that can’t speak more than ten words without saying something useless, random or dumb. Because he is always there for his teammates, in his quiet compassionate way.
Sturla has a beautiful soul. That’s why Johannes likes him so much. He also likes the rest of him. His beautiful eyes, his strong arms, the way a soft smile appears on his lips each time someone in the team is happy.
It’s something Johannes shouldn’t think about. It’s not like his…weird appreciation of Sturla’s soul and body could ever be anything else than a quiet appreciation. Sturla doesn’t see colors. He doesn’t care about it. But one day, he will. One day he would meet the right person, the person that would bring colors into his life. The person that would change the monochrome life that was his for something else.
A person Johannes couldn’t be. He knew colors to well, he couldn’t be the one to bring them into Sturla’s life. Sometime, when they were sharing a room, when Sturla sleeping form was a steady presence in the night, he wishes he could be. It would have been so easy really, if Sturla was his soulmate. They would have both seen colors at the end of the 2019 season. Johannes’s blue eyes would have been the first color Sturla would have ever seen. It would have been a beautiful moment followed by something even more beautiful. Because Johannes couldn’t try with Martin. There was nothing more than rivalry between them, nothing more than a painful destiny.
But he would have tried with Sturla, if he had been given the chance. If destiny had given him Sturla, he would have tried his best to know the other man. He would have tried his best to give him everything he had, every part of him.
He would have tried his best to love him, really. But it was useless to think about that after all. Sturla was destined to someone else. It kept Johannes awake at night more than it should. The idea that Sturla was meant to be long to someone that wasn’t him.
Sturla was meant for someone else. Someone Johannes wasn’t. Johannes repeated that like a mantra, trying his best not to look at Sturla on the other side of the room. Trying not to look with jealousy as Fabien Claude puts one arm around his shoulder, pulling him closer for a half hug.
Sturla wasn’t his. He was meant for someone. Fabien couldn’t be that someone of course, otherwise Sturla would have already seen colors. Still, Johannes had no right to feel that jealous at their closeness. He takes another glass of alcohol, drinking it quickly. Maybe the alcohol burning his throat will make him forget about the jealousy burning in his heart. On the other side of the room Sturla smile kindly at Fabien, and Johannes resist the urge to either take another drink or go do something stupid. Something like pushing Fabien away and kissing Sturla. Something he wasn’t suppose to want, or to even think about really. Both the pushing away and the kissing part.
A warm hand tapped Johannes’s shoulder, pulling him out of his thoughts.
“Is everything alright?” a deep warm voice asked and even with the alcohol Johannes wasn’t drunk enough not to recognize Vetle’s voice. He nodded quickly, trying to take his eyes away from Sturla.
“Yeah. I’m fine.” He answered and truly he wasn’t sure he sounded fine. But it was the best he could do really. Vetle followed his gaze, a small knowing smile appearing on his face when he realised what; or more exactly who; Johannes had been watching.
“You should speak to him, you know? It would be more effective than watching him from afar all the time like that.” Vetle said simply, as if it was that easy. As if Johannes could just go to Sturla and speak about whatever he was feeling. About the weird pull he was feeling towards him, the unstoppable want he felt each time Sturla was near. The profound affection he felt for him. Vetle couldn’t get how impossible it was.
“I can’t.” He answered simply and Vetle looked at him while tilting his head. He wasn’t getting it, just as Johannes has expected.
“I don’t see why not. Sturla is single, and he looks at you quite a lot when you’re not…” Vetle started but Johannes interrupted him before he could give him any false hopes.
“He is meant for someone else.” He said, and it was heart breaking to admit that out loud. The idea that Sturla wasn’t meant for him was already horrible in his mind. But it was even way worse said out loud. Vetle looked at Sturla once again, before looking at Johannes with confusion.
“How can you be so sure about that?” Vetle asked and Johannes scoffed before answering.
“He doesn’t see colors.”
I do he wanted to add, but he couldn’t bring himself to say that. Couldn’t bring himself to remind the world how broken and alone he was. How destiny had chosen wrong for him, single and lonely Johannes that was feeling no surreal pull towards his own soulmate and that was feeling it towards someone’s else soulmate.
“It doesn’t mean he is meant to someone else. Love…love is more than that. More than destiny, or seeing colors.” Vetle said softly and Johannes would have appreciated his tentative compassion. If Vetle was the right person to give it. He scoffed before taking the glass of alcohol that was in Vetle’s hand.
“Easy to say. You’re in love with your soulmate.” Johannes said before drinking the alcohol. Vetle looked at him with a soft sad smile for a moment.
“Sorry, you might think I’m the last person that can say that kind of thing, I guess. But I really believe it, that love is bigger than colors and destiny.” Vetle said and Johannes just shrugged. He looked to the other side of the room, where Sturla and Fabien were a few moments earlier. Fabien was still standing there, but he was talking with someone else. Johannes looked around for a bit, trying to find Sturla again. Vetle smiled at him softly before patting his shoulder again.
“Sturla must have gone to his room. He often gets shy during parties.” He said simply before leaving Johannes alone with his empty glasses and his thoughts. If he had drunk less Johannes would have stayed here. He would have tried to pretend that he was enjoying the party. That he wasn’t desperate to go look after Sturla. But he had drunk too much to pretend really. Or maybe he was scared in a way. That Sturla might have taken someone with him. That he might have missed it while talking with Vetle. Maybe he wanted to reassure himself, to make sure Sturla was well and alone.
That’s what he told himself while knocking at Sturla’s door.
Sturla opened it, surprise appearing on his face as he saw Johannes.
“Johannes? Is everything alright?” Sturla asked softly.
“Is it tonight’s question…” Johannes mumbled, remembering how Vetle had asked the same thing. Did he look so bad for everyone to be asking that? Sturla tilted his head slowly and Johannes coughed, trying to hide his embarrassment. How could he even explain why he was here?
“I saw you leaving and I wanted to make sure you were alright…” Johannes decided to say after a moment. It wasn’t completely true, but it mostly was so it was fine really. Sturla smiled, a small blush creeping on his cheeks. It was new, Sturla blushing like that. But Johannes liked it a lot. It made him almost happy to be able to see colors, being able to see Sturla shyness like that. Seeing his beautiful eyes too, the soft freckles on his face… Fuck, he really needed to focus.
“I’m well, I just…Don’t like parties that much really.” Sturla said softly, and in his voice, Johannes could hear there was something else. Johannes looked at Sturla for a moment, unsure what he could say. His brain was screaming the most unhelpful things to him so he just stood for a moment before Sturla took a step back into the room.
“Do you want to come in for a moment?” he asked softly and he sounded so unsure and hesitant that Johannes couldn’t find the strength in his heart to refuse. Even if refusing was certainly better. Sturla wasn’t sharing his room tonight; they were all sleeping alone because of covid restriction and it was dangerous for him to enter. Not because of covid, but because he would be alone with Sturla while he had drunk a bit too much.
“You don’t have to, if you don’t want to. I just…always appreciate your company.” Sturla said after a moment of silence, and there had been a hesitation in his voice at the end of his sentence. Something small, nothing else would have sensed. But Johannes did. He knew each variation of Sturla’s tone, the way each emotion was written on his beautiful face. He knew there had been hesitation here.
“I can stay for a while.” He said while entering the room. He had been in Sturla’s room before. They had even shared sometimes before. Yet, it felt strangely intimate to be in Sturla’s room now that it was only his room. Now that they were alone, that Johannes had drunk more than he should. Now that Sturla was blushing softly.
Vetle’s words were echoing in Johannes’s mind, no matter how hard he tries to ignore it. Sturla looking at him quite a lot when he isn’t looking. Vetle hadn’t said what kind of look it had been, but it wasn’t necessary given the context of their discussion, wasn’t it? Sturla had been looking at him like Johannes had been. In a way that could be seen by their teammates, in a way that had made Vetle think that Johannes should try something.
Sturla sat on the bed while Johannes was thinking. His eyes hadn’t truly left Johannes since he had entered the room. Johannes knew Sturla. He knew the way emotions were written on his beautiful face. And the emotion that was currently written on it was quite new and unexpected. Sturla’s eyes were dark and warm, and there was a small hesitant smile on his lips. Lips he was biting a lot, in a move that was totally unusual from him.
That was how desire was written on Sturla’s beautiful face. Johannes wasn’t sure who took the first step, who started gripping the other’s body with need. He wasn’t sure how he had ended up on top of Sturla, how their clothes had disappeared so quickly. He didn’t dare to kiss Sturla no matter how close their body were, no matter how Sturla’s hands were burning his whole world. Their body were touching, were dancing together in the most intimate way there was, yet Johannes couldn’t find the honesty and courage in himself to kiss the other man. There had been desire written on his face. But desire wasn’t love.
When Sturla came, moaning his name in the most delicious way Johannes had ever heard, Johannes did his best to remind himself that it wasn’t love. That Sturla wasn’t his even if he had just fucked him. When Sturla fell asleep against his shoulder, his hands circling Johannes’s waist, he repeated the same thing in his mind over and over again.
Sturla wasn’t his.
That’s why he left before Sturla woke up the next morning. That’s why he didn’t talk about it, didn’t talk about his deep love for the other man. Even when they fucked again and again, until it became a pleasure routine, one Johannes wished he could keep forever. It was fine for him to wish for that. He was lonely in his bad destiny, and maybe being selfish and hoping for the wrong things was permitted in that case.
It wasn’t fine when Sturla was wishing for it.
Sturla hadn’t said anything out of the ordinary at first, no matter how fucking his teammate must have been out of the ordinary. They had fucked, they had come together, holding each other like there was no one else in the world. Cuddling until Johannes ended up leaving in the middle of the night, like he always did. It was what they did, what they were for one another.
One night, when he had tried to leave, Sturla had woken up. He had looked at him with lost and confused eyes.
“Why are you always leaving?” he had asked and Johannes didn’t know where to start. There were so many reasons for him to leave. They were not together, Sturla was only with him because he hadn’t found his soulmate yet, there was nothing but desire in what they were sharing…Maybe all the answers were only partially true, but they all felt really real to Johannes.
“It’s how it works for friends with benefit, doesn’t it?” he had answered, because all the answers in his head sounded even worst. Sturla sat on the bed, revealing his naked torso. There were marks there, marks that Johannes had left. Because he was selfish like that, wanting to mark Sturla as his even if he wasn’t supposed to.
“And…what if I wanted for us to be more than friends with benefit?” Sturla asked softly. Johannes felt his heart beating faster at that idea. Sturla and him being more. The two of them sharing something real, something strong and durable. He enjoyed the bliss of that idea for a moment, the idea of waking next to Sturla every day, of being with him not only for sex but for all the rest too. He enjoyed it before his mind reminded him of the harsh truth. Sturla thought he wanted that. But for how long would he? How long would Johannes be granted before Sturla’s soulmate entered the picture? How long would he have Sturla before the man inevitably left?
“It’s impossible Sturla.” Johannes said as best as he could, no matter how it was breaking his heart. It was better to get rid of all his useless hope now, before he had time to love Sturla even more. Time to know him even better, time to enjoy a real relationship before it was taken from him.
“I don’t see why it is.” Sturla answered with determination, a small pout on his beautiful face and Johannes would have kissed him if he could. Of course, Sturla wasn’t seeing why it was impossible. He wasn’t seeing colors yet. He didn’t understand that for Johannes what they had would be everything, while for him it would ultimately be a small step before he met the person he was destined to be with.
“Do you know what kind of blue my eyes are?” he asked rhetorically and Sturla tensed on the bed. He had certainly expected Johannes to be kinder than that. Because he was not that subtly telling him that nothing was possible between them because he couldn’t see colors. Because Sturla was meant for someone else, someone that would appears any day from now.
“I…don’t. But I don’t have to see their shade to know they are beautiful, just as you are even in shades of grey and…” Sturla started explaining but Johannes stopped him by raising his hand.
“Don’t, Sturla. For you what we share will soon be nothing. You’ll leave me when you’ll see colors so don’t…”
Don’t give me hope for something I can’t have.
“It’s not nothing to me. You’re not nothing to me…” Sturla whispered and Johannes did his best to ignore all the emotions in his voice, the pain there was at the idea that Johannes could even think he was nothing.
“Sturla. I don’t want to talk about it. There can’t be more between us…”
No matter how much I want it he thought sadly, but his mouth was smart enough not to say that. Smarter than his heart was being with his useless hope and his love that would only break his heart.
“If I don’t talk about it anymore, will you stay?” Sturla almost begged and Johannes let his hand linger on the door handle for a moment. What wrong could it do, him staying a bit more in Sturla’s bed? He knew very well that their time was only borrowed, and sleeping with Sturla after fucking him wouldn’t change that. It might hurt in the end, but wouldn’t it hurt either way to see the other man leave for someone else.
“I’ll stay for now, if you want me to do so.” He answered before turning back toward the bed. Sturla let out a reassured sigh, and Johannes could see some happiness in his eyes despite the sadness they were currently filled with. It was easier to say that than the terrible truth that was in his mind. The realness of what they were sharing, and of Johannes’s deep affection for Sturla.
I’ll stay for as long as you need me. Until you finally see colors and can find someone better.
One night while they are quietly lying on the bed they share in one of the hotel, Sturla starts talking.
“You do have a soulmate, right?” he says out of the blue, and really it wasn’t the kind of question anyone was supposed to ask. Especially not the person that had been sleeping with you for the past months. Johannes isn’t sure where that sudden curiosity is coming from, but there is something in Sturla’s voice. A form of interest Johannes had never heard before.
“I do.” Johannes says, and he realizes it’s certainly one of the first time he says that out loud. That he has a soulmate. The idea is still strangely foreign to him. He knows he has a soulmate, but it has so few consequences on his life, and he wishes for that to have never happened so much that he rarely said it out loud.
Sturla says nothing for a moment, before he turns into the bed, coming to rest on his side to look at Johannes.
“Do you think…Do you think destiny can be wrong sometimes?” Sturla asks and isn’t it the same question Johannes had asked himself since the first time he had met Martin?
“I think it can be wrong in a way.” He says simply because it’s his only answer even after all these years. Sturla nods softly, and there is something reassured in his eyes. As if what Johannes had said meant the world to him.
“I think I met my soulmate in France. During the Martin Fourcade Nordic Festival.” Sturla says softly and Johannes feels his heart break even more then when he had realized Martin was his soulmate.
“That’s…good?” he says without conviction, wondering why Sturla is telling him about that right now. The Martin Fourcade Nordic Festival had happened months ago, before the new season had even started. Why had he waited for them to be in Ostersund to suddenly talk about it? Why had he waited for them to fuck again to speak about it? Was it Sturla’s weird way to tell him it was time to let him go? A last hoorah before leaving Johannes in his usual loneliness, the one destiny had chosen for him when it had given him Martin.
“It’s neither good or bad, I guess. It is what it is. He is kind and nice but really…I’m not interested at all in him. Does that make me weird?” Sturla asks softly and Johannes does his best to not let out a reassured breath. He shouldn’t be feeling that reassured and happy, about Sturla being so hesitant about someone that was supposed to be his destiny. It was selfish and wrong to be reassured by that. By the idea of not being alone with a wrong destiny…
By the idea that Sturla could fully belong to someone else. Someone else he could be, in his most impossible dreams.
“It doesn’t make you weird Sturla. There is no obligation to love your soulmate, trust me.” He says kindly, doing his best to be a good friend and teammate and nothing else. Sturla smiles at him, looking at his eyes for a long moment. Johannes truly hopes his weakness for Sturla can’t be seen into his eyes. That the strange feelings he had kept during the last year can’t be seen through them.
“You have beautiful eyes you know. So many shades of blue, it’s fascinating. I think it’s the most beautiful color I’ve ever seen.” Sturla says after a while, and Johannes knows he is blushing. He also knows Sturla will see it, now that he can see colors.
“You haven’t seen lot of colors yet. That’s why you think that.” Johannes says with a forced laughter and Sturla keeps looking at his eyes. He does so for long seconds before a small smile appears on his face.
“I’m sure I’ll think that even when I’ve seen more colors.”
Sturla moves his hand slowly, coming to brush Johannes’s check with all the softness he has. Johannes isn’t sure how he should react, but he knows how he wants to react. He wants to kiss Sturla. Something he has never done before. Fucking could be done without revealing his true feelings, in the dark of their room, their bodies barely touching despite his desire. But kissing? It was too much to pretend not to love Sturla while doing that.
He spent months thinking he shouldn’t want that. But now that Sturla has no destiny awaiting him? Now that he can see colors? Now that Johannes isn’t holding him into a gray and monochrome world? It’s harder not to want it really.
“Sturla.” He says, his voice warning the younger biathlete and Sturla smiles at him lovingly. With all the warmth he usually smiles with. His smile isn’t different now that he can see colors or now that he knows who his soulmate is.
“You once rejected me, saying I would leave when I would see colors. Your eyes are blue, yet I’m still here.” Sturla stated softly, and Johannes couldn’t have imagined the devotion in his voice. There was too much of it for his imagination to be responsible.
“You shouldn’t…” Johannes starts but he isn’t even sure what he wants to say. You shouldn’t defy destiny? That would be hypocritical coming from him. You shouldn’t stay with me? That was certainly true, but Johannes wanted it so much he would never be able to say that now that the excuse of destiny was gone.
“I don’t care about what I should or shouldn’t do. I don’t care about destiny.” Sturla says and there is strength in these words that are coming from the bottom of his heart.
“Love is a choice. It’s waking up every day choosing the same person. I chose you when the world was gray, and I’m still choosing you now that it has colors in it…”
Sturla’s hand is shaking on his cheek, and despite the strength in his words it’s easy to feel how vulnerable he is. Baring his heart for Johannes like that…despite how Johannes had rejected him before.
“Would you choose me?” Sturla asks in a whisper, and Johannes can’t find the right words to answer.
I have chosen you a long time ago even if I was too much of a coward to admit it is certainly what he should say. I love you is a good option too. Yet the only thing he can do is coming closer to Sturla. He puts one hand on the younger man’s face while the other comes to rest on his waist. Sturla looks at him expectantly and Johannes kisses him.
It feels like what seeing colors for the first time is supposed to feel. It feels like his whole world is on fire, like everything is changing suddenly. Sturla’s lips are soft and the way he moans against Johannes’s mouth is the most beautiful sound Johannes had ever heard. Sturla’s hands go around his shoulders, making them as close as they can be. Their whole bodies are touching like that and it feels like the fire is leaving the world to rest in their joined bodies. There is nothing else than Sturla, his lips, his moans, nothing else. No colors, no soulmate, no anything. Only the two of them, perfect for the other. Not because destiny had decided it, not because it had made each of them for the other. But because they loved each other, because they had chosen each other.