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The sleeproom of the bus was dark and quiet; a whole different world to the late afternoon outside. Jere had no real excuse for abandoning soundcheck like this, but something about his bunk called to him and he was powerless to resist it. It was something warm and beautiful and Slovenian. Something dressed in only Jere's hockey jersey.
He climbed in, pulling the curtain closed behind him. Jere’s skin was cold from the October chill but crawling in beside Bojan’s sleeping form was like sinking into a hot tub.
Thigh over thigh, Bojan wrapped his arms around Jere, still hazy. He wasn’t supposed to be here – he was supposed to be in Thailand. His being here with Jere was a secret, except that everybody knew.
He was here.
All mine.
The phonecalls and the messages and the facetimes, and the little gifts and distant movie nights and collaborative playlists were fine but nothing beat being physically with him. Jere needed this. He needed his skin, his heat, his smell.
He buried his face into Bojan’s neck and inhaled deeply, the intimate musky warmth of him filling Jere’s lungs, closer than close.
Jere had been addicted to things before. He knew how it felt: the obsession, the yearning, the lack of sleep. The rejection of moderation, too much never being enough, everything else in his life falling away into unimportance. But you couldn’t be addicted to a person’s smell, could you?
If this wasn’t addiction, then what was it?
Shit, Bojan had spoken while Jere was lost in his own head.
“What you say?”
The first time it hit him had taken Jere by surprise. They had been on a boat.
It was just off the coast of Liverpool, England, the pre-parties all wrapped up and the final show looming. He and Bojan really hadn’t known each other for very long but there was something about him that made Jere feel like if that ship had sank that day, he probably wouldn’t have minded drowning by Bojan’s side all that much.
The pair had found solace in each other, just the two of them chasing hurricanes for the thrill of it, and no one had to know that underneath the dancing and joking and playing, there was already a very deep fondness for Bojan blooming like a flower inside Jere. But did Bojan feel it too?
Is he?
Is he?
On the boat was the first time he knew for sure that that fondness was returned.
After the party, retreating somewhere to be alone, so close that Jere could breathe in what was beneath Bojan’s cologne. Cradled by the steady sway of the ship, they had offered each other their lips for the first time. And it had hit him like an ice berg, tearing through his hull: the sense of nothing ever being the same again, the knowledge that his old life was gone and that this was the beginning of something.
How he had filled his lungs with Bojan’s breath.
He smelled like adventure.
The second time was the best and worst night of Jere’s life.
Thousands of people in the arena and millions of people all across the world had just watched him lose everything. The competition, his pride, and all of the people he had become friends with who would be heading back to their home countries the following day.
Something huge was over and relief had poured from Jere and would not stop pouring. In the bathroom, in the dressing rooms, at the after party that they had left early together.
Like hiding a guilty habit from loved ones, he had stolen away from even his own team to be alone in the hotel room with Bojan, to be soothed by eyes his own personal shade of chestnut, so uniquely Bojan that he might as well have trademarked it, against Jere: the epitome of blue.
Bojan’s shoulders had been wet as Jere had bled his pain onto him, but still he held him, strong and kind and close. And as Jere sobbed upon him like a child on a blanket, he could smell the gentle intimacy of Bojan’s skin, the only thing that mattered, the real prize that made all of this worth it.
He smelled like comfort.
The third time, Jere had just been glad there was a third time.
No one had ever made a promise to Jere that hadn’t turned into a lie eventually and with all of the shows and interviews, there was no way that Bojan actually wanted to find time to see him in Finland, was there?
But there he was: on Finnish soil and on his stage and in his home. Whatever they had was worth fighting for and knowing that Bojan craved him back had driven Jere wild. Like a cigarette, Jere wanted to put Bojan to his lips and take a drag. He wanted Bojan’s lingering smoke all over him, everyone eyeing him like they knew where he’d just been, telling him it was bad for him and it would hurt eventually but he wasn't ashamed; he never wanted to quit.
They had found a way to be together despite the explosion of success in both of their lives, despite having found their hurricanes. The new fame was unexpected, but the bigger surprise was that he didn't really care about any of it any more. When he thought of his life, it wasn't platinum records or stadium performances he looked forward to. It was this, it was Bojan.
He had stayed in his apartment, in his bed. They shared breakfast. This was actually working.
He smelled like hope.
The fourth time was not just with Bojan but everyone they each loved most in the world.
Not Jere introducing Bojan to Finland any more, but Bojan introducing his band and crew to Finland, as though he himself had adopted the culture, a duel-citizen because of Jere. Adopting each other’s lands and languages and loved ones, two lives knitted together to create a single, beautiful world. The whole gang of them performing and traveling together, just like how Jere’s heart knew it was meant to be all along.
And then at the end of the day, Bojan and Jere touching as discretely as they could under the covers in shared hotel rooms until the band kicked themselves out so that the pair could catch up privately.
A secret, except everybody knew.
Bojan had left some pieces of himself behind, and Jere had thumbed over his underwear, his shirt, the most simple expression of trust. Bojan himself was in his heart and in his memories and in his future, but right then it had been Bojan’s shirt which was in his hands and he hadn’t been able to resist, hadn’t wanted to resist, putting it to his face and breathing in the undersmell of Bojan’s sweat fragranced with the domestic care of Jere’s own fabric softener.
He smelled like family.
“What you say?”
Jere couldn’t get enough. He never wanted to let go.
If it wasn’t addiction, then what was it?
“I said 'I love you'.”
Oh. Of course.
Bojan had always been better with words than he was.
In the secretive darkness of the tiny bed in the tour bus, Jere pulled him tight into an embrace and inhaled.
He smelled like love.