Chapter Text
The aroma of coffee permeates the air—of which Joel cannot even begin to tell apart aside from the two categories; instant or ground coffee, judged by the intensity. Despite the ‘training’ which consisted of trying and guessing different blends and types from all around the world as little office games with their coworkers after their holidays, Joel has never been good at pinpointing coffee beans. Although the taste is distinctable, and there is a difference in smell, his mind seemingly never bothered to actually retain the labels.
Unimportant, either way. For a case, possibly useful. But in his day to day, he has no reason to be able to pick between Italian or Peruvian or Ethiopian coffee beans, and maybe when he is older he will appreciate it.
For the time being, he scrunches his nose, overwhelmed with the aroma of coffee and freshly printed paper. There is a distinct difference between hot paper and cold paper, not even adding the whiffs of wet paper from overfilled cups and squirting bottles. He wishes to not know about it, but he does, and so he has to deal with it.
The office is loud and bustling as ever, everyone doing their jobs, filling in where needed. And those without a set job or place, they stand about chatting with others who are free. They have their coffees, and their juices, and their waters in the common room. They have their fresh sandwiches with their tuna, their chicken, their roasted beef. Perfumes and colognes, all clashing with each other in a level that the ordinary person would not be able to pick up with their normal sense of smell.
Joel hates office days.
He pulls the collar around his neck a little tighter, breathing in the more familiar cologne though it still makes his head spin. There are flowers and sweet tea approaching, normal smells before he catches something different. Slowly, almost cautiously, he looks up, head turned in the direction of the ‘new’ smell.
Etho hands the flowers to their desk neighbor then makes his way over, placing a bottle of sweet tea beside his arm. His eyes follow it, notices that it is open, a couple sips taken. The smell is stronger, slipping through the unsealed but closed lid. A finger nudges his face forward then up, his gaze following up to Etho’s face. Mask covering half of his face, eyes uncharacteristically bright and sparkly. Childish mischief. The kind of look he sees when they are being reckless, when both their heads are filled with bad decisions, when they are about to mess with someone.
In this case, Etho is the only one who knows the joke, giddy all on his own.
“Bad day?” Etho asks, nimble hands fixing the collar of the jacket—also Etho’s, which also has that weird smell, he notices now. New but not overwhelming, new but not mismatched with Etho, new but something is wrong with it and he fails to pinpoint it.
“Not particularly, no.” He lies, though Etho notices. Through the bond, maybe—if that even is a thing with this new variant, not that he cares for differences. He tilts his chin up a little more as Etho’s fingers glide lightly on the underside of his chin, a fleeting touch that leaves shortly after he registers it in his mind.
Etho hums, a vibration that cares all the way to him quietly. Like something in the back of his mind. Comforting either way, so he pays it no mind. “We’ve got some interviews to do, so get your things. And your tea, don’t forget your tea.”
“I… I thought that was for tomorrow?”
“Skizz said there might be another case up for grabs soon. Figured it’d be a nice change of pace.”
Joel blinks as Etho walks away, not far, merely a couple steps still around their desk. His absence instantly opens the gates for everything to wash over him, milder but still annoyingly present. He spins on his chair to face him, watching him gather some files while multitasking some emails on the screen.
A faint smell distracts him a second, eyes flickering back to the sweet tea. He grabs it, standing just as Etho begins to walk away, their desktops turned off. Etho sticks closely, shoulder to shoulder as they walk out, seemingly knowing that something is bugging him. He wonders if Etho knows, though it is more likely that Etho senses a general ‘something is wrong’ rather than a specific thing. Of course, he could always tell him what it is, but he does not have to. Everything is fine still. He does not need help.
The car park is filled with gasoline fumes and rubber. Even here, there is the ever lingering coffee scent. Leather and ironed clothes, the slight dampness of the rain from last week. There is rust somewhere.
Inside the car, as he clicks his belt and Etho gets the engine started, he enters a curious bubble. Mostly Etho, to not say it is all Etho. He remembers vaguely the explanation, that most people are not actively aware of their own smell, which is heightened to an extreme for Sentinels. An odd quirk that definitively messes with the Sentinels. Joel wonders if Etho’s smell is so strong to combat his, if it has ever gotten to that stage.
Etho would have said something if that were the case, would he not?
He makes a face.
“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”
He makes another face.
“Aren’t you supposed to know?”
“Well, I can sense it,” Etho perches against the windshield, turning to look at him as they wait for the green light, “and I’m asking now. What more do you want me to do?”
Joel presses his lips and turns away, not facing ahead or facing out his window, but finding a midpoint between both options. A red car parks on his side, and he glances to see a group of teens. Their music is loud, their windows are down, and their smoke makes its way inside the car. Subtly. Very faint. The concentration is so small he might even be imagining it, which is not fun at all.
“Do you want a mask?” Etho asks, and Joel only looks at him in brief disbelief. He shakes his head, then flops back on the seat, facing ahead as the light finally turns green. Luckily, the red car turns at the intersection while they continue straight.
There must have been enough clues for Etho to have figured it out. To pinpoint and isolate the sense like that takes skill, more for Guides who are distracted driving with their heads on the mission with no time to think about their Sentinel being difficult. Etho manages, somehow.
The day goes as any interview day goes, from location to location. The car slows then stops, they climb out and find their person. A short walk from the car to where they need to be. Streets filled with people and life, and smells. Typical ones that stack up on top of each other. Gasoline and food, so much food—burgers and pizzas and sodas, ice-cream and waffles and popcorn, stews and snacks and breakfast, salads and fries and soups, nachos and fried fish and fried chicken, ramen and curries and stir-fries; buffets and bakeries, restaurants and pop-up food trucks, coffee shops and bubble tea shops—
In between, there is sanitizer and sterilization. The unbearable smell of ‘disinfected’ hospitals and their rooms—clean and old sheets, freshly iron coats and vomit, hair spray and bland food, nail polish and latex gloves. There is death, there is life; there are lines vaguely hanging on and lines slowly letting go. Their time is not long, knowing what they know, yet Etho makes it as quick as he can.
They keep moving, from spot to spot, from person to person.
Detergents. Perfumes. Colognes. Baby oils and baby powders. Make-up and sweat. Dampness. Wet grass. Dogs. Bubbles. Rubbish. Rotten food. A barqueue in the neighborhood.
Grass and old books. Old oil and a mismatched of appliances. Linen and colorful chemicals.
Joel decides, then, that he hates it everywhere. The office, the city, the streets. Everywhere.
All insufferable. All suffocating.
He burrows his nose into his towel, breathing in the faint floral detergent so he can shut all the other smells out. It works for a moment before he needs to breathe plain air, so he moves on to dry his hair. His mind drifts to the events of today, how he practically followed Etho from place to place, being of absolute no help while Etho interviewed the people. Not that he did not want to do his job, but Etho seemed to be handling it well enough, so he made no effort to insert himself.
However, the facts remain. Their job aside, the one other question continues to linger ever present in his mind, now that they could turn off ‘work-mode’, he finally allows himself the minute to acknowledge it.
Sure, today had been a terrible day for his nose, everything intense but not quite. Any other day, he thinks, he would have gone into a panic or a zone-out. But he did not. Not at any point, even in the center of the fish market, did he lose himself. Close but not quite.
His senses tell him it has something to do with that new scent lingering in the air. Permeating every place they had gone to, the only thing he could actively pay attention to, and the only thing he actually wanted to pay attention to. Joel, like the smell, followed Etho. On every street, through every door, he followed him all throughout the city. And further, too, had they needed to.
Carelessly, he rubs the towel on his hair a final time, tossing it in the hamper before walking out of the bathroom, letting his nose guide him through their shared place. Not enormous by all means, comfortable, yet still containing places and distance to hide from the other. It is a safety feature, for the Sentinels to hide if they needed—or in cases where both were in danger after being followed or found.
This time, however, Joel finds Etho even if the whole place smells like him. In his room, working like a dog even during their off-the-clock status. Etho looks up from his laptop, a brow instantly rising, though he chooses to ignore him as he walks over to his bed, neatly made and instantly ruined when he flops face first on it. The sheets and the blanket untucks, creasing and the mattress creaking.
“Sure, you can come in,” Etho says with an eye-roll Joel can hear and sense. He picks up the smile too.
Joel buries his nose into the pillow, closing his eyes as he breathes out. He squirms himself under the blanket, curling over himself, engulfed in all directions by him. The room is quiet with only the sounds of keyboard keys and papers, the swirl of pen on paper, and the occasional squeak of the chair.
A couple minutes pass by, minutes that feel like hours, Joel falling more into dream-land than his head, which is the preferred destination. After all, it is easier to be at ease with his Guide nearby, surrounded by everything of theirs, overwhelmed in the best way possible. Being stripped down of the external world to focus solely on one person, his person, his Guide. It makes his thoughts less fuzzy, his mind a little clearer.
Despite being relaxed and comfortable, he still perks up at the sudden movement—sudden only because his mind and body have slowed down drastically. But he hears wheels on carpet, joints crackling a little, and the quiet little sound of a laptop shutting off. He senses soft steps, the slight drop in temperature when the lights turn off, and the dip in the bed when Etho climbs in. It takes no time for Etho to move closer, and even less time for Joel to scoot closer.
Arms wrap around him, his nose against Etho's collarbone, breathing in that scent of his that made his mind clear.
“Do you like it?” Etho asks quietly, and Joel only responds with a tired, questioning hum. “The new body wash. Do you like it?”
He hums again, too tired to give words. Maybe the next day when he is awake, after thinking things through, he will tell him it is not the body wash or cologne or detergent. There is a distinct smell, one that is Etho and Etho’s only. One that without even trying keeps the dials at a manageable level.
Joel probably will not, knowing himself. Etho is smart and will figure it out on his own with time, Joel knows he will—though he has no doubt Etho already has inklings about it, which have not been mentioned or discussed at all—, so he most likely will not tell him. Instead, he finally lets go and drifts off in the arms of this stranger he calls his Guide.