Chapter Text
It was hot. Too hot. Choking hot.
Bojan’s consciousness began to stir and he thrust the thin blanket that was over his semi-clothed body off to the side, where his hand smacked into part of a sleeping Nace who grunted at the impact.
The air was thick, sweaty stale, and his mouth tasted like last night’s beer. His head hurt. What time was it? He was on the floor.
His gut only swam for a second when he sat up and looked around, beginning to orient himself. A hotel-room. He remembered now: their first night in Madrid. This was Jan and Jure’s room but all of the boys plus some of the crew were piled in here. The light was low, but the Spanish sun was aggressively attempting to infiltrate around the edges of the window blind, making the room glow a sickly orange.
Most of the guys were still asleep (someone was snoring), but Kris was sat awake at the dressing table, his hand around a glass of water, watching his vocalist rejoin the world of the living. Bojan realised he had never been more thirsty in his life.
They nodded a good morning to each other, not wanting to disturb the others’ peace, but Bojan’s throat felt like the desert and he tried to clear it as quietly as he could.
Kris threw a large piece of card across the room to him which settled clumsily by his thigh. There were two words printed on one side and a cord attached which Bojan put over his head so that the sign rested against the front of his chest.
VOCAL REST
The pair of them shared a smile. Right: it wasn’t supposed to be all party; they had a job to do here. Were rehearsals supposed to start today? Bojan hoped not. He needed to piss, and hydrate. He needed a shower and some clean clothes. The keycard to his own room must be around here somewhere…
It was noon. Half an hour had passed since waking and Bojan was feeling slightly more human, and had ventured to leave the hotel. His hair was still a little wet from his shower but dried quickly in the southern air. It was his first time in the city – a world away from the small local gigs Joker Out were used to playing – and flashes of memory from the night before came back to him as he walked.
This quiet little bar (open but empty at this hour) was where they had begun their evening; he had beaten Nace at Foosball. Another cute place, and there had been a jukebox which the five of them had commandeered for a couple of hours until the locals got sick of their taste. Taking pictures in stupid poses outside the museum, singing too loud in the streets. A cocktail bar where it had all started to go a little wrong and Bojan’s memory was patchy. A club, and Jure had been sick upstairs and they had swiftly left. Some dirty fast food place. Arguing with taxi drivers about how many of them could fit in a car.
There was something else.
Bojan found a coffee place not too far from the hotel, busy with accents of people who had gotten much more sleep than he had. The smell of coffee and pastries went some way to distract him from his hangover but as he stood in line, mentally practising his Spanish for his order, his mind continued to construct the story of the night before.
He had explored the park last night, but not with the boys.
It was in the cocktail bar: he had switched from beer to spirits and something had turned in his mind as well. He was thirsty, feeling powerful and adventurous.
“Will you get off your phone for a hot second and Carpe this fucking Diem with us, Bojan?” Jan had scolded him at the cocktail place. It had been loud. His memory was patchy because he hadn’t stayed there with the rest of them.
He didn’t have to tell Jan that he very much was Carpeing the fucking Diem, checking out the locals. Who knew: soon, they might be too famous for him to get away with this, so he should enjoy it while he could. One day, his questionable activities would inevitably come back to bite him in the ass, but he was young and drunk and invincible - today was not that day. The guy he was messaging gave him a time and place and Bojan drained the last of his drink.
“Where are you going?” Kris had asked him as he stood from the table and looked towards the door.
“Adventures.” They never asked him to explain any further that this. “I’ll find you later.”
Kris had narrowed his eyes at him a little, in silent judgement or in affectionate concern, Bojan could never tell. “Be safe,” he had told him.
“Always.”
“¿Qué te gustaría?” the pretty girl behind the counter asked Bojan when it was his turn to be served. He knew just enough Spanish to order coffees for his friends and a pastry for himself. While the staff were preparing his order, he continued to remember.
He remembered blue eyes. They had met by the park, by the bridge, under the streetlights. A discrete thing, just public enough to be safe until they acknowledged each other, then over the stone bridge into the park, into the shadows. They didn’t need words. There had been trees, a statue, a fountain.
There had been skin and breath and sweat and hard grass under his knees. A little scar just visible on this guy’s belly in front of his face and the taste of latex in his mouth because Bojan was always good to his bottoms before he fucked them.
His coffees were ready.
“Gracias, señor,” the barista said. “Que tengas un gran día.”
He wished her a good day, also, and began to make his way back to the hotel.
They had been fully clothed, hooded for privacy despite the warm night air, trying to be quiet. The hum of a slight breeze in the canopies and rush of water in the fountain was punctuated only by the rhythmic slapping of skin against skin, his own grunts at the feeling of this man’s heat around his cock and his partner’s higher-pitched whimpers at being filled while Bojan was gripping his fingers into his hips and forcefully pushing his mouth into his neck: never enough to mark, never enough that anyone would ever know.
That was the etiquette, that was the law. The sticky-sweet clash of violent, musky, animalistic connection, that would be completely deniable the next day when Bojan would pretend to be a respectable member of society again. Bojan was a lucky man, he knew, but the more success Joker Out enjoyed, the more their whole lives became manicured and choreographed and groomed and censored and watched. The more easily digestible he had to be, the less himself, the more ashamed. It was a part he enjoyed playing but sometimes the mask slipped and he became ravenous for something human, something real, something physical. Something that he had control over, that his producers and managers had no business being involved in. He needed someone else's sweat and muscle and facial hair and obscenity. Never emotion - that was too dangerous. Only filth.
But the feeling always passed. He was easily satisfied, for a short while at a time anyway. He would find some anonymous release now, then go back to his friends, go back to his life, go back to being the Bojan he was supposed to be. Just sexual enough to be interesting, never enough to be unwholesome. Just available enough to be desirable, never enough to appear lonely. Palatable, clean. Heterosexual. He and this man would never see each other again after tonight. No one had to know. It was understood.
Back at Jan and Jure’s hotel room, most of the guys were awake now, and those who weren’t came back to life at the smell of the coffee. Someone finally opened the blind to let some reality flow back into the room while the band and the team began to gather their senses, dress, clean, and hydrate.
“Busy day today,” Jan announced generally to the group. “Most of the other acts will be arriving today. We get to meet our competition before rehearsals start.”
Bojan would have to rally some energy from somewhere. The atmosphere last night had been electric and would only improve as the pre-parties went on. Sure, they were here to play music and to compete in front of the world, but they were damned well gonna have some fun doing it. Nothing could get in the way of him enjoying this journey to the fullest.
The rehearsal stages weren’t fully set up yet, but the acts already had their dressing rooms assigned which the teams were filling with their programmes and costumes and equipment. All of the other acts seemed as excited as the Slovenian band were to be there, all chosen to represent their countries with their music. There were language barriers, but every act had translators and everyone greeted each other with smiles and hugs and dances to get their point across.
Joker Out immediately bonded with their neighbouring countries' acts, and Bojan’s Italian and Serbian was good enough that he could find a common ground with those teams as well. There were so many faces to remember, so many names and songs. People wore name badges and carried flags to help and forgot that this was supposed to be a competition, that they would need to fight against each other.
Bojan was hanging out with the Austrian girls when someone grabbed his shoulder to turn him around.
“This is Finland!”
Bojan’s expression dropped.
Shit.
Here was the rest of his band introducing themselves to the Finnish act who was tripping over his English and was obviously ecstatic to be here. The Finnish act who called himself Käärijä and was showing off black leather and a Rammstein tattoo. The Finnish act who had blue eyes and a scar on his belly.
“This is Jan,” his bandmate continued the introduction, “and this is Bojan.”
Bojan tried to regain his composure, to paint a carefree smile back onto his face as if everything was fine, but not before this man had noted his hesitation and began to put pieces together. He watched this guy - this Käärijä – flick his eyes from Bojan’s face to his mouth, to his hands; recognising, remembering.
But they were surrounded by his band, by their teams, by the whole damned competition. No one could know.
“Good to meet you,” acted Bojan, taking Käärijä’s hand and pulling him into what he hoped looked like a casual hug. A slap on the back, and a breath full of the masculine scent that had consumed his entire world the night before, and they parted, keeping eachother's secret.
“You too, Bojan," said Käärijä. In a strong accent, he was emphasising Bojan's real name, which he had kept private last night when they had forced pleasure from each other. "We will be great friends, yes?"
Bojan swallowed. He would need to do much more acting over the next few weeks than he had bargained for.