Too far around the bend (Part 3/3)
-
It doesn't help. Johnny is awoken to an empty bed that mocks him with its phantom warmth. The drapes are undoubtedly pulled and for several minutes he lays under the sunlight, the events of the previous night falling into place in his mind like odd, disjointed movie frames. He shoves away at them pointedly and follows through with his safe, every day morning routine. No matter that he has to rub extra primer into his flushed cheeks and concealer into the bruise on his collarbone.
He doesn't even see Evan that day until they're about to leave for the arena. Evan is all business, a mask over his features as he speaks to Priscilla in the car, and despite it being frustrating, despite Johnny wanting to read into some sort of reaction, he chooses to mirror it.
It's torturous irony that their bodies have to be touching for the entirety of the evening but Johnny's done it for five years, he can compose himself for a few hours. But Evan's rougher on Johnny during the stretches than he normally is, pushing harder than he needs to be, and it makes Johnny's muscles tense up.
"Down boy," Johnny half-teases, voice low. Evan's only response is a stern and entirely unimpressed expression, as though Johnny is some sort of child. It's insulting, frankly, and Johnny feels irritated as Evan moves onto his other leg.
"I'm just saying, Evan. If you keep shoving at me like some barbarian, my body's going to rebel and then you won't even have a partner to take onto the ice," Johnny warns.
"Oh my god," Evan snaps like a diva, pulling away, "you're perfectly capable of doing it on your own." He walks to the floormat furthest away from Johnny's and throws himself onto it, beginning to stretch by himself. Johnny rolls his eyes, accustomed to Evan's theatrics. He lives with him, after all, and they have spiders, and Evan is vocally afraid of spiders. It might be acceptable if this wasn't the goddamn gold medal at the Olympics. He heaves himself up and walks over to Evan.
"I understand that you have a drama quota of the day," Johnny says, hands on hips, "but I don't think that tonight is a good time to be abandoning our routine."
Evan practically glowers up at Johnny. He says, "I don't think you're in any position to be lecturing me about abandoning routine."
It takes Johnny by surprise that Evan chooses to throw everything onto the table because normally he's an enormously avoidant bitch.
"Whoa," Johnny says, stepping back, "I'm not guilty of anything and if I am, I'm not the only one."
"You are so outrageously, one hundred percent guilty," Evan mutters. He reaches forward to touch his toes and adds, "a jury would convict you."
Of course the stupid metaphors have to make an appearance. "Good thing our life isn't an episode of fucking CSI, then," Johnny snaps and drops onto the floormat, grabbing Evan's ankle ungently.
Evan doesn't say another word to him for the rest of the night and when they finally step onto the ice, Johnny is grateful, really, because it's the one place they've always found equal ground. They're third to last to skate and the gold is still there, just within their grasp, so Johnny shakes everything off as best he can and falls into the mental space where nothing but what he needs to give his partner matters. Evan takes a deep breath and nods at Johnny, meeting his gaze, and it strikes Johnny suddenly how full and melancholy his eyes are. Their free skate routine is based on the concept of hope, with sweeping, yearning movements that slowly transition from mournful to bright, but Johnny's never seen Evan so in character for it. It chills him a little bit and throws him off just as their music goes into its first bars.
Their routine plays out like a beautiful disaster that may as well have been entitled "losing hope". Johnny's painfully aware of how perfectly in sync they are throughout the entire skate and yet they just can't execute; their triple twist ends up a double and their throw triple loop mortifyingly ends up with Johnny on his ass but Evan's there to tug him back up. It's as though they're falling together in harmony and all Johnny can take in is Evan's arms careful around him and the sounds of their skates cutting into the ice. The audience is hushed like they're anticipating the next missed element, sadists that they are.
-
In the end, their gold medal is blown. Their any medal is blown, Johnny realizes dismally as he stares at the final standings of the night on the TV screen backstage. They've placed fourth with their lowest combined score of the season. Priscilla curses quietly and squeezes Johnny in a side-hug. She probably can't think of anything to say, either, because there's really nothing to be said about this.
"Great idea," Evan mutters to Johnny after a few loaded moments of staring at the TV screen, stalking off to the locker room, and Johnny has absolutely no excuses, now. This time he's the one at true fault, he thinks despairingly and he feels the tears coming on hardcore, his throat already overclogged. He extracts himself from Priscilla to go after his partner.
"Evan," he calls, following him into the locker room and pausing just inside the entry. Evan plops down heavily onto one of the benches and starts to tug off his skates, completely unresponsive to Johnny. His body is hunched over like the weight of four years is pressing onto it, just the way it feels in Johnny's veins, and his fingers are visibly faltering on his laces. Johnny feels an overpowering urge to go over and touch Evan, to crawl into his lap and hold his face and make it feel better for both of them again, but he doubts it would be well received. So instead, he settles for saying:
"I'm sorry," clear and urgent, and Evan responds just as quickly with:
"I'm retiring."
Johnny's heart stops for five full seconds and then it must come back on overdrive because it's suddenly all he can hear over the muffled noises of the arena. He blinks repeatedly, trying to absorb what Evan just said and when that doesn't work he asks, "What?"
Evan doesn't meet his eyes, just unzips his suit and says, "You heard me."
Johnny laughs disbelievingly.
"You're retiring? But you're twenty fucking years old."
"I know," Evan says, "and this clearly isn't working. I can go to college now. I can have a life outside of figure skating and outside of you."
Johnny's had his heart broken plenty of times before. He's had lots of asshole boyfriends and experienced death in his family and one time in sixth grade, his best friend outed him to the entire school and he came home crying and never went back there again. He's suffered plenty, before, but it never, ever felt like he was fucking dying. Like his life was effectively being ended in front of his eyes.
"Evan Lysacek, I think you just broke my soul," he says and for a second it looks like Evan truly understands. He looks up from undoing the ties on his costume, eyes meeting Johnny's, and the expression there is searching, like he didn't want to make the decision at all. Maybe Evan will just give in and take it back. He can't just quit them like this, not when they're just getting started. He can't do this to Johnny's life.
Priscilla walks into the room then, takes one look at them, and asks, "what's going on?"
Evan blinks and then looks over at Priscilla. "I'm quitting figure skating," he says evenly.
"Can you believe him?" Johnny interjects, exasperated, before Priscilla can respond.
"Johnny," Priscilla says to him like a warning, and her tone of voice and the expression on her face are both way too calm, way too unsurprised.
"Wait," Johnny says, looking back at Priscilla, "did you know about this?"
It feels like a royal betrayal when Priscilla nods tersely and responds with, "this isn't the best time to have this conversation, but yes, Johnny, Evan had talked to me about it."
Johnny stares between the two of them. He despises feeling like a fool, and that's exactly what they've made him here.
"Okay," he says, nodding calmly, "I'm glad to hear that the decision was unanimous. Now excuse me while I go find myself a new partner."
He turns on his heels and walks out of the locker room. He heads straight for the press room, even though he typically showers before he can stand to speak to the cameras, and waves at the reporters.
"So I know that you're all just dying to ask me about why our performance was so uncharacteristic, and why the Olympic pressure 'got to us'," he says into their microphones, "but my darling ex-partner will be happy to provide you with those answers," he smiles, and the damage is done.
-
Unfortunately, Johnny can't just fly out the next day like he would prefer to do. Prior to coming to Torino they had agreed to perform in the champions gala and despite the fact that they're hardly champions, Priscilla basically pleads with Johnny to go through with it. He wants to cancel, he and Evan both do, but with melodramatics Priscilla says that if they're going to go, they might as well go with a bang. Johnny bitterly thinks that the bang will be from the bullet in his head, he hates this place so much and is ready to leave it. But the media has blown it up as their Last Performance as a Pair and they might as well give their fans something to remember them by other than that disastrous Olympic performance. Of course, they've prepared this year's exhibition routine to the saddest fucking song in the known universe.
"Where are we?" Imogen Heap sings and Johnny nearly sobs. He knows this is a touching, exquisite routine full of whimsical jumps and spiral sequences--after all, he half choreographed it--but tonight it feels like a terrible goodbye. Evan's body is loose and relaxed and beautiful on the ice. Johnny should probably feel honored that he gets a front seat view of Evan's last performance. Instead, he feels like dying. The fact that they execute all of their elements perfectly is almost a slap to the face and Johnny can almost hear the commentators going, "now if only they skated like this in competition!"
During the bridge Evan holds him closer than they do in their competitive routines and for a fleeting moment, Johnny closes his eyes, lets his body be pulled by Evan's, and pretends they're back home on their practice rink--before the Olympics or any of this nonsense, just a normal training session, practicing their exhibition routine. It was something that they did when they got tired of listening to their short or long program music. This routine was always just a break from everything, and Johnny imagines that it is now too.
"Beautiful eye contact there," Priscilla says to them afterwards with a heavy and quiet sort of melancholy and just like that, it's over. For the rest of the trip, Johnny hangs out with his mother and doesn't utter a single word about figure skating or Evan Lysacek.
-
It's raining and nearly dawn when Johnny gets back to the States and he has to take a cab back to the apartment. Evan chose to go straight to his parents' home in Chicago, so he's at least a thousand miles away right now and good riddance, Johnny thinks. His presence was starting to gnaw at Johnny's nerves. And so is this cab driver's. The driver complains about how balmy the weather's been and Johnny responds cattily that he likes the rain, then tugs on a pair of headphones and blasts Christina Aguilera for the rest of the drive.
Johnny had told Patti that he needed to be alone for a while, but as soon he shuts the door behind himself, the quiet in the apartment is a startling contrast from the buzz he's been around for weeks. It takes him a few hours to get used to and the majority of them is spent sleeping off the jetlag and shittiness. When he wakes up again it's mid-afternoon. His curtains aren't fully drawn and the open space in between them lets in the fragmented sunlight that lingers in the rain. It's almost haunting in the silence and Johnny wonders where all the goddamn birds went. He hauls himself out of bed, takes a relaxing bubble bath, and watches TV for the rest of the evening, avoiding everything crime or Olympics-related.
-
His days consist of waking up, vacuuming, working out, and then doing absolutely nothing. It's nice for a while but then Johnny starts to go stir crazy, or cabin fever-y, or a combination of the two. He drives around, goes shopping, and invites Paris over a few times so that he doesn't die of boredom.
They gossip about their friends and talk about fashion and music and it's kind of refreshing to feel like a real human being for once in his life, really, but Johnny starts to think that maybe he prefers being a figure skater. He misses the ice and craves the discomfort of his skates and craves Evan's fucking hands on his waist.
Paris strolls into Evan's bedroom one day and the entire time he's inside, Johnny stares tensely at the open doorway. He hasn't gone into the room other than to clean and dust and straighten out Evan's frames. And maybe the last time he had sat on the edge of Evan's bed and stared at a picture of them from Worlds last year for far, far too long.
It makes him uncomfortable, though, that Paris is inside the room when Evan isn't even in the apartment. Like it's some sort of invasion of privacy. Johnny doesn't know when he started caring about Evan's privacy, and he doesn't consider why it's okay for him to be in Evan's bedroom and not Paris, but he feels weirdly relieved all the same when Paris walks out.
"It's a good sized room," Paris hums, sitting back down on the kitchen stool, "how much would you rent it out for?"
"I'm not renting it out," Johnny responds immediately.
Paris stares at him, chin lowered and eyes knowing. "Why? Is your husband planning on moving back in soon?" he asks.
Johnny rolls his eyes. He says, "what are you talking about? He hasn't even moved out yet," and Paris bursts out laughing, falling to the floor. Johnny thinks this is as good a time as any for a wrestle.
When they're done and Johnny has undoubtedly won, he lays half on top of Paris, panting. They're quiet for several long moments and Johnny stares up at the ceiling of his empty apartment, finds his throat tight all of a sudden.
"Paris," he says, "I think I did something really, really stupid."
-
Johnny goes back to training with Priscilla a week later. He half expects her not to show up and she probably suspects the same about him. She's cautious and adds ellipses before every single word she says around him, like he's going to crack. It's frankly annoying because he isn't a crystal duck and he tells her just as much. Priscilla holds up her hands as if to say all right, shaking her head. Johnny rolls his eyes at her, then slips and nearly breaks his face on the ice because apparently he doesn't know how to skate; it literally feels like a part of his body is missing.
Worlds is out of the question now, for obvious reasons. Johnny either needs to figure out how to go back to singles, after five years of being part of a pair, or find himself a new partner. He's not in a hurry to do any of it. For now, though, he needs to prepare a solo exhibition routine.
"Johnny, do you want to hire a choreographer?" Priscilla calls. Johnny used to hate having to work things like this out between him and Evan, but now he just wants to avoid it.
"I don't know," he responds airily, "your decision."
She's silent like she's considering it and then asks, "well, do you have any ideas for the choreography?"
"I have plenty of ideas. All of them require my partner," he smiles bittersweetly at her. "Isn't that unfortunate?"
Priscilla lets him be after that and Johnny appreciates it because he needs to work himself out. It feels like he's learning to skate all over again, like the first few awkward months between him and Evan when they had to force their bodies to understand each other. At the time it was something new and exciting to conquer and Johnny would get a thrill every time they successfully completed a throw or a twist. Evan would laugh and take credit for it, of course. Who's Johnny going to share that with, now? The ice?
He stares down at it and the bitter cold in his toes mirrors the bitter solitude he feels up in his chest. He wonders where Evan might be right now--rediscovering his hometown with his real friends, in his childhood bedroom, in someone else's bedroom, maybe. Just the bare notion strikes outrageous possessiveness in Johnny's mind over Evan's presence and his warmth and his body, things that Johnny never felt like he owned before but that were there, frustrating and settling him all the same. He wonders whether Evan is sitting somewhere feeling like a giant chunk of himself was transplanted, too.
To try and balance out his misery, Johnny thinks of all the stupid, irritating things Evan's done over the years. Like intermittently calling Johnny "Swan" for the first two years of their partnership, and painting himself progressively more obnoxious shades of orange, and covertly going to get that dumb tattoo that Johnny wants to lick. Johnny is fucking ridiculous and he sinkingly realizes that he's never taken anything for granted as much as he has Evan Fucking Lysacek.
-
After showering in the empty locker room, he drives himself to his equally empty home and pulls out day-old macaroni from the fridge. Johnny has found out that he hates leftovers, but he keeps forgetting to measure his portion sizes for one person. It's all so painfully banal of him, he knows, but it's been harder to break out of routine than he anticipated. The second kitchen stool feels like it's mocking him, so Johnny takes his dinner to the computer desk instead.
He checks his e-mail and there's something from Evan, because they've resorted to e-mailing each other now. The message is curt, telling Johnny that he'll be flying in next week to sort out his move and can Johnny please leave the bills on the kitchen counter if he's not going to be in town. It effectively kills Johnny's appetite because seriously, Evan doesn't even plan on seeing him? Johnny replies to the e-mail with a snippy remark about Evan's crappy grammar and leaves a PS saying he'll be at the apartment.
Priscilla had mentioned that they all need to meet about the "paperwork", anyway. Johnny's dreading it because he knows that he'll have to come up with a decision about what he wants to do next. What he wants to do next is go to Worlds with Evan and win another gold medal and then jump on top of his partner. That obviously isn't an option.
He knows that he won't be able to work up the motivation for singles' competition but if he stays in pairs, where's he going to find a new partner? He can't exactly just craigslist figure skaters.
He's almost about to try it anyway when his Skype call window pops up, ringing.
"Johnny?" Patti says, her voice louder than it needs to be, when he answers. He puts his volume down a few notches and says, "Hi, mom," aware of how gloomy he looks and sounds at this moment. He stuffs a forkful of macaroni into his mouth.
"What are you doing?" she asks, peering into her computer screen. It makes her head look larger as it looms closer to the camera.
"I'm contemplating my empty future," he says, still half-chewing the food in his mouth, "and getting fat."
Patti laughs and Johnny appreciates that he's still funny to someone. "Johnny," she says when she sobers up, "did you start training?"
"Yes," he replies tersely, poking at the food with his fork, "and I don't want to talk about it. It was depressing and I don't know how to skate anymore."
"I'm sure that's not the case," Patti says reassuringly, but she doesn't probe any further. Instead she tells him about her week and her knitting club meeting and all the errands that she has to run tomorrow morning before she has to go to work. Also, his brother apparently has a new girlfriend who he's bringing over to dinner next Monday night and isn't that exciting? Listening to his mom babble is soothing in a way but Johnny can't help that he can't work up enthusiasm for anything at this point in his life. Patti stops talking and he can feel her stare critically at him through their weird cyber connection.
"Do you miss him?" she asks, careful and motherly.
Johnny isn't surprised, really, that she asked, but it still feels strange that it's out there--explicit and on the table. He feels absolutely miserable when he nods.
"Oh, honey," Patti says gently, "it's normal to feel that way after you've spent such a big part of your life with someone."
"No, mom, that's not the way it is," Johnny asserts. He tries to avoid looking at the screen because he'll have to look at his own face in the small chat window, too. "I miss him."
His mom doesn't say anything for too many seconds and Johnny wonders if she's judging him. But then she tells him, voice sympathetic, "I know, Johnny," and he wants to cry. And maybe kill himself. He rests his elbows on the laptop and his face in his palms and groans torturedly.
"Honey," Patti interrupts his death sequence, "I probably shouldn't tell you this, but Evan called me earlier."
Johnny looks up at the screen. "Oh, really? Are you two phone buddies now?" he asks. Patti sighs exasperatedly.
"He's just as unhappy as you are," she says and Johnny gets this strange twisty feeling in his stomach, "he sounds miserable when I speak to him and he already misses figure skating. You should convince him to stay, Johnny. You're the only one he'll listen to." The way Patti says it, it comes out like a command. She's a mom, after all, and she's self-confessedly in love with Evan; of course she wants to protect him. But she's also completely oblivious about The Real Truth.
"Evan hates me," he tells her.
"And you hate him," she says, "I've heard it before, spare me."
"I had sex with him," Johnny blurts.
Patti stares bluntly back at him and now Johnny knows she's judging him. He guesses Evan didn't tell her that part.
"Okay, I need a minute to comprehend this, Johnny. When did that happen?" she asks. She sounds a little betrayed, like Johnny didn't trust her enough to tell her about it or something when Johnny could barely explain it to himself.
"The night before our free skate," Johnny says, "I thought I had this brilliant idea that we'd have sex and our bodies would be completely in tune and then we'd win the gold. I ruined our chances and I ruined our relationship. And now Evan's fucking retired."
He looks up at the chat window and his mom's expression is heartbroken. Great. His own mother hates him. At least Paris just asked about who topped.
"And he agreed to it?" she asks.
Johnny's cheeks fill up with heat. "I was convincing," he explains, ashamed at something that he would normally be flaunting. Maybe even more ashamed for that reason. He's just a giant asshole all around. He tells his mom that, too.
"Well," Patti responds, her voice softer and further away because she's backed herself from the computer like she can't stand to be near Johnny in digital form even. "That probably wasn't the right thing to do and I know you. I know you understand that. But Johnny," she says, "Evan is a consenting adult with his own mind. He can make his own decisions and mistakes and if you just speak to him, you might realize there's a whole other side of the story you're missing here."
Johnny shakes his head. "I think I'm okay not knowing the extent of his hatred for me," he says.
His mom sighs and a beeping sound comes through her microphone. "Oh crud," her head floats out of the frame for a second, "I have to take the pizza out of the oven. Love you, Johnny, talk to him," she says pointedly before hanging up.
Johnny stares at the blank computer screen helplessly, needing her reassurance and her voice filling the godforsaken silence in this apartment. He considers her words, considers his phone, and then chickens out like the coward that he is. He logs onto Perez Hilton instead and tries to lose himself in the mindlessness.
-
The morning that Evan's flight is meant to come in, Johnny spreads himself out on Evan's bed like a stormcloud and cherishes every moment he can spend absorbing Evan's phantom presence and his lingering scent. He figures that soon all of this will be moved out and he won't have any more of Evan to steal, so he might as well enjoy what he can. His plan is to deal with the end of his world afterwards.
When the time for Evan to arrive has come and gone, Johnny wildly wonders if Evan called the whole thing off and is going to send a moving crew to get his shit or something. Johnny starts to think about when they'll ever see each other again and he imagines awkward run-ins at random figure skating events, if Evan even decides to attend when he'll be busy with wild college life. Maybe Johnny should go to college, too. Maybe he'll ask where Evan's going and show up at orientation. Try and get rid of me now, Johnny thinks and laughs bitterly into Evan's pillow.
"What's so funny?" a curious, painfully familiar voice asks from the doorway.
Johnny flips himself over on the bed so fast he very nearly ends up on the floor. Evan is standing there at the entrance of the room, a duffel bag hanging off his shoulder and bunching up the fabric of his ratty t-shirt, looking more tired than Johnny's ever seen him outside of competition-time.
Johnny stumbles to his feet, asks Evan, "where the hell did you learn to be so stealth?" and then kisses him before Evan can respond. The kiss is completely graceless and Johnny thinks that he chips someone's tooth in the process but fuck that, he wants to steal everything Evan will offer him; he wants to climb inside Evan and click a few switches in his brain to make sure that he never leaves.
He pulls away and mumbles, "you're an asshole," which probably isn't the best thing to say to make Evan stay, so Johnny leans in and presses their mouths together again in half-panic. He's relieved when Evan reacts, his hands coming up to grip Johnny's waist as his tongue meeting Johnny's tentatively, but Johnny winds his arms tightly around his neck to rein him in just in case, anyway. It's not really comfortable like this, their bodies too close for the kiss to be any sort of good as their mouths meet messily, but it's as far away as Johnny can handle right now. He needs to get his damn minimum daily requirement of Evan in; twenty-two days worth of it.
"Johnny," Evan murmurs, breaking off the kiss, and Johnny curls his fingers in Evan's hair.
"I know I'm a dick," he says evenly, meeting Evan's gaze, "the biggest one on this entire planet, probably, and you probably don't give a shit about my welfare--and you shouldn't. But if you don't come back and be my partner and live in my apartment and eat my food again, I will die a slow and painful death. I swear to you, Evan."
A little smile spreads across Evan's face and then he bursts out laughing. Johnny stares at him. Evan is fucking laughing at him. Evan is laughing at him and Johnny doesn't care that the sound of it is bright and pleased and sorely missed, it's a little bit irritating. He's about to say something snippy when Evan suppresses his dumb laughter and intones:
"It always has to be about you, doesn't it?"
Johnny frowns. "No," he argues. "it's just that we're good for each other, and you're an amazing skater, and college is just a pretentious--"
"Johnny," Evan interrupts, his eyes darkening, thumbs pressing firmly into Johnny's hipbones. "I'm not going anywhere."
Johnny blinks. "What?" he asks, though he can already feel the inklings of elation begin in his blood, glimmering and warm.
Evan pulls his hands away from Johnny's waist and folds his arms across his chest.
"I sat there in Chicago for three weeks realizing that I couldn't handle my life without figure skating," he explains, shrugging. "It's always been a part of me, and I was sitting there thinking about all the stupid, determined, inspired things that I've said to all those stupid reporters. Like, how hypocritical is that of me?"
"Very," Johnny supplies, starting to smile, "so very two-faced of you, Evan."
"And also," Evan says, his cheeks reddening, "I'm pretty fucking head over heels for you--it's been that way for a while. I can't answer why because there's no actual possible explanation for it."
Johnny just stands there, looks at Evan's open, hopeful face, and thinks he might need several more seconds to absorb the words, several more days, probably. His brain is yelling me too, me fucking too, but apparently all the bluntness he can muster around Evan still doesn't give him the courage to admit that he's in love with him and has been stupid enough to never know it.
So instead Johnny says, "oh, thank god," and his body, at least, is an expert regarding all things Evan.
Johnny manhandles Evan's t-shirt, tugs him back to the bed, and proceeds to kiss him, slow and sweet, for as long as he possibly can without breathing.
He doesn't lay over Evan in any organized fashion, just sprawls across his body, limbs like starfishes searching for Evan's, and Evan gives back as good as he gets. His hands sink into Johnny's hair, holding his head close and it's perfect this way, fitting into each other the way they always do, Evan's pulse fluttering close to Johnny's.
During a breathing break, Evan pulls away and his face is withdrawn, almost. Johnny nudges their noses together. "What?"
"I just want to clarify," Evan admits, "the guys you used see all the time, they--would you--I would be the only one, right?" he nervously asks and Johnny feels like a dick all over again. He half-props himself up, one elbow digging into the comforter and the other arm still sprawling across Evan's chest, still welcome. He looks at Evan and takes in his flushed, frustrating face, takes in his crazily overgrown hair that Johnny desperately needs to sort out, takes in his intense eyes, all liquidy and stressful.
"All those other girls, baby," Johnny says, voice careful and contradictive to the teasing nature of his words, "they don't compare to you."
-
End
It doesn't help. Johnny is awoken to an empty bed that mocks him with its phantom warmth. The drapes are undoubtedly pulled and for several minutes he lays under the sunlight, the events of the previous night falling into place in his mind like odd, disjointed movie frames. He shoves away at them pointedly and follows through with his safe, every day morning routine. No matter that he has to rub extra primer into his flushed cheeks and concealer into the bruise on his collarbone.
He doesn't even see Evan that day until they're about to leave for the arena. Evan is all business, a mask over his features as he speaks to Priscilla in the car, and despite it being frustrating, despite Johnny wanting to read into some sort of reaction, he chooses to mirror it.
It's torturous irony that their bodies have to be touching for the entirety of the evening but Johnny's done it for five years, he can compose himself for a few hours. But Evan's rougher on Johnny during the stretches than he normally is, pushing harder than he needs to be, and it makes Johnny's muscles tense up.
"Down boy," Johnny half-teases, voice low. Evan's only response is a stern and entirely unimpressed expression, as though Johnny is some sort of child. It's insulting, frankly, and Johnny feels irritated as Evan moves onto his other leg.
"I'm just saying, Evan. If you keep shoving at me like some barbarian, my body's going to rebel and then you won't even have a partner to take onto the ice," Johnny warns.
"Oh my god," Evan snaps like a diva, pulling away, "you're perfectly capable of doing it on your own." He walks to the floormat furthest away from Johnny's and throws himself onto it, beginning to stretch by himself. Johnny rolls his eyes, accustomed to Evan's theatrics. He lives with him, after all, and they have spiders, and Evan is vocally afraid of spiders. It might be acceptable if this wasn't the goddamn gold medal at the Olympics. He heaves himself up and walks over to Evan.
"I understand that you have a drama quota of the day," Johnny says, hands on hips, "but I don't think that tonight is a good time to be abandoning our routine."
Evan practically glowers up at Johnny. He says, "I don't think you're in any position to be lecturing me about abandoning routine."
It takes Johnny by surprise that Evan chooses to throw everything onto the table because normally he's an enormously avoidant bitch.
"Whoa," Johnny says, stepping back, "I'm not guilty of anything and if I am, I'm not the only one."
"You are so outrageously, one hundred percent guilty," Evan mutters. He reaches forward to touch his toes and adds, "a jury would convict you."
Of course the stupid metaphors have to make an appearance. "Good thing our life isn't an episode of fucking CSI, then," Johnny snaps and drops onto the floormat, grabbing Evan's ankle ungently.
Evan doesn't say another word to him for the rest of the night and when they finally step onto the ice, Johnny is grateful, really, because it's the one place they've always found equal ground. They're third to last to skate and the gold is still there, just within their grasp, so Johnny shakes everything off as best he can and falls into the mental space where nothing but what he needs to give his partner matters. Evan takes a deep breath and nods at Johnny, meeting his gaze, and it strikes Johnny suddenly how full and melancholy his eyes are. Their free skate routine is based on the concept of hope, with sweeping, yearning movements that slowly transition from mournful to bright, but Johnny's never seen Evan so in character for it. It chills him a little bit and throws him off just as their music goes into its first bars.
Their routine plays out like a beautiful disaster that may as well have been entitled "losing hope". Johnny's painfully aware of how perfectly in sync they are throughout the entire skate and yet they just can't execute; their triple twist ends up a double and their throw triple loop mortifyingly ends up with Johnny on his ass but Evan's there to tug him back up. It's as though they're falling together in harmony and all Johnny can take in is Evan's arms careful around him and the sounds of their skates cutting into the ice. The audience is hushed like they're anticipating the next missed element, sadists that they are.
-
In the end, their gold medal is blown. Their any medal is blown, Johnny realizes dismally as he stares at the final standings of the night on the TV screen backstage. They've placed fourth with their lowest combined score of the season. Priscilla curses quietly and squeezes Johnny in a side-hug. She probably can't think of anything to say, either, because there's really nothing to be said about this.
"Great idea," Evan mutters to Johnny after a few loaded moments of staring at the TV screen, stalking off to the locker room, and Johnny has absolutely no excuses, now. This time he's the one at true fault, he thinks despairingly and he feels the tears coming on hardcore, his throat already overclogged. He extracts himself from Priscilla to go after his partner.
"Evan," he calls, following him into the locker room and pausing just inside the entry. Evan plops down heavily onto one of the benches and starts to tug off his skates, completely unresponsive to Johnny. His body is hunched over like the weight of four years is pressing onto it, just the way it feels in Johnny's veins, and his fingers are visibly faltering on his laces. Johnny feels an overpowering urge to go over and touch Evan, to crawl into his lap and hold his face and make it feel better for both of them again, but he doubts it would be well received. So instead, he settles for saying:
"I'm sorry," clear and urgent, and Evan responds just as quickly with:
"I'm retiring."
Johnny's heart stops for five full seconds and then it must come back on overdrive because it's suddenly all he can hear over the muffled noises of the arena. He blinks repeatedly, trying to absorb what Evan just said and when that doesn't work he asks, "What?"
Evan doesn't meet his eyes, just unzips his suit and says, "You heard me."
Johnny laughs disbelievingly.
"You're retiring? But you're twenty fucking years old."
"I know," Evan says, "and this clearly isn't working. I can go to college now. I can have a life outside of figure skating and outside of you."
Johnny's had his heart broken plenty of times before. He's had lots of asshole boyfriends and experienced death in his family and one time in sixth grade, his best friend outed him to the entire school and he came home crying and never went back there again. He's suffered plenty, before, but it never, ever felt like he was fucking dying. Like his life was effectively being ended in front of his eyes.
"Evan Lysacek, I think you just broke my soul," he says and for a second it looks like Evan truly understands. He looks up from undoing the ties on his costume, eyes meeting Johnny's, and the expression there is searching, like he didn't want to make the decision at all. Maybe Evan will just give in and take it back. He can't just quit them like this, not when they're just getting started. He can't do this to Johnny's life.
Priscilla walks into the room then, takes one look at them, and asks, "what's going on?"
Evan blinks and then looks over at Priscilla. "I'm quitting figure skating," he says evenly.
"Can you believe him?" Johnny interjects, exasperated, before Priscilla can respond.
"Johnny," Priscilla says to him like a warning, and her tone of voice and the expression on her face are both way too calm, way too unsurprised.
"Wait," Johnny says, looking back at Priscilla, "did you know about this?"
It feels like a royal betrayal when Priscilla nods tersely and responds with, "this isn't the best time to have this conversation, but yes, Johnny, Evan had talked to me about it."
Johnny stares between the two of them. He despises feeling like a fool, and that's exactly what they've made him here.
"Okay," he says, nodding calmly, "I'm glad to hear that the decision was unanimous. Now excuse me while I go find myself a new partner."
He turns on his heels and walks out of the locker room. He heads straight for the press room, even though he typically showers before he can stand to speak to the cameras, and waves at the reporters.
"So I know that you're all just dying to ask me about why our performance was so uncharacteristic, and why the Olympic pressure 'got to us'," he says into their microphones, "but my darling ex-partner will be happy to provide you with those answers," he smiles, and the damage is done.
-
Unfortunately, Johnny can't just fly out the next day like he would prefer to do. Prior to coming to Torino they had agreed to perform in the champions gala and despite the fact that they're hardly champions, Priscilla basically pleads with Johnny to go through with it. He wants to cancel, he and Evan both do, but with melodramatics Priscilla says that if they're going to go, they might as well go with a bang. Johnny bitterly thinks that the bang will be from the bullet in his head, he hates this place so much and is ready to leave it. But the media has blown it up as their Last Performance as a Pair and they might as well give their fans something to remember them by other than that disastrous Olympic performance. Of course, they've prepared this year's exhibition routine to the saddest fucking song in the known universe.
"Where are we?" Imogen Heap sings and Johnny nearly sobs. He knows this is a touching, exquisite routine full of whimsical jumps and spiral sequences--after all, he half choreographed it--but tonight it feels like a terrible goodbye. Evan's body is loose and relaxed and beautiful on the ice. Johnny should probably feel honored that he gets a front seat view of Evan's last performance. Instead, he feels like dying. The fact that they execute all of their elements perfectly is almost a slap to the face and Johnny can almost hear the commentators going, "now if only they skated like this in competition!"
During the bridge Evan holds him closer than they do in their competitive routines and for a fleeting moment, Johnny closes his eyes, lets his body be pulled by Evan's, and pretends they're back home on their practice rink--before the Olympics or any of this nonsense, just a normal training session, practicing their exhibition routine. It was something that they did when they got tired of listening to their short or long program music. This routine was always just a break from everything, and Johnny imagines that it is now too.
"Beautiful eye contact there," Priscilla says to them afterwards with a heavy and quiet sort of melancholy and just like that, it's over. For the rest of the trip, Johnny hangs out with his mother and doesn't utter a single word about figure skating or Evan Lysacek.
-
It's raining and nearly dawn when Johnny gets back to the States and he has to take a cab back to the apartment. Evan chose to go straight to his parents' home in Chicago, so he's at least a thousand miles away right now and good riddance, Johnny thinks. His presence was starting to gnaw at Johnny's nerves. And so is this cab driver's. The driver complains about how balmy the weather's been and Johnny responds cattily that he likes the rain, then tugs on a pair of headphones and blasts Christina Aguilera for the rest of the drive.
Johnny had told Patti that he needed to be alone for a while, but as soon he shuts the door behind himself, the quiet in the apartment is a startling contrast from the buzz he's been around for weeks. It takes him a few hours to get used to and the majority of them is spent sleeping off the jetlag and shittiness. When he wakes up again it's mid-afternoon. His curtains aren't fully drawn and the open space in between them lets in the fragmented sunlight that lingers in the rain. It's almost haunting in the silence and Johnny wonders where all the goddamn birds went. He hauls himself out of bed, takes a relaxing bubble bath, and watches TV for the rest of the evening, avoiding everything crime or Olympics-related.
-
His days consist of waking up, vacuuming, working out, and then doing absolutely nothing. It's nice for a while but then Johnny starts to go stir crazy, or cabin fever-y, or a combination of the two. He drives around, goes shopping, and invites Paris over a few times so that he doesn't die of boredom.
They gossip about their friends and talk about fashion and music and it's kind of refreshing to feel like a real human being for once in his life, really, but Johnny starts to think that maybe he prefers being a figure skater. He misses the ice and craves the discomfort of his skates and craves Evan's fucking hands on his waist.
Paris strolls into Evan's bedroom one day and the entire time he's inside, Johnny stares tensely at the open doorway. He hasn't gone into the room other than to clean and dust and straighten out Evan's frames. And maybe the last time he had sat on the edge of Evan's bed and stared at a picture of them from Worlds last year for far, far too long.
It makes him uncomfortable, though, that Paris is inside the room when Evan isn't even in the apartment. Like it's some sort of invasion of privacy. Johnny doesn't know when he started caring about Evan's privacy, and he doesn't consider why it's okay for him to be in Evan's bedroom and not Paris, but he feels weirdly relieved all the same when Paris walks out.
"It's a good sized room," Paris hums, sitting back down on the kitchen stool, "how much would you rent it out for?"
"I'm not renting it out," Johnny responds immediately.
Paris stares at him, chin lowered and eyes knowing. "Why? Is your husband planning on moving back in soon?" he asks.
Johnny rolls his eyes. He says, "what are you talking about? He hasn't even moved out yet," and Paris bursts out laughing, falling to the floor. Johnny thinks this is as good a time as any for a wrestle.
When they're done and Johnny has undoubtedly won, he lays half on top of Paris, panting. They're quiet for several long moments and Johnny stares up at the ceiling of his empty apartment, finds his throat tight all of a sudden.
"Paris," he says, "I think I did something really, really stupid."
-
Johnny goes back to training with Priscilla a week later. He half expects her not to show up and she probably suspects the same about him. She's cautious and adds ellipses before every single word she says around him, like he's going to crack. It's frankly annoying because he isn't a crystal duck and he tells her just as much. Priscilla holds up her hands as if to say all right, shaking her head. Johnny rolls his eyes at her, then slips and nearly breaks his face on the ice because apparently he doesn't know how to skate; it literally feels like a part of his body is missing.
Worlds is out of the question now, for obvious reasons. Johnny either needs to figure out how to go back to singles, after five years of being part of a pair, or find himself a new partner. He's not in a hurry to do any of it. For now, though, he needs to prepare a solo exhibition routine.
"Johnny, do you want to hire a choreographer?" Priscilla calls. Johnny used to hate having to work things like this out between him and Evan, but now he just wants to avoid it.
"I don't know," he responds airily, "your decision."
She's silent like she's considering it and then asks, "well, do you have any ideas for the choreography?"
"I have plenty of ideas. All of them require my partner," he smiles bittersweetly at her. "Isn't that unfortunate?"
Priscilla lets him be after that and Johnny appreciates it because he needs to work himself out. It feels like he's learning to skate all over again, like the first few awkward months between him and Evan when they had to force their bodies to understand each other. At the time it was something new and exciting to conquer and Johnny would get a thrill every time they successfully completed a throw or a twist. Evan would laugh and take credit for it, of course. Who's Johnny going to share that with, now? The ice?
He stares down at it and the bitter cold in his toes mirrors the bitter solitude he feels up in his chest. He wonders where Evan might be right now--rediscovering his hometown with his real friends, in his childhood bedroom, in someone else's bedroom, maybe. Just the bare notion strikes outrageous possessiveness in Johnny's mind over Evan's presence and his warmth and his body, things that Johnny never felt like he owned before but that were there, frustrating and settling him all the same. He wonders whether Evan is sitting somewhere feeling like a giant chunk of himself was transplanted, too.
To try and balance out his misery, Johnny thinks of all the stupid, irritating things Evan's done over the years. Like intermittently calling Johnny "Swan" for the first two years of their partnership, and painting himself progressively more obnoxious shades of orange, and covertly going to get that dumb tattoo that Johnny wants to lick. Johnny is fucking ridiculous and he sinkingly realizes that he's never taken anything for granted as much as he has Evan Fucking Lysacek.
-
After showering in the empty locker room, he drives himself to his equally empty home and pulls out day-old macaroni from the fridge. Johnny has found out that he hates leftovers, but he keeps forgetting to measure his portion sizes for one person. It's all so painfully banal of him, he knows, but it's been harder to break out of routine than he anticipated. The second kitchen stool feels like it's mocking him, so Johnny takes his dinner to the computer desk instead.
He checks his e-mail and there's something from Evan, because they've resorted to e-mailing each other now. The message is curt, telling Johnny that he'll be flying in next week to sort out his move and can Johnny please leave the bills on the kitchen counter if he's not going to be in town. It effectively kills Johnny's appetite because seriously, Evan doesn't even plan on seeing him? Johnny replies to the e-mail with a snippy remark about Evan's crappy grammar and leaves a PS saying he'll be at the apartment.
Priscilla had mentioned that they all need to meet about the "paperwork", anyway. Johnny's dreading it because he knows that he'll have to come up with a decision about what he wants to do next. What he wants to do next is go to Worlds with Evan and win another gold medal and then jump on top of his partner. That obviously isn't an option.
He knows that he won't be able to work up the motivation for singles' competition but if he stays in pairs, where's he going to find a new partner? He can't exactly just craigslist figure skaters.
He's almost about to try it anyway when his Skype call window pops up, ringing.
"Johnny?" Patti says, her voice louder than it needs to be, when he answers. He puts his volume down a few notches and says, "Hi, mom," aware of how gloomy he looks and sounds at this moment. He stuffs a forkful of macaroni into his mouth.
"What are you doing?" she asks, peering into her computer screen. It makes her head look larger as it looms closer to the camera.
"I'm contemplating my empty future," he says, still half-chewing the food in his mouth, "and getting fat."
Patti laughs and Johnny appreciates that he's still funny to someone. "Johnny," she says when she sobers up, "did you start training?"
"Yes," he replies tersely, poking at the food with his fork, "and I don't want to talk about it. It was depressing and I don't know how to skate anymore."
"I'm sure that's not the case," Patti says reassuringly, but she doesn't probe any further. Instead she tells him about her week and her knitting club meeting and all the errands that she has to run tomorrow morning before she has to go to work. Also, his brother apparently has a new girlfriend who he's bringing over to dinner next Monday night and isn't that exciting? Listening to his mom babble is soothing in a way but Johnny can't help that he can't work up enthusiasm for anything at this point in his life. Patti stops talking and he can feel her stare critically at him through their weird cyber connection.
"Do you miss him?" she asks, careful and motherly.
Johnny isn't surprised, really, that she asked, but it still feels strange that it's out there--explicit and on the table. He feels absolutely miserable when he nods.
"Oh, honey," Patti says gently, "it's normal to feel that way after you've spent such a big part of your life with someone."
"No, mom, that's not the way it is," Johnny asserts. He tries to avoid looking at the screen because he'll have to look at his own face in the small chat window, too. "I miss him."
His mom doesn't say anything for too many seconds and Johnny wonders if she's judging him. But then she tells him, voice sympathetic, "I know, Johnny," and he wants to cry. And maybe kill himself. He rests his elbows on the laptop and his face in his palms and groans torturedly.
"Honey," Patti interrupts his death sequence, "I probably shouldn't tell you this, but Evan called me earlier."
Johnny looks up at the screen. "Oh, really? Are you two phone buddies now?" he asks. Patti sighs exasperatedly.
"He's just as unhappy as you are," she says and Johnny gets this strange twisty feeling in his stomach, "he sounds miserable when I speak to him and he already misses figure skating. You should convince him to stay, Johnny. You're the only one he'll listen to." The way Patti says it, it comes out like a command. She's a mom, after all, and she's self-confessedly in love with Evan; of course she wants to protect him. But she's also completely oblivious about The Real Truth.
"Evan hates me," he tells her.
"And you hate him," she says, "I've heard it before, spare me."
"I had sex with him," Johnny blurts.
Patti stares bluntly back at him and now Johnny knows she's judging him. He guesses Evan didn't tell her that part.
"Okay, I need a minute to comprehend this, Johnny. When did that happen?" she asks. She sounds a little betrayed, like Johnny didn't trust her enough to tell her about it or something when Johnny could barely explain it to himself.
"The night before our free skate," Johnny says, "I thought I had this brilliant idea that we'd have sex and our bodies would be completely in tune and then we'd win the gold. I ruined our chances and I ruined our relationship. And now Evan's fucking retired."
He looks up at the chat window and his mom's expression is heartbroken. Great. His own mother hates him. At least Paris just asked about who topped.
"And he agreed to it?" she asks.
Johnny's cheeks fill up with heat. "I was convincing," he explains, ashamed at something that he would normally be flaunting. Maybe even more ashamed for that reason. He's just a giant asshole all around. He tells his mom that, too.
"Well," Patti responds, her voice softer and further away because she's backed herself from the computer like she can't stand to be near Johnny in digital form even. "That probably wasn't the right thing to do and I know you. I know you understand that. But Johnny," she says, "Evan is a consenting adult with his own mind. He can make his own decisions and mistakes and if you just speak to him, you might realize there's a whole other side of the story you're missing here."
Johnny shakes his head. "I think I'm okay not knowing the extent of his hatred for me," he says.
His mom sighs and a beeping sound comes through her microphone. "Oh crud," her head floats out of the frame for a second, "I have to take the pizza out of the oven. Love you, Johnny, talk to him," she says pointedly before hanging up.
Johnny stares at the blank computer screen helplessly, needing her reassurance and her voice filling the godforsaken silence in this apartment. He considers her words, considers his phone, and then chickens out like the coward that he is. He logs onto Perez Hilton instead and tries to lose himself in the mindlessness.
-
The morning that Evan's flight is meant to come in, Johnny spreads himself out on Evan's bed like a stormcloud and cherishes every moment he can spend absorbing Evan's phantom presence and his lingering scent. He figures that soon all of this will be moved out and he won't have any more of Evan to steal, so he might as well enjoy what he can. His plan is to deal with the end of his world afterwards.
When the time for Evan to arrive has come and gone, Johnny wildly wonders if Evan called the whole thing off and is going to send a moving crew to get his shit or something. Johnny starts to think about when they'll ever see each other again and he imagines awkward run-ins at random figure skating events, if Evan even decides to attend when he'll be busy with wild college life. Maybe Johnny should go to college, too. Maybe he'll ask where Evan's going and show up at orientation. Try and get rid of me now, Johnny thinks and laughs bitterly into Evan's pillow.
"What's so funny?" a curious, painfully familiar voice asks from the doorway.
Johnny flips himself over on the bed so fast he very nearly ends up on the floor. Evan is standing there at the entrance of the room, a duffel bag hanging off his shoulder and bunching up the fabric of his ratty t-shirt, looking more tired than Johnny's ever seen him outside of competition-time.
Johnny stumbles to his feet, asks Evan, "where the hell did you learn to be so stealth?" and then kisses him before Evan can respond. The kiss is completely graceless and Johnny thinks that he chips someone's tooth in the process but fuck that, he wants to steal everything Evan will offer him; he wants to climb inside Evan and click a few switches in his brain to make sure that he never leaves.
He pulls away and mumbles, "you're an asshole," which probably isn't the best thing to say to make Evan stay, so Johnny leans in and presses their mouths together again in half-panic. He's relieved when Evan reacts, his hands coming up to grip Johnny's waist as his tongue meeting Johnny's tentatively, but Johnny winds his arms tightly around his neck to rein him in just in case, anyway. It's not really comfortable like this, their bodies too close for the kiss to be any sort of good as their mouths meet messily, but it's as far away as Johnny can handle right now. He needs to get his damn minimum daily requirement of Evan in; twenty-two days worth of it.
"Johnny," Evan murmurs, breaking off the kiss, and Johnny curls his fingers in Evan's hair.
"I know I'm a dick," he says evenly, meeting Evan's gaze, "the biggest one on this entire planet, probably, and you probably don't give a shit about my welfare--and you shouldn't. But if you don't come back and be my partner and live in my apartment and eat my food again, I will die a slow and painful death. I swear to you, Evan."
A little smile spreads across Evan's face and then he bursts out laughing. Johnny stares at him. Evan is fucking laughing at him. Evan is laughing at him and Johnny doesn't care that the sound of it is bright and pleased and sorely missed, it's a little bit irritating. He's about to say something snippy when Evan suppresses his dumb laughter and intones:
"It always has to be about you, doesn't it?"
Johnny frowns. "No," he argues. "it's just that we're good for each other, and you're an amazing skater, and college is just a pretentious--"
"Johnny," Evan interrupts, his eyes darkening, thumbs pressing firmly into Johnny's hipbones. "I'm not going anywhere."
Johnny blinks. "What?" he asks, though he can already feel the inklings of elation begin in his blood, glimmering and warm.
Evan pulls his hands away from Johnny's waist and folds his arms across his chest.
"I sat there in Chicago for three weeks realizing that I couldn't handle my life without figure skating," he explains, shrugging. "It's always been a part of me, and I was sitting there thinking about all the stupid, determined, inspired things that I've said to all those stupid reporters. Like, how hypocritical is that of me?"
"Very," Johnny supplies, starting to smile, "so very two-faced of you, Evan."
"And also," Evan says, his cheeks reddening, "I'm pretty fucking head over heels for you--it's been that way for a while. I can't answer why because there's no actual possible explanation for it."
Johnny just stands there, looks at Evan's open, hopeful face, and thinks he might need several more seconds to absorb the words, several more days, probably. His brain is yelling me too, me fucking too, but apparently all the bluntness he can muster around Evan still doesn't give him the courage to admit that he's in love with him and has been stupid enough to never know it.
So instead Johnny says, "oh, thank god," and his body, at least, is an expert regarding all things Evan.
Johnny manhandles Evan's t-shirt, tugs him back to the bed, and proceeds to kiss him, slow and sweet, for as long as he possibly can without breathing.
He doesn't lay over Evan in any organized fashion, just sprawls across his body, limbs like starfishes searching for Evan's, and Evan gives back as good as he gets. His hands sink into Johnny's hair, holding his head close and it's perfect this way, fitting into each other the way they always do, Evan's pulse fluttering close to Johnny's.
During a breathing break, Evan pulls away and his face is withdrawn, almost. Johnny nudges their noses together. "What?"
"I just want to clarify," Evan admits, "the guys you used see all the time, they--would you--I would be the only one, right?" he nervously asks and Johnny feels like a dick all over again. He half-props himself up, one elbow digging into the comforter and the other arm still sprawling across Evan's chest, still welcome. He looks at Evan and takes in his flushed, frustrating face, takes in his crazily overgrown hair that Johnny desperately needs to sort out, takes in his intense eyes, all liquidy and stressful.
"All those other girls, baby," Johnny says, voice careful and contradictive to the teasing nature of his words, "they don't compare to you."
-
End