Stuck for willowbell
Author: neery
Title: Stuck
Recipient: willowbell
Skaters: Johnny Weir, Evan Lysacek
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 2,400
Warnings: None
Prompt: 2. Evan and Johnny get stuck somewhere together-- broom closet, bathroom, elevator-- viva enclosed spaces!
Disclaimer: The events portrayed in this story are fictional and do not reflect on the actual people written about.
Summary: After the Olympics, Johnny and Evan get stuck in an elevator together.
All year Johnny had been telling himself that it didn’t matter whether he medalled at the Olympics, as long as he skated well. He'd almost managed to fool himself into believing it, right up until it actually happened.
Johnny stabbed at the elevator button again. He just wanted to go back up to his room and collapse into bed for a week. Someone walked up behind him, but they stopped a little distance away. He didn't look up to check if it was anyone he knew until the elevator arrived, and by the time he looked into the mirrored back wall and finally realized that the other person stepping into the elevator was Evan, it was too late for an inconspicuous escape. Great. For a moment he seriously thought about turning around and taking the stairs anyway, but he wasn't going to give Evan the satisfaction.
The entire cabin was mirrored, so there wasn't anywhere to look where he wouldn't have to see his own blotchy face and blood-shot eyes, and the medal hanging around Evan's neck. Johnny crossed his arms and stared straight ahead.
Evan was shifting from foot to foot, shooting glances at Johnny from the corner of his eyes as if he was trying to work up the courage to say something. Johnny really hoped they'd reach his floor before he got around to it.
The elevator went down instead of up, though, taking them to the basement. Oh well, at least if someone else got in, Evan probably wouldn't try to talk to him. The door stayed stubbornly closed, though, and after a moment Johnny realized there wasn't any light coming in through the narrow gap between them, either.
"Oh great, we're stuck," he said bitterly. This day really needed to be over any minute now. Seriously, Johnny was DONE. He stabbed the emergency call button so hard his finger hurt. Nothing happened, and nothing happened the next five times he tried it, either. Johnny groaned and let himself fall back against the wall. You could tell that the Olympic village was new, and parts of it had been built in a bit of a hurry. Sometimes things just didn't work. There were a bunch of plugs in Johnny's room that didn't have electricity, too.
"Isn't it working?" Evan asked. He'd been watching Johnny the entire time, so you'd think he could have figured that out for himself.
Johnny gave him a withering look. "Obviously."
Of course Evan had to go and try it himself, like, what, he didn't think Johnny was capable of pushing a button? God, he was obnoxious. It took him like five minutes to give up, too.
"How are people going to know we're stuck in here if the alarm doesn't work?" Evan said anxiously.
Johnny rolled his eyes. "There are only two elevators on this side of the building. I'm pretty sure they'll figure it out eventually. Aren't you scheduled for interviews, anyway? I'm sure your people will come looking if you don't show up."
"Yeah. Yeah, okay," Evan said, taking a deep breath, as if he was psyching himself up for a competition instead of a ten minute wait. What the fuck was wrong with the guy? Johnny wasn't thrilled about being stuck in here with him, either, but way to make a huge fucking deal out of it.
Johnny turned back to the mirror and distracted himself by fussing with his hair, not that there was much he could do about it with all that gel and sweat dried in it. He really wanted a shower. He really wanted his make-up kit so he could fix his face.
Evan was still shifting around, and it was making the gold medal sway against his chest. Johnny hated himself for noticing, and he hated himself more for the sick clench of jealousy in his stomach. Evan met his eyes in the mirror for a moment and then quickly looked away. He tucked the medal inside his jacket, and Johnny's vision actually went red for a moment. He hated himself for being obvious, and he hated Evan for noticing, and he wanted to kill him for actually going ahead and hiding the medal, like Johnny was so pathetic he couldn't even deal with the sight of it.
Johnny settled on the floor, drawing his knees up in front of him and hugging his arms around himself. The basement wasn't heated too well, and the cold was slowly creeping into the elevator, making Johnny shiver in his thin t-shirt.
After the competition, they'd holed up in this little broom closet near the heaters, Patti and Galina rubbing his back while he couldn't stop crying. It had been stiflingly hot, but Johnny hadn't cared at the time; at least it was private. He really regretted not putting his jacket back on when he left, though.
After a moment, Evan sat next to him, a little too close for Johnny's comfort, not that they had much choice in the tiny cabin. Evan still looked twitchy, looking around the cabin as if there might be an exit hiding behind the mirrored walls. What the fuck was he so nervous about?
"They're going to find us before we run out of oxygen, right?" Evan blurted.
Johnny stared at him. "I don't think they make airtight elevators," he said, straining for patience. Even Evan couldn't possibly be that stupid.
"They wouldn't, right?" Evan said, giving him a weirdly desperate look. "It's getting kind of stuffy in here."
It wasn't stuffy at all - it was getting colder by the second, and Johnny really missed his jacket now - but Evan actually had beads of sweat collecting on his face, and he was breathing kind of fast.
"There's a bunch of air vents in the ceiling. I'm pretty sure we'll be fine," Johnny said, rolling his eyes.
"Yeah," Evan said, but his voice sounded weird and tight, and he was still breathing shakily. Johnny tried his best to ignore him, but he could see the restless shifting out of the corner of his eye, and it was getting really irritating. He turned to glare at him, but Evan didn't even notice. He was staring up at the ceiling, eyes fixed on the vents, his face greyish pale. He looked terrified.
"What, are you claustrophobic?"
Evan gave him a brief, embarrassed glance before looking up at the ceiling again. "Only a little," he said tightly, obviously trying to pull himself together. He was an awful liar, and a worse actor.
Johnny went back to trying to ignore him, but now that he'd noticed, it was impossible not to see that Evan was working himself into a panic. Johnny told himself he didn't care - at least he wasn't the only one having a crappy day - but Evan was actually making hitching little sounds now when he was breathing in, and he was clutching his own arms so hard he was leaving red marks. It wasn't an enjoyable kind of pitiful.
Johnny stretched out one leg and nudged Evan's foot with his, catching his attention. "Settle down. We've got plenty of air in here, and they're going to find us soon."
"I'm trying," Evan said tightly, drawing in a deep, shaky breath. Johnny watched him for a minute longer, but Even clearly wasn't managing to calm himself down, and Johnny couldn't just sit around and watch him suffer. He sighed and scooted over to sit a little closer. "Look at me. Or, wait, close your eyes. Evan, hi, are you even listening to me? Close your eyes."
Evan gave him a nervous look, but finally obeyed. Johnny hoped this wasn't going to make it worse. He'd had a sports psychologist for like a week once, before he'd decided that it really wasn't working for him, and he tried to remember the tone of voice he'd used, kind of sing-song and suggestive. He'd mostly found it irritating at the time, but Evan loved all that psychobabble visualize-success stuff, so maybe it would work on him.
"Okay. Imagine you're on the ice, in the Olympic rink, with lots of wide open space around you. You've just finished skating, and the crowd is cheering - come on, work with me here, it just happened to you. It's hardly a big stretch of the imagination," he interrupted himself irritably when Evan opened his eyes again.
"I'm trying! Keep talking? Please?" Evan said, closing his eyes again and leaning his head back against the wall.
"You, uh, you've done really well, you can see your coach smiling at you -" he cleared his throat and just kept talking past the hitch in his breath, suddenly desperately wishing he'd picked any other scenario. This was cutting a little close to the bone right now. He wasn't going to let Evan notice, though.
Evan made him keep talking for a few more minutes before finally relaxed a little. He still didn't look comfortable, but he didn't look like he was about to hyperventilate anymore, either. "Thanks," he said sheepishly.
"Don't mention it."
Johnny drew his legs up tighter underneath himself and rubbed his arms. He was really freezing now.
"Hey, you're shivering. Here," Evan said, taking his jacket off and holding it out to Johnny, who gave him an incredulous look.
"Thanks, but no thanks," he said. He really didn't need Evan trying to play the gentleman for him, what the fuck. Really. No.
"Don't be stupid, you'll catch your death," Evan said, dropping the jacket in Johnny's lap. "Didn't you get, like, mono after the last Olympics? You just helped me out, you can take my jacket. I don't need it, I run pretty hot anyway."
Oh, that was what this was about. Evan didn't want to have to feel grateful. Johnny hesitated, but he really was worried about catching sick. He had a million interviews and TV appearances scheduled for the next couple of days, and he'd need to go back to training for Worlds soon, too. He slipped the jacket on. It was still warm from Evan's body, which was kind of weird and uncomfortable to think about. He hadn't even realized how hard he'd been shivering until it gradually stopped.
Evan was only wearing a t-shirt now, which Johnny could have told him it wasn't warm enough for. After a couple of minutes, he crossed his arms. Johnny could see the goose bumps rising on his skin. He fought with himself. The last thing he wanted was Evan getting sick after he'd nobly suffered the cold in silence so Johnny could have his jacket. Knowing him, he wasn't even above telling that story in an interview, and Johnny would never live it down. On the other hand, he really couldn't afford to get sick right now himself.
After a long moment of internal debate he slid over so he was sitting right next to Evan. He shrugged out of the jacket, draped half of it over his own shoulders, and held the over half out to Evan, who gave him a surprised look but ducked under it without comment. Johnny huddled tightly into his own half of the jacket, careful to keep a little bit of space between their bodies, but there wasn't really enough jacket for both of them that way. When Evan started inching towards him, he didn't pull away.
They ended up sitting with their entire sides touching, Evan's naked arm pressed into his, warm and uncomfortably intimate. Both of them were holding very still. Johnny's left side was slowly warming up, but his right side just felt colder in contrast, where the jacket didn't really cover him. After a while, Evan shifted, putting his arm around Johnny's shoulders, wrapping his hand around Johnny's icy upper arm. Johnny didn't pull away from that, either.
"This is kind of nice," Evan said after a while.
Johnny gave him an incredulous glare, wriggling away a bit to put some room between them again. "You're fucking kidding me, right? We're trapped in a freezing elevator. What the hell is nice about this? Are you perving on me while I'm trying not to freeze to death? Because that would be creepy." He'd only said that last bit to make Evan uncomfortable enough that he wouldn't have to deal with any more attempts at small talk, and as usual it was easy enough to get a rise out of him that way. Evan hastily tugged his arm away. Johnny raised an eyebrow at him.
"No!" Evan said, too quickly. "I just meant it's nice that we, like, we're getting along for once. Like a truce."
"It's not a truce," Johnny said immediately, and then shrugged. "I guess it could be worse, though. I could be trapped in here with Abbott."
"Or the Canadian guy," Evan said. They shared a horrified grimace at the thought. Johnny found himself smiling a little. They'd used to gossip about their competitors a lot, back during those few months when they'd actually managed to be friends for once. He hadn't thought about that for a while. It was a lot easier to remember that Evan wasn't actually that horrible to be around when he was actually there, and not just an abstract idea of The Rival. Maybe some day in the future, when everything felt less raw, they'd even manage to be friends again. Well. Maybe.
The elevator mercifully chose that moment to finally lurch back into motion before things could get awkward again. They both jumped up and away from each other.
The doors opened on the first floor - great, after all that, he'd still have to take the stairs - to reveal a very apologetic Olympic volunteer. Johnny sighed. He sort of felt like yelling someone, but there wasn't really any point in yelling at the volunteers.
He was halfway down the corridor before he realized that he'd ended up with Evan's jacket. "Hang on, here," he said, turning back to press it into Evan's hands. "Thanks."
"You're welcome," Evan said. "Um. We could have a truce," he added quietly, clearing his throat.
"Let's not," Johnny said, a little surprised to see that Evan actually looked disappointed. "Let's be honest, one of us would mess it up within a month." He knocked his shoulder lightly against Evan's when he turned to go. "Cheer up, you're still my favourite rival to be stuck in an elevator with."
"Guess I'll see you around?" Evan said.
"Guess you will," Johnny said with a sigh. Evan gave him a tentative grin. They were booked on a couple of the same shows for the summer. Johnny wouldn't have said he was looking forward to it, but somehow the idea seemed less horrible than it had an hour ago.
-END-
Title: Stuck
Recipient: willowbell
Skaters: Johnny Weir, Evan Lysacek
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 2,400
Warnings: None
Prompt: 2. Evan and Johnny get stuck somewhere together-- broom closet, bathroom, elevator-- viva enclosed spaces!
Disclaimer: The events portrayed in this story are fictional and do not reflect on the actual people written about.
Summary: After the Olympics, Johnny and Evan get stuck in an elevator together.
All year Johnny had been telling himself that it didn’t matter whether he medalled at the Olympics, as long as he skated well. He'd almost managed to fool himself into believing it, right up until it actually happened.
Johnny stabbed at the elevator button again. He just wanted to go back up to his room and collapse into bed for a week. Someone walked up behind him, but they stopped a little distance away. He didn't look up to check if it was anyone he knew until the elevator arrived, and by the time he looked into the mirrored back wall and finally realized that the other person stepping into the elevator was Evan, it was too late for an inconspicuous escape. Great. For a moment he seriously thought about turning around and taking the stairs anyway, but he wasn't going to give Evan the satisfaction.
The entire cabin was mirrored, so there wasn't anywhere to look where he wouldn't have to see his own blotchy face and blood-shot eyes, and the medal hanging around Evan's neck. Johnny crossed his arms and stared straight ahead.
Evan was shifting from foot to foot, shooting glances at Johnny from the corner of his eyes as if he was trying to work up the courage to say something. Johnny really hoped they'd reach his floor before he got around to it.
The elevator went down instead of up, though, taking them to the basement. Oh well, at least if someone else got in, Evan probably wouldn't try to talk to him. The door stayed stubbornly closed, though, and after a moment Johnny realized there wasn't any light coming in through the narrow gap between them, either.
"Oh great, we're stuck," he said bitterly. This day really needed to be over any minute now. Seriously, Johnny was DONE. He stabbed the emergency call button so hard his finger hurt. Nothing happened, and nothing happened the next five times he tried it, either. Johnny groaned and let himself fall back against the wall. You could tell that the Olympic village was new, and parts of it had been built in a bit of a hurry. Sometimes things just didn't work. There were a bunch of plugs in Johnny's room that didn't have electricity, too.
"Isn't it working?" Evan asked. He'd been watching Johnny the entire time, so you'd think he could have figured that out for himself.
Johnny gave him a withering look. "Obviously."
Of course Evan had to go and try it himself, like, what, he didn't think Johnny was capable of pushing a button? God, he was obnoxious. It took him like five minutes to give up, too.
"How are people going to know we're stuck in here if the alarm doesn't work?" Evan said anxiously.
Johnny rolled his eyes. "There are only two elevators on this side of the building. I'm pretty sure they'll figure it out eventually. Aren't you scheduled for interviews, anyway? I'm sure your people will come looking if you don't show up."
"Yeah. Yeah, okay," Evan said, taking a deep breath, as if he was psyching himself up for a competition instead of a ten minute wait. What the fuck was wrong with the guy? Johnny wasn't thrilled about being stuck in here with him, either, but way to make a huge fucking deal out of it.
Johnny turned back to the mirror and distracted himself by fussing with his hair, not that there was much he could do about it with all that gel and sweat dried in it. He really wanted a shower. He really wanted his make-up kit so he could fix his face.
Evan was still shifting around, and it was making the gold medal sway against his chest. Johnny hated himself for noticing, and he hated himself more for the sick clench of jealousy in his stomach. Evan met his eyes in the mirror for a moment and then quickly looked away. He tucked the medal inside his jacket, and Johnny's vision actually went red for a moment. He hated himself for being obvious, and he hated Evan for noticing, and he wanted to kill him for actually going ahead and hiding the medal, like Johnny was so pathetic he couldn't even deal with the sight of it.
Johnny settled on the floor, drawing his knees up in front of him and hugging his arms around himself. The basement wasn't heated too well, and the cold was slowly creeping into the elevator, making Johnny shiver in his thin t-shirt.
After the competition, they'd holed up in this little broom closet near the heaters, Patti and Galina rubbing his back while he couldn't stop crying. It had been stiflingly hot, but Johnny hadn't cared at the time; at least it was private. He really regretted not putting his jacket back on when he left, though.
After a moment, Evan sat next to him, a little too close for Johnny's comfort, not that they had much choice in the tiny cabin. Evan still looked twitchy, looking around the cabin as if there might be an exit hiding behind the mirrored walls. What the fuck was he so nervous about?
"They're going to find us before we run out of oxygen, right?" Evan blurted.
Johnny stared at him. "I don't think they make airtight elevators," he said, straining for patience. Even Evan couldn't possibly be that stupid.
"They wouldn't, right?" Evan said, giving him a weirdly desperate look. "It's getting kind of stuffy in here."
It wasn't stuffy at all - it was getting colder by the second, and Johnny really missed his jacket now - but Evan actually had beads of sweat collecting on his face, and he was breathing kind of fast.
"There's a bunch of air vents in the ceiling. I'm pretty sure we'll be fine," Johnny said, rolling his eyes.
"Yeah," Evan said, but his voice sounded weird and tight, and he was still breathing shakily. Johnny tried his best to ignore him, but he could see the restless shifting out of the corner of his eye, and it was getting really irritating. He turned to glare at him, but Evan didn't even notice. He was staring up at the ceiling, eyes fixed on the vents, his face greyish pale. He looked terrified.
"What, are you claustrophobic?"
Evan gave him a brief, embarrassed glance before looking up at the ceiling again. "Only a little," he said tightly, obviously trying to pull himself together. He was an awful liar, and a worse actor.
Johnny went back to trying to ignore him, but now that he'd noticed, it was impossible not to see that Evan was working himself into a panic. Johnny told himself he didn't care - at least he wasn't the only one having a crappy day - but Evan was actually making hitching little sounds now when he was breathing in, and he was clutching his own arms so hard he was leaving red marks. It wasn't an enjoyable kind of pitiful.
Johnny stretched out one leg and nudged Evan's foot with his, catching his attention. "Settle down. We've got plenty of air in here, and they're going to find us soon."
"I'm trying," Evan said tightly, drawing in a deep, shaky breath. Johnny watched him for a minute longer, but Even clearly wasn't managing to calm himself down, and Johnny couldn't just sit around and watch him suffer. He sighed and scooted over to sit a little closer. "Look at me. Or, wait, close your eyes. Evan, hi, are you even listening to me? Close your eyes."
Evan gave him a nervous look, but finally obeyed. Johnny hoped this wasn't going to make it worse. He'd had a sports psychologist for like a week once, before he'd decided that it really wasn't working for him, and he tried to remember the tone of voice he'd used, kind of sing-song and suggestive. He'd mostly found it irritating at the time, but Evan loved all that psychobabble visualize-success stuff, so maybe it would work on him.
"Okay. Imagine you're on the ice, in the Olympic rink, with lots of wide open space around you. You've just finished skating, and the crowd is cheering - come on, work with me here, it just happened to you. It's hardly a big stretch of the imagination," he interrupted himself irritably when Evan opened his eyes again.
"I'm trying! Keep talking? Please?" Evan said, closing his eyes again and leaning his head back against the wall.
"You, uh, you've done really well, you can see your coach smiling at you -" he cleared his throat and just kept talking past the hitch in his breath, suddenly desperately wishing he'd picked any other scenario. This was cutting a little close to the bone right now. He wasn't going to let Evan notice, though.
Evan made him keep talking for a few more minutes before finally relaxed a little. He still didn't look comfortable, but he didn't look like he was about to hyperventilate anymore, either. "Thanks," he said sheepishly.
"Don't mention it."
Johnny drew his legs up tighter underneath himself and rubbed his arms. He was really freezing now.
"Hey, you're shivering. Here," Evan said, taking his jacket off and holding it out to Johnny, who gave him an incredulous look.
"Thanks, but no thanks," he said. He really didn't need Evan trying to play the gentleman for him, what the fuck. Really. No.
"Don't be stupid, you'll catch your death," Evan said, dropping the jacket in Johnny's lap. "Didn't you get, like, mono after the last Olympics? You just helped me out, you can take my jacket. I don't need it, I run pretty hot anyway."
Oh, that was what this was about. Evan didn't want to have to feel grateful. Johnny hesitated, but he really was worried about catching sick. He had a million interviews and TV appearances scheduled for the next couple of days, and he'd need to go back to training for Worlds soon, too. He slipped the jacket on. It was still warm from Evan's body, which was kind of weird and uncomfortable to think about. He hadn't even realized how hard he'd been shivering until it gradually stopped.
Evan was only wearing a t-shirt now, which Johnny could have told him it wasn't warm enough for. After a couple of minutes, he crossed his arms. Johnny could see the goose bumps rising on his skin. He fought with himself. The last thing he wanted was Evan getting sick after he'd nobly suffered the cold in silence so Johnny could have his jacket. Knowing him, he wasn't even above telling that story in an interview, and Johnny would never live it down. On the other hand, he really couldn't afford to get sick right now himself.
After a long moment of internal debate he slid over so he was sitting right next to Evan. He shrugged out of the jacket, draped half of it over his own shoulders, and held the over half out to Evan, who gave him a surprised look but ducked under it without comment. Johnny huddled tightly into his own half of the jacket, careful to keep a little bit of space between their bodies, but there wasn't really enough jacket for both of them that way. When Evan started inching towards him, he didn't pull away.
They ended up sitting with their entire sides touching, Evan's naked arm pressed into his, warm and uncomfortably intimate. Both of them were holding very still. Johnny's left side was slowly warming up, but his right side just felt colder in contrast, where the jacket didn't really cover him. After a while, Evan shifted, putting his arm around Johnny's shoulders, wrapping his hand around Johnny's icy upper arm. Johnny didn't pull away from that, either.
"This is kind of nice," Evan said after a while.
Johnny gave him an incredulous glare, wriggling away a bit to put some room between them again. "You're fucking kidding me, right? We're trapped in a freezing elevator. What the hell is nice about this? Are you perving on me while I'm trying not to freeze to death? Because that would be creepy." He'd only said that last bit to make Evan uncomfortable enough that he wouldn't have to deal with any more attempts at small talk, and as usual it was easy enough to get a rise out of him that way. Evan hastily tugged his arm away. Johnny raised an eyebrow at him.
"No!" Evan said, too quickly. "I just meant it's nice that we, like, we're getting along for once. Like a truce."
"It's not a truce," Johnny said immediately, and then shrugged. "I guess it could be worse, though. I could be trapped in here with Abbott."
"Or the Canadian guy," Evan said. They shared a horrified grimace at the thought. Johnny found himself smiling a little. They'd used to gossip about their competitors a lot, back during those few months when they'd actually managed to be friends for once. He hadn't thought about that for a while. It was a lot easier to remember that Evan wasn't actually that horrible to be around when he was actually there, and not just an abstract idea of The Rival. Maybe some day in the future, when everything felt less raw, they'd even manage to be friends again. Well. Maybe.
The elevator mercifully chose that moment to finally lurch back into motion before things could get awkward again. They both jumped up and away from each other.
The doors opened on the first floor - great, after all that, he'd still have to take the stairs - to reveal a very apologetic Olympic volunteer. Johnny sighed. He sort of felt like yelling someone, but there wasn't really any point in yelling at the volunteers.
He was halfway down the corridor before he realized that he'd ended up with Evan's jacket. "Hang on, here," he said, turning back to press it into Evan's hands. "Thanks."
"You're welcome," Evan said. "Um. We could have a truce," he added quietly, clearing his throat.
"Let's not," Johnny said, a little surprised to see that Evan actually looked disappointed. "Let's be honest, one of us would mess it up within a month." He knocked his shoulder lightly against Evan's when he turned to go. "Cheer up, you're still my favourite rival to be stuck in an elevator with."
"Guess I'll see you around?" Evan said.
"Guess you will," Johnny said with a sigh. Evan gave him a tentative grin. They were booked on a couple of the same shows for the summer. Johnny wouldn't have said he was looking forward to it, but somehow the idea seemed less horrible than it had an hour ago.
-END-