[fic] Johnny/Stéphane Hurt/Comfort
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( Part One )
~~~
Patti Weir is pretty much the closest thing that a mere mortal with a Tolkien inspired tattoo and a half a pack a day habit can come to being a saint. Johnny knows this even before she gently broaches the subject of Stéphane by mentioning, as if only in passing, "You've been hanging out with Stéphane quite a bit lately."
"Ugh, you have no idea what I'm dealing with," Johnny says immediately. He sighs dramatically for maximum effect. "He's so needy and Viktor and Nina can only do so much coddling, you know? I think in Switzerland he had more people to bug. That and they probably used to work in shifts."
St. Patti's side of the phone is quiet for a moment before she decides to ignore the steaming pile of bullshit Johnny just dropped at her feet. "Well," she says simply, "it's nice of you to help him get comfortable in New Jersey anyway. Tell Stéphane I said hi."
Johnny makes sure the conversation quickly moves on to safer topics like why Galina is mean and why St. Patti should pray for mercy for him.
Galina Zmievskaya is an old battle-axe that fiercely loves mink, bland fish recipes, and every single skater she has ever, even for a moment, called one of her pupils. So she loves Johnny and somewhere deep her imposing bosom, she wants him to be happy. But she also loves Stéphane now and so she glares (quite accusingly) at Johnny every single morning but most particularly the ones where Stéphane is in a good mood despite flubbing his landings. Johnny has learned it's best to just ignore it.
Except of course for the day she comes into the locker room while he is unlacing his skates, and Viktor and Stéphane are still out on the ice working on some final element. She says nothing at first, just shakes her finger at him. Johnny's had many a finger shaken at him in his lifetime and it's always been vaguely hilarious and not a bit threatening. When Galina does it though, it's downright menacing.
"He needing everything to skate," she says in English, just for the emphasis. "You, you give things away, little things. I know, I look the other way. But Styopa needing everything to skate. Heart, head, balls, everything. He don't want to admit but-" here she finally stops wagging her finger and throws up her hands to say, I get it. She lowers her hands and meets Johnny's gaze evenly, "But we know."
"Of course," Johnny says. Galina mercifully lets them leave it at that.
Unfortunately that leaves dear, dear Paris Childers. Paris comes home from work one day to find Stéphane sitting on their living room floor gaping open mouthed at Showgirls while doing some careful stretches. Johnny is sitting on the couch nursing some herbal tea and from time to time Stéphane will stop stretching and lean back to rest against Johnny's knees. Consequently, Johnny's fingers keep ending up in Stéphane's hair.
Stéphane had cut it recently after apparently deciding that it had betrayed him even though he'd been the one wielding the bleach like a weapon of mass destruction against innocent hair that never did anything but be thick and luscious even while suffering bowl cuts, too much hair gel, and fitful pulling during tantrums. Stéphane's hair is just long enough now that it no longer prickles against Johnny's palm, but slides under it like he's petting a short haired cat. It feels pleasant and Johnny is very tactile and always has been and it makes Stéphane's shoulders relax a bit more every time he does it. So it's all perfectly innocent really, and there is no reason at all to whip his hand away when Paris walks in but he does it anyway.
A lot of good it does him because Paris promptly raises a pale brow high and says, "Don't stop anything because of me."
Johnny wants to say something biting back at him but onscreen Nomi pushes Crystal down the stairs and there are suddenly squeals coming at him from every direction: one of anguish from Ms. Conners, one of horror from Stéphane, and one of delight from Paris. Everyone is suitably distracted and soon Stéphane goes back to stretching.
A few days later Johnny finds himself baking three pieces of fish with accompanying vegetables. Paris is in the living room, checking his email since Stéphane is there to make sure that Johnny is properly entertained while he cooks. Stéphane is talking about how the music he's at last chosen for his long program won over the other pieces he'd been considering. Johnny is not the least bit surprised to find that Stéphane had chosen something with a Latin flavor over the more French-inspired compositions.
"It's totally your dream to run away to a flamenco-themed circus, isn't it?" he ask, interrupting Stéphane's earnest description of how the music will be like fire.
"Oh that would be wonderful," Stéphane says. From the way his eyes light up he's probably being completely serious. "Lion taming to the Spanish guitar. Everything in beautiful reds and blacks instead of yellows and whites."
"I didn't think Cirque du Soleil has lion taming," Johnny points out.
Stéphane shrugs, "I know that Cirque du Soleil has their reasons for not using animals but there must be some way it could be done kindly."
"Ugh," Paris interjects from the living room. "What's the point of the circus if there isn't animals? Without like elephants and shit it's just a bunch of bad interpretative dance with some magic tricks thrown in to distract you from how bored you are."
"Paris can be the clown," Johnny says, raising his voice to make sure that his roommate hears him. "Or maybe it would be better if he was the mime. You know always silent." He stands up a little straighter and cocks a hip out to strike a pose. "I'll be the beautiful, graceful trapeze artist of course. Evan could get shot out of the cannon. You know actually I could really approve of this."
"But what will I do?" Stéphane asks, drawing secret shapes on the counter top with his finger.
"You'll find some way to get lions and zebras to get along and make them do tricks together. Everyone will love it."
Stéphane laughs at the idea, pleased, but before he can speak Paris swans into the kitchen to complain about dinner.
Afterward, Stéphane leaves early in anticipation of a long trip to the city to see another specialist. He gallantly refuses a ride home in favor of a taxi when he sees Johnny glancing fretfully at the dishes in the sink. In plain view of Paris, he stands beside Johnny and puts an arm around his waist, saying two things to Johnny in French, one to make him smile, another to make him blush. Paris licks raspberry sorbet of his spoon with a knowing look.
Johnny pushes Stéphane and manages to make it look mostly playful. The phone rings, letting them know that the taxi is waiting for Stéphane downstairs. Johnny waves goodnight rather than risk saying anything.
It's not too long after Stéphane leaves that Paris drapes himself over the counter while Johnny does the dishes and announces, "So I know you're like in love with him and everything but you still have to ask my permission before he moves in, okay?"
Johnny gives Paris a pretty wicked side-eye and purses his lips. "Three things. Number one I'm not in love with him, number two shut up, and number three the fuck I would have to ask your permission, you still owe me for the utilities."
Paris rolls his eyes. "That just because you haven't deposited the check yet, bitch. Also, you just said number two."
They laugh at each other and Johnny is almost willing to let this little infraction pass as an attempt to be humorous ever so slightly in poor taste. But of course, Paris ruins everything by refusing to stop talking.
"But seriously when he starts sleeping over, and I get he's European and whatever, but can you please make sure he wears clothes in the kitchen? Like, I'm totally going to try and accidentally walk in on him showering but I have a phobia about naked people being in kitchens. It's just so gross."
Johnny frowns tightly and stamps his foot once to make sure he has Paris's attention. "Okay now all three things are shut up. So just. Shut it." He tries to put real heat into the words but Paris, as usual, is not in the least bit phased.
"You just always made him sound so stupid when you talked about him before."
Johnny wheels around to look at him, suds dripping from his dish washing gloves onto his feet. "Paris, oh my god-"
"What? You did!" Paris insists. "You acted like he was just some dumb, hot guy you kept accidentally fooling around with. Maybe if you'd actually told the truth people wouldn't have been so confused about the Big Breakup."
"Don't you fucking dare talk to me about Drew right now." This time there is real heat in his words because he is absolutely, 100% not joking. He turns back around and starts furiously rinsing things in the sink.
"Why are you mad?" Paris asks. Johnny picks up a towel and starts drying a plate about too vigorously. "I'm saying he's nice. He's, like, worth it."
With that Johnny slams the plate down on the counter top hard enough he's momentarily afraid that it will shatter. It doesn't and he turns around again, pulling off his pink rubber gloves. "I'm going to bed. Do not fucking speak to me before I skate tomorrow or so help me, Paris, I'll-"
"Like I'd want to talk to you when you're like this," Paris snaps back, pouting.
Johnny throws his dish towel into the sink and for the first time since moving out of his mother's home leaves three glasses, two forks, and a spatula dirty and unwashed behind him. As he storms down the hall toward his bedroom, Paris has the cheek to call out, "Goodnight, bitch."
Johnny slams the door in answer.
It's safe to say that he's an utter bitch at practice the next day. The lingering irritation from the night before makes him slightly more aggressive on the ice and Galina approves. Paris doesn't come home for dinner and stays out all night just to really drive the point home. Johnny enjoys it for about an hour and a half before he gets lonely and starts wishing someone were around to pay attention to him. When he thinks about calling Stéphane just for someone to talk to he flips back to being angry. He ruthlessly scrubs and scours the bathrooms and tries to take a relaxing bath that he has to cut short when his mind won't quiet down. He climbs into bed, defeated, at ten.
Stéphane is there to greet him at the rink the next morning and he's like a stereo turned all the way up. Everything from his smile, his voice, his energy all pushed to their very limits- his words are even tripping over themselves in their eagerness to be spoken -and Johnny doesn't feel like making fond excuses for it today. He tries to ignore Stéphane just as hard as humanly possible, but rather than be rebuffed by Johnny's silence Stéphane just keeps grasping.
He prattles on about some place they stopped for lunch yesterday while in the city, abusing the words "lovely" and "delicious" to an almost criminal degree. Johnny finds himself desperately missing the silence under which he used to prepare for practice. It had seemed oppressive before, sometimes tying his stomach in knots before he got on the ice, but now he's convinced it was actually just peaceful.
"It made me think," Stéphane says brightly, "that all this time I have not done much cooking here. It's a bit rude, no? Making you and Nina have to do it always. Especially when I am so good at it. I think that I should cook for you, don't you think? To make up for your, um... the word is not coming but you know what I mean?"
"My slaving?" Johnny provides. "My sacrificing? My selflessness?"
Stéphane frowns. "No, I do not think that's what I meant. But it doesn't matter. What I really want to say is that I will cook tonight."
"Tonight?"
There's no confusing the way Johnny says it for anticipation and at long last Stéphane retreats a bit, his shoulders stoop a bit and he's quieter when speaks. "If that is okay with you, yes."
"It isn't." It isn't okay for Stéphane to think he has rights to Johnny's time. It isn't okay to think that he thinks he can plan some sweet overture that could complicate literally everything they have and never expect Johnny to say no. It isn't okay that Johnny wants it.
"Ah," Stéphane says, disappointed but waving his hand. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize you were busy."
"I'm not busy," Johnny says standing. He stomps one skate and then the other to see how his feet are sitting in them. They're fine. "I just can't devote half of every week to fawning over you." He turns and looks at Stéphane, "I mean if that's all right."
He's half daring Stéphane to blow this up and ruin their focus today just that Johnny will have a reason to tell Galina they need to skate separately again. Stéphane looks back at him and it's completely unfair how the shape of his eyes, their dark color, and the heavy press down of his lids all work together to exaggerate his expressions. It's always too much, too happy, too smoldering, too earnest. Right now they're cutting into Johnny with how damned unhappy and resigned he can look.
Stéphane nods once, as if agreeing with Johnny. "Okay. I understand." He looks down at his skates and pulls the laces for the left one loose so that he can tighten them. Johnny leaves the room to meet Galina on the ice.
They both flub their first couple of jumps but there isn't any reason to think it's out of the ordinary, though. Johnny's jumps usually escape him when he's even mildly upset and Stéphane usually takes a long time to get his muscles loose and warm. Galina helpfully shouts at them both to wake the hell up.
Johnny pulls it together pretty quickly, but after an hour Stéphane has managed a clean jump only twice. Viktor skates in ever shrinking circles around him and their conversation becomes more and more quiet until finally they are standing at the end of the rink, shifting from foot to foot and looking grim. After a long moment they push apart from each other and Stéphane goes straight into a jumping pass, whipping by Johnny so fast that his hair is ruffled. He puts everything into the kick against the ice and the rotations are good- one, two and three -but the landing is low and though he struggles to hold on to it. In the end he has pop out of it.
Johnny continues the run through of his footwork, and in his constant turning he can't see Stéphane's face but in the curious acoustics of the rink he can hear Viktor speak even though they are several yards apart.
"That was better," Viktor says, sounding hopeful.
"C'est tout," Stéphane says again. "That's all I have."
For the next hour Stéphane goes for brutal, kamikaze jumps over and over again. He misses some, lands others, and mostly just barely holds on. He lands a quad toe with nothing but a hand down and celebrates by skating a small circle in tears. Johnny spends the whole time wishing, not for the first time, that he could go back in time and tell himself to take just fifteen seconds to think before he speaks. Of course he can't and usually that means he has to find some way of some way of owning whatever unfortunate thing came flying out of his mouth, but he doesn't want any part of this at all.
Viktor and Stéphane finally throw in the towel, leaving the ice, and Johnny skates for a few minutes with eyes on the door to the locker room because he has to see Stéphane's face before he leaves. Fifteen minutes pass and then twenty, the door opens but it is only Viktor coming out to speak to Galina. It is clearly not a conversation Johnny is meant to listen to and normally he'd be straining to eavesdrop, but today he seizes his chance to skate off, calling out "Bathroom" over his shoulder. Galina and Viktor are too distracted to do more than glance his way.
He slips his guards on and plods over to the locker room. Stéphane is still inside, both skates off and carelessly discarded on the ground beside him. His head is tipped back against the wall behind him, knees splayed with an ice pack pressed high up on his inner thigh. He opens his eyes when Johnny forgets to catch the door behind him and it slams shut.
They look at each other again and this time Stéphane's dark eyes reveal nothing at all.
"I'm just-" Johnny tries to say but he ends up looking down. He feels ridiculous suddenly, with his puffed vest adding too much bulk on top, his warm up pants like a second skin, slim calves under his legwarmers disappearing into the misshapen bulges of his skates. He might have decided to do this later after a shower and a little bit of bronzer. Stéphane readjusts the ice on his thigh and sits up tiredly. Johnny clears his throat and tries again. "I'm a bit... you know. I'm." He sighs. "Sorry."
"Okay," Stéphane says. He leans down to arrange his shoes, pushing his feet into unlaced trainers.
Johnny stands there with nothing else to do and no idea what to say. To give his loitering some clearer purpose he comes forward to scoot Stéphane's bag closer to him. He stoops down to help pick up Stephane's skates, overbalances and ends up kneeling down. He holds a skate up for Stéphane to take and Viktor comes in just as he accepts it.
"Galina is looking for you, Jonichka," he says meaningfully. He looks next to Stéphane. "Styopa, we can go now."
Stéphane throws one skate in to his bag and then the other, zipping it with quick, careless jerks before he stands. It's clear he means to get up just as hastily but about three-quarters of the way up he sways. Johnny knows better than to reach out. Stéphane takes a moment to breathe in quietly and then out, and slowly straightens his back.
Stéphane makes his way gingerly to the door without saying anything at all to Johnny and one thing he can never stand is to be ignored. There's only so much that can be said in front of Viktor, but he says Stéphane's name, making it into a question.
Stéphane pauses. He sighs, and answers, "Johnny. Yes." It's what Johnny wanted to hear, but he can't feel even a bit comforted when every line of Stéphane's body is telling him that things are hardly okay. Stéphane glances back, "Mais peut-être pas aujourd'hui."
Johnny swallows, forcing his throat to open up so he can say something. "Okay. I mean. Of course."
Back on the ice Galina decides to add whole new layers to the meanings of the words stern and exacting. Frankly, her shouted Russian orders and noises of dissatisfaction are exactly what Johnny needs to hear right now. It reminds him that sometimes when Galina gets particularly frustrated she abandons actual advice and tells him in all seriousness, "Be better." As if it's just that easy. Still other time she will curl her hand into a fist and tell him, even more vaguely, "Be more."
He gets it now, though. He needs to be better if he's going to figure this out, needs to be more. He'll figure out more what later.
~~~
Stéphane disappears into the hands of doctors the next day, even traveling up to Toronto in order to see an expert. Johnny makes up with Paris by putting some muscle and weight building powder in Paris' soymilk. Paris's inhuman and unfair metabolism probably won't even notice the extra calories but it makes Johnny feel better. He tidies, he trains, and he waits.
Stéphane comes back to the ice on Thursday, looking not even a bit rested. Galina and Viktor have him focus on footwork, again and again he does it perfectly, elegant and sharp and in time to the music, but he's never asked to try for a jump.
He doesn't say a word to Johnny before they skate and that's fine. Johnny's not so narcissistic that he thinks he's more important than the fears and doubts of your first day back on the ice after a big disappointment. Still he is pretty important, or at least he should be, and so he skates past Stéphane's line of sight several times while doing his best to look irresistible and vaguely sympathetic. He's not sure Stéphane notices, but unfortunately Nina definitely does.
"I'm not sure what happened, or what's going on, but I know your ass isn't going to get you out of trouble, Johnny," she says quietly so that Galina will not overhear.
Johnny, caught red-handed, immediately stops looking at Stéphane. He huffs unhappily and Nina actually starts to look concerned which is mortifying so Johnny does what he does best: he deflects. He smirks at her, cocks a hip out and poses, "But it can't hurt, right?"
She shakes her head at him fondly and they start sketching out the next sequence.
Viktor lingers for some time in the locker room after they skate, talking about exercises and stretches earnestly despite the fact that it barely looks like Stéphane is listening. Galina suddenly sticks her head in the door and asks Viktor to come help her translate something she needs to say to the owner of the rink and he and Stéphane are left alone.
Johnny waits with baited breath in the silence for Stéphane to say something but he doesn't so much as look at Johnny. When he bends down to zip up his bag with the clear purpose of just getting up and walking out, Johnny can't stand it any longer.
He makes sure that he's the first to stand up so that it's good and clear that he's not the one getting left behind. A good defense is a good offense. Or something. Football is ridiculous and anyway, this is more important. "You're not even going to say 'hello' or, or anything?"
Stéphane sits up and blinks calmly up at Johnny. When he finally speaks it is to point out, "You didn't say anything, either."
"That's because the ball was in your court. Remember?"
"Johnny," Stéphane says, sounding exasperated. "I don't see why-"
"No, I don't see," Johnny interrupts, refusing to yield the floor. "It's not like you didn't already know that I'm difficult so I don't get why you're making it a big deal that I-" he stops himself from putting a name to it.
"That you what?" Stéphane prompts with exaggerated curiosity.
Fucked up, Johnny thinks, ruined things. He'd thought he'd been prepared to do whatever it took to make things right, but nothing is going the way it was supposed to. Stéphane was supposed to need him, and Johnny was going to patiently let himself be needed. Convincing Stéphane of anything was not supposed to be part of the plan.
"Whatever. Just. Whatever," Johnny says, grabbing his bag and throwing things into it. He's giving up and he knows it, but it doesn't stop him from hurling out one small, half-desperate argument. "You were the one who said I could come to you whenever I wanted."
"And are you coming to me now?" Stéphane asks quietly.
Johnny stops fussing with his bag to look up and Stéphane meets his gaze with an unconcerned and easy bemusement that makes Johnny's teeth clench. As if Stéphane had any right.
"Well," he says, picking up his things. "It's not like you would even notice if I was so. Au revoir, I guess."
Stéphane says nothing as Johnny turns on his heel and leaves the locker room with the last of his outrage.
He's halfway out of the rink when Stéphane catches up to him. One moment Johnny is angry and disappointed, kicking himself for utterly failing at being more selfless and sympathetic and all the other things he said he would try to be better at while simultaneously cursing him for being so damned Stéphane, and then Stéphane is pressed along his side and their fingers are laced together.
"I'm sorry," Stéphane says close to his ear, "but you should not be surprised that I am a difficult person."
Johnny feels a little shiver run up the back of his neck. "Everyone is surprised when you're a difficult person thanks to your little Heidi of the Mountains routine," he says, but he's not angry anymore because Stéphane is smiling at him.
They don't say anything else, but Stéphane's thumb keeps sweeping over the back of Johnny's hand as they walk. He continues holding Johnny's hand in full view of Nina and Viktor. Galina, thankfully, appears to have already left because Johnny can't see her car anywhere.
"I cannot come tonight," he tells Johnny.
"Okay," Johnny says, resolutely avoiding Nina's open stare. Viktor is looking up to the heavens, probably to ask God for the strength to make it through this season.
"But very soon I will," Stéphane promises. He looks Johnny in the eye, "Can you wait?"
Johnny understands that he's being given a do-over, a second chance to prove something he failed to do before. "I can wait," he nods. "Just. Usually not very long."
Stéphane smiles, squeezes Johnny's fingers a final time, and then lets go.
~~~
So Stéphane doesn't come that night just as he said he wouldn't. But he doesn't come the next night either, and during the practice the day after that he gives no indication whatsoever of having any plans to stop by. At eight o' clock Johnny finds himself alone again- Paris is out being a normal twenty-something -and he consoles himself by turning the air conditioning down to a sinfully indulgent temperature and modeling his furs in the mirror.
Johnny is in a knee length fox fur coat and very little else when there is a knock at the door. Twice, his heart skips a beat, first for being startled by the unexpected sound, and again when a glance through the peephole reveals Stéphane on the other side.
Johnny doesn't bother changing, he just throws open the door a bit dramatically and drapes himself provocatively against it. "You didn't even call before you came," he says.
"Because I told you to expect me." Stéphane sounds a little distracted as he takes in the full length of Johnny's body, from his bare feet (and calves and thighs) to the pout on his lips.
The stubble Stéphane had been sporting this morning at practice is gone. The smooth, clean skin of his neck is well displayed thanks to the thin, black boatnecked shirt he is wearing. He looks like the European exchange student that in high school Johnny used to fervently wish would come and rescue him. A rich, cultured boy that would be impressed by everything that other people made fun of Johnny for. He wonders what Stéphane sees when he looks at him, decked out in his fur and just a little lip gloss.
For a moment neither of them move or speak, locked in some sort of stand off that involves hungry stares instead of loaded guns, and then Johnny steps aside. "Come in. It's dress up time at Chez Weir."
Stéphane does come in and even gamely follows Johnny to his bedroom but he doesn't seemed too thrilled when Johnny actually starts picking out furs for him to try on.
"Johnny," he says, reproachfully. "You know that I do not like these so much."
"Don't even start that," Johnny warns him. He picks out a wool trench with a gorgeous fur collar and cuffs. "Just put it on." Stéphane starts to slip it on, but Johnny stops him and tugs the hem of his shirt up with a meaningful look. Stéphane rolls his eyes and pulls it off.
Thirty minutes later there is a pile of discarded jackets and pelts on the floor of his bedroom, and Stéphane is wearing a ridiculous mink number with a clashing lynx hat and Johnny is breathless with laughter.
Stéphane takes a mortal offense at his giggling and takes the jacket off. "Always you insist that I can't wear things. You are not so special that everything can only look good on you."
"Oh honey," Johnny says, picking up the mink so that he can show Stéphane how it should be done. "I'm sorry I don't have any zebra for you to work better than I ever could."
Johnny expects more pouting, some muttered French griping, or for Stéphane to flounce out of the room. The very last thing he expects is to be tackled, and he squawks a little inelegantly as he falls. Johnny drops the coat and the hat Stéphane is wearing goes tumbling off as they land on the soft pile of furs. On principle, Johnny puts up a fight, laughing and trying to flip Stéphane on his back and pin him. Stéphane gets his hands around Johnny's wrists, and Johnny pauses to catch his breath and reconsider his strategies.
Looking up at Stéphane flushed cheeks and parted lips, Johnny has to admit there are far worse places to be than on a bed of furs under a half-naked European hottie. Johnny heaves another breath and tries not to let this thought show on his face. He must fail because Stéphane stops looking smug, and instead bends down to bring their lips together, soft and slow. Johnny groans into Stéphane's mouth, and turns his face away.
"Stéphane," he says. "You should let me up." He moves his legs restless and worried because it's now officially impossible to ignore how turned on he is.
Stéphane stays exactly where he is though, straddling Johnny's hips, leaning down so low and close enough that his breath is drifting across Johnny's jaw. He touches his mouth next to the skin just under Johnny's ear, and the noise that comes out Johnny's mouth this time is a lot more plaintive. "Wait. This isn't fair."
Johnny can manage to say no in a whole host of other situations, but Stéphane is sucking on his neck and easing down until their chests pressed tightly together and they're nestled in rich, soft decadent fur and there's only so much willpower in the world. Stéphane moves his mouth again, pausing over Johnny's lips just long enough for Johnny to breathe out another protest, but he doesn't. When they kiss Johnny opens his mouth and sucks on Stéphane's tongue.
He closes his eyes and works his mouth blissfully against Stéphane's. He twines their legs together, stroking the back of Stéphane's calf with his foot. Stéphane settles into the wide spread of Johnny's thighs, nothing between them but designer underwear, and it's heaven. Johnny loses track of time because he could probably do this forever. Without breaking their kiss, Stéphane sits back on his heels and coaxes Johnny to untangle their legs and arch his back. He locks an arm at the small of Johnny's back and starts to lift him, jerking their hips together. 100% pure, Grade A, USDA Prime good sex, Johnny thinks, exhilarated as Stéphane picks him up.
But then Stéphane makes a noise, sharp and unhappy, and Johnny suddenly lands on his ass atop the jackets. He looks up at Stéphane, startled, to see Stéphane's teeth sunk into his bottom lip, a deep furrow in his brow.
"What?" Johnny asks, getting his legs under him. He looks down and sees the grip Stéphane has on his thigh. "Oh," he murmurs. He takes Stéphane's elbow, "Oh baby, c'mon. Let's get you to the bed."
Johnny stands up, grabbing Stéphane's free hand and bracing his legs on either side of Stéphane's knees to help him up. Stéphane refuses to lean against him as they move across the room, he frees himself from Johnny's hands and sits heavily down on the bed. He keeps his eyes resolutely downcast and when he lies down he hides his face in the crook of his arm. Unseen, Johnny rubs a hand across his swollen mouth while he considers what to do, watching Stéphane's chest rise and fall as he takes slow steady breath. He decides to let Stéphane be, taking a few minutes to hang each fur up back in its proper place in the closet, turning off the closet light and shutting the door once finished.
He turns toward the bed and is confronted with Stéphane's back. Stéphane is now lying on his side, still hiding his face but showing Johnny his smooth, muscled, beautiful back instead. He could easily read this as a rejection, but the more Johnny stares at the vulnerable expanse of skin, dotted here and there are the ever-present bruises that come with a lifetime dedicated to falling and getting up again, the more it feels like an invitation.
Johnny lies down carefully beside Stéphane, and curls around him, pressing right up against his back.
Johnny touches his nose to the soft skin at the back of Stéphane's neck, nuzzling just under his hairline. He shuts his eyes and starts to sift through the things he might say but he's never been good at that. He has enough wit and humor and cutting remarks to last him a lifetime; that and some good manners thankfully get him through about ninety percent of life. But in the silence between just two people Johnny can never think of the right thing to say.
He comes up with a number of possibilities and rejects them all.
It is Stéphane that speaks first. "I don't think I can do this."
Johnny doesn't open his eyes or let his breath hitch but he can't stop his whole body from tensing. He calmly hooks his chin over Stéphane's shoulder and plays willfully ignorant, "Do what?"
"The season," Stéphane says. That he sounds so heartbroken is the only thing that keeps Johnny from sighing in relief. "I don't think I can skate."
"No, come on," Johnny soothes, smoothing his hand up from Stéphane's navel to his sternum and then down again. "You can still skate. You don't have to compete to skate."
Stéphane shakes his head. "The doctor says that maybe..." but he doesn't finish his sentence.
Johnny's hand stops moving while he considers this information.
"You'll still skate," he says. It's a simple matter of fact: Stéphane skates. And beautifully. If Stéphane didn't skate then, well. "You have to try," Johnny says, outright rejecting the notion.
"I have."
"You are," Johnny corrects. Stéphane is still trying. He was on the ice just this morning with his ridiculous mittens and his Spanish music.
"Yes," Stéphane says with very little conviction.
Johnny's fingertips press a little harder into Stéphane's skin as if he were about to slip away. He forces them to relax again, even though the more they talk about this the less it makes sense. Because of skating Johnny's world extends from Korea to LA, from New York to Russia, but the people that inhabit it, the faces that he sees again and again are surprisingly few. To think of Stéphane not being one of them is practically impossible.
Again he's at a loss for words, wanting to blurt out "But what would you do if you didn't skate?" which is probably the last thing Stéphane wants to hear. A few more hysterical questions float through his mind, and Johnny decides to just screw talking.
He sits up and pushes gently on Stéphane's shoulder, turning him onto his back. Stéphane looks up at him, already skeptical, and Johnny gives him a mischievous grin just to throw him even more off guard. On his hands and knees, Johnny carefully bends over Stéphane, maneuvering into the most attractive position possible he can manage without putting any pressure on Stéphane's his torso or legs.
He holds Stéphane's gaze as he lowers his mouth down, skimming over his chest and stomach, down past the waistband of his briefs. He hovers there for a wicked moment before slipping down a few inches further and pressing his mouth high up on Stéphane's inner thigh. He doesn't kiss or suck at the skin, just presses his open mouth there and breathes one hot breath out against it. Johnny lifts up and presses his mouth down again just little lower.
Stéphane's hand carefully brushes through Johnny's hair and just like a reflex Johnny lowers his lashes immediately. Stéphane never makes a noise or says a word while Johnny makes a slow, steady path down to his knee but his fingers stay in Johnny's hair the entire time. It is the long climb up that has Stéphane breathing harder and Johnny makes all sorts of promises to himself about what he'll do when gets to the top. He presses his mouth down again, exactly where he started and Stéphane's hand slips around to cup the back of Johnny's head, exerting no pressure at all but asking just the same.
Johnny sighs. He doesn't yet move his lips in either direction, but he slides his palm over Stéphane's stomach, first across and then slowly, slowly down.
The sound of the front door opening and slamming stops him cold.
Paris is somewhere in the front room, laughing. "Hey bitch," he calls out, coming down the hall. "You'll never guess what happened."
Johnny is able to get off the bed and over to the door just in time to get his shoulders braced against it. His bedroom door thumps against him, pushing him a half-inch before he gets it closed again. "Johnny," Paris whines. "I have gossip, dammit. This is important."
"I'm busy!" Johnny snaps. He tries to lock his door but Paris must be throwing all of his little frame into it as he tries to open it again. Stéphane has gotten up and started slipping on his jeans. Johnny pouts and tries to slump against the door in disappointment but Paris almost manages to get it open. He digs his heels against the carpet and shoves back.
"Whatever," Paris says after the door shuts in his face again. "You haven't been busy since Baba Yaga got her hands on you. What are you hiding?"
Stéphane puts his shirt on and comes to stand right in front of him. Johnny tries mouth something in apology but Stéphane just plants a hand against the door and kisses him, sudden and deep and god why did Johnny ever think he needed a roommate?
Just as abruptly Stéphane breaks the kiss, grabs the doorknob and pulls it open. Paris has a hand raised to start pounding on the door with his mouth open and ready for more pestering. Johnny moves to stand behind Stéphane and tries not to blush.
"I am sorry to be going," Stéphane says, smiling at Paris. "But you understand, no?" He slips past Paris without waiting for an answer and disappears down the hall.
Paris stares after him for a moment before whipping around to look at Johnny. "Girl. What the hell?"
Johnny sighs and finds a pair of shorts to throw on. "I swear if you stay right here and let me have five minutes alone with him, I'll tell you everything. Just. Five minutes. Or I'll kill you in your sleep."
"Damn right you're going to tell me everything." Leaning against the door jamb, Paris folds his arms and looks very, very expectant.
Stéphane is slipping on his shoes at the door. Strangely enough he doesn't seem too upset about the sudden and unforgivably lame turn of events. That doesn't stop Johnny from trying to apologize.
"I'm sorry. Next time I can just tether him outside or something."
Stéphane shakes his head, "It is all right. I think perhaps we got carried away. We have practice tomorrow." Johnny frowns at him in confusion, and Stéphane raises his eyebrows. "What would Galina say?"
"Galina?" Johnny repeats her name as if he's never heard it. "So. You're still going to skate?"
Stéphane shrugs, so incongruously casual when fifteen minutes ago his heart was breaking at the thought of never being able to skate again. "You said you wanted me to try."
"I do," Johnny admits. "But-"
"Then I will try," Stéphane says simply. He lightly kisses Johnny once more before he leaves. "Goodnight."
"Okay," Johnny says to closed door. He turns around and finds Paris standing there, impatiently tapping his foot. "Okay," he says again, this time a little more firmly.
Paris is so giddy about the coming gossip that he actually volunteers to do something nice like make tea while Johnny put his head down against the counter and moans wordless laments about the current state of his life. Three months ago everything was so comfortably dull that he could have probably made it through his whole routine while sleepwalking. Wake up, skate, come home, eat as few calories as possible while cleaning as many thing as possible, spend a precious few hours being fabulous, go to bed. Relationship highs and lows were limited to getting to cuddle someone on the couch during MarioKart nights and the occasional fight with Paris about crumbs.
Maybe it wasn't exactly a thrilling life but it did at least prevent things like Paris setting down a mug of steaming chamomile and cheerfully asking, "So did you do him?" from happening too often.
"Paris," Johnny whines, briefly returning his forehead to the cool, clean comfort of the the counter top. "I don't want to talk about it."
"Why? Was it not any good?"
Johnny sits up to better glare at his roommate. "That's not what this is about. Nothing happened."
"Okay," Paris says before taking his first, prim sip. "You and a half-naked European spent the entire evening alone and behind closed doors and nothing happened. That's plausible."
"I'm serious, Paris. I really need you to pretend to be sensitive right now."
Paris sets down his tea and rolls his eyes. "Okay," he leans his elbow against the counter and rests his chin against his hand in a perfect 'I'm listening' pose, "then tell Auntie Paris where the bad man touched you."
Johnny sighs unhappily and against his better judgment begins to speak, leaving as many details regarding the kissing and the licking out as possible.
"Wait," Paris interrupts when Johnny gets close to the end. "He said he wanted to stop skating?"
Johnny hesitates, caught off guard by Paris's sudden fixation on something that does not reveal whether or not any orgasms were achieved. He shrugs, "He said he was afraid he would have to stop because of the injury."
Paris raises an eyebrow, "So he said he was hurting and thinking about making a major life change and instead of telling him that you'd love and bone him forever you told him to just keep skating?"
Lifting his eyes heavenward, Johnny points out, "There's no situation in life that would make me use the words 'bone you forever.' And yeah, I mean. He loves skating. He'd hate to give it up. And he has to skate. If he didn't, I mean. I'd never see him."
"Right, because phones, email, and airplanes haven't been invented yet."
"Paris, please stop acting like you know everything about relationships. Four guys in four months does not make you Dr. Phil."
Paris's face twists, not in offense, but in disgust. "Ew. Don't even mention him! You know how I feel about mustaches." He sips delicately at his tea as if to get a bad taste out of his mouth, "And whatever, one of us got laid, and the other one didn't so..."
"You got laid?"
Paris briefly drops the subject of why Johnny is stupid to regale Johnny with his conquest. Unfortunately, the more questions Johnny asks about the guy the less impressive the conquest seems.
"He lives with his mother?"
"You lived with your mother until you were twenty-four, hypocrite."
"Well you're not bringing him over here, so don't even try."
"Hypocrite!" Paris trills.
"I don't have sex with Stéphane!"
"And why is that, huh? Why do you keep not taking him up on it?"
Johnny shuts his eyes and turns his face away, "You know why."
"Baba Yaga? Bullshit."
Sometimes it's really amazing that Paris can be so obtuse. Johnny's shoulders tense and his fingers curl tighter around the mug; it's like his whole body is clenching to keep any words from coming out, but somehow his mouth won't stay shut. "I just. Can't."
"You're right," Paris agrees. "It would be stupid to be with a hot guy who's crazy about you. Why would you want to do that?"
"I'm done," Johnny says, pushing his chair back and standing. "I'm going to bed. Since you're being so helpful today, you can rinse out the mugs, too."
"It's so obvious, though," Paris calls after him. "It'd be better to just keep stalling until you can say it just wasn't meant to be than to actually be happy again."
Johnny is pretty well versed in ignoring the good advice of people around him, and so it's easy to keep walking towards his bedroom without even the slightest pause.
~~~
On Monday the first twenty minutes at the rink is frustratingly normal. Stéphane is already on the ice, headphones in ear, striking poses as the music moves him. He does not notice Johnny. Galina and Viktor are in a corner having a conversation that could be about anything from Viktor's daughter to the price of bread, but their Soviet demeanor make whatever the topic is seem deadly serious. Galina nods imperiously at him, and Viktor taps his watch with a smile.
Johnny laces up alone and briefly wonders why he's bothered that somehow nothing has changed. Paris's meddling comments all weekend had been stifling, but being left alone feels strangely weightless. When he was a boy he'd worn a cast on his arm after a fall from his pony, and the day they'd taken it off it felt like this; too light, too exposed. If people stopped telling him what he should do he might have to stop ignoring them and make the choice for himself.
Johnny steps onto the ice, meaning to round it a few times to find his edges before Galina starts on him, but he's no more than four feet out from the wall before Stéphane catches his waist, matching his strides.
"Viktor told me you used to skate pairs." Stéphane tells him as if this were a great secret.
"You've been talking to Viktor about me?"
Stéphane shrugs, "It came up."
Johnny gives Stéphane a measuring look, but he remains stubbornly mum about what other things might have been said in this conversation. "Just as a junior. My old coach thought it would help me with my edges." Johnny glances over to Galina who gesturing at Viktor but paying them no mind. "The big growth spurt never happened though, and I didn't like doing doubles."
Stéphane is quiet for a time, long enough for Johnny to regret the crack about the doubles, but he never lets go of Johnny's waist. "I remember you and Rudy would do throws sometimes. I thought you were just playing."
"I was just playing," Johnny says. He breaks away, turning to skate backwards as Stéphane follows him. "It's not like I'm ever going to switch to pairs. It's just fun sometimes."
"Perhaps that is the answer to all these troubles," Stéphane says skating faster, holding his hands out for more contact as always. "You could throw me."
"You couldn't land it," Johnny says. He shakes his head when Stéphane starts to look upset. "I mean, not even if you were 100%."
Stéphane reaches out again and Johnny allows himself to be caught. He places Stéphane's hands back at his waist in a proper hold, and they find a rhythm again. Left, and then right. "It's not like a regular jump, at all. You lose all sense of where you are, what angle you're at in the air. You don't know where the ice is until your blade hits it."
Stéphane's fingers tighten ever so slightly around Johnny's hip. "Sounds fun."
Johnny smiles, "Exactly. But it's a bitch the first few times."
"You could teach me?"
Johnny cannot imagine being the reason for one of Stéphane's falls. He was too short and too thin for pairs, but he was also a bleeding heart. He used to flub his landings if Jodi couldn't hold on to hers; he hated waiting for her to get up while pretending it didn't happen.
"These days I'm really better at being the one who gets thrown," he says with a wink and a hip wiggle.
Stéphane doesn't laugh. He just gently pulls them to a stop and looks at Johnny's face, resolute. "So teach me to throw you."
Johnny opens his mouth, but it's Galina's voice that suddenly sounds across the rink. "What is this?" she exclaims in English. "This is not skating. This is- this is-" she resorts to rapid fire Russian that Johnny decides is better left untranslated.
"I better um-" he slips free from Stéphane's grip. "Before she gives herself a heart attack." He turns before Stéphane can respond.
It's not the most brutal practice Johnny's ever had, but that's not saying much. Galina wants to be frustrated with them both, and she is, but it's easier to take it out on Johnny because even Stéphane's spins are starting to get away from him. While Viktor calmly tries to find something, some way of skating that takes the pressure off of Stéphane's ailing muscle, Galina harps at Johnny about the fucking quad again. A dozen times Johnny thinks about snapping something back at her, and a dozen times she silences him with a knowing look.
By the end of practice Johnny feels like he's been dragged behind a car, and Stéphane looks it; bandages and ice on his knee and a pale, tired undertone to his skin. They gingerly unlace and pack away their skates, not speaking, and all Johnny can think about is how he wants a long, long nap. And that maybe Stéphane does too.
As usual his filter fails him, Johnny blurts out the offer of a small lunch and a big bed without thinking. "Just to nap," he stutters, because they did that before this all got so serious. Because Stéphane would take almost anyone up on the offer to spoon. "It's nice sometimes to-"
"I want that very much," Stéphane says in a way that leaves no doubt there will be a 'but' in the sentence that will ruin it. "But I have to go to massage."
"Of course. I have uh," Johnny has plants to water. Some emails to respond to. A plan to hide one of Paris's favorite jackets under the bathroom sink.
"So. I will call you, yes?"
As long as they've known each other, it has almost always been Johnny that decided when they could speak, when he had the time. If Johnny says yes then he will be giving permission to Stéphane to choose to call him from here on out, just as capitulating once to Stéphane's fervent need for touch meant that you would never again be safe from having him throw his arms around you on the slightest whim.
Saying no, however, simply isn't an option, as impossible as setting Stéphane up for a throw knowing he might fall.
"Yeah," Johnny agrees lightly. "You've got my number."
Stéphane nods. "I do."
Stéphane does call and it's pleasant, actually. He does not want to talk for a long time and he does not want to talk about how he's frustrated or tired. He just wants Johnny to explain why so many people in New Jersey wear tracksuits.
"Six people I saw in them!" he says, sounding upset. If only those people knew how they were being judged by someone who used to wear long sleeve olive pullovers with orange piping they'd die of shame. "I know it is important to be comfortable, I was in the pants I wear to practice, but I was just going to the doctor. And these clothing, it was very big and impractical. And the people I saw were just having lunch and things. One woman was shopping for jewelry."
"Americans get strange ideas sometimes, cher." Johnny is lying on the floor of his bedroom with his feet resting atop the bed, silently willing his ankle to be less swollen. "And Americans from New Jersey can get the strangest ones of all. I swear sometimes it's like they enjoy being a stereotype."
"I guess."
"It's too early for you to really be tired of America," Johnny chides. "Especially because of bad fashion. I've been to Europe. I know what they wear."
Stéphane is quiet for a moment. "You've never been to Switzerland have you?"
"I hate skiing," Johnny says, as if that is anything close to an answer. He takes a silent breath and holds it.
Stéphane seems to be doing the exact same thing, no sound at all coming through the line. "I just wonder," he says, finally. "You say you love so many other places, Russia and Tokyo and I don't know, but you stay here."
"I'm too cheap. You know the cost of rent in Tokyo? I've gotten accustomed to a certain standard of living, thank you."
Stéphane makes a thoughtful noise, "Perhaps if you stay here one day they make you the king of New Jersey."
"Queen," Johnny corrects. "If I'm getting crowned anything it's queen. You're the prince, not me."
"So then one day you'll be the queen of a small state in America and I will be king of a small country in Europe. We'll have to stay friends and be allies against Evgeni. Or else try to conquer each other."
Johnny laughs. "Conquer each other? What are you trying to do, steer this conversation into phone sex?"
"Ah," Stéphane says, sounding shy. "No. I can't keep up with English when I um."
"I know." Johnny kind of loves it in fact. They breathe in rhythm over the phone for a minute before Stéphane sighs.
"I should go."
"Okay, yeah." Johnny stays on the floor for a few minutes after Stéphane hangs up.
Staring at the ceiling, his thoughts drift from how should really dust his bedroom fan, to Stéphane being a little Prince of Switzerland and the unseen cities Geneva and Zurich, and the best parts of New York and home. Briefly he gets stuck thinking about Stéphane's hushed, urgent French the handful of times they've been together, the way he whispers it against Johnny's skin like he wants to muffle it and keep Johnny from understanding. Johnny shuts his eyes and shakes his head to clear it. When he opens them his thoughts are safely back at the fan that needs dusting.
~~~
Stéphane skates only an hour the next day. He doesn't speak to Johnny as they lace up, he doesn't come to Johnny as they skate, and he doesn't say goodbye when he leaves. Johnny works up a sweat and earns a new set of bruises. A hard fall jars his wrists and while he skates slowly, shaking it to ease the pain, Galina says something so biting to him he has to fight tears. Inside the locker room he sits heavily down on the bench and kicks open his skate bag, angry. He looks down to see a note placed atop his things.
"I still have not made you dinner," is neatly written in Stéphane's endearingly florid scrawl.
Johnny is cranky, tired and aching. Usually in the meteorology of Johnny's mood this would predict massive amount of "I need to be alone!" thunderstorms which occasional strikes of "I'm saying something I will need to apologize for later!" lightning. Johnny looks at the note and thinks about how Stéphane must use sixteen dishes to make one meal and subscribes to the European idiom that a recipe cannot be properly made without at least a touch of butter, or cream, or salted meat. And the mess, and the childish exuberance that could quickly turn to pouting if Johnny dared to voice a differing opinion, and the hands that would be reaching for Johnny in every pause while something simmered or browned.
Johnny neatly folds the paper in his hands and tucks it into his skate bag. He unlaces his skates, attends to his battered feet, packs his bag, and heads out of the rink to his car. Rooting through his Balenciaga for his keys, he comes across his phone first. Johnny stares at it for a moment before pulling it and out sending two text messages: one to Stéphane ("So come over and cook me dinner already") and one to Paris ("If you come home before 10:30 tonight I will set you one fire").
Driving home he receives two responses: one from Stéphane ("Prepare yourself for many delicious and beautiful things! ") and one from Paris ("I have extra condoms in my bathroom drawer"). He shakes his head at both of them.
( Part Three )
ETA: As of 10/27/210 I have updated this with new material.
( Part One )
~~~
Patti Weir is pretty much the closest thing that a mere mortal with a Tolkien inspired tattoo and a half a pack a day habit can come to being a saint. Johnny knows this even before she gently broaches the subject of Stéphane by mentioning, as if only in passing, "You've been hanging out with Stéphane quite a bit lately."
"Ugh, you have no idea what I'm dealing with," Johnny says immediately. He sighs dramatically for maximum effect. "He's so needy and Viktor and Nina can only do so much coddling, you know? I think in Switzerland he had more people to bug. That and they probably used to work in shifts."
St. Patti's side of the phone is quiet for a moment before she decides to ignore the steaming pile of bullshit Johnny just dropped at her feet. "Well," she says simply, "it's nice of you to help him get comfortable in New Jersey anyway. Tell Stéphane I said hi."
Johnny makes sure the conversation quickly moves on to safer topics like why Galina is mean and why St. Patti should pray for mercy for him.
Galina Zmievskaya is an old battle-axe that fiercely loves mink, bland fish recipes, and every single skater she has ever, even for a moment, called one of her pupils. So she loves Johnny and somewhere deep her imposing bosom, she wants him to be happy. But she also loves Stéphane now and so she glares (quite accusingly) at Johnny every single morning but most particularly the ones where Stéphane is in a good mood despite flubbing his landings. Johnny has learned it's best to just ignore it.
Except of course for the day she comes into the locker room while he is unlacing his skates, and Viktor and Stéphane are still out on the ice working on some final element. She says nothing at first, just shakes her finger at him. Johnny's had many a finger shaken at him in his lifetime and it's always been vaguely hilarious and not a bit threatening. When Galina does it though, it's downright menacing.
"He needing everything to skate," she says in English, just for the emphasis. "You, you give things away, little things. I know, I look the other way. But Styopa needing everything to skate. Heart, head, balls, everything. He don't want to admit but-" here she finally stops wagging her finger and throws up her hands to say, I get it. She lowers her hands and meets Johnny's gaze evenly, "But we know."
"Of course," Johnny says. Galina mercifully lets them leave it at that.
Unfortunately that leaves dear, dear Paris Childers. Paris comes home from work one day to find Stéphane sitting on their living room floor gaping open mouthed at Showgirls while doing some careful stretches. Johnny is sitting on the couch nursing some herbal tea and from time to time Stéphane will stop stretching and lean back to rest against Johnny's knees. Consequently, Johnny's fingers keep ending up in Stéphane's hair.
Stéphane had cut it recently after apparently deciding that it had betrayed him even though he'd been the one wielding the bleach like a weapon of mass destruction against innocent hair that never did anything but be thick and luscious even while suffering bowl cuts, too much hair gel, and fitful pulling during tantrums. Stéphane's hair is just long enough now that it no longer prickles against Johnny's palm, but slides under it like he's petting a short haired cat. It feels pleasant and Johnny is very tactile and always has been and it makes Stéphane's shoulders relax a bit more every time he does it. So it's all perfectly innocent really, and there is no reason at all to whip his hand away when Paris walks in but he does it anyway.
A lot of good it does him because Paris promptly raises a pale brow high and says, "Don't stop anything because of me."
Johnny wants to say something biting back at him but onscreen Nomi pushes Crystal down the stairs and there are suddenly squeals coming at him from every direction: one of anguish from Ms. Conners, one of horror from Stéphane, and one of delight from Paris. Everyone is suitably distracted and soon Stéphane goes back to stretching.
A few days later Johnny finds himself baking three pieces of fish with accompanying vegetables. Paris is in the living room, checking his email since Stéphane is there to make sure that Johnny is properly entertained while he cooks. Stéphane is talking about how the music he's at last chosen for his long program won over the other pieces he'd been considering. Johnny is not the least bit surprised to find that Stéphane had chosen something with a Latin flavor over the more French-inspired compositions.
"It's totally your dream to run away to a flamenco-themed circus, isn't it?" he ask, interrupting Stéphane's earnest description of how the music will be like fire.
"Oh that would be wonderful," Stéphane says. From the way his eyes light up he's probably being completely serious. "Lion taming to the Spanish guitar. Everything in beautiful reds and blacks instead of yellows and whites."
"I didn't think Cirque du Soleil has lion taming," Johnny points out.
Stéphane shrugs, "I know that Cirque du Soleil has their reasons for not using animals but there must be some way it could be done kindly."
"Ugh," Paris interjects from the living room. "What's the point of the circus if there isn't animals? Without like elephants and shit it's just a bunch of bad interpretative dance with some magic tricks thrown in to distract you from how bored you are."
"Paris can be the clown," Johnny says, raising his voice to make sure that his roommate hears him. "Or maybe it would be better if he was the mime. You know always silent." He stands up a little straighter and cocks a hip out to strike a pose. "I'll be the beautiful, graceful trapeze artist of course. Evan could get shot out of the cannon. You know actually I could really approve of this."
"But what will I do?" Stéphane asks, drawing secret shapes on the counter top with his finger.
"You'll find some way to get lions and zebras to get along and make them do tricks together. Everyone will love it."
Stéphane laughs at the idea, pleased, but before he can speak Paris swans into the kitchen to complain about dinner.
Afterward, Stéphane leaves early in anticipation of a long trip to the city to see another specialist. He gallantly refuses a ride home in favor of a taxi when he sees Johnny glancing fretfully at the dishes in the sink. In plain view of Paris, he stands beside Johnny and puts an arm around his waist, saying two things to Johnny in French, one to make him smile, another to make him blush. Paris licks raspberry sorbet of his spoon with a knowing look.
Johnny pushes Stéphane and manages to make it look mostly playful. The phone rings, letting them know that the taxi is waiting for Stéphane downstairs. Johnny waves goodnight rather than risk saying anything.
It's not too long after Stéphane leaves that Paris drapes himself over the counter while Johnny does the dishes and announces, "So I know you're like in love with him and everything but you still have to ask my permission before he moves in, okay?"
Johnny gives Paris a pretty wicked side-eye and purses his lips. "Three things. Number one I'm not in love with him, number two shut up, and number three the fuck I would have to ask your permission, you still owe me for the utilities."
Paris rolls his eyes. "That just because you haven't deposited the check yet, bitch. Also, you just said number two."
They laugh at each other and Johnny is almost willing to let this little infraction pass as an attempt to be humorous ever so slightly in poor taste. But of course, Paris ruins everything by refusing to stop talking.
"But seriously when he starts sleeping over, and I get he's European and whatever, but can you please make sure he wears clothes in the kitchen? Like, I'm totally going to try and accidentally walk in on him showering but I have a phobia about naked people being in kitchens. It's just so gross."
Johnny frowns tightly and stamps his foot once to make sure he has Paris's attention. "Okay now all three things are shut up. So just. Shut it." He tries to put real heat into the words but Paris, as usual, is not in the least bit phased.
"You just always made him sound so stupid when you talked about him before."
Johnny wheels around to look at him, suds dripping from his dish washing gloves onto his feet. "Paris, oh my god-"
"What? You did!" Paris insists. "You acted like he was just some dumb, hot guy you kept accidentally fooling around with. Maybe if you'd actually told the truth people wouldn't have been so confused about the Big Breakup."
"Don't you fucking dare talk to me about Drew right now." This time there is real heat in his words because he is absolutely, 100% not joking. He turns back around and starts furiously rinsing things in the sink.
"Why are you mad?" Paris asks. Johnny picks up a towel and starts drying a plate about too vigorously. "I'm saying he's nice. He's, like, worth it."
With that Johnny slams the plate down on the counter top hard enough he's momentarily afraid that it will shatter. It doesn't and he turns around again, pulling off his pink rubber gloves. "I'm going to bed. Do not fucking speak to me before I skate tomorrow or so help me, Paris, I'll-"
"Like I'd want to talk to you when you're like this," Paris snaps back, pouting.
Johnny throws his dish towel into the sink and for the first time since moving out of his mother's home leaves three glasses, two forks, and a spatula dirty and unwashed behind him. As he storms down the hall toward his bedroom, Paris has the cheek to call out, "Goodnight, bitch."
Johnny slams the door in answer.
It's safe to say that he's an utter bitch at practice the next day. The lingering irritation from the night before makes him slightly more aggressive on the ice and Galina approves. Paris doesn't come home for dinner and stays out all night just to really drive the point home. Johnny enjoys it for about an hour and a half before he gets lonely and starts wishing someone were around to pay attention to him. When he thinks about calling Stéphane just for someone to talk to he flips back to being angry. He ruthlessly scrubs and scours the bathrooms and tries to take a relaxing bath that he has to cut short when his mind won't quiet down. He climbs into bed, defeated, at ten.
Stéphane is there to greet him at the rink the next morning and he's like a stereo turned all the way up. Everything from his smile, his voice, his energy all pushed to their very limits- his words are even tripping over themselves in their eagerness to be spoken -and Johnny doesn't feel like making fond excuses for it today. He tries to ignore Stéphane just as hard as humanly possible, but rather than be rebuffed by Johnny's silence Stéphane just keeps grasping.
He prattles on about some place they stopped for lunch yesterday while in the city, abusing the words "lovely" and "delicious" to an almost criminal degree. Johnny finds himself desperately missing the silence under which he used to prepare for practice. It had seemed oppressive before, sometimes tying his stomach in knots before he got on the ice, but now he's convinced it was actually just peaceful.
"It made me think," Stéphane says brightly, "that all this time I have not done much cooking here. It's a bit rude, no? Making you and Nina have to do it always. Especially when I am so good at it. I think that I should cook for you, don't you think? To make up for your, um... the word is not coming but you know what I mean?"
"My slaving?" Johnny provides. "My sacrificing? My selflessness?"
Stéphane frowns. "No, I do not think that's what I meant. But it doesn't matter. What I really want to say is that I will cook tonight."
"Tonight?"
There's no confusing the way Johnny says it for anticipation and at long last Stéphane retreats a bit, his shoulders stoop a bit and he's quieter when speaks. "If that is okay with you, yes."
"It isn't." It isn't okay for Stéphane to think he has rights to Johnny's time. It isn't okay to think that he thinks he can plan some sweet overture that could complicate literally everything they have and never expect Johnny to say no. It isn't okay that Johnny wants it.
"Ah," Stéphane says, disappointed but waving his hand. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize you were busy."
"I'm not busy," Johnny says standing. He stomps one skate and then the other to see how his feet are sitting in them. They're fine. "I just can't devote half of every week to fawning over you." He turns and looks at Stéphane, "I mean if that's all right."
He's half daring Stéphane to blow this up and ruin their focus today just that Johnny will have a reason to tell Galina they need to skate separately again. Stéphane looks back at him and it's completely unfair how the shape of his eyes, their dark color, and the heavy press down of his lids all work together to exaggerate his expressions. It's always too much, too happy, too smoldering, too earnest. Right now they're cutting into Johnny with how damned unhappy and resigned he can look.
Stéphane nods once, as if agreeing with Johnny. "Okay. I understand." He looks down at his skates and pulls the laces for the left one loose so that he can tighten them. Johnny leaves the room to meet Galina on the ice.
They both flub their first couple of jumps but there isn't any reason to think it's out of the ordinary, though. Johnny's jumps usually escape him when he's even mildly upset and Stéphane usually takes a long time to get his muscles loose and warm. Galina helpfully shouts at them both to wake the hell up.
Johnny pulls it together pretty quickly, but after an hour Stéphane has managed a clean jump only twice. Viktor skates in ever shrinking circles around him and their conversation becomes more and more quiet until finally they are standing at the end of the rink, shifting from foot to foot and looking grim. After a long moment they push apart from each other and Stéphane goes straight into a jumping pass, whipping by Johnny so fast that his hair is ruffled. He puts everything into the kick against the ice and the rotations are good- one, two and three -but the landing is low and though he struggles to hold on to it. In the end he has pop out of it.
Johnny continues the run through of his footwork, and in his constant turning he can't see Stéphane's face but in the curious acoustics of the rink he can hear Viktor speak even though they are several yards apart.
"That was better," Viktor says, sounding hopeful.
"C'est tout," Stéphane says again. "That's all I have."
For the next hour Stéphane goes for brutal, kamikaze jumps over and over again. He misses some, lands others, and mostly just barely holds on. He lands a quad toe with nothing but a hand down and celebrates by skating a small circle in tears. Johnny spends the whole time wishing, not for the first time, that he could go back in time and tell himself to take just fifteen seconds to think before he speaks. Of course he can't and usually that means he has to find some way of some way of owning whatever unfortunate thing came flying out of his mouth, but he doesn't want any part of this at all.
Viktor and Stéphane finally throw in the towel, leaving the ice, and Johnny skates for a few minutes with eyes on the door to the locker room because he has to see Stéphane's face before he leaves. Fifteen minutes pass and then twenty, the door opens but it is only Viktor coming out to speak to Galina. It is clearly not a conversation Johnny is meant to listen to and normally he'd be straining to eavesdrop, but today he seizes his chance to skate off, calling out "Bathroom" over his shoulder. Galina and Viktor are too distracted to do more than glance his way.
He slips his guards on and plods over to the locker room. Stéphane is still inside, both skates off and carelessly discarded on the ground beside him. His head is tipped back against the wall behind him, knees splayed with an ice pack pressed high up on his inner thigh. He opens his eyes when Johnny forgets to catch the door behind him and it slams shut.
They look at each other again and this time Stéphane's dark eyes reveal nothing at all.
"I'm just-" Johnny tries to say but he ends up looking down. He feels ridiculous suddenly, with his puffed vest adding too much bulk on top, his warm up pants like a second skin, slim calves under his legwarmers disappearing into the misshapen bulges of his skates. He might have decided to do this later after a shower and a little bit of bronzer. Stéphane readjusts the ice on his thigh and sits up tiredly. Johnny clears his throat and tries again. "I'm a bit... you know. I'm." He sighs. "Sorry."
"Okay," Stéphane says. He leans down to arrange his shoes, pushing his feet into unlaced trainers.
Johnny stands there with nothing else to do and no idea what to say. To give his loitering some clearer purpose he comes forward to scoot Stéphane's bag closer to him. He stoops down to help pick up Stephane's skates, overbalances and ends up kneeling down. He holds a skate up for Stéphane to take and Viktor comes in just as he accepts it.
"Galina is looking for you, Jonichka," he says meaningfully. He looks next to Stéphane. "Styopa, we can go now."
Stéphane throws one skate in to his bag and then the other, zipping it with quick, careless jerks before he stands. It's clear he means to get up just as hastily but about three-quarters of the way up he sways. Johnny knows better than to reach out. Stéphane takes a moment to breathe in quietly and then out, and slowly straightens his back.
Stéphane makes his way gingerly to the door without saying anything at all to Johnny and one thing he can never stand is to be ignored. There's only so much that can be said in front of Viktor, but he says Stéphane's name, making it into a question.
Stéphane pauses. He sighs, and answers, "Johnny. Yes." It's what Johnny wanted to hear, but he can't feel even a bit comforted when every line of Stéphane's body is telling him that things are hardly okay. Stéphane glances back, "Mais peut-être pas aujourd'hui."
Johnny swallows, forcing his throat to open up so he can say something. "Okay. I mean. Of course."
Back on the ice Galina decides to add whole new layers to the meanings of the words stern and exacting. Frankly, her shouted Russian orders and noises of dissatisfaction are exactly what Johnny needs to hear right now. It reminds him that sometimes when Galina gets particularly frustrated she abandons actual advice and tells him in all seriousness, "Be better." As if it's just that easy. Still other time she will curl her hand into a fist and tell him, even more vaguely, "Be more."
He gets it now, though. He needs to be better if he's going to figure this out, needs to be more. He'll figure out more what later.
~~~
Stéphane disappears into the hands of doctors the next day, even traveling up to Toronto in order to see an expert. Johnny makes up with Paris by putting some muscle and weight building powder in Paris' soymilk. Paris's inhuman and unfair metabolism probably won't even notice the extra calories but it makes Johnny feel better. He tidies, he trains, and he waits.
Stéphane comes back to the ice on Thursday, looking not even a bit rested. Galina and Viktor have him focus on footwork, again and again he does it perfectly, elegant and sharp and in time to the music, but he's never asked to try for a jump.
He doesn't say a word to Johnny before they skate and that's fine. Johnny's not so narcissistic that he thinks he's more important than the fears and doubts of your first day back on the ice after a big disappointment. Still he is pretty important, or at least he should be, and so he skates past Stéphane's line of sight several times while doing his best to look irresistible and vaguely sympathetic. He's not sure Stéphane notices, but unfortunately Nina definitely does.
"I'm not sure what happened, or what's going on, but I know your ass isn't going to get you out of trouble, Johnny," she says quietly so that Galina will not overhear.
Johnny, caught red-handed, immediately stops looking at Stéphane. He huffs unhappily and Nina actually starts to look concerned which is mortifying so Johnny does what he does best: he deflects. He smirks at her, cocks a hip out and poses, "But it can't hurt, right?"
She shakes her head at him fondly and they start sketching out the next sequence.
Viktor lingers for some time in the locker room after they skate, talking about exercises and stretches earnestly despite the fact that it barely looks like Stéphane is listening. Galina suddenly sticks her head in the door and asks Viktor to come help her translate something she needs to say to the owner of the rink and he and Stéphane are left alone.
Johnny waits with baited breath in the silence for Stéphane to say something but he doesn't so much as look at Johnny. When he bends down to zip up his bag with the clear purpose of just getting up and walking out, Johnny can't stand it any longer.
He makes sure that he's the first to stand up so that it's good and clear that he's not the one getting left behind. A good defense is a good offense. Or something. Football is ridiculous and anyway, this is more important. "You're not even going to say 'hello' or, or anything?"
Stéphane sits up and blinks calmly up at Johnny. When he finally speaks it is to point out, "You didn't say anything, either."
"That's because the ball was in your court. Remember?"
"Johnny," Stéphane says, sounding exasperated. "I don't see why-"
"No, I don't see," Johnny interrupts, refusing to yield the floor. "It's not like you didn't already know that I'm difficult so I don't get why you're making it a big deal that I-" he stops himself from putting a name to it.
"That you what?" Stéphane prompts with exaggerated curiosity.
Fucked up, Johnny thinks, ruined things. He'd thought he'd been prepared to do whatever it took to make things right, but nothing is going the way it was supposed to. Stéphane was supposed to need him, and Johnny was going to patiently let himself be needed. Convincing Stéphane of anything was not supposed to be part of the plan.
"Whatever. Just. Whatever," Johnny says, grabbing his bag and throwing things into it. He's giving up and he knows it, but it doesn't stop him from hurling out one small, half-desperate argument. "You were the one who said I could come to you whenever I wanted."
"And are you coming to me now?" Stéphane asks quietly.
Johnny stops fussing with his bag to look up and Stéphane meets his gaze with an unconcerned and easy bemusement that makes Johnny's teeth clench. As if Stéphane had any right.
"Well," he says, picking up his things. "It's not like you would even notice if I was so. Au revoir, I guess."
Stéphane says nothing as Johnny turns on his heel and leaves the locker room with the last of his outrage.
He's halfway out of the rink when Stéphane catches up to him. One moment Johnny is angry and disappointed, kicking himself for utterly failing at being more selfless and sympathetic and all the other things he said he would try to be better at while simultaneously cursing him for being so damned Stéphane, and then Stéphane is pressed along his side and their fingers are laced together.
"I'm sorry," Stéphane says close to his ear, "but you should not be surprised that I am a difficult person."
Johnny feels a little shiver run up the back of his neck. "Everyone is surprised when you're a difficult person thanks to your little Heidi of the Mountains routine," he says, but he's not angry anymore because Stéphane is smiling at him.
They don't say anything else, but Stéphane's thumb keeps sweeping over the back of Johnny's hand as they walk. He continues holding Johnny's hand in full view of Nina and Viktor. Galina, thankfully, appears to have already left because Johnny can't see her car anywhere.
"I cannot come tonight," he tells Johnny.
"Okay," Johnny says, resolutely avoiding Nina's open stare. Viktor is looking up to the heavens, probably to ask God for the strength to make it through this season.
"But very soon I will," Stéphane promises. He looks Johnny in the eye, "Can you wait?"
Johnny understands that he's being given a do-over, a second chance to prove something he failed to do before. "I can wait," he nods. "Just. Usually not very long."
Stéphane smiles, squeezes Johnny's fingers a final time, and then lets go.
~~~
So Stéphane doesn't come that night just as he said he wouldn't. But he doesn't come the next night either, and during the practice the day after that he gives no indication whatsoever of having any plans to stop by. At eight o' clock Johnny finds himself alone again- Paris is out being a normal twenty-something -and he consoles himself by turning the air conditioning down to a sinfully indulgent temperature and modeling his furs in the mirror.
Johnny is in a knee length fox fur coat and very little else when there is a knock at the door. Twice, his heart skips a beat, first for being startled by the unexpected sound, and again when a glance through the peephole reveals Stéphane on the other side.
Johnny doesn't bother changing, he just throws open the door a bit dramatically and drapes himself provocatively against it. "You didn't even call before you came," he says.
"Because I told you to expect me." Stéphane sounds a little distracted as he takes in the full length of Johnny's body, from his bare feet (and calves and thighs) to the pout on his lips.
The stubble Stéphane had been sporting this morning at practice is gone. The smooth, clean skin of his neck is well displayed thanks to the thin, black boatnecked shirt he is wearing. He looks like the European exchange student that in high school Johnny used to fervently wish would come and rescue him. A rich, cultured boy that would be impressed by everything that other people made fun of Johnny for. He wonders what Stéphane sees when he looks at him, decked out in his fur and just a little lip gloss.
For a moment neither of them move or speak, locked in some sort of stand off that involves hungry stares instead of loaded guns, and then Johnny steps aside. "Come in. It's dress up time at Chez Weir."
Stéphane does come in and even gamely follows Johnny to his bedroom but he doesn't seemed too thrilled when Johnny actually starts picking out furs for him to try on.
"Johnny," he says, reproachfully. "You know that I do not like these so much."
"Don't even start that," Johnny warns him. He picks out a wool trench with a gorgeous fur collar and cuffs. "Just put it on." Stéphane starts to slip it on, but Johnny stops him and tugs the hem of his shirt up with a meaningful look. Stéphane rolls his eyes and pulls it off.
Thirty minutes later there is a pile of discarded jackets and pelts on the floor of his bedroom, and Stéphane is wearing a ridiculous mink number with a clashing lynx hat and Johnny is breathless with laughter.
Stéphane takes a mortal offense at his giggling and takes the jacket off. "Always you insist that I can't wear things. You are not so special that everything can only look good on you."
"Oh honey," Johnny says, picking up the mink so that he can show Stéphane how it should be done. "I'm sorry I don't have any zebra for you to work better than I ever could."
Johnny expects more pouting, some muttered French griping, or for Stéphane to flounce out of the room. The very last thing he expects is to be tackled, and he squawks a little inelegantly as he falls. Johnny drops the coat and the hat Stéphane is wearing goes tumbling off as they land on the soft pile of furs. On principle, Johnny puts up a fight, laughing and trying to flip Stéphane on his back and pin him. Stéphane gets his hands around Johnny's wrists, and Johnny pauses to catch his breath and reconsider his strategies.
Looking up at Stéphane flushed cheeks and parted lips, Johnny has to admit there are far worse places to be than on a bed of furs under a half-naked European hottie. Johnny heaves another breath and tries not to let this thought show on his face. He must fail because Stéphane stops looking smug, and instead bends down to bring their lips together, soft and slow. Johnny groans into Stéphane's mouth, and turns his face away.
"Stéphane," he says. "You should let me up." He moves his legs restless and worried because it's now officially impossible to ignore how turned on he is.
Stéphane stays exactly where he is though, straddling Johnny's hips, leaning down so low and close enough that his breath is drifting across Johnny's jaw. He touches his mouth next to the skin just under Johnny's ear, and the noise that comes out Johnny's mouth this time is a lot more plaintive. "Wait. This isn't fair."
Johnny can manage to say no in a whole host of other situations, but Stéphane is sucking on his neck and easing down until their chests pressed tightly together and they're nestled in rich, soft decadent fur and there's only so much willpower in the world. Stéphane moves his mouth again, pausing over Johnny's lips just long enough for Johnny to breathe out another protest, but he doesn't. When they kiss Johnny opens his mouth and sucks on Stéphane's tongue.
He closes his eyes and works his mouth blissfully against Stéphane's. He twines their legs together, stroking the back of Stéphane's calf with his foot. Stéphane settles into the wide spread of Johnny's thighs, nothing between them but designer underwear, and it's heaven. Johnny loses track of time because he could probably do this forever. Without breaking their kiss, Stéphane sits back on his heels and coaxes Johnny to untangle their legs and arch his back. He locks an arm at the small of Johnny's back and starts to lift him, jerking their hips together. 100% pure, Grade A, USDA Prime good sex, Johnny thinks, exhilarated as Stéphane picks him up.
But then Stéphane makes a noise, sharp and unhappy, and Johnny suddenly lands on his ass atop the jackets. He looks up at Stéphane, startled, to see Stéphane's teeth sunk into his bottom lip, a deep furrow in his brow.
"What?" Johnny asks, getting his legs under him. He looks down and sees the grip Stéphane has on his thigh. "Oh," he murmurs. He takes Stéphane's elbow, "Oh baby, c'mon. Let's get you to the bed."
Johnny stands up, grabbing Stéphane's free hand and bracing his legs on either side of Stéphane's knees to help him up. Stéphane refuses to lean against him as they move across the room, he frees himself from Johnny's hands and sits heavily down on the bed. He keeps his eyes resolutely downcast and when he lies down he hides his face in the crook of his arm. Unseen, Johnny rubs a hand across his swollen mouth while he considers what to do, watching Stéphane's chest rise and fall as he takes slow steady breath. He decides to let Stéphane be, taking a few minutes to hang each fur up back in its proper place in the closet, turning off the closet light and shutting the door once finished.
He turns toward the bed and is confronted with Stéphane's back. Stéphane is now lying on his side, still hiding his face but showing Johnny his smooth, muscled, beautiful back instead. He could easily read this as a rejection, but the more Johnny stares at the vulnerable expanse of skin, dotted here and there are the ever-present bruises that come with a lifetime dedicated to falling and getting up again, the more it feels like an invitation.
Johnny lies down carefully beside Stéphane, and curls around him, pressing right up against his back.
Johnny touches his nose to the soft skin at the back of Stéphane's neck, nuzzling just under his hairline. He shuts his eyes and starts to sift through the things he might say but he's never been good at that. He has enough wit and humor and cutting remarks to last him a lifetime; that and some good manners thankfully get him through about ninety percent of life. But in the silence between just two people Johnny can never think of the right thing to say.
He comes up with a number of possibilities and rejects them all.
It is Stéphane that speaks first. "I don't think I can do this."
Johnny doesn't open his eyes or let his breath hitch but he can't stop his whole body from tensing. He calmly hooks his chin over Stéphane's shoulder and plays willfully ignorant, "Do what?"
"The season," Stéphane says. That he sounds so heartbroken is the only thing that keeps Johnny from sighing in relief. "I don't think I can skate."
"No, come on," Johnny soothes, smoothing his hand up from Stéphane's navel to his sternum and then down again. "You can still skate. You don't have to compete to skate."
Stéphane shakes his head. "The doctor says that maybe..." but he doesn't finish his sentence.
Johnny's hand stops moving while he considers this information.
"You'll still skate," he says. It's a simple matter of fact: Stéphane skates. And beautifully. If Stéphane didn't skate then, well. "You have to try," Johnny says, outright rejecting the notion.
"I have."
"You are," Johnny corrects. Stéphane is still trying. He was on the ice just this morning with his ridiculous mittens and his Spanish music.
"Yes," Stéphane says with very little conviction.
Johnny's fingertips press a little harder into Stéphane's skin as if he were about to slip away. He forces them to relax again, even though the more they talk about this the less it makes sense. Because of skating Johnny's world extends from Korea to LA, from New York to Russia, but the people that inhabit it, the faces that he sees again and again are surprisingly few. To think of Stéphane not being one of them is practically impossible.
Again he's at a loss for words, wanting to blurt out "But what would you do if you didn't skate?" which is probably the last thing Stéphane wants to hear. A few more hysterical questions float through his mind, and Johnny decides to just screw talking.
He sits up and pushes gently on Stéphane's shoulder, turning him onto his back. Stéphane looks up at him, already skeptical, and Johnny gives him a mischievous grin just to throw him even more off guard. On his hands and knees, Johnny carefully bends over Stéphane, maneuvering into the most attractive position possible he can manage without putting any pressure on Stéphane's his torso or legs.
He holds Stéphane's gaze as he lowers his mouth down, skimming over his chest and stomach, down past the waistband of his briefs. He hovers there for a wicked moment before slipping down a few inches further and pressing his mouth high up on Stéphane's inner thigh. He doesn't kiss or suck at the skin, just presses his open mouth there and breathes one hot breath out against it. Johnny lifts up and presses his mouth down again just little lower.
Stéphane's hand carefully brushes through Johnny's hair and just like a reflex Johnny lowers his lashes immediately. Stéphane never makes a noise or says a word while Johnny makes a slow, steady path down to his knee but his fingers stay in Johnny's hair the entire time. It is the long climb up that has Stéphane breathing harder and Johnny makes all sorts of promises to himself about what he'll do when gets to the top. He presses his mouth down again, exactly where he started and Stéphane's hand slips around to cup the back of Johnny's head, exerting no pressure at all but asking just the same.
Johnny sighs. He doesn't yet move his lips in either direction, but he slides his palm over Stéphane's stomach, first across and then slowly, slowly down.
The sound of the front door opening and slamming stops him cold.
Paris is somewhere in the front room, laughing. "Hey bitch," he calls out, coming down the hall. "You'll never guess what happened."
Johnny is able to get off the bed and over to the door just in time to get his shoulders braced against it. His bedroom door thumps against him, pushing him a half-inch before he gets it closed again. "Johnny," Paris whines. "I have gossip, dammit. This is important."
"I'm busy!" Johnny snaps. He tries to lock his door but Paris must be throwing all of his little frame into it as he tries to open it again. Stéphane has gotten up and started slipping on his jeans. Johnny pouts and tries to slump against the door in disappointment but Paris almost manages to get it open. He digs his heels against the carpet and shoves back.
"Whatever," Paris says after the door shuts in his face again. "You haven't been busy since Baba Yaga got her hands on you. What are you hiding?"
Stéphane puts his shirt on and comes to stand right in front of him. Johnny tries mouth something in apology but Stéphane just plants a hand against the door and kisses him, sudden and deep and god why did Johnny ever think he needed a roommate?
Just as abruptly Stéphane breaks the kiss, grabs the doorknob and pulls it open. Paris has a hand raised to start pounding on the door with his mouth open and ready for more pestering. Johnny moves to stand behind Stéphane and tries not to blush.
"I am sorry to be going," Stéphane says, smiling at Paris. "But you understand, no?" He slips past Paris without waiting for an answer and disappears down the hall.
Paris stares after him for a moment before whipping around to look at Johnny. "Girl. What the hell?"
Johnny sighs and finds a pair of shorts to throw on. "I swear if you stay right here and let me have five minutes alone with him, I'll tell you everything. Just. Five minutes. Or I'll kill you in your sleep."
"Damn right you're going to tell me everything." Leaning against the door jamb, Paris folds his arms and looks very, very expectant.
Stéphane is slipping on his shoes at the door. Strangely enough he doesn't seem too upset about the sudden and unforgivably lame turn of events. That doesn't stop Johnny from trying to apologize.
"I'm sorry. Next time I can just tether him outside or something."
Stéphane shakes his head, "It is all right. I think perhaps we got carried away. We have practice tomorrow." Johnny frowns at him in confusion, and Stéphane raises his eyebrows. "What would Galina say?"
"Galina?" Johnny repeats her name as if he's never heard it. "So. You're still going to skate?"
Stéphane shrugs, so incongruously casual when fifteen minutes ago his heart was breaking at the thought of never being able to skate again. "You said you wanted me to try."
"I do," Johnny admits. "But-"
"Then I will try," Stéphane says simply. He lightly kisses Johnny once more before he leaves. "Goodnight."
"Okay," Johnny says to closed door. He turns around and finds Paris standing there, impatiently tapping his foot. "Okay," he says again, this time a little more firmly.
Paris is so giddy about the coming gossip that he actually volunteers to do something nice like make tea while Johnny put his head down against the counter and moans wordless laments about the current state of his life. Three months ago everything was so comfortably dull that he could have probably made it through his whole routine while sleepwalking. Wake up, skate, come home, eat as few calories as possible while cleaning as many thing as possible, spend a precious few hours being fabulous, go to bed. Relationship highs and lows were limited to getting to cuddle someone on the couch during MarioKart nights and the occasional fight with Paris about crumbs.
Maybe it wasn't exactly a thrilling life but it did at least prevent things like Paris setting down a mug of steaming chamomile and cheerfully asking, "So did you do him?" from happening too often.
"Paris," Johnny whines, briefly returning his forehead to the cool, clean comfort of the the counter top. "I don't want to talk about it."
"Why? Was it not any good?"
Johnny sits up to better glare at his roommate. "That's not what this is about. Nothing happened."
"Okay," Paris says before taking his first, prim sip. "You and a half-naked European spent the entire evening alone and behind closed doors and nothing happened. That's plausible."
"I'm serious, Paris. I really need you to pretend to be sensitive right now."
Paris sets down his tea and rolls his eyes. "Okay," he leans his elbow against the counter and rests his chin against his hand in a perfect 'I'm listening' pose, "then tell Auntie Paris where the bad man touched you."
Johnny sighs unhappily and against his better judgment begins to speak, leaving as many details regarding the kissing and the licking out as possible.
"Wait," Paris interrupts when Johnny gets close to the end. "He said he wanted to stop skating?"
Johnny hesitates, caught off guard by Paris's sudden fixation on something that does not reveal whether or not any orgasms were achieved. He shrugs, "He said he was afraid he would have to stop because of the injury."
Paris raises an eyebrow, "So he said he was hurting and thinking about making a major life change and instead of telling him that you'd love and bone him forever you told him to just keep skating?"
Lifting his eyes heavenward, Johnny points out, "There's no situation in life that would make me use the words 'bone you forever.' And yeah, I mean. He loves skating. He'd hate to give it up. And he has to skate. If he didn't, I mean. I'd never see him."
"Right, because phones, email, and airplanes haven't been invented yet."
"Paris, please stop acting like you know everything about relationships. Four guys in four months does not make you Dr. Phil."
Paris's face twists, not in offense, but in disgust. "Ew. Don't even mention him! You know how I feel about mustaches." He sips delicately at his tea as if to get a bad taste out of his mouth, "And whatever, one of us got laid, and the other one didn't so..."
"You got laid?"
Paris briefly drops the subject of why Johnny is stupid to regale Johnny with his conquest. Unfortunately, the more questions Johnny asks about the guy the less impressive the conquest seems.
"He lives with his mother?"
"You lived with your mother until you were twenty-four, hypocrite."
"Well you're not bringing him over here, so don't even try."
"Hypocrite!" Paris trills.
"I don't have sex with Stéphane!"
"And why is that, huh? Why do you keep not taking him up on it?"
Johnny shuts his eyes and turns his face away, "You know why."
"Baba Yaga? Bullshit."
Sometimes it's really amazing that Paris can be so obtuse. Johnny's shoulders tense and his fingers curl tighter around the mug; it's like his whole body is clenching to keep any words from coming out, but somehow his mouth won't stay shut. "I just. Can't."
"You're right," Paris agrees. "It would be stupid to be with a hot guy who's crazy about you. Why would you want to do that?"
"I'm done," Johnny says, pushing his chair back and standing. "I'm going to bed. Since you're being so helpful today, you can rinse out the mugs, too."
"It's so obvious, though," Paris calls after him. "It'd be better to just keep stalling until you can say it just wasn't meant to be than to actually be happy again."
Johnny is pretty well versed in ignoring the good advice of people around him, and so it's easy to keep walking towards his bedroom without even the slightest pause.
~~~
On Monday the first twenty minutes at the rink is frustratingly normal. Stéphane is already on the ice, headphones in ear, striking poses as the music moves him. He does not notice Johnny. Galina and Viktor are in a corner having a conversation that could be about anything from Viktor's daughter to the price of bread, but their Soviet demeanor make whatever the topic is seem deadly serious. Galina nods imperiously at him, and Viktor taps his watch with a smile.
Johnny laces up alone and briefly wonders why he's bothered that somehow nothing has changed. Paris's meddling comments all weekend had been stifling, but being left alone feels strangely weightless. When he was a boy he'd worn a cast on his arm after a fall from his pony, and the day they'd taken it off it felt like this; too light, too exposed. If people stopped telling him what he should do he might have to stop ignoring them and make the choice for himself.
Johnny steps onto the ice, meaning to round it a few times to find his edges before Galina starts on him, but he's no more than four feet out from the wall before Stéphane catches his waist, matching his strides.
"Viktor told me you used to skate pairs." Stéphane tells him as if this were a great secret.
"You've been talking to Viktor about me?"
Stéphane shrugs, "It came up."
Johnny gives Stéphane a measuring look, but he remains stubbornly mum about what other things might have been said in this conversation. "Just as a junior. My old coach thought it would help me with my edges." Johnny glances over to Galina who gesturing at Viktor but paying them no mind. "The big growth spurt never happened though, and I didn't like doing doubles."
Stéphane is quiet for a time, long enough for Johnny to regret the crack about the doubles, but he never lets go of Johnny's waist. "I remember you and Rudy would do throws sometimes. I thought you were just playing."
"I was just playing," Johnny says. He breaks away, turning to skate backwards as Stéphane follows him. "It's not like I'm ever going to switch to pairs. It's just fun sometimes."
"Perhaps that is the answer to all these troubles," Stéphane says skating faster, holding his hands out for more contact as always. "You could throw me."
"You couldn't land it," Johnny says. He shakes his head when Stéphane starts to look upset. "I mean, not even if you were 100%."
Stéphane reaches out again and Johnny allows himself to be caught. He places Stéphane's hands back at his waist in a proper hold, and they find a rhythm again. Left, and then right. "It's not like a regular jump, at all. You lose all sense of where you are, what angle you're at in the air. You don't know where the ice is until your blade hits it."
Stéphane's fingers tighten ever so slightly around Johnny's hip. "Sounds fun."
Johnny smiles, "Exactly. But it's a bitch the first few times."
"You could teach me?"
Johnny cannot imagine being the reason for one of Stéphane's falls. He was too short and too thin for pairs, but he was also a bleeding heart. He used to flub his landings if Jodi couldn't hold on to hers; he hated waiting for her to get up while pretending it didn't happen.
"These days I'm really better at being the one who gets thrown," he says with a wink and a hip wiggle.
Stéphane doesn't laugh. He just gently pulls them to a stop and looks at Johnny's face, resolute. "So teach me to throw you."
Johnny opens his mouth, but it's Galina's voice that suddenly sounds across the rink. "What is this?" she exclaims in English. "This is not skating. This is- this is-" she resorts to rapid fire Russian that Johnny decides is better left untranslated.
"I better um-" he slips free from Stéphane's grip. "Before she gives herself a heart attack." He turns before Stéphane can respond.
It's not the most brutal practice Johnny's ever had, but that's not saying much. Galina wants to be frustrated with them both, and she is, but it's easier to take it out on Johnny because even Stéphane's spins are starting to get away from him. While Viktor calmly tries to find something, some way of skating that takes the pressure off of Stéphane's ailing muscle, Galina harps at Johnny about the fucking quad again. A dozen times Johnny thinks about snapping something back at her, and a dozen times she silences him with a knowing look.
By the end of practice Johnny feels like he's been dragged behind a car, and Stéphane looks it; bandages and ice on his knee and a pale, tired undertone to his skin. They gingerly unlace and pack away their skates, not speaking, and all Johnny can think about is how he wants a long, long nap. And that maybe Stéphane does too.
As usual his filter fails him, Johnny blurts out the offer of a small lunch and a big bed without thinking. "Just to nap," he stutters, because they did that before this all got so serious. Because Stéphane would take almost anyone up on the offer to spoon. "It's nice sometimes to-"
"I want that very much," Stéphane says in a way that leaves no doubt there will be a 'but' in the sentence that will ruin it. "But I have to go to massage."
"Of course. I have uh," Johnny has plants to water. Some emails to respond to. A plan to hide one of Paris's favorite jackets under the bathroom sink.
"So. I will call you, yes?"
As long as they've known each other, it has almost always been Johnny that decided when they could speak, when he had the time. If Johnny says yes then he will be giving permission to Stéphane to choose to call him from here on out, just as capitulating once to Stéphane's fervent need for touch meant that you would never again be safe from having him throw his arms around you on the slightest whim.
Saying no, however, simply isn't an option, as impossible as setting Stéphane up for a throw knowing he might fall.
"Yeah," Johnny agrees lightly. "You've got my number."
Stéphane nods. "I do."
Stéphane does call and it's pleasant, actually. He does not want to talk for a long time and he does not want to talk about how he's frustrated or tired. He just wants Johnny to explain why so many people in New Jersey wear tracksuits.
"Six people I saw in them!" he says, sounding upset. If only those people knew how they were being judged by someone who used to wear long sleeve olive pullovers with orange piping they'd die of shame. "I know it is important to be comfortable, I was in the pants I wear to practice, but I was just going to the doctor. And these clothing, it was very big and impractical. And the people I saw were just having lunch and things. One woman was shopping for jewelry."
"Americans get strange ideas sometimes, cher." Johnny is lying on the floor of his bedroom with his feet resting atop the bed, silently willing his ankle to be less swollen. "And Americans from New Jersey can get the strangest ones of all. I swear sometimes it's like they enjoy being a stereotype."
"I guess."
"It's too early for you to really be tired of America," Johnny chides. "Especially because of bad fashion. I've been to Europe. I know what they wear."
Stéphane is quiet for a moment. "You've never been to Switzerland have you?"
"I hate skiing," Johnny says, as if that is anything close to an answer. He takes a silent breath and holds it.
Stéphane seems to be doing the exact same thing, no sound at all coming through the line. "I just wonder," he says, finally. "You say you love so many other places, Russia and Tokyo and I don't know, but you stay here."
"I'm too cheap. You know the cost of rent in Tokyo? I've gotten accustomed to a certain standard of living, thank you."
Stéphane makes a thoughtful noise, "Perhaps if you stay here one day they make you the king of New Jersey."
"Queen," Johnny corrects. "If I'm getting crowned anything it's queen. You're the prince, not me."
"So then one day you'll be the queen of a small state in America and I will be king of a small country in Europe. We'll have to stay friends and be allies against Evgeni. Or else try to conquer each other."
Johnny laughs. "Conquer each other? What are you trying to do, steer this conversation into phone sex?"
"Ah," Stéphane says, sounding shy. "No. I can't keep up with English when I um."
"I know." Johnny kind of loves it in fact. They breathe in rhythm over the phone for a minute before Stéphane sighs.
"I should go."
"Okay, yeah." Johnny stays on the floor for a few minutes after Stéphane hangs up.
Staring at the ceiling, his thoughts drift from how should really dust his bedroom fan, to Stéphane being a little Prince of Switzerland and the unseen cities Geneva and Zurich, and the best parts of New York and home. Briefly he gets stuck thinking about Stéphane's hushed, urgent French the handful of times they've been together, the way he whispers it against Johnny's skin like he wants to muffle it and keep Johnny from understanding. Johnny shuts his eyes and shakes his head to clear it. When he opens them his thoughts are safely back at the fan that needs dusting.
~~~
Stéphane skates only an hour the next day. He doesn't speak to Johnny as they lace up, he doesn't come to Johnny as they skate, and he doesn't say goodbye when he leaves. Johnny works up a sweat and earns a new set of bruises. A hard fall jars his wrists and while he skates slowly, shaking it to ease the pain, Galina says something so biting to him he has to fight tears. Inside the locker room he sits heavily down on the bench and kicks open his skate bag, angry. He looks down to see a note placed atop his things.
"I still have not made you dinner," is neatly written in Stéphane's endearingly florid scrawl.
Johnny is cranky, tired and aching. Usually in the meteorology of Johnny's mood this would predict massive amount of "I need to be alone!" thunderstorms which occasional strikes of "I'm saying something I will need to apologize for later!" lightning. Johnny looks at the note and thinks about how Stéphane must use sixteen dishes to make one meal and subscribes to the European idiom that a recipe cannot be properly made without at least a touch of butter, or cream, or salted meat. And the mess, and the childish exuberance that could quickly turn to pouting if Johnny dared to voice a differing opinion, and the hands that would be reaching for Johnny in every pause while something simmered or browned.
Johnny neatly folds the paper in his hands and tucks it into his skate bag. He unlaces his skates, attends to his battered feet, packs his bag, and heads out of the rink to his car. Rooting through his Balenciaga for his keys, he comes across his phone first. Johnny stares at it for a moment before pulling it and out sending two text messages: one to Stéphane ("So come over and cook me dinner already") and one to Paris ("If you come home before 10:30 tonight I will set you one fire").
Driving home he receives two responses: one from Stéphane ("Prepare yourself for many delicious and beautiful things! ") and one from Paris ("I have extra condoms in my bathroom drawer"). He shakes his head at both of them.
( Part Three )
ETA: As of 10/27/210 I have updated this with new material.