Too far around the bend (Part 2/3)
-
Priscilla gives them a mini-holiday a week before they're set to leave for the Olympics because they would otherwise end up in a mental house, she says. Two blissful, skate-free days. Johnny packs a duffel bag and flies himself out to his family home. He's had enough of meeting his mother for dates on Skype, seeing her floating pixellated head move unnaturally on a computer screen. He's a mama's boy and one hundred percent, head over heels proud of it, and he basks in her hug when he walks through the door.
He sings "missed you" three times and she squeezes his cheeks. His dad comes around and squeezes the life out of him. Johnny's delighted and he laughs to prove it. Then they feed him the best dinner he's ever had, he's positive of it.
"Are you nervous?" his mom asks afterwards, when it's just him and her under the stars in the closed sun room, and her careful, motherly eyes read right through him.
"No," he lies anyway, because he's constantly on and constantly confident. She laughs and strokes the back of his head. "You'll be there in any case," Johnny adds, stretching out on his deck chair. They're both silent for several long moments, listening for the sparse sounds of the rural night. At his apartment, Johnny has to deal with the herd of African buffalo that seems to live upstairs and Evan's weird alternative folk mixtapes. This is calming and refreshing.
"I think we're ready for this. You know, we've been ready," Johnny says into the quiet, shrugging a shoulder.
"Ready came and went a long time ago," Patti says. Johnny smiles because she's completely right; she more than anyone else knows how much both he and Evan are over it. She is, after all, in their apartment digitally nearly every night.
"You all just need a nice, long break after the games," she adds, "to clear your head a little bit."
Johnny says, "pshh" and "I'd never go back, if I got a sense of greener pastures."
"Oh, you would," Patti says confidently, patting his hand, and Johnny isn't sure whether it's because she'll force him or if it's just her weird inherent mom-knowledge. He feels more settled than he has in weeks, though, like he needed the reassurance.
-
They manage to make it across the ocean in one piece. The opening ceremony in Torino is magical and overwhelming in its proportions. Evan looks nearly as ridiculous as Johnny feels, wearing his red scally cap and red gloves, right before they're set to walk with the rest of a rambunctious Team USA. Johnny feels the excitement in his flush and his overanxious veins as they enter the stadium. His smile cracks both sides of his face and he absorbs the immense magnitude of the night as well as he can when Evan's camera is pointed at his face. He offers a cheer and a blown kiss to the viewfinder, anyway, before he tips his head back to look at the open sky.
Ahead of them, a group of speed skaters shouts, "yeahhhhh!" into a TV camera and Johnny laughs, half with pride at the familiarity of the behavior and only a little mortified.
"This is so incredibly badass," Evan says close to his ear. Johnny only nods in response because they're rounding up to the American side of the audience and the cheering has reached a crescendo, from both the athletes and the audience. Evan waves at anyone who'll look, the huge grin across his face rivaling the pinkness high in his cheeks.
Someone practically jumps onto Johnny's back and Johnny grabs the person's arm so that his neck won't break in two. It turns out to be Stephane, of course, and it's the first time Johnny's seen him in months and here in Torino, too, because men's singles aren't for another week and so they were flown in later than the pairs.
Stephane yells, "hello, champion!", the stress mistakenly and adorably on the second part of the word, and he hooks his arm around Johnny's shoulders. Johnny squeezes Stephane's waist in greeting and smiles at his beautiful Swiss boytoy.
"Not quite yet," he calls back and it must attract Evan's attention because he turns around and shockingly, smiles and waves at Stephane. The Olympic spirit or Italian water must be drugging him or something, because he and Stephane have never seen eye to eye. Mostly due to Evan's epic jerkishess. He legitimately only ever remembered Stephane's name as "the Swiss guy" for three entire years.
Evan comes over to them and tells Johnny, "I'm going to find Tanith so we can sit together during the show," and that makes sense. If Evan were a girl, Tanith would most definitely be his girlcrush. It's like he's continually obsessed with her and yet he never seems to show romantic interest for her. Johnny thinks that Evan probably wants to be Tanith. She's also one of the few people who will actually listen to Evan blather uselessly and they go for long dinners together specifically for that purpose.
Tonight, though, he has this odd little feeling in his stomach that they should be sticking together. For the spirit of the team or something. There's still a sense of tension between them, simmering under the surface, that needs to be quelled.
"What if you can't find her and then you can't find me?" Johnny says, "you'll have to sit all by yourself."
Evan rolls his eyes, drawls, "I think I can handle it, mom," and goes off to take pictures with Shaun White.
"Well, so much for shared experiences!" Johnny calls and Stephane laughs and blasphemously ruffles the back of Johnny's hair. Really, Johnny is justified for bitching irritatedly at him about it. It's only the sole part of his newly dyed and styled hair that's even visible in this godforsaken outfit.
Pairs competition is the second day of the Olympics so they have to leave the ceremony early, anyway. Somehow Priscilla manages to find and wrangle them from their respective seats, saying, "bright and early training!" and Johnny complains about having to miss the fireworks. Mainly it's the nerves that are building in his body that he's trying to avoid, the pressure that grows with every practice session and every missed landing. In the end, the fireworks are visible from the dodgy van that's taking them back to the village and Johnny presses his nose against the glass, pretends he's nothing but five years old on the fourth of July when all of this was meaningless.
-
The night of their short program, Johnny doesn't leave Evan's side and Evan doesn't make a move to do otherwise. Johnny craves the familiar, constant presence of his partner. Patti and Priscilla really tried to be helpful with their pep talks and encouraging words, but it frazzled Johnny's mind and frankly annoyed the fuck out of him. Evan's always been this silent rock that Johnny doesn't have to worry about, despite the fact that they're susceptible to spontaneously combusting at any time. So maybe Evan is more like a silent piece of flammable polyester, he's quiet and present is the important part.
They stretch together like they've always done since 2004, when after a bad season they went to a sports psychologist who suggested it. She said that the earlier they got into the mindset that their bodies were no longer individual, but working together as a unit, pushing and stretching the other, the better they would flow together on the ice. Johnny and Evan had both blinked skeptically between the psychologist and Priscilla, who'd grinned encouragingly, and promised that they would try. Mostly because they paid $150 an hour for the advice. The following season was infinitely better and though they couldn't pinpoint the exact cause for it, they had continued on with the tradition.
Johnny wraps his fingers around Evan's ankle and pushes his leg forward while he sits on the other leg. They have a small part of the warm-up area sectioned off just for them and it's almost completely quiet here, so that all they can hear is the sound of their breathing and the faint sounds of the audience filtering into the arena. It's incredibly nerve-wracking and Johnny finds himself wishing they had something to distract them, muzak or something even. Sweat is starting to collect on Evan's brow, his breathing growing increasingly more shallow, and Johnny feels the nervous blood begin to rise in his own face.
"It's way too soon to worry, right?" Johnny asks and Evan nods distractedly, unconvincingly. He switches their positions around so that Johnny is laying flat on his back. Johnny's heart rate picks up and he tries to meet Evan's eyes as Evan pushes his knees forward.
"Hey, stay with me," Johnny instructs firmly, but Evan just presses harder against him, focused intently on what seems to be the writing on Johnny's t-shirt.
Something feels terribly, horribly off about the evening. When they step onto the ice, it's blinding and feels like a warzone, like they're stepping into a line of fire, and the time bends and stretches loudly. Johnny never thought of time as having a sound, but it's deafening now, fading in and out like a siren. He gives up on controlling his pulse or breathing or the enormous butterflies that have taken up habitat in his stomach, in all of his internal organs, really. His body is buzzing unnaturally and he frets, doubly for himself and his partner, because it hasn't felt this scary to him in years.
"Time to pull it together," Evan says roughly, tugging Johnny closer for the start of the routine. It's unusual because they normally don't say a word from the moment they skate onto the rink until the moment they step off, so Johnny can't help but frown just as the music starts up.
It's not a bad skate in the end, but it isn't clean like they always are and like they desperately need to be. They're one or two missteps and a flubbed throw triple-toe loop beyond what's expected at an Olympic level and the tame applause from the audience says it all. Johnny tries to control his emotions as they come off the ice and make their way to the kiss and cry area, but it's aptly named and all the shittiness comes to a climax. Priscilla hands him a tissue. She sits in between him and Evan, maybe trying to force positive vibes just from her presence alone because she seems to have nothing to say to them.
They place third at the end of the night, behind the Russian and Chinese pairs, and to Johnny it's the end of the world.
"Third is still excellent," Priscilla asserts later in the van, "you can absolutely get gold. I've seen you do it before. This is not an issue." Johnny tells her that it's the end of the world and Evan storms off to his room as soon as they get to the village. For once their request for separate rooms was honored and for once Johnny resents it.
-
At this stage of the game, when there's only a short day between them and podium judgment, it's useless to try and pinpoint where things veered offtrack. Still, Johnny pulls up his internet browser and plugs their names into Google. It floods him with an array of newspaper articles that he avoids because he's not that much of a masochist.
He clicks on a video of the disastrous skate and watches it four times like catharsis. It's worse watching from afar like this because Johnny finds more and worse errors every time. Then he thinks about throwing his laptop off the balcony. Instead, he just stands out there in the bitter cold for ten minutes like a crazy person, fingers wrapped tightly around the railing and mind clogged.
When he walks back inside Johnny hesitates at the nightstand where his phone is sitting, an idea flitting through his mind. He picks up the phone and toys with it, plays two games of brickbreaker, and then finally punches in a familiar number.
"Team meeting," Johnny sings into the receiver as soon as Evan answers. "My room."
"What?" Evan responds grouchily, "I'm hanging out with Tanith."
Johnny tells him, "get your pretty little ass over here right now, Lysacek," before hanging up abruptly. He hasn't given Evan the option of saying no before, so why start now? Regardless of the fact that he still isn't entirely sure why he asked him to come over. Johnny could be having a bubble bath or getting a massage or modeling fur, instead. He could be doing a number of better, safer things with his life, but here he is pacing an Italian hotel room like a crazy mobster. This is what happens when he gets paired with his goddamn enemy. When Evan knocks on the door five minutes later, Johnny is creepily lurking behind it. He creaks it open and tugs his partner into the room.
"Take your clothes off," Johnny blurts before he can change his mind, his heart rate starting to climb faster than a fucking tree monkey. Evan blinks, looking around the room bewilderedly. He's probably looking for Priscilla because he's slow on the uptake; it's almost endearing.
"I thought you said this was a "team meeting"," Evan drawls, pulling out his annoying air quotes again and yeah, he isn't even close to endearing, "where's--"
"You and I are the only members of this team, Ev," Johnny interrupts, "and we need to help each other."
Evan opens his mouth like he's about to say something but he seems to decide otherwise. He stares at Johnny with his brow all furrowed.
"I need you to take your clothes off," Johnny says again, trying to keep his voice slow and careful and free of trembling as he steps closer. He tugs at the hem of Evan's ocean-blue USA polo with both hands, fingertips brushing against the smooth, flat skin of Evan's stomach. It tightens up in response.
"What are you doing?" Evan asks roughly. His eyes travel from Johnny's hands to his face and he looks caged, like Johnny is a predator. Not quite. Right now Johnny's heart sort of feels like a rabbit's.
He smiles anyway, strips out of his own shirt, and says, "resorting to desperate measures."
Evan pulls away, backing up against the door.
"What?" he asks, startled.
Johnny takes a steadying breath and heavily affixes his hands on Evan's hips. He prompts: "So, you know that psychologist we went to a few years ago?" and it dawns immediate realization on Evan's face. This is followed by complete non-expression as Evan schools his features back into blankness. Johnny frowns, but he continues:
"Remember what she said about us sleeping together?"
At the time, they had laughed at the clinician's suggestion. She'd argued that physical intimacy was an important part of any relationship, athletic or otherwise, and Johnny had argued that not having sex with Evan was an important part of keeping himself sane. Maybe he'd been wrong. Maybe they needed to take that extra step in order to achieve ultimate greatness or whatever it was that would win them the gold medal. The wonders of just stretching together, after all, had made themselves evident.
"I'm not having sex with you for a fucking medal," Evan says, steely and punctuated. He's flattening himself against the hotel room door, trying to put as much space between them as he can, but Johnny just steps forward again in a display of limit-breaking. He might as well go all out with it.
"Okay," Johnny says, testing and stretching the word. He lifts his fingers up to brush Evan's overgrown bangs from his eyes, "forget about the medal, then."
Evan blinks. His gaze, slowly losing its guardedness, losing certainty, drops to Johnny's mouth and the movement hits Johnny with a sudden, overwhelming desire. It feels something like hot lead filling up his internal organs, dizzying him as he stands under Evan's candid gaze. So he gives into it, pushes up onto the tips of his toes, and crushes Evan's mouth under his own.
For a moment, Evan stands completely still and it's catastrophic and Johnny's brain reads oh christ whatthefuck, like a lit ticker. But then Evan makes a sound that falls somewhere between a whine and a growl and he blessedly reacts. He leans in and his hands come up to cup Johnny's face, fingertips inaccurate and heavy on Johnny's jaw, grappling moreso than holding.
At first his lips move over Johnny's mouth devastatingly slowly, testing the waters, and it drives Johnny crazy. So much so that he shoves Evan into the door with a firm hand on his sternum, pressing his own body closer. Evan's heart flutters rapidly under his palm just the way it does at the height of intense practice and Johnny's flooded with this strange sense of simultaneous familiarity and novelty. Urgent, almost. When Evan drags his mouth away, Johnny's lips embarrassingly try to follow.
"What is this?" Evan whispers, breathing in irregular little bursts.
"Labelfree," Johnny wedges in between two more kisses, admitting to his own uncertainty. Johnny is a man of many words and not a single one of them can fulfill his current need except maybe "more", but that one gets punched into submission for obvious orange reasons. Still, Johnny nudges Evan's nose with his own and kisses him again.
This kiss, Johnny firmly tries to take control of and it's apparently enough to distract Evan from any further conversation. Evan's fingers tug erratically at Johnny's hair and he does a quick step-move around to switch their positions, always fluid. Not so much always graceful, Johnny thinks, a thrill filling him as his back hits the door roughly.
"Fuck," Evan breathes and shoves at him, uncontrolled, until Johnny's body is barely independent, held up by the cage of Evan's limbs, and attacks his mouth.
Johnny can't control the downright whimper that he makes, partly pleased and partly exasperated to discover that Evan is an extremely thorough kisser. It's like he wants to kill Johnny, of course, to melt him on a low burner. Johnny gets so worked up that he feels like his blood literally boils under his skin, like he's being absolutely wrecked by one single perfect fucking kiss, even as Evan's tongue continues to work against his. He searches for purchase, fists curling in Evan's shirt, struggling with the uprightness of this position, and feels his blood pooling, his dick hardening painfully quickly.
"Bed," he gasps between kisses like a revelation. Evan hardly skips a beat. He tugs Johnny with him, guiding, and it's second nature for both of them to follow. They fall together into the bed, Johnny straddling Evan's thighs, and he's lucidly aware of Evan's body the way he always is.
"Has anyone ever told you you're a really frustrating kisser?" Johnny asks and he looks down at Evan's familiar face, red high in his cheeks and hair disastrous like Johnny only sees it every morning of his life. At their own accord his fingers come up to cup and trace Evan's anxious features and Johnny alarmingly decides that he loves Evan this way, under him and unguarded and still in near-complete control.
"Nope," Evan responds, his voice deeper and richer than Johnny's ever heard it, "you're the only person I like to annoy."
The words make Johnny shiver up and down his spine for some reason, maybe because of how hot Evan's sex voice apparently is. Evan slides his hands up Johnny's back like he has some weird sort of Spidey sense about where Johnny shivers. His fingertips apply gentle hints of pressure into the bare skin there, coaxing Johnny closer, and he tips his head back in search of Johnny's mouth. He makes a questioning, grunting sound when he doesn't get it.
It makes Johnny giggle and Evan frown grumpily and say, "you don't have to--" and Johnny realizes he now has the power to shut him up.
He closes the space between them abruptly and Evan goes mmf. Johnny giggles wetly into the kiss and victoriously bites and licks at Evan's bottom lip until Evan's tongue grudgingly touches his and okay, he refuses to acknowledge how sensationally okay all of this is.
He continues to refuse it when their skin finally touches, shirts and pants lost somewhere in the void of Johnny's forgotten surroundings, and it's fucking transcendental, like Johnny's traitorous body is realizing Evan's and buzzing all over because of it. He can't help but rock against Evan, trying to align their hips, and it makes him shudder when he feels Evan just as hot and hard under him as he is.
"Fuck." Evan's eyes glaze over for a brief second and he bites into his lower lip, like he's trying to control himself. Johnny wants to lean down and taste him again, but then Evan grips Johnny's forearms and flips them around.
He looms over Johnny and strokes his hand down Johnny's stomach ever so lightly, studying Johnny's face as he wraps his fingers around Johnny's dick through his underwear. The intent, focused look on Evan's face paired with the searching touch from his fingers nearly makes Johnny hyperventilate with how good it all is. His hips press up, trying to thrust into the circle of Evan's warm palm, and he tries not to come on the spot. Because that wouldn't be the most embarrassing thing to ever happen to him.
"Holy shit," he gasps, "oh, fuck, yeah."
Evan's eyes darken and he does this weird twisty thing with his wrist on his upward strokes that multiplies Johnny's pleasure by infinity. His head swims and his heart basically explodes with all the blood it needs to pump around.
"Wait, wait," Johnny manages to gasp. It takes all of his willpower to grab Evan's wrist. "You need to get out of your underwear."
"Only if you do, too," Evan says ridiculously. Johnny rolls his eyes and twists around a little bit, stripping his black briefs in three impressive milliseconds. He holds his hands out.
Evan blinks and then his eyes dart down to Johnny's body even though he's seen it over a million times before. The expression on his face is new, though, raw or something, and it makes Johnny flush everywhere. He nudges at Evan's leg until Evan gets the hint and struggles to get out of his own silly boxer-briefs, and maybe Johnny covertly scopes Evan's body, too.
"Hurry the hell up and get here already," Johnny asserts, not making any attempts to be polite, pleased that he doesn't need to be.
When Evan finally presses closer to Johnny and rocks up against him, it's so slick and good between them. Evan's fingers wrap around both of their dicks firmly, the circle barely closing, and he strokes them together in a perfect, achingly slow rhythm. Johnny thrusts up into it, thinks of their bodies synchronizing, thinks of the heat he feels everywhere their skin is touching, and listens to Evan's quiet whimpers and moans.
Evan kisses away Johnny's gasp when Johnny comes too hard and too soon all over Evan's palm. He tips his head back on the pillow, panting helplessly, and Evan kisses all down his jaw, biting down as he tumbles after him.
-
Part 3
Priscilla gives them a mini-holiday a week before they're set to leave for the Olympics because they would otherwise end up in a mental house, she says. Two blissful, skate-free days. Johnny packs a duffel bag and flies himself out to his family home. He's had enough of meeting his mother for dates on Skype, seeing her floating pixellated head move unnaturally on a computer screen. He's a mama's boy and one hundred percent, head over heels proud of it, and he basks in her hug when he walks through the door.
He sings "missed you" three times and she squeezes his cheeks. His dad comes around and squeezes the life out of him. Johnny's delighted and he laughs to prove it. Then they feed him the best dinner he's ever had, he's positive of it.
"Are you nervous?" his mom asks afterwards, when it's just him and her under the stars in the closed sun room, and her careful, motherly eyes read right through him.
"No," he lies anyway, because he's constantly on and constantly confident. She laughs and strokes the back of his head. "You'll be there in any case," Johnny adds, stretching out on his deck chair. They're both silent for several long moments, listening for the sparse sounds of the rural night. At his apartment, Johnny has to deal with the herd of African buffalo that seems to live upstairs and Evan's weird alternative folk mixtapes. This is calming and refreshing.
"I think we're ready for this. You know, we've been ready," Johnny says into the quiet, shrugging a shoulder.
"Ready came and went a long time ago," Patti says. Johnny smiles because she's completely right; she more than anyone else knows how much both he and Evan are over it. She is, after all, in their apartment digitally nearly every night.
"You all just need a nice, long break after the games," she adds, "to clear your head a little bit."
Johnny says, "pshh" and "I'd never go back, if I got a sense of greener pastures."
"Oh, you would," Patti says confidently, patting his hand, and Johnny isn't sure whether it's because she'll force him or if it's just her weird inherent mom-knowledge. He feels more settled than he has in weeks, though, like he needed the reassurance.
-
They manage to make it across the ocean in one piece. The opening ceremony in Torino is magical and overwhelming in its proportions. Evan looks nearly as ridiculous as Johnny feels, wearing his red scally cap and red gloves, right before they're set to walk with the rest of a rambunctious Team USA. Johnny feels the excitement in his flush and his overanxious veins as they enter the stadium. His smile cracks both sides of his face and he absorbs the immense magnitude of the night as well as he can when Evan's camera is pointed at his face. He offers a cheer and a blown kiss to the viewfinder, anyway, before he tips his head back to look at the open sky.
Ahead of them, a group of speed skaters shouts, "yeahhhhh!" into a TV camera and Johnny laughs, half with pride at the familiarity of the behavior and only a little mortified.
"This is so incredibly badass," Evan says close to his ear. Johnny only nods in response because they're rounding up to the American side of the audience and the cheering has reached a crescendo, from both the athletes and the audience. Evan waves at anyone who'll look, the huge grin across his face rivaling the pinkness high in his cheeks.
Someone practically jumps onto Johnny's back and Johnny grabs the person's arm so that his neck won't break in two. It turns out to be Stephane, of course, and it's the first time Johnny's seen him in months and here in Torino, too, because men's singles aren't for another week and so they were flown in later than the pairs.
Stephane yells, "hello, champion!", the stress mistakenly and adorably on the second part of the word, and he hooks his arm around Johnny's shoulders. Johnny squeezes Stephane's waist in greeting and smiles at his beautiful Swiss boytoy.
"Not quite yet," he calls back and it must attract Evan's attention because he turns around and shockingly, smiles and waves at Stephane. The Olympic spirit or Italian water must be drugging him or something, because he and Stephane have never seen eye to eye. Mostly due to Evan's epic jerkishess. He legitimately only ever remembered Stephane's name as "the Swiss guy" for three entire years.
Evan comes over to them and tells Johnny, "I'm going to find Tanith so we can sit together during the show," and that makes sense. If Evan were a girl, Tanith would most definitely be his girlcrush. It's like he's continually obsessed with her and yet he never seems to show romantic interest for her. Johnny thinks that Evan probably wants to be Tanith. She's also one of the few people who will actually listen to Evan blather uselessly and they go for long dinners together specifically for that purpose.
Tonight, though, he has this odd little feeling in his stomach that they should be sticking together. For the spirit of the team or something. There's still a sense of tension between them, simmering under the surface, that needs to be quelled.
"What if you can't find her and then you can't find me?" Johnny says, "you'll have to sit all by yourself."
Evan rolls his eyes, drawls, "I think I can handle it, mom," and goes off to take pictures with Shaun White.
"Well, so much for shared experiences!" Johnny calls and Stephane laughs and blasphemously ruffles the back of Johnny's hair. Really, Johnny is justified for bitching irritatedly at him about it. It's only the sole part of his newly dyed and styled hair that's even visible in this godforsaken outfit.
Pairs competition is the second day of the Olympics so they have to leave the ceremony early, anyway. Somehow Priscilla manages to find and wrangle them from their respective seats, saying, "bright and early training!" and Johnny complains about having to miss the fireworks. Mainly it's the nerves that are building in his body that he's trying to avoid, the pressure that grows with every practice session and every missed landing. In the end, the fireworks are visible from the dodgy van that's taking them back to the village and Johnny presses his nose against the glass, pretends he's nothing but five years old on the fourth of July when all of this was meaningless.
-
The night of their short program, Johnny doesn't leave Evan's side and Evan doesn't make a move to do otherwise. Johnny craves the familiar, constant presence of his partner. Patti and Priscilla really tried to be helpful with their pep talks and encouraging words, but it frazzled Johnny's mind and frankly annoyed the fuck out of him. Evan's always been this silent rock that Johnny doesn't have to worry about, despite the fact that they're susceptible to spontaneously combusting at any time. So maybe Evan is more like a silent piece of flammable polyester, he's quiet and present is the important part.
They stretch together like they've always done since 2004, when after a bad season they went to a sports psychologist who suggested it. She said that the earlier they got into the mindset that their bodies were no longer individual, but working together as a unit, pushing and stretching the other, the better they would flow together on the ice. Johnny and Evan had both blinked skeptically between the psychologist and Priscilla, who'd grinned encouragingly, and promised that they would try. Mostly because they paid $150 an hour for the advice. The following season was infinitely better and though they couldn't pinpoint the exact cause for it, they had continued on with the tradition.
Johnny wraps his fingers around Evan's ankle and pushes his leg forward while he sits on the other leg. They have a small part of the warm-up area sectioned off just for them and it's almost completely quiet here, so that all they can hear is the sound of their breathing and the faint sounds of the audience filtering into the arena. It's incredibly nerve-wracking and Johnny finds himself wishing they had something to distract them, muzak or something even. Sweat is starting to collect on Evan's brow, his breathing growing increasingly more shallow, and Johnny feels the nervous blood begin to rise in his own face.
"It's way too soon to worry, right?" Johnny asks and Evan nods distractedly, unconvincingly. He switches their positions around so that Johnny is laying flat on his back. Johnny's heart rate picks up and he tries to meet Evan's eyes as Evan pushes his knees forward.
"Hey, stay with me," Johnny instructs firmly, but Evan just presses harder against him, focused intently on what seems to be the writing on Johnny's t-shirt.
Something feels terribly, horribly off about the evening. When they step onto the ice, it's blinding and feels like a warzone, like they're stepping into a line of fire, and the time bends and stretches loudly. Johnny never thought of time as having a sound, but it's deafening now, fading in and out like a siren. He gives up on controlling his pulse or breathing or the enormous butterflies that have taken up habitat in his stomach, in all of his internal organs, really. His body is buzzing unnaturally and he frets, doubly for himself and his partner, because it hasn't felt this scary to him in years.
"Time to pull it together," Evan says roughly, tugging Johnny closer for the start of the routine. It's unusual because they normally don't say a word from the moment they skate onto the rink until the moment they step off, so Johnny can't help but frown just as the music starts up.
It's not a bad skate in the end, but it isn't clean like they always are and like they desperately need to be. They're one or two missteps and a flubbed throw triple-toe loop beyond what's expected at an Olympic level and the tame applause from the audience says it all. Johnny tries to control his emotions as they come off the ice and make their way to the kiss and cry area, but it's aptly named and all the shittiness comes to a climax. Priscilla hands him a tissue. She sits in between him and Evan, maybe trying to force positive vibes just from her presence alone because she seems to have nothing to say to them.
They place third at the end of the night, behind the Russian and Chinese pairs, and to Johnny it's the end of the world.
"Third is still excellent," Priscilla asserts later in the van, "you can absolutely get gold. I've seen you do it before. This is not an issue." Johnny tells her that it's the end of the world and Evan storms off to his room as soon as they get to the village. For once their request for separate rooms was honored and for once Johnny resents it.
-
At this stage of the game, when there's only a short day between them and podium judgment, it's useless to try and pinpoint where things veered offtrack. Still, Johnny pulls up his internet browser and plugs their names into Google. It floods him with an array of newspaper articles that he avoids because he's not that much of a masochist.
He clicks on a video of the disastrous skate and watches it four times like catharsis. It's worse watching from afar like this because Johnny finds more and worse errors every time. Then he thinks about throwing his laptop off the balcony. Instead, he just stands out there in the bitter cold for ten minutes like a crazy person, fingers wrapped tightly around the railing and mind clogged.
When he walks back inside Johnny hesitates at the nightstand where his phone is sitting, an idea flitting through his mind. He picks up the phone and toys with it, plays two games of brickbreaker, and then finally punches in a familiar number.
"Team meeting," Johnny sings into the receiver as soon as Evan answers. "My room."
"What?" Evan responds grouchily, "I'm hanging out with Tanith."
Johnny tells him, "get your pretty little ass over here right now, Lysacek," before hanging up abruptly. He hasn't given Evan the option of saying no before, so why start now? Regardless of the fact that he still isn't entirely sure why he asked him to come over. Johnny could be having a bubble bath or getting a massage or modeling fur, instead. He could be doing a number of better, safer things with his life, but here he is pacing an Italian hotel room like a crazy mobster. This is what happens when he gets paired with his goddamn enemy. When Evan knocks on the door five minutes later, Johnny is creepily lurking behind it. He creaks it open and tugs his partner into the room.
"Take your clothes off," Johnny blurts before he can change his mind, his heart rate starting to climb faster than a fucking tree monkey. Evan blinks, looking around the room bewilderedly. He's probably looking for Priscilla because he's slow on the uptake; it's almost endearing.
"I thought you said this was a "team meeting"," Evan drawls, pulling out his annoying air quotes again and yeah, he isn't even close to endearing, "where's--"
"You and I are the only members of this team, Ev," Johnny interrupts, "and we need to help each other."
Evan opens his mouth like he's about to say something but he seems to decide otherwise. He stares at Johnny with his brow all furrowed.
"I need you to take your clothes off," Johnny says again, trying to keep his voice slow and careful and free of trembling as he steps closer. He tugs at the hem of Evan's ocean-blue USA polo with both hands, fingertips brushing against the smooth, flat skin of Evan's stomach. It tightens up in response.
"What are you doing?" Evan asks roughly. His eyes travel from Johnny's hands to his face and he looks caged, like Johnny is a predator. Not quite. Right now Johnny's heart sort of feels like a rabbit's.
He smiles anyway, strips out of his own shirt, and says, "resorting to desperate measures."
Evan pulls away, backing up against the door.
"What?" he asks, startled.
Johnny takes a steadying breath and heavily affixes his hands on Evan's hips. He prompts: "So, you know that psychologist we went to a few years ago?" and it dawns immediate realization on Evan's face. This is followed by complete non-expression as Evan schools his features back into blankness. Johnny frowns, but he continues:
"Remember what she said about us sleeping together?"
At the time, they had laughed at the clinician's suggestion. She'd argued that physical intimacy was an important part of any relationship, athletic or otherwise, and Johnny had argued that not having sex with Evan was an important part of keeping himself sane. Maybe he'd been wrong. Maybe they needed to take that extra step in order to achieve ultimate greatness or whatever it was that would win them the gold medal. The wonders of just stretching together, after all, had made themselves evident.
"I'm not having sex with you for a fucking medal," Evan says, steely and punctuated. He's flattening himself against the hotel room door, trying to put as much space between them as he can, but Johnny just steps forward again in a display of limit-breaking. He might as well go all out with it.
"Okay," Johnny says, testing and stretching the word. He lifts his fingers up to brush Evan's overgrown bangs from his eyes, "forget about the medal, then."
Evan blinks. His gaze, slowly losing its guardedness, losing certainty, drops to Johnny's mouth and the movement hits Johnny with a sudden, overwhelming desire. It feels something like hot lead filling up his internal organs, dizzying him as he stands under Evan's candid gaze. So he gives into it, pushes up onto the tips of his toes, and crushes Evan's mouth under his own.
For a moment, Evan stands completely still and it's catastrophic and Johnny's brain reads oh christ whatthefuck, like a lit ticker. But then Evan makes a sound that falls somewhere between a whine and a growl and he blessedly reacts. He leans in and his hands come up to cup Johnny's face, fingertips inaccurate and heavy on Johnny's jaw, grappling moreso than holding.
At first his lips move over Johnny's mouth devastatingly slowly, testing the waters, and it drives Johnny crazy. So much so that he shoves Evan into the door with a firm hand on his sternum, pressing his own body closer. Evan's heart flutters rapidly under his palm just the way it does at the height of intense practice and Johnny's flooded with this strange sense of simultaneous familiarity and novelty. Urgent, almost. When Evan drags his mouth away, Johnny's lips embarrassingly try to follow.
"What is this?" Evan whispers, breathing in irregular little bursts.
"Labelfree," Johnny wedges in between two more kisses, admitting to his own uncertainty. Johnny is a man of many words and not a single one of them can fulfill his current need except maybe "more", but that one gets punched into submission for obvious orange reasons. Still, Johnny nudges Evan's nose with his own and kisses him again.
This kiss, Johnny firmly tries to take control of and it's apparently enough to distract Evan from any further conversation. Evan's fingers tug erratically at Johnny's hair and he does a quick step-move around to switch their positions, always fluid. Not so much always graceful, Johnny thinks, a thrill filling him as his back hits the door roughly.
"Fuck," Evan breathes and shoves at him, uncontrolled, until Johnny's body is barely independent, held up by the cage of Evan's limbs, and attacks his mouth.
Johnny can't control the downright whimper that he makes, partly pleased and partly exasperated to discover that Evan is an extremely thorough kisser. It's like he wants to kill Johnny, of course, to melt him on a low burner. Johnny gets so worked up that he feels like his blood literally boils under his skin, like he's being absolutely wrecked by one single perfect fucking kiss, even as Evan's tongue continues to work against his. He searches for purchase, fists curling in Evan's shirt, struggling with the uprightness of this position, and feels his blood pooling, his dick hardening painfully quickly.
"Bed," he gasps between kisses like a revelation. Evan hardly skips a beat. He tugs Johnny with him, guiding, and it's second nature for both of them to follow. They fall together into the bed, Johnny straddling Evan's thighs, and he's lucidly aware of Evan's body the way he always is.
"Has anyone ever told you you're a really frustrating kisser?" Johnny asks and he looks down at Evan's familiar face, red high in his cheeks and hair disastrous like Johnny only sees it every morning of his life. At their own accord his fingers come up to cup and trace Evan's anxious features and Johnny alarmingly decides that he loves Evan this way, under him and unguarded and still in near-complete control.
"Nope," Evan responds, his voice deeper and richer than Johnny's ever heard it, "you're the only person I like to annoy."
The words make Johnny shiver up and down his spine for some reason, maybe because of how hot Evan's sex voice apparently is. Evan slides his hands up Johnny's back like he has some weird sort of Spidey sense about where Johnny shivers. His fingertips apply gentle hints of pressure into the bare skin there, coaxing Johnny closer, and he tips his head back in search of Johnny's mouth. He makes a questioning, grunting sound when he doesn't get it.
It makes Johnny giggle and Evan frown grumpily and say, "you don't have to--" and Johnny realizes he now has the power to shut him up.
He closes the space between them abruptly and Evan goes mmf. Johnny giggles wetly into the kiss and victoriously bites and licks at Evan's bottom lip until Evan's tongue grudgingly touches his and okay, he refuses to acknowledge how sensationally okay all of this is.
He continues to refuse it when their skin finally touches, shirts and pants lost somewhere in the void of Johnny's forgotten surroundings, and it's fucking transcendental, like Johnny's traitorous body is realizing Evan's and buzzing all over because of it. He can't help but rock against Evan, trying to align their hips, and it makes him shudder when he feels Evan just as hot and hard under him as he is.
"Fuck." Evan's eyes glaze over for a brief second and he bites into his lower lip, like he's trying to control himself. Johnny wants to lean down and taste him again, but then Evan grips Johnny's forearms and flips them around.
He looms over Johnny and strokes his hand down Johnny's stomach ever so lightly, studying Johnny's face as he wraps his fingers around Johnny's dick through his underwear. The intent, focused look on Evan's face paired with the searching touch from his fingers nearly makes Johnny hyperventilate with how good it all is. His hips press up, trying to thrust into the circle of Evan's warm palm, and he tries not to come on the spot. Because that wouldn't be the most embarrassing thing to ever happen to him.
"Holy shit," he gasps, "oh, fuck, yeah."
Evan's eyes darken and he does this weird twisty thing with his wrist on his upward strokes that multiplies Johnny's pleasure by infinity. His head swims and his heart basically explodes with all the blood it needs to pump around.
"Wait, wait," Johnny manages to gasp. It takes all of his willpower to grab Evan's wrist. "You need to get out of your underwear."
"Only if you do, too," Evan says ridiculously. Johnny rolls his eyes and twists around a little bit, stripping his black briefs in three impressive milliseconds. He holds his hands out.
Evan blinks and then his eyes dart down to Johnny's body even though he's seen it over a million times before. The expression on his face is new, though, raw or something, and it makes Johnny flush everywhere. He nudges at Evan's leg until Evan gets the hint and struggles to get out of his own silly boxer-briefs, and maybe Johnny covertly scopes Evan's body, too.
"Hurry the hell up and get here already," Johnny asserts, not making any attempts to be polite, pleased that he doesn't need to be.
When Evan finally presses closer to Johnny and rocks up against him, it's so slick and good between them. Evan's fingers wrap around both of their dicks firmly, the circle barely closing, and he strokes them together in a perfect, achingly slow rhythm. Johnny thrusts up into it, thinks of their bodies synchronizing, thinks of the heat he feels everywhere their skin is touching, and listens to Evan's quiet whimpers and moans.
Evan kisses away Johnny's gasp when Johnny comes too hard and too soon all over Evan's palm. He tips his head back on the pillow, panting helplessly, and Evan kisses all down his jaw, biting down as he tumbles after him.
-
Part 3