(no subject)
Title: The Devil You Know
Author: me
Rating: PG-13. No, really!
Pairing: Chazz/Jimmy
Summary: "They made a strangely compatible partnership, since Jimmy had never really grown up and Chazz had never really been a child."
Disclaimer: The characters aren't mine, I'm not making any money, etc. etc. you know the drill.
Warnng: Implied reference to child abuse.
I was going to try to write a nice short, plotless fic, then this happened. *headdesk* Stupid muses. Instead, I ended up writing what amounts to a rather long Chazz-centric character sketch about how Chazz and Jimmy became who they were by the time the movie starts, and how they are completely different people by the time it ends. This has been done, but I don't think quite to this extent. This is what I think was going on inside their minds and behind the scenes. Basically complete lack of dialogue...it just sort of happened that way, but I think it works somehow. This community has been so alive lately and that makes me ridiculously happy, so I wanted to join in the party!
Chazz Michael Michaels was not afraid of the dark, because that would be stupid. No one was afraid of the dark- it was what could be hiding in the dark that was frightening. His first foster home had proven that monsters were real, so his was no irrational fear. That particular monster had taken the form of an older foster brother who slunk into his bed only in the blackness of night, to whisper darkness and to pet dirt into his soul. When he moved to another home that ghosting memory followed him, slinking into the closet and crawling under his bed to haunt him every night.
Fortunately, the ghost would only bother him if he slept alone. If there was someone else in the room he was safe, so he was actually grateful for the over-crowded home he spent the next few years in. But after a while social services realized that eight kids in a three-bedroom house was excessive, so Chazz had to move again. The thirty-five year old woman he met in his new home hadn’t exactly been his girlfriend; she was really the girlfriend of his new foster father, but it sounded cooler when he said she was his.
She told Chazz that he was so so beautiful and gave him baths and kisses and taught him how to touch a woman. He knew it wasn’t right, but he let it happen because she was nice to him and gave him special treats, and bought him his first pair of ice skates after they watched the Olympic figure skaters on TV, because he said that it looked like fun.
He moved to his last home when he was twelve, and that was where he really learned to skate. His foster father worked at a nearby ice rink and he let Chazz come help out while he worked. He even let Chazz drive the Zamboni when he was too drunk or hung over to do it himself. That was where Chazz first saw figure skaters in real life, and even though he had grown out of his old skates and hadn’t been on the ice in over a year, he borrowed a rental pair and skated out to show off for a cute redhead. Amazingly, he remembered the stuff he had taught himself by watching skaters on TV and he earned his first kiss from a girl his own age after discovering, to his surprise, that a double axel was in fact a difficult move and apparently rather sexy as well.
After that, he was hooked. He got the arena manager to let him trade work hours for lessons and he spent all of his free time on the ice because it had become the one thing that was his. He had learned early on that he could lose all that he had, but no one could take away what he could do. Sure some guys at school had teased him for being a sissy boy, but one good punch and sliding the neck of his shirt to the side to reveal a hickie had been enough to silence any teasing for good. It also helped that the underground sewer races he got involved in gave him an aura of danger and mystery, and he became one of the ‘cool’ kids almost overnight. When he was on the ice he felt confident and cocky, and all the cute little female skaters wanted him, especially once word got around that he knew how to do things most other guys his age were still trying to figure out the meaning of.
He got really good, really fast, both on and off the ice- and a few coaches were taking notice of him. One man offered to train him in exchange for a portion of his winnings. It was discussed with his foster parents, who were elated at the prospect of more money, so they signed some contract with Chazz that he couldn’t understand. Chazz went on to win several major competitions over the next few years, and he even had a few sponsors. When he wanted his money his foster parents gave him some, but said he should save most of it for once he had to move out. By the time he was sixteen he figured out that his coach and foster parents were actually taking all of his money. He flew into a rage and moved out on his own, and at that point he vowed he would never have another coach again- and he would trust no one but himself.
The next few years were hard. He moved in with one of his older admirers, Vanessa, a college freshman who let him share her apartment. He kept skating and made enough money to get by, especially once he landed a few advertising campaigns for clothing lines after people started hailing him as a sex symbol at the ripe old age of seventeen. His second major mistake in life had been falling in love with Vanessa. He had never tried being with one woman before, but she was just so beautiful and wild that he couldn’t help wanting to keep her all to himself. She didn’t feel the same way. She said they were young and needed to have fun, and it was cool that Chazz loved her but she loved lots of people and he would just have to deal with that.
So sometimes she let Chazz sleep with her, but sometimes she brought home other men and Chazz had to sit in his room and listen to them as his heart formed yet another protective layer. It was during this time that he started drinking. Vanessa bought his whiskey and called him an alcoholic, because she didn’t know it wasn’t the alcohol he was addicted to, it was the forgetting. He stayed with her until he was eighteen, and by that time he was bringing home as many other girls as she had guys, and he didn’t love her anymore. He had decided never to love anyone, again. When he moved out, she laughed and said she hadn’t expected him to be such a sex addict when she met him but it had been fun and she wished him a great life.
Sex addict. That was the first time the term had been applied to him, and he knew that it wasn’t exactly accurate, but it was effective. If he was a sex addict, he had an excuse for wanting someone in his bed every night. It meant he could blame the addiction, and not his fear of ghosts in the dark. Because he knew he wasn’t addicted to the sex, even though that part was a bonus; he was addicted to feeling safe, and at night he was only safe with another person- even if he didn’t really know her name. The alcohol went along nicely, since then he could forget why he wanted the anonymous person with him in the first place.
Contrary to popular belief, Chazz was not stupid. He had finished high school, and he had spent hours researching how to read contracts and manage himself. How to sign up for competitions and create a routine set to music. He learned all of the requirements for routines, and made his own costumes, and managed his own press. He got himself an apartment and a car, and arranged practice time at the arena. If he came across as stupid and obnoxious, it was because he wanted it that way. People expected less of him; they gave him less grief about pulling crazy stunts on the ice and flaunting his sexuality if they assumed he just didn’t know any better. And, it kept the “smart” chicks away from him. The ones who would want more than a fling, who had enough going on upstairs to realize that most of who he appeared to be was only show, who would want to get to know the real him, to peel away his layers- and Chazz didn’t want that, because he was never going to let himself be hurt again. People always hurt you- they always let you down in the long run; that was what he knew.
Chazz first saw Jimmy MacElroy compete when the kid was barely thirteen, and Chazz was about twice his age. They were nowhere near the same division, so Chazz merely watched him out of curiosity and he was impressed by how good the kid was. MacElroy reminded him of himself at that age, only Chazz had been much less of a robot on the ice. But something about him was familiar…maybe it was the look in his eyes as he gazed at Darren after his routine, as if he was desperate for approval. It was the universal look of a foster kid who didn’t want to get kicked out - magnified about a thousand times. Chazz sort of felt bad for him, but not too bad, because the kid obviously had a better life than he had ever experienced.
Years passed and Chazz’s career took off. He was winning competitions and getting endorsements. He got his book of poetry published, and had even gotten into the adult film industry. His life should have been perfect, but it wasn’t. He figured that by the time he got where he was, he would at least be…happy. He had everything he thought he wanted, and apparently he’d thought wrong. He was lonely. He wanted someone to be with, even if it was just a friend, but he didn’t even have any real friends. Sure, his cell was filled with numbers of people who would hang out with him, but that wasn’t exactly what he wanted.
One thing he did want was to be part of Jimmy MacElroy’s world. The little shit had gotten really good, and now he was in Chazz’s division, and half the time MacElroy was beating him. He kept Chazz skating, when otherwise he suspected he would have just retired; there was no way he was going to let that spoiled brat have the gold unchallenged. Chazz had a third addiction, and that was attention. He loved to be in the spotlight because it made him feel like he mattered, like he was a part of something instead of someone who would otherwise fade into anonymity. And attention from Jimmy had become his main reason for signing up to be in the same competitions- winning meant nothing compared to the sensation of getting that prissy blond to drop his controlled façade and reveal the buried anger beneath. When he exploded at Chazz, Chazz always got the feeling he wasn’t really the source of the anger; he was just its target. But when he was the center of Jimmy’s focus, he felt like he was important. When those impossibly blue eyes locked with his, he felt a butterfly-like tingle in his stomach, and it was like nothing he ever felt at any other moment. He mattered to Jimmy, and that was one of the few things that made him truly happy.
So when they tied for the gold and ended up on the same podium, Chazz was glowing more from the waves of barely-controlled frustration that were pouring off of Jimmy than he was from the medal around his neck. When Jimmy started pushing him he was ecstatic, even though he looked pissed. He had never gotten this much of a rise out of the younger man, and when he found himself lying on the ice it was all he could do to keep from laughing as he knocked Jimmy down with him, and for a few seconds all he knew was the press of that angry body against his own and it was everything he hadn’t known he’d wanted. Sure they were fighting, and Jimmy had tried to strangle him with his own medal, but being the center of that focus was all that mattered. They forgot everything except for that moment, that intensity. Even with thousands of fans watching, every part of Jimmy’s being existed for Chazz alone, and it was incredible. And sure, it had all gone to hell after that, but it was worth it.
In the end, being kicked out of men’s singles was the best thing that had happened to Chazz in a long time. He joined a touring ice-skating show, and even if The Grublets by definition blew, Chazz found friends. He was with the same people all of the time, so for the first time he didn’t feel lonely. And okay, he still couldn’t hold down a relationship and he didn’t want to, and he still drank a lot because he still had stuff he wanted to forget, but he was almost happy when he didn’t think too hard about things. Because when he did, he realized that he sometimes hated his life because something was still missing. He roomed with Gary and they actually became pretty close, and Chazz decided maybe it was okay to let some people get to know him, or at least his outer layers. But he found himself missing Jimmy, even though he hadn’t really known the man. Chazz missed the rush he felt around him, and the way Jimmy made him want to be better than he was.
So when Jimmy came back into his life with all the subtlety of a freight train, Chazz couldn’t help but be excited. They had fought right away; of course they had- it was what they did. And it was exhilarating and Chazz felt alive in a way he hadn’t since their last fight on the ice. Jimmy looked just the same, in his ridiculous sparkly outfit and perfect curls that Chazz had always been sort of jealous of. And Jimmy was pissed, much more so than Chazz had ever seen him. Something had changed over the few years; Jimmy was more raw somehow, as if life hadn’t been easy- it was in his eyes, and Chazz knew that look well because it stared him from the mirror every day. Then Coach had showed up with his ridiculous idea of them skating together, and at first Chazz thought he was insane. But before he knew it he and Jimmy were fighting again, and he was so focused on those fiery ice eyes that he somehow agreed to it without realizing what he’d done. But as he spent a wide-eyed night on the bench of the holding cell, baring his teeth at anyone who so much as looked at Jimmy because even if Chazz wasn’t sure he liked Jimmy the obnoxious blond was his, somehow, Chazz decided that the idea was crazy enough to work. Besides, that meant he would get to ruffle the peacock’s feathers on a daily basis, and he couldn’t think of anything that appealed to him more.
The first few days were especially interesting, and sometimes Chazz thought Coach was going to throw him through one of the cabin’s many stained glass windows for getting under Jimmy’s skin. But it was worth it, just to see the blond flush and catch a glimpse of the Jimmy that could be, once he broke out of his shell. And even though he put up a fuss, Chazz was happy to be sharing a room with Jimmy because it meant he didn’t have to worry about ghosts in the dark. Plus, living with Jimmy was interesting. Chazz had suspected he was girly, but he was way girlier than anticipated and prone to giving Chazz elaborate lectures on the uses of the many mysterious products that had taken over the bathroom. Chazz didn’t listen to a word he said, but he was completely engrossed in how he said it. Jimmy seemed to light up when he was talking about something he liked, and Chazz had discovered that watching the younger man gave him just as much of a tingly feeling as when Jimmy was yelling at him for misusing one of said products.
Chazz learned that Jimmy had coping mechanisms too; it was just that no one saw them, or rather, saw them for what they really were. It was easy to condemn Chazz for being an alcoholic and sex addict, but more difficult to peg Jimmy for chronic beautifying and compulsive practicing. Jimmy used his array of cosmetics like Chazz used sex- to keep him feeling safe. Only for him, it kept him safe in the knowledge that people liked him, approved of him, and noticed him. He needed proof of his worth, and he had found it in his looks. He spent hours every day exfoliating, masking, tweezing, curling, and doing other things Chazz wasn’t even sure the purpose of. He supposed that years of pressure to look perfect for the cameras would do that to a person, but he didn’t see why Jimmy was so concerned when he was already so pretty.
Jimmy was also a practice junkie. When he was stressed, he went to the practice rink and skated. When he was pissed, nervous, depressed, lonely, or pretty much anything else, he skated. Sometimes Chazz would find him at the rink doing hundreds of spins and jumps, just to keep himself from flying to pieces. And sometimes, Chazz would bring a bottle of rum and watch him, while drinking it. They never really discussed it except for once, briefly. Chazz asked Jimmy if he wanted to try a drink instead, so Jimmy asked him if he wanted to try skating instead, and Chazz had simply raised the bottle and said cryptically, “Right, better the devil you know,” and they had left it at that.
But Jimmy was also extremely child-like, as evidenced by his passion for Skittles, Capri Sun, stuffed animals, snow cones, and video arcades. On several occasions he had managed to convince Chazz to play ski ball and various old video games at a local arcade, and Chazz went mostly to see Jimmy so happy. They made a strangely compatible partnership, since Jimmy had never really grown up and Chazz had never really been a child. And somehow, without even knowing he was doing it, Jimmy managed to pick up the little boy that had been hiding inside of Chazz, give him a hug and lead him out safely into the world to play.
Another initial difference between them was that Jimmy wasn’t comfortable being touched since his dad had never been affectionate and he had discouraged the adults in Jimmy’s life from coddling him, to keep him from getting ‘soft.’ Chazz, on the other hand, needed human contact like he needed air. At first, their practice time on the ice was enough for both of them since it got Jimmy used to having someone in his space and for whatever reason any brief amount of contact with Jimmy was more satisfying than three times as much with any random chick. Plus, Chazz had never really had any sort of intimate contact with another male since that time he didn’t want to remember, and at first it made him a bit jumpy, too. But slowly, almost imperceptibly they relaxed into each other and another invisible hurt was healed without their even being conscious of it.
Jimmy got used to Chazz’s lack of a personal bubble, and began to allow the casual hand on his waist as Chazz passed him, the frequent little touches while Chazz talked to him without caring that he was practically on top of Jimmy, and the way Chazz sat so close while watching TV that their thighs touched even though there was plenty of vacant space on the couch.
By the time they began their Fire and Ice competition routine they had established a tenuous friendship, and by the time the routine was over a few minutes later, something had shifted and they were best friends. Soon afterwards, while practicing for their new routine, Jimmy took a particularly hard fall that Chazz felt responsible for, and Jimmy’s shoulder was sore. So Chazz offered to massage it for him. At first, Jimmy was reluctant but Chazz looked so sincerely concerned that he gave in. He took off his shirt and sat cross-legged on the floor in front of his bunk while Chazz sat behind him on the bed. Chazz gave him a choice of cherry or vanilla massage oil and Jimmy was too nervous to ask why there were even flavors, so he asked for vanilla in what he hoped was a nonchalant sort of voice. It wasn’t, but for once Chazz didn’t tease him.
It took Jimmy a few minutes to relax since it felt sort of strange for Chazz to be touching him like that, but it felt so good that he gave in and closed his eyes, sighing and leaning back against the bed. Chazz was glad Jimmy was facing the other direction because he found himself getting unexpectedly aroused. He blamed it on the scent of vanilla and the feeling of bare skin beneath his fingers, because certainly it couldn’t be because of Jimmy himself. Jimmy was a man, and Chazz had never wanted any man before. But he had to keep up the massage for half an hour just so his erection would go down before he let Jimmy turn around. It turned out he was just wasting his time, because Jimmy ran a finger along his pale shoulder then turned towards Chazz and stuck it into his mouth to suck off the flavor. He made an approving noise and did it again, at which point Chazz hurried into the bathroom mumbling something about cleaning up since his hands were sticky.
After that, it became a nightly ritual to give each other a massage before bed. They never discussed the fact that the massages were steadily getting longer and more extensive, to the point where each was straddling the other’s hips on the bottom bunk. Or the fact that they never bothered to buy plain massage oil and Jimmy had taken to pulling Chazz’s hands down to his mouth afterwards and licking the vanilla off his fingers while he looked at Chazz with a considering sort of expression from under his long eyelashes. Chazz didn’t dare do the same to Jimmy because he didn’t think he could stop at his fingers, and he wasn’t quite sure what to do with his newfound interest in his very pretty, and very male, partner.
As the days slipped by towards Montreal, Chazz stopped drinking and Jimmy stopped running off to skate compulsively, and they started spending time just watching TV together or sitting on the couch talking and relating the stories of their crazy lives instead. They didn’t talk about that change, either, possibly since they barely noticed that it had happened.
When Jimmy told Chazz he had a crush on Katie, Chazz’s first reaction was to be happy for him. He even helped Jimmy land a date with her and dressed him for it, complete with his wolf tooth necklace. But after Jimmy left, Chazz stared to feel lonely. He tried to picture how the date would go, but he couldn’t get past the thought of Jimmy kissing Katie because that mental image made his stomach hurt. And even though he hated the dark, he hated the idea of seeing Jimmy come home all happy from seeing someone else even more. So he took Jimmy’s stuffed frog off his bed and hugged it as he tried to sleep, but it was too quiet without the comforting sound of Jimmy’s breathing. When he heard Jimmy return, he threw the frog quickly back onto Jimmy’s bunk and pretended to be asleep. Then he snuck out early the next morning so he didn’t have to face him until they were at the arena, and he figured crude humor was the way to go when questioning him about the date, since it would best disguise his true feelings. He was so distracted he kept missing the Lotus, which made him panic and do oven worse and he only hoped to god he would be so full of adrenaline he could pull it off in competition.
Chazz wasn’t at all prepared for Jimmy to flip over beneath him after his nightly massage and ask Chazz to teach him how to kiss, since he was sure he’d done it wrong with Katie. If Chazz hadn’t been so thrown by the question he might have caught the tone which implied that Jimmy wasn’t entirely telling the truth. The truth was that Jimmy was actually wondering if it had felt wrong because it was with the wrong person, and while even though he had thought he wanted Katie and she was nice enough, the entire time he was with her he couldn’t stop thinking about Chazz. He had only kissed her to see if it would make him stop thinking about him, but it hadn’t. But Chazz didn’t know any of that, and the only reason he agreed to teach Jimmy was that he thought it might be the only time he would ever get to kiss him, and he wasn’t going to miss his chance.
So Chazz told Jimmy to close his eyes, and he braced himself on one hand as the other slid behind Jimmy’s neck, and he leaned down and kissed him softly. Somewhere, worlds were colliding and stars were being born and dying but all of that paled in comparison to this one, fleeting moment. Chazz wondered if maybe he had been doing it wrong too, because no kiss had ever felt like that. And when Jimmy opened his mouth a fraction with a sharp breath of surprised pleasure, the last hard shell around Chazz’s heart shattered into a thousand spinning pieces. He stretched out so he was lying on top of Jimmy and poured himself into the kiss, holding nothing back because if this was all he was going to get then he was going to make damned sure it was memorable. His tongue slid into Jimmy’s mouth and it tasted like his deepest desires incarnate, and when Jimmy started moving his tongue tentatively against his own, Chazz knew what all the songs were talking about when they talked about love.
He became hard without even realizing it, and when he shifted Jimmy jerked in surprise as Chazz’s erection pressed against his hip, and everything fell apart. Chazz was too upset to notice that Jimmy was hard too- all he knew was that Jimmy had pulled away and he was up and off of him in a second, apologizing and saying that it would never happen again, then scrambling up into the top bunk before he could see the look of disgust he knew must be on his partner’s face. Jimmy had wanted help getting the girl of his dreams, and Chazz had ruined it by freaking him out.
In the bottom bunk, Jimmy curled into a ball around his stuffed frog and tried desperately not to cry. That had been everything he’d been looking for, but hadn’t found, with Katie. But Chazz didn’t want him. He had been disgusted with himself for getting hard and promised it would never happen again. Never again…Jimmy didn’t know if he could survive that sort of wanting- being so close but not being able to have what he craved. But he knew he didn’t want a life without Chazz, so if he could only have him as a friend it would have to be good enough.
The next day they were overtly ‘normal’ with each other, and if each hadn’t been so focused on his own internal torment, they might have had some hope of recognizing it in the other. But each was so familiar with rejection and disappointment that it was difficult to realize that wasn’t what was going on, at all. That was the day Chazz got his tattoo, and he was stone sober.
In Montreal, Chazz decided to attend a sex addicts meeting since he didn’t think he could handle just sitting in the room with Jimmy yet. He didn’t actually get anything from the meetings, but he liked to push the people’s buttons and see how frustrated he could make the moderator. He was shocked to see Katie there, and the only reason he agreed to go to her room was to see if she would cheat on Jimmy, because he deserved better than that. He prayed the ‘Serenity Prayer’ not because he actually wanted to sleep with her for pleasure, but he was tempted to do it just to prove to Jimmy she wasn’t right for him. It would probably make Jimmy equally mad at him for a while, but it wasn’t as if he wanted Chazz like that, so once he understood Chazz’s reasoning he would get over it. He arrived in full, “I’m a sex addict with no control” mode, just to see how she would react. He was honestly surprised when she was happy that he decided he couldn’t bring himself to have sex with her, because it just felt too wrong.
He was even more surprised when Jimmy showed up, and Chazz felt his world fall apart at that look of betrayal in his eyes. He had never felt so guilty in all his life, and he hadn’t even really done anything. Chazz, who had never groveled before, spent an entire night doing just that because the thought of the man he loved hating him was too much to handle, and he felt like he was dying every time he considered going back to life without him
He was shocked to hear Coach say that Jimmy was actually at the arena, but also thrilled because it meant he didn’t hate him completely. He wanted to be there right that second, so of course that idiot Stranz had to tie him up then chase him all over hell and back. But nothing, not even being trapped beneath a frozen river, was going to keep Chazz from getting to Jimmy and convincing him he hadn’t meant to hurt him. The sight of Jimmy alone on center ice waiting for him, trusting that he would show up despite everything, made Chazz’s heart hurt- but in a good way. And even though Jimmy might never know it, Chazz helping him show off for Katie meant “I love you” more clearly than any words ever could.
It hurt too much to watch Katie and Jimmy together afterwards, but if he had watched, he would have noticed that Jimmy made no move to kiss her at all. He might have understood that Jimmy’s smiling comment of, “Chazz taught me some stuff” meant, “I’m sorry, I choose him.” And her little shrug meant, “I thought so but what the heck, one for the road.” She was surprised and didn’t quite know how to react when Chazz brought her into the group hug and announced that she was Jimmy’s girlfriend, but she figured it was best just to go along with it and avoid a media mess. Afterwards, she gave Jimmy a quick hug and an understanding smile, then slipped away.
Chazz was given Codeine for his broken ankle so he was a bit loopy and didn’t think much about Katie’s absence as Jimmy waited for him in the hospital, or about the way Jimmy put his arm around his shoulder and acted as one of his crutches as they walked out to the taxi. He assumed Jimmy was just being concerned as he guided Chazz to lean on his shoulder and placed a kiss in his hair as the taxi took them back to the hotel.
His first clue that something more was going on was when Jimmy stopped him a few feet into their room, took his crutches away, then picked him up and carried him the few remaining feet to the bed. Jimmy crawled up beside Chazz and lay on his side facing him, and just looked into his eyes without saying anything, with an indefinable smile playing at the corners of his mouth. Then he cocked his head to the side, considering, and began to run his fingers through Chazz’s hair.
Now Chazz may have been on painkillers and he knew he could be a bit slow on the uptake, but he had always been good at reading people when he actually paid attention to them, and at that point he was definitely paying attention. Jimmy still wasn’t talking, but he didn’t really need to. And even though he hardly dared to believe it was real, Chazz knew what he was asking. In response, he broke into one of his rare, truly happy, shiver-inducing smiles. Jimmy’s face instantly began to glow with one of his “Yay! Skittles!” grins and it was impossible to tell who moved first, and then they were kissing and time itself stopped just for a moment to take it in, because every once in a while the present just wasn’t long enough.
Their kisses were a conversation, and through them they explained all of the longing and misunderstandings, and made apologies and promises for the future. As Jimmy began slowly removing his clothes, Chazz asked him what happened with Katie. Jimmy simply kissed him and answered teasingly, “Better the devil you know, right?” Chazz smacked him playfully in the ass in mock offense, but as Jimmy began to kiss his way down his chest, Chazz decided he couldn’t agree more.
Author: me
Rating: PG-13. No, really!
Pairing: Chazz/Jimmy
Summary: "They made a strangely compatible partnership, since Jimmy had never really grown up and Chazz had never really been a child."
Disclaimer: The characters aren't mine, I'm not making any money, etc. etc. you know the drill.
Warnng: Implied reference to child abuse.
I was going to try to write a nice short, plotless fic, then this happened. *headdesk* Stupid muses. Instead, I ended up writing what amounts to a rather long Chazz-centric character sketch about how Chazz and Jimmy became who they were by the time the movie starts, and how they are completely different people by the time it ends. This has been done, but I don't think quite to this extent. This is what I think was going on inside their minds and behind the scenes. Basically complete lack of dialogue...it just sort of happened that way, but I think it works somehow. This community has been so alive lately and that makes me ridiculously happy, so I wanted to join in the party!
Chazz Michael Michaels was not afraid of the dark, because that would be stupid. No one was afraid of the dark- it was what could be hiding in the dark that was frightening. His first foster home had proven that monsters were real, so his was no irrational fear. That particular monster had taken the form of an older foster brother who slunk into his bed only in the blackness of night, to whisper darkness and to pet dirt into his soul. When he moved to another home that ghosting memory followed him, slinking into the closet and crawling under his bed to haunt him every night.
Fortunately, the ghost would only bother him if he slept alone. If there was someone else in the room he was safe, so he was actually grateful for the over-crowded home he spent the next few years in. But after a while social services realized that eight kids in a three-bedroom house was excessive, so Chazz had to move again. The thirty-five year old woman he met in his new home hadn’t exactly been his girlfriend; she was really the girlfriend of his new foster father, but it sounded cooler when he said she was his.
She told Chazz that he was so so beautiful and gave him baths and kisses and taught him how to touch a woman. He knew it wasn’t right, but he let it happen because she was nice to him and gave him special treats, and bought him his first pair of ice skates after they watched the Olympic figure skaters on TV, because he said that it looked like fun.
He moved to his last home when he was twelve, and that was where he really learned to skate. His foster father worked at a nearby ice rink and he let Chazz come help out while he worked. He even let Chazz drive the Zamboni when he was too drunk or hung over to do it himself. That was where Chazz first saw figure skaters in real life, and even though he had grown out of his old skates and hadn’t been on the ice in over a year, he borrowed a rental pair and skated out to show off for a cute redhead. Amazingly, he remembered the stuff he had taught himself by watching skaters on TV and he earned his first kiss from a girl his own age after discovering, to his surprise, that a double axel was in fact a difficult move and apparently rather sexy as well.
After that, he was hooked. He got the arena manager to let him trade work hours for lessons and he spent all of his free time on the ice because it had become the one thing that was his. He had learned early on that he could lose all that he had, but no one could take away what he could do. Sure some guys at school had teased him for being a sissy boy, but one good punch and sliding the neck of his shirt to the side to reveal a hickie had been enough to silence any teasing for good. It also helped that the underground sewer races he got involved in gave him an aura of danger and mystery, and he became one of the ‘cool’ kids almost overnight. When he was on the ice he felt confident and cocky, and all the cute little female skaters wanted him, especially once word got around that he knew how to do things most other guys his age were still trying to figure out the meaning of.
He got really good, really fast, both on and off the ice- and a few coaches were taking notice of him. One man offered to train him in exchange for a portion of his winnings. It was discussed with his foster parents, who were elated at the prospect of more money, so they signed some contract with Chazz that he couldn’t understand. Chazz went on to win several major competitions over the next few years, and he even had a few sponsors. When he wanted his money his foster parents gave him some, but said he should save most of it for once he had to move out. By the time he was sixteen he figured out that his coach and foster parents were actually taking all of his money. He flew into a rage and moved out on his own, and at that point he vowed he would never have another coach again- and he would trust no one but himself.
The next few years were hard. He moved in with one of his older admirers, Vanessa, a college freshman who let him share her apartment. He kept skating and made enough money to get by, especially once he landed a few advertising campaigns for clothing lines after people started hailing him as a sex symbol at the ripe old age of seventeen. His second major mistake in life had been falling in love with Vanessa. He had never tried being with one woman before, but she was just so beautiful and wild that he couldn’t help wanting to keep her all to himself. She didn’t feel the same way. She said they were young and needed to have fun, and it was cool that Chazz loved her but she loved lots of people and he would just have to deal with that.
So sometimes she let Chazz sleep with her, but sometimes she brought home other men and Chazz had to sit in his room and listen to them as his heart formed yet another protective layer. It was during this time that he started drinking. Vanessa bought his whiskey and called him an alcoholic, because she didn’t know it wasn’t the alcohol he was addicted to, it was the forgetting. He stayed with her until he was eighteen, and by that time he was bringing home as many other girls as she had guys, and he didn’t love her anymore. He had decided never to love anyone, again. When he moved out, she laughed and said she hadn’t expected him to be such a sex addict when she met him but it had been fun and she wished him a great life.
Sex addict. That was the first time the term had been applied to him, and he knew that it wasn’t exactly accurate, but it was effective. If he was a sex addict, he had an excuse for wanting someone in his bed every night. It meant he could blame the addiction, and not his fear of ghosts in the dark. Because he knew he wasn’t addicted to the sex, even though that part was a bonus; he was addicted to feeling safe, and at night he was only safe with another person- even if he didn’t really know her name. The alcohol went along nicely, since then he could forget why he wanted the anonymous person with him in the first place.
Contrary to popular belief, Chazz was not stupid. He had finished high school, and he had spent hours researching how to read contracts and manage himself. How to sign up for competitions and create a routine set to music. He learned all of the requirements for routines, and made his own costumes, and managed his own press. He got himself an apartment and a car, and arranged practice time at the arena. If he came across as stupid and obnoxious, it was because he wanted it that way. People expected less of him; they gave him less grief about pulling crazy stunts on the ice and flaunting his sexuality if they assumed he just didn’t know any better. And, it kept the “smart” chicks away from him. The ones who would want more than a fling, who had enough going on upstairs to realize that most of who he appeared to be was only show, who would want to get to know the real him, to peel away his layers- and Chazz didn’t want that, because he was never going to let himself be hurt again. People always hurt you- they always let you down in the long run; that was what he knew.
Chazz first saw Jimmy MacElroy compete when the kid was barely thirteen, and Chazz was about twice his age. They were nowhere near the same division, so Chazz merely watched him out of curiosity and he was impressed by how good the kid was. MacElroy reminded him of himself at that age, only Chazz had been much less of a robot on the ice. But something about him was familiar…maybe it was the look in his eyes as he gazed at Darren after his routine, as if he was desperate for approval. It was the universal look of a foster kid who didn’t want to get kicked out - magnified about a thousand times. Chazz sort of felt bad for him, but not too bad, because the kid obviously had a better life than he had ever experienced.
Years passed and Chazz’s career took off. He was winning competitions and getting endorsements. He got his book of poetry published, and had even gotten into the adult film industry. His life should have been perfect, but it wasn’t. He figured that by the time he got where he was, he would at least be…happy. He had everything he thought he wanted, and apparently he’d thought wrong. He was lonely. He wanted someone to be with, even if it was just a friend, but he didn’t even have any real friends. Sure, his cell was filled with numbers of people who would hang out with him, but that wasn’t exactly what he wanted.
One thing he did want was to be part of Jimmy MacElroy’s world. The little shit had gotten really good, and now he was in Chazz’s division, and half the time MacElroy was beating him. He kept Chazz skating, when otherwise he suspected he would have just retired; there was no way he was going to let that spoiled brat have the gold unchallenged. Chazz had a third addiction, and that was attention. He loved to be in the spotlight because it made him feel like he mattered, like he was a part of something instead of someone who would otherwise fade into anonymity. And attention from Jimmy had become his main reason for signing up to be in the same competitions- winning meant nothing compared to the sensation of getting that prissy blond to drop his controlled façade and reveal the buried anger beneath. When he exploded at Chazz, Chazz always got the feeling he wasn’t really the source of the anger; he was just its target. But when he was the center of Jimmy’s focus, he felt like he was important. When those impossibly blue eyes locked with his, he felt a butterfly-like tingle in his stomach, and it was like nothing he ever felt at any other moment. He mattered to Jimmy, and that was one of the few things that made him truly happy.
So when they tied for the gold and ended up on the same podium, Chazz was glowing more from the waves of barely-controlled frustration that were pouring off of Jimmy than he was from the medal around his neck. When Jimmy started pushing him he was ecstatic, even though he looked pissed. He had never gotten this much of a rise out of the younger man, and when he found himself lying on the ice it was all he could do to keep from laughing as he knocked Jimmy down with him, and for a few seconds all he knew was the press of that angry body against his own and it was everything he hadn’t known he’d wanted. Sure they were fighting, and Jimmy had tried to strangle him with his own medal, but being the center of that focus was all that mattered. They forgot everything except for that moment, that intensity. Even with thousands of fans watching, every part of Jimmy’s being existed for Chazz alone, and it was incredible. And sure, it had all gone to hell after that, but it was worth it.
In the end, being kicked out of men’s singles was the best thing that had happened to Chazz in a long time. He joined a touring ice-skating show, and even if The Grublets by definition blew, Chazz found friends. He was with the same people all of the time, so for the first time he didn’t feel lonely. And okay, he still couldn’t hold down a relationship and he didn’t want to, and he still drank a lot because he still had stuff he wanted to forget, but he was almost happy when he didn’t think too hard about things. Because when he did, he realized that he sometimes hated his life because something was still missing. He roomed with Gary and they actually became pretty close, and Chazz decided maybe it was okay to let some people get to know him, or at least his outer layers. But he found himself missing Jimmy, even though he hadn’t really known the man. Chazz missed the rush he felt around him, and the way Jimmy made him want to be better than he was.
So when Jimmy came back into his life with all the subtlety of a freight train, Chazz couldn’t help but be excited. They had fought right away; of course they had- it was what they did. And it was exhilarating and Chazz felt alive in a way he hadn’t since their last fight on the ice. Jimmy looked just the same, in his ridiculous sparkly outfit and perfect curls that Chazz had always been sort of jealous of. And Jimmy was pissed, much more so than Chazz had ever seen him. Something had changed over the few years; Jimmy was more raw somehow, as if life hadn’t been easy- it was in his eyes, and Chazz knew that look well because it stared him from the mirror every day. Then Coach had showed up with his ridiculous idea of them skating together, and at first Chazz thought he was insane. But before he knew it he and Jimmy were fighting again, and he was so focused on those fiery ice eyes that he somehow agreed to it without realizing what he’d done. But as he spent a wide-eyed night on the bench of the holding cell, baring his teeth at anyone who so much as looked at Jimmy because even if Chazz wasn’t sure he liked Jimmy the obnoxious blond was his, somehow, Chazz decided that the idea was crazy enough to work. Besides, that meant he would get to ruffle the peacock’s feathers on a daily basis, and he couldn’t think of anything that appealed to him more.
The first few days were especially interesting, and sometimes Chazz thought Coach was going to throw him through one of the cabin’s many stained glass windows for getting under Jimmy’s skin. But it was worth it, just to see the blond flush and catch a glimpse of the Jimmy that could be, once he broke out of his shell. And even though he put up a fuss, Chazz was happy to be sharing a room with Jimmy because it meant he didn’t have to worry about ghosts in the dark. Plus, living with Jimmy was interesting. Chazz had suspected he was girly, but he was way girlier than anticipated and prone to giving Chazz elaborate lectures on the uses of the many mysterious products that had taken over the bathroom. Chazz didn’t listen to a word he said, but he was completely engrossed in how he said it. Jimmy seemed to light up when he was talking about something he liked, and Chazz had discovered that watching the younger man gave him just as much of a tingly feeling as when Jimmy was yelling at him for misusing one of said products.
Chazz learned that Jimmy had coping mechanisms too; it was just that no one saw them, or rather, saw them for what they really were. It was easy to condemn Chazz for being an alcoholic and sex addict, but more difficult to peg Jimmy for chronic beautifying and compulsive practicing. Jimmy used his array of cosmetics like Chazz used sex- to keep him feeling safe. Only for him, it kept him safe in the knowledge that people liked him, approved of him, and noticed him. He needed proof of his worth, and he had found it in his looks. He spent hours every day exfoliating, masking, tweezing, curling, and doing other things Chazz wasn’t even sure the purpose of. He supposed that years of pressure to look perfect for the cameras would do that to a person, but he didn’t see why Jimmy was so concerned when he was already so pretty.
Jimmy was also a practice junkie. When he was stressed, he went to the practice rink and skated. When he was pissed, nervous, depressed, lonely, or pretty much anything else, he skated. Sometimes Chazz would find him at the rink doing hundreds of spins and jumps, just to keep himself from flying to pieces. And sometimes, Chazz would bring a bottle of rum and watch him, while drinking it. They never really discussed it except for once, briefly. Chazz asked Jimmy if he wanted to try a drink instead, so Jimmy asked him if he wanted to try skating instead, and Chazz had simply raised the bottle and said cryptically, “Right, better the devil you know,” and they had left it at that.
But Jimmy was also extremely child-like, as evidenced by his passion for Skittles, Capri Sun, stuffed animals, snow cones, and video arcades. On several occasions he had managed to convince Chazz to play ski ball and various old video games at a local arcade, and Chazz went mostly to see Jimmy so happy. They made a strangely compatible partnership, since Jimmy had never really grown up and Chazz had never really been a child. And somehow, without even knowing he was doing it, Jimmy managed to pick up the little boy that had been hiding inside of Chazz, give him a hug and lead him out safely into the world to play.
Another initial difference between them was that Jimmy wasn’t comfortable being touched since his dad had never been affectionate and he had discouraged the adults in Jimmy’s life from coddling him, to keep him from getting ‘soft.’ Chazz, on the other hand, needed human contact like he needed air. At first, their practice time on the ice was enough for both of them since it got Jimmy used to having someone in his space and for whatever reason any brief amount of contact with Jimmy was more satisfying than three times as much with any random chick. Plus, Chazz had never really had any sort of intimate contact with another male since that time he didn’t want to remember, and at first it made him a bit jumpy, too. But slowly, almost imperceptibly they relaxed into each other and another invisible hurt was healed without their even being conscious of it.
Jimmy got used to Chazz’s lack of a personal bubble, and began to allow the casual hand on his waist as Chazz passed him, the frequent little touches while Chazz talked to him without caring that he was practically on top of Jimmy, and the way Chazz sat so close while watching TV that their thighs touched even though there was plenty of vacant space on the couch.
By the time they began their Fire and Ice competition routine they had established a tenuous friendship, and by the time the routine was over a few minutes later, something had shifted and they were best friends. Soon afterwards, while practicing for their new routine, Jimmy took a particularly hard fall that Chazz felt responsible for, and Jimmy’s shoulder was sore. So Chazz offered to massage it for him. At first, Jimmy was reluctant but Chazz looked so sincerely concerned that he gave in. He took off his shirt and sat cross-legged on the floor in front of his bunk while Chazz sat behind him on the bed. Chazz gave him a choice of cherry or vanilla massage oil and Jimmy was too nervous to ask why there were even flavors, so he asked for vanilla in what he hoped was a nonchalant sort of voice. It wasn’t, but for once Chazz didn’t tease him.
It took Jimmy a few minutes to relax since it felt sort of strange for Chazz to be touching him like that, but it felt so good that he gave in and closed his eyes, sighing and leaning back against the bed. Chazz was glad Jimmy was facing the other direction because he found himself getting unexpectedly aroused. He blamed it on the scent of vanilla and the feeling of bare skin beneath his fingers, because certainly it couldn’t be because of Jimmy himself. Jimmy was a man, and Chazz had never wanted any man before. But he had to keep up the massage for half an hour just so his erection would go down before he let Jimmy turn around. It turned out he was just wasting his time, because Jimmy ran a finger along his pale shoulder then turned towards Chazz and stuck it into his mouth to suck off the flavor. He made an approving noise and did it again, at which point Chazz hurried into the bathroom mumbling something about cleaning up since his hands were sticky.
After that, it became a nightly ritual to give each other a massage before bed. They never discussed the fact that the massages were steadily getting longer and more extensive, to the point where each was straddling the other’s hips on the bottom bunk. Or the fact that they never bothered to buy plain massage oil and Jimmy had taken to pulling Chazz’s hands down to his mouth afterwards and licking the vanilla off his fingers while he looked at Chazz with a considering sort of expression from under his long eyelashes. Chazz didn’t dare do the same to Jimmy because he didn’t think he could stop at his fingers, and he wasn’t quite sure what to do with his newfound interest in his very pretty, and very male, partner.
As the days slipped by towards Montreal, Chazz stopped drinking and Jimmy stopped running off to skate compulsively, and they started spending time just watching TV together or sitting on the couch talking and relating the stories of their crazy lives instead. They didn’t talk about that change, either, possibly since they barely noticed that it had happened.
When Jimmy told Chazz he had a crush on Katie, Chazz’s first reaction was to be happy for him. He even helped Jimmy land a date with her and dressed him for it, complete with his wolf tooth necklace. But after Jimmy left, Chazz stared to feel lonely. He tried to picture how the date would go, but he couldn’t get past the thought of Jimmy kissing Katie because that mental image made his stomach hurt. And even though he hated the dark, he hated the idea of seeing Jimmy come home all happy from seeing someone else even more. So he took Jimmy’s stuffed frog off his bed and hugged it as he tried to sleep, but it was too quiet without the comforting sound of Jimmy’s breathing. When he heard Jimmy return, he threw the frog quickly back onto Jimmy’s bunk and pretended to be asleep. Then he snuck out early the next morning so he didn’t have to face him until they were at the arena, and he figured crude humor was the way to go when questioning him about the date, since it would best disguise his true feelings. He was so distracted he kept missing the Lotus, which made him panic and do oven worse and he only hoped to god he would be so full of adrenaline he could pull it off in competition.
Chazz wasn’t at all prepared for Jimmy to flip over beneath him after his nightly massage and ask Chazz to teach him how to kiss, since he was sure he’d done it wrong with Katie. If Chazz hadn’t been so thrown by the question he might have caught the tone which implied that Jimmy wasn’t entirely telling the truth. The truth was that Jimmy was actually wondering if it had felt wrong because it was with the wrong person, and while even though he had thought he wanted Katie and she was nice enough, the entire time he was with her he couldn’t stop thinking about Chazz. He had only kissed her to see if it would make him stop thinking about him, but it hadn’t. But Chazz didn’t know any of that, and the only reason he agreed to teach Jimmy was that he thought it might be the only time he would ever get to kiss him, and he wasn’t going to miss his chance.
So Chazz told Jimmy to close his eyes, and he braced himself on one hand as the other slid behind Jimmy’s neck, and he leaned down and kissed him softly. Somewhere, worlds were colliding and stars were being born and dying but all of that paled in comparison to this one, fleeting moment. Chazz wondered if maybe he had been doing it wrong too, because no kiss had ever felt like that. And when Jimmy opened his mouth a fraction with a sharp breath of surprised pleasure, the last hard shell around Chazz’s heart shattered into a thousand spinning pieces. He stretched out so he was lying on top of Jimmy and poured himself into the kiss, holding nothing back because if this was all he was going to get then he was going to make damned sure it was memorable. His tongue slid into Jimmy’s mouth and it tasted like his deepest desires incarnate, and when Jimmy started moving his tongue tentatively against his own, Chazz knew what all the songs were talking about when they talked about love.
He became hard without even realizing it, and when he shifted Jimmy jerked in surprise as Chazz’s erection pressed against his hip, and everything fell apart. Chazz was too upset to notice that Jimmy was hard too- all he knew was that Jimmy had pulled away and he was up and off of him in a second, apologizing and saying that it would never happen again, then scrambling up into the top bunk before he could see the look of disgust he knew must be on his partner’s face. Jimmy had wanted help getting the girl of his dreams, and Chazz had ruined it by freaking him out.
In the bottom bunk, Jimmy curled into a ball around his stuffed frog and tried desperately not to cry. That had been everything he’d been looking for, but hadn’t found, with Katie. But Chazz didn’t want him. He had been disgusted with himself for getting hard and promised it would never happen again. Never again…Jimmy didn’t know if he could survive that sort of wanting- being so close but not being able to have what he craved. But he knew he didn’t want a life without Chazz, so if he could only have him as a friend it would have to be good enough.
The next day they were overtly ‘normal’ with each other, and if each hadn’t been so focused on his own internal torment, they might have had some hope of recognizing it in the other. But each was so familiar with rejection and disappointment that it was difficult to realize that wasn’t what was going on, at all. That was the day Chazz got his tattoo, and he was stone sober.
In Montreal, Chazz decided to attend a sex addicts meeting since he didn’t think he could handle just sitting in the room with Jimmy yet. He didn’t actually get anything from the meetings, but he liked to push the people’s buttons and see how frustrated he could make the moderator. He was shocked to see Katie there, and the only reason he agreed to go to her room was to see if she would cheat on Jimmy, because he deserved better than that. He prayed the ‘Serenity Prayer’ not because he actually wanted to sleep with her for pleasure, but he was tempted to do it just to prove to Jimmy she wasn’t right for him. It would probably make Jimmy equally mad at him for a while, but it wasn’t as if he wanted Chazz like that, so once he understood Chazz’s reasoning he would get over it. He arrived in full, “I’m a sex addict with no control” mode, just to see how she would react. He was honestly surprised when she was happy that he decided he couldn’t bring himself to have sex with her, because it just felt too wrong.
He was even more surprised when Jimmy showed up, and Chazz felt his world fall apart at that look of betrayal in his eyes. He had never felt so guilty in all his life, and he hadn’t even really done anything. Chazz, who had never groveled before, spent an entire night doing just that because the thought of the man he loved hating him was too much to handle, and he felt like he was dying every time he considered going back to life without him
He was shocked to hear Coach say that Jimmy was actually at the arena, but also thrilled because it meant he didn’t hate him completely. He wanted to be there right that second, so of course that idiot Stranz had to tie him up then chase him all over hell and back. But nothing, not even being trapped beneath a frozen river, was going to keep Chazz from getting to Jimmy and convincing him he hadn’t meant to hurt him. The sight of Jimmy alone on center ice waiting for him, trusting that he would show up despite everything, made Chazz’s heart hurt- but in a good way. And even though Jimmy might never know it, Chazz helping him show off for Katie meant “I love you” more clearly than any words ever could.
It hurt too much to watch Katie and Jimmy together afterwards, but if he had watched, he would have noticed that Jimmy made no move to kiss her at all. He might have understood that Jimmy’s smiling comment of, “Chazz taught me some stuff” meant, “I’m sorry, I choose him.” And her little shrug meant, “I thought so but what the heck, one for the road.” She was surprised and didn’t quite know how to react when Chazz brought her into the group hug and announced that she was Jimmy’s girlfriend, but she figured it was best just to go along with it and avoid a media mess. Afterwards, she gave Jimmy a quick hug and an understanding smile, then slipped away.
Chazz was given Codeine for his broken ankle so he was a bit loopy and didn’t think much about Katie’s absence as Jimmy waited for him in the hospital, or about the way Jimmy put his arm around his shoulder and acted as one of his crutches as they walked out to the taxi. He assumed Jimmy was just being concerned as he guided Chazz to lean on his shoulder and placed a kiss in his hair as the taxi took them back to the hotel.
His first clue that something more was going on was when Jimmy stopped him a few feet into their room, took his crutches away, then picked him up and carried him the few remaining feet to the bed. Jimmy crawled up beside Chazz and lay on his side facing him, and just looked into his eyes without saying anything, with an indefinable smile playing at the corners of his mouth. Then he cocked his head to the side, considering, and began to run his fingers through Chazz’s hair.
Now Chazz may have been on painkillers and he knew he could be a bit slow on the uptake, but he had always been good at reading people when he actually paid attention to them, and at that point he was definitely paying attention. Jimmy still wasn’t talking, but he didn’t really need to. And even though he hardly dared to believe it was real, Chazz knew what he was asking. In response, he broke into one of his rare, truly happy, shiver-inducing smiles. Jimmy’s face instantly began to glow with one of his “Yay! Skittles!” grins and it was impossible to tell who moved first, and then they were kissing and time itself stopped just for a moment to take it in, because every once in a while the present just wasn’t long enough.
Their kisses were a conversation, and through them they explained all of the longing and misunderstandings, and made apologies and promises for the future. As Jimmy began slowly removing his clothes, Chazz asked him what happened with Katie. Jimmy simply kissed him and answered teasingly, “Better the devil you know, right?” Chazz smacked him playfully in the ass in mock offense, but as Jimmy began to kiss his way down his chest, Chazz decided he couldn’t agree more.