Spoonfuls for gingeynary
Author: a_nice_reminder
Title: Spoonfuls
Recipient: gingeynary
Skaters/Pairings: Johnny Weir/Stéphane Lambiel
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 4957
Warnings: None
Prompt: Stéphane cooking for Johnny
Disclaimer: The events portrayed in this story are fictional and do not reflect on the actual people written about.
A/N: Enjoy, bb! I really, really hope you like it :) stéphanecrossingfingers.gif Beta'd by the lovely oldpandadays
Summary: After Johnny goes through a crushing break-up, Stéphane flies over from Switzerland to visit him. Although they haven't seen each other in years, Stéphane still harbors old hopes and attempts to slowly win over Johnny, one spoonful at a time.
Part One
"I thought we were invincible."
Stéphane had heard through the grapevine whispers of Johnny Weir's disastrously failed relationship, but as he listened to Johnny's wavering voice, delayed and distorted as it traveled across dark cables resting deep in the Atlantic Ocean, he knew that while the rumor-spreaders had not realized it when they spun and re-spun the story of the breakup, their dramatic exaggerations of Johnny's emotional devastation had actually been accurate. Stéphane had never believed in the English word "heartbreak" - hearts were not machines; they were not a collection of gears that ceased functioning if something slipped out of place. They were vessels, and in their fragile skins they carried the endlessly vast hopes and feelings of a person. They could be punctured - un crève-coeur - and out into the unclean world would spill all those precious secrets, rotting on contact with the air and leaving their owners with shadows and decay in their souls.
This is what he heard in the scratchy voice, silently crying to him as it spoke. "We hated each other for such a long time that when we finally loved each other, I thought that we'd defeated real life. But then, I don't know, I'm sure you've heard all about it." Johnny made a noise, something between a laugh and a whimper. "I hope you know why I called you."
"I do," Stéphane said quietly.
"Then can you tell me how to deal with it? The sheer injustice?" Johnny's voice grew darker and more fiery. He spoke more quickly, with intermittent sobs and hisses that Stéphane wasn't fluent enough at English to hear through. But eventually, inevitably, Johnny became empty once again.
"I know we're not close enough for this discussion to be comfortable. But you're the only person I know who has gone through the same situation. Everyone sympathizes with me, they agree that it's unfair, but they don't understand...."
"How deeply the unfair hurts, no?"
"Yeah."
"Johnny, I think in this situation, the best thing for you is to be with someone who fully knows what you are feeling when you say, "it hurts," or "it is not just." I am not busy; I will come visit you. It has been a long time."
The overhead lights on the airplane were dimmed, and people reclined shrouded in dimness as they slept. Every occasional row harbored a small isolated beacon of light from someone reading or typing. Stéphane looked out of the pitch black window, chilled from the air rushing across the other side, and imagined that he could see the army of black waves silently riding atop the ocean beneath him. He could not honestly say that concern and empathy for Johnny were his only emotions as he flew closer and closer to Pennsylvania, USA. There was anxiety, and uncertainty. But there was also a tiny grain inside Stéphane that selfishly looked forward to seeing Johnny again. After Johnny had retired, Stéphane had thought they could be proper friends (friends...) now that they had both been relatively freed from a competitive atmosphere. But Johnny had shown no interest in performing in galas or holding to his skating roots - he could only see the world by leaving his own behind. All of it... except for Evan, of course. And now Evan was gone, too. I am arriving, though, Stéphane thought - an exchange. The implications made his chest quaver a little, and he slowly chewed on his lip as time moved backwards. Night changed into twilight, the waves changed from black to a sparkling royal blue that coyly glinted against the sunset, and Stéphane's plane landed in America.
He couldn't remember whether the taxi ride had taken one second or an hour - he'd spent the entire duration in a daze, mind hopping across decades. But as he now stood at Johnny's doorway, a needlessly fancy (but very clean) gold filigree framing the simple white door, there was no denying the present. Stéphane rang the doorbell, and after a few seconds, the door opened to reveal a most incredible sight. Johnny hadn't changed much over the years - he had always, as the media loved to stay, stayed true to himself. But no soul is static, and Stéphane could see in what direction Johnny's had slowly molded itself. Johnny's eyes, once glowing with a mischievous, cautious innocence, had lost their guardedness and now looked at him through a softer lens. His step was still dainty and defiant, but no longer ironic. As Johnny said hello and invited him in, Stéphane could hardly breathe - he felt as if he was simultaneously pressed between all the memories of his past and the unborn ones in his future, a small figure squeezing through the miniscule piece of time that is the present. And of course, Johnny was still beautiful in that transcendental, mixture-of-human-and-inhuman way of his. He wore a sheer white v-neck, slightly loose but still form-fitting, behind which sparse curls of dark chest hair could barely be seen. His jet black hair formed messy, curly spikes that framed his pale face, and his features, devoid of any make-up and slightly luminous, rested in serene comfort with each other. But the crève-coeur emanated from him like an enervating vapor and made Stéphane's heart ache. It was a painful reminder of how he could be here in the first place.
"I can't believe you came, Stéphane," Johnny said as he led Stéphane into his immaculate living room. "I really can't."
Stéphane felt a smile slip outside of him. "Neither can I, Johnny." It felt so strange to say this name while addressing someone. There certainly weren't many Johnny's in Switzerland, after all. "It is amazing to see you again."
Johnny waved him over to a couch, and sat down beside him. "Do you want anything? I haven't been... eating very much lately, but I keep buying groceries anyway, so there's a ton of stuff in the fridge."
Stéphane's mind latched onto the opportunity - once again, with both the intention of helping Johnny and of giving himself something to focus on and thereby stay calm.
"What if I cook tonight, Johnny? It would be good, I promise."
"But you're the guest, Stéphane. Europe and America can't possibly do everything differently." Johnny began to laugh, but quickly stopped.
"I want to do it. It would make me feel... more at home, I think. I can talk more comfortably this way."
Johnny shrugged. "Suit yourself."
Stéphane gratefully stood up and, with his back to Johnny, walked over to the refrigerator. He opened it; inside was a substantial stock of food categorized and subcategorized by color, food group, and healthiness. Taking a deep breath, he felt his chest loosen and time decompress. And with that, he started picking out ingredients.
With nothing to do as Stéphane meticulously chopped vegetables and concocted sauces, Johnny started talking. Perching on a stool next to the kitchen counter, he started with generalities ("You look so nice, Stéphane. I'm glad to see all the chocolate hasn't gotten to you"), and languidly weaved from topic to topic until the inevitable one fell upon his tongue.
"So what did you do when you and Carolina Kostner broke up?"
Stéphane unconsciously tucked his hair behind his ear with one hand, and continued to mince the carrots. "I cried a lot. And then, after I accepted the reality, I promised to myself that the public will never touch me again off the ice. So whenever they asked me who I was seeing, or what I have or didn't have with this mademoiselle, I said nothing or I lied. One cannot avoid it, I think. And now nobody asks me these things... they no longer care about me besides my choreo, which they do not even associate with me anyway. They only see the skater."
Stéphane caught and rolled up the loose sleeves of his sweater, too warm for Pennsylvania's springtime. He poured the vegetables into a gleaming silver pot, filled partway with water, and smiled to himself when he tasted the sauce with the end of a lavishly engraved chopstick (why did Johnny have so many chopsticks?). He ladled the reddish-brown sauce into the pot with the vegetables, scraping the sides of its pot with a butter-yellow wooden spoon. As Stéphane put the pot to boil and started washing rice, he heard Johnny sigh behind him.
"Carolina didn't betray you, though. You should have seen how Evan changed as the media's remarks got to him more and more. It wasn't even just the media; some of our fans joined in. He went further and further into himself. And then he started transferring it onto me." Johnny's formerly relaxed tone tightened, and he began to sound more like the shattered person Stéphane had listened to on the phone. "You would not believe some of the things he said. They started as jokes, just these little sarcastic remarks about us or me. And then he got colder; there were days when he would only say two words to me, and he wouldn't touch me at all. And then when he did, it was..." Johnny broke off, his voice stifled by periodic heaves. "He hated that he loved me. They frightened him until he hated us. And we loved each other too, I'm sure of it. I don't understand how it could be destroyed by something else, I don't - "
Stéphane had left the kitchen counter and now wrapped his arms around Johnny as fully as he could, his fingers still damp and perfumed with vegetable juice. For a second, he felt embarrassed by his sudden overflowing of emotion, but then Johnny hugged back and Stéphane held him tightly, one hand across Johnny's back and the other cupping Johnny's head, as if temporarily showing him a life without the existence of the world, without Evan or journalists or Carolina or even Stéphane. Johnny shut his eyes, buried his face into the crook of Stéphane's neck, and sobbed.
They ate dinner before it got cold. Johnny shoveled food into his mouth like it was his first meal in weeks (and maybe it was, thought Stéphane). They didn't talk, but feeling the slight pressure of Johnny's hand in his felt better to Stéphane at that moment than any conversation. His return ticket to Switzerland booked him for a flight the next week, and he knew it was impossible for Johnny to even consider considering him by that time. But he had already finished his skaters' choreography, and planes would fly whether he was on them or not. He didn't have any ideas, but he knew that it wouldn't be long before nobody with a microphone cared about them. And when that time came, anything would be possible. Stéphane noticed Johnny looking at him, and smiled guiltily as if he had been speaking aloud. "You haven't eaten much," Johnny noted.
"I ate a lot on the airplane," Stéphane hedged. Johnny raised an eyebrow disbelievingly at the self-proclaimed food diva sitting next to him, but didn't pursue the point.
"Well, either way, it's delicious."
Part Two
The next day, Stéphane helped Johnny clean out his refrigerator. It had been Stéphane's idea: he needed a flow of solid reasons to stay at Johnny's house, and had noticed while making dinner the five neatly organized, unopened cans of aerosol cheese taking up half a shelf next to even more cans of whipped cream. So now he kneeled at the open refrigerator with a floppy black trash bag beside him, scrutinizing every food item while Johnny sat on the same kitchen stool from last night. Johnny seemed lighter today: his eyes were slightly swollen, but he perched with a more natural ease, one leg tucked in front of him and the other freely dangling in the air. Stéphane felt Johnny's eyes on his back, but told himself that Johnny was just supervising over which groceries he decided to discard.
"There is no point to have both the TV dinners and the real food, Johnny. I will toss the TV dinners, yes?"
"But what if I don't feel like cooking?" Johnny protested. Stéphane turned around to look up at Johnny and grinned: Johnny's happier mood made him feel more at ease, although he was still much more nervous than he wanted to be.
"Then you will eat carrot sticks. Hey!" he cried as Johnny tried to kick him. "Carrots taste very good with asparagus and lemon and almonds. You can eat that, instead."
"Maybe, but that's cooking again. And I'd much rather have a big chocolate cake anyway. Two inches of icing, with a cupcake on top." Johnny clasped his hands together at the thought of it. "Maybe the fork can be carved out of a carrot," he added. "Or the toothpick, to test when it's done."
"Then have a cake, Johnny. But a home-made one, not a cake with more agents de conservation than chocolate.... You do not need this "Easy Cheese", Johnny. There is too much whipped cream, too."
Stéphane started to empty the offending shelf, but suddenly heard a quiet squeak as Johnny clambered down to the refrigerator.
"Don't throw away the whipped cream! I've always had whipped cream."
"And the Easy Cheese, too?" Stéphane asked with poorly veiled contempt.
"Well, no... not that. I started buying that after.... I mean, I'd never eat it or anything, but it's an orange can and I needed more orange in the refrigerator, and, I don't know... it just felt good to buy things. Like sanity insurance, I guess."
"I don't think anything with an orange spray is very good for you, Johnny. It just does not look tasty," Stéphane shook his head in dismissal.
Johnny smiled, and swiftly sprayed some cheese into Stéphane's face. Stéphane squealed and tried to wipe it off with his hands, which only resulted in his entire visage being smeared with aerosol cheese. Openly laughing now, Johnny grabbed a paper towel, dampened it, and handed it to him. Stéphane grumbled and scowled as he vigorously scrubbed his face, but still ended up with stray orange streaks in random places on his face.
"Here, let me do it, silly." Johnny took the towel from him, and started wiping off the spots Stéphane had missed. Now that Stéphane's initial shock had passed, a different kind of shock settled into its place. He tried to look normal as Johnny's hand gently swiped his face with the towel, as Johnny's eyes, slightly crinkled with laughter, carefully inspected him for any remaining cheesy spots. He stared resolutely into the refrigerator until Johnny patted his cheek with a fake-motherly "You're done, baby."
"Now that I am no longer a cheese mask, I will continue, s'il te plaît," he mumbled.
He started sorting the food again and waited for Johnny to return to his lazy perching. But Johnny stayed on the floor next to him, and for the next half hour, they cleaned out a substantial chunk of Johnny's refrigerator. By the time they finished, their stomachs were grumbling and the trash bag was nearly full.
"Still believe in cooking every day, Stéphane?" Johnny asked as they laid on the kitchen floor, exhausted and watching the ceiling fan steadily pulse as it turned round and round.
"Yes, I do. But, it does not always have to be one's own cooking. Maybe there is a good restaurant you know?"
Although, truth be told, Stéphane felt so grateful and happy at that moment that he would have willingly prepared a five-course meal. He hadn't forgotten his thoughts from last night: Johnny was still in the painful throes of his breakup and Stéphane would be an idiot to try for anything so soon. But the afternoon had gone so well, and Johnny was so... whatever he was, that Stéphane kept feeling a small pull in his mind to ignore the circumstances. However, Johnny could just be treating him nicely because he was thankful for the company and the empathy, and Stéphane was interchangeable with anyone else who had had trouble with his fans and media. After all, out of all the skaters to choose once he had retired, he had chosen Evan.
His thoughts halted when Johnny reached over from his spot on the floor and gave him a quick pat on the leg. "Come on, you lump. There's a really lovely Cajun place next to the farmer's market."
They arrived at the restaurant as the sun began to set. Johnny introduced him to the owners as "my friend Stéphane", which made him both glad and discontent as he distractedly watched the busy movements and the rich, warm colors of the restaurant. The owners, who were friends of Johnny, had given them a cozy terrace table that had a view of both the restaurant and of the petite buildings and empty canvas stalls running down the street below. So on one side, Stéphane could see through a thick glass door the bustle of the waiters and customers: the silent clinking of cutlery and glasses, the muted conversations and soundless footfalls. On the other, the side on which he and Johnny sat with a few other diners, everything had a shadowy glow from the sunset's dying blaze. There was the occasional sound of a car beneath them as someone headed home; crickets began to chirp, louder and louder until they were the background music of the half-darkness. The heady murmurs of the crickets were intermittently interjected with a burst of sound from the restaurant every time a waiter slid open the glass door to bring a dish to the terrace. Stéphane's and Johnny's food arrived after a short wait, and they eagerly started in.
The dim light made Stéphane bolder. He gazed at Johnny as they ate, marveling at how the spicy food flushed Johnny's cheeks a delicate pink, barely visible in the growing darkness. "What do you - " he started, but as if hearing his thoughts, the terrace lights immediately turned on and washed them in an intimate spotlight. Stéphane's mouth dried, and he desperately reached for his bright pink strawberry daiquiri. Sipping humongous gulps from the flimsy clear straw, he begged that not only had Johnny not heard him, but Johnny also couldn't see how quickly Stéphane's drink was rushing through its straw. But Johnny had indeed heard.
"What do I what?"
"Uhh... what do you... think of your food," Stéphane finished lamely. As Johnny commented on his dish and then entered a lengthy story about the time he had mentioned an onion-less jambalaya to someone from New Orleans, Stéphane squinted under the spotlight and sipped, and sipped, and sipped.
By the time Johnny was steering him on his feet through the parking lot, night had completely blossomed and Stéphane was having trouble with his coordination. He spent the car ride singing to the radio (and improvising when he didn't know the lyrics) until Johnny shut it off, at which point he began profusely thanking Johnny for the wonderful, delicious, fantastic meal that had just been simply magnifique. He managed to navigate his way up the driveway, but wasn't able to distinguish between Johnny's bedroom and the guest room. Before Johnny could steer him straight, he had already kicked off his shoes and situated himself under Johnny's thin blanket. "Go to the guest room," Johnny pleaded uselessly, not strong enough to push the stubborn, drunk Stéphane out of his bed. "Your breath smells disgusting," he moaned.
"You go to the guest room," Stéphane muttered, his face half-buried in a pillow.
"I... can't," Johnny said quietly after a long pause. Stéphane barely heard him, and didn't notice as Johnny resignedly undressed and changed into his pajamas. By the time Johnny slowly slid into bed next to him, he was already fast asleep.
Part Three
Stéphane woke up the next morning feeling like a gutter monster. His tongue felt heavy and furry, his eyes struggled to blink, and his hair terribly needed washing. He groaned a few words in French, and reached his arms out to stretch. He then dropped them down to either side of him, letting out a frightened cry when one arm hit something solid. He clumsily thrashed out of the bed, nearly hitting a nightstand, and stood in the middle of the room, hands clutching his face in horror.
"Mon dieu, je suis tellement désolé, je sais que c'est trop bientôt - "
"Settle down, Stéphane. No frontiers were conquered last night," Johnny said, only his head and hands visible from under the blanket. The sound of English slightly calmed Stéphane as he subdued some of his panic in order to concentrate on speaking the language.
"I am so sorry, Johnny. I do not know why I am in your bed, I promise I did not want it. Was I a terrible pest?" he asked, hands still covering his face but now lowered so that he could see.
"No, maybe it was because you were drunk, but you were pleasantly quiet." Johnny sat up and stretched his arms upwards as he yawned. "Which is good, because otherwise I might not have gotten any sleep at all."
Happy not to be in Johnny's bad graces, Stéphane loped over back to the bed and sat down, casually criss-crossing his legs, on the mattress. "Did you not sleep well?" he asked. He had never seen Johnny's face so close-up before, and noticed the dark rings underneath his eyes.
Johnny shrugged. "Better than the usual." He gave Stéphane a small smile, and whacked him with a powder pink satin pillow.
Stéphane insisted that as an apology for invading Johnny's bed, he would bake Johnny the chocolate cake Johnny had mentioned the day prior. So as the early midday sun warmed the ceramic floor mosaic in Johnny's kitchen and Johnny lounged in the living room watching a soap opera, Stéphane measured out the ingredients he had had memorized by heart for years. He appreciated how cute and clean Johnny's cooking tools were; his absolute favorite had to be the set of matryoshka measuring cups. The cake batter slowly came together as he mixed and poured, the sweet smell of cocoa warming his senses.
"Do you want any help, Stéphane?" Johnny called over.
Stéphane shook his head. "No thank you, it is my job to make up for not sleeping in the guest room. And besides, it is a secret recipe."
When the batter had been perfectly mixed, Stéphane ladled it into three shallow cake pans and one well of a cupcake pan. Proud of his handiwork and dusty with cocoa, he slid the pans into the oven and set the first timer for the cupcake. As he started whisking the icing in a small pot, Johnny ambled over to join him at the stove.
"Are you sure you don't need help? I'm really bored," he confessed. Stéphane thought for a few seconds, and his face broke out in a humongous grin.
"You can carve the carrot fork, if you like."
Stéphane and Johnny whisked and whittled in an easy harmony, chatting lightly as their projects slowly took form. Even though his arm was growing tired, Stéphane felt a peaceful bliss growing inside him as the day whispered on. He assiduously covered every inch of the pot bottom with the beater, whipping into the chocolate goo until it started to become airy and soft. Just as he deemed the icing satisfactory, the oven made a small ding to announce that the cake was finished. He quickly put the icing pot and beater down and gamboled to the oven, not noticing that he had bumped into Johnny's shoulder on the way until a sharp "Ow!" interrupted his excitement. He immediately rushed over to Johnny to see what was the matter, and gasped. Johnny's small paring knife had sliced into his finger, and blood was steadily pouring out of the wound, over the knife, and onto the kitchen island at which Johnny was standing.
"I am so sorry, Johnny, oh my god, I am so sorry, I did not see where I was going and - "
"Just get me a bandage from the second cupboard to the right. Not a band-aid, an actual bandage. I don't want to squirt blood all over my apartment," Johnny snapped. Stéphane quickly followed his instructions, and presented the roll of bandages to him like an offering. Johnny started to say something harsh, but just sighed. "It's okay, it's just a cut. Please don't look so miserable, you're going to make me cry. Just bandage my hand, okay?"
Stéphane nodded, and started slowly wrapping the clean white roll of gauzy cloth around Johnny's finger. He couldn't believe how stupid he had been: first he slept in the wrong bed and was trying to win Johnny over with cake, and now he was stopping Johnny's hand from bleeding everywhere because he had been so childishly excited. Evan would never have tripped over Johnny in a rush for cake. He had always been so calm, so in control of himself, so -
"I think that's enough, Stéphane." Stéphane stopped bandaging, and carefully cut and taped the fabric without daring to move his eyes from Johnny's finger. He put the scissors down and stepped aside, completely lost as to what to do next. He stared at the patterns of light on the walls in the living room until he heard Johnny snicker beside him. "What is it," he mumbled.
"Oh sweetie, you just look so pathetic," Johnny cried. Giggling ferociously, he pulled Stéphane into a quick, tight hug and smiled at him. "The cake is probably a little dry now. I guess you'll have to do something else for my apology, hmm?"
They ended up nestling into the opposite sides of Johnny's couch, eating slightly burnt chocolate cake with a few ironic carrot shavings on top. Johnny seemed to have forgiven Stéphane for the finger incident, so Stéphane felt himself easing back into contentment (albeit a very careful one).
"I like it burnt," Johnny declared, a small spot of icing on one side of his mouth. "It adds... dimension."
Stéphane shook his head and smiled. "It is nothing compared to what it should be like." He felt a tiny tug of pride, and informed Johnny that "no one has ever said that my chocolate cake is not wonderful."
"I'm not surprised, you'd probably start crying if they didn't," Johnny responded, which earned him a gentle kick from the other side of the couch.
"Well, maybe if you are nicer, I will send you some cake from Switzerland the next time I make it."
"Why not just make it here?"
Stéphane laughed. "Are you joking? I am very much too afraid to ever walk in your kitchen again."
"Well, that's too bad. I like not having to cook." Johnny shifted in his seat, and looked at Stéphane with his eyes suddenly serious. "Stéphane, thank you so much for coming over here. You have no idea how much better I feel now."
Feeling a familiar heat rise up in his face, Stéphane shrugged and tried to smile. "It is nothing, Johnny. I am glad I am able to be someone who understands."
"It's not just that, though. I really cannot describe how much better I feel now. I feel amazing, better than I have in months."
"I thought... I thought it has only been three weeks?"
"Well, yeah... but before that, it was really bad, too, if not worse. It feels awful to break up, but that downward spiral just gives you this sense of dread, like you can't do anything to stop the slow falling. And at the same time, you're in this limbo of hope, and just... you know what I mean."
"I do," Stéphane said quietly.
"But like I was saying, I'm so happy with you here, and...." Johnny tentatively moved closer, his curly lashes blinking in fast bursts. "...And... I just...." Stéphane watched as Johnny slowly interlocked Stéphane's fingers into his, careful to avoid the bandage.
"I know you live in Switzerland, but I'm sure we could work around that, if you wanted to, of course...."
Stéphane bit his lip as he felt the first tears start escaping from his eyes. "You know, Johnny, that I am nothing like Evan. And I do not want to try and be Evan, even for you."
Johnny briefly paused in shock, then broke into a gentle, nervous, quiet laughter. "That is definitely, definitely not an issue."
Stéphane looked at Johnny, beautiful, beautiful Johnny, and smiled larger than he felt his face could contain. "Then I guess... I will stay a little bit longer?" He put his cake down, tucked his hair back carefully, and pulled Johnny in.
"Maybe the guest bed would be better tonight, Johnny?" Stéphane asked as he slipped on his soft flannel sleep pants. "I do not think blood washes easily from satin or fur."
Johnny examined his finger briefly, and shook his head. "I think it's fine. Besides, I really can't sleep on the guest bed."
"Why?"
"Well..." he giggled, and blushed that delicate pink. "I don't like it much in the first place, and it'd be too weird to sleep there now. Evan and I slept there when we were together. He was too tall for my bed."
"Ah," Stéphane smiled and curled his arms around Johnny from behind, chin resting neatly in the crook of Johnny's neck and collarbone. "Then I will make sure I do not hit your finger tonight when I sleepwalk to the oven. We have, how do you say, unfinished business."
Johnny turned around, smiled brightly at him, and quickly kissed his nose. Blushing again, he flicked aside a lock of Stéphane's hair.
"I'm sure it will be delicious."
-END-
Title: Spoonfuls
Recipient: gingeynary
Skaters/Pairings: Johnny Weir/Stéphane Lambiel
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 4957
Warnings: None
Prompt: Stéphane cooking for Johnny
Disclaimer: The events portrayed in this story are fictional and do not reflect on the actual people written about.
A/N: Enjoy, bb! I really, really hope you like it :) stéphanecrossingfingers.gif Beta'd by the lovely oldpandadays
Summary: After Johnny goes through a crushing break-up, Stéphane flies over from Switzerland to visit him. Although they haven't seen each other in years, Stéphane still harbors old hopes and attempts to slowly win over Johnny, one spoonful at a time.
Part One
"I thought we were invincible."
Stéphane had heard through the grapevine whispers of Johnny Weir's disastrously failed relationship, but as he listened to Johnny's wavering voice, delayed and distorted as it traveled across dark cables resting deep in the Atlantic Ocean, he knew that while the rumor-spreaders had not realized it when they spun and re-spun the story of the breakup, their dramatic exaggerations of Johnny's emotional devastation had actually been accurate. Stéphane had never believed in the English word "heartbreak" - hearts were not machines; they were not a collection of gears that ceased functioning if something slipped out of place. They were vessels, and in their fragile skins they carried the endlessly vast hopes and feelings of a person. They could be punctured - un crève-coeur - and out into the unclean world would spill all those precious secrets, rotting on contact with the air and leaving their owners with shadows and decay in their souls.
This is what he heard in the scratchy voice, silently crying to him as it spoke. "We hated each other for such a long time that when we finally loved each other, I thought that we'd defeated real life. But then, I don't know, I'm sure you've heard all about it." Johnny made a noise, something between a laugh and a whimper. "I hope you know why I called you."
"I do," Stéphane said quietly.
"Then can you tell me how to deal with it? The sheer injustice?" Johnny's voice grew darker and more fiery. He spoke more quickly, with intermittent sobs and hisses that Stéphane wasn't fluent enough at English to hear through. But eventually, inevitably, Johnny became empty once again.
"I know we're not close enough for this discussion to be comfortable. But you're the only person I know who has gone through the same situation. Everyone sympathizes with me, they agree that it's unfair, but they don't understand...."
"How deeply the unfair hurts, no?"
"Yeah."
"Johnny, I think in this situation, the best thing for you is to be with someone who fully knows what you are feeling when you say, "it hurts," or "it is not just." I am not busy; I will come visit you. It has been a long time."
The overhead lights on the airplane were dimmed, and people reclined shrouded in dimness as they slept. Every occasional row harbored a small isolated beacon of light from someone reading or typing. Stéphane looked out of the pitch black window, chilled from the air rushing across the other side, and imagined that he could see the army of black waves silently riding atop the ocean beneath him. He could not honestly say that concern and empathy for Johnny were his only emotions as he flew closer and closer to Pennsylvania, USA. There was anxiety, and uncertainty. But there was also a tiny grain inside Stéphane that selfishly looked forward to seeing Johnny again. After Johnny had retired, Stéphane had thought they could be proper friends (friends...) now that they had both been relatively freed from a competitive atmosphere. But Johnny had shown no interest in performing in galas or holding to his skating roots - he could only see the world by leaving his own behind. All of it... except for Evan, of course. And now Evan was gone, too. I am arriving, though, Stéphane thought - an exchange. The implications made his chest quaver a little, and he slowly chewed on his lip as time moved backwards. Night changed into twilight, the waves changed from black to a sparkling royal blue that coyly glinted against the sunset, and Stéphane's plane landed in America.
He couldn't remember whether the taxi ride had taken one second or an hour - he'd spent the entire duration in a daze, mind hopping across decades. But as he now stood at Johnny's doorway, a needlessly fancy (but very clean) gold filigree framing the simple white door, there was no denying the present. Stéphane rang the doorbell, and after a few seconds, the door opened to reveal a most incredible sight. Johnny hadn't changed much over the years - he had always, as the media loved to stay, stayed true to himself. But no soul is static, and Stéphane could see in what direction Johnny's had slowly molded itself. Johnny's eyes, once glowing with a mischievous, cautious innocence, had lost their guardedness and now looked at him through a softer lens. His step was still dainty and defiant, but no longer ironic. As Johnny said hello and invited him in, Stéphane could hardly breathe - he felt as if he was simultaneously pressed between all the memories of his past and the unborn ones in his future, a small figure squeezing through the miniscule piece of time that is the present. And of course, Johnny was still beautiful in that transcendental, mixture-of-human-and-inhuman way of his. He wore a sheer white v-neck, slightly loose but still form-fitting, behind which sparse curls of dark chest hair could barely be seen. His jet black hair formed messy, curly spikes that framed his pale face, and his features, devoid of any make-up and slightly luminous, rested in serene comfort with each other. But the crève-coeur emanated from him like an enervating vapor and made Stéphane's heart ache. It was a painful reminder of how he could be here in the first place.
"I can't believe you came, Stéphane," Johnny said as he led Stéphane into his immaculate living room. "I really can't."
Stéphane felt a smile slip outside of him. "Neither can I, Johnny." It felt so strange to say this name while addressing someone. There certainly weren't many Johnny's in Switzerland, after all. "It is amazing to see you again."
Johnny waved him over to a couch, and sat down beside him. "Do you want anything? I haven't been... eating very much lately, but I keep buying groceries anyway, so there's a ton of stuff in the fridge."
Stéphane's mind latched onto the opportunity - once again, with both the intention of helping Johnny and of giving himself something to focus on and thereby stay calm.
"What if I cook tonight, Johnny? It would be good, I promise."
"But you're the guest, Stéphane. Europe and America can't possibly do everything differently." Johnny began to laugh, but quickly stopped.
"I want to do it. It would make me feel... more at home, I think. I can talk more comfortably this way."
Johnny shrugged. "Suit yourself."
Stéphane gratefully stood up and, with his back to Johnny, walked over to the refrigerator. He opened it; inside was a substantial stock of food categorized and subcategorized by color, food group, and healthiness. Taking a deep breath, he felt his chest loosen and time decompress. And with that, he started picking out ingredients.
With nothing to do as Stéphane meticulously chopped vegetables and concocted sauces, Johnny started talking. Perching on a stool next to the kitchen counter, he started with generalities ("You look so nice, Stéphane. I'm glad to see all the chocolate hasn't gotten to you"), and languidly weaved from topic to topic until the inevitable one fell upon his tongue.
"So what did you do when you and Carolina Kostner broke up?"
Stéphane unconsciously tucked his hair behind his ear with one hand, and continued to mince the carrots. "I cried a lot. And then, after I accepted the reality, I promised to myself that the public will never touch me again off the ice. So whenever they asked me who I was seeing, or what I have or didn't have with this mademoiselle, I said nothing or I lied. One cannot avoid it, I think. And now nobody asks me these things... they no longer care about me besides my choreo, which they do not even associate with me anyway. They only see the skater."
Stéphane caught and rolled up the loose sleeves of his sweater, too warm for Pennsylvania's springtime. He poured the vegetables into a gleaming silver pot, filled partway with water, and smiled to himself when he tasted the sauce with the end of a lavishly engraved chopstick (why did Johnny have so many chopsticks?). He ladled the reddish-brown sauce into the pot with the vegetables, scraping the sides of its pot with a butter-yellow wooden spoon. As Stéphane put the pot to boil and started washing rice, he heard Johnny sigh behind him.
"Carolina didn't betray you, though. You should have seen how Evan changed as the media's remarks got to him more and more. It wasn't even just the media; some of our fans joined in. He went further and further into himself. And then he started transferring it onto me." Johnny's formerly relaxed tone tightened, and he began to sound more like the shattered person Stéphane had listened to on the phone. "You would not believe some of the things he said. They started as jokes, just these little sarcastic remarks about us or me. And then he got colder; there were days when he would only say two words to me, and he wouldn't touch me at all. And then when he did, it was..." Johnny broke off, his voice stifled by periodic heaves. "He hated that he loved me. They frightened him until he hated us. And we loved each other too, I'm sure of it. I don't understand how it could be destroyed by something else, I don't - "
Stéphane had left the kitchen counter and now wrapped his arms around Johnny as fully as he could, his fingers still damp and perfumed with vegetable juice. For a second, he felt embarrassed by his sudden overflowing of emotion, but then Johnny hugged back and Stéphane held him tightly, one hand across Johnny's back and the other cupping Johnny's head, as if temporarily showing him a life without the existence of the world, without Evan or journalists or Carolina or even Stéphane. Johnny shut his eyes, buried his face into the crook of Stéphane's neck, and sobbed.
They ate dinner before it got cold. Johnny shoveled food into his mouth like it was his first meal in weeks (and maybe it was, thought Stéphane). They didn't talk, but feeling the slight pressure of Johnny's hand in his felt better to Stéphane at that moment than any conversation. His return ticket to Switzerland booked him for a flight the next week, and he knew it was impossible for Johnny to even consider considering him by that time. But he had already finished his skaters' choreography, and planes would fly whether he was on them or not. He didn't have any ideas, but he knew that it wouldn't be long before nobody with a microphone cared about them. And when that time came, anything would be possible. Stéphane noticed Johnny looking at him, and smiled guiltily as if he had been speaking aloud. "You haven't eaten much," Johnny noted.
"I ate a lot on the airplane," Stéphane hedged. Johnny raised an eyebrow disbelievingly at the self-proclaimed food diva sitting next to him, but didn't pursue the point.
"Well, either way, it's delicious."
Part Two
The next day, Stéphane helped Johnny clean out his refrigerator. It had been Stéphane's idea: he needed a flow of solid reasons to stay at Johnny's house, and had noticed while making dinner the five neatly organized, unopened cans of aerosol cheese taking up half a shelf next to even more cans of whipped cream. So now he kneeled at the open refrigerator with a floppy black trash bag beside him, scrutinizing every food item while Johnny sat on the same kitchen stool from last night. Johnny seemed lighter today: his eyes were slightly swollen, but he perched with a more natural ease, one leg tucked in front of him and the other freely dangling in the air. Stéphane felt Johnny's eyes on his back, but told himself that Johnny was just supervising over which groceries he decided to discard.
"There is no point to have both the TV dinners and the real food, Johnny. I will toss the TV dinners, yes?"
"But what if I don't feel like cooking?" Johnny protested. Stéphane turned around to look up at Johnny and grinned: Johnny's happier mood made him feel more at ease, although he was still much more nervous than he wanted to be.
"Then you will eat carrot sticks. Hey!" he cried as Johnny tried to kick him. "Carrots taste very good with asparagus and lemon and almonds. You can eat that, instead."
"Maybe, but that's cooking again. And I'd much rather have a big chocolate cake anyway. Two inches of icing, with a cupcake on top." Johnny clasped his hands together at the thought of it. "Maybe the fork can be carved out of a carrot," he added. "Or the toothpick, to test when it's done."
"Then have a cake, Johnny. But a home-made one, not a cake with more agents de conservation than chocolate.... You do not need this "Easy Cheese", Johnny. There is too much whipped cream, too."
Stéphane started to empty the offending shelf, but suddenly heard a quiet squeak as Johnny clambered down to the refrigerator.
"Don't throw away the whipped cream! I've always had whipped cream."
"And the Easy Cheese, too?" Stéphane asked with poorly veiled contempt.
"Well, no... not that. I started buying that after.... I mean, I'd never eat it or anything, but it's an orange can and I needed more orange in the refrigerator, and, I don't know... it just felt good to buy things. Like sanity insurance, I guess."
"I don't think anything with an orange spray is very good for you, Johnny. It just does not look tasty," Stéphane shook his head in dismissal.
Johnny smiled, and swiftly sprayed some cheese into Stéphane's face. Stéphane squealed and tried to wipe it off with his hands, which only resulted in his entire visage being smeared with aerosol cheese. Openly laughing now, Johnny grabbed a paper towel, dampened it, and handed it to him. Stéphane grumbled and scowled as he vigorously scrubbed his face, but still ended up with stray orange streaks in random places on his face.
"Here, let me do it, silly." Johnny took the towel from him, and started wiping off the spots Stéphane had missed. Now that Stéphane's initial shock had passed, a different kind of shock settled into its place. He tried to look normal as Johnny's hand gently swiped his face with the towel, as Johnny's eyes, slightly crinkled with laughter, carefully inspected him for any remaining cheesy spots. He stared resolutely into the refrigerator until Johnny patted his cheek with a fake-motherly "You're done, baby."
"Now that I am no longer a cheese mask, I will continue, s'il te plaît," he mumbled.
He started sorting the food again and waited for Johnny to return to his lazy perching. But Johnny stayed on the floor next to him, and for the next half hour, they cleaned out a substantial chunk of Johnny's refrigerator. By the time they finished, their stomachs were grumbling and the trash bag was nearly full.
"Still believe in cooking every day, Stéphane?" Johnny asked as they laid on the kitchen floor, exhausted and watching the ceiling fan steadily pulse as it turned round and round.
"Yes, I do. But, it does not always have to be one's own cooking. Maybe there is a good restaurant you know?"
Although, truth be told, Stéphane felt so grateful and happy at that moment that he would have willingly prepared a five-course meal. He hadn't forgotten his thoughts from last night: Johnny was still in the painful throes of his breakup and Stéphane would be an idiot to try for anything so soon. But the afternoon had gone so well, and Johnny was so... whatever he was, that Stéphane kept feeling a small pull in his mind to ignore the circumstances. However, Johnny could just be treating him nicely because he was thankful for the company and the empathy, and Stéphane was interchangeable with anyone else who had had trouble with his fans and media. After all, out of all the skaters to choose once he had retired, he had chosen Evan.
His thoughts halted when Johnny reached over from his spot on the floor and gave him a quick pat on the leg. "Come on, you lump. There's a really lovely Cajun place next to the farmer's market."
They arrived at the restaurant as the sun began to set. Johnny introduced him to the owners as "my friend Stéphane", which made him both glad and discontent as he distractedly watched the busy movements and the rich, warm colors of the restaurant. The owners, who were friends of Johnny, had given them a cozy terrace table that had a view of both the restaurant and of the petite buildings and empty canvas stalls running down the street below. So on one side, Stéphane could see through a thick glass door the bustle of the waiters and customers: the silent clinking of cutlery and glasses, the muted conversations and soundless footfalls. On the other, the side on which he and Johnny sat with a few other diners, everything had a shadowy glow from the sunset's dying blaze. There was the occasional sound of a car beneath them as someone headed home; crickets began to chirp, louder and louder until they were the background music of the half-darkness. The heady murmurs of the crickets were intermittently interjected with a burst of sound from the restaurant every time a waiter slid open the glass door to bring a dish to the terrace. Stéphane's and Johnny's food arrived after a short wait, and they eagerly started in.
The dim light made Stéphane bolder. He gazed at Johnny as they ate, marveling at how the spicy food flushed Johnny's cheeks a delicate pink, barely visible in the growing darkness. "What do you - " he started, but as if hearing his thoughts, the terrace lights immediately turned on and washed them in an intimate spotlight. Stéphane's mouth dried, and he desperately reached for his bright pink strawberry daiquiri. Sipping humongous gulps from the flimsy clear straw, he begged that not only had Johnny not heard him, but Johnny also couldn't see how quickly Stéphane's drink was rushing through its straw. But Johnny had indeed heard.
"What do I what?"
"Uhh... what do you... think of your food," Stéphane finished lamely. As Johnny commented on his dish and then entered a lengthy story about the time he had mentioned an onion-less jambalaya to someone from New Orleans, Stéphane squinted under the spotlight and sipped, and sipped, and sipped.
By the time Johnny was steering him on his feet through the parking lot, night had completely blossomed and Stéphane was having trouble with his coordination. He spent the car ride singing to the radio (and improvising when he didn't know the lyrics) until Johnny shut it off, at which point he began profusely thanking Johnny for the wonderful, delicious, fantastic meal that had just been simply magnifique. He managed to navigate his way up the driveway, but wasn't able to distinguish between Johnny's bedroom and the guest room. Before Johnny could steer him straight, he had already kicked off his shoes and situated himself under Johnny's thin blanket. "Go to the guest room," Johnny pleaded uselessly, not strong enough to push the stubborn, drunk Stéphane out of his bed. "Your breath smells disgusting," he moaned.
"You go to the guest room," Stéphane muttered, his face half-buried in a pillow.
"I... can't," Johnny said quietly after a long pause. Stéphane barely heard him, and didn't notice as Johnny resignedly undressed and changed into his pajamas. By the time Johnny slowly slid into bed next to him, he was already fast asleep.
Part Three
Stéphane woke up the next morning feeling like a gutter monster. His tongue felt heavy and furry, his eyes struggled to blink, and his hair terribly needed washing. He groaned a few words in French, and reached his arms out to stretch. He then dropped them down to either side of him, letting out a frightened cry when one arm hit something solid. He clumsily thrashed out of the bed, nearly hitting a nightstand, and stood in the middle of the room, hands clutching his face in horror.
"Mon dieu, je suis tellement désolé, je sais que c'est trop bientôt - "
"Settle down, Stéphane. No frontiers were conquered last night," Johnny said, only his head and hands visible from under the blanket. The sound of English slightly calmed Stéphane as he subdued some of his panic in order to concentrate on speaking the language.
"I am so sorry, Johnny. I do not know why I am in your bed, I promise I did not want it. Was I a terrible pest?" he asked, hands still covering his face but now lowered so that he could see.
"No, maybe it was because you were drunk, but you were pleasantly quiet." Johnny sat up and stretched his arms upwards as he yawned. "Which is good, because otherwise I might not have gotten any sleep at all."
Happy not to be in Johnny's bad graces, Stéphane loped over back to the bed and sat down, casually criss-crossing his legs, on the mattress. "Did you not sleep well?" he asked. He had never seen Johnny's face so close-up before, and noticed the dark rings underneath his eyes.
Johnny shrugged. "Better than the usual." He gave Stéphane a small smile, and whacked him with a powder pink satin pillow.
Stéphane insisted that as an apology for invading Johnny's bed, he would bake Johnny the chocolate cake Johnny had mentioned the day prior. So as the early midday sun warmed the ceramic floor mosaic in Johnny's kitchen and Johnny lounged in the living room watching a soap opera, Stéphane measured out the ingredients he had had memorized by heart for years. He appreciated how cute and clean Johnny's cooking tools were; his absolute favorite had to be the set of matryoshka measuring cups. The cake batter slowly came together as he mixed and poured, the sweet smell of cocoa warming his senses.
"Do you want any help, Stéphane?" Johnny called over.
Stéphane shook his head. "No thank you, it is my job to make up for not sleeping in the guest room. And besides, it is a secret recipe."
When the batter had been perfectly mixed, Stéphane ladled it into three shallow cake pans and one well of a cupcake pan. Proud of his handiwork and dusty with cocoa, he slid the pans into the oven and set the first timer for the cupcake. As he started whisking the icing in a small pot, Johnny ambled over to join him at the stove.
"Are you sure you don't need help? I'm really bored," he confessed. Stéphane thought for a few seconds, and his face broke out in a humongous grin.
"You can carve the carrot fork, if you like."
Stéphane and Johnny whisked and whittled in an easy harmony, chatting lightly as their projects slowly took form. Even though his arm was growing tired, Stéphane felt a peaceful bliss growing inside him as the day whispered on. He assiduously covered every inch of the pot bottom with the beater, whipping into the chocolate goo until it started to become airy and soft. Just as he deemed the icing satisfactory, the oven made a small ding to announce that the cake was finished. He quickly put the icing pot and beater down and gamboled to the oven, not noticing that he had bumped into Johnny's shoulder on the way until a sharp "Ow!" interrupted his excitement. He immediately rushed over to Johnny to see what was the matter, and gasped. Johnny's small paring knife had sliced into his finger, and blood was steadily pouring out of the wound, over the knife, and onto the kitchen island at which Johnny was standing.
"I am so sorry, Johnny, oh my god, I am so sorry, I did not see where I was going and - "
"Just get me a bandage from the second cupboard to the right. Not a band-aid, an actual bandage. I don't want to squirt blood all over my apartment," Johnny snapped. Stéphane quickly followed his instructions, and presented the roll of bandages to him like an offering. Johnny started to say something harsh, but just sighed. "It's okay, it's just a cut. Please don't look so miserable, you're going to make me cry. Just bandage my hand, okay?"
Stéphane nodded, and started slowly wrapping the clean white roll of gauzy cloth around Johnny's finger. He couldn't believe how stupid he had been: first he slept in the wrong bed and was trying to win Johnny over with cake, and now he was stopping Johnny's hand from bleeding everywhere because he had been so childishly excited. Evan would never have tripped over Johnny in a rush for cake. He had always been so calm, so in control of himself, so -
"I think that's enough, Stéphane." Stéphane stopped bandaging, and carefully cut and taped the fabric without daring to move his eyes from Johnny's finger. He put the scissors down and stepped aside, completely lost as to what to do next. He stared at the patterns of light on the walls in the living room until he heard Johnny snicker beside him. "What is it," he mumbled.
"Oh sweetie, you just look so pathetic," Johnny cried. Giggling ferociously, he pulled Stéphane into a quick, tight hug and smiled at him. "The cake is probably a little dry now. I guess you'll have to do something else for my apology, hmm?"
They ended up nestling into the opposite sides of Johnny's couch, eating slightly burnt chocolate cake with a few ironic carrot shavings on top. Johnny seemed to have forgiven Stéphane for the finger incident, so Stéphane felt himself easing back into contentment (albeit a very careful one).
"I like it burnt," Johnny declared, a small spot of icing on one side of his mouth. "It adds... dimension."
Stéphane shook his head and smiled. "It is nothing compared to what it should be like." He felt a tiny tug of pride, and informed Johnny that "no one has ever said that my chocolate cake is not wonderful."
"I'm not surprised, you'd probably start crying if they didn't," Johnny responded, which earned him a gentle kick from the other side of the couch.
"Well, maybe if you are nicer, I will send you some cake from Switzerland the next time I make it."
"Why not just make it here?"
Stéphane laughed. "Are you joking? I am very much too afraid to ever walk in your kitchen again."
"Well, that's too bad. I like not having to cook." Johnny shifted in his seat, and looked at Stéphane with his eyes suddenly serious. "Stéphane, thank you so much for coming over here. You have no idea how much better I feel now."
Feeling a familiar heat rise up in his face, Stéphane shrugged and tried to smile. "It is nothing, Johnny. I am glad I am able to be someone who understands."
"It's not just that, though. I really cannot describe how much better I feel now. I feel amazing, better than I have in months."
"I thought... I thought it has only been three weeks?"
"Well, yeah... but before that, it was really bad, too, if not worse. It feels awful to break up, but that downward spiral just gives you this sense of dread, like you can't do anything to stop the slow falling. And at the same time, you're in this limbo of hope, and just... you know what I mean."
"I do," Stéphane said quietly.
"But like I was saying, I'm so happy with you here, and...." Johnny tentatively moved closer, his curly lashes blinking in fast bursts. "...And... I just...." Stéphane watched as Johnny slowly interlocked Stéphane's fingers into his, careful to avoid the bandage.
"I know you live in Switzerland, but I'm sure we could work around that, if you wanted to, of course...."
Stéphane bit his lip as he felt the first tears start escaping from his eyes. "You know, Johnny, that I am nothing like Evan. And I do not want to try and be Evan, even for you."
Johnny briefly paused in shock, then broke into a gentle, nervous, quiet laughter. "That is definitely, definitely not an issue."
Stéphane looked at Johnny, beautiful, beautiful Johnny, and smiled larger than he felt his face could contain. "Then I guess... I will stay a little bit longer?" He put his cake down, tucked his hair back carefully, and pulled Johnny in.
"Maybe the guest bed would be better tonight, Johnny?" Stéphane asked as he slipped on his soft flannel sleep pants. "I do not think blood washes easily from satin or fur."
Johnny examined his finger briefly, and shook his head. "I think it's fine. Besides, I really can't sleep on the guest bed."
"Why?"
"Well..." he giggled, and blushed that delicate pink. "I don't like it much in the first place, and it'd be too weird to sleep there now. Evan and I slept there when we were together. He was too tall for my bed."
"Ah," Stéphane smiled and curled his arms around Johnny from behind, chin resting neatly in the crook of Johnny's neck and collarbone. "Then I will make sure I do not hit your finger tonight when I sleepwalk to the oven. We have, how do you say, unfinished business."
Johnny turned around, smiled brightly at him, and quickly kissed his nose. Blushing again, he flicked aside a lock of Stéphane's hair.
"I'm sure it will be delicious."
-END-