Fic: The In-between (Figure Skating RPF, Nathalie Péchalat/Fabian Bourzat) PG-13
Merry Christmas, everyone! I wrote a little festive-themed story about two very attractive French ice dancers. Maybe that’s something you’re interested in…?
Title: The In-between
Author: iridescentglow
Fandom: Figure Skating RPF
Pairing: Nathalie Péchalat/Fabian Bourzat
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 3,072
Archived: AO3
Summary: When their flight home is cancelled, Nathalie and Fabian are stuck in Michigan for Christmas. They decide to improvise a celebration, but in the process unearth old romantic feelings…
-----
The In-between
They arrived at Detroit Metro Airport in a rush.
Nathalie was lugging too many bags and Fabian was forced to play porter. Nathalie was too consumed with her own happiness to hear Fabian’s grumbles on the matter, though. She wore a jaunty sprig of artificial holly in her hair. (She’d tried to stick an identical ornament in Fabian’s hair, although it had mysteriously disappeared seconds later.) She wished everyone they met on the way into the airport a “Joyeux Noël!”, apparently forgetting that they were not yet in France.
They departed Detroit Metro Airport in a slow procession, just minutes later.
They followed a trail of depressed travellers, past the red CANCELLED notices on the Departures board. Nathalie tore off her hair clip and threw it on the ground. (Then she picked it up again, reproachfully anti-litter, and threw it in a nearby trash can.) “Shit, shit, shit,” she said in English, stamping her feet on the snow-covered ground.
No flights to France. No flights at all, in fact. Christmas in Michigan, whether they liked it or not.
They found Fabian’s car in the long-term parking lot and wordlessly piled their luggage back into the trunk. Driving on automatic, Fabian slipped into the departing traffic. He pulled onto the Interstate and began reversing their journey back toward Novi.
There was no choice but to go back to their respective apartments, even though it was a depressing prospect. Fabian had not decorated for Christmas and he knew Nathalie hadn’t, either. Too busy. Much too busy. They’d been training right up until this morning, despite the fact that it was Christmas Eve. Fabian had expected to fly into a ready-made Christmas. Decorated tree; a huge spread of food; and he a welcome moocher.
He had not contemplated any alternatives. All of their friends in Michigan had already left for their respective homes. It was just Fabian and Nathalie and the bleak midwinter in Detroit.
“I only have out-of-date yogurt and party olives in my fridge,” Nathalie said in French, sounding miserable.
“What makes them party olives?” Fabian asked, mildly curious.
Nathalie ignored him, raising her voice to say, “This is the worst Christmas ever.”
Her completely-unfabricated melodrama made Fabian smile.
“We can buy food,” he said.
Nathalie stared out the car window, clearly picturing herself as the aggrieved heroine in some non-specific movie. She let out a loud sigh and didn’t reply.
“We can buy everything we need,” Fabian said.
Another sigh from Nathalie.
“This is America,” he said. “Land of the free, home of the all-night superstore.”
It took Nathalie exactly 20 seconds to ponder Fabian’s suggestion and commit to it with manic enthusiasm, emerging from her bad mood with whip-lash-inducing speed.
“Yes, yes, yes!” she said. “We’ll go shopping! We’ll make it the best Christmas ever!”
With Nathalie, it was either best or worst. There was no in-between.
Fabian pulled off the highway at the nearest strip mall, along with what appeared to be 90% of America’s population. Fabian stayed in the car and napped while Nathalie shopped. They both agreed this was the best plan of action. In fact, Fabian suspected that, in her mind, Nathalie had already re-cast herself as the catalyst in this plan. And she would happily tell people for months to come about how she, and she alone, orchestrated a last-minute Christmas celebration.
When she returned from the mall, Nathalie’s level of manic cheeriness had seemingly been amplified by 100. She wore a reindeer headband and a necklace of flashing stars that changed colour every few seconds. She also carried two enormous bags and from inside them Fabian heard the distinct clinking sound of wine bottles.
“The tree was too heavy for me to carry,” she said blithely. “You’ll have to go back and get it.”
The tree, as Fabian soon discovered, was pink. It was also eight feet tall.
At Nathalie’s apartment, they decorated the tree haphazardly, getting progressively drunker and less-coordinated as they did so. They ended up with tinsel draped over every available surface. The tree leaned perilously to one side as Nathalie tried to affix yet another bauble to its already-overloaded branches. The result was less “Christmassy” and more “Tuesday at the loony bin”, but Nathalie seemed happy.
Finally, when the clock edged past midnight (“Joyeux Noël! Joyeux Noël!” Nathalie screamed as Christmas Eve turned to Christmas Day, releasing a party popper that rained silly string all over her hair), and their stocks of alcohol began to run low, Fabian decided it was time to call it a night.
Nathalie stood on a chair in the middle of the room, for no discernible reason, singing ‘Douce Nuit’ at the top of her lungs. Fabian walked (or rather weaved) over to her.
“Come on,” he said. “Time for bed.”
Mercifully, Nathalie stopped singing, turning her attention to Fabian.
“Are you trying to seduce me, Monsieur Bourzat?” she asked, batting her eyelashes exaggeratedly.
“Of course,” he said sardonically. “Who can resist a drunk and sloppy girl?”
Without waiting for a reply, he grabbed the back of her legs and heaved her up into the popular dance lift, Flailing Drunk Girl Over the Shoulder. He carried her through to her bedroom and deposited her on the bed.
Nathalie tried, for a moment, to get back up. When that seemed like too much effort, she sprawled across the bed, head lolling against the pillows. The flashing stars of her necklace tangled at her throat, changing colour (green to blue to purple to pink) in the half-dark.
“I’m not drunk,” she slurred. “I’m beautiful… Tell me I’m beautiful.”
“You’re ridiculous,” he said.
“You always have to contra-contra-contradict me,” Nathalie huffed. “You argue for the sake of arguing.”
“No,” said Fabian and Nathalie let out a sigh of frustration.
He tried to help her under the bed covers, but every time he pulled the sheets over her, she kicked them off again. She yanked off her reindeer headband and forced it onto Fabian’s head, laughing uproariously at the sight.
Reindeer Fabian tried once more to tuck Nathalie into bed, but this time she was ready for him. She grabbed his shirtfront - drunk or not, Nathalie was strong - and unbalanced him, pulling him down onto the bed. He collapsed across her, diagonally. The fact that he, too, was pretty drunk came spinning back to him.
With difficulty, Fabian rearranged his heavy limbs so that he lay beside Nathalie. Seemingly on automatic - old habits or simple proximity - she immediately rolled over and laid her head on his chest.
“Joyeux Noël,” Nathalie murmured, still laughing softly.
“Joyeux Noël,” Fabian replied, reaching automatically to stroke her hair.
Fabian closed his eyes for a moment and the colours of Nathalie’s flashing necklace echoed against his eyelids. When he opened his eyes again, Nathalie’s face blurred into view. She jostled closer to him, her lips bumping against his jawline seemingly by accident. Then she made a little wounded animal noise at the back of her throat and he knew the kiss-bumping hadn’t been an accident. Another uncoordinated moment later and her lips found his mouth.
She kissed him sloppily and it took him a little too long to remember why this was a bad idea. Kissing Nathalie was good. Kissing Nathalie never failed to send a thrill down his spine. Kissing had never been the problem in their relationship.
“Nathalie…” he said against her lips.
He wasn’t even sure he’d meant it as an admonishment, but when she heard her name, Fabian could almost see her come back to herself. She withdrew and blinked at him for a long moment. Her expression was half-confused, half-resentful. Her necklace flashed in the dark.
She mumbled something incomprehensible and slumped back onto the bed. Whether she passed out immediately or faked it for a while before succumbing to real sleep, Fabian wasn’t sure. However, when - twenty or so minutes later - he reached over and flicked the OFF switch on her necklace, she snored a wine-sour breath into his ear.
Fabian lay in the dark and considered his options. He could go home - to his Detroit home - but the idea didn’t appeal. There would be no taxis on Christmas morning, so it would mean a walk in the snow to get there. And a cold and empty apartment made a dubious destination. No, better to stay here, at the very merry pink Christmas that Nathalie had created.
His gaze drifted to Nathalie next to him.
Beautiful Nathalie. Drunk Nathalie. Ridiculous Nathalie. Nathalie, who - for a while, at least - he’d imagined he would wake up beside on every Christmas morning.
Their relationship had ended not in acrimony or tragedy, but in exasperation. Yet the sight of her asleep still made him wistful for days long past.
He pushed these errant thoughts away and went to sleep.
*
At 6 a.m., Fabian’s treacherous body woke him up. 6.a.m. Wide awake. Ready for the rink. Ready for Igor yelling in his ear.
He stumbled out of bed and found that he was still wearing Nathalie’s reindeer antlers. He took them off and tossed them down onto the bed, where Nathalie still lay fast asleep. She was the very picture of Christmas drunkenness. Mouth open. Limbs akimbo. He couldn’t help but smile.
The smile seemed to aggravate his hangover and he winced. He dragged himself through to the bathroom. He considered throwing up, but he gripped the side of the sink and the nausea passed. He flipped on the shower and waited for the water to heat up.
It had been a long time since he’d had cause to do more than unzip-and-piss in a Nathalie bathroom. He’d forgotten just how utterly Nathalie-like Nathalie’s bathroom always was. Her apartments were often bland, as she (like he) shuffled her life from city to city, continent to continent, leasing any place as long as it was close to the rink. The living room might remain blank, but in her bathroom, she never failed to leave a stamp.
It wasn’t just the multitude of beauty products - although they were there; spilling off every surface - it was the little Nathalie touches. The antique perfume bottles. The faded green shower curtain, decorated with woodcut-style portraits of birds. Plus, of course, there was the gilt frame that Nathalie had transferred from bathroom to bathroom ever since she was 21. The frame contained a letter from a ‘kindly’ ISU official who thought her skating would benefit from losing 10 pounds (the word NON had been carefully sliced through the letter).
Being in that bathroom was an experience like having a laughter-filled conversation with Nathalie herself.
As he showered, Fabian couldn’t help but think about how, soon enough, everything in the bathroom would be packed up and shipped somewhere new. He’d overheard Nathalie’s phone conversations over the past few months. Informal job interviews. Sending out feelers for assistant coaching positions. Detroit. Canton. Hackensack. Half a dozen cities and rinks - and none of them in France.
By contrast, Fabian was not interviewing for jobs, not even informally. He wasn’t a coach - he didn’t have Nathalie’s unwavering enthusiasm; he didn’t even have the steel of a Zhulin or a Shpilband. For him, France beckoned; a homing signal he couldn’t deny anymore.
Oh, of course, he and Nathalie would see each other. They’d skate together. There’d be shows and perhaps even tours. But it wouldn’t be the same. If he was honest with himself, he was still struggling to come to terms with that fact.
In the shower, he groped around for shower gel. He squeezed into his hand translucent-pink gunk. It smelled like grapefruit and breakfast-in-bed and morning sunshine and jetlagged happiness.
It smelled like memories.
*
In the kitchen-living room, Fabian watched the sun rise half-heartedly. The sun itself seemed faded; perhaps a little hungover.
Among the useless paraphernalia that Nathalie had bought at the mall, Fabian discovered there were also some useful ingredients. He made crêpes and eggs; sliced ham and grapefruit. The act of cooking aggravated his stomach, but it cleared his mind.
He was just about to go and wake Nathalie when she appeared in the doorway.
“Oh my god,” she exclaimed. “You’re an angel.”
Nathalie half-stumbled into the room. Silly string was still matted in her hair, which also stuck out crazily in every direction. Her tights were laddered. Her eyeliner was smudged.
“You are also a vision of loveliness,” Fabian said sardonically.
Nathalie grabbed a grapefruit half and suckled on it like a savage.
“Everything smells so good,” she said, wavering on her feet. “I want to eat, but I also want to throw up. Maybe I’ll eat and then throw up. Or the other way around.”
Fabian reached over, grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her around.
“You shower, I’ll serve,” he said firmly, pushing her in the direction of the bathroom.
Obediently, Nathalie disappeared into the bathroom, still nibbling on her grapefruit.
When she emerged, ten minutes later, she looked (of course) like a vision of loveliness. Her towel-dried hair was curling at the ends. Her clear eyes looked brighter, somehow, without her usual make-up. Tiredness emphasised her laughter lines. Fabian wanted to kiss her chapped lips. He turned away and poured a mug of hot chocolate for her instead.
The two of them ate ravenously. They ate all the food Fabian had prepared and then Nathalie began biting the heads off chocolate Santas, nausea apparently forgotten.
After breakfast, they lounged on the sofa, which was still strewn with tinsel and other Christmas oddities. Nathalie wore a dark green silk robe that rode up over her thighs and Fabian had to keep reminding himself that he saw her in skimpier outfits on a daily basis.
“I need to find a man who can cook,” Nathalie said drowsily.
“You need to find a slave who’ll devote every moment of his waking life to your happiness. Is what you really mean,” Fabian teased.
“Yes,” Nathalie said with a smile. “That’s why we broke up, of course. You weren’t devoted enough to me.” Her smile wavered and Fabian could tell her thoughts had turned momentarily to Tomáš. “I need a lot of devotion.”
“We broke up because I’m a shithead,” Fabian said ruefully. He’d forgotten most of their last argument as boyfriend-and-girlfriend, but he distinctly remembered Nathalie screaming connard at him.
“You’re not a shithead,” Nathalie said quietly.
Fabian couldn’t resist kissing her then. A real kiss. Not drunken or sloppy or accidental. A deep kiss. A considered kiss.
He was prepared for Nathalie to laugh to off, to crinkle up her eyes and tell him to stop - he was hoping for it, perhaps; an easy end to these uneasy feelings they’d unearthed - but Nathalie only closed her eyes and kissed him back.
She made that little wounded animal noise at the back of her throat and shrugged a shoulder out of her robe. The silk stretched for a moment and then fell away, revealing an almost overwhelming expanse of creamy skin. Fabian scrambled to match her nakedness - t-shirt tangling over his head, belt buckle catching like teeth against his thighs - and what was unnerving was how natural it felt.
*
Later, they lay in bed - change of venue; tangled sheets and more possibilities - curled up together and unwilling to separate (for now).
They were good at this part of being a couple, Fabian thought as he traced idle patterns across Nathalie’s shoulder blade. Their bodies understood each other. On and off the ice, their bodies fitted together.
They weren’t good at the other stuff, though. The feelings. The in-between. The blah blah blah. The call-me-laters. The stupid parties and date nights.
Yet, if life was lived only in moments of eyes-shut, kiss-quick, just-keep-touching-me, then Fabian knew he was capable of devoting himself to Nathalie.
In Nathalie’s bedroom, Christmas Day was slipping away and the light was dwindling. The fading light added a clock to the moment - it was a reminder that everything about this was temporary.
“Nathalie… let’s do it, let’s try again,” he said. His voice was quiet and he heard a note of doubtfulness in it; a question mark he hadn’t intended. “Let’s try,” he said again, louder, more forceful.
Nathalie let out a little sigh in response. She rolled over, perhaps to get more comfortable, perhaps to put distance between them. She mumbled her reply against the pillow and he had to strain to hear it. “You’re sweet.”
The moment stretched and frayed as he waited for her to say more. Instead, she remained silent. Finally, she turned her head to look at him. Now he received what he’d avoided earlier: her crinkling smile; her light-hearted rejection.
“You’re not serious,” she said lightly.
“I am serious.”
Nathalie shook her head, smile gone.
Her voice was firm-but-kind when she said, “You’re not serious, because. You know we don’t work. Not as a couple. Not in real life.”
“What’s real life? What about our lives is real? Six a.m. rink calls. Flights to Japan to China to Russia and repeat. Chasing an Olympic medal like it’s a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. We have no idea what we’re like in real life.”
“Fabian… you’re arguing for the sake of arguing.”
Fabian held onto his frown for a moment longer and then he grinned.
“Yes,” he admitted.
Nathalie gave an exasperated sigh.
“You’re lucky I know you’re not serious,” she said at last.
She met his eyes for a long moment - solemn eyes, he thought, for someone who smiled so much - and, without speaking, they both agreed the lie.
They were snowed in. They spent Christmas together. Nathalie bought a pink Christmas tree and Fabian wore reindeer antlers. They ate and drank and laughed.
(They did not kiss. They did not fuck. They did not even contemplate getting back together.)
It was not the beginning (or the middle, or even the end) of a love story. It was just a funny story to tell their friends.
*
In the weeks that followed, Fabian thought of Nathalie’s words often.
We don’t work. Not as a couple. Not in real life.
It was true, he supposed. They didn’t work in real life. But, for 4 minutes on the ice, it was easy to act the part.
And, each time he took her in his arms for Le Petit Prince after Christmas, it was easy to pretend that theirs was a love story.
Title: The In-between
Author: iridescentglow
Fandom: Figure Skating RPF
Pairing: Nathalie Péchalat/Fabian Bourzat
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 3,072
Archived: AO3
Summary: When their flight home is cancelled, Nathalie and Fabian are stuck in Michigan for Christmas. They decide to improvise a celebration, but in the process unearth old romantic feelings…
-----
The In-between
They arrived at Detroit Metro Airport in a rush.
Nathalie was lugging too many bags and Fabian was forced to play porter. Nathalie was too consumed with her own happiness to hear Fabian’s grumbles on the matter, though. She wore a jaunty sprig of artificial holly in her hair. (She’d tried to stick an identical ornament in Fabian’s hair, although it had mysteriously disappeared seconds later.) She wished everyone they met on the way into the airport a “Joyeux Noël!”, apparently forgetting that they were not yet in France.
They departed Detroit Metro Airport in a slow procession, just minutes later.
They followed a trail of depressed travellers, past the red CANCELLED notices on the Departures board. Nathalie tore off her hair clip and threw it on the ground. (Then she picked it up again, reproachfully anti-litter, and threw it in a nearby trash can.) “Shit, shit, shit,” she said in English, stamping her feet on the snow-covered ground.
No flights to France. No flights at all, in fact. Christmas in Michigan, whether they liked it or not.
They found Fabian’s car in the long-term parking lot and wordlessly piled their luggage back into the trunk. Driving on automatic, Fabian slipped into the departing traffic. He pulled onto the Interstate and began reversing their journey back toward Novi.
There was no choice but to go back to their respective apartments, even though it was a depressing prospect. Fabian had not decorated for Christmas and he knew Nathalie hadn’t, either. Too busy. Much too busy. They’d been training right up until this morning, despite the fact that it was Christmas Eve. Fabian had expected to fly into a ready-made Christmas. Decorated tree; a huge spread of food; and he a welcome moocher.
He had not contemplated any alternatives. All of their friends in Michigan had already left for their respective homes. It was just Fabian and Nathalie and the bleak midwinter in Detroit.
“I only have out-of-date yogurt and party olives in my fridge,” Nathalie said in French, sounding miserable.
“What makes them party olives?” Fabian asked, mildly curious.
Nathalie ignored him, raising her voice to say, “This is the worst Christmas ever.”
Her completely-unfabricated melodrama made Fabian smile.
“We can buy food,” he said.
Nathalie stared out the car window, clearly picturing herself as the aggrieved heroine in some non-specific movie. She let out a loud sigh and didn’t reply.
“We can buy everything we need,” Fabian said.
Another sigh from Nathalie.
“This is America,” he said. “Land of the free, home of the all-night superstore.”
It took Nathalie exactly 20 seconds to ponder Fabian’s suggestion and commit to it with manic enthusiasm, emerging from her bad mood with whip-lash-inducing speed.
“Yes, yes, yes!” she said. “We’ll go shopping! We’ll make it the best Christmas ever!”
With Nathalie, it was either best or worst. There was no in-between.
Fabian pulled off the highway at the nearest strip mall, along with what appeared to be 90% of America’s population. Fabian stayed in the car and napped while Nathalie shopped. They both agreed this was the best plan of action. In fact, Fabian suspected that, in her mind, Nathalie had already re-cast herself as the catalyst in this plan. And she would happily tell people for months to come about how she, and she alone, orchestrated a last-minute Christmas celebration.
When she returned from the mall, Nathalie’s level of manic cheeriness had seemingly been amplified by 100. She wore a reindeer headband and a necklace of flashing stars that changed colour every few seconds. She also carried two enormous bags and from inside them Fabian heard the distinct clinking sound of wine bottles.
“The tree was too heavy for me to carry,” she said blithely. “You’ll have to go back and get it.”
The tree, as Fabian soon discovered, was pink. It was also eight feet tall.
At Nathalie’s apartment, they decorated the tree haphazardly, getting progressively drunker and less-coordinated as they did so. They ended up with tinsel draped over every available surface. The tree leaned perilously to one side as Nathalie tried to affix yet another bauble to its already-overloaded branches. The result was less “Christmassy” and more “Tuesday at the loony bin”, but Nathalie seemed happy.
Finally, when the clock edged past midnight (“Joyeux Noël! Joyeux Noël!” Nathalie screamed as Christmas Eve turned to Christmas Day, releasing a party popper that rained silly string all over her hair), and their stocks of alcohol began to run low, Fabian decided it was time to call it a night.
Nathalie stood on a chair in the middle of the room, for no discernible reason, singing ‘Douce Nuit’ at the top of her lungs. Fabian walked (or rather weaved) over to her.
“Come on,” he said. “Time for bed.”
Mercifully, Nathalie stopped singing, turning her attention to Fabian.
“Are you trying to seduce me, Monsieur Bourzat?” she asked, batting her eyelashes exaggeratedly.
“Of course,” he said sardonically. “Who can resist a drunk and sloppy girl?”
Without waiting for a reply, he grabbed the back of her legs and heaved her up into the popular dance lift, Flailing Drunk Girl Over the Shoulder. He carried her through to her bedroom and deposited her on the bed.
Nathalie tried, for a moment, to get back up. When that seemed like too much effort, she sprawled across the bed, head lolling against the pillows. The flashing stars of her necklace tangled at her throat, changing colour (green to blue to purple to pink) in the half-dark.
“I’m not drunk,” she slurred. “I’m beautiful… Tell me I’m beautiful.”
“You’re ridiculous,” he said.
“You always have to contra-contra-contradict me,” Nathalie huffed. “You argue for the sake of arguing.”
“No,” said Fabian and Nathalie let out a sigh of frustration.
He tried to help her under the bed covers, but every time he pulled the sheets over her, she kicked them off again. She yanked off her reindeer headband and forced it onto Fabian’s head, laughing uproariously at the sight.
Reindeer Fabian tried once more to tuck Nathalie into bed, but this time she was ready for him. She grabbed his shirtfront - drunk or not, Nathalie was strong - and unbalanced him, pulling him down onto the bed. He collapsed across her, diagonally. The fact that he, too, was pretty drunk came spinning back to him.
With difficulty, Fabian rearranged his heavy limbs so that he lay beside Nathalie. Seemingly on automatic - old habits or simple proximity - she immediately rolled over and laid her head on his chest.
“Joyeux Noël,” Nathalie murmured, still laughing softly.
“Joyeux Noël,” Fabian replied, reaching automatically to stroke her hair.
Fabian closed his eyes for a moment and the colours of Nathalie’s flashing necklace echoed against his eyelids. When he opened his eyes again, Nathalie’s face blurred into view. She jostled closer to him, her lips bumping against his jawline seemingly by accident. Then she made a little wounded animal noise at the back of her throat and he knew the kiss-bumping hadn’t been an accident. Another uncoordinated moment later and her lips found his mouth.
She kissed him sloppily and it took him a little too long to remember why this was a bad idea. Kissing Nathalie was good. Kissing Nathalie never failed to send a thrill down his spine. Kissing had never been the problem in their relationship.
“Nathalie…” he said against her lips.
He wasn’t even sure he’d meant it as an admonishment, but when she heard her name, Fabian could almost see her come back to herself. She withdrew and blinked at him for a long moment. Her expression was half-confused, half-resentful. Her necklace flashed in the dark.
She mumbled something incomprehensible and slumped back onto the bed. Whether she passed out immediately or faked it for a while before succumbing to real sleep, Fabian wasn’t sure. However, when - twenty or so minutes later - he reached over and flicked the OFF switch on her necklace, she snored a wine-sour breath into his ear.
Fabian lay in the dark and considered his options. He could go home - to his Detroit home - but the idea didn’t appeal. There would be no taxis on Christmas morning, so it would mean a walk in the snow to get there. And a cold and empty apartment made a dubious destination. No, better to stay here, at the very merry pink Christmas that Nathalie had created.
His gaze drifted to Nathalie next to him.
Beautiful Nathalie. Drunk Nathalie. Ridiculous Nathalie. Nathalie, who - for a while, at least - he’d imagined he would wake up beside on every Christmas morning.
Their relationship had ended not in acrimony or tragedy, but in exasperation. Yet the sight of her asleep still made him wistful for days long past.
He pushed these errant thoughts away and went to sleep.
*
At 6 a.m., Fabian’s treacherous body woke him up. 6.a.m. Wide awake. Ready for the rink. Ready for Igor yelling in his ear.
He stumbled out of bed and found that he was still wearing Nathalie’s reindeer antlers. He took them off and tossed them down onto the bed, where Nathalie still lay fast asleep. She was the very picture of Christmas drunkenness. Mouth open. Limbs akimbo. He couldn’t help but smile.
The smile seemed to aggravate his hangover and he winced. He dragged himself through to the bathroom. He considered throwing up, but he gripped the side of the sink and the nausea passed. He flipped on the shower and waited for the water to heat up.
It had been a long time since he’d had cause to do more than unzip-and-piss in a Nathalie bathroom. He’d forgotten just how utterly Nathalie-like Nathalie’s bathroom always was. Her apartments were often bland, as she (like he) shuffled her life from city to city, continent to continent, leasing any place as long as it was close to the rink. The living room might remain blank, but in her bathroom, she never failed to leave a stamp.
It wasn’t just the multitude of beauty products - although they were there; spilling off every surface - it was the little Nathalie touches. The antique perfume bottles. The faded green shower curtain, decorated with woodcut-style portraits of birds. Plus, of course, there was the gilt frame that Nathalie had transferred from bathroom to bathroom ever since she was 21. The frame contained a letter from a ‘kindly’ ISU official who thought her skating would benefit from losing 10 pounds (the word NON had been carefully sliced through the letter).
Being in that bathroom was an experience like having a laughter-filled conversation with Nathalie herself.
As he showered, Fabian couldn’t help but think about how, soon enough, everything in the bathroom would be packed up and shipped somewhere new. He’d overheard Nathalie’s phone conversations over the past few months. Informal job interviews. Sending out feelers for assistant coaching positions. Detroit. Canton. Hackensack. Half a dozen cities and rinks - and none of them in France.
By contrast, Fabian was not interviewing for jobs, not even informally. He wasn’t a coach - he didn’t have Nathalie’s unwavering enthusiasm; he didn’t even have the steel of a Zhulin or a Shpilband. For him, France beckoned; a homing signal he couldn’t deny anymore.
Oh, of course, he and Nathalie would see each other. They’d skate together. There’d be shows and perhaps even tours. But it wouldn’t be the same. If he was honest with himself, he was still struggling to come to terms with that fact.
In the shower, he groped around for shower gel. He squeezed into his hand translucent-pink gunk. It smelled like grapefruit and breakfast-in-bed and morning sunshine and jetlagged happiness.
It smelled like memories.
*
In the kitchen-living room, Fabian watched the sun rise half-heartedly. The sun itself seemed faded; perhaps a little hungover.
Among the useless paraphernalia that Nathalie had bought at the mall, Fabian discovered there were also some useful ingredients. He made crêpes and eggs; sliced ham and grapefruit. The act of cooking aggravated his stomach, but it cleared his mind.
He was just about to go and wake Nathalie when she appeared in the doorway.
“Oh my god,” she exclaimed. “You’re an angel.”
Nathalie half-stumbled into the room. Silly string was still matted in her hair, which also stuck out crazily in every direction. Her tights were laddered. Her eyeliner was smudged.
“You are also a vision of loveliness,” Fabian said sardonically.
Nathalie grabbed a grapefruit half and suckled on it like a savage.
“Everything smells so good,” she said, wavering on her feet. “I want to eat, but I also want to throw up. Maybe I’ll eat and then throw up. Or the other way around.”
Fabian reached over, grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her around.
“You shower, I’ll serve,” he said firmly, pushing her in the direction of the bathroom.
Obediently, Nathalie disappeared into the bathroom, still nibbling on her grapefruit.
When she emerged, ten minutes later, she looked (of course) like a vision of loveliness. Her towel-dried hair was curling at the ends. Her clear eyes looked brighter, somehow, without her usual make-up. Tiredness emphasised her laughter lines. Fabian wanted to kiss her chapped lips. He turned away and poured a mug of hot chocolate for her instead.
The two of them ate ravenously. They ate all the food Fabian had prepared and then Nathalie began biting the heads off chocolate Santas, nausea apparently forgotten.
After breakfast, they lounged on the sofa, which was still strewn with tinsel and other Christmas oddities. Nathalie wore a dark green silk robe that rode up over her thighs and Fabian had to keep reminding himself that he saw her in skimpier outfits on a daily basis.
“I need to find a man who can cook,” Nathalie said drowsily.
“You need to find a slave who’ll devote every moment of his waking life to your happiness. Is what you really mean,” Fabian teased.
“Yes,” Nathalie said with a smile. “That’s why we broke up, of course. You weren’t devoted enough to me.” Her smile wavered and Fabian could tell her thoughts had turned momentarily to Tomáš. “I need a lot of devotion.”
“We broke up because I’m a shithead,” Fabian said ruefully. He’d forgotten most of their last argument as boyfriend-and-girlfriend, but he distinctly remembered Nathalie screaming connard at him.
“You’re not a shithead,” Nathalie said quietly.
Fabian couldn’t resist kissing her then. A real kiss. Not drunken or sloppy or accidental. A deep kiss. A considered kiss.
He was prepared for Nathalie to laugh to off, to crinkle up her eyes and tell him to stop - he was hoping for it, perhaps; an easy end to these uneasy feelings they’d unearthed - but Nathalie only closed her eyes and kissed him back.
She made that little wounded animal noise at the back of her throat and shrugged a shoulder out of her robe. The silk stretched for a moment and then fell away, revealing an almost overwhelming expanse of creamy skin. Fabian scrambled to match her nakedness - t-shirt tangling over his head, belt buckle catching like teeth against his thighs - and what was unnerving was how natural it felt.
*
Later, they lay in bed - change of venue; tangled sheets and more possibilities - curled up together and unwilling to separate (for now).
They were good at this part of being a couple, Fabian thought as he traced idle patterns across Nathalie’s shoulder blade. Their bodies understood each other. On and off the ice, their bodies fitted together.
They weren’t good at the other stuff, though. The feelings. The in-between. The blah blah blah. The call-me-laters. The stupid parties and date nights.
Yet, if life was lived only in moments of eyes-shut, kiss-quick, just-keep-touching-me, then Fabian knew he was capable of devoting himself to Nathalie.
In Nathalie’s bedroom, Christmas Day was slipping away and the light was dwindling. The fading light added a clock to the moment - it was a reminder that everything about this was temporary.
“Nathalie… let’s do it, let’s try again,” he said. His voice was quiet and he heard a note of doubtfulness in it; a question mark he hadn’t intended. “Let’s try,” he said again, louder, more forceful.
Nathalie let out a little sigh in response. She rolled over, perhaps to get more comfortable, perhaps to put distance between them. She mumbled her reply against the pillow and he had to strain to hear it. “You’re sweet.”
The moment stretched and frayed as he waited for her to say more. Instead, she remained silent. Finally, she turned her head to look at him. Now he received what he’d avoided earlier: her crinkling smile; her light-hearted rejection.
“You’re not serious,” she said lightly.
“I am serious.”
Nathalie shook her head, smile gone.
Her voice was firm-but-kind when she said, “You’re not serious, because. You know we don’t work. Not as a couple. Not in real life.”
“What’s real life? What about our lives is real? Six a.m. rink calls. Flights to Japan to China to Russia and repeat. Chasing an Olympic medal like it’s a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. We have no idea what we’re like in real life.”
“Fabian… you’re arguing for the sake of arguing.”
Fabian held onto his frown for a moment longer and then he grinned.
“Yes,” he admitted.
Nathalie gave an exasperated sigh.
“You’re lucky I know you’re not serious,” she said at last.
She met his eyes for a long moment - solemn eyes, he thought, for someone who smiled so much - and, without speaking, they both agreed the lie.
They were snowed in. They spent Christmas together. Nathalie bought a pink Christmas tree and Fabian wore reindeer antlers. They ate and drank and laughed.
(They did not kiss. They did not fuck. They did not even contemplate getting back together.)
It was not the beginning (or the middle, or even the end) of a love story. It was just a funny story to tell their friends.
*
In the weeks that followed, Fabian thought of Nathalie’s words often.
We don’t work. Not as a couple. Not in real life.
It was true, he supposed. They didn’t work in real life. But, for 4 minutes on the ice, it was easy to act the part.
And, each time he took her in his arms for Le Petit Prince after Christmas, it was easy to pretend that theirs was a love story.