Outtakes 1/3 (Johnny/Stéphane, Skating RPF, M)
Title: Outtakes
Summary: A lot of his life doesn’t make it through editing.
Johnny/Stéphane
Fandom: Figure Skating RPF
Rating: Mature
AN: This is a work of massively unrealistic fiction and directly and deliberately contradicts a whole ton of factual information, including timelines, interviews, tour line-ups, people’s actual names, common sense, and probably basic laws of physics. Very AU and so, so, so not grounded in reality. Johnny does all of Kings on Ice, etc. It’s 90% hugging, anyway.
-
NYC, July 2006
The first thing they iron out with the film producers, during a meeting that takes place in uncomfortable folding chairs in a cramped, windowless office in Manhattan, is the message of the movie. Johnny wants to do this, but not if he’s going to be followed day and night, not if it’s going to compromise his friends and his family. After all, he thinks Paris Hilton is a genius, but he doesn’t actually want to be her.
“We’re not here to invade your privacy, or to dig up dirt,” the director reassures him. “We can’t put anyone in the film without their permission. You’ll have final say on what goes in and what doesn’t.”
Johnny takes a breath, picks at his nails. Thinks of the tense, uncomfortable phone call with his boyfriend this morning, and the tense, uncomfortable phone calls he’s been having for the past month and a half. “It should be about skating,” he says. “And the things you have to give up.”
“Skating,” the director agrees, and so begin the strangest four years of Johnny’s life.
-
Vancouver, 2010
A hand skims his shoulder as he hefts his bag down the stairs outside the Olympic Village. “You will do the tour?”
He can see his brother and father and Tara standing outside the airport van, taking a few last pictures of the skyline. Johnny drops his suitcase, turns impatiently to face Stéphane and raises an eyebrow as imperiously as he can muster because fuck, all he wants is to get back home and sleep for about a month. “Evgeni’s? Yeah, I talked to him about it. It’s still up in the air.”
“I am going,” Stéphane says, smiling like it’s something that should matter. He smoothes his hair down, flips it back up a little like Johnny’s seen him do a hundred times in a hundred different cities. “I hope I will see you there. It is always good to see friends, I think.”
“Sure,” and Johnny smiles a little against his will at Stéphane’s utter Frenchness. Or Swissness, whatever. “I’ve gotta go catch a plane, but nice skating, okay?”
“To you, as well,” and then, to Johnny’s slight surprise, Stéphane steps forward to hug him tightly and do one of his swooshy Swiss air kisses right out here in the open; the stubble on his cheek drags lightly against Johnny’s own. “I will be glad to not be competing.”
Johnny laughs, and hugs him back a little tighter, because fuck if he doesn’t understand that sentiment. He’s still chuckling a little when he pulls back, but for some reason he can’t quite make his hands leave Stéphane’s arms; they slide down along wrists until their fingers catch and then they’re holding hands, just for a second, before Johnny gives his fingers a quick squeeze and drops them to grab his bag again.
Johnny passes Mike, in his ubiquitous ratty Yankees hat and camera hefted high on his shoulder, on the way down to the van. “None of that goes in the show, okay?”
Mike lifts an eyebrow. “Too personal?”
He humphs. “More like too weird.”
-
He sits down again with Mike and Carol two weeks later, and it’s strange because they’re almost like family now, an indispensible and comfortable part of his entourage. They’re on his couch in his apartment instead of in an office, and they’re drinking coffee that Johnny picked up from Starbucks on his way back from the rink. He didn’t even have to call to ask what they wanted: nonfat latte for Mike, plain black for Carol. Tara’s on the way, but she’s stuck in traffic.
“So,” Mike says. “Second season. Fifteen episodes this time.”
“Yup.”
Carol hesitates, fiddles with the lid of her cup before she asks the question they’ve all been dancing around. “Have you… decided if you’re going to keep skating?”
“I honestly have no fucking idea. Probably not, but I don’t even know what I’m going to do if I don’t keep skating, Carol.”
“Oh my god, we don’t have a story.” Mike scrubs hands over his face. “We’re so fucked.” Johnny kicks him in the shin with the pointy toe of his Prada boot but unfortunately, he has a point.
Luckily, there’s a whirlwind of media and fun and parties after the Olympics, so he doesn’t really actually have to start thinking about it until Moscow. He goes home for a bit, and gets to hug his Mom and hit Paris a lot, which is nice. He does some more press, enjoys the warm glow of attention, and gets drunk with Kelly Osbourne, who he decides needs to come and move into his apartment in New Jersey and stay with him forever and ever and ever. She’s actually not entirely opposed to the idea, which is even better.
He talks to the publishing people about his autobiography: in the first meeting, he suggests they call the book “Diva Bitch Whore from Hell: The Johnny Weir Story,” but they’re not exactly keen on that one. They assign him a junior editor named Marta to work with, and she helps him go through what he has already. She tells him summarily that it’s mostly shit and man, oh man, does he need her help. He should probably be offended, but in all honesty he knows it was shit, so he lets her set up a bunch of meetings with him: some now, some after he gets back from Russia, and more after he finishes the Eastern European leg of the tour.
They spend three days holed up in her office, talking through his life as she records everything he says on a little handheld and takes pages and pages of scrawling notes.
“Why are we doing this again?” he whines on Hour Five of Day Two.
“Because people need to want to read this piece of shit, you brat.” He really likes Marta. She’s tiny and angry and German. “And for that to happen, you need a story.”
“Everyone needs a fucking story,” he grumbles, and she pretends not to hear and asks him about his prom instead.
-
Archived Dailies Footage: Pop Star On Ice
Summary: world championships 2007
Editor’s notes: warm-ups, hotel and prep footage, backstage, interviews with priscilla
-
2007 World Championships: Tokyo, Japan
He feels pretty good on the ice during his last practice day before competition, all easy pushes and smooth transitions, but that doesn’t keep him from wanting to puke as he slides on his skate-guards, grips the barrier to keep from slipping as he steps off the platform and back onto linoleum. They got here a few days early, booked ice time at a rink not too far from the competition, and Johnny was hoping for solitude to get his head together. Unfortunately, it seems like everyone else had the same idea Priscilla did. Evan had the ice just before them, and Johnny had done his level best to just breathe through his nose and to not give in to some very Tonya Harding-esque impulses as they’d passed each other in the hallway. Johnny hates knowing this about himself, but it turns out he’s kind of a sore loser.
Priscilla is ready and waiting with his shoes because he hates overlapping even a minute with the next skater’s practice time. There’s no bigger mindfuck than watching someone else skate better than you before a competition, even if they’re not in your division. Hell, even if they’re in ice dancing. Doubly worse, the next skater booked is Stéphane, two-fucking-time World Champion. He yanks off his skates as fast as possible, grabs his hoodie but Priscilla shakes her head, reaches out a hand to slow him down a little.
“It’s okay,” she says with a hint of a smile. “You have a little time. He’s having a meltdown in the locker room.”
Sure enough, he catches a snatch of French-tinged hysteria amid a low murmur of voices as they push through the double doors toward the exit. The boys’ locker room door is propped open and he catches a glimpse of Lambiel hunched over on the corner bench, head between his knees and shoulders heaving silently. Peter Grutter is standing stiffly by the door, pulls it shut when he notices them looking.
“What happened?” Johnny asks when they get out to the cab, not that he’s really sure he wants to know. He needs to be in his own head and that’s all that matters.
Priscilla shrugs as she slides in behind him. “Panic attack? Too much pressure? Who knows, really.” She sighs. “He’s been having a rough year, or so I hear.”
Johnny snorts, because honestly, he likes him and all but the guy medaled at the Olympics. “Well, haven’t we all,” and he leaves it at that, just watches the traffic roll by as they head back to the hotel, to his mother and a documentary crew and what will very surely be a sleepless night.
-
For a day, Johnny thinks he’s got maybe a shot at a medal, but then his free skate goes all to hell and he ends up in eighth. Evan still places ahead of him. At least he doesn’t medal either; losing his title at Nationals was bad enough and Johnny’s pretty sure that Evan getting even a bronze would make him puke.
All the younger kids are out in the hallways of the hotel, running around and chatting and making friends and playing cards, but it all makes Johnny just feel kind of old. He’s over the excitement of the whole competition thing, and meeting new skaters doesn’t hold the same appeal it used to.
He’s supposed to meet Priscilla and his mom and the camera crew back at the hotel room, but he doesn’t really want to do that, either, so he does what he always does when he feels like shit: he goes looking for the Russians.
He finds them in Stéphane’s room, with Sergei and Maxim and a bunch of the others, younger kids who he doesn’t know as well. Stéphane has always been one of the few other non-Russian figure skaters who fits easily into that group; it’s part of how he and Johnny had gotten to know each other in the first place. Elene and Carolina wave to him from across the room, and he grins.
Stéphane is sitting cross-legged in the bathtub as Maxim and Sergei blow smoke out the window , and he smiles brightly when he sees Johnny hovering in the doorway of the tiny bathroom space. “Hello, my friend. We are celebrating the loss of my title.”
“You still got the bronze,” Sergei says with a fond grin. “Stop whining or we’ll throw you out the window. You are so small, it would be no trouble.”
“Let him whine,” and Johnny bums a cigarette, squeezes in and settles down on the tile. “Losing your title sucks even worse than regular losing. At least it wasn’t to Evan.”
Stéphane laughs. “Too true. I was sorry to hear about that. It is a bad year for both of us.” He toasts Johnny with his bottle of vodka. “To losing your title and coming in third!”
Johnny laughs, and raises the cup Maxim passes him. “Cheers.”
-
He feels better after that, and it’s nice to just hang and catch up for a while. He and Stéphane aren’t good friends, exactly, because it’s hard to be close to someone you’re competing against and who lives in a totally different country, but he’s liked him a lot for a long time now, and maybe if they weren’t in the same discipline they’d be closer. Most people get offended or roll their eyes at a lot of the stuff Johnny says, but Stéphane never seems fazed by any of it, and it’s cool to have someone around who’s not constantly telling you how scandalous you are. Maxim and Sergei are like that too, which is why Johnny likes them.
He doesn’t quite remember when Stéphane went from being that hyperactive kid with bad hair and ugly turtlenecks to someone he genuinely enjoys being around; Johnny thinks maybe it was four years ago, at Worlds in 2004, because he remembers Stéphane talking incessantly at him in Tatiana’s room after the gala, about the last Olympics and Salt Lake City and ‘these strange American Mormons,’ and wanted to know if he knew any Mormons, and did they all dress like that all the time, and Carolina Kostner had finally, blessedly, interrupted to kiss him goodnight.
After she left, Johnny’d said “I didn’t think you were straight?” because it’s something he’d been wondering about and it was only after it came out of his mouth that he realized it was kind of a ridiculously rude question, even if not a completely unfounded one. Johnny knew a lot of people that Stéphane had kissed, and a good chunk of them weren’t girls, and one of them was Johnny.
But Stéphane had just shrugged and said “I am not, mostly?” Then he’d looked in the direction Carolina had gone, and the affection was shining off his face. “But I’m in love.”
That made Johnny smile. “Cool,” he’d said, because he was currently in the process of falling deeply and painfully in love, too, so any kind of romantic sentiment seemed especially appealing. “You’re pretty cool, Stéphane,” and Stéphane had grinned like Johnny had just made his fucking day and they’ve been kind of friends ever since, through tours and shows and championships and their own respective heartbreaks. Stéphane is still maybe the only person in men’s singles that Johnny doesn’t mind losing to all that much.
-
There’s a Russian team meeting that night, so the hotel room slowly empties out. Johnny really, really doesn’t feel like going back to Priscilla and the cameras, though, and Stéphane doesn’t seem to need or want to be anywhere other than this bathtub, so there they stay.
They’re reminiscing about tour and laughing at Johnny’s impression of the Canadian judge’s squinting when out of the blue, Stéphane says “I almost was quitting, this year.”
Johnny blinks. “Skating?” and the thought is kind of absurd because he doesn’t know anyone more in love with figure skating than this crazy Swiss bastard.
Stéphane nods, and Johnny can tell he’s drunk from the uneven way his head bobs.
“I was feeling very tired, and perhaps jealous of my friends at university.” He sighs a little. “I am still feeling very tired.” He looks down at his hands for a moment, and then back at Johnny. “It is lonely, what we do. Don’t you think?”
Johnny looks down at his hands, because that’s kind of been the refrain of his entire year, too. “Yeah, I guess it is.” Stéphane was around for some of his drawn-out break up last summer, and honestly Johnny still feels kind of hopeless and angry about the whole thing sometimes. “I thought about quitting too, this year.”
Finally, Stéphane climbs out of the bathtub to come sit on the floor, way too close and pressed up against Johnny, but that’s normal for him. Much like being friends with Johnny guarantees inappropriate comments, probable shit-talking, and seeing his naked ass at least once or twice, being friends with Stéphane comes with a whole lot of inappropriate touching and the occasional groping.
“I love to skate, but I don’t want to be missing my life,” Stéphane says finally, and when Johnny turns to look at him questioningly, Stéphane’s lips press up into his and he can’t quite stop the surprised ‘mmph’ noise he makes.
He pulls back a little, and Stéphane doesn’t move, just stares at him with his dark, dark eyes, and he’s not really Johnny’s type but he’s still always been kind of unfairly handsome and very off-limits and god, is he seriously considering this?
“Fuck it,” Johnny says, and leans in.
-
It gets out of control pretty fast.
He’s not quite sure how it happens, but somehow he ends up flat on his back on the floor, heels digging into the backs of Stéphane’s thighs as they kiss and kiss and kiss. He can’t help rocking his hips, slides hands over Stéphane’s ass to pull him in closer, pull him tighter. Stéphane moans into his mouth, grinds down into Johnny obligingly and the friction is so fantastic Johnny actually has to pull away to gasp for breath and oh shit, this is a bad idea, fucking around in your division is such a bad idea, but Stéphane is sliding down his body now, hand on the button of his jeans as he looks up at Johnny questioningly and he can’t do anything but nod.
And then Stéphane is tugging pants and underwear down all in one go; Johnny presses hips up to help and as soon as they’re down to his thighs, Stéphane has hands on his stomach, thumping him hard back down against the tile.
The sudden wet heat of lips around the tip of his dick startles him so much that his head cracks backwards onto the floor. Then Stéphane starts blowing him in earnest, hand moving up to trace along his hipbones and all Johnny can do is lie there and stare at the ceiling, chest heaving as his fingers comb helplessly through Stéphane’s hair. “Oh my- “ and it’s kind of funny, because for once he doesn’t have anything to say.
Stéphane pulls back to lick a stripe along his hip as Johnny’s toes are starting to curl with need, and Johnny reaches out to pull him up towards his lips for another kiss, but just as his fingers brush biceps there’s a knock at the door and Stéphane jumps so hard he bangs his shoulder into the sink, lets out a stream of soft, angry French.
“Stéphane?”
Stéphane leaps to his feet, sways a little. “Un moment!” and he tosses a stricken look at Johnny, wipes his mouth carelessly with the back of his hand as he heads towards the door, and Johnny’s left alone, half-naked on the thin cloth bathmat. He tries to collect himself, struggles to pull his pants back on as he strains to hear the soft conversation outside.
When Stéphane reappears, Johnny’s managed to get himself together and is carefully rearranging his hair in the mirror as he tries desperately not to look as embarrassed as he feels. Stéphane flushes when their eyes meet, and he presses hands to his face, slides them up to grip his hair. “Aye-yi-yi,” he mutters finally. “I am sorry, but I am meeting Peter in the lobby in five minutes. “
Johnny’s stomach sinks a little, but he waves a careless hand. “It’s fine.” He tries to smile breezily. “Bad idea, anyway. Competitors and all.”
Stéphane nods uncertainly, and Johnny brushes past him. He trails behind, grabs his wallet off the desk as Johnny opens the door, and when they step out, Johnny feels Stéphane freeze next to him.
Peter is waiting by the bank of elevators, and when his eyes light on Johnny, they narrow the tiniest bit. Oh fuck, and now Johnny’s the one flushing.
Stéphane groans a little beside him. “Wish me luck,” he mutters, as Johnny turns on his heel to flee in the most dignified manner possible. He takes off down the hall, and can still hear the sharp French drifting down the corridor when he pushes through the stairwell doors.
“Johnny,” Priscilla says as he slips though the door, and the camera swings toward him. “Where’ve you been? We were expecting you back hours ago.”
He swallows. “Sorry, I met some friends and got distracted. I need a shower,” and he escapes into the bathroom before they can protest, stands under the warm spray and lets himself think about Stéphane’s lips, just for a little while.
-
Transcript, Be Good Johnny Weir Interview Session #25, 06/04/2009
Q:You spend so much time training and traveling. Can you talk about how that affects your social life?
A: It’s hard. Most of my friends in the area I met through Paris, honestly, because he was at school and I wasn’t. When you’re at the level I am, you spend most of your time on the ice with your coaches, and maybe with one or two other skaters. Most days, the person I see the most is Galina. I’m not taking classes with a bunch of people my age, or in an office with coworkers, so I don’t get a lot of opportunities to meet people. And when I do, I can’t dedicate the time to building a friendship with them. In a way it’s easier to be friends with other skaters because they understand your lifestyle, but we usually only see each other a couple times a year. It can be very isolating, and very lonely.
-
2007 Champions on Ice Tour: Boston, MA
It’s kind of tragically lame to admit it, but show tours are usually the most fun Johnny has all year. Sure, they spend six hours a day on a bus for a big chunk of it, but he likes the freedom they afford, away from training and coaches and all the other shit that he’s supposed to be doing. It’s a lot better than spending most of his day alone on the ice, in any case. This year’s been a little more trying and gossipy than usual, and he misses some of the people from last couple of tours pretty desperately (IRINA!), but Melissa and Denis are more than making up for it.
Their little trio number goes great tonight, and Johnny’s heart is pounding like crazy all the way from the standing ovation they get through the finale, and he’s on such an adrenaline high that he doesn’t really even mind when he and his dignity have to get fake-punched out by Evan. They all take their bows and he skates off the ice hand in hand with Melissa; she pulls him in for a tight hug as soon as they hit the hallways.
“So fantastic,” and Johnny can’t do anything but agree, he’s on such a high. And then Denis appears to throw his arms around both of them, and Johnny couldn’t be happier.
He’s one of the last ones out of the changing rooms, because he can’t just throw everything into his bag like these other heathens; there’s nothing he hates more than wrinkles. He gets a glare from Anna, the tour manager, when he finally manages to get everything folded and together. She hustles him out and he drag his bag out to the buses, and he’s just about to get on when he hears a familiar, unexpected voice behind him and freezes.
“And your backflip! I have seen it so many times but still, I am always holding my breaths! I was crossing my fingers from my seat!”
Stephane is arm in arm with Shizuka, gushing wildly as he is so prone to do. Surya is smiling but is also looking around a little wide-eyed, like she’s maybe trying to escape. Her eyes light on him, and oh balls. He still feels massively awkward about everything at Worlds and he was kind of hoping to have the summer as a buffer so he could just completely forget it ever happened, but there’s no escaping now.
“Johnny!” she says brightly, and Stephane turns to beam at him and well, that’s pretty much the end of all plans he had of getting on the bus soon enough to get a good seat.
-
A bunch of them end up in the hotel bar when they get back, Johnny and Marina and Viktor and Stéphane and Shizuka and Sasha, catching up and rehashing the show. Stephane is in town visiting a friend from high school who’s going to Harvard, and ducked out to come see the tour when he found out they were in town.
Johnny spends most of the night cuddling Sasha because she sat in the front of the bus today and he kind of missed her, but when she finally decides to call it a night and Shizuka goes upstairs with her, he’s left at the bar with Stephane.
“So-,“ he says, and runs out of steam.
“So let’s have another drink!” and Stephane kind of bounces in his seat and his stupid childish excitement about literally everything is so annoyingly familiar that Johnny can’t help himself.
“Tour’s not the same without you,” and Stephane turns and Johnny lets it hang a beat before “It’s way, way better.” Stephane smacks him and they’re both laughing again, and he pretty much forgets that he’s supposed to be feeling uncomfortable at all.
-
“I swear,” Johnny says an hour and three drinks later, for the second time, just because being crass is one of his life’s biggest pleasures. “The high after a good show, with a good crowd? Better than getting fucked, and god knows I love getting fucked.”
Stephane doesn’t reply for a long moment, just like he didn’t reply the first time, and fiddles instead with the ice cubes in his drink. Johnny squints at him curiously, because Stéphane has always been kind of uptight about sex talk but not this uptight, and when Stéphane finally catches his eye, he flushes.
“What?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Stéphane mumbles finally, and Johnny has to lean closer to hear over the low rumble of conversation. “About getting- you know. I have done it myself, but never… with someone else.” He sighs. “Not that I have not been trying.”
Johnny blinks. “You’ve never- it’s been two years and you’ve never managed?”
“I’ve been with men,” and he sounds sulky and a bit insulted. “Just- not so many, and it has always gone the other way. I want to try, and yet.” He drags his glass along the table, making patterns in the condensation. “With training, there is so little time, so few opportunities. You know how it is. And Geneve and Zurich, they are not so large.”
“You’re recognizable.”
“I don’t mind so much what they say, but it is the pictures I don’t want. It’s hard to trust.”
Johnny nods, because that’s something he definitely does get, albeit for very different reasons, but then- “You know what, fuck that. You’re in America right now, and America doesn’t give a crap about figure skaters, and it certainly doesn’t give a crap about figure skaters from Switzerland. Why are you hanging out at a Marriott? Seize the day, carpe diem, whatever. Go get laid.”
Stéphane smiles at him a little wistfully over the rim of his tumbler, glances around the bar. “And who exactly am I to seize?”
“It’s not like this is the only place with people in Boston.” Johnny tosses back the rest of his vodka and water and slides onto the edge of his stool to lean into Stéphane a little, purely for persuasive purposes, of course. The fact that he always smells good is just a bonus. “We’ll go somewhere else. We’ll find a club or something.”
“D’accord, if you will come,” and Stéphane hums tunelessly under his breath as he glances as his watch. “Though the time may ruin these plans of yours.”
A glance at the watch confirms that he’s right: it’s nearly two. “Well, balls.” Johnny pauses, worrying the skin of his bottom lip with teeth thoughtfully. “Or, look-“ and shit he has no idea where this next thing is coming from. Actually, no, that’s a total lie, because Johnny is well aware that their aborted make-out session at Worlds has been near the top of his jerk-off fantasy rotation for months. The memory of Stéphane’s lips on his and Stéphane’s damp hair between his fingers is doing funny things to his stomach and his dick even now, here, in public. ”Look, I volunteer. If you’re interested.”
He’s a little afraid to glance over to gauge reaction, but he can feel Stéphane stiffen against him. “If I am- what?”
“We’re not competing right now and it’s a while until next season starts, and neither of us are looking for something serious, and-“ but the words run out and he trails off lamely, because ‘I’ve barely had sex in months because I’m depressed about my ex’ probably isn’t the best lead in to this. He swallows, hesitates the tiniest bit. “We could finish what we started.”
Stéphane’s quick little intake of breath is audible, and when Johnny looks over his eyes are closed, just for a moment. Johnny’s chest tightens a little, and he’s kind of stupidly relieved that Stéphane isn’t totally unaffected by the memory either.
“I am interested,” he says finally, so softly Johnny almost doesn’t catch it. “My hotel, it is not far?”
On the way out he notices Tanith sitting across the room with Evan, watching as he trails after Stéphane
on his winding path through the seating area. She raises a speculative eyebrow when she catches his eye, smirks, and when Johnny flips her off he’s only about fifty percent kidding.
-
The walk to the hotel isn’t too bad, and Johnny manages to keep up a seamless running commentary on all the good stuff Stéphane’s missed on the tour so far. He tells the Evan milkshake story in the elevator, which Stéphane doesn’t laugh at nearly enough considering his feelings on Evan, and the Sasha-lost-in-DC story as Stéphane is fumbling with his key card, but then the door is open and they’re both standing hesitantly in the doorway and Johnny realizes he has absolutely no idea what to do next. He’s generally a champion at seduction (sultry just comes to him naturally), but to turn all that on for someone he’s known for so long? Awkward to the max.
“Ah, this is my room,” Stéphane says, with that nervous lilting thing he gets when he doesn’t what to say next. He looks so unsure that Johnny’s stomach sinks, and the thought of tipping the balance of their uneasy friendship this way is suddenly a little overwhelming.
“Maybe this was a bad idea.”
A little of the tension bleeds out of Stéphane’s face. “It is almost certainly a bad idea.”
Right, and he tries valiantly to hide his disappointment. “Okay, then, I can-“ and Johnny turns to leave, but stops when Stéphane’s fingers curl around his elbow.
“I do not mind bad ideas so much,” he says, and steps in to press his lips against Johnny’s.
-
It’s all kind of funny after that, because the kiss starts off slow, Stéphane’s hand sliding up to cradle Johnny’s neck, but when Johnny tries to pull him closer, Stéphane stumbles because he’s sort of goofy without skates strapped to his feet. He ends up chuckling into Johnny’s collarbone, and the vibrations against his skin just ignite something and suddenly Johnny wants, needs desperately, to be skin to skin and he can’t get their clothes off fast enough. Stéphane complies easily, just lifts arms as Johnny tried to tug off his turtleneck and t-shirt at the same time.
They make it halfway to the bed, shedding their jeans between open-mouthed kisses, before they manage to run into the coffee table. Stéphane starts laughing for real then, and doesn’t stop as he tugs Johnny the rest of the way and pulls him down onto the mattress.
“You’re killing the mood here, you sociopath.”
Stéphane snorts good-naturedly. “Mood. This is not mood, this is -“ and then he says something sarcastic and French that Johnny doesn’t understand at all. But when Stéphane shoves him backwards, climbs up to straddle his hips and grind down against him through the fabric of their briefs, well, that he understands. “You see, the mood is fine,” and then he’s sliding down for another kiss, the skin of his stomach pressing warm and dry against Johnny’s own.
-
Johnny shifts against the headboard, pressing himself up farther with his elbows as he fists Stéphane’s cock steadily. They’re going as slow as possible, because he remembers his first few times trying this with an impatient partner and he figures Stéphane at least should benefit from his uncomfortable experiences.
“I think I am ready,” Stéphane gasps, and Johnny’s mouth goes dry as he watches Stéphane work himself down onto his own lubed fingers one last time. Most of the time he doesn’t notice it, but every now and then he’s struck by how hypnotically attractive Stéphane is, with his perfect cheekbones and his easy, sunny charm. He slicks down the condom, fists himself a few times for good measure as Stéphane leans over to trail lips down his neck. The soft brush of hair against his cheek makes him shiver.
“Go slow,” he says for maybe the fifth time as his hands drift up to settle on the jut of Stéphane’s hip bones. “Just relax and do what feels good.”
Stéphane’s eyes are closed as he starts rocking himself down onto Johnny’s cock.“I heard you say that the first time. My English is not that bad, I hope.”
He can’t help but smirk a little. “Your eeeenglish,” he echoes and Stéphane opens his eyes, maybe to frown, but then Johnny wraps fingers around his dick again and leans in to swallow up any protests with a kiss that lasts until Stéphane bottoms out, breaking away from him with a gasp.
“Wow,” Stéphane mumurs into his hairline, and tightens his arms around Johnny’s shoulders, letting his fingers catch in the hair at the nape of his neck. “A minute, yes.”
Their chests heave together in the silence; Johnny runs a hand up and down his spine, tries to control his breathing. Coming right now would be borderline embarrassing, but fuck if this doesn’t feel amazing. Stéphane’s forehead tips a little to rest against his, and the way his own heartbeat spikes takes Johnny completely by surprise.
He’s so caught up that he doesn’t really register it when Stéphane starts to move again, not until he moans softly as he works himself up and down and reaches out for Johnny’s hand. “Please, I need-“ and Johnny snaps back, rubs his thumb across the head before he starts stroking Stéphane’s cock in earnest, matching the timing to the uneven rhythm of his thrusts. Stéphane’s fingers keep brushing against the shell of his ear, and god he’s so turned on he can’t even think.
It’s almost no time at all before he mutters “Oh fuck, Johnny,” and then Stéphane clutches at Johnny’s hair, shuddering against him as Johnny fists him through the orgasm. His legs are shaking against Johnny’s thighs and his teeth scrape against his neck; Johnny is so close and he feels like he’s been ready to come for hours now, so that’s just enough to push him over the edge, too. He muffles an embarrassingly strangled moan into Stéphane’s shoulder, but luckily Stéphane doesn’t seem to notice.
-
He wakes up to sunlight streaming across his face. Johnny yawns, takes stock and finds himself curled into Stéphane, who’s flopped face down and still breathing evenly. He can’t help but smile a little because man has he missed sex, and last night was definitely satisfying on that front.
Johnny sits up, is debating whether to nudge Stéphane awake and try for round two when he notices the digital display of the alarm clock next to the bed.
“Oh shit!” and he throws off the comforter, scrambling for his clothes. “Oh shitshitshitshitballs motherfucking shit.”
“Qu'est-ce qu'il y a?” Stéphane mumbles, and when Johnny glances back he’s sitting up with the rumpled sheets pooled around his waist, rubbing an eye with his knuckle. He blinks, seems to remember himself. “What is wrong?”
“The bus. The fucking bus is supposed to leave in five minutes and I still have to pack everything and oh my god, they’re going to murder me and dump my body in a lake. Anna would do it, you know she would. She still hates me for that thing in Seattle last year, even though that was you and Irina’s fault.”
He manages to hunt down his jeans and shirt, and when he emerges from wrestling his sweater over his head, his socks are dangling at the edge of his peripheral vision. He turns and Stéphane’s standing there in his underwear, Johnny’s shoes dangling from his other hand. “Thank you,,” Johnny says, and he’s so grateful he kind of wants to kiss him again.
“Of course.” He hesitates as Johnny leans down to knot his shoelaces. “I had a- good time last night.”
“Me too.” He stands, and can’t help it at all when his eyes linger on the spare lines of Stéphane’s body. His pulse kicks up, and that comfortably familiar flush of arousal washes over him. “If I didn’t have to go, I’d blow you in the shower.”
“Funny,” and Stéphane reaches out to give his hand an affectionate squeeze. “I was just thinking the same thing.”
“See you in the fall.” Stéphane’s answering wave as he closes the hotel door is so dorky that Johnny can’t help smiling the entire jog back to the Marriott.
-
Sadly, his good mood evaporates when he hits the parking lot. Anna’s waiting with a clipboard and a thunderous look on her face, and the rest of the cast is out milling in front of the buses.
“You need to stop pulling this shit, Johnny.”
“Come on, I’m not that late.”
“Just get on the fucking bus.”
He opens his mouth to protest because he still needs to pack, but then he sees Melissa and Denis waving at him, his suitcases piled at their feet. “Um, okay. Sorry.” He hurries over, wraps Melissa in a tight hug. “You guys are life savers.”
“Please text next time, we were a little worried,” she says into his forehead. “Tanith told us you left with Stéphane so we figured it was okay, but still.” She gives him a little squeeze.
“Right,” and his stomach sinks a little. “I will. Thanks again, seriously. I owe you guys. Beer, ice cream sundaes, sexual favors, you name it.”
Melissa swats his shoulder, laughing, and leaves him to gather up his luggage. He drifts over to the crowd by the luggage bay, and Surya ruffles his hair a little. “Don’t let Anna give you too much crap. We’re still waiting for the new driver.”
“So,” Evan drawls in his most needling monotone as he sidles up behind them, and Johnny has to suppress the urge to slap him for the ten thousandth time this summer. “What did you and Lambiel do last night?” and the hint of smugness in his voice lets Johnny know it’s been the main topic of conversation for hours now and they’ve come to very definite conclusions.
He fights the flush in his cheeks, strives for casual. “We went to a club to meet his friend. He wanted to dance, and I met a guy. Fill in the blanks.”
“A guy?”
“Kevin,” and he tosses his hair, gives them his most coquetteish look. It’s easy enough because they all expect it from him. Johnny Weir, USFSA’s most scandalous skater. “I didn’t get a last name.”
There’s a round of laughter and everyone loses interest, because hooking up with some random from a club makes for infinitely less interesting gossip than hooking up with one of your top competitors. He takes the opportunity to give Tanith the death stare, and to her credit, she flinches a little.
She catches him alone at the next rest stop as he’s sitting on top of a picnic table debating whether or not to call Paris and spill. “I’m sorry about that.”
“Did you really have to tell everyone?”
“I didn’t, I swear. I told Melissa and Denis.” She winces a little, leans down from the bench to pull up a few blades of grass. “And Evan.”
“And Evan couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Geeze Tan, I know he’s your boyfriend but I wish you’d stop telling him shit about me. He does this every time.”
“I know, I really am sorry.” Tanith sighs, throws the piece of grass onto the ground. “I think he’s still mad that you said his hair looked like a broomstick.” She shrugs helplessly, and Johnny’s annoyance mostly disappears because it’s Tanith and they’ve been friends forever and he’s never been able to be pissed at her for long, even if her boyfriend is being a grade-A douchebag lately. He leans into her, and she looks up to smile hesitantly. When he smiles back, she climbs up onto the tabletop with him and they lay down, enjoying the sunshine.
“So,” she asks, after a long comfortable silence. “How was your night with ‘Kevin,’ anyway?”
Johnny tries to shrug non-committally, but he can feel the smile pulling at the corner of his lips. “Really weird.” He spends a long time pretending to examine his nails so he doesn’t have to look at her. “But nice.”
She hums thoughtfully, but doesn’t say anything else. Just then Johnny’s phone buzzes; he shifts his ass so he can dig it out of his back pocket, flips it open to read the message.
I hope Anna has not drowned you in a river somewhere. I would feel very guilty.
It’s so stupid but it makes his stomach flip a little anyway, and oh fuck this is so not how casual sex is supposed to go. Apparently one serious, long-term relationship has managed to ruin him forever. Tanith snorts indelicately next to him. “You know, I haven’t seen you blush like that in forever.”
“Oh, shut up.”
She grins, but then Anna starts shouting from across the parking lot for everyone to get their asses back so they’re not late to the venue for warm-up, and they have to get and leave the really excellent weather behind. “Come sit with me on the bus,” Tanith says as she winds her arm through his. “I want to tell you all about Denver. It was so gorgeous and you’re never going to believe what my mom did to the poor guy at the front desk of our hotel. I almost died.”
“Okay,” and as he lets her pull him along towards another day of shows and another night of laughing and drinking in motel parking lots, he kind of wishes that he could stay on tour forever.
-
“Oh, thank god,” Paris says when Johnny calls him later that night. “I was worried you were going to run away and join a convent.”
“Shut the actual fuck up.”
“I’m glad you’re back in the world of the living. Do you promise to be fun now when we go out?”
He blows out a sigh. “I promise.”
“Which one was it, anyway?” and Johnny winces a little.
“Stéphane? He’s Swiss. You’d remember him,” and when Paris doesn’t reply he grits his teeth and says “The cat guy?”
Paris bursts into laughter so loud Johnny has to hold the phone away from his ear.
“In my defense, he’s gotten really hot and slightly less crazy. Look him up if you don’t believe me.” It sound like Paris is gasping for breath, and then the giggles start again. “Oh, fuck you,” Johnny says, and hangs up.
-
Transcript, Be Good Johnny Weir Interview Session #11, 04/04/2009
Q:A lot of skaters work with other elite level training partners, but you don’t. Do you prefer training alone?
A: I do. I don’t work well when I feel like I have to be competing with someone all the time; I get enough of that at actual competitions. What can I say, I like being the center of attention when I’m training. Maybe I could deal with a partner if the situation was right, but I definitely prefer working alone.
-
June 2008, Wayne, NJ
The news about Stéphane switching coaches comes in a flurry of texts. Johnny wakes up one day and drinks his coffee and brushes his teeth like normal, and then suddenly he has eighteen different messages, all in varying degrees and flavors of shock.
He calls Viktor because this is clearly some kind of epic miscommunication between Stéphane and the English-speaking press, which to be honest happens pretty often, and Viktor just goes “You said he could come!”
“I thought he meant he was coming for like, a month! Not forever. He’s training for the Olympics here? JESUS VIKTOR,” and then Johnny yells some more until Viktor finally just hangs up on him. Paris rolls his eyes from the couch.
Johnny calls Mike next, because they have a deal that if anything epic and life-changing that relates to skating happens, Mike needs to know immediately so they can catch as much of it as possible. “I think my coach is trying to sabotage me.”
“Hmmm,” Mike says, and he clearly thinks this is one of those times that Johnny is just calling him to bitch about Galina to a mostly uninvolved party.
“I’m serious. Viktor and Galina agreed to coach Stéphane Lambiel. He’s coming here, in a month, to my rink. And he’s staying forever.”
“The zebra guy? Aren’t you friends?”
“The two-time WORLD CHAMPION, Mike. He won the Grand Prix this year. And yeah, sure we’re kind of friends, a little, but that doesn’t mean I want him here watching me fall on my ass and psyching me out all the time! I need to concentrate.”
“That’s awful, Johnny, I’m so sorry,” but Mike doesn’t sound sorry at all. In fact, Mike sounds suspiciously giddy. “Um, we’ll be down in a few days.”
He drives to Delaware because at least his mother is sympathetic, and she lets him talk it all out until he manages to calm down. They jointly decide he’s adult enough to deal with this calmly, and that Stéphane probably isn’t doing this as part of some elaborate plot to sabotage him, and that everything will be fine as long as Johnny keeps his head down and works like he’s been doing.
Still, he’s prepared to sulk long and hard, and is more than ready to cause a scene if it’ll get Stéphane to turn around and get back on a plane to Switzerland. He spends the week before Stephane’s supposed to show up tense and snappish, dreading his arrival and the inevitable accompanying drama.
But shockingly enough, there isn’t any drama. The crew is there filming when Stéphane shows up with Viktor at the tail end of one of Johnny’s sessions. Johnny kind of wants to ignore him, but Stéphane just comes over to hug him endlessly and tell him how happy he is to see him. He apologizes profusely for encroaching on Johnny’s rink and Johnny’s coaches and says he’ll do everything he can not to disrupt Johnny’s training in any way blah blah blah sunshine sunshine sunshine, and he is just so happy to see him, did he say that already?
With anyone else Johnny would probably be like “bitch, please,” but it’s Stéphane and he’s always so fucking sincere that he’s just kind of not angry anymore, even though there’s a part of him that suspects it’s all part of one of Stéphane’s mind-control-via-charming-sweetness power plays. But he finally does start to believe all the bullshit he spilled to the press about being mature and rising above and whatever, and he’s maybe a tiny bit glad to see Stéphane, too.
-
In fact, having Stéphane there is kind of fun. True to his word, Stéphane trains later in the day so their ice-time mostly doesn’t overlap, and the only time they’re forced to interact is in the locker room.
It only takes a few days for Johnny to remember that he actually really does like the guy, and then it’s nice to have someone around who doesn’t roll their eyes when he begs out of going to a bar on Thursday night because he needs to go to bed early, and who’s willing to come over and make fun of Project Runway instead. It’s not like Stéphane has anything better to do, considering the only people he knows in New Jersey so far are Johnny, Paris, the Petrenkos, and Galina. On the few occasions they do get to go out, Paris loves Stéphane, because the only thing Paris loves more than dancing is making fun of other people’s dancing, and Stéphane is excellent for both of those.
And then it turns out Stéphane is a big fan of platonic spooning, and he totally pushes Galina’s buttons in new and exciting ways, and in the end it’s actually a pretty fucking great month and a half.
-
Johnny brings new costume sketches for Galina to approve during one of Stéphane’s sessions; he knows she’s going to hate them, but he’s hoping she’ll be distracted enough by yelling to maybe not completely veto the color scheme and neckline, both of which he loves. Mike wasn’t pleased, because Stéphane isn’t really comfortable with the idea of the show and asked that they not film when he’s there, so they’re missing this. But Johnny cares more about getting the costume he wants than he cares about Mike getting more footage of Galina bitching at him, so here he is.
“The neck, I do not know,” she says, frowning a little.
“I think it’s nice.”
“It is like girl’s neck, it is-“ but then there’s a loud ‘whump’ and Galina looks up at the ice. She makes a hilariously frustrated, growly kind of sound and oh god, Johnny fucking loves having Stéphane here. “NO CRY, STÉPHANE.” She smacks a hand against the wall for emphasis. “MORE JUMPING, LESS CRY.”
“He’ll be fine in a minute,” Johnny says. “He just does that sometimes.”
“He’s worse than you,” she mutters in Russian, and Johnny grins as she shoos him away, her issues with his costume happily forgotten. Stéphane still has his face in his hands; Viktor sighs heavily, and skates over to pull him up.
-
The thing is, even though he’s overflowing with maturity and good will, having Stéphane there does actually psych him out a little. Three weeks in he’s hanging around one day during Stéphane’s session because Stéphane whined until he agreed to drive him to the mall later, and his triple axel attempts are looking less like shit than they have been, and he’s landing more of his quads, and oh fucking shit.
The next morning he’s distracted and he keeps tripping out of everything, over and over and over. He two foots a double loop and that’s it, he just kind of falls over and gives up. He knows Carol is filming today and that he should get up and keep trying, but it all feels kind of hopeless right now.
“Up, Johnny!” and Galina skates over. “What is problem?”
“I suck today.” Galina just frowns, so he sighs heavily and says “Viktor is fixing Stéphane’s jumps. And he’s so much better than me on the ice, and I’ll never be able to catch up.”
She clucks at him. “Always so worried about other skaters. If Stéphane is best, he should win, agree?” She reaches out a hand, hauls him up and helps him brush the ice off his pants. “Work hard. Be the best. Only think of that.”
It’s maybe the best advice he’s ever gotten.
-
Paris slams into the apartment and throws his keys into the basket by the door with way more force than necessary; Stéphane’s hair brushes his face as he looks up and away from Tim Gunn’s concerned hand-fluttering to see what the commotion’s all about, and Johnny works hard not to notice how good he smells.
“Don’t even talk to me right now, Eurotrash.”
“Good night, Paris?” Johnny asks dryly.
He rounds the couch, glares down at them. “Maura asked me to work late again, so I like had to rush to get to the bar by eight, and then Max stood me up. Then we got kicked out because Callie was too drunk to stand.” He grimaces eloquently. “She threw up on my shoes.”
“Well, take them off right now!”
“I did, you bitch. Your precious carpet is safe.”
“That is a terrible night, Paris,” Stéphane says sympathically, and he rolls over a little to nudge Johnny farther back into the couch with his hip, holds out an arm. “Come here, we will make it better.”
“You’re both disgusting.” He comes over anyway, falls down on top of them and lets Stéphane crush him with hugs for a while, until Heidi says ‘Auf Wiedersehen’ and the credits roll and it’s time for heading home and for bed.
After Stéphane leaves, Paris rolls over. “You should just fuck him again, already.”
Johnny winces a little because he can’t say the thought hasn’t crossed his mind, covers it with an eye roll. “It’s not like that. We’re friends. And you know Galina has me off sex right now because I wasn’t ‘concentrating’ enough last month.”
Paris just snorts. “What about that guy last weekend? Don’t think I didn’t notice.”
“A moment of weakness.” He sighs.“Look, I’m serious. Plus, we’re competing and it would just be a world of bad. I don’t need the distraction.”
Part 2
Summary: A lot of his life doesn’t make it through editing.
Johnny/Stéphane
Fandom: Figure Skating RPF
Rating: Mature
AN: This is a work of massively unrealistic fiction and directly and deliberately contradicts a whole ton of factual information, including timelines, interviews, tour line-ups, people’s actual names, common sense, and probably basic laws of physics. Very AU and so, so, so not grounded in reality. Johnny does all of Kings on Ice, etc. It’s 90% hugging, anyway.
-
NYC, July 2006
The first thing they iron out with the film producers, during a meeting that takes place in uncomfortable folding chairs in a cramped, windowless office in Manhattan, is the message of the movie. Johnny wants to do this, but not if he’s going to be followed day and night, not if it’s going to compromise his friends and his family. After all, he thinks Paris Hilton is a genius, but he doesn’t actually want to be her.
“We’re not here to invade your privacy, or to dig up dirt,” the director reassures him. “We can’t put anyone in the film without their permission. You’ll have final say on what goes in and what doesn’t.”
Johnny takes a breath, picks at his nails. Thinks of the tense, uncomfortable phone call with his boyfriend this morning, and the tense, uncomfortable phone calls he’s been having for the past month and a half. “It should be about skating,” he says. “And the things you have to give up.”
“Skating,” the director agrees, and so begin the strangest four years of Johnny’s life.
-
Vancouver, 2010
A hand skims his shoulder as he hefts his bag down the stairs outside the Olympic Village. “You will do the tour?”
He can see his brother and father and Tara standing outside the airport van, taking a few last pictures of the skyline. Johnny drops his suitcase, turns impatiently to face Stéphane and raises an eyebrow as imperiously as he can muster because fuck, all he wants is to get back home and sleep for about a month. “Evgeni’s? Yeah, I talked to him about it. It’s still up in the air.”
“I am going,” Stéphane says, smiling like it’s something that should matter. He smoothes his hair down, flips it back up a little like Johnny’s seen him do a hundred times in a hundred different cities. “I hope I will see you there. It is always good to see friends, I think.”
“Sure,” and Johnny smiles a little against his will at Stéphane’s utter Frenchness. Or Swissness, whatever. “I’ve gotta go catch a plane, but nice skating, okay?”
“To you, as well,” and then, to Johnny’s slight surprise, Stéphane steps forward to hug him tightly and do one of his swooshy Swiss air kisses right out here in the open; the stubble on his cheek drags lightly against Johnny’s own. “I will be glad to not be competing.”
Johnny laughs, and hugs him back a little tighter, because fuck if he doesn’t understand that sentiment. He’s still chuckling a little when he pulls back, but for some reason he can’t quite make his hands leave Stéphane’s arms; they slide down along wrists until their fingers catch and then they’re holding hands, just for a second, before Johnny gives his fingers a quick squeeze and drops them to grab his bag again.
Johnny passes Mike, in his ubiquitous ratty Yankees hat and camera hefted high on his shoulder, on the way down to the van. “None of that goes in the show, okay?”
Mike lifts an eyebrow. “Too personal?”
He humphs. “More like too weird.”
-
He sits down again with Mike and Carol two weeks later, and it’s strange because they’re almost like family now, an indispensible and comfortable part of his entourage. They’re on his couch in his apartment instead of in an office, and they’re drinking coffee that Johnny picked up from Starbucks on his way back from the rink. He didn’t even have to call to ask what they wanted: nonfat latte for Mike, plain black for Carol. Tara’s on the way, but she’s stuck in traffic.
“So,” Mike says. “Second season. Fifteen episodes this time.”
“Yup.”
Carol hesitates, fiddles with the lid of her cup before she asks the question they’ve all been dancing around. “Have you… decided if you’re going to keep skating?”
“I honestly have no fucking idea. Probably not, but I don’t even know what I’m going to do if I don’t keep skating, Carol.”
“Oh my god, we don’t have a story.” Mike scrubs hands over his face. “We’re so fucked.” Johnny kicks him in the shin with the pointy toe of his Prada boot but unfortunately, he has a point.
Luckily, there’s a whirlwind of media and fun and parties after the Olympics, so he doesn’t really actually have to start thinking about it until Moscow. He goes home for a bit, and gets to hug his Mom and hit Paris a lot, which is nice. He does some more press, enjoys the warm glow of attention, and gets drunk with Kelly Osbourne, who he decides needs to come and move into his apartment in New Jersey and stay with him forever and ever and ever. She’s actually not entirely opposed to the idea, which is even better.
He talks to the publishing people about his autobiography: in the first meeting, he suggests they call the book “Diva Bitch Whore from Hell: The Johnny Weir Story,” but they’re not exactly keen on that one. They assign him a junior editor named Marta to work with, and she helps him go through what he has already. She tells him summarily that it’s mostly shit and man, oh man, does he need her help. He should probably be offended, but in all honesty he knows it was shit, so he lets her set up a bunch of meetings with him: some now, some after he gets back from Russia, and more after he finishes the Eastern European leg of the tour.
They spend three days holed up in her office, talking through his life as she records everything he says on a little handheld and takes pages and pages of scrawling notes.
“Why are we doing this again?” he whines on Hour Five of Day Two.
“Because people need to want to read this piece of shit, you brat.” He really likes Marta. She’s tiny and angry and German. “And for that to happen, you need a story.”
“Everyone needs a fucking story,” he grumbles, and she pretends not to hear and asks him about his prom instead.
-
Archived Dailies Footage: Pop Star On Ice
Summary: world championships 2007
Editor’s notes: warm-ups, hotel and prep footage, backstage, interviews with priscilla
-
2007 World Championships: Tokyo, Japan
He feels pretty good on the ice during his last practice day before competition, all easy pushes and smooth transitions, but that doesn’t keep him from wanting to puke as he slides on his skate-guards, grips the barrier to keep from slipping as he steps off the platform and back onto linoleum. They got here a few days early, booked ice time at a rink not too far from the competition, and Johnny was hoping for solitude to get his head together. Unfortunately, it seems like everyone else had the same idea Priscilla did. Evan had the ice just before them, and Johnny had done his level best to just breathe through his nose and to not give in to some very Tonya Harding-esque impulses as they’d passed each other in the hallway. Johnny hates knowing this about himself, but it turns out he’s kind of a sore loser.
Priscilla is ready and waiting with his shoes because he hates overlapping even a minute with the next skater’s practice time. There’s no bigger mindfuck than watching someone else skate better than you before a competition, even if they’re not in your division. Hell, even if they’re in ice dancing. Doubly worse, the next skater booked is Stéphane, two-fucking-time World Champion. He yanks off his skates as fast as possible, grabs his hoodie but Priscilla shakes her head, reaches out a hand to slow him down a little.
“It’s okay,” she says with a hint of a smile. “You have a little time. He’s having a meltdown in the locker room.”
Sure enough, he catches a snatch of French-tinged hysteria amid a low murmur of voices as they push through the double doors toward the exit. The boys’ locker room door is propped open and he catches a glimpse of Lambiel hunched over on the corner bench, head between his knees and shoulders heaving silently. Peter Grutter is standing stiffly by the door, pulls it shut when he notices them looking.
“What happened?” Johnny asks when they get out to the cab, not that he’s really sure he wants to know. He needs to be in his own head and that’s all that matters.
Priscilla shrugs as she slides in behind him. “Panic attack? Too much pressure? Who knows, really.” She sighs. “He’s been having a rough year, or so I hear.”
Johnny snorts, because honestly, he likes him and all but the guy medaled at the Olympics. “Well, haven’t we all,” and he leaves it at that, just watches the traffic roll by as they head back to the hotel, to his mother and a documentary crew and what will very surely be a sleepless night.
-
For a day, Johnny thinks he’s got maybe a shot at a medal, but then his free skate goes all to hell and he ends up in eighth. Evan still places ahead of him. At least he doesn’t medal either; losing his title at Nationals was bad enough and Johnny’s pretty sure that Evan getting even a bronze would make him puke.
All the younger kids are out in the hallways of the hotel, running around and chatting and making friends and playing cards, but it all makes Johnny just feel kind of old. He’s over the excitement of the whole competition thing, and meeting new skaters doesn’t hold the same appeal it used to.
He’s supposed to meet Priscilla and his mom and the camera crew back at the hotel room, but he doesn’t really want to do that, either, so he does what he always does when he feels like shit: he goes looking for the Russians.
He finds them in Stéphane’s room, with Sergei and Maxim and a bunch of the others, younger kids who he doesn’t know as well. Stéphane has always been one of the few other non-Russian figure skaters who fits easily into that group; it’s part of how he and Johnny had gotten to know each other in the first place. Elene and Carolina wave to him from across the room, and he grins.
Stéphane is sitting cross-legged in the bathtub as Maxim and Sergei blow smoke out the window , and he smiles brightly when he sees Johnny hovering in the doorway of the tiny bathroom space. “Hello, my friend. We are celebrating the loss of my title.”
“You still got the bronze,” Sergei says with a fond grin. “Stop whining or we’ll throw you out the window. You are so small, it would be no trouble.”
“Let him whine,” and Johnny bums a cigarette, squeezes in and settles down on the tile. “Losing your title sucks even worse than regular losing. At least it wasn’t to Evan.”
Stéphane laughs. “Too true. I was sorry to hear about that. It is a bad year for both of us.” He toasts Johnny with his bottle of vodka. “To losing your title and coming in third!”
Johnny laughs, and raises the cup Maxim passes him. “Cheers.”
-
He feels better after that, and it’s nice to just hang and catch up for a while. He and Stéphane aren’t good friends, exactly, because it’s hard to be close to someone you’re competing against and who lives in a totally different country, but he’s liked him a lot for a long time now, and maybe if they weren’t in the same discipline they’d be closer. Most people get offended or roll their eyes at a lot of the stuff Johnny says, but Stéphane never seems fazed by any of it, and it’s cool to have someone around who’s not constantly telling you how scandalous you are. Maxim and Sergei are like that too, which is why Johnny likes them.
He doesn’t quite remember when Stéphane went from being that hyperactive kid with bad hair and ugly turtlenecks to someone he genuinely enjoys being around; Johnny thinks maybe it was four years ago, at Worlds in 2004, because he remembers Stéphane talking incessantly at him in Tatiana’s room after the gala, about the last Olympics and Salt Lake City and ‘these strange American Mormons,’ and wanted to know if he knew any Mormons, and did they all dress like that all the time, and Carolina Kostner had finally, blessedly, interrupted to kiss him goodnight.
After she left, Johnny’d said “I didn’t think you were straight?” because it’s something he’d been wondering about and it was only after it came out of his mouth that he realized it was kind of a ridiculously rude question, even if not a completely unfounded one. Johnny knew a lot of people that Stéphane had kissed, and a good chunk of them weren’t girls, and one of them was Johnny.
But Stéphane had just shrugged and said “I am not, mostly?” Then he’d looked in the direction Carolina had gone, and the affection was shining off his face. “But I’m in love.”
That made Johnny smile. “Cool,” he’d said, because he was currently in the process of falling deeply and painfully in love, too, so any kind of romantic sentiment seemed especially appealing. “You’re pretty cool, Stéphane,” and Stéphane had grinned like Johnny had just made his fucking day and they’ve been kind of friends ever since, through tours and shows and championships and their own respective heartbreaks. Stéphane is still maybe the only person in men’s singles that Johnny doesn’t mind losing to all that much.
-
There’s a Russian team meeting that night, so the hotel room slowly empties out. Johnny really, really doesn’t feel like going back to Priscilla and the cameras, though, and Stéphane doesn’t seem to need or want to be anywhere other than this bathtub, so there they stay.
They’re reminiscing about tour and laughing at Johnny’s impression of the Canadian judge’s squinting when out of the blue, Stéphane says “I almost was quitting, this year.”
Johnny blinks. “Skating?” and the thought is kind of absurd because he doesn’t know anyone more in love with figure skating than this crazy Swiss bastard.
Stéphane nods, and Johnny can tell he’s drunk from the uneven way his head bobs.
“I was feeling very tired, and perhaps jealous of my friends at university.” He sighs a little. “I am still feeling very tired.” He looks down at his hands for a moment, and then back at Johnny. “It is lonely, what we do. Don’t you think?”
Johnny looks down at his hands, because that’s kind of been the refrain of his entire year, too. “Yeah, I guess it is.” Stéphane was around for some of his drawn-out break up last summer, and honestly Johnny still feels kind of hopeless and angry about the whole thing sometimes. “I thought about quitting too, this year.”
Finally, Stéphane climbs out of the bathtub to come sit on the floor, way too close and pressed up against Johnny, but that’s normal for him. Much like being friends with Johnny guarantees inappropriate comments, probable shit-talking, and seeing his naked ass at least once or twice, being friends with Stéphane comes with a whole lot of inappropriate touching and the occasional groping.
“I love to skate, but I don’t want to be missing my life,” Stéphane says finally, and when Johnny turns to look at him questioningly, Stéphane’s lips press up into his and he can’t quite stop the surprised ‘mmph’ noise he makes.
He pulls back a little, and Stéphane doesn’t move, just stares at him with his dark, dark eyes, and he’s not really Johnny’s type but he’s still always been kind of unfairly handsome and very off-limits and god, is he seriously considering this?
“Fuck it,” Johnny says, and leans in.
-
It gets out of control pretty fast.
He’s not quite sure how it happens, but somehow he ends up flat on his back on the floor, heels digging into the backs of Stéphane’s thighs as they kiss and kiss and kiss. He can’t help rocking his hips, slides hands over Stéphane’s ass to pull him in closer, pull him tighter. Stéphane moans into his mouth, grinds down into Johnny obligingly and the friction is so fantastic Johnny actually has to pull away to gasp for breath and oh shit, this is a bad idea, fucking around in your division is such a bad idea, but Stéphane is sliding down his body now, hand on the button of his jeans as he looks up at Johnny questioningly and he can’t do anything but nod.
And then Stéphane is tugging pants and underwear down all in one go; Johnny presses hips up to help and as soon as they’re down to his thighs, Stéphane has hands on his stomach, thumping him hard back down against the tile.
The sudden wet heat of lips around the tip of his dick startles him so much that his head cracks backwards onto the floor. Then Stéphane starts blowing him in earnest, hand moving up to trace along his hipbones and all Johnny can do is lie there and stare at the ceiling, chest heaving as his fingers comb helplessly through Stéphane’s hair. “Oh my- “ and it’s kind of funny, because for once he doesn’t have anything to say.
Stéphane pulls back to lick a stripe along his hip as Johnny’s toes are starting to curl with need, and Johnny reaches out to pull him up towards his lips for another kiss, but just as his fingers brush biceps there’s a knock at the door and Stéphane jumps so hard he bangs his shoulder into the sink, lets out a stream of soft, angry French.
“Stéphane?”
Stéphane leaps to his feet, sways a little. “Un moment!” and he tosses a stricken look at Johnny, wipes his mouth carelessly with the back of his hand as he heads towards the door, and Johnny’s left alone, half-naked on the thin cloth bathmat. He tries to collect himself, struggles to pull his pants back on as he strains to hear the soft conversation outside.
When Stéphane reappears, Johnny’s managed to get himself together and is carefully rearranging his hair in the mirror as he tries desperately not to look as embarrassed as he feels. Stéphane flushes when their eyes meet, and he presses hands to his face, slides them up to grip his hair. “Aye-yi-yi,” he mutters finally. “I am sorry, but I am meeting Peter in the lobby in five minutes. “
Johnny’s stomach sinks a little, but he waves a careless hand. “It’s fine.” He tries to smile breezily. “Bad idea, anyway. Competitors and all.”
Stéphane nods uncertainly, and Johnny brushes past him. He trails behind, grabs his wallet off the desk as Johnny opens the door, and when they step out, Johnny feels Stéphane freeze next to him.
Peter is waiting by the bank of elevators, and when his eyes light on Johnny, they narrow the tiniest bit. Oh fuck, and now Johnny’s the one flushing.
Stéphane groans a little beside him. “Wish me luck,” he mutters, as Johnny turns on his heel to flee in the most dignified manner possible. He takes off down the hall, and can still hear the sharp French drifting down the corridor when he pushes through the stairwell doors.
“Johnny,” Priscilla says as he slips though the door, and the camera swings toward him. “Where’ve you been? We were expecting you back hours ago.”
He swallows. “Sorry, I met some friends and got distracted. I need a shower,” and he escapes into the bathroom before they can protest, stands under the warm spray and lets himself think about Stéphane’s lips, just for a little while.
-
Transcript, Be Good Johnny Weir Interview Session #25, 06/04/2009
Q:You spend so much time training and traveling. Can you talk about how that affects your social life?
A: It’s hard. Most of my friends in the area I met through Paris, honestly, because he was at school and I wasn’t. When you’re at the level I am, you spend most of your time on the ice with your coaches, and maybe with one or two other skaters. Most days, the person I see the most is Galina. I’m not taking classes with a bunch of people my age, or in an office with coworkers, so I don’t get a lot of opportunities to meet people. And when I do, I can’t dedicate the time to building a friendship with them. In a way it’s easier to be friends with other skaters because they understand your lifestyle, but we usually only see each other a couple times a year. It can be very isolating, and very lonely.
-
2007 Champions on Ice Tour: Boston, MA
It’s kind of tragically lame to admit it, but show tours are usually the most fun Johnny has all year. Sure, they spend six hours a day on a bus for a big chunk of it, but he likes the freedom they afford, away from training and coaches and all the other shit that he’s supposed to be doing. It’s a lot better than spending most of his day alone on the ice, in any case. This year’s been a little more trying and gossipy than usual, and he misses some of the people from last couple of tours pretty desperately (IRINA!), but Melissa and Denis are more than making up for it.
Their little trio number goes great tonight, and Johnny’s heart is pounding like crazy all the way from the standing ovation they get through the finale, and he’s on such an adrenaline high that he doesn’t really even mind when he and his dignity have to get fake-punched out by Evan. They all take their bows and he skates off the ice hand in hand with Melissa; she pulls him in for a tight hug as soon as they hit the hallways.
“So fantastic,” and Johnny can’t do anything but agree, he’s on such a high. And then Denis appears to throw his arms around both of them, and Johnny couldn’t be happier.
He’s one of the last ones out of the changing rooms, because he can’t just throw everything into his bag like these other heathens; there’s nothing he hates more than wrinkles. He gets a glare from Anna, the tour manager, when he finally manages to get everything folded and together. She hustles him out and he drag his bag out to the buses, and he’s just about to get on when he hears a familiar, unexpected voice behind him and freezes.
“And your backflip! I have seen it so many times but still, I am always holding my breaths! I was crossing my fingers from my seat!”
Stephane is arm in arm with Shizuka, gushing wildly as he is so prone to do. Surya is smiling but is also looking around a little wide-eyed, like she’s maybe trying to escape. Her eyes light on him, and oh balls. He still feels massively awkward about everything at Worlds and he was kind of hoping to have the summer as a buffer so he could just completely forget it ever happened, but there’s no escaping now.
“Johnny!” she says brightly, and Stephane turns to beam at him and well, that’s pretty much the end of all plans he had of getting on the bus soon enough to get a good seat.
-
A bunch of them end up in the hotel bar when they get back, Johnny and Marina and Viktor and Stéphane and Shizuka and Sasha, catching up and rehashing the show. Stephane is in town visiting a friend from high school who’s going to Harvard, and ducked out to come see the tour when he found out they were in town.
Johnny spends most of the night cuddling Sasha because she sat in the front of the bus today and he kind of missed her, but when she finally decides to call it a night and Shizuka goes upstairs with her, he’s left at the bar with Stephane.
“So-,“ he says, and runs out of steam.
“So let’s have another drink!” and Stephane kind of bounces in his seat and his stupid childish excitement about literally everything is so annoyingly familiar that Johnny can’t help himself.
“Tour’s not the same without you,” and Stephane turns and Johnny lets it hang a beat before “It’s way, way better.” Stephane smacks him and they’re both laughing again, and he pretty much forgets that he’s supposed to be feeling uncomfortable at all.
-
“I swear,” Johnny says an hour and three drinks later, for the second time, just because being crass is one of his life’s biggest pleasures. “The high after a good show, with a good crowd? Better than getting fucked, and god knows I love getting fucked.”
Stephane doesn’t reply for a long moment, just like he didn’t reply the first time, and fiddles instead with the ice cubes in his drink. Johnny squints at him curiously, because Stéphane has always been kind of uptight about sex talk but not this uptight, and when Stéphane finally catches his eye, he flushes.
“What?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Stéphane mumbles finally, and Johnny has to lean closer to hear over the low rumble of conversation. “About getting- you know. I have done it myself, but never… with someone else.” He sighs. “Not that I have not been trying.”
Johnny blinks. “You’ve never- it’s been two years and you’ve never managed?”
“I’ve been with men,” and he sounds sulky and a bit insulted. “Just- not so many, and it has always gone the other way. I want to try, and yet.” He drags his glass along the table, making patterns in the condensation. “With training, there is so little time, so few opportunities. You know how it is. And Geneve and Zurich, they are not so large.”
“You’re recognizable.”
“I don’t mind so much what they say, but it is the pictures I don’t want. It’s hard to trust.”
Johnny nods, because that’s something he definitely does get, albeit for very different reasons, but then- “You know what, fuck that. You’re in America right now, and America doesn’t give a crap about figure skaters, and it certainly doesn’t give a crap about figure skaters from Switzerland. Why are you hanging out at a Marriott? Seize the day, carpe diem, whatever. Go get laid.”
Stéphane smiles at him a little wistfully over the rim of his tumbler, glances around the bar. “And who exactly am I to seize?”
“It’s not like this is the only place with people in Boston.” Johnny tosses back the rest of his vodka and water and slides onto the edge of his stool to lean into Stéphane a little, purely for persuasive purposes, of course. The fact that he always smells good is just a bonus. “We’ll go somewhere else. We’ll find a club or something.”
“D’accord, if you will come,” and Stéphane hums tunelessly under his breath as he glances as his watch. “Though the time may ruin these plans of yours.”
A glance at the watch confirms that he’s right: it’s nearly two. “Well, balls.” Johnny pauses, worrying the skin of his bottom lip with teeth thoughtfully. “Or, look-“ and shit he has no idea where this next thing is coming from. Actually, no, that’s a total lie, because Johnny is well aware that their aborted make-out session at Worlds has been near the top of his jerk-off fantasy rotation for months. The memory of Stéphane’s lips on his and Stéphane’s damp hair between his fingers is doing funny things to his stomach and his dick even now, here, in public. ”Look, I volunteer. If you’re interested.”
He’s a little afraid to glance over to gauge reaction, but he can feel Stéphane stiffen against him. “If I am- what?”
“We’re not competing right now and it’s a while until next season starts, and neither of us are looking for something serious, and-“ but the words run out and he trails off lamely, because ‘I’ve barely had sex in months because I’m depressed about my ex’ probably isn’t the best lead in to this. He swallows, hesitates the tiniest bit. “We could finish what we started.”
Stéphane’s quick little intake of breath is audible, and when Johnny looks over his eyes are closed, just for a moment. Johnny’s chest tightens a little, and he’s kind of stupidly relieved that Stéphane isn’t totally unaffected by the memory either.
“I am interested,” he says finally, so softly Johnny almost doesn’t catch it. “My hotel, it is not far?”
On the way out he notices Tanith sitting across the room with Evan, watching as he trails after Stéphane
on his winding path through the seating area. She raises a speculative eyebrow when she catches his eye, smirks, and when Johnny flips her off he’s only about fifty percent kidding.
-
The walk to the hotel isn’t too bad, and Johnny manages to keep up a seamless running commentary on all the good stuff Stéphane’s missed on the tour so far. He tells the Evan milkshake story in the elevator, which Stéphane doesn’t laugh at nearly enough considering his feelings on Evan, and the Sasha-lost-in-DC story as Stéphane is fumbling with his key card, but then the door is open and they’re both standing hesitantly in the doorway and Johnny realizes he has absolutely no idea what to do next. He’s generally a champion at seduction (sultry just comes to him naturally), but to turn all that on for someone he’s known for so long? Awkward to the max.
“Ah, this is my room,” Stéphane says, with that nervous lilting thing he gets when he doesn’t what to say next. He looks so unsure that Johnny’s stomach sinks, and the thought of tipping the balance of their uneasy friendship this way is suddenly a little overwhelming.
“Maybe this was a bad idea.”
A little of the tension bleeds out of Stéphane’s face. “It is almost certainly a bad idea.”
Right, and he tries valiantly to hide his disappointment. “Okay, then, I can-“ and Johnny turns to leave, but stops when Stéphane’s fingers curl around his elbow.
“I do not mind bad ideas so much,” he says, and steps in to press his lips against Johnny’s.
-
It’s all kind of funny after that, because the kiss starts off slow, Stéphane’s hand sliding up to cradle Johnny’s neck, but when Johnny tries to pull him closer, Stéphane stumbles because he’s sort of goofy without skates strapped to his feet. He ends up chuckling into Johnny’s collarbone, and the vibrations against his skin just ignite something and suddenly Johnny wants, needs desperately, to be skin to skin and he can’t get their clothes off fast enough. Stéphane complies easily, just lifts arms as Johnny tried to tug off his turtleneck and t-shirt at the same time.
They make it halfway to the bed, shedding their jeans between open-mouthed kisses, before they manage to run into the coffee table. Stéphane starts laughing for real then, and doesn’t stop as he tugs Johnny the rest of the way and pulls him down onto the mattress.
“You’re killing the mood here, you sociopath.”
Stéphane snorts good-naturedly. “Mood. This is not mood, this is -“ and then he says something sarcastic and French that Johnny doesn’t understand at all. But when Stéphane shoves him backwards, climbs up to straddle his hips and grind down against him through the fabric of their briefs, well, that he understands. “You see, the mood is fine,” and then he’s sliding down for another kiss, the skin of his stomach pressing warm and dry against Johnny’s own.
-
Johnny shifts against the headboard, pressing himself up farther with his elbows as he fists Stéphane’s cock steadily. They’re going as slow as possible, because he remembers his first few times trying this with an impatient partner and he figures Stéphane at least should benefit from his uncomfortable experiences.
“I think I am ready,” Stéphane gasps, and Johnny’s mouth goes dry as he watches Stéphane work himself down onto his own lubed fingers one last time. Most of the time he doesn’t notice it, but every now and then he’s struck by how hypnotically attractive Stéphane is, with his perfect cheekbones and his easy, sunny charm. He slicks down the condom, fists himself a few times for good measure as Stéphane leans over to trail lips down his neck. The soft brush of hair against his cheek makes him shiver.
“Go slow,” he says for maybe the fifth time as his hands drift up to settle on the jut of Stéphane’s hip bones. “Just relax and do what feels good.”
Stéphane’s eyes are closed as he starts rocking himself down onto Johnny’s cock.“I heard you say that the first time. My English is not that bad, I hope.”
He can’t help but smirk a little. “Your eeeenglish,” he echoes and Stéphane opens his eyes, maybe to frown, but then Johnny wraps fingers around his dick again and leans in to swallow up any protests with a kiss that lasts until Stéphane bottoms out, breaking away from him with a gasp.
“Wow,” Stéphane mumurs into his hairline, and tightens his arms around Johnny’s shoulders, letting his fingers catch in the hair at the nape of his neck. “A minute, yes.”
Their chests heave together in the silence; Johnny runs a hand up and down his spine, tries to control his breathing. Coming right now would be borderline embarrassing, but fuck if this doesn’t feel amazing. Stéphane’s forehead tips a little to rest against his, and the way his own heartbeat spikes takes Johnny completely by surprise.
He’s so caught up that he doesn’t really register it when Stéphane starts to move again, not until he moans softly as he works himself up and down and reaches out for Johnny’s hand. “Please, I need-“ and Johnny snaps back, rubs his thumb across the head before he starts stroking Stéphane’s cock in earnest, matching the timing to the uneven rhythm of his thrusts. Stéphane’s fingers keep brushing against the shell of his ear, and god he’s so turned on he can’t even think.
It’s almost no time at all before he mutters “Oh fuck, Johnny,” and then Stéphane clutches at Johnny’s hair, shuddering against him as Johnny fists him through the orgasm. His legs are shaking against Johnny’s thighs and his teeth scrape against his neck; Johnny is so close and he feels like he’s been ready to come for hours now, so that’s just enough to push him over the edge, too. He muffles an embarrassingly strangled moan into Stéphane’s shoulder, but luckily Stéphane doesn’t seem to notice.
-
He wakes up to sunlight streaming across his face. Johnny yawns, takes stock and finds himself curled into Stéphane, who’s flopped face down and still breathing evenly. He can’t help but smile a little because man has he missed sex, and last night was definitely satisfying on that front.
Johnny sits up, is debating whether to nudge Stéphane awake and try for round two when he notices the digital display of the alarm clock next to the bed.
“Oh shit!” and he throws off the comforter, scrambling for his clothes. “Oh shitshitshitshitballs motherfucking shit.”
“Qu'est-ce qu'il y a?” Stéphane mumbles, and when Johnny glances back he’s sitting up with the rumpled sheets pooled around his waist, rubbing an eye with his knuckle. He blinks, seems to remember himself. “What is wrong?”
“The bus. The fucking bus is supposed to leave in five minutes and I still have to pack everything and oh my god, they’re going to murder me and dump my body in a lake. Anna would do it, you know she would. She still hates me for that thing in Seattle last year, even though that was you and Irina’s fault.”
He manages to hunt down his jeans and shirt, and when he emerges from wrestling his sweater over his head, his socks are dangling at the edge of his peripheral vision. He turns and Stéphane’s standing there in his underwear, Johnny’s shoes dangling from his other hand. “Thank you,,” Johnny says, and he’s so grateful he kind of wants to kiss him again.
“Of course.” He hesitates as Johnny leans down to knot his shoelaces. “I had a- good time last night.”
“Me too.” He stands, and can’t help it at all when his eyes linger on the spare lines of Stéphane’s body. His pulse kicks up, and that comfortably familiar flush of arousal washes over him. “If I didn’t have to go, I’d blow you in the shower.”
“Funny,” and Stéphane reaches out to give his hand an affectionate squeeze. “I was just thinking the same thing.”
“See you in the fall.” Stéphane’s answering wave as he closes the hotel door is so dorky that Johnny can’t help smiling the entire jog back to the Marriott.
-
Sadly, his good mood evaporates when he hits the parking lot. Anna’s waiting with a clipboard and a thunderous look on her face, and the rest of the cast is out milling in front of the buses.
“You need to stop pulling this shit, Johnny.”
“Come on, I’m not that late.”
“Just get on the fucking bus.”
He opens his mouth to protest because he still needs to pack, but then he sees Melissa and Denis waving at him, his suitcases piled at their feet. “Um, okay. Sorry.” He hurries over, wraps Melissa in a tight hug. “You guys are life savers.”
“Please text next time, we were a little worried,” she says into his forehead. “Tanith told us you left with Stéphane so we figured it was okay, but still.” She gives him a little squeeze.
“Right,” and his stomach sinks a little. “I will. Thanks again, seriously. I owe you guys. Beer, ice cream sundaes, sexual favors, you name it.”
Melissa swats his shoulder, laughing, and leaves him to gather up his luggage. He drifts over to the crowd by the luggage bay, and Surya ruffles his hair a little. “Don’t let Anna give you too much crap. We’re still waiting for the new driver.”
“So,” Evan drawls in his most needling monotone as he sidles up behind them, and Johnny has to suppress the urge to slap him for the ten thousandth time this summer. “What did you and Lambiel do last night?” and the hint of smugness in his voice lets Johnny know it’s been the main topic of conversation for hours now and they’ve come to very definite conclusions.
He fights the flush in his cheeks, strives for casual. “We went to a club to meet his friend. He wanted to dance, and I met a guy. Fill in the blanks.”
“A guy?”
“Kevin,” and he tosses his hair, gives them his most coquetteish look. It’s easy enough because they all expect it from him. Johnny Weir, USFSA’s most scandalous skater. “I didn’t get a last name.”
There’s a round of laughter and everyone loses interest, because hooking up with some random from a club makes for infinitely less interesting gossip than hooking up with one of your top competitors. He takes the opportunity to give Tanith the death stare, and to her credit, she flinches a little.
She catches him alone at the next rest stop as he’s sitting on top of a picnic table debating whether or not to call Paris and spill. “I’m sorry about that.”
“Did you really have to tell everyone?”
“I didn’t, I swear. I told Melissa and Denis.” She winces a little, leans down from the bench to pull up a few blades of grass. “And Evan.”
“And Evan couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Geeze Tan, I know he’s your boyfriend but I wish you’d stop telling him shit about me. He does this every time.”
“I know, I really am sorry.” Tanith sighs, throws the piece of grass onto the ground. “I think he’s still mad that you said his hair looked like a broomstick.” She shrugs helplessly, and Johnny’s annoyance mostly disappears because it’s Tanith and they’ve been friends forever and he’s never been able to be pissed at her for long, even if her boyfriend is being a grade-A douchebag lately. He leans into her, and she looks up to smile hesitantly. When he smiles back, she climbs up onto the tabletop with him and they lay down, enjoying the sunshine.
“So,” she asks, after a long comfortable silence. “How was your night with ‘Kevin,’ anyway?”
Johnny tries to shrug non-committally, but he can feel the smile pulling at the corner of his lips. “Really weird.” He spends a long time pretending to examine his nails so he doesn’t have to look at her. “But nice.”
She hums thoughtfully, but doesn’t say anything else. Just then Johnny’s phone buzzes; he shifts his ass so he can dig it out of his back pocket, flips it open to read the message.
I hope Anna has not drowned you in a river somewhere. I would feel very guilty.
It’s so stupid but it makes his stomach flip a little anyway, and oh fuck this is so not how casual sex is supposed to go. Apparently one serious, long-term relationship has managed to ruin him forever. Tanith snorts indelicately next to him. “You know, I haven’t seen you blush like that in forever.”
“Oh, shut up.”
She grins, but then Anna starts shouting from across the parking lot for everyone to get their asses back so they’re not late to the venue for warm-up, and they have to get and leave the really excellent weather behind. “Come sit with me on the bus,” Tanith says as she winds her arm through his. “I want to tell you all about Denver. It was so gorgeous and you’re never going to believe what my mom did to the poor guy at the front desk of our hotel. I almost died.”
“Okay,” and as he lets her pull him along towards another day of shows and another night of laughing and drinking in motel parking lots, he kind of wishes that he could stay on tour forever.
-
“Oh, thank god,” Paris says when Johnny calls him later that night. “I was worried you were going to run away and join a convent.”
“Shut the actual fuck up.”
“I’m glad you’re back in the world of the living. Do you promise to be fun now when we go out?”
He blows out a sigh. “I promise.”
“Which one was it, anyway?” and Johnny winces a little.
“Stéphane? He’s Swiss. You’d remember him,” and when Paris doesn’t reply he grits his teeth and says “The cat guy?”
Paris bursts into laughter so loud Johnny has to hold the phone away from his ear.
“In my defense, he’s gotten really hot and slightly less crazy. Look him up if you don’t believe me.” It sound like Paris is gasping for breath, and then the giggles start again. “Oh, fuck you,” Johnny says, and hangs up.
-
Transcript, Be Good Johnny Weir Interview Session #11, 04/04/2009
Q:A lot of skaters work with other elite level training partners, but you don’t. Do you prefer training alone?
A: I do. I don’t work well when I feel like I have to be competing with someone all the time; I get enough of that at actual competitions. What can I say, I like being the center of attention when I’m training. Maybe I could deal with a partner if the situation was right, but I definitely prefer working alone.
-
June 2008, Wayne, NJ
The news about Stéphane switching coaches comes in a flurry of texts. Johnny wakes up one day and drinks his coffee and brushes his teeth like normal, and then suddenly he has eighteen different messages, all in varying degrees and flavors of shock.
He calls Viktor because this is clearly some kind of epic miscommunication between Stéphane and the English-speaking press, which to be honest happens pretty often, and Viktor just goes “You said he could come!”
“I thought he meant he was coming for like, a month! Not forever. He’s training for the Olympics here? JESUS VIKTOR,” and then Johnny yells some more until Viktor finally just hangs up on him. Paris rolls his eyes from the couch.
Johnny calls Mike next, because they have a deal that if anything epic and life-changing that relates to skating happens, Mike needs to know immediately so they can catch as much of it as possible. “I think my coach is trying to sabotage me.”
“Hmmm,” Mike says, and he clearly thinks this is one of those times that Johnny is just calling him to bitch about Galina to a mostly uninvolved party.
“I’m serious. Viktor and Galina agreed to coach Stéphane Lambiel. He’s coming here, in a month, to my rink. And he’s staying forever.”
“The zebra guy? Aren’t you friends?”
“The two-time WORLD CHAMPION, Mike. He won the Grand Prix this year. And yeah, sure we’re kind of friends, a little, but that doesn’t mean I want him here watching me fall on my ass and psyching me out all the time! I need to concentrate.”
“That’s awful, Johnny, I’m so sorry,” but Mike doesn’t sound sorry at all. In fact, Mike sounds suspiciously giddy. “Um, we’ll be down in a few days.”
He drives to Delaware because at least his mother is sympathetic, and she lets him talk it all out until he manages to calm down. They jointly decide he’s adult enough to deal with this calmly, and that Stéphane probably isn’t doing this as part of some elaborate plot to sabotage him, and that everything will be fine as long as Johnny keeps his head down and works like he’s been doing.
Still, he’s prepared to sulk long and hard, and is more than ready to cause a scene if it’ll get Stéphane to turn around and get back on a plane to Switzerland. He spends the week before Stephane’s supposed to show up tense and snappish, dreading his arrival and the inevitable accompanying drama.
But shockingly enough, there isn’t any drama. The crew is there filming when Stéphane shows up with Viktor at the tail end of one of Johnny’s sessions. Johnny kind of wants to ignore him, but Stéphane just comes over to hug him endlessly and tell him how happy he is to see him. He apologizes profusely for encroaching on Johnny’s rink and Johnny’s coaches and says he’ll do everything he can not to disrupt Johnny’s training in any way blah blah blah sunshine sunshine sunshine, and he is just so happy to see him, did he say that already?
With anyone else Johnny would probably be like “bitch, please,” but it’s Stéphane and he’s always so fucking sincere that he’s just kind of not angry anymore, even though there’s a part of him that suspects it’s all part of one of Stéphane’s mind-control-via-charming-sweetness power plays. But he finally does start to believe all the bullshit he spilled to the press about being mature and rising above and whatever, and he’s maybe a tiny bit glad to see Stéphane, too.
-
In fact, having Stéphane there is kind of fun. True to his word, Stéphane trains later in the day so their ice-time mostly doesn’t overlap, and the only time they’re forced to interact is in the locker room.
It only takes a few days for Johnny to remember that he actually really does like the guy, and then it’s nice to have someone around who doesn’t roll their eyes when he begs out of going to a bar on Thursday night because he needs to go to bed early, and who’s willing to come over and make fun of Project Runway instead. It’s not like Stéphane has anything better to do, considering the only people he knows in New Jersey so far are Johnny, Paris, the Petrenkos, and Galina. On the few occasions they do get to go out, Paris loves Stéphane, because the only thing Paris loves more than dancing is making fun of other people’s dancing, and Stéphane is excellent for both of those.
And then it turns out Stéphane is a big fan of platonic spooning, and he totally pushes Galina’s buttons in new and exciting ways, and in the end it’s actually a pretty fucking great month and a half.
-
Johnny brings new costume sketches for Galina to approve during one of Stéphane’s sessions; he knows she’s going to hate them, but he’s hoping she’ll be distracted enough by yelling to maybe not completely veto the color scheme and neckline, both of which he loves. Mike wasn’t pleased, because Stéphane isn’t really comfortable with the idea of the show and asked that they not film when he’s there, so they’re missing this. But Johnny cares more about getting the costume he wants than he cares about Mike getting more footage of Galina bitching at him, so here he is.
“The neck, I do not know,” she says, frowning a little.
“I think it’s nice.”
“It is like girl’s neck, it is-“ but then there’s a loud ‘whump’ and Galina looks up at the ice. She makes a hilariously frustrated, growly kind of sound and oh god, Johnny fucking loves having Stéphane here. “NO CRY, STÉPHANE.” She smacks a hand against the wall for emphasis. “MORE JUMPING, LESS CRY.”
“He’ll be fine in a minute,” Johnny says. “He just does that sometimes.”
“He’s worse than you,” she mutters in Russian, and Johnny grins as she shoos him away, her issues with his costume happily forgotten. Stéphane still has his face in his hands; Viktor sighs heavily, and skates over to pull him up.
-
The thing is, even though he’s overflowing with maturity and good will, having Stéphane there does actually psych him out a little. Three weeks in he’s hanging around one day during Stéphane’s session because Stéphane whined until he agreed to drive him to the mall later, and his triple axel attempts are looking less like shit than they have been, and he’s landing more of his quads, and oh fucking shit.
The next morning he’s distracted and he keeps tripping out of everything, over and over and over. He two foots a double loop and that’s it, he just kind of falls over and gives up. He knows Carol is filming today and that he should get up and keep trying, but it all feels kind of hopeless right now.
“Up, Johnny!” and Galina skates over. “What is problem?”
“I suck today.” Galina just frowns, so he sighs heavily and says “Viktor is fixing Stéphane’s jumps. And he’s so much better than me on the ice, and I’ll never be able to catch up.”
She clucks at him. “Always so worried about other skaters. If Stéphane is best, he should win, agree?” She reaches out a hand, hauls him up and helps him brush the ice off his pants. “Work hard. Be the best. Only think of that.”
It’s maybe the best advice he’s ever gotten.
-
Paris slams into the apartment and throws his keys into the basket by the door with way more force than necessary; Stéphane’s hair brushes his face as he looks up and away from Tim Gunn’s concerned hand-fluttering to see what the commotion’s all about, and Johnny works hard not to notice how good he smells.
“Don’t even talk to me right now, Eurotrash.”
“Good night, Paris?” Johnny asks dryly.
He rounds the couch, glares down at them. “Maura asked me to work late again, so I like had to rush to get to the bar by eight, and then Max stood me up. Then we got kicked out because Callie was too drunk to stand.” He grimaces eloquently. “She threw up on my shoes.”
“Well, take them off right now!”
“I did, you bitch. Your precious carpet is safe.”
“That is a terrible night, Paris,” Stéphane says sympathically, and he rolls over a little to nudge Johnny farther back into the couch with his hip, holds out an arm. “Come here, we will make it better.”
“You’re both disgusting.” He comes over anyway, falls down on top of them and lets Stéphane crush him with hugs for a while, until Heidi says ‘Auf Wiedersehen’ and the credits roll and it’s time for heading home and for bed.
After Stéphane leaves, Paris rolls over. “You should just fuck him again, already.”
Johnny winces a little because he can’t say the thought hasn’t crossed his mind, covers it with an eye roll. “It’s not like that. We’re friends. And you know Galina has me off sex right now because I wasn’t ‘concentrating’ enough last month.”
Paris just snorts. “What about that guy last weekend? Don’t think I didn’t notice.”
“A moment of weakness.” He sighs.“Look, I’m serious. Plus, we’re competing and it would just be a world of bad. I don’t need the distraction.”
Part 2