Fic (Figure Skating RPF): French Twist
French Twist
Figure Skating RPF (Brian Joubert/ Tomáš Verner, et al, PG)
Author's Notes: 2008 words. For Leksa because someone has to read this. And Josiane Balasko because this is nowhere near as funny as her movie.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction and is not intended to reflect on the personalities or behaviours of the persons mentioned within. Pure fantasy
Nice is like a carnival compared to Moscow last year. Last year’s dinner was a wake. Brian left early and Fabian barely made an appearance. Florent said they were bringing him down and he left Nathalie and Tomas for the Russians. This year, if the French table is empty it’s because they’re so popular.
Florent is dancing up a storm. Brian is taking pictures with the Italians. Nathalie and Fabian have an interview or a presentation or something. Nathalie’s trying to explain it to Tomas but is getting constantly interrupted by Team France officials. She kisses Tomas on the cheek and tells him they’ll catch up later.
“How much later?” he asks.
“Tomorrow,” she says. “Go have some fun.” She looks across the room to where Florent is trying to make Brian dance. “Go save Brian.”
As it turns out, Brian doesn’t need saving. Florent is starring in a one-man dance show and he doesn’t really care if Brian joins him or not.
Tomas leads Brian away from the dance floor, takes two glasses of champagne from a waiter and hands one to Brian. They find a spot toward the front of the hall, where it’s quieter. The festivities look safer from a distance.
“Nathalie told me I should save you,” Tomas tells Brian.
“Why?”
“She’s busy,” Tomas says. “It’s her way of saying, I have the night off.”
“Good,” Brian says. He puts his drink down on the table in front of him. “Let’s go.”
“It’s early,” Tomas says. He has yet to finish a glass of champagne.
“It’s a beautiful night,” Brian says. “And people are already leaving.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere.”
Tomas knows what that means. He puts his drink down on the table, hard enough to spill champagne over the side, and follows Brian outside the banquet hall. Brian says he wants to go back to Tomas’s hotel room, but Tomas is sick of hotel rooms. And the weather in Nice has been so kind. He’s heard its’ going to rain tomorrow.
“Let’s go for a walk,” Tomas says.
“It’s France,” Brian says, like maybe Tomas hasn’t remembered. “I’ll be recognised.”
“We’re not going to make out,” Tomas says. “It’s just two friends - going for some vodka.”
“I have wine in my room,” Brian says.
“I want vodka.” It’s the end of a lousy season. Vodka seems appropriate.
“Okay,” Brian says, shaking his head. “But I need to change my clothes first.”
Brian goes back to his room while Tomas waits in the lobby. It seems like everyone is coming and going tonight. The Canadians are going to find a gay bar and they ask him if he wants to join them. He refuses politely and says, “I’m getting vodka,” like that explains something.
Outside, Pasquale is stubbing a cigarette out under his toe before opening the glass doors and stepping inside.
“It’s early,” Pasquale says to Tomas. “You should take Nathalie dancing.”
“She has interviews,” Tomas says. “I’m getting vodka.” His mouth opens and words fall out. He doesn’t even know how it happens.
Pasquale smiles and tells Tomas to have a good night.
Eventually Brian returns to save Tomas from further awkward conversations with other skaters’ coaches. He’s wearing a hoodie pulled down to his eyebrows, hiding his face. Brian has hang ups Tomas will never understand.
They head toward the Acropolis where the stores are. Tomas bought souvenir liqueurs in the shape of the Eiffel Tower from a store somewhere around here but all the streets look the same to him tonight. Brian isn’t a frequent visitor to Nice and he won’t go out in public, so he isn’t helping much. He has his hoodie zipped up to his chin and his eyes are on the ground. Overkill really. The French might recognise Brian but everyone in Nice is a tourist and most of them wouldn’t even know there was a skating competition in town.
Tomas decides to risk putting his hand on Brian’s back, and running it up toward his shoulder.
“What are you doing?” Brian says.
“No one cares,” Tomas says. “See?” He nods toward a group outside a bar talking excitedly in Italian. No one notices them passing. Gay couples too are unexciting in Nice.
Brian lets Tomas leave his hand on Brian’s shoulder, but he’s on edge. He keeps his head down and his hands in his pockets, like he’s trying to disappear.
They’re not far away from the hotel when they find a store with liqueurs displayed in the window, much like the one Tomas found earlier in the week. It might be the same one. Everything looks different in the dark. Tomas buys a bottle of vodka while Brian hovers around the doorway.
“Are you happy now?” Brian says, when they’re outside again.
“Very,” Tomas says. He uncaps the vodka and swigs a mouthful, offers it to Brian. “For courage,” he says.
Brian takes the bottle and drinks. “You think I have no courage?”
“I think you could use some more,” Tomas says.
Brian takes another drink from the bottle. “I’ll show you courage,” he says, and he backs Tomas against the wall next to the liquor store, and kisses him, hard and long.
He tastes like vodka, warm and vaguely sweet. Tomas relaxes into the kiss, contemplating the mysterious powers of vodka. Who knew?
“Tomas!”
Brian flies away from Tomas before Tomas has time to realise someone is calling his name. He looks up and sees Nathalie and Fabian. Nathalie looking angry. Fabian looking shocked.
“Crap,” Tomas says.
“You said it was a secret,” Nathalie says to Tomas.
“What are you doing here?” Tomas says. Like it matters.
“Looking for you,” Nathalie says.
“How did you find us?”
“Pasquale said you were looking for vodka,” Nathalie says. “You promised, Tomas.”
Tomas leans back against the wall. He did promise Nathalie he would keep Brian a secret. He promised them both. He’s made so many promises lately he can’t keep track.
“What’s going on?” Fabian says.
“This was part of the deal?” Brian asks Tomas. “No kissing in public? You tell me I have no courage but you promised Nathalie we wouldn’t kiss in public.”
“Deal?” Fabian says.
Nathalie gives Tomas a look. He made another promise: not to tell Fabian.
“It was my idea,” Brian tells Fabian. “I asked Nathalie to pretend to be Tomas’s girlfriend so no one would suspect Tomas and I - well, you understand now.”
“I don’t understand,” Fabian says. “In Beijing - the Grand Prix Final - I heard you.”
Nathalie’s eyes go wide. Tomas slumps harder against the wall.
“What did you hear?” Brian says.
“Them,” Fabian says. “Together. They were very loud.”
“You must have been mistaken, Fabian,” Nathalie says nervously. She’s a terrible liar.
“I don’t think so,” Fabian says. He looks meaningfully at Nathalie and even Tomas knows what that means. Fabian used to date Nathalie. He knows what he heard.
“You’re sleeping together?” Brian says. “You’re not pretending?”
“It was just once!” Tomas says. “Twice maybe…” Nathalie rolls her eyes.
“Now you can compare,” Fabian says to Nathalie. “Who is better? Tomas, me or Brian?”
“Fabian!” Nathalie says.
Tomas straightens up. “You slept with BRIAN?”
“A long time ago,” Nathalie says.
“When?” Tomas says. He doesn’t know where to look: Brian or Nathalie.
“Before Moscow,” Nathalie says. “The first time.”
Tomas puts his hand to his forehead. The night has turned out to be far more exciting than he expected. “What about Florent?” Tomas says. “Did you sleep with him too?”
Nathalie’s face freezes and Tomas’s stomach sinks. What was he thinking?
Nathalie turns around and marches back toward the hotel.
“Nathalie,” Fabian says, running after her.
Tomas looks at Brian, but Brian just turns and walks away into the night.
Tomas thinks that if he ever is stupid enough to do this again, he’s not promising anyone anything.
He walks back to the hotel at a crawling pace. Fans catch him in the parking lot near the arena, and he smiles for photographs, jokes about looking better in the dark. They tell him he’ll do better next year and he hopes that’s true for something.
It’s busy back at the hotel. The dinner is finished and there’s people coming and going, some with their bags packed, waiting for airport transport, some dressed to sample the Nice nightlife. He gets invited to a club and then a party on the beach. He’s tempted. Anywhere but here.
He thinks he sees a familiar silhouette seated on the steps outside the arena. He gets closer and it turns out to be Fabian looking mournfully down at the concrete.
“We could have timed it better,” Tomas says, approaching him. He holds out the bottle of vodka like a peace offering.
Fabian takes it and drinks. “What’s done is done,” he says, handing the bottle back to Tomas.
“It could have been done better.”
“We say that every year.”
“I would have told you,” Tomas says.
Fabian shrugs. “I know why she didn’t want you to.”
“You do?” Tomas sits down next to him, taking a swig of vodka in the process. He hands the bottle to back to Fabian.
“She wanted me to know we were finished,” Fabian says. “She wanted me to think she had moved on.”
It’s the truth. Nathalie never told him outright but Tomas knows. “Did she tell you that?”
“No,” Fabian says.
Tomas nods. They both know Nathalie. “I thought it would be temporary,” he says. “Just until after the Olympics.”
“But Brian wanted to wait,” Fabian says.
“Yes,” Tomas says. “How did you know?”
“It’s Brian.”
They sit on the steps in silence for a moment, watching the people mill about the restaurant below. Eventually Tomas spies Nathalie outside the restaurant, looking for someone. She sees them at the top of the stairs and comes toward them.
For a fleeting moment, he thinks she’s come for him. For a moment, he wants to believe she has. But it passes, and he doesn’t react when she reaches the stairs, and says, “Fabian?”
“I’ll let you guys talk,” Tomas says, and he gets up off the stairs, take the vodka from Fabian and leaves them be. He’ll talk to Nathalie tomorrow, tidy up all the loose ends of their pretend relationship and figure out where to go from there. For now it’s been a long and complicated night and he wants nothing more to do with it.
He goes back to his room, and finds Brian waiting beside his door.
“Are you lost?” Tomas says, pulling his key from his pocket.
“Do you still have vodka?” Brian says.
Tomas holds up the half-empty bottle. “It’s been a long night.” He gives the bottle to Brian, opens the door to his room and goes inside. Brian follows him.
“It was my fault,” Brian says. “I wanted you to pretend Nathalie was your girlfriend.”
“I shouldn’t have agreed,” Tomas says. He sits on the bed and holds his hand out so Brian can pass him the vodka. He takes another swig and wonders if he’s drunk yet. His head feels sort of heavy.
“You said no one would believe it,” Brian says, sitting down next to Tomas.
“Yeah,” Tomas says. He nearly believed it himself. Turns out, they’re all very good actors. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Nathalie.”
“Me too,” Brian says.
“You weren’t around much last season,” Tomas says. “It wasn’t a good time for us.’
“Let’s talk about it tomorrow,” Brian says. He leans back on the bed and tugs at Tomas’s elbow, pulling him down next to him. Tomas leans over Brian and puts the vodka on the night stand. And then he kisses Brian, one knee between his legs, the other on the mattress.
“So we’re okay?” Tomas says.
Brian shrugs. “Nathalie and Fabian and I - we’ve known each other a long time.”
“You’re close,” Tomas says. “I understand.”
“I don’t think you do.”
Tomas frowns. He’s missed something. “Brian,” he says eventually. “Did you sleep with Fabian?”
Brian looks at the ceiling.
End.
Figure Skating RPF (Brian Joubert/ Tomáš Verner, et al, PG)
Author's Notes: 2008 words. For Leksa because someone has to read this. And Josiane Balasko because this is nowhere near as funny as her movie.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction and is not intended to reflect on the personalities or behaviours of the persons mentioned within. Pure fantasy
Nice is like a carnival compared to Moscow last year. Last year’s dinner was a wake. Brian left early and Fabian barely made an appearance. Florent said they were bringing him down and he left Nathalie and Tomas for the Russians. This year, if the French table is empty it’s because they’re so popular.
Florent is dancing up a storm. Brian is taking pictures with the Italians. Nathalie and Fabian have an interview or a presentation or something. Nathalie’s trying to explain it to Tomas but is getting constantly interrupted by Team France officials. She kisses Tomas on the cheek and tells him they’ll catch up later.
“How much later?” he asks.
“Tomorrow,” she says. “Go have some fun.” She looks across the room to where Florent is trying to make Brian dance. “Go save Brian.”
As it turns out, Brian doesn’t need saving. Florent is starring in a one-man dance show and he doesn’t really care if Brian joins him or not.
Tomas leads Brian away from the dance floor, takes two glasses of champagne from a waiter and hands one to Brian. They find a spot toward the front of the hall, where it’s quieter. The festivities look safer from a distance.
“Nathalie told me I should save you,” Tomas tells Brian.
“Why?”
“She’s busy,” Tomas says. “It’s her way of saying, I have the night off.”
“Good,” Brian says. He puts his drink down on the table in front of him. “Let’s go.”
“It’s early,” Tomas says. He has yet to finish a glass of champagne.
“It’s a beautiful night,” Brian says. “And people are already leaving.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere.”
Tomas knows what that means. He puts his drink down on the table, hard enough to spill champagne over the side, and follows Brian outside the banquet hall. Brian says he wants to go back to Tomas’s hotel room, but Tomas is sick of hotel rooms. And the weather in Nice has been so kind. He’s heard its’ going to rain tomorrow.
“Let’s go for a walk,” Tomas says.
“It’s France,” Brian says, like maybe Tomas hasn’t remembered. “I’ll be recognised.”
“We’re not going to make out,” Tomas says. “It’s just two friends - going for some vodka.”
“I have wine in my room,” Brian says.
“I want vodka.” It’s the end of a lousy season. Vodka seems appropriate.
“Okay,” Brian says, shaking his head. “But I need to change my clothes first.”
Brian goes back to his room while Tomas waits in the lobby. It seems like everyone is coming and going tonight. The Canadians are going to find a gay bar and they ask him if he wants to join them. He refuses politely and says, “I’m getting vodka,” like that explains something.
Outside, Pasquale is stubbing a cigarette out under his toe before opening the glass doors and stepping inside.
“It’s early,” Pasquale says to Tomas. “You should take Nathalie dancing.”
“She has interviews,” Tomas says. “I’m getting vodka.” His mouth opens and words fall out. He doesn’t even know how it happens.
Pasquale smiles and tells Tomas to have a good night.
Eventually Brian returns to save Tomas from further awkward conversations with other skaters’ coaches. He’s wearing a hoodie pulled down to his eyebrows, hiding his face. Brian has hang ups Tomas will never understand.
They head toward the Acropolis where the stores are. Tomas bought souvenir liqueurs in the shape of the Eiffel Tower from a store somewhere around here but all the streets look the same to him tonight. Brian isn’t a frequent visitor to Nice and he won’t go out in public, so he isn’t helping much. He has his hoodie zipped up to his chin and his eyes are on the ground. Overkill really. The French might recognise Brian but everyone in Nice is a tourist and most of them wouldn’t even know there was a skating competition in town.
Tomas decides to risk putting his hand on Brian’s back, and running it up toward his shoulder.
“What are you doing?” Brian says.
“No one cares,” Tomas says. “See?” He nods toward a group outside a bar talking excitedly in Italian. No one notices them passing. Gay couples too are unexciting in Nice.
Brian lets Tomas leave his hand on Brian’s shoulder, but he’s on edge. He keeps his head down and his hands in his pockets, like he’s trying to disappear.
They’re not far away from the hotel when they find a store with liqueurs displayed in the window, much like the one Tomas found earlier in the week. It might be the same one. Everything looks different in the dark. Tomas buys a bottle of vodka while Brian hovers around the doorway.
“Are you happy now?” Brian says, when they’re outside again.
“Very,” Tomas says. He uncaps the vodka and swigs a mouthful, offers it to Brian. “For courage,” he says.
Brian takes the bottle and drinks. “You think I have no courage?”
“I think you could use some more,” Tomas says.
Brian takes another drink from the bottle. “I’ll show you courage,” he says, and he backs Tomas against the wall next to the liquor store, and kisses him, hard and long.
He tastes like vodka, warm and vaguely sweet. Tomas relaxes into the kiss, contemplating the mysterious powers of vodka. Who knew?
“Tomas!”
Brian flies away from Tomas before Tomas has time to realise someone is calling his name. He looks up and sees Nathalie and Fabian. Nathalie looking angry. Fabian looking shocked.
“Crap,” Tomas says.
“You said it was a secret,” Nathalie says to Tomas.
“What are you doing here?” Tomas says. Like it matters.
“Looking for you,” Nathalie says.
“How did you find us?”
“Pasquale said you were looking for vodka,” Nathalie says. “You promised, Tomas.”
Tomas leans back against the wall. He did promise Nathalie he would keep Brian a secret. He promised them both. He’s made so many promises lately he can’t keep track.
“What’s going on?” Fabian says.
“This was part of the deal?” Brian asks Tomas. “No kissing in public? You tell me I have no courage but you promised Nathalie we wouldn’t kiss in public.”
“Deal?” Fabian says.
Nathalie gives Tomas a look. He made another promise: not to tell Fabian.
“It was my idea,” Brian tells Fabian. “I asked Nathalie to pretend to be Tomas’s girlfriend so no one would suspect Tomas and I - well, you understand now.”
“I don’t understand,” Fabian says. “In Beijing - the Grand Prix Final - I heard you.”
Nathalie’s eyes go wide. Tomas slumps harder against the wall.
“What did you hear?” Brian says.
“Them,” Fabian says. “Together. They were very loud.”
“You must have been mistaken, Fabian,” Nathalie says nervously. She’s a terrible liar.
“I don’t think so,” Fabian says. He looks meaningfully at Nathalie and even Tomas knows what that means. Fabian used to date Nathalie. He knows what he heard.
“You’re sleeping together?” Brian says. “You’re not pretending?”
“It was just once!” Tomas says. “Twice maybe…” Nathalie rolls her eyes.
“Now you can compare,” Fabian says to Nathalie. “Who is better? Tomas, me or Brian?”
“Fabian!” Nathalie says.
Tomas straightens up. “You slept with BRIAN?”
“A long time ago,” Nathalie says.
“When?” Tomas says. He doesn’t know where to look: Brian or Nathalie.
“Before Moscow,” Nathalie says. “The first time.”
Tomas puts his hand to his forehead. The night has turned out to be far more exciting than he expected. “What about Florent?” Tomas says. “Did you sleep with him too?”
Nathalie’s face freezes and Tomas’s stomach sinks. What was he thinking?
Nathalie turns around and marches back toward the hotel.
“Nathalie,” Fabian says, running after her.
Tomas looks at Brian, but Brian just turns and walks away into the night.
Tomas thinks that if he ever is stupid enough to do this again, he’s not promising anyone anything.
He walks back to the hotel at a crawling pace. Fans catch him in the parking lot near the arena, and he smiles for photographs, jokes about looking better in the dark. They tell him he’ll do better next year and he hopes that’s true for something.
It’s busy back at the hotel. The dinner is finished and there’s people coming and going, some with their bags packed, waiting for airport transport, some dressed to sample the Nice nightlife. He gets invited to a club and then a party on the beach. He’s tempted. Anywhere but here.
He thinks he sees a familiar silhouette seated on the steps outside the arena. He gets closer and it turns out to be Fabian looking mournfully down at the concrete.
“We could have timed it better,” Tomas says, approaching him. He holds out the bottle of vodka like a peace offering.
Fabian takes it and drinks. “What’s done is done,” he says, handing the bottle back to Tomas.
“It could have been done better.”
“We say that every year.”
“I would have told you,” Tomas says.
Fabian shrugs. “I know why she didn’t want you to.”
“You do?” Tomas sits down next to him, taking a swig of vodka in the process. He hands the bottle to back to Fabian.
“She wanted me to know we were finished,” Fabian says. “She wanted me to think she had moved on.”
It’s the truth. Nathalie never told him outright but Tomas knows. “Did she tell you that?”
“No,” Fabian says.
Tomas nods. They both know Nathalie. “I thought it would be temporary,” he says. “Just until after the Olympics.”
“But Brian wanted to wait,” Fabian says.
“Yes,” Tomas says. “How did you know?”
“It’s Brian.”
They sit on the steps in silence for a moment, watching the people mill about the restaurant below. Eventually Tomas spies Nathalie outside the restaurant, looking for someone. She sees them at the top of the stairs and comes toward them.
For a fleeting moment, he thinks she’s come for him. For a moment, he wants to believe she has. But it passes, and he doesn’t react when she reaches the stairs, and says, “Fabian?”
“I’ll let you guys talk,” Tomas says, and he gets up off the stairs, take the vodka from Fabian and leaves them be. He’ll talk to Nathalie tomorrow, tidy up all the loose ends of their pretend relationship and figure out where to go from there. For now it’s been a long and complicated night and he wants nothing more to do with it.
He goes back to his room, and finds Brian waiting beside his door.
“Are you lost?” Tomas says, pulling his key from his pocket.
“Do you still have vodka?” Brian says.
Tomas holds up the half-empty bottle. “It’s been a long night.” He gives the bottle to Brian, opens the door to his room and goes inside. Brian follows him.
“It was my fault,” Brian says. “I wanted you to pretend Nathalie was your girlfriend.”
“I shouldn’t have agreed,” Tomas says. He sits on the bed and holds his hand out so Brian can pass him the vodka. He takes another swig and wonders if he’s drunk yet. His head feels sort of heavy.
“You said no one would believe it,” Brian says, sitting down next to Tomas.
“Yeah,” Tomas says. He nearly believed it himself. Turns out, they’re all very good actors. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Nathalie.”
“Me too,” Brian says.
“You weren’t around much last season,” Tomas says. “It wasn’t a good time for us.’
“Let’s talk about it tomorrow,” Brian says. He leans back on the bed and tugs at Tomas’s elbow, pulling him down next to him. Tomas leans over Brian and puts the vodka on the night stand. And then he kisses Brian, one knee between his legs, the other on the mattress.
“So we’re okay?” Tomas says.
Brian shrugs. “Nathalie and Fabian and I - we’ve known each other a long time.”
“You’re close,” Tomas says. “I understand.”
“I don’t think you do.”
Tomas frowns. He’s missed something. “Brian,” he says eventually. “Did you sleep with Fabian?”
Brian looks at the ceiling.
End.