Alas not new material
Just moving over Nurse Johnny/When Something's Broke over to my journal and got too big for the last post.
( Part One )
( Part Two )
Stéphane arrives at seven o' clock carrying two paper sacks with more food than four people could eat let alone two figure skaters. Johnny sighs and flicks his fingers toward the kitchen as if Stéphane didn't already know the way. In relatively short time, Stéphane prepares lamb chops, rubbed in herb and garlic and broiled, and summer vegetables lightly sauteed. He hums under his breath as he cooks, just one song over and over, leaving off for while he asks Johnny for salt and but always picking it up again when he goes back to stirring.
"It's an old Portuguese song my grandmother likes," he says when Johnny asks. "She always sings it when she cooks. It's like a magic spell that makes her food taste better."
He sings the words for Johnny, his voice is high and soft, but confident, too, with good pitch. Johnny wants to roll his eyes, but instead he finds himself looking shyly down while being serenaded.
Stéphane loses track of the words in the second verse and laughs. "It's about a man who falls in love with the most beautiful girl in his town. He offers her everything he has, makes her jewelry from shells. These things are made with love, but she scorns him for a rich man that brings her gold and rubies. The lover goes away to earn money and win her affection, but the ship is lost at sea. When girl hears this news the heart she didn't know she had breaks. She takes his gifts and wears them around her neck at last. Then she takes the rich man's gold and puts it into a sack and walks into the sea, using it as a weight to drown her."
"A happy little lullaby then," Johnny says, twirling the discarded top to a red pepper by the stem between his thumb and forefinger.
"True," Stéphane shrugs. "But she always sang it. As long as I can remember. It was a long time before I realized the words were very sad. I still love it though. It's not a happy song, but it makes me think of my family and that is not sad."
Stéphane immediately proves this statement false by remembering that his family is now far away. A shadow crosses his face, and he turns toward the stove though there isn't anything that needs poking at or flipping. Johnny isn't sure of what to say, but in a sudden epiphany he realizes that it's Stéphane and it's not like it isn't easy to guess what might make him feel better.
"Come here," he says. Stéphane looks up from the stove and sees Johnny pat his lap expectantly. He wipes his hands on a towel and steps outside the kitchen, Johnny swivels his stool around to face him. He takes Stéphane's hips in his hands, pulling him into the space between his knees, and stretches his neck up to brush their mouths together.
Stéphane lips quirk but don't yet spread into a smile. "You don't have to kiss me because I am making you dinner."
"Well I didn't kiss you because you're making me dinner," Johnny says, pushing his hands up Stéphane's chest, and linking them around his neck. "I kissed you because you're so melodramatic a sad song that supposedly makes you happy still makes you sad."
Stéphane does smile then, shoving Johnny playfully as he breaks away to go back into the kitchen. "I think it is ready."
When Stéphane sets his mind to something there is usually only two possible outcomes, an utter meltdown or utter perfection. Thankfully this time it is the latter, dinner is delicious. The cleaner their plates become the less they speak. Johnny's thoughts keep coming against the roadblock of what he has been afraid to ask since Stéphane admitted he thought he may not be able to continue skating. The night has been so pleasant, so devoid of skating for once, almost like they are normal people. He should leave it be.
But when there is no more food to keep his mouth occupied, and when Stéphane looks up at Johnny and sighs as if to say, "voila," Johnny can't keep hiding behind silence.
"That was very good." It's not what he wants to say, but he's starting small.
Stéphane pretends to be humble, ducking his head shyly. "I'm glad you liked it. It is better with red wine, but-" he spreads his hands.
Johnny clears his throat. It's true that Galina would prefer he not have any wine but Johnny's philosophy on that is usually what Galina doesn't know about the occasional glass of wine or champagne won't hurt her. But what Johnny knows is that each year a single glass of champagne at the world championships gala is about all it takes for him to end up in Stéphane's lap. Stéphane knows this, too, and Johnny has to wave away a blush at his knowing smirk.
Once the blush is gone, Johnny finally works up the courage to ask, "Why did you come here, Stéphane?"
"Tonight?"
Johnny shakes his head, "To train. You never really said."
He tries to catch Stéphane's eye, but Stéphane won't let him, looking down resolutely at his hands. When he speaks, it's to his cupped palms as if he means to catch the words in them. "Peter seemed to think I could not skate this season. I thought Viktor and Galina might give me different answer."
"Did they?"
Stéphane shrugs, "They said they would try."
"What are they saying now?" Johnny asks gently, it's not an accusation, but there is so much being left unsaid.
Stéphane looks Johnny in the eye at last. "That they will try as long as I want to try."
"Do you still want- no." Johnny cuts himself off. He knows that Stéphane still wants to try. Things aren't about want anymore. "Are you going to keep trying?"
Stéphane runs his fingers roughly through his hair, unhappy. "I never really know. One minute, yes, and then... no. There is still Vancouver."
Johnny nods. Fucking Olympics. 2010 is both too soon and too far off. Sometimes the dream of how it could be leaves Johnny breathless, makes him hurt with how badly he wants it. Other times Johnny fights so hard against the hope that keeps him tethered to a life that is nothing but skating and sacrifice. If he could just be free of it, if he could just say "Fuck the Olympics," and actually mean it, but he can't.
"Another two seasons in pain, what would it matter after the past three? But..." Stéphane trails off but Johnny understands, willingness is no longer the primary factor in this equation. "It's very ugly to think of leaving this way. Never doing any better."
As he listens Johnny realizes that his hands are clenching, that he feels just as tense and unhappy as if Stéphane's problems were now his own. It scares the shit out of him. His fight or flight survival instinct tells him he should run. It tells him he's got his own season barreling down on him, his own issues to sort out before he competes, he wants to stop this, push Stéphane away again but Johnny forces himself to stay still. He's already tried that; it didn't work. He can turn away and put as much distance between himself and Stéphane as possible, but until he knows Stéphane will be all right it's pointless. Somehow his happiness is now tangled up with Stéphane's. It's quite possibly the most inconvenient thing he's ever done to himself.
At least he could have chosen someone with a more even keel than a man who currently looks like someone ran over his dog and is saying ridiculous things like, "I do not think I will like being forgotten."
"Forgotten? Really, Stéphane?"
Stéphane looks mortally offended by Johnny's incredulity. "It is not funny, you know it happens."
"To some people maybe. But not you."
"You don't know that." Stéphane stands up, grabbing his plate and reaching for Johnny's like an upset housewife that wants to escape into the kitchen and cry over the sink.
Johnny catches his wrist to stop him, "I do."
Stéphane tugs his wrist free, but he leaves the plates and sits back down. "You don't," he insists again, crossing his arms over his chest.
Johnny makes a frustrated noise, "Fine, some people will forget you. But not everyone. I won't. Plenty of other people won't."
A look of surprise crosses Stéphane's face, followed immediately by something much softer. Johnny realizes what he said could be taken as a statement of simple fact or as a promise, and that Stéphane's romantic nature is strongly inclined to choose promise. He would back pedal, but Stéphane is reaching out to him and saying, "Come here."
Momentarily Johnny loses track of the long list of things he would usually do, or thinks he should do, or is afraid of doing. He's tired and letting Stéphane pull him into a kiss means he can shut his eyes. He's aching and Stéphane's soft skin is hot to the touch, body like a furnace when he presses Johnny against him. He's overwhelmed and Stéphane's surprisingly strong hands are cupping the small of his back, the nape of his neck, shrinking the world down to something he can manage. There are things Johnny wants to, and believes he should do, but he needs this.
Stéphane kisses him, sweet and soft, until Johnny is so pliant he allows himself to be led away from dishes that have not been cleared away, and over to his own couch. He finds himself wedged into the corner of the cushions, Stéphane above him, not exactly heavy, but pleasantly solid. For a moment Stéphane only leans over him, lips spread widely across a fond, slightly dopey smile. Johnny can't look him in the eye, can't quite feel worthy of being the cause of such a smile, but he tells himself to keep breathing and combs his fingers through Stéphane's hair, wondering what magic potion or witch's brew he uses to make it so soft.
Stéphane slips down far enough to touch his smile to Johnny's mouth, lips thin and hard until he purses them into a proper kiss and then it's perfect. Since the first time Stéphane's appetite for kissing has always been wonderfully insatiable. His hands are never completely still, but when other guys might break away as soon as it's convenient, Stéphane will stretch and strain to keep their mouths pressed together. Long, deep, wet kisses that have a beginning, middle, and end and Johnny gladly loses himself for a while.
It's a long time before Johnny comes up for air, a long time before he even remember that he needs or wants air. It's like he forgets that a kiss can be followed by anything other than another kiss, lips automatically seeking the next kiss just as soon the last one ends. Johnny touches the lovely, strong column of Stéphane's neck, and lightly traces the cords of his throat. He reminds himself about the firm curves of Stéphane's ass and how surprisingly slender his waist is. They're both hard and they both know that they are, and for a while Stéphane's hands move in long heavy strokes down Johnny's side and up his thighs, patient.
Eventually though, Stéphane breaks away to whisper Johnny's name urgently into his neck.
Johnny gasps for the air he'd been so sure he could live without. "Oh, um-" Stéphane's fingers are hooked into the waist of his pants. "Wait. Wait."
Stéphane makes an unhappy noise, curling his fingers tighter into the fabric. "Johnny," he says again.
Johnny pushes his palms lightly against Stéphane's shoulders. "We can't. I can't. Not until we know what you're going to do."
"C'est chantage," Stéphane moans. He keeps his face pressed against Johnny's neck, but his hands leave Johnny's waist.
"What?" Johnny says, still a little breathless. "I don't know that word."
Stéphane finally sits up, cold air rushes between them as he moves away, and it's all Johnny can do not to reach out and pull him back. "I don't know it in English. It is... not fair." His pout is thankfully too exaggerated to be serious. "You're trying to trick me into not competing."
"I promised Galina. She said you need everything to skate. Even your balls." Stéphane frowns like he'd much rather not have known that Galina has a vested interest in the state of that particular part of his anatomy. "If you're still going to-"
"Okay, yes." Stéphane adjusts himself carefully and tugs at the legs of his jeans. "I'm not sure I'll have them much longer if we do this again."
"I just think it'd be better if we knew," Johnny admits. It's not really about Galina anymore. "That way there won't be any surprises."
Stéphane smiles, "I think with you and I there will always be surprises."
Johnny is grateful for the abandoned dishes because it gives him something practical to think about. With one eye on the clock he keeps Stéphane at bay with soap suds and counters that need wiping down, even sweeping though Stéphane had been careful not to let a single thing on the floor.
When at last there's nothing else he can even think about cleaning, Stéphane starts to reach for him, opening his mouth to say something. Johnny smiles, but it's already too late. It's 10:30 and Paris bursts through the front door as if he hopes to find them fucking on the living room floor.
Stéphane sighs and rests his hands on his hips, "Ah. Hello, Paris."
Paris looks over and realizes Johnny and Stéphane are fully clothed and standing two feet apart in the kitchen. He rolls his eyes in exasperation.
"You guys are actually hopeless."
New material from the 10/27/2010 update.
( Part One )
( Part Two )
Stéphane arrives at seven o' clock carrying two paper sacks with more food than four people could eat let alone two figure skaters. Johnny sighs and flicks his fingers toward the kitchen as if Stéphane didn't already know the way. In relatively short time, Stéphane prepares lamb chops, rubbed in herb and garlic and broiled, and summer vegetables lightly sauteed. He hums under his breath as he cooks, just one song over and over, leaving off for while he asks Johnny for salt and but always picking it up again when he goes back to stirring.
"It's an old Portuguese song my grandmother likes," he says when Johnny asks. "She always sings it when she cooks. It's like a magic spell that makes her food taste better."
He sings the words for Johnny, his voice is high and soft, but confident, too, with good pitch. Johnny wants to roll his eyes, but instead he finds himself looking shyly down while being serenaded.
Stéphane loses track of the words in the second verse and laughs. "It's about a man who falls in love with the most beautiful girl in his town. He offers her everything he has, makes her jewelry from shells. These things are made with love, but she scorns him for a rich man that brings her gold and rubies. The lover goes away to earn money and win her affection, but the ship is lost at sea. When girl hears this news the heart she didn't know she had breaks. She takes his gifts and wears them around her neck at last. Then she takes the rich man's gold and puts it into a sack and walks into the sea, using it as a weight to drown her."
"A happy little lullaby then," Johnny says, twirling the discarded top to a red pepper by the stem between his thumb and forefinger.
"True," Stéphane shrugs. "But she always sang it. As long as I can remember. It was a long time before I realized the words were very sad. I still love it though. It's not a happy song, but it makes me think of my family and that is not sad."
Stéphane immediately proves this statement false by remembering that his family is now far away. A shadow crosses his face, and he turns toward the stove though there isn't anything that needs poking at or flipping. Johnny isn't sure of what to say, but in a sudden epiphany he realizes that it's Stéphane and it's not like it isn't easy to guess what might make him feel better.
"Come here," he says. Stéphane looks up from the stove and sees Johnny pat his lap expectantly. He wipes his hands on a towel and steps outside the kitchen, Johnny swivels his stool around to face him. He takes Stéphane's hips in his hands, pulling him into the space between his knees, and stretches his neck up to brush their mouths together.
Stéphane lips quirk but don't yet spread into a smile. "You don't have to kiss me because I am making you dinner."
"Well I didn't kiss you because you're making me dinner," Johnny says, pushing his hands up Stéphane's chest, and linking them around his neck. "I kissed you because you're so melodramatic a sad song that supposedly makes you happy still makes you sad."
Stéphane does smile then, shoving Johnny playfully as he breaks away to go back into the kitchen. "I think it is ready."
When Stéphane sets his mind to something there is usually only two possible outcomes, an utter meltdown or utter perfection. Thankfully this time it is the latter, dinner is delicious. The cleaner their plates become the less they speak. Johnny's thoughts keep coming against the roadblock of what he has been afraid to ask since Stéphane admitted he thought he may not be able to continue skating. The night has been so pleasant, so devoid of skating for once, almost like they are normal people. He should leave it be.
But when there is no more food to keep his mouth occupied, and when Stéphane looks up at Johnny and sighs as if to say, "voila," Johnny can't keep hiding behind silence.
"That was very good." It's not what he wants to say, but he's starting small.
Stéphane pretends to be humble, ducking his head shyly. "I'm glad you liked it. It is better with red wine, but-" he spreads his hands.
Johnny clears his throat. It's true that Galina would prefer he not have any wine but Johnny's philosophy on that is usually what Galina doesn't know about the occasional glass of wine or champagne won't hurt her. But what Johnny knows is that each year a single glass of champagne at the world championships gala is about all it takes for him to end up in Stéphane's lap. Stéphane knows this, too, and Johnny has to wave away a blush at his knowing smirk.
Once the blush is gone, Johnny finally works up the courage to ask, "Why did you come here, Stéphane?"
"Tonight?"
Johnny shakes his head, "To train. You never really said."
He tries to catch Stéphane's eye, but Stéphane won't let him, looking down resolutely at his hands. When he speaks, it's to his cupped palms as if he means to catch the words in them. "Peter seemed to think I could not skate this season. I thought Viktor and Galina might give me different answer."
"Did they?"
Stéphane shrugs, "They said they would try."
"What are they saying now?" Johnny asks gently, it's not an accusation, but there is so much being left unsaid.
Stéphane looks Johnny in the eye at last. "That they will try as long as I want to try."
"Do you still want- no." Johnny cuts himself off. He knows that Stéphane still wants to try. Things aren't about want anymore. "Are you going to keep trying?"
Stéphane runs his fingers roughly through his hair, unhappy. "I never really know. One minute, yes, and then... no. There is still Vancouver."
Johnny nods. Fucking Olympics. 2010 is both too soon and too far off. Sometimes the dream of how it could be leaves Johnny breathless, makes him hurt with how badly he wants it. Other times Johnny fights so hard against the hope that keeps him tethered to a life that is nothing but skating and sacrifice. If he could just be free of it, if he could just say "Fuck the Olympics," and actually mean it, but he can't.
"Another two seasons in pain, what would it matter after the past three? But..." Stéphane trails off but Johnny understands, willingness is no longer the primary factor in this equation. "It's very ugly to think of leaving this way. Never doing any better."
As he listens Johnny realizes that his hands are clenching, that he feels just as tense and unhappy as if Stéphane's problems were now his own. It scares the shit out of him. His fight or flight survival instinct tells him he should run. It tells him he's got his own season barreling down on him, his own issues to sort out before he competes, he wants to stop this, push Stéphane away again but Johnny forces himself to stay still. He's already tried that; it didn't work. He can turn away and put as much distance between himself and Stéphane as possible, but until he knows Stéphane will be all right it's pointless. Somehow his happiness is now tangled up with Stéphane's. It's quite possibly the most inconvenient thing he's ever done to himself.
At least he could have chosen someone with a more even keel than a man who currently looks like someone ran over his dog and is saying ridiculous things like, "I do not think I will like being forgotten."
"Forgotten? Really, Stéphane?"
Stéphane looks mortally offended by Johnny's incredulity. "It is not funny, you know it happens."
"To some people maybe. But not you."
"You don't know that." Stéphane stands up, grabbing his plate and reaching for Johnny's like an upset housewife that wants to escape into the kitchen and cry over the sink.
Johnny catches his wrist to stop him, "I do."
Stéphane tugs his wrist free, but he leaves the plates and sits back down. "You don't," he insists again, crossing his arms over his chest.
Johnny makes a frustrated noise, "Fine, some people will forget you. But not everyone. I won't. Plenty of other people won't."
A look of surprise crosses Stéphane's face, followed immediately by something much softer. Johnny realizes what he said could be taken as a statement of simple fact or as a promise, and that Stéphane's romantic nature is strongly inclined to choose promise. He would back pedal, but Stéphane is reaching out to him and saying, "Come here."
Momentarily Johnny loses track of the long list of things he would usually do, or thinks he should do, or is afraid of doing. He's tired and letting Stéphane pull him into a kiss means he can shut his eyes. He's aching and Stéphane's soft skin is hot to the touch, body like a furnace when he presses Johnny against him. He's overwhelmed and Stéphane's surprisingly strong hands are cupping the small of his back, the nape of his neck, shrinking the world down to something he can manage. There are things Johnny wants to, and believes he should do, but he needs this.
Stéphane kisses him, sweet and soft, until Johnny is so pliant he allows himself to be led away from dishes that have not been cleared away, and over to his own couch. He finds himself wedged into the corner of the cushions, Stéphane above him, not exactly heavy, but pleasantly solid. For a moment Stéphane only leans over him, lips spread widely across a fond, slightly dopey smile. Johnny can't look him in the eye, can't quite feel worthy of being the cause of such a smile, but he tells himself to keep breathing and combs his fingers through Stéphane's hair, wondering what magic potion or witch's brew he uses to make it so soft.
Stéphane slips down far enough to touch his smile to Johnny's mouth, lips thin and hard until he purses them into a proper kiss and then it's perfect. Since the first time Stéphane's appetite for kissing has always been wonderfully insatiable. His hands are never completely still, but when other guys might break away as soon as it's convenient, Stéphane will stretch and strain to keep their mouths pressed together. Long, deep, wet kisses that have a beginning, middle, and end and Johnny gladly loses himself for a while.
It's a long time before Johnny comes up for air, a long time before he even remember that he needs or wants air. It's like he forgets that a kiss can be followed by anything other than another kiss, lips automatically seeking the next kiss just as soon the last one ends. Johnny touches the lovely, strong column of Stéphane's neck, and lightly traces the cords of his throat. He reminds himself about the firm curves of Stéphane's ass and how surprisingly slender his waist is. They're both hard and they both know that they are, and for a while Stéphane's hands move in long heavy strokes down Johnny's side and up his thighs, patient.
Eventually though, Stéphane breaks away to whisper Johnny's name urgently into his neck.
Johnny gasps for the air he'd been so sure he could live without. "Oh, um-" Stéphane's fingers are hooked into the waist of his pants. "Wait. Wait."
Stéphane makes an unhappy noise, curling his fingers tighter into the fabric. "Johnny," he says again.
Johnny pushes his palms lightly against Stéphane's shoulders. "We can't. I can't. Not until we know what you're going to do."
"C'est chantage," Stéphane moans. He keeps his face pressed against Johnny's neck, but his hands leave Johnny's waist.
"What?" Johnny says, still a little breathless. "I don't know that word."
Stéphane finally sits up, cold air rushes between them as he moves away, and it's all Johnny can do not to reach out and pull him back. "I don't know it in English. It is... not fair." His pout is thankfully too exaggerated to be serious. "You're trying to trick me into not competing."
"I promised Galina. She said you need everything to skate. Even your balls." Stéphane frowns like he'd much rather not have known that Galina has a vested interest in the state of that particular part of his anatomy. "If you're still going to-"
"Okay, yes." Stéphane adjusts himself carefully and tugs at the legs of his jeans. "I'm not sure I'll have them much longer if we do this again."
"I just think it'd be better if we knew," Johnny admits. It's not really about Galina anymore. "That way there won't be any surprises."
Stéphane smiles, "I think with you and I there will always be surprises."
Johnny is grateful for the abandoned dishes because it gives him something practical to think about. With one eye on the clock he keeps Stéphane at bay with soap suds and counters that need wiping down, even sweeping though Stéphane had been careful not to let a single thing on the floor.
When at last there's nothing else he can even think about cleaning, Stéphane starts to reach for him, opening his mouth to say something. Johnny smiles, but it's already too late. It's 10:30 and Paris bursts through the front door as if he hopes to find them fucking on the living room floor.
Stéphane sighs and rests his hands on his hips, "Ah. Hello, Paris."
Paris looks over and realizes Johnny and Stéphane are fully clothed and standing two feet apart in the kitchen. He rolls his eyes in exasperation.
"You guys are actually hopeless."
New material from the 10/27/2010 update.