Fic: Acceptance is a Four-Letter Word (part 6, Figure Skating RPS)
Title: Acceptance is a Four-Letter Word (part 6)
Author: thefrogg
Beta: none for this part
Disclaimer: Never happened, never will, and I don't own these people. Although sometimes I wish I did.
Warnings: weirdness (as if that's unexpected with me as an author), angst
Summary: Johnny Weir refused to let go of his Olympic dreams, despite age and injury. Five months before the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, he stopped talking to anyone outside his coach. Now he's in Sochi early, and the rest of his generation of skaters are determined to find out why the last of them still competing has gone missing in spirit, if not in body.
Author's Note: "//Speech in slashes is Japanese.//"
Johnny holds the final pose for a breath, another, then climbs shakily to his feet, hands covering his mouth and nose. His cheeks glitter under the lights with tears of joy, tears of triumph - it hadn’t been a clean skate.
It had been perfect.
The crowd roars, chanting his name, I love you, Johnny! in a dozen different languages. No one bothers to wait for the scores, no one cares. It’s all too obvious that Johnny has the gold, the scores are only a formality. He is the last to skate, took first in the short, and now there is no one to skate after him and maybe beat his scores.
This isn’t Vancouver.
Johnny breaks out of his little happy nervous breakdown in the rink and skates around in circles, taking his bows, accepting huge arrangements of flowers, roses and lilies, daisies and carnations, a stuffed white swan tucked under his arm as he makes it back to where Viktor and Galina wait for him by the boards with his skate guards.
The usual end-of-skate activity, hugs from his coaches, praise and congratulations (in the, for Johnny, ubiquitous Russian), slipping on the skate guards with fingers that are starting to shake with reaction. Then the trek to the Kiss and Cry, and Johnny’s sitting on the bench sandwiched between Viktor and Galina, tossing out his thank yous in a tangle of French and Russian, stopping to guzzle half a bottle of water before Galina takes it away with a gentle scold.
The announcer starts reporting Johnny’s scores, voice strangely monotone, and then the crowd goes eerily quiet. There’s a soft, disbelieving, “That can’t be right-“ before the speakers go silent, but the damage is done.
Down in the Kiss and Cry, Johnny’s gone from exhausted, giddy and gleeful to sucker-punched, pain naked in his eyes as he shakes his head no. Viktor folds himself around, blocking the camera’s view of Johnny as they both stand, and Galina’s face is a mask of Russian indignant fury, one hand tight on Johnny’s shoulder. Johnny says something, something that has to be about leaving, and then they’re moving, all three of them up and pushing past the shocked gawkers, Viktor stripping out of his jacket and wrapping it over Johnny’s shoulders, high enough to pull it forward to cover his face.
The crowd is still hushed, murmurs of stunned disbelief rising in a growing swell, changing to anger at the unjust, but Johnny’s gone.
A touch at the elbow draws attention away from the ice, from the Kiss and Cry, from the paralyzed skaters and coaches and parents and friends left in Johnny’s wake.
“//Will you ask this time?//”
The question is stiff with irony, and gets a sharp head shake in answer. “//No. Do it. I will have my own-//” Whatever else would have been said is lost as someone else clears his throat.
One of the security guards, expression full of fear and hope both, stands just out of reach, nervously fingering his baton. His eyes flicker to the rink, and he cannot be blamed - the crowd does not have its king here to calm them, as it had in Vancouver.
This is not Vancouver.
It had been disappointment and insult in Vancouver; here in Paris it was disbelief and anger, swiftly turning to rage and the potential for violence.
This is not Vancouver, and this isn’t his gold.
“Take me there, I will speak to crowd.”
The security guard nods, relieved, but it is already too late, the tension rising, the crowd is on the move-
Daisuke wakes up in a cold sweat, trembling, and smacks the wall in his flailing attempt to switch the light on. The bedroom shifts from blue and grey to black with a small pool of gold, not unlike the medal with its accompanying ribbon; the metal lies cold and accusing in his palm as he rubs the other over his face.
The dream is too close, too vivid, leaving him caught between it and memory-
Johnny, standing stone-faced next to him on the podium through the ceremony. Then, as the anthems die away and the camera pans out, turning to him, pressing a kiss to one cheek and whispering “Spasiba”, the other cheek, “merci.” He thinks it will stop there, but Johnny wraps an arm around his shoulders and pulls him close, so their foreheads touch, and says quietly so the camera can’t pick up.
“You honored me then, and I honor you now. I can’t accept this, not from them. Not now. I’m sorry. It’s not you, any of you.”
He can only stand there, stunned, feeling the odd scraping as the ribbon from Johnny’s gold slips over his head, down his neck to rest alongside his own, the two medals clinking together on his chest, a third kiss pressed to his forehead with a whispered thank you in Japanese, and then…
And then all of them, Daisuke and Florent and Patrick and the crowd, the media, the ISU bastards, all of them watch as Johnny turns away from the cameras, steps off the back of the podium and leaves the rink without a backward glance.
--and leaves Daisuke with his heart in his throat, swallowing hard, fist clenched around the medal that should have been Johnny’s.
The medal that was Johnny’s, but left in his keeping.
“Daisuke,” his wife whispers, running a hand down his arm as she leans into him, her body molding itself to his. “//Again?//”
Daisuke can only nod.
“//There are flights to Sochi every morning. There is room. They would understand,//” she says; she, more than almost anyone, knows the strange bond that has twined between her husband and Johnny over the last three-plus years, one of tentative friendship, still skittish, but seeming unbreakable despite the competition, the barriers of language and distance and time.
“//He is the last; I am the first. I cannot...//” Daisuke cannot find words, and finds any possible answer stolen as she straddles him, gently prying the medal out of his fingers.
She sets it back on the bedside table. “//Go, Daisuke. Go to him, you are the one he turned to when he could not speak to the others. I will talk to your coach.//”
“//I need to give that-//“
She cuts him off with a soft kiss. “//You will, when he is ready. When he does not have to answer to the ISU. You will give him his gold, as he deserves.//” Another kiss. “//Sleep now.//”
Daisuke doesn’t think he can, or will, but will no more disobey his wife in this mood as he would have his coach; he turns with her in his arms, tucks her head beneath his chin, and shuts his eyes.
Someday, Johnny.
Author: thefrogg
Beta: none for this part
Disclaimer: Never happened, never will, and I don't own these people. Although sometimes I wish I did.
Warnings: weirdness (as if that's unexpected with me as an author), angst
Summary: Johnny Weir refused to let go of his Olympic dreams, despite age and injury. Five months before the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, he stopped talking to anyone outside his coach. Now he's in Sochi early, and the rest of his generation of skaters are determined to find out why the last of them still competing has gone missing in spirit, if not in body.
Author's Note: "//Speech in slashes is Japanese.//"
Johnny holds the final pose for a breath, another, then climbs shakily to his feet, hands covering his mouth and nose. His cheeks glitter under the lights with tears of joy, tears of triumph - it hadn’t been a clean skate.
It had been perfect.
The crowd roars, chanting his name, I love you, Johnny! in a dozen different languages. No one bothers to wait for the scores, no one cares. It’s all too obvious that Johnny has the gold, the scores are only a formality. He is the last to skate, took first in the short, and now there is no one to skate after him and maybe beat his scores.
This isn’t Vancouver.
Johnny breaks out of his little happy nervous breakdown in the rink and skates around in circles, taking his bows, accepting huge arrangements of flowers, roses and lilies, daisies and carnations, a stuffed white swan tucked under his arm as he makes it back to where Viktor and Galina wait for him by the boards with his skate guards.
The usual end-of-skate activity, hugs from his coaches, praise and congratulations (in the, for Johnny, ubiquitous Russian), slipping on the skate guards with fingers that are starting to shake with reaction. Then the trek to the Kiss and Cry, and Johnny’s sitting on the bench sandwiched between Viktor and Galina, tossing out his thank yous in a tangle of French and Russian, stopping to guzzle half a bottle of water before Galina takes it away with a gentle scold.
The announcer starts reporting Johnny’s scores, voice strangely monotone, and then the crowd goes eerily quiet. There’s a soft, disbelieving, “That can’t be right-“ before the speakers go silent, but the damage is done.
Down in the Kiss and Cry, Johnny’s gone from exhausted, giddy and gleeful to sucker-punched, pain naked in his eyes as he shakes his head no. Viktor folds himself around, blocking the camera’s view of Johnny as they both stand, and Galina’s face is a mask of Russian indignant fury, one hand tight on Johnny’s shoulder. Johnny says something, something that has to be about leaving, and then they’re moving, all three of them up and pushing past the shocked gawkers, Viktor stripping out of his jacket and wrapping it over Johnny’s shoulders, high enough to pull it forward to cover his face.
The crowd is still hushed, murmurs of stunned disbelief rising in a growing swell, changing to anger at the unjust, but Johnny’s gone.
A touch at the elbow draws attention away from the ice, from the Kiss and Cry, from the paralyzed skaters and coaches and parents and friends left in Johnny’s wake.
“//Will you ask this time?//”
The question is stiff with irony, and gets a sharp head shake in answer. “//No. Do it. I will have my own-//” Whatever else would have been said is lost as someone else clears his throat.
One of the security guards, expression full of fear and hope both, stands just out of reach, nervously fingering his baton. His eyes flicker to the rink, and he cannot be blamed - the crowd does not have its king here to calm them, as it had in Vancouver.
This is not Vancouver.
It had been disappointment and insult in Vancouver; here in Paris it was disbelief and anger, swiftly turning to rage and the potential for violence.
This is not Vancouver, and this isn’t his gold.
“Take me there, I will speak to crowd.”
The security guard nods, relieved, but it is already too late, the tension rising, the crowd is on the move-
Daisuke wakes up in a cold sweat, trembling, and smacks the wall in his flailing attempt to switch the light on. The bedroom shifts from blue and grey to black with a small pool of gold, not unlike the medal with its accompanying ribbon; the metal lies cold and accusing in his palm as he rubs the other over his face.
The dream is too close, too vivid, leaving him caught between it and memory-
Johnny, standing stone-faced next to him on the podium through the ceremony. Then, as the anthems die away and the camera pans out, turning to him, pressing a kiss to one cheek and whispering “Spasiba”, the other cheek, “merci.” He thinks it will stop there, but Johnny wraps an arm around his shoulders and pulls him close, so their foreheads touch, and says quietly so the camera can’t pick up.
“You honored me then, and I honor you now. I can’t accept this, not from them. Not now. I’m sorry. It’s not you, any of you.”
He can only stand there, stunned, feeling the odd scraping as the ribbon from Johnny’s gold slips over his head, down his neck to rest alongside his own, the two medals clinking together on his chest, a third kiss pressed to his forehead with a whispered thank you in Japanese, and then…
And then all of them, Daisuke and Florent and Patrick and the crowd, the media, the ISU bastards, all of them watch as Johnny turns away from the cameras, steps off the back of the podium and leaves the rink without a backward glance.
--and leaves Daisuke with his heart in his throat, swallowing hard, fist clenched around the medal that should have been Johnny’s.
The medal that was Johnny’s, but left in his keeping.
“Daisuke,” his wife whispers, running a hand down his arm as she leans into him, her body molding itself to his. “//Again?//”
Daisuke can only nod.
“//There are flights to Sochi every morning. There is room. They would understand,//” she says; she, more than almost anyone, knows the strange bond that has twined between her husband and Johnny over the last three-plus years, one of tentative friendship, still skittish, but seeming unbreakable despite the competition, the barriers of language and distance and time.
“//He is the last; I am the first. I cannot...//” Daisuke cannot find words, and finds any possible answer stolen as she straddles him, gently prying the medal out of his fingers.
She sets it back on the bedside table. “//Go, Daisuke. Go to him, you are the one he turned to when he could not speak to the others. I will talk to your coach.//”
“//I need to give that-//“
She cuts him off with a soft kiss. “//You will, when he is ready. When he does not have to answer to the ISU. You will give him his gold, as he deserves.//” Another kiss. “//Sleep now.//”
Daisuke doesn’t think he can, or will, but will no more disobey his wife in this mood as he would have his coach; he turns with her in his arms, tucks her head beneath his chin, and shuts his eyes.
Someday, Johnny.