[fic] Johnny/Stéphane Hurt/Comfort

[misskittye]

Fandom: Figure Skating
Title: When Something's Broke, I Wanna Put a Bit of Fixin' On It
Pairing: Johnny Weir/Stéphane Lambiel
Warnings/Rating: R for language and sexy things
Disclaimer: Hey these are real people that I don't know so I don't consider this the gospel truth and neither should you.

Author's notes: Unfinished and unbeta'ed. Woot! I mean, jennerose usually read it and said it was good even when I accidentally put in hieroglyphics. So credit where credit is due, but the typos in the version I put up in the anonymous meme were driving me slowly up the wall, along with the broken formatting comment fic always yields. I wanted to start writing this again so I got it all together, tidied it up and smoothed over some edges that were bothering.

ETA: There is also un-translated French, but it's simple enough that Google Translate will have your back.

Summary: The original prompt was as follows- Set during the months they trained together in '08. Stéphane's injury is killing him and Johnny can't help but play nurse. Galina says NO SEX and they are both terrified of her wrath, so Anon would like lots of UST that culminates in some hot sexytimes when Stéphane decides to retire. Bonus points if Johnny tries to raise Stéphane's spirits with marathons of classic bitch movies like Mean Girls, Bring it On, etc.

And frankly it's not too far off from that.


So perhaps Johnny doesn't take the news about Stéphane's choice to come and train in America under Galina as well as he might have. Making an outraged noise after Galina smiled and spread her hands after telling him? .5 deduction. Dropping his skate bag in a huff? Minus another .5 Having a moment of panic where he wondered if while coaching them both she might do something crazy like decide Stéphane was better than Johnny and choose to spend all her time shouting at Stéphane in Russian and getting him to the podium at World's again and leaving Johnny to carve lazy figure eights of abandonment in the background? Well, perhaps a bit melodramatic, but understandable.

As for saying, "I'm sorry, but I'm worried that my skating will suffer if you divide your attention too much," instead of "Tell me I'll still be your favorite no matter how much chocolate he gives you…" Well, that was pretty much the equivalent of substituting a quad with a waltz jump. Bow to the judges, bow to crowd, wave goodbye to the podium.

Galina's smile pinches into a tight, straight line and one eyebrow rises up until the defiant set to Johnny's shoulders collapses by an acceptable amount. "My attention is no problem," she says. "Swiss man is not to be having your attention, Jonichka. At all."

And really, that's a low blow. What happens at Worlds (every year) should really stay at Worlds (every year). He's pretty sure that's an actual rule, like in the books and everything. Still, Johnny concedes defeat by putting on his sunglasses, stooping down to pick up his skate bag and nodding once. Galina accepts the apology by making a disgusted noise and throwing up her hands as he leaves the room.

~~~

Once he has a chance to get used to the idea by complaining to his mother for two hours, he realizes it isn't all that bad. For one thing, Stéphane is at a disadvantage in almost every way in this situation. The whole reason Stéphane is coming to train with Galina is she understands how to work around injuries so it would be just plain mean to hope he has bad practices and go home. Johnny might say some unkind things about other skaters and think even worse things, but he wouldn't wish for anyone to give up skating against their will, let alone Stéphane. For another thing, Stéphane will have to learn to navigate the choppy waters of Galina's temper whereas Johnny has a year's worth experience doing it (not that it gets him much slack). And finally Stéphane is not terribly familiar with America, particularly New Jersey, making Johnny's word about local food, customs, and everything else something like the law.

All this means that Johnny should be magnanimous and kind to those less fortunate, and he resolves to do just that.

He drives Stéphane and his sister around the area a few days after they arrive, pointing to places and things and pronouncing his opinion on them. "That's the only grocery store you should go to. That's the bad dry cleaners, don't go there. Ruined a pair of white jeans once. In retrospect that was a favor, but still."

He realizes he's sounding a bit too much like an old cabbie or something and changes his tone. He gestures towards his favorite little café, Andiamo, and says, "That is my favorite restaurant, so don't even think about going there, okay?"

Sylvia laughs at him, and Johnny grins back at her in the rear view. He tries to catch Stéphane's eye as well and is surprised to see him chewing on his thumbnail, looking obediently at the street outside but staring right through it.

~~~

They've scheduled their practices so that there is absolutely no chance of overlap. Johnny cannot abide seeing someone else land clean quads and Stéphane will apparently not tolerate starting practice on an empty stomach. Frankly Galina needs the break, too, after three hours with Johnny, and Viktor becomes less and less genial without a rest for his knee. Johnny's seniority earns him the right to keep the same time slot, over and done with by eleven, and Stéphane takes the ice at one. For a week or so they don't even see each other and Johnny tells himself he's not the least bit curious. Not in the slightest.

It's not like he can help that one day he forgets his cell phone at the rink; the one thing in the world that he absolutely must have absolutely right, right now, and he simply can't wait until after Stéphane's practice to have Viktor bring it over. He uses his masseuse's telephone to call Galina and promise her that he will be as quiet as a mouse when he stops by the arena and she'll never even know that he's there.

She doesn't ever, actually. When he slips inside Galina is padding carefully out on the ice in her soft boots to where Stéphane and Viktor are out by the back curve of the sideboards. Viktor is one knee and Stéphane is on his ass, legs pressing his hands to his leg like it's a doll part that needs popping back into place. He is cursing, swiftly and softly, in three different languages.

"No, no," Galina says, voice echoing in all that empty air out on the ice. "Must get up. Ice will make it seize. Move, move."

Viktor grabs Stéphane's hand and waits for his tentative nod before hauling him gently, but firmly up. Johnny watches Stéphane skate painfully forward a few feet, and then shakes his head as if to clear it. He slips into the manager's office and grabs his phone from the desk, meaning to just get the hell out before someone sees him, but he can't help but look back one more time before he leaves.

Galina holds onto Viktor's arm as she marches towards the gate, murmuring to him in unhappy Russian while Stéphane glides slowly behind them. His hair is wild and shoulders are slumped as he looks down at his feet. Johnny catches Viktor's eyes and holds up his phone to show that he has it. Viktor doesn't wave or nod for risk of alerting the others and Johnny leaves without another word.

He ticks off errands during the next two hours. First tackling the grocery store, the video store, and the florist. He also vacuums, naps, does a load of laundry, and changes outfits three times. Just after four he picks up his cell phone, takes a deep breath, and calls Stéphane.

"Allo Johnny," Stéphane says as he answers. He sounds tired, but not just the usual tired that comes from training (somewhere between just ran a marathon and just been fucked); this kind of exhaustion sounds bone deep.

"So you're coming over to my place for dinner tonight. Like six o' clock, okay?"

Stéphane is quiet for a moment. "Forgive me," he starts awkwardly, "but I do not recall making plans."

"You didn't. This is an executive decision."

He sighs. "I am actually quite tired, Johnny. I-"

"And I'm not?" Johnny asks, interrupting him. "I'm offering dinner, not to stay up late dyeing your hair. Just come over, eat my food, and get out before nine o' clock because seriously, my night time regimen is a little," he purses his lips while he looks for the right word, "involved."

There's another moment of hesitation and Johnny inhales a breath to shout down the next protest, but Stéphane only says, "Okay. D'accord."

"Good. Six o' clock. I'll text you the directions."

~~~

Johnny can't be sure about it but the Swiss are probably known for their punctuality, what with their famous watches and their many German influences, but for as long as Johnny has known him Stéphane has never suffered from the affliction of being on time. Maybe the Portuguese in him negotiated an alliance with the Frenchier parts of his personality and they both agreed not to be bullied about by their inner Time Nazi. As it is, Stéphane shows up on Johnny's doorstep at fifteen minutes past, freshly showered and dressed well in jeans and a thin sweater and looking just as exhausted as he had sounded on the phone. He says nothing at all in greeting, just waves his hand once as Johnny steps aside to let him in.

The smell of Stéphane's wet hair as they quickly faire la bise evokes a sense memory of the 2007 Worlds so strong that Johnny almost reels back from pressing his cheek to Stéphane's. Worlds that year had been so desperate and sad after losing Drew, after Stéphane lost his title. They'd fucked once, then showered and dressed in silence to go their separate ways. Johnny had gotten only one shoe tied before Stéphane was on him again, pressing him back against the bed, covering him, hair still smelling of strongly of his shampoo and dripping water on Johnny's cheek. He'd taken Johnny's mouth with his and refused to give it up, refused to let Johnny have any chance to say, "Wait, no, I have to go."

Johnny hadn't tried.

It's always been a bit odd how Stéphane is usually a friend, though a friend who is sometimes one of a dozen people Johnny has to beat and be better than. Still other times Stéphane is just a co-worker on tour and sometimes he is someone Johnny wants to tear the clothes off of and like, bite. The whiplash in moments like these, when Stéphane slips between one role to another, can be killer.

Johnny chooses to focus on the dark circles under Stéphane's eyes instead of the way he smells. He takes a firm step back, just to be sure.

"Go sit down on the couch, it'll be ready in a minute," he says as he retreats even further, stepping into the kitchen. "You can turn the TV on if you like."

Stéphane sits down obediently, but forgoes the TV in favor of looking about the apartment as if he's been charged with finding some key clue to a mystery. After taking everything in, he tells Johnny, "I feel as if you and my grandmother would get along very well."

It is both amazing and annoying how many people tell Johnny the exact same after seeing his living room.

"She collects crystal," Stéphane continues, "and by now she has quite a lot." He makes a pleased noise at the vase on the coffee table and names each type of flower in French. Johnny isn't the only one that has something in common with little old ladies.

Johnny makes red meat for strength and a salad to fill them up because they're training and that's about the only thing they get to eat from June to March. He knows from first hand experience that when you're healing from something you don't want crisp, cold, bright flavors; you want warm, rich, and soothing. You want pasta, you want stew- food that tastes almost like it could coat the injury from the inside out -but you can't have it.

He wilts spinach and arugula in a pan with a little water, and tosses it in a bowl with the sparest handful of toasted pine nuts along with a small amount of soft cheese that only gets creamier as it melts. Earlier he had roasted a pint of cherry tomatoes and thin slivers of onion, then wrapped them in foil to keep. By now the tomatoes are warm and burst with juice when you bite into them, and the onions have sweetened a little and picked up some good caramel color. He pulls two steaks out from under the broiler, slices them thin and sets the meat atop the wilted greens. The end result is a meal made with the usual ingredients one usually finds in a salad, but that still manages to be warm and nutty, creamy and juicy all at once.

He sets the plate down in front of Stéphane with a little dispenser of balsamic vinegar.

Stéphane blinks down at the plate as if actual food was the very last thing he expected to see on it. "You made this?"

"I'm not just a pretty face." He takes up his fork and gestures with it towards Stéphane's plate. "Eat."

Stéphane does, in complete silence in fact, from his first bite to his last. Johnny could pretend to be offended by the lack of raucous applause and effusive praise, but the careful way Stéphane savors each bite, the way he never pauses eating or looks away from his plate, and eventually the way his shoulders begin to relax are compliment enough. For now.

When his plate is entirely clean, Stéphane wipes his mouth a final time with his napkin, and looks up at Johnny as if just now remembering that he is there. He ducks his head, shy for some reason. "I didn't know you could cook."

"Why would you?" Johnny asked, spearing the last tomato with his fork. "I don't cook for anyone but myself."

"You just cooked for me, no?"

"No. I made myself dinner and there just happened to be enough for two." He firmly believes this though he has had to explain the concept many times. Particularly to Paris.

Stéphane smiles at that, it's a good smile that reaches all the way up to his eyes, before he looks down. "Ah yes. I see the difference." He starts to take up their plates, but Johnny stops him.

"Thank you but no," he says, standing and taking the dishes from Stéphane's hands. "I have a method. Go and sit on the couch again, and I'll make some tea."

Stéphane does as he is told, and Johnny loses himself briefly to steam and suds and a perfectly arranged dishwasher rack. He starts thinking about scrubbing the counter tops (they look clean but not exactly sparkling) but the kettle whistles at him to stop. He pours the water into two mugs drops in a Galina approved herbal tea blend, and takes it into the living room.

Stéphane sits low on the couch, head resting against the back of the cushions. He looks half asleep, but he senses Johnny's presence immediately and opens his eyes. Johnny finds himself at a rare loss of words under Stéphane careful gaze, and so he simply holds out a mug as an offering. Stéphane sits up to take it with a murmured thank you. He sets it down on the coffee table, and then circles his hand gently around Johnny's wrist. He plucks the tea mug from Johnny's fingers with his other hand and sets it down beside his own, still holding onto Johnny's wrist. Stéphane looks up at him again and then slowly, carefully pulls him close, pulls him down.

Johnny goes with it, nearly giving in to the impulse to climb into Stéphane's lap, but then thinks better of it, and kneels beside him on the couch instead, resting on his heels, close but still apart. He tries to think of something to say, even opens his mouth to speak, but Stéphane is already cupping the back of his neck, twisting his fingers in Johnny's hair. Johnny bends down for the kiss, though he is not sure if he'll even like it like it.

Surely it would be different, here in his home, no adrenaline rush from competition, no anger and resentment at the sport to work out, no looming departure date reassuring him that this would be brief and uncomplicated. But it's hardly different at all, Stéphane's soft, perfect mouth tastes cool and pleasant from the glass of ice water he'd drained after dinner, and the way he secures an arm around Johnny's waist, grips his hair, is still enough to make Johnny shiver. Something hot still sparks low in Johnny's belly, his eyes still fall shut without thinking about it.

He lets it go on a little too long, before he pulls carefully away. He sits back on his heels, steadying himself with a hand against the back of the couch. "You don't have to kiss me because I made you dinner."

Stéphane's eyes are so dark as they look up at him, "I didn't kiss you because you made me dinner."

Johnny takes a slow breath and mentally sifts through his usual reasons for saying no to another good, hot kiss. Insane and pointless and made-up by paranoid Russians as they all are. "I don't think we can-"

"No," Stéphane agrees. "We cannot." Right, Johnny reminds himself, Galina has laid her rules down for both of them. Stéphane keeps touching Johnny anyway, dragging fingertips over his ribs through the material of his shirt.

"I'm uh," Johnny clears his throat and tries not to let it show how much he's noticing it. "I have a movie to watch. I mean, that I want to watch. But you can stay and watch it if you like. But you can't ask any silly questions during it. And you have to go when it's over. Got it?"

Stéphane nods.

"Okay," Johnny says. He moves away from the other man, wedging himself into the corner of the couch a safe, unsexy distance away. "Tell me what you know about cheerleaders."

Stéphane cocks his head curiously to the side, "Not a thing."

Johnny smiles and picks up the remote. "Okay, good. Let's fix that."

Half an hour into the movie Stéphane is appropriately mystified by the trials and tribulations of California cheerleaders. "There are really girls that do this?" he asks after a cheer number, brazenly breaking rule number one of watching films in Johnny's household.

Johnny lets it slide (this time). "Mm-hmm. My mother among them, actually." The look on Stéphane's face is priceless.

During the scene in the Compton high school, Stéphane murmurs something unkind about Patrick Chan; Johnny pats his thigh sympathetically. Still later, when Sparky marches across the screen, Stéphane mentions the name of a certain eccentric choreographer who frequently makes the rounds in the European ice shows, and Johnny can't help but dissolve into giggles.

When the Clovers win in the end, Stéphane claps his hands twice and says, "Ah good!" because of course Stéphane would manage to be pleasantly surprised by even the most predictable of endings. Johnny turns the movie off before the sweet kiss and peppy love song at the end but Stéphane does not protest.

Johnny tucks his feet under him on the couch and looks over at his guest. It feels awkward having so strongly insisted that he'd be kicking Stéphane out right now when what he really wants to do is ask, "Are you okay?"

Stéphane gazes back at him for a moment, then ducks his head down regretfully and scoots forward on the couch to stand up.

Johnny uncurls his legs reluctantly and gets up, too. His back pops unexpectedly and he makes a pained face before he can stop himself. Stéphane shakes his leg a bit and leans forward on a bent knee as if to stretch the muscle. They both look at each other again and laugh.

In the fond moment that follows their laughter, Johnny accidentally blurts out, "I've got another movie like this if you want. About beauty pageants and such. You could come by Saturday and..." he stops because of the look on Stéphane's face, the way his smile slides right off his lips.

Johnny swallows against something at the back of his throat and turns away.

"I would," Stéphane says. "But on Sunday I will be going back to Switzerland to see my doctors."

"Oh." When Johnny turns back he gathers from the look on Stéphane's face that the trip is not planned. To leave after only just arriving seems to mean something very, very serious. He clears his throat, "I can wait. We'll watch it when you come back, maybe."

Stéphane nods, "I would like that." They call Stéphane a taxi and when it calls to say it is downstairs, Johnny walks down. In full view of the unimpressed cabbie, Stéphane grasps Johnny's hips lightly with his fingertips and kisses his cheek. "Merci, Johnny," he says, quite seriously. "Merci."

Johnny waves his hand dismissively. He would say something funny and light, but he can't seem to find the words. He even stands there watching the taxi drive off despite it being an utterly ridiculous thing to do.

~~~

"Press play..." Johnny holds his phone between his shoulder and his ear as he reaches for the remote, "now."

"Now?" Stéphane asks.

"Now!"

"Ok," Stéphane says, "it is beginning now." Stéphane has ordered to rest for the past week, leaving him bored and on a slightly off sleep schedule. For Johnny this means that Stéphane is at his beck and call. It's been more than three weeks since they watched Bring it On and Johnny is impatient to get another dose of ridiculous Kirsten Dunst bitchfighting, so he's organized an emergency long-distance viewing party.

Stéphane is quiet for a while as he watches the opening credits. "Johnny, this music is, how you say-"

"How about you don't say? This movie is important for your American education. Beauty queens and murder are as American as apple pie."

"D'accord. J'etudierai pour votre examen, mon professeur des américaines."

"Oui," Johnny says haughtily.

After a while Stéphane can't seem to help but ask, "They do not really talk like this in your country, do they?"

Johnny sighs, "Yes. Yes they do. I hope you never have to become very familiar with the Midwest, Stéphane."

Still later Stéphane remarks that one girl reminds him a bit of Jeremy Abbot, sending Johnny a half-hour rant about the similarities between Becky Leeman and Evan Lysacek.

"Right down to the tits," he gripes. "I bet if Evan had boobs he'd have these great big basketballs on his chest and I'd have like, nothing up top."

"I'm sure you'd have very lovely breasts, Johnny," Stéphane soothes.

"Thank you." He is momentarily sidetracked by the idea, a thoughtful frown creasing his forehead.

The catfight about the tap costume sends Stéphane into a fit of giggles. "You remember? Back in 2000? The junior competition?"

"Ugh, God," Johnny says, recalling the trouble the entire American team had gotten in for that particular incident. "Whatever happened to that kid?"

"Obscurité," he answers dramatically.

"This is why I never like you when you're fresh from Europe. You become too overwhelmingly French."

"Suisse!" Stéphane corrects.

"Whatever. I'm just glad you adopted me to help you acclimate to America, darling."

"Oui, mais je ne parlera pas Engrish."

"One more word of French and I'm hanging up the phone."

"Fine, I shall speak in German."

"No."

"Portuguese?"

Johnny considers it for a moment because Stéphane's Portuguese is actually quite lovely to hear, but it's just not in his nature to back down from an argument. "No," he orders.

"You really are no fun."

"I'm the most fun. Now shut up and the watch movie."

The credits roll and Stéphane admits that, though he liked the movie, "I don't think I understood all of it."

"Mm," Johnny says stretching luxuriously. "Some of it is maybe a little too American to translate, yeah. Do you even have white trash in Switzerland?"

"Trash that is white?"

"No. Poor people."

Stéphane makes an unimpressed noise, "Of course we have poor people. Out in the country, people can be very poor."

"Goat herders don’t count as white trash. I bet they're all still quaint and polite. "

"Perhaps." Stéphane sounds sleepy though it's in the early morning there. It's probably time Johnny went to bed.

"I should go," Johnny says. "When will you-" he cuts himself off. Lying on his couch, pressing a phone to his ear, wanting to skip the waiting and just crawl through the line and come out the other side... it's too painfully familiar.

"Another week," Stéphane tells him, answering the abandoned question. "Very soon."

"Okay. That's. Okay," he rolls his eyes at his eloquence. "Well, take a nap or something. Rest up."

"Bonne nuit, Johnny."

"Et tu."

~~~

Johnny spends three days thinking about things before he calls Galina. He lets her prattle to him about her garden a bit, swears that he's been drinking pomegranate juice in the morning like he said he would, and then takes a deep breath.

"I want to train with Stéphane," he says firmly. "On the same ice."

Galina is quiet for a while and the temperature in Johnny's apartment nudges a few degrees close to Siberian winter.

"Yes," she says finally, "that will be good." The sun suddenly breaks through the clouds and it's summer in Johnny's apartment again. "I tell Viktor. Stéphane training on Monday. I will tell him to come early."

"Okay," Johnny says, breathing a sigh of relief. "Great."

"No funniness," Galina warns him.

"Funniness?" Johnny asks, confused.

Trying again Galina tells him, "No fun business," in a voice that allows for absolutely no argument, despite making no sense.

Funniness? Business? "Oh," Johnny says. "No funny business. Of course."

"When you come to me you say to me, 'Galina you're the boss-'"

"You're the boss, Galina," he quickly assures her, not interested in hearing this particular rant again. "No funny business."

"Good. Now goodbye," she says suddenly. "I am making potatoes."

Johnny laughs, "Pa-ka, Galina."

~~~

Johnny fully intends to be fashionably late to their first practices together, but his carefully crafted morning routine is like muscle memory at this point and an avoidable case of the butterflies makes lingering over his coffee less attractive than it could be. He ends up at the ice exactly on time and finds Galina waiting and sipping at a cup of steaming hot tea from a Starbucks cup. She looks severe and serious already, and tells him that Viktor will be along with Stéphane quite shortly.

Johnny nods and goes to put his skates on. He follows his lacing routine to the very last detail, trying to lose himself in it. He even pauses to straighten the edges of his towel and makes sure his bag is perpendicular to the bench. It's no use though, every noise he hears outside the door makes his stomach jump, makes him catch his breath as he thinks, "Okay, this all officially starts now."

He's got his left boot mostly laced when the door opens, and he knows immediately by the sound of the skate bag bumping over the door jamb that it's Stéphane. The briefest of glances upwards to see trainers with aggressive neon details coming towards him confirms this. He doesn't look any higher than Stéphane's shoes, doesn't pause in lacing his skates, or say anything in greeting.

Frankly, he doesn't know what he would do if he did. Some part of him wants to level a diva stare at Stéphane and say something ever so slightly snide to make sure that Stéphane understands that everything in this particular corner of the universe still revolves around Johnny, and he better not forget it. Another part of him wants to stand up and put his arms around Stéphane's waist so that he can bury his nose Stéphane's neck and smell the last traces of sleep on his skin before the ice steals it all away.

Rather than choose between his warring impulses he ties a ruthless knot at the top of his skate. Stéphane appears to have no such dilemma as he sits down on the bench right next to Johnny and slumps lightly down against Johnny's shoulder. He mumbles something that sounds like it could have been "Good morning" only he couldn't decide what language to say it in and so gave up in the middle.

"Good morning," Johnny enunciates carefully, to remind him how it's done. He switches over to his right skate and Stéphane doesn't move, just lays his cheek against the curve of Johnny's shoulder and breathes slowly. Johnny tightens his skate twice, ties it off, and then sits up slowly to give Stéphane plenty of warning.

Stéphane scoots away and opens his own bag up as Johnny stands and kicks his heel against the ground to get a little more room for his toes. He bends down at the waist to adjust his legwarmers and holds the position long enough for his point to made. What point, exactly, he doesn't know. Perhaps it's "Bow down to my superior flexibility!" or maybe it's "My ass looks great in these warm up pants, doesn't it?" He revels in the long, lean feeling of stretching out his hamstrings, but the twinge in his hip eventually forces him to stand upright again.

Johnny rolls his shoulders, glancing back at Stéphane to find him lost in his own preparation, and heads for the door without saying anything at all.

He is about halfway through is daily litany of "I'm not tired, I'm not stiff, I don't want a waffle, I want to skate and win and own this goddamned routine if it kills me" and quite close to believing some of it when Stéphane appears on the ice. He and Viktor begin their run through and Johnny begins the countdown.

After so many years, so many competitions, so many warm ups, and practices, and shows, and so on, Johnny can be sure of at least one thing about Stéphane, and that one thing is that they skate for different reasons. Johnny skates to make people feel things, usually against their will. His skating is inherently manipulative, and he knows that. It's like when he's tired and hurting and he wants Galina's pity (something he rarely ever gets) every aspect of his skating, of how he holds his body, or his expression will attempt to convince to feel that pity. He doesn't want to ask people to feel beauty, to feel exhilarated because that would entail compromise. He wants to force them to feel it, he moves his body the way he feels it should be moved and expects people to follow along.

Stéphane on the other hands skates simply because he has feelings, so many feelings that they have to get out somehow. And the bigger, louder, and more extravagantly they are shown and the bigger and more attentive the crowd they are shown to, the better. Stéphane skates first and foremost to express what he needs to, the music, the positions, the lines are all because it's what spoke to him. Audiences make Stéphane happy, make him better, but he would not skate if he could not express himself. This makes Stéphane the equivalent of an open book on the ice, a book with huge, bold, capital letters. And a lot of exclamation points to help make sure everybody be on his same page. Today's chapter appears to be entitled: The Thing I am Usually The Best at in the World Hurts and That's Fucking Stupid.

Over and over again Stéphane reaches for a particular spin position only to pop out of it almost immediately, usually swearing. When he tries to just ignore the pain he ends up on his ass, spinning another one-eighty degrees before coming to a stop. He crosses his arms over his knees and presses his forehead against them for a moment while Viktor, in all his infinite patience, waits for him to get up and try again. He waits a long time.

So yeah, Johnny is expecting a patented Stéphane-style shit fit but he's not expecting for Galina to go on and on, harping about the damned quad and making him go for it on his very first day sharing the ice with someone who has routinely landed quads in competitions. It's like she's trying to punish him or something, and he's halfway through saying all this aloud, in English no less, before he realizes that Viktor and Stéphane are at the far end of the ice pretending that sound doesn't carry.

He clears his throat self-consciously and Galina frowns at him. "You lucky, but you don't care," she admonishes sharply.

Johnny busies himself with adjusting the hem of his jacket because he can't meet her gaze.

"Good," she says when met with his silence. "Shut up. Skate."

Johnny tries to make it look like going over to the wall to start another jumping pass was his idea, but he knows no one believes him.

Twenty minutes later Stéphane is kicking divots in the ice like a pouting six year old. He's also ranting in French, a language neither Galina nor Viktor understand and one Johnny can't understand if it's been spoken so quickly and angrily. Galina makes confused faces while Viktor tells her in Russian to be patient, it will end. And it does eventually. Stéphane wipes his eyes, takes a breath and nods to Viktor and they begin again.

Galina watches Stéphane skate for a moment, gaze focused not on his blades but on the thigh he is favoring. The severity of her frown seems to have nothing to do with his technique, but she makes no comment as she turns back to Johnny.

"Again," she tells him. "Jump."

By the end of practice Johnny lands two quads for three attempts, though he blows the fourth one hard enough that Galina doesn't even try to ask him for another before going home. Stéphane has managed a good approximation of the position he wants, though not yet at the speed he's used to.

He and Stéphane sit more than a bit apart as they unlace, and they still don't speak. Johnny feels as if he is made up of angles, all sharp spikes and edges, not at all something anyone would want to get close to. Stéphane on the other hand looks as if he is made of glass and stone, fragile disappointment at odds with hard, heavy exhaustion.

Johnny wets his lips and opens his mouth to say something, but before he can even think the word Viktor is poking his head in through the door. "Styopa, Nina asked me to take our daughter to dentist appointment this afternoon. Your errand, can it wait until later?"

Stéphane shrugs a shoulder and says softly, "Of course."

Johnny shuts his mouth and dries his skate blade once more though it doesn't seem to need it. He deals with his warring impulses again as he packs and zips his bag before suddenly coming to a decision. He stands up, meaning to grab his bag and go with a wave and a smile and "I'll see you tomorrow." But before he can the other impulse rallies a surprise victory and "I could take you" comes flying out of his mouth before he knows what happened.

Stéphane looks up from his trainers. "What?"

"I could take you. On your errands or whatever. The only stuff I have to do this afternoon is like-" he makes a hand motion instead of choosing a word, and Stéphane watches his fingers as if they might explain the ridiculous notions coming out of Johnny's mouth. "I mean, it's just an offer. I understand if-"

"Okay," Stéphane says, interrupting.

Johnny blinks, "Okay, what?"

"I would like to run errands with you."

Johnny nods. "Right. Okay."

~~~

Stéphane's errands turn out to be terribly mundane, but easily taken care of. After they drop off a few things Johnny has needed to take care of, he takes Stéphane to change over some money and then they stop by a health food store to pick up some arnica gel. Stéphane swears by it for bruising, but Johnny declares it nothing more than European witchcraft.

"Yes," Stéphane comments, amused. "So different from your proven Russian remedies."

Though it's listed on the store's inventory, the clerk is frustratingly unable to find it anywhere in the store. She says that they might try Whole Foods instead, and while they are there Johnny decides to pick up some asparagus to have with dinner, and gets cherries for dessert on a whim.

"We could have dinner again," he says, like an afterthought.

"I don't think I should stay out. Viktor said I should salt my injury."

"Well," Johnny says, "it just so happens Galina told me to salt my landing foot. So I've got you covered."

"Okay," Stéphane says, again, as if it makes no difference to him.

"Fine," Johnny says, because he isn't at all excited.

~~~

When they get to his place, Stéphane watches him get things ready for a few minutes before he tells Johnny he's been cooking asparagus the wrong way for years and takes over their preparation. Johnny tries not to bristle at the intrusion of a wild card chef into his spotless kitchen and keeps a sharp eye on Stéphane to make sure he doesn't go getting surfaces grubby with unclean hands. The worst thing Stéphane does is go rooting through Johnny's drawers with a bit too much gusto and the asparagus is, Johnny begrudgingly admits, pretty good.

After the very last morsel of steak has been bisected and savored in two minuscule bites, Johnny clears the plates away and washes two handfuls of cherries for a little something sweet to have after. He bites the first in half carefully, but doesn't really manage the same daintiness when spitting out the pit.

Stéphane laughs at him but Johnny doesn’t mind it. He looks down at the other half of the cherry in his fingers, the dark red flesh, and the juice welling up in the center.

"You know when I was a kid I used to pretend this was lipstick."

"This does not surprise me," Stéphane says. Johnny smears the cherry along his bottom lip and smiles at him. "Very nice," Stéphane assures him. He also tracks the swipe of Johnny's tongue across his mouth.

"My mom hated it," he continues, taking another cherry. "Not because it was her sweet little boy in make-up or anything. I just used to be a lot messier about it."

"I used to the spit the seeds out at my sister. My mother really did not like that." For a moment Stéphane smiles at the memory, but he loses it quickly to a homesick sigh.

"Come here," Johnny says, taking Stéphane's chin in one hand and a bitten piece of cherry in the other.

"What are you doing?" Stéphane struggles a bit but not enough that Johnny loses his grip.

"Lord, Stéphane. It's not like you've never worn make-up."

"I have very naturally good skin," Stéphane lies.

"Uh-huh," Johnny says, dabbing at Stéphane's lips. "Because I didn't know you when you were seventeen at all." When he's finished enhancing Stéphane's lips with imaginary cosmetics he lets go of his chin and taps it with his finger. "Open up."

Stéphane does so obediently and Johnny tosses the morsel past his lips. Stéphane laughs, startled, and reaches for a napkin to wipe his mouth as he chews.

"No, don't," Johnny says, though he doesn't know why. "That's part of the fun," he fumbles. "Licking it off. Napkins just make it sticky."

"You could do it," Stéphane points out. He presses his uniquely shaped lips together, licking them just a little, and oh, Johnny could easily do it. A bizarre cherry fueled make-out session and possible blowjob is well, well within his abilities, but he has to play coy because even when there's no way Galina could know, she still knows.

"How about a bath instead?" He pops a last cherry in his mouth and hops out of his chair. "I'll get the salts."

Stéphane sighs again, this time wistfully, and nods.

Johnny draws a bath, gets out towels, and measures out salts feeling like some sort of throwback to a chambermaid, however historically inaccurate and wrongly gendered that analogy may be. Though it offends his more... imperial sensibilities, he actually sort of enjoys the play-acting and performs these tasks with an unnecessary sense of decorum and flourish. He even goes so far as to light one of his scented candles, because he's just that nice.

Stéphane watches him from the door, uncharacteristically quiet. Eventually, he frowns at the pink water filling the tub. "This is epsom salt?" he asks, doubtful.

"Epsom salt, pink sea salt, a little bit of lavender essential oil for relaxation." It's Johnny's special blend. "Oh, and almond oil." Stéphane cocks his head at him, curious. "It's good for the skin," Johnny promises.

Stéphane nods a vague acceptance of Johnny's explanation, then grabs the hem of his shirt and pulls it off. Johnny tries not to let his gaze linger. Not for any sense of propriety (Johnny doesn't have propriety around anyone and even if he'd ever had any around Stéphane it's been pretty well destroyed by all the sex), but Johnny's never been good at trying to window shop without giving up and buying something.

"I'm gonna just-" he starts to say as Stéphane pulls matter-of-factly at the button of his jeans, "the uh- dishes." He leaves before Stéphane can finish stepping out of his jeans, but he does at least spare one backward glance to make sure that Stéphane's ass is still practically perfect.

It is.

Johnny washes the dishes, puts away the leftover bits of food on the counter, texts a few people he'll have to skip calling tonight, and even straightens Stéphane's shoes by the door. He looks around for something else to do but there isn't a thing in his apartment out of place. There's nothing at all to stop him from walking down the hall and stepping lightly into the bathroom.

Stéphane is in the bath, back pressed up again the wall, one arm curled and placed behind his head to pillow it against the tile. One knee is bent while the other leg is completely submerged but for five toes peeking above the surface. Stéphane's eyes are closed, forehead relaxed, mouth in a straight, serious line. There's been something in Stéphane's expression lately, something Johnny isn't used to seeing; he'd thought maybe it was just the shorter hair, but it's even more pronounced in Stéphane's unguarded face. Something has changed.

Johnny slides off his house shoes and dips his toes into the water, just near Stéphane's bent knee. Stéphane's eyes open at the sound of the water rippling against the tub. He doesn't shift uncomfortably at Johnny's sudden appearance or seem at all bothered by his presence. Johnny perches lightly on the edge of the tub and dangles his foot in the hot, sweet smelling water, working his ankle in a careful circle as the bones pop and grind against each other. He meets Stéphane's gaze for a moment before sliding his eyes down his torso, the slender chest, strong waist, the taut belly button with dark hair trailing down. The pink water is just cloudy enough to stop Johnny from seeing anything more and he sighs, half relieved, half wistful.

He swirls is foot around again and touches the curve of Stéphane's calf muscle carefully with his big toe. He doesn't want to talk about skating- he never wants to talk about skating -but the only thing he can think of to say is, "Have you chosen your music yet?"

Stéphane politely ignores the unforgivable lameness of Johnny's question and shrugs, "I have some ideas. And you?"

First Johnny shrugs as well, as if there are candidates, as if there are ideas. But after a moment, he admits, "No." He doesn't want to think about the actual season, the reality of it, just indulge in some vague fantasy where he swans into the competition saying "Beat almost all of you last year, didn't I?" and that's the end of it. Just once he'd like to rest on his laurels a bit.

Stéphane's hand closes gently around Johnny's ankle and he lifts it of the water and places it on the slope of his thigh. Johnny's toes just touch the crease of Stéphane's hip and his mouth opens a little as Stéphane cups his hand to sluice water over Johnny's foot.

"Does it hurt?" as usual Stéphane's voice is quiet, soft and sweet.

"Not really." Stéphane pours the water a little higher up Johnny's shin, wetting down the sparse hair on his shin. "Does yours hurt?"

"Yes," Stéphane replies, so simply and honestly that it catches Johnny off-guard.

He searches around for something to say other than, "I'm sorry."

Stéphane doesn't say anything, not even an insincere dismissal of the pain. Instead he slides his hand up Johnny's calf and cups the back of his knee. Johnny's breath comes a little faster as Stéphane starts to lean forward with a look in his eye that Johnny has seen before. He lifts his foot and touches it to the middle of Stéphane's chest gently but firmly. "Vas-y mollo, tigre," Johnny smirks, "Or should I say zèbre? You're forgetting The Rule."

Johnny didn't used to refer to it with capital letters but lately Galina's little no-sex edict has really, really begun to warrant it.

Stéphane exerts a subtle pressure against the ruthlessly abused, yet well-manicured foot holding him at bay. "No, I'm not."

Johnny smirks, "Didn't have you pegged as such a rule breaker."

Stéphane tips his head towards one shoulder, denying nothing. "There is a reason Peter thinks I am a monster." Stéphane works his thumb and forefinger in gentle circles around Johnny's achilles tendon. "Any time you want, Johnny, vous pouvez venir à moi."

Most of the time Johnny actually has a pretty easy time saying no to sex. Usually that's because no one is offering. The adolescent dreamers at the rink, the employees at the salon and the doctor's office, and the checkout boy at the grocery store aren't exactly clamoring for him, or if they are, he's not clamoring for them. Whenever he finds himself being cruised in the city, even when his whole body is up for it, his mind can usually talk him down. It's easy to tell himself it'll be bad, it won't be worth it. He'll be tiny, he'll be too big, too rough, too much of a bottom, too lewd, too needy.

But what Stéphane's offering is 100% pure, Grade A, USDA Prime good sex and Johnny knows it. He knows that if he says yes, Stéphane will first laugh shyly, as if embarrassed to be called out on his offer. He'll start sweet but slowly become more serious and demanding. Johnny knows that he'll be first kissed, then licked, then bit, that he'll end up laid out and held gently down. He knows that Stéphane will start murmuring compliments in French while his hands skim over Johnny's body always with the right pressure, the right speed. He already knows the satisfying length and weight of Stéphane's cock in his hand, the texture of it, and the way the head fits perfectly in the circle of his lips. He knows at first he'll secretly roll his eyes at Stéphane's determination to go as long and as hard as possible, and that by the end he'll be keening from it, blissfully incoherent as he thinks of nothing but the next thrust in.

So Johnny has to find other reasons to say no, ones that don't just involve wanting to be world champion. Reasons like the last time he dabbled his toes in someone's bathwater and thought about how he could have this all the time. Reasons like what happened after.

"Mr. Lambiel, you're trying to seduce me," he says, pushing Stéphane away with his foot. "It won't work. I didn't get my first world medal by not listening to Galina."

"C'est vrai." Stéphane sighs and relaxes against the wall again, clearly disappointed. Johnny can't tell if he finds that flattering or presumptuous.

"You're going French again," Johnny grabs a towel and starts drying his foot. "You're tired. I should take you home, yeah?"

Stéphane nods. "Oui."

Stéphane is staying with Viktor and Nina for the time being and the Petrenkos live in a quiet suburb not far from the rink. Johnny feels a little unseemly sitting in the car at the end of their driveway, a bit like a burglar casing their house instead of the kind of self-sacrificing person that doesn't make car-less friends always take cabs. He lets Stéphane steal a kiss when he drops him off because Stéphane is the type to give goodbye kisses to all of his friends. He's pretty sure that Stéphane usually goes for the cheek, but there's no harm in letting him seal his lips of Johnny's briefly when Nina, well-meaning gossip that she is, is probably peeking through the curtains.

"See you tomorrow," he says, in parting, but Stéphane shakes his head.

"No. It is doctors tomorrow instead of skating."

Johnny had forgotten that Stéphane is having to alternate; he hopes that he does a better job of keeping his thoughts about this from showing on his face than usual. "Of course," he says. "Well, whenever then. You know there's no hiding from me."

Stéphane raises an eyebrow at him as he gets out of the car, "I thought I was pursuing you."

"That's just because I wanted you to think that." Stéphane smiles at him, shaking his head as he turns towards the house. Johnny rolls down the window and shouts, "The hunter has now become the prey!" as he jogs up the driveway.

He's sure Nina and Viktor's neighbors think he's crazy now- or maybe just crazier -but it's worth it to make sure Stéphane finishes the night laughing.

~~~

Thankfully, it isn't long before Stéphane finally has a good run of skating. Of course things are still far from perfect, but it's not like anyone expects perfect so early in training. Galina is in near ecstasy with so much mothering and complaining and berating to do. Viktor merely regards Johnny and Stéphane with his usual, doleful expression, silently pleading with them to become immediately better so that he no longer has to hear so much of his mother-in-law's louder and angrier registers echoed back at him on the ice.

Strangely enough it's not the glee in Stéphane's face after a landed jump that he finds comforting, but just watching the bastard attempt quads and land them that helps Johnny to feel more at ease. Frankly, it's a hell of a lot more like the status quo he had become used to before last season.

The last time Johnny found himself in a position where he could truly comfortably say he was in a better place than Stéphane was near the end of 2001. For several years he had regularly placed higher than Stéphane in the junior circuit. When they competed in their first Grand Prix event together, he did it again, finishing fourth to Stéphane's sixth. And despite being a measly seventeen, he felt so much more adult than Stéphane. Those ten extra months in the world had felt like a lifetime when he was younger, exaggerated further by the fact that Stéphane was so unconcerned with seeming sophisticated. It made it easy to be friendly, imagining that Stéphane would always be behind him, growing ever better of course, but just never quite able to make up for the head start.

It was two and a half years later before they next competed and Johnny briefly sized Stéphane up again at the warm up. He couldn't help but note that he was finally growing into his features. All the drama of his cheekbones, dark eyes, and strange mouth seemed to finally be coming together in a way that made sense, and pretty good sense at that.

During World's that year Johnny's body just kept getting tighter with each passing hour, shoulders clenching painfully, lips pressing together until they disappeared. Even his stomach felt as though it had shrunk down to the size of a grape. Becoming the US Champion had been fun back home but somehow now it was actually the worst thing imaginable. He sat there in the locker room after warm ups, feeling as though he could squeeze himself smaller and smaller under all the invisible pressure, watching Stéphane obsess unnecessarily about new laces.

Stéphane's emotions were still way too big for him back then. Actually, in Johnny's less generous moments he wants to say Stéphane's emotions continue to be maybe a size or two too large, but things like joy or disappointment used to take Stéphane seemingly by complete surprise, then expand and grow until they spilled over, refusing to be contained. The other boy was so obviously jittery that he looked like he might shake apart and it made Johnny feel some of that old magnanimity. Johnny smiled at Stéphane when he said hello.

"I remember you," Stéphane said, words tentative and accented.

Johnny went so far as to bat his eyelashes a bit while touching Stéphane's wrist, the whole time thinking, Yeah, I still know you.

Neither of them saw the podium in the final rankings, but when it came down to it Stéphane had finally passed him as a competitor, fourth to Johnny's fifth. Johnny stared at the scores, chewing on his lip, trying to push Stéphane into a new category, rival. Obviously he had to be just another spoiled ISU ass-kisser who thought he was better than everyone else. Johnny repeated it again and again, hoping it would stick.

He definitely did not expect Stéphane to hunt him down at the rehearsals for the gala, let alone to steadfastly refuse to be rebuffed by Johnny's attempts to seem bored with him, before eventually becoming outright hostile. If he skated away, Stéphane followed still talking. If Johnny skated faster, Stéphane picked up speed and reached out to grasp his hand and keep them together. Back at the hotel Stéphane started out right stalking him, or least that's how it seemed when he just so happened to be lurking around when Johnny was alone and in need of someone to speak German to the bellboy. (Seriously, the guy just could not get the concept of "more towels" no matter how many times Johnny drew a square shape in the air with his finger.)

Stéphane stepped up beside him, pressing in too close, smiled at him and started translating. Bewildered by the rapid-fire guttural vowels and nods of agreement passing between Stéphane and the hotel staffer, Johnny didn't even realize that Stéphane had hooked their arms together until Stéphane was leading him away.

"He will have some sent up," Stéphane told him, pressing the button to the elevator. It never occurred to Johnny not to follow him in.

So it was in an elevator going between floors (an elevator like they were fifteen and away on a school trip with inattentive chaperons) that Johnny first discovered that Stéphane's mouth was always sweet. Stéphane dropped one soft, shy kiss on his lips, and in the space between it and the one that followed Johnny might have said something. He didn't, and Stéphane did it again, even better that time.

He didn't understand why he didn't hate it, why it didn't bother him that Stéphane had beaten him and still thought he could do this. But practical thinking is not a skill Johnny claims to have mastered even now as he enters in to his mid-twenties. At nineteen his full consideration of whether or not heavy petting with one of his main competitors, especially one recently deemed better than him, was a good or bad idea stopped with "Jesus Christ, he smells good."

Before the doors even dinged to open Johnny was thinking about the two queen beds back in his hotel room. Unfortunately, one was probably occupied with a disapproving mother (nineteen years old and still sleeping with mom, he realized only then how mortifying it was) so they had to wander up and down the halls, finding every dark and out of the way corner to make out unseen and undisturbed until some other hotel guest blundered by, scandalized.

Stéphane kept going after him with this appealing boldness and naiveté, flashing these utterly bashful smiles while his fingertips worked under clothing as if they couldn't even conceive of the possibility of rebuke. By the time Johnny thought to say stop those shameless, questing fingers had made it all the way up to his collarbone and down well below his waistband. Johnny's lips were numb and his chin had been roughed up with heretofore unimagined levels of stubble burn, and still Stéphane shook his head, "No, don't go yet."

"I have to. My mother is probably like fifteen minutes away from telling the desk clerk to call the police because I've been kidnapped or something." He might have gone up and told her, faced her disapproving frown with the knowledge that he was nineteen, he could do what he liked, but he didn't, not yet knowing why he would bother.

Instead he kissed Stéphane goodnight and pulled away six different times, went upstairs, and politely refused to answer his mother's shrewd questions.

The next morning he hid in his hotel room until it was time to leave for the airport.

The next year Stéphane won gold and Johnny still failed to medal. He didn't medal in Moscow where it could have been so perfect, a short lifetime of dreams come true. Instead he was knee deep in a much deserved post-season funk, texting Drew to no avail thanks to the time difference, when Stéphane somehow slipped away from the tangle of happy people around him just to find Johnny and kiss him again.

"I'm seeing someone," Johnny said, gasped actually, as he broke away from Stéphane's mouth. He'd been seeing the same someone the last year, too but it had been still pretty casual. He hadn't expected it to bloom into something so big and real.

Stéphane thought about that for a moment, turned his face to the side as he worried his lip between his teeth. Then he looked back at Johnny. "Are they here? This someone?"

"No, but that doesn't mean I can just start-"

Stéphane shook his head firmly, "This isn't starting. This is finishing." He took Johnny's hips in his hands. "Let's just finish this."

It wasn't finished, not when Stéphane took him to a room, undid the button to Johnny's jeans, and boldly dropped to his knees. Not after Johnny hid a blush by turning his cheek again the pillow, playing at demure when really he was saying, "Come on, come on, come on do it," under his breath as Stéphane pressed two fingers against him, into him, then scissored them open. It was soon over, fast and inelegant and uncontrolled and everything Johnny usually tried so hard not to be, but it wasn't finished.

Not then or the next year, when Johnny got so tipsy on champagne and another disappointment that he hadn't stopped Stéphane from sucking bruises onto his skin. Bruises he couldn't hide or explain. The next season, though the damage was already done, he tried determinedly to sour himself to it. He thought up all sorts of pretty believable reasons about how it was entirely ridiculous for him to allow this to continue. He managed to work himself into a pretty fine snit at Skate Canada when Stéphane had come up from seventh to beat him again, but it wasn't finished. In Tokyo that year not only was it still there it was so much more. More sex, more necessary, more reckless, hotter, sadder, and- begrudgingly Johnny had to admit - better.

He wondered if it would be over at last when he won gold over Stéphane in China, and then again in Russia. He had thought it would feel like the way things should be, but instead it felt like everything was upside down. He kept waiting for things to flip again, right up until Sweden when he finally put himself in the top ranks for the world and Stéphane finally fell. It seemed the perfect time to be finished, to say they'd at last outgrown it, that something had changed. To Johnny's utter surprise it wasn't over and he was the one who made sure of it.

So it's really his fault that this isn't finished now. Hell, it's barely even dormant. He wants to blame Stéphane, especially when Stéphane comes over two times in one week, just as brazen and beyond discouragement as ever. The second time is a Saturday; Stéphane talks Johnny into going to a free form practice, just an hour of no coaches or expectations. It's under the pretense of thinking up ideas for an exhibition piece, but it isn't too long before it's just skating. They show off with ridiculous arabesques and lazy spins, and laugh breathlessly when they fall.

Afterward they go to Johnny's apartment to continue filling the holes in Stéphane's woefully incomplete American film education and Stéphane insists that he and Johnny must watch Heathers while snuggling.

"That is how I like to watch movies," he says, shrugging up at him from the couch. His nose is still a little red from blowing it so much while on the ice. He looks ridiculous. And adorable. "Why does this bother you? I know that you cuddle with your friends. The other day you licked your agent on the nose."

"That was just funny," Johnny argues, still standing with the remote in his hand.

"So be funny," Stéphane says dismissively. "I will not watch this movie if I cannot be comfortable." He stretches ostentatiously out along the couch and asks hopefully, "This movie, is it sad?"

Johnny rolls his eyes and gingerly lays himself down next to Stéphane. He tries to keep things as chaste as possible, but chaste really isn't in his nature so that's something of a lost cause to begin with. He starts off rigid, leaning forward, seeking any space that doesn't already have Stéphane occupying it. Yet halfway through the movie their ankles are intertwined and Stéphane's hand is under Johnny's shirt resting somewhat innocently over Johnny's navel. Now and again, usually when Stéphane's breath tickles his neck, Johnny sighs and tries to make it sound really exasperated. Stéphane ignores him, and by the end of the movie they're both asleep.

Johnny's phone buzzes that it's gotten an email loudly enough to wake him, and he blinks open his eyes to find the DVD start menu playing on a loop. He picks up the remote from the carpet and turns it off. The afternoon is almost gone and the light filtering through the window is so weak Johnny, still in the stupor of an unexpected nap, feels like he could sleep straight through the night. Stéphane has grown around him during their rest, like ivy, or lichen or some other sort of pleasant parasite. His hand has moved up Johnny's chest to lay flat against his breastbone, pulling up his shirt, exposing his stomach but he's not in the least bit cold. Stéphane is warm and pressed against the entire length of Johnny's back, face tucked into Johnny's shoulder like a child. Johnny lies there, breathing shallowly, but sleep never takes him back down again.

Stéphane stirs with a kittenish noise, and Johnny shuts his eyes tightly to pretend to be asleep until Stéphane says his name. It's a long time before Stéphane finally says it.

( Part Two )