Fic: Hearts Beat Time Out (skating RPS, Johnny/Ben, part 3 of 4)
The third chapter of this fic is the longest, so I have to split it. So while the first two sections consisted of exactly one chapter, this one consists of half of the third chapter. It's a shorter section than the others, which is... not to say that it's short or anything. I'll post the second half of chapter 3, plus the epilogue, tomorrow. And stay tuned for outtakes on Sunday!
Part one is here, and Part two is here.
Title: Hearts Beat Time Out
Fandom: figure skating RPS
Pairing/Characters: Johnny Weir/Benjamin Agosto, Tanith Belbin, Irina Slutskaya
for full headers, please see this post.
Long program. Free dance.
Ben had three days in Detroit with Tanith to learn their new program for Champions on Ice. It was a silly program, not very difficult, but after a week off the ice, every step was a little wobbly, a little out of sync. "Stop thinking," Igor kept saying. "These are easy steps. Stop thinking and skate." But Ben wasn't thinking. His head felt totally empty.
They took a break to grab some water, and Tanith came up behind him. "I'm not jealous," she said.
"What?"
"I'm not jealous, and you're not losing me, and whatever else you're thinking. It's not happening." She punched him in the arm hard enough to make him rub it and scowl. "So don't try to make it happen, asshole."
"I'm not. Don't hit me."
"Are you in the middle of an identity crisis, or am I still allowed to remind you how much of a woman you are?" Tanith said.
"I got over that the first time I had to wear tights in public," he said. "You're not jealous?"
"No. I told you. People I like should be with other people I like." She took his water bottle from him and stole a swig. "So was it amazing?"
"It was fun," he said.
"That's it?"
"It was things I'm not going to describe with Igor and Marina and fifteen other skaters here."
She giggled. "So you're going to spend the entire summer snuggling in the back of the tour bus?"
"There might also be some skating."
"Are you going to teach him that move from The Cutting Edge?"
"I thought we agreed we didn't mention that movie," Ben said. "Didn't we institute a fine?"
"No, that was just you. Anyway, you're gay now, we have to watch Ice Castles and cry."
"I'm not --"
"You're not?"
"There yet," he said. "Also, toe pick."
She covered her ears and grimaced. "Okay, you're right, there's a fine."
"Toe pick."
"Don't ever speak to me."
"T--"
"I broke up with Seth," she blurted.
"I--" He wasn't sure whether she was asking for comfort or a bottle of champagne. He didn't mean to think that way -- she'd really loved at least one of the guys she'd dated since he'd known her -- but she tended to get bored with guys. Theirs was by far the longest committed relationship she'd ever had, and she only let herself have that because there was no sex involved and never would be. They were mutually uninterested. But it still got in the way of dating other people. It wasn't that people were wrong to expect you to give them your whole heart, just that it was impossible.
"No, it was a good breakup," she said.
"It still sucks that it didn't work out," he said.
"No, what sucks is that I wasted four months on a guy who, okay. You and I talked on the phone, what, three times last week? And, like, everything you said about Johnny was a one-word response, but even from that I could tell I wasn't in love enough."
"There were three-word responses," Ben said. He felt sorry for being flippant, but he couldn't keep up with the drama.
"You're almost cute when you're in love," she said.
"Almost?"
She came up very close to him, like she was about to slap him. "You're not denying it."
"Not so much," he said.
She took a step back, and he exhaled. She said, "Does he know?"
"I don't know if he knows," Ben said.
"He knows," she said. "He totally knows." She finished his water and set the empty bottle down on the bench. "We should run the twizzle sequence again; I'm wobbling," she said. "Come on. Smile like you're in love."
*
Johnny had swiped Tanith's Paris Hilton wig, and that pretty much summed up everything he loved about going on tour. The long acrylic strands flared out when he spun and tangled in his eyes when he checked out. He started tossing off easy triples, salchows and toe loops, because they felt alien under the veil of hair. He had his legs under him again; he had the long extension and curve of his spine. Injured, he wasn't himself. Not being able to bend was like not being able to think. He passed the wig on to Zhenya, on whose head it was almost plausible. It was no trouble to get full extension on his spirals. On his last pass, he got himself into a secure forward outside edge and caught his free blade in his hand. He couldn't quite get his boot over his head yet, but it would be there by Easter. His practice time was almost up, so he did combination spins until he was about to throw up, even managed a donut position like a big fuck you to the limits of his lower back.
As he was putting his skate guards on, Tanith came running up to him in street shoes. "Okay, now I'm missing the wig and the chihuahua," she said.
"The Russians have your hair," Johnny said. "The dog is still at large."
"For fuck's sake," she said, "I don't even have my skates on, and they're --" Someone had put the wig up in a loose bun on top of Zhenya's head. "Would you please? Ben's off looking for Toto, and I don't have time for this."
She finished talking just in time for both of them to watch as Zhenya balled up the wig and tossed it over the boards to Max. "I don't think I have that kind of power," Johnny said.
"Okay," she said. "Tania and Max, I guess I can deal with." She'd been hot and cold like that since rehearsals started. Playful and familiar one minute, cautious and apologetic the next. It wasn't her fault. If he and Ben lasted the summer, Tanith was practically an in-law; if they broke up ugly, she'd take Ben's side forever. Either way, it was strange to see her so much. They'd been Best Friends Forever a couple of summers ago, but life had gotten in the way. There hadn't been a fight, just a drifting apart. And now they had to share a boy.
"It's fine. I'll get it," Johnny said.
"I don't really care as long as it gets back to me before dress rehearsal," Tanith said. "It's the dog I'm worried about. That was custom made."
"It'll come home," Johnny said.
"What did you two do to it last night?" Tanith said, hands on her hips, not making any genuine accusations.
"Are you kidding? If I'd laid a finger on that thing, Ben's head would have spun around. We have boundaries. He doesn't touch my costumes, and I don't touch his."
She studied him, raked her fingers through her hair, shifted her weight.
"What?" Johnny said, when it was clear she was going to stand there waiting until he made her talk.
"You -- you both talk like you've been together for months," she said. "It's been, it's not even been three weeks and you're like -- You're so in love, and I totally believe it, but I'm really, when it comes to Ben? I'm, like, neurotic and territorial that he's going to get hurt. Like -- like a tiny dog or something."
"Yeah, I know, right?" Johnny said. "It's like -- I think maybe it's the long distance thing. The lack of it. Like, when you're used to having a boyfriend you hardly ever see, you --"
"You pack more relationship into less time," Tanith said. She bit her lip. "No, I get it. Sort of. In my mind."
"I guess that's, I mean, you can't really, you can't do better than that," Johnny said, as Ben came running up to them in skates, Toto under his arm like a squishy football.
"I present him to you as I found him," Ben said, clearly suppressing a fit of snickering. He held the costume piece out with both hands. An empty Smirnoff Ice bottle had been tucked into the pouch next to the plush dog. Tanith snatched Toto out of Ben's hands, took the bottle out, and set it on the bench. She stroked the dog's head as if she needed to restore its injured feelings.
"That's so sad," Johnny said. "We've driven your costume to drink."
Ben looked back and forth at Johnny and Tanith. "You're doing that thing," he said. "The thing where you're having a conversation, and you stop as soon as the person it's about is in earshot. Are you planning my future for me? Are you sending me to military school?"
"It's not important," Tanith said. She was huffy, Johnny thought; she shouldn't be huffy.
"We're learning how to share," Johnny said. "We're in new relationship kindergarten." He got a laugh out of Ben and a real smile out of Tanith, and he thought, maybe it could be easy. Maybe she would let him understand. The only person he had ever been anywhere near that close with was his mom, and his mom had a pretty clear sense of where her territory ended and his boyfriends' began. Johnny would have thought that by now, Tanith would have a similar sense of boundaries. In fact, she probably did. He imagined that she just didn't know whether they still applied. He was a guy, and her friend, and he wasn't sure which of those was a bigger problem.
"Shit," Tanith said. "The Zamboni's leaving. I have to go find my skates." She put her hand on Johnny's shoulder. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have -- I don't want you to think I'm like that. I'm really not like that."
"You're allowed to be like that," Johnny said.
She kissed his cheek, and he couldn't help beaming a little. "Until I get over it," she said, heading towards the women's locker room.
"Do I get to ask what was going on there?" Ben said when she was gone.
"My mom's going to tour with us for a couple of weeks in June," Johnny said. "Ask me again after that."
"So I don't get to ask," Ben said.
"I don't think you do," Johnny said.
"I don't think I do, either," Ben said. He leaned as close to Johnny as he could without attracting the attention of the skeevy Tampa journalist who had been following them around all during their week of practice. "Are you sticking around?"
"I think I'm going to take a shower and get some food, and then my physical therapist finally cleared my back so I can start doing Pilates again. So, like, I have my afternoon, but yeah, later."
"You're so focused," Ben said. "You're so much more fucking focused than I am."
"Tell it to America," Johnny said. He backed away, blew a kiss, spun on his guarded toe pick and wobbled. When he'd been in pain, it had been so hard to even get on the ice. Now that he was healthy again, he remembered how much harder walking was than skating. Walking was slow; stopping was built into it. He looked back at Ben, who had his heel propped up on the boards at a 90-degree angle to his body and was lowering himself into a stretch over his leg. Ben looked simultaneously powerful and capable of floating. Johnny wished that their relationship could be that effortless, or at least give the illusion. Instead, there were all these awkward moments, these intrusions from the outside that made him stop and struggle. It was so much easier to glide. But you couldn't do that in street shoes.
*
Going on tour was surreal. New rink every day, programs so new at the beginning of the summer that you hardly remembered them and so worn out by July that you'd surrender a testicle to skate to some new music, floodlights and encores and costumers who thought it was hilarious to dress Ben in pink sequined Lycra. And then you flew home every Sunday night to start learning your competition programs, so that you could forget them all over again on Friday to put on your Sean Connery wig and remember when you thought this concept was funny. Summers were long in figure skating like winters were long in Michigan. The money was too good to turn down, as was the opportunity for free cross-country travel, but it was all schmaltz and no glory. It was the only time of year when Ben had to force his smiles.
Part of it was that Ben associated touring with missing people. His family had moved to Detroit for him, and they still lost him for half the year. Tanith said it was a sign of his deteriorating mind that he got grumpy when he didn't see his dogs for a while, but in the absence of any other children, they were his babies. He paid some of the local rink rats to take care of them, and they knew not to giggle audibly when he asked them to put the dogs on the phone. Johnny, at least, thought this was perfectly normal, so much so that he insisted that he get to say hi to them, too. "If they disapprove of me, we're both in trouble," he said.
The dogs didn't seem to have any objections, and Johnny assured him with near-seriousness that his puppies approved, too. "You realize that you could fit, like, seven of your dogs in each of mine," Ben said.
"I think they'd get along," Johnny said. "It would be like the Brady Bunch."
They both got quiet for a minute, and Ben guessed that they were both figuring out the same thing. If this worked out, it would be years before they could have any kind of life together. They trained in different parts of the country. Johnny had already relocated his family once, and even if Ben could convince Tanith to leave Detroit, he'd never get Igor and Marina out of Michigan. Skating had to come first as long as they were both competing. They didn't have to discuss that to know they agreed on it.
"Shit," Johnny said. "The bus leaves in half an hour, and my stuff is all over the place." It really wasn't. They didn't have a whole lot of time to unpack, especially with their secret mission of having sex in as many American cities as possible.
"Like they're going to leave without us," Ben said.
"We're going to get stuck on the Quiet Bus," Johnny said. This year, Champs on Ice had sprung for two tour buses. Someone had noticed that twenty skaters plus equipment, luggage, the revolving door of coaches and family members, and Tanith's shoe collection were too much for one bus to carry. One bus had been set aside for those who preferred to sleep while on the road, and Tanith and Evan had quickly pronounced the other the Diva Bus. The joke had caught on so thoroughly that they'd come back after their second Boston show to find that an unidentified conspiracy of coaches had put up streamers, tinsel, and shiny paper cutout letters that announced the bus's name to all who entered.
It made sense that Johnny was a fireball of neuroses. They were headed to Detroit for a Sunday matinee, and Johnny had agreed to stay there with Ben for the week. Ben had reserved extra ice time so Johnny could practice, and he'd warned his friends to clear their schedules. He wasn't sure what they'd make of Johnny, but some of them had started to get noisy about not having met him yet.
Ben slung his gym bag, his backpack for the bus, and his garment bag full of costumes over his shoulder and dragged his suitcase behind him. "I'll see you downstairs," he said.
"You're leaving me all alone?"
"I have to check out of my room that I never even saw," Ben said. "Besides, I don't want to get stuck on the Quiet Bus." In previous summers, he might not have minded the Quiet Bus. Zoning out to music and reading were activities he enjoyed. But one of the other things you weren't allowed to do on the Quiet Bus was put your arm around your boyfriend. Apparently, that made some people uncomfortable. Those people remained anonymous, because he and Johnny had both been informed of the rule through their coaches.
Ben had trouble understanding how you could get this far in the skating world and hang onto your homophobia. When he'd thought of himself as straight, he'd often felt like the only heterosexual for miles around. His publicist was gay; he'd had gay coaches; most of the tiny minority of male skaters at the rink where he'd skated as a kid had come out within moments of hitting puberty. He'd assumed he was straight for so long because most of the men he'd had to compare himself to were gay. And it wasn't like people were so accepting or supportive of the middle ground. With hindsight on his side, he knew he'd fallen prey to that himself: every girl who caught his eye was proof that he was straight, while every boy was an exception, something that he'd grow out of. Most of the men he was attracted to were androgynous and effeminate, like Johnny, and he'd used that excuse, too. He'd just assumed that everyone had to make those kinds of excuses. He'd convinced himself that guys who said they'd never had a gay thought were possibly lucky but probably lying.
He shoved his luggage into the bowels of the Diva Bus, which was already idling in the loading zone, and went back inside the hotel to grab some orange juice and a muffin from the hospitality room. "There's, like, actually enough baked goods today," Kimmie told him as he went in. He got that almost every morning: his grumbling about offensive free breakfast spreads had once been the entire extent of his bad boy image. He was glad to see her joining in on the inside jokes and the silliness. For the first few weeks, she'd been nervous, but after the Columbus show, she'd snuck away from her coach's watchful eye and let Johnny and the Russians conspire to get her drunk for the first time in her life. After that, it was like she'd made an overnight transformation into everyone's slightly depraved little sister.
"Sweet," Ben said. The hospitality room was nearly empty. People liked sleeping late. Even Tanith, who he could usually find with her feet on a corner table, face buried in the hood of her Pistons sweatshirt like a Jawa while she drank her coffee, hadn't dragged herself downstairs yet. She'd been talking about picking up random guys once they hit the Midwest. He'd thought she'd been joking, but now he wasn't so sure. He kind of hoped she'd scored.
He carried his breakfast back to the bus. There was a row of seats near the back that was informally reserved for him and Johnny. The idea was, if they sat in the back, nobody had to witness the PDA unless they wanted to. He put on his music and leaned back to sip his juice and pick at his muffin. Most of the time, he chose being with Johnny over being alone, but he missed his privacy once in a while.
It occurred to him that he might be a little hung over. The alcohol always flowed pretty freely on tour, because there was no other way to get through the month of June, but the two buses thing had amplified the situation. They carried their stashes in ice-filled picnic coolers. Most of the other skaters favored vodka or hard lemonade. Johnny kept a bottle of Stoli Vanil and a quart of chocolate milk in his so that he would have his booze to himself. The only reason Ben wasn't lugging one around was that he and Tanith shared their Jack Daniels and Diet Coke, and she'd stopped allowing him to be responsible for it when he'd accidentally left it behind in New Jersey.
He fell asleep. He hadn't expected to: he'd felt alert enough getting on the bus. But that was Kimmie shaking him awake, which meant he'd needed waking. "There's a press thing," she said. "The Champs people are busy knocking on doors, so they sent me to come get you."
"Press?" Ben yawned. "They couldn't have done it last night?"
"It's some local thing," Kimmie said. "Like, Girl Scouts or something."
"All this for five minutes and a picture? Jesus." He left his backpack and his half-eaten muffin on the bus and followed Kimmie back to the hospitality room.
There weren't any Girl Scouts there, just a bunch of annoyed skaters in sweats and flip-flops and one glossy-haired woman in a pink suit and matching pink pumps. Tanith intercepted Ben as he came in, saying, "Don't sit near Johnny."
"What?" he said.
"I think it's some kind of USFSA thing," Tanith said. "Michelle heard they're freaking out about -- I don't know, sit over here with me and look wholesome."
Ben made eye contact with Johnny and smiled defeatedly at him. Johnny smiled back but shook his head, a gesture of warning. He seemed to realize as much as Ben did that Ben's decision to leave early had spared them a lot of drama.
"It's only the US skaters," Tanith said. "Look."
Ben was about to say something snide about blind patriotism, but the woman in the pink suit banged a fork against an empty chair to get their attention. "Good morning," she read from a clipboard. She looked perplexed when nobody greeted her back. "Thank you all for meeting with me. My name is Lou Ann Hogenkamp, and I'm the Assistant Director of Outreach Services for USFSA. I've asked that the buses be held until we're finished here. I assure you that you'll arrive in Detroit with plenty of time to warm up before your performance this afternoon. The reason I've asked to meet with you this morning is, there have been some reports of inappropriate behavior among the skaters on this tour. We at USFSA want to remind you that the people in this room represent the very best that American figure skating has to offer. You're the cream of the crop, and we're proud to count you among our members.
"However, what you all need to remember is, athletes at your level of accomplishment are more than just private individuals. You're representatives of USFSA, and more importantly, you're role models for the skaters of the future. So when we hear reports of underage drinking, drug use, promiscuous sex and, uh, homosexual activity among our top athletes, we have to express our concern. We hope that in the future, you'll take some time to think about how your actions reflect on you and on the figure skating community. We've brought you all together because we don't want to single anyone out. We want you all to understand that underage drinking is illegal and unacceptable under any circumstances. We want you all to think about how pictures on the internet of two male skaters holding hands will affect little boys just starting out in the sport. We--"
"That skating might be a chance for them to participate in sports without getting beat up for being different?" It was Sasha. Ben hadn't believed anyone would have the balls to interrupt a USFSA official in the middle of a morality lecture. Sasha was, maybe, the only person who could get away with it. She sipped water at the hotel room parties while everyone else drank, and her worst vice was playing Texas Hold 'Em with Uno cards with whoever she could drag to the front of the Diva Bus, using Skittles as poker chips. She had nothing to lose. "Oh my God," she said. "This is so ridiculous."
"Also?" Evan said. "Nobody's doing drugs."
"Excuse me?" Lou Ann Hogenkamp said.
"This is ridiculous, and nobody's doing drugs," Evan said. "It was one joke at one press conference, which the person apologized for. And I mean, the drinking is a problem, and we should all keep an eye on that. But nobody's doing drugs."
While Lou Ann sputtered, Tanith raised her hand. "Which male skaters are holding hands on the internet?"
Lou Ann scowled so hard it looked like her makeup was going to smear. "You know perfectly well who I'm talking about."
"Do you know where we can find the pictures?" Tanith said.
"I wasn't given that information, no."
"That's too bad," Tanith said. "Our website guy likes it when we give him candids."
"You all need to take this more seriously," Lou Ann said. "If you don't behave in a manner consistent with USFSA's mission statement, there can be repercussions."
Ben couldn't hold it in anymore. "Like what? You're going to take us all out of the brochure?"
The silence was heavy like being dropped. He knew he should have let someone else say it. After all, it was possible that Johnny's exclusion from USFSA's 2006 promotional materials had been a reflection of his poor performances at the Olympics and at Worlds. But nobody quite believed that. This was the outburst that Ben would have made anyway: it was unfair and offensive, and it would have been more criminal to leave it unsaid.
Just as it started to look like a stalemate, Michelle spoke up. "Lou Ann, I think we all understand USFSA's concerns, and I think I speak for everyone when I say that we're all committed to representing our country and our sport in as positive a light as we possibly can. But the accusations seem to be wildly out of proportion to reality. There's been some drinking on tour, but it's been moderate from what I can tell, and the underage skaters have been staying away for the most part. There hasn't been any drug use or sleeping around that I know about. And there have always been gay men in this sport. Nobody denies that. As far as I know, there is one gay relationship between skaters on this tour, and they've been discreet and respectful in the way they've handled it. It doesn't sound like those pictures were posted on the internet with those skaters' knowledge or consent, and it doesn't sound like they'd be easy for young skaters to find. I think we could all stand to be more conscientious about our actions and how they reflect on the organizations we're affiliated with, but seriously? I don't think the situation warrants delaying our buses."
Lou Ann looked down at her clipboard, then up at Michelle, then down at her clipboard again. "I'll... have to talk to my superiors about this," she said. As she hurried out the door, she added, "Have a good show tonight."
They all stood up slowly. Something small but meaningful, half a smile or most of a nod, seemed to travel around the room. Together, they filed out and headed for the buses.
"So," Ben whispered to Tanith as they walked down the hallway. "Was there any promiscuous sex that Michelle doesn't know about?"
She shrugged. "He was nice," she said. "He didn't know who I was."
"Was it what you needed?" Ben said.
"I don't know," she said. "But I'm a fucking adult, you know? Sometimes I can have things because I want them."
"We're not adults," Ben said. "We're role models."
"Fuck that," Tanith said. "Go play with your boyfriend."
It wasn't so much that he was obeying her, as it was what he'd planned on doing anyway. Johnny had already commandeered the remains of his muffin. "I get to eat this because I almost sat on it," he said with his mouth full.
"There are pictures of us on the internet," Ben said, sitting down.
"There are lots of pictures of us on the internet," Johnny said. "Some of mine are topless."
"No, I mean, there are pictures of us. Being... us."
"Of course there are pictures of us. We were holding hands in Chelsea in broad daylight," Johnny said. "They're probably on that website with the sports gossip. They have a whole section for gay athletes." He grinned for the imaginary flashbulbs. "They like me there."
"So you don't care?" Ben said.
"Not really. Do you?"
"I don't know," Ben said. "I feel like I should."
"Well, stop it," Johnny said. "Have some muffin."
"Oh my God, there is no way to express how much I do not want your already-chewed muffin."
"No, I was going to give you some actual muffin, but --" Johnny swallowed audibly and sat across Ben's lap. "The word 'muffin' sounds really dirty when you say it over and over." He parted Ben's lips with his tongue.
After a very small amount of time, something soft but aerodynamic bounced off the side of Ben's head. "That's not church tongue," Sasha yelled. "Get a room." Johnny sighed melodramatically and climbed back into his own seat. They might have been relieved of the responsibility of pretending to be examples of virtue, but there were still rules against porno tongue while the bus was in motion. Limits were comforting, when you could find them.
*
"I want nachos," Johnny said, as the lights went up for intermission, the audience herded out for refreshments, and the PA cued up the Zamboni song.
"Do you even like nachos?" Ben said.
"Not really. But I want them. Stale ones, smothered in Velveeta. Mild Velveeta. Maybe topped with ground beef."
"Who are you?" Ben said.
"And maybe a Bud Light."
"No, seriously," Ben said. "Who are you?"
"A man who's been on tour way too long," Johnny said.
"You know what I could use?" Ben said.
"What?"
"A Zamboni. Actually, a Zamboni powered by ponies. A Zampony."
"Wouldn't they leave divots?" Johnny said. "The ponies."
"You'd put little skates on them. Sad little pony skates."
"That's so mean," Johnny said. "I'm telling everyone you're mean to ponies. Hey, Evan! Ben's mean to ponies."
"Didn't I beg you not to involve me in this stuff?" Evan said.
"If you don't want to get caught up in the pony jokes, you should probably stay out of earshot," Ben said. "I'm checking my messages." He was waiting to hear from his mom; there was something about one of his brothers moving or moving in with somebody. Johnny was ashamed that he hadn't really been paying attention when Ben had told him about it. Ben's mom was pretty much guaranteed to call in the middle of performances: she had no sense of time zones. Ben was playing with his phone, pushing buttons and frowning.
"Did you hear anything?" Johnny said.
"No,"; Ben said. "I mean, not from my mom. I'll tell you later." He tilted his head towards Evan and clicked his tongue. Once the second act of the show started, they'd be able to wander off quietly somewhere, as long as they watched their time. During intermission, fans sometimes figured out how to sneak backstage, and it was best to hide. So they waited until the "no laser pointers" announcement blared from the PA, and then they snuck to the men's room, where Ben locked them into the handicapped stall. "It was from my ex," he said. "Which is why, you know. I didn't want to say anything."
"Okay," Johnny said slowly.
"She left this text message that was all, like, when are you coming home, I want to see you, and I think, like, maybe she thinks -- I don't know. Like she thinks we might get back together or something."
Johnny folded his arms and stood with his back against the tile. Chin up, perfect posture: his fight face. He hadn't known that was what it was until he'd gotten together with Ben. "Is she right?" he said.
"I don't think so," Ben said.
"So you're not sure."
"No, I mean, we've taken, like, breaks before," Ben said. "I think maybe she thinks that's all this is. Like, it sounded pretty final to me when I asked her to marry me and she said no, but --"
Johnny softened his stance, stepped forward, and put a hand on Ben's arm. "I didn't know," he said. "I didn't know it was that serious."
"You didn't know I needed the rebound that badly?" Ben said with a laugh, but Johnny didn't return it. "Seven years," Ben said. "Seven fucking years."
"I'm -- I don't know. I'm sorry? What do you want me to say?" Johnny said.
"I don't know," Ben said.
"Because, I mean, I've been asking you all along what's going on with you, what happened with her, and you just kept going, it's over, it's nothing. And this whole time I have been so fucking honest with you, and you've just been -- I mean, you asked her to marry you. You didn't think that was important enough to tell me?"
"What? No," Ben said. "It was, like, it was too important."
That made sense. At least, it made sense for Ben, the way his mind worked. And maybe it was that, realizing that he did know Ben's mind a little, that let Johnny retreat and relax, his hands release, his breath come back slow and full. "So tell me," Johnny said. "Tell me now."
"I don't know," Ben said. "We'd been together, like, almost seven years, and I always thought, like, when we're old enough, we'll get married. Like, after a while, we just assumed it, right? And then I turned 24 and I realized, wait, my parents were younger than me when they got married. So I bought a ring, and then I put it off until after the Olympics, and I finally propose, and it's just really simple? Like, I just took her out to dinner. And she seemed, I don't know, like she expected me to have done something really complicated and theatrical, but it's like, she was the only part of my life that wasn't like that. So she looks at me, and she looks at the ring, and she says, 'I will, but only if you promise to put me first.' And all I can think is, she wants me to put her before skating, before my career, before Tanith? I don't say that, obviously, but I hesitated, you know? She should have known I couldn't promise that. And, like, I think she did know, because she got up and she said, 'You know what? Never mind,' and she left. And I kept -- I kept thinking, like, I should call her. But it was right before Worlds and we were training like crazy, and it was like, what am I going to tell her? So I didn't, and I just, we went to Calgary and you took me out for Chinese food, and I didn't hear from her and I figured she'd moved on, too."
There was no place to cut in on Ben, no way for Johnny to do anything but stand with his hands behind his back and nod. He didn't ever want to get in the way of Ben on the rare occasion that he opened up. "Thank you," he said.
"Um, you're welcome?"
"No, I mean, thank you for telling me," Johnny said. "Like, you could have told me before. It would have been all right. But thank you for telling me when I asked you to."
"It wouldn't have been all right," Ben said. "You would have been careful with me, you would have slowed things down, you -- you would have realized that I'm not worth it to you."
"It, um? It sounds like it wasn't your fault," Johnny said.
"It sounds that way?" Ben said. "Okay, I guess maybe -- okay. You know how I told you you're, like, fourth?"
That threw Johnny for a second, but he figured it out and giggled and said, "Yeah."
"Well, like, Merrie was first, right? And the other two were... kind of during."
"Oh," Johnny said flatly. "Oh."
"Like, one of them was during an official hiatus, so it was... I assumed it was okay. And the other one was, um --"
"Unofficial hiatus?" Johnny said.
"Yeah," Ben said. "Like, she knows now, but... yeah."
"That doesn't mean anything," Johnny said, not really believing it. "That doesn't mean you'll do that to me."
"I don't know," Ben said. "Like, there are times when I look at you, when I'm with you, and I think, okay, Tanith and I have two more Olympics left in us, you have at least one, and that's, that's a huge amount of time. But even so, I can see us in that apartment in New York that you talk about, and dogs running around and you designing clothes and me, I don't know, we'll see if the voice work takes off, but I can see it. I can see us adopting kids, I can see us having a life, and I think, what if I can't do that? What if I'm, like, I'm just not good enough of a person to deserve that?"
Johnny wanted to reassure him, but he decided honesty was better. And maybe more reassuring, after all. "I don't know if you are," he said. "I mean, I think you are. I'm taking my chances on that."
"I'm taking my chances on the fact that if I cheated on you, you'd rip my throat out," Ben said.
Johnny shook his head. "I wouldn't. I'd let you."
"No."
"I would let you," Johnny said. "And I'd hate myself, and I'd hate you, but -- but I know myself, and I'd let you. I'd think I deserved it somehow. "
"I'm starting to think we just have the same bad relationships over and over," Ben said. "Like, no matter how different you think the person is, you just find new people with the same faults and do the same shitty things with them."
"Sweetie, you've been in one whole relationship," Johnny said.
"Maybe."
"Seriously."
"You know what the weird thing is?" Ben said.
"Could you narrow it down?" Johnny said.
"Merrie and I were together for seven years, right? And all that time, we never had a fight. Not an actual, like, fight. When she was mad at me, she would just leave the room, she'd just go home. But you and me, we've been together for like two months, and I can think of, what? Three or four? A bunch."
"Do the ones that weren't about anything count?" Johnny said.
"We, like, we didn't even have those," Ben said. "And you -- you drive me crazy, you wear me out, but it's good."
"It's like endorphins," Johnny said. "When you train too hard and everything hurts, but you know you taught yourself something and now you own it."
Ben looked at Johnny like he had something to say, but what he had to say was a kiss, lips closed but long, as if it were suspended in the air. Johnny held Ben's face in his hands and ran his fingers up into Ben's hair. He didn't want to have sex now, in a bathroom in the bowels of the Colonial Center, but kissing was soft and safe. It fooled you into believing in Central Park West apartments and children and puppies and futures. Johnny wanted to be fooled; he wanted to be convinced. He eased into the almost-truth of Ben's lips, his eyes and his feet heavy.
"I'll call her after the show," Ben said, still kissing. "I'll explain."
That was all either of them said until Evan came pounding on the stall door to tell them they had ten minutes to get dressed for the finale.
Click here for part four.
Part one is here, and Part two is here.
Title: Hearts Beat Time Out
Fandom: figure skating RPS
Pairing/Characters: Johnny Weir/Benjamin Agosto, Tanith Belbin, Irina Slutskaya
for full headers, please see this post.
Long program. Free dance.
Ben had three days in Detroit with Tanith to learn their new program for Champions on Ice. It was a silly program, not very difficult, but after a week off the ice, every step was a little wobbly, a little out of sync. "Stop thinking," Igor kept saying. "These are easy steps. Stop thinking and skate." But Ben wasn't thinking. His head felt totally empty.
They took a break to grab some water, and Tanith came up behind him. "I'm not jealous," she said.
"What?"
"I'm not jealous, and you're not losing me, and whatever else you're thinking. It's not happening." She punched him in the arm hard enough to make him rub it and scowl. "So don't try to make it happen, asshole."
"I'm not. Don't hit me."
"Are you in the middle of an identity crisis, or am I still allowed to remind you how much of a woman you are?" Tanith said.
"I got over that the first time I had to wear tights in public," he said. "You're not jealous?"
"No. I told you. People I like should be with other people I like." She took his water bottle from him and stole a swig. "So was it amazing?"
"It was fun," he said.
"That's it?"
"It was things I'm not going to describe with Igor and Marina and fifteen other skaters here."
She giggled. "So you're going to spend the entire summer snuggling in the back of the tour bus?"
"There might also be some skating."
"Are you going to teach him that move from The Cutting Edge?"
"I thought we agreed we didn't mention that movie," Ben said. "Didn't we institute a fine?"
"No, that was just you. Anyway, you're gay now, we have to watch Ice Castles and cry."
"I'm not --"
"You're not?"
"There yet," he said. "Also, toe pick."
She covered her ears and grimaced. "Okay, you're right, there's a fine."
"Toe pick."
"Don't ever speak to me."
"T--"
"I broke up with Seth," she blurted.
"I--" He wasn't sure whether she was asking for comfort or a bottle of champagne. He didn't mean to think that way -- she'd really loved at least one of the guys she'd dated since he'd known her -- but she tended to get bored with guys. Theirs was by far the longest committed relationship she'd ever had, and she only let herself have that because there was no sex involved and never would be. They were mutually uninterested. But it still got in the way of dating other people. It wasn't that people were wrong to expect you to give them your whole heart, just that it was impossible.
"No, it was a good breakup," she said.
"It still sucks that it didn't work out," he said.
"No, what sucks is that I wasted four months on a guy who, okay. You and I talked on the phone, what, three times last week? And, like, everything you said about Johnny was a one-word response, but even from that I could tell I wasn't in love enough."
"There were three-word responses," Ben said. He felt sorry for being flippant, but he couldn't keep up with the drama.
"You're almost cute when you're in love," she said.
"Almost?"
She came up very close to him, like she was about to slap him. "You're not denying it."
"Not so much," he said.
She took a step back, and he exhaled. She said, "Does he know?"
"I don't know if he knows," Ben said.
"He knows," she said. "He totally knows." She finished his water and set the empty bottle down on the bench. "We should run the twizzle sequence again; I'm wobbling," she said. "Come on. Smile like you're in love."
*
Johnny had swiped Tanith's Paris Hilton wig, and that pretty much summed up everything he loved about going on tour. The long acrylic strands flared out when he spun and tangled in his eyes when he checked out. He started tossing off easy triples, salchows and toe loops, because they felt alien under the veil of hair. He had his legs under him again; he had the long extension and curve of his spine. Injured, he wasn't himself. Not being able to bend was like not being able to think. He passed the wig on to Zhenya, on whose head it was almost plausible. It was no trouble to get full extension on his spirals. On his last pass, he got himself into a secure forward outside edge and caught his free blade in his hand. He couldn't quite get his boot over his head yet, but it would be there by Easter. His practice time was almost up, so he did combination spins until he was about to throw up, even managed a donut position like a big fuck you to the limits of his lower back.
As he was putting his skate guards on, Tanith came running up to him in street shoes. "Okay, now I'm missing the wig and the chihuahua," she said.
"The Russians have your hair," Johnny said. "The dog is still at large."
"For fuck's sake," she said, "I don't even have my skates on, and they're --" Someone had put the wig up in a loose bun on top of Zhenya's head. "Would you please? Ben's off looking for Toto, and I don't have time for this."
She finished talking just in time for both of them to watch as Zhenya balled up the wig and tossed it over the boards to Max. "I don't think I have that kind of power," Johnny said.
"Okay," she said. "Tania and Max, I guess I can deal with." She'd been hot and cold like that since rehearsals started. Playful and familiar one minute, cautious and apologetic the next. It wasn't her fault. If he and Ben lasted the summer, Tanith was practically an in-law; if they broke up ugly, she'd take Ben's side forever. Either way, it was strange to see her so much. They'd been Best Friends Forever a couple of summers ago, but life had gotten in the way. There hadn't been a fight, just a drifting apart. And now they had to share a boy.
"It's fine. I'll get it," Johnny said.
"I don't really care as long as it gets back to me before dress rehearsal," Tanith said. "It's the dog I'm worried about. That was custom made."
"It'll come home," Johnny said.
"What did you two do to it last night?" Tanith said, hands on her hips, not making any genuine accusations.
"Are you kidding? If I'd laid a finger on that thing, Ben's head would have spun around. We have boundaries. He doesn't touch my costumes, and I don't touch his."
She studied him, raked her fingers through her hair, shifted her weight.
"What?" Johnny said, when it was clear she was going to stand there waiting until he made her talk.
"You -- you both talk like you've been together for months," she said. "It's been, it's not even been three weeks and you're like -- You're so in love, and I totally believe it, but I'm really, when it comes to Ben? I'm, like, neurotic and territorial that he's going to get hurt. Like -- like a tiny dog or something."
"Yeah, I know, right?" Johnny said. "It's like -- I think maybe it's the long distance thing. The lack of it. Like, when you're used to having a boyfriend you hardly ever see, you --"
"You pack more relationship into less time," Tanith said. She bit her lip. "No, I get it. Sort of. In my mind."
"I guess that's, I mean, you can't really, you can't do better than that," Johnny said, as Ben came running up to them in skates, Toto under his arm like a squishy football.
"I present him to you as I found him," Ben said, clearly suppressing a fit of snickering. He held the costume piece out with both hands. An empty Smirnoff Ice bottle had been tucked into the pouch next to the plush dog. Tanith snatched Toto out of Ben's hands, took the bottle out, and set it on the bench. She stroked the dog's head as if she needed to restore its injured feelings.
"That's so sad," Johnny said. "We've driven your costume to drink."
Ben looked back and forth at Johnny and Tanith. "You're doing that thing," he said. "The thing where you're having a conversation, and you stop as soon as the person it's about is in earshot. Are you planning my future for me? Are you sending me to military school?"
"It's not important," Tanith said. She was huffy, Johnny thought; she shouldn't be huffy.
"We're learning how to share," Johnny said. "We're in new relationship kindergarten." He got a laugh out of Ben and a real smile out of Tanith, and he thought, maybe it could be easy. Maybe she would let him understand. The only person he had ever been anywhere near that close with was his mom, and his mom had a pretty clear sense of where her territory ended and his boyfriends' began. Johnny would have thought that by now, Tanith would have a similar sense of boundaries. In fact, she probably did. He imagined that she just didn't know whether they still applied. He was a guy, and her friend, and he wasn't sure which of those was a bigger problem.
"Shit," Tanith said. "The Zamboni's leaving. I have to go find my skates." She put her hand on Johnny's shoulder. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have -- I don't want you to think I'm like that. I'm really not like that."
"You're allowed to be like that," Johnny said.
She kissed his cheek, and he couldn't help beaming a little. "Until I get over it," she said, heading towards the women's locker room.
"Do I get to ask what was going on there?" Ben said when she was gone.
"My mom's going to tour with us for a couple of weeks in June," Johnny said. "Ask me again after that."
"So I don't get to ask," Ben said.
"I don't think you do," Johnny said.
"I don't think I do, either," Ben said. He leaned as close to Johnny as he could without attracting the attention of the skeevy Tampa journalist who had been following them around all during their week of practice. "Are you sticking around?"
"I think I'm going to take a shower and get some food, and then my physical therapist finally cleared my back so I can start doing Pilates again. So, like, I have my afternoon, but yeah, later."
"You're so focused," Ben said. "You're so much more fucking focused than I am."
"Tell it to America," Johnny said. He backed away, blew a kiss, spun on his guarded toe pick and wobbled. When he'd been in pain, it had been so hard to even get on the ice. Now that he was healthy again, he remembered how much harder walking was than skating. Walking was slow; stopping was built into it. He looked back at Ben, who had his heel propped up on the boards at a 90-degree angle to his body and was lowering himself into a stretch over his leg. Ben looked simultaneously powerful and capable of floating. Johnny wished that their relationship could be that effortless, or at least give the illusion. Instead, there were all these awkward moments, these intrusions from the outside that made him stop and struggle. It was so much easier to glide. But you couldn't do that in street shoes.
*
Going on tour was surreal. New rink every day, programs so new at the beginning of the summer that you hardly remembered them and so worn out by July that you'd surrender a testicle to skate to some new music, floodlights and encores and costumers who thought it was hilarious to dress Ben in pink sequined Lycra. And then you flew home every Sunday night to start learning your competition programs, so that you could forget them all over again on Friday to put on your Sean Connery wig and remember when you thought this concept was funny. Summers were long in figure skating like winters were long in Michigan. The money was too good to turn down, as was the opportunity for free cross-country travel, but it was all schmaltz and no glory. It was the only time of year when Ben had to force his smiles.
Part of it was that Ben associated touring with missing people. His family had moved to Detroit for him, and they still lost him for half the year. Tanith said it was a sign of his deteriorating mind that he got grumpy when he didn't see his dogs for a while, but in the absence of any other children, they were his babies. He paid some of the local rink rats to take care of them, and they knew not to giggle audibly when he asked them to put the dogs on the phone. Johnny, at least, thought this was perfectly normal, so much so that he insisted that he get to say hi to them, too. "If they disapprove of me, we're both in trouble," he said.
The dogs didn't seem to have any objections, and Johnny assured him with near-seriousness that his puppies approved, too. "You realize that you could fit, like, seven of your dogs in each of mine," Ben said.
"I think they'd get along," Johnny said. "It would be like the Brady Bunch."
They both got quiet for a minute, and Ben guessed that they were both figuring out the same thing. If this worked out, it would be years before they could have any kind of life together. They trained in different parts of the country. Johnny had already relocated his family once, and even if Ben could convince Tanith to leave Detroit, he'd never get Igor and Marina out of Michigan. Skating had to come first as long as they were both competing. They didn't have to discuss that to know they agreed on it.
"Shit," Johnny said. "The bus leaves in half an hour, and my stuff is all over the place." It really wasn't. They didn't have a whole lot of time to unpack, especially with their secret mission of having sex in as many American cities as possible.
"Like they're going to leave without us," Ben said.
"We're going to get stuck on the Quiet Bus," Johnny said. This year, Champs on Ice had sprung for two tour buses. Someone had noticed that twenty skaters plus equipment, luggage, the revolving door of coaches and family members, and Tanith's shoe collection were too much for one bus to carry. One bus had been set aside for those who preferred to sleep while on the road, and Tanith and Evan had quickly pronounced the other the Diva Bus. The joke had caught on so thoroughly that they'd come back after their second Boston show to find that an unidentified conspiracy of coaches had put up streamers, tinsel, and shiny paper cutout letters that announced the bus's name to all who entered.
It made sense that Johnny was a fireball of neuroses. They were headed to Detroit for a Sunday matinee, and Johnny had agreed to stay there with Ben for the week. Ben had reserved extra ice time so Johnny could practice, and he'd warned his friends to clear their schedules. He wasn't sure what they'd make of Johnny, but some of them had started to get noisy about not having met him yet.
Ben slung his gym bag, his backpack for the bus, and his garment bag full of costumes over his shoulder and dragged his suitcase behind him. "I'll see you downstairs," he said.
"You're leaving me all alone?"
"I have to check out of my room that I never even saw," Ben said. "Besides, I don't want to get stuck on the Quiet Bus." In previous summers, he might not have minded the Quiet Bus. Zoning out to music and reading were activities he enjoyed. But one of the other things you weren't allowed to do on the Quiet Bus was put your arm around your boyfriend. Apparently, that made some people uncomfortable. Those people remained anonymous, because he and Johnny had both been informed of the rule through their coaches.
Ben had trouble understanding how you could get this far in the skating world and hang onto your homophobia. When he'd thought of himself as straight, he'd often felt like the only heterosexual for miles around. His publicist was gay; he'd had gay coaches; most of the tiny minority of male skaters at the rink where he'd skated as a kid had come out within moments of hitting puberty. He'd assumed he was straight for so long because most of the men he'd had to compare himself to were gay. And it wasn't like people were so accepting or supportive of the middle ground. With hindsight on his side, he knew he'd fallen prey to that himself: every girl who caught his eye was proof that he was straight, while every boy was an exception, something that he'd grow out of. Most of the men he was attracted to were androgynous and effeminate, like Johnny, and he'd used that excuse, too. He'd just assumed that everyone had to make those kinds of excuses. He'd convinced himself that guys who said they'd never had a gay thought were possibly lucky but probably lying.
He shoved his luggage into the bowels of the Diva Bus, which was already idling in the loading zone, and went back inside the hotel to grab some orange juice and a muffin from the hospitality room. "There's, like, actually enough baked goods today," Kimmie told him as he went in. He got that almost every morning: his grumbling about offensive free breakfast spreads had once been the entire extent of his bad boy image. He was glad to see her joining in on the inside jokes and the silliness. For the first few weeks, she'd been nervous, but after the Columbus show, she'd snuck away from her coach's watchful eye and let Johnny and the Russians conspire to get her drunk for the first time in her life. After that, it was like she'd made an overnight transformation into everyone's slightly depraved little sister.
"Sweet," Ben said. The hospitality room was nearly empty. People liked sleeping late. Even Tanith, who he could usually find with her feet on a corner table, face buried in the hood of her Pistons sweatshirt like a Jawa while she drank her coffee, hadn't dragged herself downstairs yet. She'd been talking about picking up random guys once they hit the Midwest. He'd thought she'd been joking, but now he wasn't so sure. He kind of hoped she'd scored.
He carried his breakfast back to the bus. There was a row of seats near the back that was informally reserved for him and Johnny. The idea was, if they sat in the back, nobody had to witness the PDA unless they wanted to. He put on his music and leaned back to sip his juice and pick at his muffin. Most of the time, he chose being with Johnny over being alone, but he missed his privacy once in a while.
It occurred to him that he might be a little hung over. The alcohol always flowed pretty freely on tour, because there was no other way to get through the month of June, but the two buses thing had amplified the situation. They carried their stashes in ice-filled picnic coolers. Most of the other skaters favored vodka or hard lemonade. Johnny kept a bottle of Stoli Vanil and a quart of chocolate milk in his so that he would have his booze to himself. The only reason Ben wasn't lugging one around was that he and Tanith shared their Jack Daniels and Diet Coke, and she'd stopped allowing him to be responsible for it when he'd accidentally left it behind in New Jersey.
He fell asleep. He hadn't expected to: he'd felt alert enough getting on the bus. But that was Kimmie shaking him awake, which meant he'd needed waking. "There's a press thing," she said. "The Champs people are busy knocking on doors, so they sent me to come get you."
"Press?" Ben yawned. "They couldn't have done it last night?"
"It's some local thing," Kimmie said. "Like, Girl Scouts or something."
"All this for five minutes and a picture? Jesus." He left his backpack and his half-eaten muffin on the bus and followed Kimmie back to the hospitality room.
There weren't any Girl Scouts there, just a bunch of annoyed skaters in sweats and flip-flops and one glossy-haired woman in a pink suit and matching pink pumps. Tanith intercepted Ben as he came in, saying, "Don't sit near Johnny."
"What?" he said.
"I think it's some kind of USFSA thing," Tanith said. "Michelle heard they're freaking out about -- I don't know, sit over here with me and look wholesome."
Ben made eye contact with Johnny and smiled defeatedly at him. Johnny smiled back but shook his head, a gesture of warning. He seemed to realize as much as Ben did that Ben's decision to leave early had spared them a lot of drama.
"It's only the US skaters," Tanith said. "Look."
Ben was about to say something snide about blind patriotism, but the woman in the pink suit banged a fork against an empty chair to get their attention. "Good morning," she read from a clipboard. She looked perplexed when nobody greeted her back. "Thank you all for meeting with me. My name is Lou Ann Hogenkamp, and I'm the Assistant Director of Outreach Services for USFSA. I've asked that the buses be held until we're finished here. I assure you that you'll arrive in Detroit with plenty of time to warm up before your performance this afternoon. The reason I've asked to meet with you this morning is, there have been some reports of inappropriate behavior among the skaters on this tour. We at USFSA want to remind you that the people in this room represent the very best that American figure skating has to offer. You're the cream of the crop, and we're proud to count you among our members.
"However, what you all need to remember is, athletes at your level of accomplishment are more than just private individuals. You're representatives of USFSA, and more importantly, you're role models for the skaters of the future. So when we hear reports of underage drinking, drug use, promiscuous sex and, uh, homosexual activity among our top athletes, we have to express our concern. We hope that in the future, you'll take some time to think about how your actions reflect on you and on the figure skating community. We've brought you all together because we don't want to single anyone out. We want you all to understand that underage drinking is illegal and unacceptable under any circumstances. We want you all to think about how pictures on the internet of two male skaters holding hands will affect little boys just starting out in the sport. We--"
"That skating might be a chance for them to participate in sports without getting beat up for being different?" It was Sasha. Ben hadn't believed anyone would have the balls to interrupt a USFSA official in the middle of a morality lecture. Sasha was, maybe, the only person who could get away with it. She sipped water at the hotel room parties while everyone else drank, and her worst vice was playing Texas Hold 'Em with Uno cards with whoever she could drag to the front of the Diva Bus, using Skittles as poker chips. She had nothing to lose. "Oh my God," she said. "This is so ridiculous."
"Also?" Evan said. "Nobody's doing drugs."
"Excuse me?" Lou Ann Hogenkamp said.
"This is ridiculous, and nobody's doing drugs," Evan said. "It was one joke at one press conference, which the person apologized for. And I mean, the drinking is a problem, and we should all keep an eye on that. But nobody's doing drugs."
While Lou Ann sputtered, Tanith raised her hand. "Which male skaters are holding hands on the internet?"
Lou Ann scowled so hard it looked like her makeup was going to smear. "You know perfectly well who I'm talking about."
"Do you know where we can find the pictures?" Tanith said.
"I wasn't given that information, no."
"That's too bad," Tanith said. "Our website guy likes it when we give him candids."
"You all need to take this more seriously," Lou Ann said. "If you don't behave in a manner consistent with USFSA's mission statement, there can be repercussions."
Ben couldn't hold it in anymore. "Like what? You're going to take us all out of the brochure?"
The silence was heavy like being dropped. He knew he should have let someone else say it. After all, it was possible that Johnny's exclusion from USFSA's 2006 promotional materials had been a reflection of his poor performances at the Olympics and at Worlds. But nobody quite believed that. This was the outburst that Ben would have made anyway: it was unfair and offensive, and it would have been more criminal to leave it unsaid.
Just as it started to look like a stalemate, Michelle spoke up. "Lou Ann, I think we all understand USFSA's concerns, and I think I speak for everyone when I say that we're all committed to representing our country and our sport in as positive a light as we possibly can. But the accusations seem to be wildly out of proportion to reality. There's been some drinking on tour, but it's been moderate from what I can tell, and the underage skaters have been staying away for the most part. There hasn't been any drug use or sleeping around that I know about. And there have always been gay men in this sport. Nobody denies that. As far as I know, there is one gay relationship between skaters on this tour, and they've been discreet and respectful in the way they've handled it. It doesn't sound like those pictures were posted on the internet with those skaters' knowledge or consent, and it doesn't sound like they'd be easy for young skaters to find. I think we could all stand to be more conscientious about our actions and how they reflect on the organizations we're affiliated with, but seriously? I don't think the situation warrants delaying our buses."
Lou Ann looked down at her clipboard, then up at Michelle, then down at her clipboard again. "I'll... have to talk to my superiors about this," she said. As she hurried out the door, she added, "Have a good show tonight."
They all stood up slowly. Something small but meaningful, half a smile or most of a nod, seemed to travel around the room. Together, they filed out and headed for the buses.
"So," Ben whispered to Tanith as they walked down the hallway. "Was there any promiscuous sex that Michelle doesn't know about?"
She shrugged. "He was nice," she said. "He didn't know who I was."
"Was it what you needed?" Ben said.
"I don't know," she said. "But I'm a fucking adult, you know? Sometimes I can have things because I want them."
"We're not adults," Ben said. "We're role models."
"Fuck that," Tanith said. "Go play with your boyfriend."
It wasn't so much that he was obeying her, as it was what he'd planned on doing anyway. Johnny had already commandeered the remains of his muffin. "I get to eat this because I almost sat on it," he said with his mouth full.
"There are pictures of us on the internet," Ben said, sitting down.
"There are lots of pictures of us on the internet," Johnny said. "Some of mine are topless."
"No, I mean, there are pictures of us. Being... us."
"Of course there are pictures of us. We were holding hands in Chelsea in broad daylight," Johnny said. "They're probably on that website with the sports gossip. They have a whole section for gay athletes." He grinned for the imaginary flashbulbs. "They like me there."
"So you don't care?" Ben said.
"Not really. Do you?"
"I don't know," Ben said. "I feel like I should."
"Well, stop it," Johnny said. "Have some muffin."
"Oh my God, there is no way to express how much I do not want your already-chewed muffin."
"No, I was going to give you some actual muffin, but --" Johnny swallowed audibly and sat across Ben's lap. "The word 'muffin' sounds really dirty when you say it over and over." He parted Ben's lips with his tongue.
After a very small amount of time, something soft but aerodynamic bounced off the side of Ben's head. "That's not church tongue," Sasha yelled. "Get a room." Johnny sighed melodramatically and climbed back into his own seat. They might have been relieved of the responsibility of pretending to be examples of virtue, but there were still rules against porno tongue while the bus was in motion. Limits were comforting, when you could find them.
*
"I want nachos," Johnny said, as the lights went up for intermission, the audience herded out for refreshments, and the PA cued up the Zamboni song.
"Do you even like nachos?" Ben said.
"Not really. But I want them. Stale ones, smothered in Velveeta. Mild Velveeta. Maybe topped with ground beef."
"Who are you?" Ben said.
"And maybe a Bud Light."
"No, seriously," Ben said. "Who are you?"
"A man who's been on tour way too long," Johnny said.
"You know what I could use?" Ben said.
"What?"
"A Zamboni. Actually, a Zamboni powered by ponies. A Zampony."
"Wouldn't they leave divots?" Johnny said. "The ponies."
"You'd put little skates on them. Sad little pony skates."
"That's so mean," Johnny said. "I'm telling everyone you're mean to ponies. Hey, Evan! Ben's mean to ponies."
"Didn't I beg you not to involve me in this stuff?" Evan said.
"If you don't want to get caught up in the pony jokes, you should probably stay out of earshot," Ben said. "I'm checking my messages." He was waiting to hear from his mom; there was something about one of his brothers moving or moving in with somebody. Johnny was ashamed that he hadn't really been paying attention when Ben had told him about it. Ben's mom was pretty much guaranteed to call in the middle of performances: she had no sense of time zones. Ben was playing with his phone, pushing buttons and frowning.
"Did you hear anything?" Johnny said.
"No,"; Ben said. "I mean, not from my mom. I'll tell you later." He tilted his head towards Evan and clicked his tongue. Once the second act of the show started, they'd be able to wander off quietly somewhere, as long as they watched their time. During intermission, fans sometimes figured out how to sneak backstage, and it was best to hide. So they waited until the "no laser pointers" announcement blared from the PA, and then they snuck to the men's room, where Ben locked them into the handicapped stall. "It was from my ex," he said. "Which is why, you know. I didn't want to say anything."
"Okay," Johnny said slowly.
"She left this text message that was all, like, when are you coming home, I want to see you, and I think, like, maybe she thinks -- I don't know. Like she thinks we might get back together or something."
Johnny folded his arms and stood with his back against the tile. Chin up, perfect posture: his fight face. He hadn't known that was what it was until he'd gotten together with Ben. "Is she right?" he said.
"I don't think so," Ben said.
"So you're not sure."
"No, I mean, we've taken, like, breaks before," Ben said. "I think maybe she thinks that's all this is. Like, it sounded pretty final to me when I asked her to marry me and she said no, but --"
Johnny softened his stance, stepped forward, and put a hand on Ben's arm. "I didn't know," he said. "I didn't know it was that serious."
"You didn't know I needed the rebound that badly?" Ben said with a laugh, but Johnny didn't return it. "Seven years," Ben said. "Seven fucking years."
"I'm -- I don't know. I'm sorry? What do you want me to say?" Johnny said.
"I don't know," Ben said.
"Because, I mean, I've been asking you all along what's going on with you, what happened with her, and you just kept going, it's over, it's nothing. And this whole time I have been so fucking honest with you, and you've just been -- I mean, you asked her to marry you. You didn't think that was important enough to tell me?"
"What? No," Ben said. "It was, like, it was too important."
That made sense. At least, it made sense for Ben, the way his mind worked. And maybe it was that, realizing that he did know Ben's mind a little, that let Johnny retreat and relax, his hands release, his breath come back slow and full. "So tell me," Johnny said. "Tell me now."
"I don't know," Ben said. "We'd been together, like, almost seven years, and I always thought, like, when we're old enough, we'll get married. Like, after a while, we just assumed it, right? And then I turned 24 and I realized, wait, my parents were younger than me when they got married. So I bought a ring, and then I put it off until after the Olympics, and I finally propose, and it's just really simple? Like, I just took her out to dinner. And she seemed, I don't know, like she expected me to have done something really complicated and theatrical, but it's like, she was the only part of my life that wasn't like that. So she looks at me, and she looks at the ring, and she says, 'I will, but only if you promise to put me first.' And all I can think is, she wants me to put her before skating, before my career, before Tanith? I don't say that, obviously, but I hesitated, you know? She should have known I couldn't promise that. And, like, I think she did know, because she got up and she said, 'You know what? Never mind,' and she left. And I kept -- I kept thinking, like, I should call her. But it was right before Worlds and we were training like crazy, and it was like, what am I going to tell her? So I didn't, and I just, we went to Calgary and you took me out for Chinese food, and I didn't hear from her and I figured she'd moved on, too."
There was no place to cut in on Ben, no way for Johnny to do anything but stand with his hands behind his back and nod. He didn't ever want to get in the way of Ben on the rare occasion that he opened up. "Thank you," he said.
"Um, you're welcome?"
"No, I mean, thank you for telling me," Johnny said. "Like, you could have told me before. It would have been all right. But thank you for telling me when I asked you to."
"It wouldn't have been all right," Ben said. "You would have been careful with me, you would have slowed things down, you -- you would have realized that I'm not worth it to you."
"It, um? It sounds like it wasn't your fault," Johnny said.
"It sounds that way?" Ben said. "Okay, I guess maybe -- okay. You know how I told you you're, like, fourth?"
That threw Johnny for a second, but he figured it out and giggled and said, "Yeah."
"Well, like, Merrie was first, right? And the other two were... kind of during."
"Oh," Johnny said flatly. "Oh."
"Like, one of them was during an official hiatus, so it was... I assumed it was okay. And the other one was, um --"
"Unofficial hiatus?" Johnny said.
"Yeah," Ben said. "Like, she knows now, but... yeah."
"That doesn't mean anything," Johnny said, not really believing it. "That doesn't mean you'll do that to me."
"I don't know," Ben said. "Like, there are times when I look at you, when I'm with you, and I think, okay, Tanith and I have two more Olympics left in us, you have at least one, and that's, that's a huge amount of time. But even so, I can see us in that apartment in New York that you talk about, and dogs running around and you designing clothes and me, I don't know, we'll see if the voice work takes off, but I can see it. I can see us adopting kids, I can see us having a life, and I think, what if I can't do that? What if I'm, like, I'm just not good enough of a person to deserve that?"
Johnny wanted to reassure him, but he decided honesty was better. And maybe more reassuring, after all. "I don't know if you are," he said. "I mean, I think you are. I'm taking my chances on that."
"I'm taking my chances on the fact that if I cheated on you, you'd rip my throat out," Ben said.
Johnny shook his head. "I wouldn't. I'd let you."
"No."
"I would let you," Johnny said. "And I'd hate myself, and I'd hate you, but -- but I know myself, and I'd let you. I'd think I deserved it somehow. "
"I'm starting to think we just have the same bad relationships over and over," Ben said. "Like, no matter how different you think the person is, you just find new people with the same faults and do the same shitty things with them."
"Sweetie, you've been in one whole relationship," Johnny said.
"Maybe."
"Seriously."
"You know what the weird thing is?" Ben said.
"Could you narrow it down?" Johnny said.
"Merrie and I were together for seven years, right? And all that time, we never had a fight. Not an actual, like, fight. When she was mad at me, she would just leave the room, she'd just go home. But you and me, we've been together for like two months, and I can think of, what? Three or four? A bunch."
"Do the ones that weren't about anything count?" Johnny said.
"We, like, we didn't even have those," Ben said. "And you -- you drive me crazy, you wear me out, but it's good."
"It's like endorphins," Johnny said. "When you train too hard and everything hurts, but you know you taught yourself something and now you own it."
Ben looked at Johnny like he had something to say, but what he had to say was a kiss, lips closed but long, as if it were suspended in the air. Johnny held Ben's face in his hands and ran his fingers up into Ben's hair. He didn't want to have sex now, in a bathroom in the bowels of the Colonial Center, but kissing was soft and safe. It fooled you into believing in Central Park West apartments and children and puppies and futures. Johnny wanted to be fooled; he wanted to be convinced. He eased into the almost-truth of Ben's lips, his eyes and his feet heavy.
"I'll call her after the show," Ben said, still kissing. "I'll explain."
That was all either of them said until Evan came pounding on the stall door to tell them they had ten minutes to get dressed for the finale.
Click here for part four.