Fic: "Rituals", Johnny/Evan, NC-17
Title: Rituals
Pairing: Johnny/Evan
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: BDSM
Length: 9500 words
Beta'd by strongplacebo
Everything Evan did more than once before a successful competition became part of his crazy rituals for the season. He'd been collecting those for as long as Johnny had known him: lighting his special candles, chewing blue gum, applying his competition hair gel, and now, apparently, getting slapped around by Johnny.
Note: For reasons of porn, this fic is going to pretend that the top figure skaters get their own dressing rooms at competitions.
There was less than an hour left until Johnny was scheduled to go on the ice. He walked down the corridor towards his dressing room, feeling everyone's eyes on him: officials, reporters, his competitors. His mom. Galina. He felt nauseous with the weight of everyone's expectations.
The dressing room looked like a refuge. He'd begged everyone to leave him alone, just for a little while, and now he was going to go sit in the dark and try to calm the fuck down. Try not to cry, because that always left him feeling drained, and he didn't need that right before he competed.
He closed the door behind himself and leaned against it, closing his eyes in the dim light, breathing in the scent of the candles he'd burned to get rid of the stale locker room smell, already feeling a little bit calmer.
Someone made a weird, gasping sound. Johnny's eyes snapped open. Evan was sitting on the very edge of the bench, leaning against a locker, curled in on himself and half hidden in the shadows. Johnny glanced at his suitcase with a flash of worry, but everything looked untouched, exactly the way he'd left it, and he felt a little embarrassed about his uncharitable thoughts. Evan was a politicking asshole who'd happily kiss the federation's ass no matter how much they screwed everyone over, but he wasn't going to stoop to sabotaging Johnny's gear. That didn't mean he was above showing up here just to try and screw with Johnny's head, though.
Johnny really didn't have the patience to deal with him right now. "The fuck are you doing in my room? You're not even allowed to be in here," he snapped.
"I'm sorry," Evan said, his voice tight, "there were all these reporters and they wouldn't leave me alone, and my room's all the way over on the - oh god, Johnny, I don't think I can do this," he interrupted himself, in a high, panicked voice, just blurted it right out, as if he wasn't aware that you never, ever showed weakness to your competitors.
He was hyperventilating, eyes wide and terrified, swaying a little. Evan Lysacek was going to hyperventilate himself right into fainting in Johnny's fucking dressing room, and instead of the peace he desperately needed he'd have EMTs and reporters and Frank fucking Carroll in here, like Evan lived to ruin his life even with his weaknesses. Johnny just couldn't fucking deal with this shit right now.
He stalked over to Evan in three big steps, and slapped him right across the face. He hadn't hit that hard, but Evan's head snapped to the side, eyes closing, a red handprint slowly darkening on his cheek. For a second, everything stopped. Evan wasn't moving, wasn't even breathing, and Johnny hated himself and his stupid temper with the fire of a thousand suns.
Sure, people in movies slapped other people to snap them out of a panic attacks all the time, but Johnny was pretty sure that in real life, that sort of thing ended in getting yelled at, or possibly assault charges. There was a big fat incriminating handprint right there on Evan's cheek. Evan could walk out of here and get Johnny in a world of trouble with the ISU.
Evan slowly lowered his head, taking a deep, shaky breath, his shoulders relaxing a little. Sanity successfully restored to your biggest rival. Great, good job there, Johnny. Jesus Christ, how stupid was he, seriously. At least it had been pretty satisfying, as far as hugely stupid mistakes went. The memory of his hand connecting with Evan's cheek still gave Johnny a warm little glow inside his chest.
"Sorry," he muttered, wincing a little at the way the words came out sounding less than sincere. That probably wasn't the way to get Evan to forgive him. It wasn't easy, though, having to apologize to Evan. Especially not after he'd started it by invading Johnny's sanctuary.
"Thank you," Evan said, so quietly that for a moment Johnny thought he'd imagined it. That was not what he'd expected Evan to say.
"Really?" Johnny blurted, incredulous, and then seriously considered smacking himself in the face. If Evan thought that had been a helpful attempt to snap him out of his panic attack, Johnny certainly didn't want to give him any reason to think otherwise. Anyway, that was mostly what he'd been trying to do, and Evan didn't need to know how satisfying it had turned out to be.
Evan blushed bright crimson and lowered his eyes. "Sorry for freaking out on you," he mumbled. "Thanks for… you know. Helping out."
"Oh honey, that was no hardship," Johnny said, against his better judgment; he'd just told himself he wasn't going to bait Evan, damn it. That had been too good an opening to pass up, though. "I'm sorry if I hurt you though," he offered, trying for conciliatory.
"I didn't mind," Evan said. "Um. You liked that, right? Slapping me. Come on, you can admit it, I could tell."
Shit. "I apologized," Johnny reminded him. "And, everything else aside, I really didn't know what else to do, okay?"
"No, that's not… I meant… So you wouldn't mind doing it again?"
"Look, seriously, I was just trying to snap you out of it, you don't have to worry about-"
"No. If, like, if I asked you to."
Johnny stopped. It was pretty clear what Evan was asking, it just didn't really compute that he was asking it. "You… want me to slap you? Again?"
"If you don't mind?" Evan looked up, cautiously hopeful, and caught the look on Johnny's face. "It settles my nerves, okay? It's easier to stop freaking out and just… be in my body, when stuff hurts a little. It's nothing weird!" he said, tight and defensive. "Oh, come on. You don't like me, you're, like, a total asshole to me half the time. You can't tell me you haven't ever wanted to."
Johnny kind of wanted to slap him right now for that comment. Seriously, half the time it was like Evan didn't even hear the shit that came out of his mouth. What the fuck, like Johnny was the one who'd started their feud, when Evan had gone and flat out implied to the press that Johnny wasn't fit to represent the USA because he had the gall to be himself in public? He did have some impulse control when it mattered, though.
"Contrary to what you might think, I'm not really a violent person, you realize? I don't actually lie awake at night and dream about beating you up."
Evan sighed, like he was disappointed in Johnny, which was rich coming from him. He squared his shoulders. "Look, if you really don't want to, that's fine. Tell me, and I'll go away and leave you alone. But I want you to, and I think you do want to."
He gave Johnny a challenging look, as if he was trying to dare him into it, which Johnny wouldn't put past him. Seriously, how was it possible for one human being to be so annoying? He already regularly managed to make Johnny want to slap him when he wasn't begging for it; like this, the temptation was impossible to resist, no matter how much of a bad idea it might be.
"You know what? Fine. You want to be slapped, I'll be happy to slap you until the cows come home."
"Great!" Evan said, still glaring.
"Fine!" Johnny said, glowering back. He raised his hand, and then hesitated, feeling suddenly silly. Christ, what the fuck were they doing here?
"Two more, okay?" Evan said, like that number was significant somehow. It took Johnny a moment. He groaned.
"Evan, I know you're all about that lucky numbers shit, but you don't actually have to let me hit you three times just so you won't mess up your karma."
"Just do it, okay?" Evan said, and Johnny shrugged and raised his hand again.
"Wait, hang on," Evan said suddenly. He slid off the bench, going to his knees in front of Johnny. "Like this." He wouldn't quite meet Johnny's eyes, and he was blushing a bright, blotchy red, the handprint on his cheek almost disappearing in it.
Johnny stared down at Evan's gangly form, awkwardly folded up in front of his feet, looking up at him with a nervous, expectant expression. Suddenly this didn't seem silly or juvenile anymore; it felt serious, dangerous, like they were both in way over their head.
He steeled himself and snapped his hand right across Evan's unmarked cheek. Evan sucked in a sharp breath, shoulders curling forward, but he didn't flinch away. He knelt like that for a long moment, motionless, before straightening up again, slowly crossing his wrists behind his back. Both his cheeks were marked now, vaguely hand-shaped spots of color just barely darker than the flushed skin surrounding them.
"Again?" Johnny asked quietly. Evan nodded eagerly, his face tilted up but his eyes fixed somewhere besides Johnny's shoulders.
Johnny hit him again, fitting his hand right into the mark he'd left on Evan's cheek the first time. This time, Evan winced, hissing, his hands twitching forward a little before he forced them behind his back again. Johnny's palm was stinging; the sensitive skin on Evan's face had to hurt.
Evan lowered his head, taking slow, deep breaths, eyes half-closed. He looked calm and centered now, shoulders loose. He was obviously hard, but he didn't seem to be paying it any attention. The last slap had made his eyes water a little. Johnny carefully wiped the wetness away with his thumb, giving in to the weirdly protective feeling that had sprung up inside his chest, seeing Evan on his knees like that, breathing through the pain.
Evan startled a little, as if he'd drawn so tightly inside himself he'd forgotten Johnny was there. He still didn't seem to want to meet Johnny's eyes, which meant he was staring pretty much directly at the way Johnny's half-hard cock was tenting his costume pants, which weren't really designed to hide that sort of thing.
"Do you want me to-" Evan started, hesitantly reaching out for Johnny's waist.
Johnny stepped back so quickly he stumbled. "Are you fucking insane? I've got to skate a competition in half an hour. An orgasm's the last thing in the world I need right now. Nice try, though," he said, smirking at Evan.
Evan looked honestly confused for a moment. Okay, probably even Evan wouldn't go quite this far just to psych Johnny out. On the other hand, he wouldn't put it entirely past him, either. "I'm not - I wasn't trying to -" Evan stuttered, but then, he always denied it when he'd been trying to mess with Johnny head. And seriously, Johnny knew that them jumping in opposite directions made it a little harder to navigate shared ice, but he didn't have near-collisions with anyone else during almost every single warm-up session, now did he? He'd heard Evan protesting his innocence a little too often by now.
"I should go," Evan said, slowly picking himself up off the floor, grimacing a bit, like his knees had stiffened up.
"You really should."
Evan hesitated for a long moment, maybe trying to think of something else to say, but then he just pulled the hem of his jacket down so it covered his crotch and finally walked out.
Johnny let himself sink down on the bench, taking a deep breath. He pressed the heel of his hand lightly against his half-hard cock, not really doing anything, just enjoying the way it felt. It wasn't an urgent sort of arousal, anyway, just a warm, comforting feeling that was already fading rapidly, now that the distraction was over and he was thinking about the competition again.
Still, he wasn't as panicked as he'd been before. There'd been something weirdly settling about that entire bizarre experience, having Evan go still and pliant like that while he was hitting him. It had been a really stupid thing to do, of course, and probably he was going to freak out about it later, but right now, Johnny didn't regret it. He felt focused and ready, prepared to go out there and show them what he could do.
*******
Johnny skated the short of his life. He came off the ice overwhelmed and triumphant, sure that this had been it, he had it, and then had to watch Evan, Daisuke and Oda deliver amazing performances of their own. He watched himself slip lower and lower in the rankings, feeling numb and shaky when he finally ended up fourth. This was unsettling and scary in an entirely different way than simply messing up his program. He'd given his best, and it hadn't been enough. What the fuck was he supposed to do if his best wasn't good enough? How was he supposed to improve on a practically flawless performance? He swallowed against the nausea rising in the pit of his stomach.
"Be calm, Johnnik," Galina said, putting her arm around him and shaking him gently. "Fourth after short is not end of world. Tomorrow you go out and be best you can be. Everything still possible now."
He hid his face against her shoulder for a moment, taking a deep, shaky breath. She was right, he hadn't lost yet. He just needed to stay calm now.
*******
In the end, it wasn't enough. His free skate was great, but Evan's was better. Bronze wasn't that bad, he tried to remind himself, and he'd had a great showing both times, which would go a long way towards redeeming him in the eyes of the judges. Still, he couldn't quite shake the nervous feeling that came from knowing that he'd done as well as he could, and it hadn't been enough.
At least the entire mess had distracted him from what had happened with Evan. Johnny hadn't really thought about it at all in between all the worrying and freaking out and trying to focus on what he needed to do. Evan behaved exactly the same way he always did during competitions, walking past him and all the other skaters as if he wasn't even aware they existed. Johnny had always envied his ability to focus. It had been a little startling to watch him falling apart the way he had; he honestly hadn't known that Evan got nervous like that.
He didn't behave any differently at the medal ceremony, either, hugging Johnny for the cameras and congratulating him in the same stiff, insincere way he always did. It made it easy to forget that anything had happened between them at all.
Johnny hardly spared it a second thought right up until the press conference, and then of course Evan had to go and be a smug dick. Johnny had a bright, satisfying flashback to his hand snapping across Evan's face, of Evan kneeling in front of him and asking for more. He could feel the corners of his mouth curl up into a smirk.
Evan must have seen it on his face; he quickly looked away, flushing bright red, and made a hopeless tangle out of whatever he'd been trying to say. Johnny leaned back in his chair, grinning. It was a petty little victory, but he'd take it just the same.
*******
He tried not to think about it after that. People did crazy things before competitions. The pressure fucked with your head, that was all. Nationals were coming up, and he was training harder than he ever had in his life. If he fucked this up, he wasn't going to the Olympics.
He was curled up in his dressing room, alone, taking deep, shaky breaths and trying to visualize himself doing a perfect short program. It wasn't going very well. All he could think about was that moment on the ice just before the music started, everyone's eyes on you while you were shaking with nerves, and he couldn't seem to move past it in his head.
The knock on the door came as a relief, even if he didn't really feel like talking to Galina or his mom right now. Especially since he should probably apologize for the way he'd thrown them all out of the room five minutes ago. One of these days, he'd grow out of having panicked temper tantrums before competitions.
"Come on in!" he called.
"Hi," Evan said tentatively, sticking his head in, and then slowly crept in the door when Johnny didn't immediately toss him out.
"You're fucking kidding me, right?"
"Oh come on, you skated really well last time. Don't tell me it didn't help calm you down." Evan crossed his arms tightly in front of his chest, hugging himself, but he was giving Johnny that challenging glare again.
"Have you thought about taking up yoga? Or probably a psychologist would work better than finding a guy who'll slap you around, too."
"I do yoga! And I've got a sports psychologist. I just want… Come on, Johnny, please." He went awkwardly down to his knees, hunching his shoulders. He was hard already, his cock straining against his costume pants, and Johnny hadn't even done anything yet.
"Do you just like begging, or are you excited in advance? You think I'm going to say yes?" Johnny asked, smirking. He'd always gotten a kick out of provoking Evan just to see what he'd do. He was getting that same sort of thrill now, but with Evan on his knees like that, there was an extra little charge to it. It made him want to keep pushing Evan just to see if he'd take it.
Evan cringed, looking down, but Johnny could actually see his cock twitch. "Oh, so it's the embarrassment that does it? Who would have thought, Evan."
And now he'd pushed too far, he could tell. Evan flushed bright red, looking pissed. He started to get up with jerky motions. "If you're just going to make fun, I'm going to-"
"Don't move," Johnny snapped. Evan froze. "I didn't say I'm not going to do it."
He reached out to stroke Evan's cheek, the skin soft and a little sticky with some sort of crappy foundation. Evan closed his eyes and leaned into the touch a little, and that's when Johnny hauled back and slapped him, hard.
Evan gasped, wincing, and carefully rubbed his cheek with his fingers. Shit, maybe that had been too hard.
"You okay?"
"Yes! Yeah. Uh, again, okay?"
"Sure," Johnny said, a little uncertain. He was more careful the second and the third time, if only because they couldn't actually afford for Evan to end up with marks that wouldn't fade within a couple of minutes at most. There were a million cameras out there.
Evan stayed on his knees with his head hanging down for a few minutes after Johnny was done. Johnny tentatively put a hand on his shoulder, petting a little, feeling awkward. He didn't know where this weird urge to comfort Evan came from, afterwards. He didn't give a shit how Evan was feeling. In fact, he wanted Evan fucked up in the head; he had a competition to win. Somehow, that knowledge had a hard time getting past the sight of the unfocused, open expression on Evan's face.
Evan finally pushed himself to his feet, visibly composing himself, and Johnny drew his hand back as if he'd been burned. "Thank you," Evan said, weirdly formal. "See, you feel calmer now too, don't you?"
"Sure," Johnny said automatically, but actually, he felt shaken and nervous, in a different way than he had before. He sat down hard on the bench once Evan had left, hands dangling between his knees. The cruel streak that Evan brought out in him kind of freaked him out. For all that he tended to lose his temper at people when he was stressed, he really did try hard not to go through life hurting people. But somehow, with Evan, he wanted to taunt and hit and lash out, and that scared him a little.
He closed his eyes and made himself think about Evan's face at the end instead, his calm, peaceful expression and the fact that he'd helped put it there, and felt that same sort of calm sink over himself.
"Johnnik, are you ready to go?" Galina yelled from outside the door.
"Yes," he called back, and to his own surprise, he was.
*******
Johnny wasn't surprised when Evan knocked on his door at the Olympics. He'd been competing with Evan for over ten years, he knew him pretty well by now. Everything Evan did more than once before a successful competition became part of his crazy rituals for the season. He'd been collecting those for as long as Johnny had known him: lighting his special candles, chewing blue gum, applying his competition hair gel, and now, apparently, getting slapped around by Johnny.
"Hi," Evan said, giving him a tentative little smile, as if they hadn't spent the past couple months getting progressively meaner about each other in the press. He looked pale and nervous. I could destroy you right now, Johnny thought, with sudden, vicious clarity. Sure, this thing they did worked pretty well to settle his own nerves, but Evan was crazy about his rituals. If he had to miss even one of them, it threw him totally off-balance.
In the dressing room next to his, he could hear Stéphane start warbling a Britney Spears song, off-key, in a high, shaky voice. Stéphane could actually sing pretty well, but not when he was this nervous. And yet, he always did this before competitions.
"Oh god, it's the Swiss guy again," Evan said, shaking his head. "It's a good thing he's such a sweet guy, or someone would have snapped his neck by now."
Johnny found himself startled into a smile, and Evan grinned back, despite the way he still looked a little green with nerves. Oh fuck it, Johnny didn't really want to be that guy, anyway. Deliberately using his competitors' weaknesses to sabotage them was more Evan's speed.
"Come over here," he said. Now that he'd decided to be gracious, he didn't even feel like making Evan ask for it this time.
Repetition hadn't worn down the thrill of Evan kneeling down in front of him. Johnny slapped him, smiling at the way Evan didn't resist him at all, letting his head snap to the side with the force of Johnny's blow. "That's pretty hot, you know. It's a shame that before a competition's no time to be jerking off," he said, watching Evan blush with satisfaction. It was so damn easy to get a rise out of him.
Still, Evan didn't look as embarrassed as he usually did, probably because Johnny hadn't bothered being a dick about it this time. He even mostly managed to look him in the face.
"Good luck," Johnny said, when Evan was opening the door to leave. Fuck it, whatever happened out there, he was definitely going to be the bigger man.
Evan almost ran into the door. "Uh, um, you too," he said unconvincingly. Johnny gave him a smirk, letting himself bask in the glow of his own graciousness. Evan had never mastered the art of being a good sport.
*******
Fuck graciousness, Johnny thought. Fuck the judges, fuck Evan, and fuck fucking sixth place. The crowd was booing his scores. Johnny made himself get up and wave them down, made himself keep smiling. He wanted to scream and cry and punch something, but he knew he'd regret it, someday, if he made himself look like a sore loser now.
"Come on, Johnnik," Galina said gently, tugging him out of the kiss and cry and down the corridor, and then his mom was there, hugging him hard, and somehow they were in the dressing room, away from the cameras, and Johnny could finally let himself cry.
Faintly, he could hear the national anthem being played outside. He couldn't seem to stop sobbing. "Sorry, sorry, I'm okay, really," he mumbled into Patti's shoulder, trying to muffle his gasps.
"Shh, baby, I know. It's the stress. I know, I know," Patti murmured, rocking him a little.
*******
He locked himself in his hotel room, alone, scrubbing furiously at the bathroom tiles, ignoring the way his eyes still felt hot and swollen. He ignored the knock on the door, too, but whoever it was didn't give up. Johnny jerked the door open, physically recoiling when he found Evan in front of him.
Evan was staring at his feet, nervously rubbing his hands together. "I just wanted-"
"Words cannot express how much I don't give a shit what you want," Johnny said and slammed the door in his face.
*******
As nice as it was to have practically everyone in the skating world agree that he'd been underscored, it made it even harder to be gracious about his placement. Johnny mostly tried to stay classy about the entire thing, but occasionally his frustration broke through and his mouth slipped the leash a little, and of course Evan had never been able to let anything go. A few months into their petty little media war, Johnny suddenly realized that he was heartily sick of the entire thing.
He was retired now, and he was trying to make peace with the career he'd had, highs, lows, injustices and all, and clinging to this stupid feud got him nothing but a lot of rage he didn't need in his life. What he really wanted, at this point, was for them to apologize to each other and let it the fuck go. He just really didn't want to be the one to start, when Evan had objectively been the bigger asshole.
But apologies or no, he was going to let this go, he decided. It helped that after the end of Dancing with the Stars Evan had mostly faded from public view again, and Johnny was pretty busy.
He was skating a bunch of shows and going back to school, and the camera crew was following him around while he audited Russian lit and linguistics, and pretended to be touring FIT for the first time so they had a chance to get footage of his impression while they outlined their schedules and expectations. It didn't quite floor him the way it had the first time he'd heard it, but it was still pretty intimidating. He still wanted it, but he was pretty sure at this point that he should take a year or two off, maybe go to school for a while and brush up on his sewing first. He'd just gotten out of the pressure cooker of high-level competition, he wanted a break before the next crazy challenge. It felt good to have a goal again, though, something he could work towards.
*******
The next time he saw Evan, on the first day of their month-long Japan tour, he'd mostly gotten his shit together. He knew what he wanted to do with the next part of his life, and he'd spent so much time talking about how those two practically flawless performances at the Olympics had been satisfaction enough that it was starting to feel like the truth. It helped that in almost every show he'd skated since then, he'd been the one getting the loudest applause, over actual Olympics medalists. And now he had an entire month of shows in Japan to look forward to, together with some of his favorite skaters, in one of his favorite countries. It was pretty easy to feel at peace with the world.
Evan was making an obvious effort to be friendly. Coming from Evan, that sort of thing always made Johnny a little suspicious, but he realized that he was probably being paranoid out of habit. They were both retired, Evan didn't have anything to gain by fucking with his head anymore. Anyway, he knew that Evan was a pretty different person away from competition, and Johnny thought maybe he got lonely on tour, too, when he didn't have a crazy training schedule taking up all his time. That was how their brief friendship during Champions on Ice had started, years ago.
Evan knocked on his door one night a week into the tour. It was late enough that Johnny had just been about to change for bed, and he was terribly glad that he hadn't gotten around to it yet. Whatever this was about, it probably wouldn't be a conversation he'd want to have in his boxers.
"Can I come in?" Evan said, eyeing Johnny's hand on the door a little nervously, as if he was worried Johnny was going to slam it shut on him again. Johnny hesitated for a second, but he was past the door-slamming phase of anger now, and he didn't want Evan to start arguing with him in the hall. He stepped back, waving Evan in.
Evan looked twitchy and nervous, and his hair was wildly tousled, as if he'd been tugging at it. At that moment, he reminded Johnny more of the awkward teenager he'd been friends with once than the hypercompetitive dick he'd ended up hating.
"Sit down," he said, perching on the edge of his bed and gesturing at the only chair in the room. "What do you want?"
"I, uh. I thought." Evan settled on the very edge of the chair, nervously wringing his hands, looking prepared to bolt. "What we've been doing, uh, before the competitions? I thought maybe we could do that again, but, like, for fun. If you wanted to." His voice got all high and nervous in the middle, before he made an obvious effort to flatten it out again.
Johnny sighed. He did kind of want to, was the thing. He just wasn't sure it would be all that great an idea. "Evan, we're not friends. We don't do things together for fun."
"We used to be!"
"Yeah, and there's about a million reasons we're not anymore, and you know it. Look, I don't want to get into all this old shit, but you recently told the press I wasn't a good enough skater for freaking Stars on Ice, for one thing. We're not friends."
Evan hunched his shoulders. "Would it help if I apologized?"
"Um, yes." Duh, Johnny thought, but he prided himself on not being a guy who said that sort of thing out loud. "We're still not doing stuff just because you apologized, though."
"Uh, should I-" Evan started, making a helpless gesture that Johnny was pretty sure was meant to signify get on my knees.
"Evan, no." If they were going to do that - which they weren't, because it was still a stupid idea - he certainly didn't want to get all that old baggage tangled up in it. Or not any more than it was always going to be, anyway. "Just-"
"I'm really sorry about saying that," Evan blurted out. "It's not true, and I shouldn't have said it. I wasn't prepared for that question, and I was still pissed about you almost outing me, and you know I say stupid shit when people suddenly stick a microphone in front of me. I'm sorry. And, uh, for the other stuff I said, too. You know. Over the years."
Johnny had really thought he was past the point where he needed an apology. He'd done so well at moving on. So he was a little blindsided by how satisfying it as to hear Evan say it. It still wasn't easy to return the apology, but he wanted to, now; he wanted to put all of this behind him. "I'm sorry for that thing on Chelsea. That was petty, and I shouldn't have."
"That's okay," Evan said, too quickly. "So, uh, ceasefire, right?"
"Yeah," Johnny said, feeling something ease inside his chest.
"So now can we…?" Evan trailed off into a vague gesture, but he was leaning forwards eagerly, and it struck Johnny how much he obviously wanted it. Why now? And why Johnny, of all people?
"Tell me what's going on in your head," he said, and when Evan hesitated, "Tell me, and I'll think about it."
There it was again, that strange desire to push Evan just to see if he'd give. Evan was biting his lip. "I just want to get out of my head for a while," he finally said. "I spent four years going to the rink every single day and working off Frank's training plan, and now suddenly I have to make all these decisions. I don't even know what I want to do with my life anymore, and whatever I decide on now is going to change my life for like the next ten years. I put it off while I had all those shows to do, but my mind keeps going in circles, and I'm so tired of it."
To Johnny, the first few months after he'd decided to retire had felt like freedom. For the first time in his life, he could do whatever the fuck he wanted to do. He could do any shows he wanted, he could take full advantage of all the chances to have silly fun that being a D-list celebrity offered, he could go back to school, and if he wanted to eat an entire fucking ice cream cake, he could do that, too. But of course Evan wouldn't like it. He'd always been all about firm rules and set schedules.
Evan was watching him anxiously, waiting for a decision, and it was such a sudden rush, knowing that right then, he was the one with all the power. His cock was starting to press against his jeans. Oh, fuck it. What was the worst that could happen, him and Evan ending up resenting each other again? Big fucking change. He really could do whatever he wanted, now.
"Come here," he said, snapping his fingers and pointing at the floor in front of his legs. Evan was out of his chair almost before Johnny had finished talking, sinking to his knees, his entire body slumping in relief as if Johnny had taken a weight off his shoulders. There was something faintly ridiculous about the pose - Evan was just too tall to look natural on his knees, and the way he folded himself up just drew attention to his awkward gangliness. But he was clearly trying to make it look submissive.
Johnny had always gotten a kick out of the stuff they'd done, even thought about it when he was jerking off, occasionally; but it was so much hotter now, when he wasn't half out of his mind with nerves before a competition. It surprised him, how turned on he suddenly was.
He tangled his hands in Evan's hair and pulled him a little closer. Evan obediently curled forward, gratefully leaning his cheek against Johnny's knee and twisting his head to look up at him. Johnny looked away for a moment, fighting his conflicting impulses. The way Evan was watching him with his eyes half closed, stupidly trusting, was making him feel bizarrely protective, as if he should be stroking Evan's hair and kissing him gently. It was a silly, annoying impulse. Evan was a big boy, he didn't need coddling, and anyway he didn't even want it. Years worth of anger and hurt pride made him thrill at Evan's easy surrender, a mean, petty little feeling that Johnny didn't really want in the bedroom, and it scared him a little.
But mostly, he was painfully hard, and desperately curious what else Evan was willing to do, if he told him to; what he'd let Johnny do to him.
Johnny tightened his grip in Evan's hair and pulled his head a little further back, making him arch his back. Evan shuddered, eyes wide and dark.
"So what do you want me to do, then?" Johnny asked.
Evan hesitated. Johnny twisted his grip until Evan hissed with pain, but he stayed loose under Johnny's hands, not struggling at all.
"You want me to hurt you? Smack you around?"
Evan's face was flushed a deep, blotchy red. He obviously wanted it, but he just as obviously couldn't bring himself to say so out loud. Johnny was fiercely glad for the casual way his family talked about sex. He'd always found it perfectly easy to talk about the things he wanted, even if they were a little on the outrageous side. Usually he found other people's prudishness amusing at best, annoying at worst, but watching Evan struggling with himself like this was fucking hot. "Come on, you gotta tell me, how else am I going to know?"
"Yes. Please," Evan gasped, his voice tight, from embarrassment or from the unnatural position Johnny had him in. Johnny's cock twitched.
"You want me to make you come like that? While you're in pain?"
"Yes," Evan said immediately, and Johnny realized that he probably should have asked about that before they'd started. He's just assumed that if they did this, it would be sexual; but Evan hadn't ever asked for that before, and he was getting the uncomfortable feeling that he could make Evan say yes to pretty much anything right now. He let go of Evan's hair, gently carding it flat where he'd twisted it all out of shape, and pushed him back until he was sitting on his heels, eyes glazed.
"You want to take a moment to think about it? We don't have to do that, if you're just into the pain."
Evan looked up at his tone of voice, and seemed to shake himself out of the daze a little. "No, I. I want to," he said, his voice cracking a little, as if it was even harder to say it now that he was thinking a little clearer again.
"Did you want to at the competitions? Did you go and jerk off after I was done with you?" Johnny asked, curious. He'd always wondered about that.
"No! That would have been too much of a distraction," Evan said immediately, but there was something shifty about his tone. It wasn't that hard to guess what he wasn't saying.
"So you waited until you got home?"
"…Yeah," Evan reluctantly admitted.
Johnny laughed, delighted. Evan was looking off to the side, shoulders tense. Johnny grabbed him by the hair again, pulled until Evan's eyes were watering, watching with a sense of awe as his entire body relaxed.
He let go, stroking Evan's cheek. "You know, I'm really glad you came by. This is fun," he said, and then he pulled back and backhanded Evan so hard his knuckles stung, not holding back for once. This time it didn't matter if he marked Evan up a bit. They didn't have anywhere to go tomorrow, there'd be time for the bruises to fade.
Evan made a pained sound that had Johnny's chest clenching up nervously, but before he could say anything, Evan bent down and pressed a kiss against his hand. "Thank you," he said. Johnny blinked down at him, blindsided all over again by how much this turned him on. He pressed his hand against his cock, stroking himself through his pants. Evan was following his every movement with his eyes. It felt kind of weird, having him watching; more intimate than what they'd been doing so far. So Johnny smacked him again to distract him, feeling his cock twitch at Evan's little gasp. Again, and again, until Evan's breath was hitching with every slap, tears spilling over his cheeks.
Evan's cheeks looked red and bruised when he stopped. Johnny gently stroked his fingers over the marks, feeling how hot the skin was. He turned his hand over, pressing the cooler side against the bruises. Evan leaned into it with a grateful sigh. "Don't stop," he said quietly, turning his face to muffle the words against Johnny's hand.
Johnny kept petting him, considering. He had no real idea how quickly those bruises were going to fade. For all he know, they'd be gone two hours from now, but right now, they were pretty damn obvious, and he didn't think Evan would thank him if he had to answer any awkward questions the day after tomorrow. There was plenty of other stuff he wanted to try if Evan let him, though.
"Take your clothes off and get on the bed," he said, nudging Evan's cheek when he hesitated. He thought about keeping his own clothes on, because the mental image of being fully-clothed with a naked Evan was pretty hot, but he was starting to feel sweaty and gross like this, so he stripped after all.
Evan had a pretty good body, despite the gangliness; strong and lean, nicely muscled figure skater thighs, his abs sharply defined. His cock was hard and damp with precome at the tip. Johnny trailed a finger over the lines of muscles on his stomach, feeling the skin twitch. Evan made a protesting sound, pulling away, ticklish, and Johnny casually reached out and slapped his cock.
Evan actually squeaked at that, staring down at Johnny with wide eyes. Johnny gently flattened his hand against his stomach. "Too much?" he asked.
"No," Evan said after a moment.
"Hold still and let me touch, then," Johnny said, dragging his nails lightly over Evan's stomach, trying to get it to twitch like that again. Evan groaned, his entire body tensing up, trying not to pull away. Johnny slapped his cock again. "I told you to hold still."
He really liked the response he could get from Evan that way, a sort of full-body wince, as if Evan had to fight the instinctive urge to curl up to protect his junk. Johnny did it a few more times, playing around with the intensity, but he didn't actually want Evan too sore to jerk off. Although that sounded like something that might be fun some other time - if there was another time. Which he wasn't even going to worry about right now.
Evan was tying himself into knots trying to hold still for the tickling, but couldn't quite manage. The next time he twitched away, Johnny raked his nails down his sides, hard, leaving five raised, bright red lines. Evan moaned, curling into the touch, which was so hot Johnny immediately had to try it again. He put a lattice of angry lines all over Evan's stomach, but although Evan was clearly getting off on it, Johnny couldn't make him react like that again. He was keeping himself very still, biting his lip trying to hold back his sounds, obviously trying to be all stoic and manly about the pain.
It was kind of pissing Johnny off. They were naked together, in the middle of kinky sex, and Evan still couldn't stop trying to be his stupid fake persona. It made Johnny want to push harder, force him to give a real reaction.
There was a bunch of clothespins on his bedside table, left over from Johnny's attempt to get his clothes sorted out despite the hotel's lack of hangers. He grabbed a red one and experimentally put it on his little finger. It didn't really hurt, but it did pinch down pretty firmly. "That one's got quite the bite," he told Evan, smirking. "Want to try it?" He grabbed Evan's hand and stuck it on his finger without waiting for an answer. Evan glanced from Johnny to his finger and back, watching him warily.
"Think about how that would feel on your nipple," Johnny told him, grinning when Evan sucked in a breath. "Think you can take that one on your nipple, or do you need me to find a lighter one?"
He hadn't meant it to be a challenge, but Evan clearly took it that way. "I can take it," he said immediately.
Johnny shook his head at him. "Tell me if it gets too much," he said. He didn't put the clothespin on all at once but instead let it close very slowly, gradually increasing the pressure. Evan started getting restless about halfway through, not trying to get away, but shifting around, clutching the sheets with his hands. "Say stop if you need to," Johnny reminded him.
"Don't stop!" Evan said immediately.
Johnny shrugged and increased the pressure a little more. Evan was trying to curl in on himself, shoulders and legs coming up. Johnny put a knee on his hip and his free hand on the opposite shoulder, forcing him flat again. Evan was panting. Johnny could feel Evan's cock twitching against his leg, slicking a wet trail over his calf.
Evan almost screamed when Johnny let go of the clip entirely, letting it close around his nipple as tight as it would go. It took Johnny's entire strength to hold him still. "Leave it on," he gasped, when Johnny started reaching for it, concerned. "I can do this, I can."
Johnny thought about taking it off anyway, because he didn't want Evan challenging himself past his own limits, but Evan was still obviously hard, so apparently he was getting something out of this.
Evan was slowly settling down, relaxing a little, not fighting Johnny's hold on him anymore. Johnny wondered if the pain had eased up, or if Evan had just figured out how to control it better. Either way, he thought, it would probably get worse the longer he left it on. He flicked the clip with a finger, and Evan's muscles instantly tightened up again. Johnny watched him, the way he was shuddering, trying to breathe through it; there wasn't anything fake about Evan's reaction now.
He waited until Evan had settled down again before giving the clip a little twist. Evan actually screamed this time, one hand blindly clutching for Johnny, clinging to his shoulder. Johnny stroked him, murmuring soothing nonsense, but the pain didn't seem to ease up anymore. "Fuck, ow, take it off," Evan finally said, panting.
Johnny did. Evan screamed again, bucking up, almost dislodging Johnny, who hadn't expected it this time. He grabbed Evan's shoulder tighter, forcing him back down. "Fuck, it's worse when it comes off, I didn't expect that," Evan said, laughing shakily. Johnny hadn't expected it either, or he would have been more careful. Damn it, he had no real idea what he was doing here.
He gently stroked Evan's sweaty hair back from his face, kept on petting him until he was melting into the mattress. "Johnny, can I…?" Evan said, tugging on Johnny's hip, pulling him up towards his face. He was licking his lips.
Johnny thought about making him ask for it, but he didn't really feel like pushing much farther right now. He shuffled up the bed, planting his knees on either side of Evan's chest, and then Evan was lifting his head, straining so he could lick the head of Johnny's cock. Johnny moaned shakily, putting one hand behind Evan's head, taking some of the strain off his neck muscles, and leaned forward, pushing into Evan's mouth.
He couldn't get very deep like this, but that didn't matter. Evan was sucking him eagerly, making pleased little sounds to himself. It felt amazing. Johnny leaned forwards a little further, pushing in just a little more. His arms were trembling. "God, you're amazing," he muttered, thumb stroking behind Evan's ear. Evan moaned.
Johnny pulled out just before he got too close to stop, sitting back on Evan's chest, taking deep breaths and trying to get himself under control again. Evan's lips were still wet and glistening. Johnny wiped his thumb over Evan's mouth, and Evan darted his tongue out to catch it, tilting his head, trying to suck it into his mouth. Johnny drew his hand back. "Quit it, you're fucking distracting," he said. He lightly squeezed his cock, telling himself to settle down. It didn't work very well. He was still so close; it was hard to think about anything but how much he wanted to come.
"If you could have me do anything you wanted to you right now, what would it be?" he asked. Evan was staring at his cock. He blinked sluggishly at the question, distracted. Johnny snapped his fingers in front of Evan's face. "Pay attention. I'm taking requests right now, if you've got one."
"I, uh," Evan started, blushing, obviously struggling with himself. Johnny rolled his eyes, slapping him lightly across the face. Evan moaned.
"Come on, you just had my cock in your mouth. What are you so embarrassed for? Just tell me what you want. Offer expires in three, two-"
"I want you to come on my face," Evan blurted, hunching his shoulders and glaring up at him, as if he was seriously worried Johnny was going to freak out on him after everything they'd already done. Johnny bit down on the urge to laugh. It wasn't really his kink, but on the scale of weirdness, he thought this rated a lot lower than the slapping.
He knelt up a little and started jerking himself off, groaning with relief when he could finally get his hand on his aching cock. Evan tugged him forwards a little more, craning his head up so he could lick between Johnny's fingers, tongue sliding sloppily over his knuckles and the head of his cock. It felt slippery and weird and awesome. "Fuck, I'm close," Johnny gasped. He grabbed Evan's hair and pulled him back a little, his hand tightening on his cock. He came with a strangled moan, all over Evan's cheeks and mouth. Evan licked at his lips, making a pleased, grateful sound. Johnny's cock twitched, almost painful so soon after he'd come.
He let himself collapse sideways, curling up next to Evan, shuddering all over. Evan petted his shoulder in long slow strokes. Johnny closed his eyes, pushing into the touch like a cat. God, he felt good.
He picked himself up after a few minutes, pushing to his knees with a groan. Evan was still hard, his cock flushed so dark with blood it had to hurt, but he seemed content to wait for Johnny to recover. Johnny reached out to wipe the come off his face, but Evan twisted away. "Leave it," he said, blushing furiously. It was a little gross, but in an awesomely filthy way that Johnny would probably find a lot hotter if he hadn't just come.
"Jerk yourself off," Johnny told him. It was always really interesting to watch people bringing themselves off, the way everyone liked it differently. Unsurprisingly, Evan was pretty rough with himself. Johnny waited until Evan seemed to be getting close, breathing in ragged gasps, making little sounds under his breath, and then he slapped his cock, hard, catching Evan's fingers and the sensitive skin of the head. Evan made a startled sound, his breathing speeding up, and jerked himself faster. Johnny did it again, watching Evan's face twist with pleasure and pain, eyes squeezed shut, his cheeks still red and bruised.
"Would you… put the clip on again?" Evan asked, without opening his eyes.
Johnny grabbed it off the bedside table. "You can come whenever you want," he told Evan, and then he let the clothespin snap closed on Evan's nipple all at once, not giving him any time to adjust. Evan yelled and curled in on himself, his hand tightening brutally on his cock, coming all over his own stomach. Johnny tugged the clip off while he was still twitching with aftershocks, and Evan gasped, his cock jumping.
He drew a ragged, heaving breath and rolled onto his side, away from Johnny, pulling his knees up to his chest and burying his face in the pillow. Johnny watched him, uncertain. Evan wasn't making a sound, but he was shaking, his shoulders drawn up tight, and he was breathing in choked little gasps.
"Hey, you okay?" Johnny asked, tentatively putting a hand on his shoulder. Evan flinched away.
"I'm fine," he said in a tight voice, muffled into the pillow. Like this, Johnny could just barely see the raised scratches on his stomach, and that his nipple was swollen and red. He felt shaky and anxious, and he desperately wanted to do something - get a washcloth to clean Evan up, maybe, and disinfect those scratches, even though he hadn't drawn blood. Make Evan look at him, check that he was okay. But he had a feeling that if he made too much of a fuss, Evan was going to run.
Johnny carefully curled himself against Evan's back, putting an arm around him and holding on tight when he tried to pull away, until he finally, reluctantly relaxed into the embrace, slowly leaning back into Johnny's chest. Evan's skin was damp with sweat and already starting to cool. Johnny pulled the blanket over them. He could feel the convulsive shudders running through Evan in waves, the gasps he was trying to suppress. "Too much at once, hmm?" he said, pressing his lips to the back of Evan's neck. "Evan, are you okay? Come on, talk to me."
"I'm fine!" Evan insisted again, his voice shaking.
Johnny rolled his eyes. "Are you embarrassed about crying? I know you always have your head up your ass at competitions, but even you should probably have noticed at some point that I cry all the time. So does everyone else in this sport. So do you."
"I'm not crying," Evan said stubbornly. He tensed against Johnny's embrace. Johnny decided to let it go. He really didn't want to chase Evan away right now.
"Hey, it's okay," he said gently, nuzzling Evan's shoulder and petting his chest until he finally started to relax again. "That's it, deep breaths, it's okay."
"Stop it, I don't need you coddling me," Evan said tightly. Johnny sighed. It always baffled him a little when people got all embarrassed about what they liked in bed, but of course Evan would be uptight about it. He'd changed his entire public image to look manlier to people, and he'd been kind of repressed even before that. Of course he was ashamed that Johnny had seen him like that.
"That was really hot. I'm going to be jerking off to that for a while," Johnny said against the back of Evan's neck, feeling him shiver.
"Yeah?" Evan said, sounding hopeful.
"Sure. Usually I'm really more into someone else taking control in bed, but that was fun."
Evan was finally beginning to relax a little. Johnny kept stroking him until his breathing had evened out, and then slipped out of bed and finally let himself get that washcloth. He dropped it on top of Evan's hand. "Wash your face."
"I wasn't crying!"
Johnny rolled his eyes. "Honey, there's come on your face."
"Oh," Evan said sheepishly.
Johnny gave him a few minutes to scrub his face and press the cool cloth against his skin, before he firmly tugged Evan onto his back. "Let me see," he demanded. The redness in Evan's face was already going down, although his eyes were a little bloodshot and swollen. Johnny carefully disinfected the scratches he'd left on Evan's stomach, got him a glass of water and made him drink all of it, and then he could finally feel himself settling down, the anxious clench of his chest easing up. Evan watched him bemusedly, but he wasn't resisting, and he seemed a little calmer when Johnny was done, too.
He tiredly glanced over at the door. "I should probably go now," he said.
Johnny had his hand resting on Evan's chest. He could feel Evan's rapid heartbeat, the way he was still shaking a little when he breathed, and struggled with himself. "Stay," he finally said, imperious, looking away from Evan's startled expression. "Stop hogging the covers. And if you snore I'm kicking you out of here, so don't even try me."
He switched off the lamp and shoved at Evan until he could wrap himself around him again. Evan was giving off heat like an oven. It was kind of nice.
"Maybe next time, you could tie my hands," Evan said into the darkness, with very badly faked casualness. His muscles were tight as rocks under Johnny's arm.
"Maybe next time we'll take it a little slower so it won't be so overwhelming, and you'll tell me if it's too much," Johnny said pointedly, poking Evan's sore nipple. Evan winced.
"It was fine! Great! I've just-"
"…Never really done that before, and jumped in at the deep end like an idiot," Johnny said, shaking his head. He gentled his hands, lightly stroking Evan's stomach, feeling the warm skin around the slightly raised lines of the scratches. "Do you still have all those ugly ties? …Why am I even asking, of course you do. Bring them over next time."
"So you'll do it?" Evan asked eagerly.
"We'll see," Johnny said.
Evan picked up his hand and pressed a kiss to the back of it. "Thank you," he said quietly.
Johnny was suddenly very glad for the darkness. "Yeah, yeah, whatever," he said roughly. "Go to sleep now. And I mean it about the snoring." His hand was still curled on top of Evan's. Evan waited until Johnny was almost asleep, and then carefully laced their fingers together. Johnny didn't try to pull away.
END
Pairing: Johnny/Evan
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: BDSM
Length: 9500 words
Beta'd by strongplacebo
Everything Evan did more than once before a successful competition became part of his crazy rituals for the season. He'd been collecting those for as long as Johnny had known him: lighting his special candles, chewing blue gum, applying his competition hair gel, and now, apparently, getting slapped around by Johnny.
Note: For reasons of porn, this fic is going to pretend that the top figure skaters get their own dressing rooms at competitions.
There was less than an hour left until Johnny was scheduled to go on the ice. He walked down the corridor towards his dressing room, feeling everyone's eyes on him: officials, reporters, his competitors. His mom. Galina. He felt nauseous with the weight of everyone's expectations.
The dressing room looked like a refuge. He'd begged everyone to leave him alone, just for a little while, and now he was going to go sit in the dark and try to calm the fuck down. Try not to cry, because that always left him feeling drained, and he didn't need that right before he competed.
He closed the door behind himself and leaned against it, closing his eyes in the dim light, breathing in the scent of the candles he'd burned to get rid of the stale locker room smell, already feeling a little bit calmer.
Someone made a weird, gasping sound. Johnny's eyes snapped open. Evan was sitting on the very edge of the bench, leaning against a locker, curled in on himself and half hidden in the shadows. Johnny glanced at his suitcase with a flash of worry, but everything looked untouched, exactly the way he'd left it, and he felt a little embarrassed about his uncharitable thoughts. Evan was a politicking asshole who'd happily kiss the federation's ass no matter how much they screwed everyone over, but he wasn't going to stoop to sabotaging Johnny's gear. That didn't mean he was above showing up here just to try and screw with Johnny's head, though.
Johnny really didn't have the patience to deal with him right now. "The fuck are you doing in my room? You're not even allowed to be in here," he snapped.
"I'm sorry," Evan said, his voice tight, "there were all these reporters and they wouldn't leave me alone, and my room's all the way over on the - oh god, Johnny, I don't think I can do this," he interrupted himself, in a high, panicked voice, just blurted it right out, as if he wasn't aware that you never, ever showed weakness to your competitors.
He was hyperventilating, eyes wide and terrified, swaying a little. Evan Lysacek was going to hyperventilate himself right into fainting in Johnny's fucking dressing room, and instead of the peace he desperately needed he'd have EMTs and reporters and Frank fucking Carroll in here, like Evan lived to ruin his life even with his weaknesses. Johnny just couldn't fucking deal with this shit right now.
He stalked over to Evan in three big steps, and slapped him right across the face. He hadn't hit that hard, but Evan's head snapped to the side, eyes closing, a red handprint slowly darkening on his cheek. For a second, everything stopped. Evan wasn't moving, wasn't even breathing, and Johnny hated himself and his stupid temper with the fire of a thousand suns.
Sure, people in movies slapped other people to snap them out of a panic attacks all the time, but Johnny was pretty sure that in real life, that sort of thing ended in getting yelled at, or possibly assault charges. There was a big fat incriminating handprint right there on Evan's cheek. Evan could walk out of here and get Johnny in a world of trouble with the ISU.
Evan slowly lowered his head, taking a deep, shaky breath, his shoulders relaxing a little. Sanity successfully restored to your biggest rival. Great, good job there, Johnny. Jesus Christ, how stupid was he, seriously. At least it had been pretty satisfying, as far as hugely stupid mistakes went. The memory of his hand connecting with Evan's cheek still gave Johnny a warm little glow inside his chest.
"Sorry," he muttered, wincing a little at the way the words came out sounding less than sincere. That probably wasn't the way to get Evan to forgive him. It wasn't easy, though, having to apologize to Evan. Especially not after he'd started it by invading Johnny's sanctuary.
"Thank you," Evan said, so quietly that for a moment Johnny thought he'd imagined it. That was not what he'd expected Evan to say.
"Really?" Johnny blurted, incredulous, and then seriously considered smacking himself in the face. If Evan thought that had been a helpful attempt to snap him out of his panic attack, Johnny certainly didn't want to give him any reason to think otherwise. Anyway, that was mostly what he'd been trying to do, and Evan didn't need to know how satisfying it had turned out to be.
Evan blushed bright crimson and lowered his eyes. "Sorry for freaking out on you," he mumbled. "Thanks for… you know. Helping out."
"Oh honey, that was no hardship," Johnny said, against his better judgment; he'd just told himself he wasn't going to bait Evan, damn it. That had been too good an opening to pass up, though. "I'm sorry if I hurt you though," he offered, trying for conciliatory.
"I didn't mind," Evan said. "Um. You liked that, right? Slapping me. Come on, you can admit it, I could tell."
Shit. "I apologized," Johnny reminded him. "And, everything else aside, I really didn't know what else to do, okay?"
"No, that's not… I meant… So you wouldn't mind doing it again?"
"Look, seriously, I was just trying to snap you out of it, you don't have to worry about-"
"No. If, like, if I asked you to."
Johnny stopped. It was pretty clear what Evan was asking, it just didn't really compute that he was asking it. "You… want me to slap you? Again?"
"If you don't mind?" Evan looked up, cautiously hopeful, and caught the look on Johnny's face. "It settles my nerves, okay? It's easier to stop freaking out and just… be in my body, when stuff hurts a little. It's nothing weird!" he said, tight and defensive. "Oh, come on. You don't like me, you're, like, a total asshole to me half the time. You can't tell me you haven't ever wanted to."
Johnny kind of wanted to slap him right now for that comment. Seriously, half the time it was like Evan didn't even hear the shit that came out of his mouth. What the fuck, like Johnny was the one who'd started their feud, when Evan had gone and flat out implied to the press that Johnny wasn't fit to represent the USA because he had the gall to be himself in public? He did have some impulse control when it mattered, though.
"Contrary to what you might think, I'm not really a violent person, you realize? I don't actually lie awake at night and dream about beating you up."
Evan sighed, like he was disappointed in Johnny, which was rich coming from him. He squared his shoulders. "Look, if you really don't want to, that's fine. Tell me, and I'll go away and leave you alone. But I want you to, and I think you do want to."
He gave Johnny a challenging look, as if he was trying to dare him into it, which Johnny wouldn't put past him. Seriously, how was it possible for one human being to be so annoying? He already regularly managed to make Johnny want to slap him when he wasn't begging for it; like this, the temptation was impossible to resist, no matter how much of a bad idea it might be.
"You know what? Fine. You want to be slapped, I'll be happy to slap you until the cows come home."
"Great!" Evan said, still glaring.
"Fine!" Johnny said, glowering back. He raised his hand, and then hesitated, feeling suddenly silly. Christ, what the fuck were they doing here?
"Two more, okay?" Evan said, like that number was significant somehow. It took Johnny a moment. He groaned.
"Evan, I know you're all about that lucky numbers shit, but you don't actually have to let me hit you three times just so you won't mess up your karma."
"Just do it, okay?" Evan said, and Johnny shrugged and raised his hand again.
"Wait, hang on," Evan said suddenly. He slid off the bench, going to his knees in front of Johnny. "Like this." He wouldn't quite meet Johnny's eyes, and he was blushing a bright, blotchy red, the handprint on his cheek almost disappearing in it.
Johnny stared down at Evan's gangly form, awkwardly folded up in front of his feet, looking up at him with a nervous, expectant expression. Suddenly this didn't seem silly or juvenile anymore; it felt serious, dangerous, like they were both in way over their head.
He steeled himself and snapped his hand right across Evan's unmarked cheek. Evan sucked in a sharp breath, shoulders curling forward, but he didn't flinch away. He knelt like that for a long moment, motionless, before straightening up again, slowly crossing his wrists behind his back. Both his cheeks were marked now, vaguely hand-shaped spots of color just barely darker than the flushed skin surrounding them.
"Again?" Johnny asked quietly. Evan nodded eagerly, his face tilted up but his eyes fixed somewhere besides Johnny's shoulders.
Johnny hit him again, fitting his hand right into the mark he'd left on Evan's cheek the first time. This time, Evan winced, hissing, his hands twitching forward a little before he forced them behind his back again. Johnny's palm was stinging; the sensitive skin on Evan's face had to hurt.
Evan lowered his head, taking slow, deep breaths, eyes half-closed. He looked calm and centered now, shoulders loose. He was obviously hard, but he didn't seem to be paying it any attention. The last slap had made his eyes water a little. Johnny carefully wiped the wetness away with his thumb, giving in to the weirdly protective feeling that had sprung up inside his chest, seeing Evan on his knees like that, breathing through the pain.
Evan startled a little, as if he'd drawn so tightly inside himself he'd forgotten Johnny was there. He still didn't seem to want to meet Johnny's eyes, which meant he was staring pretty much directly at the way Johnny's half-hard cock was tenting his costume pants, which weren't really designed to hide that sort of thing.
"Do you want me to-" Evan started, hesitantly reaching out for Johnny's waist.
Johnny stepped back so quickly he stumbled. "Are you fucking insane? I've got to skate a competition in half an hour. An orgasm's the last thing in the world I need right now. Nice try, though," he said, smirking at Evan.
Evan looked honestly confused for a moment. Okay, probably even Evan wouldn't go quite this far just to psych Johnny out. On the other hand, he wouldn't put it entirely past him, either. "I'm not - I wasn't trying to -" Evan stuttered, but then, he always denied it when he'd been trying to mess with Johnny head. And seriously, Johnny knew that them jumping in opposite directions made it a little harder to navigate shared ice, but he didn't have near-collisions with anyone else during almost every single warm-up session, now did he? He'd heard Evan protesting his innocence a little too often by now.
"I should go," Evan said, slowly picking himself up off the floor, grimacing a bit, like his knees had stiffened up.
"You really should."
Evan hesitated for a long moment, maybe trying to think of something else to say, but then he just pulled the hem of his jacket down so it covered his crotch and finally walked out.
Johnny let himself sink down on the bench, taking a deep breath. He pressed the heel of his hand lightly against his half-hard cock, not really doing anything, just enjoying the way it felt. It wasn't an urgent sort of arousal, anyway, just a warm, comforting feeling that was already fading rapidly, now that the distraction was over and he was thinking about the competition again.
Still, he wasn't as panicked as he'd been before. There'd been something weirdly settling about that entire bizarre experience, having Evan go still and pliant like that while he was hitting him. It had been a really stupid thing to do, of course, and probably he was going to freak out about it later, but right now, Johnny didn't regret it. He felt focused and ready, prepared to go out there and show them what he could do.
*******
Johnny skated the short of his life. He came off the ice overwhelmed and triumphant, sure that this had been it, he had it, and then had to watch Evan, Daisuke and Oda deliver amazing performances of their own. He watched himself slip lower and lower in the rankings, feeling numb and shaky when he finally ended up fourth. This was unsettling and scary in an entirely different way than simply messing up his program. He'd given his best, and it hadn't been enough. What the fuck was he supposed to do if his best wasn't good enough? How was he supposed to improve on a practically flawless performance? He swallowed against the nausea rising in the pit of his stomach.
"Be calm, Johnnik," Galina said, putting her arm around him and shaking him gently. "Fourth after short is not end of world. Tomorrow you go out and be best you can be. Everything still possible now."
He hid his face against her shoulder for a moment, taking a deep, shaky breath. She was right, he hadn't lost yet. He just needed to stay calm now.
*******
In the end, it wasn't enough. His free skate was great, but Evan's was better. Bronze wasn't that bad, he tried to remind himself, and he'd had a great showing both times, which would go a long way towards redeeming him in the eyes of the judges. Still, he couldn't quite shake the nervous feeling that came from knowing that he'd done as well as he could, and it hadn't been enough.
At least the entire mess had distracted him from what had happened with Evan. Johnny hadn't really thought about it at all in between all the worrying and freaking out and trying to focus on what he needed to do. Evan behaved exactly the same way he always did during competitions, walking past him and all the other skaters as if he wasn't even aware they existed. Johnny had always envied his ability to focus. It had been a little startling to watch him falling apart the way he had; he honestly hadn't known that Evan got nervous like that.
He didn't behave any differently at the medal ceremony, either, hugging Johnny for the cameras and congratulating him in the same stiff, insincere way he always did. It made it easy to forget that anything had happened between them at all.
Johnny hardly spared it a second thought right up until the press conference, and then of course Evan had to go and be a smug dick. Johnny had a bright, satisfying flashback to his hand snapping across Evan's face, of Evan kneeling in front of him and asking for more. He could feel the corners of his mouth curl up into a smirk.
Evan must have seen it on his face; he quickly looked away, flushing bright red, and made a hopeless tangle out of whatever he'd been trying to say. Johnny leaned back in his chair, grinning. It was a petty little victory, but he'd take it just the same.
*******
He tried not to think about it after that. People did crazy things before competitions. The pressure fucked with your head, that was all. Nationals were coming up, and he was training harder than he ever had in his life. If he fucked this up, he wasn't going to the Olympics.
He was curled up in his dressing room, alone, taking deep, shaky breaths and trying to visualize himself doing a perfect short program. It wasn't going very well. All he could think about was that moment on the ice just before the music started, everyone's eyes on you while you were shaking with nerves, and he couldn't seem to move past it in his head.
The knock on the door came as a relief, even if he didn't really feel like talking to Galina or his mom right now. Especially since he should probably apologize for the way he'd thrown them all out of the room five minutes ago. One of these days, he'd grow out of having panicked temper tantrums before competitions.
"Come on in!" he called.
"Hi," Evan said tentatively, sticking his head in, and then slowly crept in the door when Johnny didn't immediately toss him out.
"You're fucking kidding me, right?"
"Oh come on, you skated really well last time. Don't tell me it didn't help calm you down." Evan crossed his arms tightly in front of his chest, hugging himself, but he was giving Johnny that challenging glare again.
"Have you thought about taking up yoga? Or probably a psychologist would work better than finding a guy who'll slap you around, too."
"I do yoga! And I've got a sports psychologist. I just want… Come on, Johnny, please." He went awkwardly down to his knees, hunching his shoulders. He was hard already, his cock straining against his costume pants, and Johnny hadn't even done anything yet.
"Do you just like begging, or are you excited in advance? You think I'm going to say yes?" Johnny asked, smirking. He'd always gotten a kick out of provoking Evan just to see what he'd do. He was getting that same sort of thrill now, but with Evan on his knees like that, there was an extra little charge to it. It made him want to keep pushing Evan just to see if he'd take it.
Evan cringed, looking down, but Johnny could actually see his cock twitch. "Oh, so it's the embarrassment that does it? Who would have thought, Evan."
And now he'd pushed too far, he could tell. Evan flushed bright red, looking pissed. He started to get up with jerky motions. "If you're just going to make fun, I'm going to-"
"Don't move," Johnny snapped. Evan froze. "I didn't say I'm not going to do it."
He reached out to stroke Evan's cheek, the skin soft and a little sticky with some sort of crappy foundation. Evan closed his eyes and leaned into the touch a little, and that's when Johnny hauled back and slapped him, hard.
Evan gasped, wincing, and carefully rubbed his cheek with his fingers. Shit, maybe that had been too hard.
"You okay?"
"Yes! Yeah. Uh, again, okay?"
"Sure," Johnny said, a little uncertain. He was more careful the second and the third time, if only because they couldn't actually afford for Evan to end up with marks that wouldn't fade within a couple of minutes at most. There were a million cameras out there.
Evan stayed on his knees with his head hanging down for a few minutes after Johnny was done. Johnny tentatively put a hand on his shoulder, petting a little, feeling awkward. He didn't know where this weird urge to comfort Evan came from, afterwards. He didn't give a shit how Evan was feeling. In fact, he wanted Evan fucked up in the head; he had a competition to win. Somehow, that knowledge had a hard time getting past the sight of the unfocused, open expression on Evan's face.
Evan finally pushed himself to his feet, visibly composing himself, and Johnny drew his hand back as if he'd been burned. "Thank you," Evan said, weirdly formal. "See, you feel calmer now too, don't you?"
"Sure," Johnny said automatically, but actually, he felt shaken and nervous, in a different way than he had before. He sat down hard on the bench once Evan had left, hands dangling between his knees. The cruel streak that Evan brought out in him kind of freaked him out. For all that he tended to lose his temper at people when he was stressed, he really did try hard not to go through life hurting people. But somehow, with Evan, he wanted to taunt and hit and lash out, and that scared him a little.
He closed his eyes and made himself think about Evan's face at the end instead, his calm, peaceful expression and the fact that he'd helped put it there, and felt that same sort of calm sink over himself.
"Johnnik, are you ready to go?" Galina yelled from outside the door.
"Yes," he called back, and to his own surprise, he was.
*******
Johnny wasn't surprised when Evan knocked on his door at the Olympics. He'd been competing with Evan for over ten years, he knew him pretty well by now. Everything Evan did more than once before a successful competition became part of his crazy rituals for the season. He'd been collecting those for as long as Johnny had known him: lighting his special candles, chewing blue gum, applying his competition hair gel, and now, apparently, getting slapped around by Johnny.
"Hi," Evan said, giving him a tentative little smile, as if they hadn't spent the past couple months getting progressively meaner about each other in the press. He looked pale and nervous. I could destroy you right now, Johnny thought, with sudden, vicious clarity. Sure, this thing they did worked pretty well to settle his own nerves, but Evan was crazy about his rituals. If he had to miss even one of them, it threw him totally off-balance.
In the dressing room next to his, he could hear Stéphane start warbling a Britney Spears song, off-key, in a high, shaky voice. Stéphane could actually sing pretty well, but not when he was this nervous. And yet, he always did this before competitions.
"Oh god, it's the Swiss guy again," Evan said, shaking his head. "It's a good thing he's such a sweet guy, or someone would have snapped his neck by now."
Johnny found himself startled into a smile, and Evan grinned back, despite the way he still looked a little green with nerves. Oh fuck it, Johnny didn't really want to be that guy, anyway. Deliberately using his competitors' weaknesses to sabotage them was more Evan's speed.
"Come over here," he said. Now that he'd decided to be gracious, he didn't even feel like making Evan ask for it this time.
Repetition hadn't worn down the thrill of Evan kneeling down in front of him. Johnny slapped him, smiling at the way Evan didn't resist him at all, letting his head snap to the side with the force of Johnny's blow. "That's pretty hot, you know. It's a shame that before a competition's no time to be jerking off," he said, watching Evan blush with satisfaction. It was so damn easy to get a rise out of him.
Still, Evan didn't look as embarrassed as he usually did, probably because Johnny hadn't bothered being a dick about it this time. He even mostly managed to look him in the face.
"Good luck," Johnny said, when Evan was opening the door to leave. Fuck it, whatever happened out there, he was definitely going to be the bigger man.
Evan almost ran into the door. "Uh, um, you too," he said unconvincingly. Johnny gave him a smirk, letting himself bask in the glow of his own graciousness. Evan had never mastered the art of being a good sport.
*******
Fuck graciousness, Johnny thought. Fuck the judges, fuck Evan, and fuck fucking sixth place. The crowd was booing his scores. Johnny made himself get up and wave them down, made himself keep smiling. He wanted to scream and cry and punch something, but he knew he'd regret it, someday, if he made himself look like a sore loser now.
"Come on, Johnnik," Galina said gently, tugging him out of the kiss and cry and down the corridor, and then his mom was there, hugging him hard, and somehow they were in the dressing room, away from the cameras, and Johnny could finally let himself cry.
Faintly, he could hear the national anthem being played outside. He couldn't seem to stop sobbing. "Sorry, sorry, I'm okay, really," he mumbled into Patti's shoulder, trying to muffle his gasps.
"Shh, baby, I know. It's the stress. I know, I know," Patti murmured, rocking him a little.
*******
He locked himself in his hotel room, alone, scrubbing furiously at the bathroom tiles, ignoring the way his eyes still felt hot and swollen. He ignored the knock on the door, too, but whoever it was didn't give up. Johnny jerked the door open, physically recoiling when he found Evan in front of him.
Evan was staring at his feet, nervously rubbing his hands together. "I just wanted-"
"Words cannot express how much I don't give a shit what you want," Johnny said and slammed the door in his face.
*******
As nice as it was to have practically everyone in the skating world agree that he'd been underscored, it made it even harder to be gracious about his placement. Johnny mostly tried to stay classy about the entire thing, but occasionally his frustration broke through and his mouth slipped the leash a little, and of course Evan had never been able to let anything go. A few months into their petty little media war, Johnny suddenly realized that he was heartily sick of the entire thing.
He was retired now, and he was trying to make peace with the career he'd had, highs, lows, injustices and all, and clinging to this stupid feud got him nothing but a lot of rage he didn't need in his life. What he really wanted, at this point, was for them to apologize to each other and let it the fuck go. He just really didn't want to be the one to start, when Evan had objectively been the bigger asshole.
But apologies or no, he was going to let this go, he decided. It helped that after the end of Dancing with the Stars Evan had mostly faded from public view again, and Johnny was pretty busy.
He was skating a bunch of shows and going back to school, and the camera crew was following him around while he audited Russian lit and linguistics, and pretended to be touring FIT for the first time so they had a chance to get footage of his impression while they outlined their schedules and expectations. It didn't quite floor him the way it had the first time he'd heard it, but it was still pretty intimidating. He still wanted it, but he was pretty sure at this point that he should take a year or two off, maybe go to school for a while and brush up on his sewing first. He'd just gotten out of the pressure cooker of high-level competition, he wanted a break before the next crazy challenge. It felt good to have a goal again, though, something he could work towards.
*******
The next time he saw Evan, on the first day of their month-long Japan tour, he'd mostly gotten his shit together. He knew what he wanted to do with the next part of his life, and he'd spent so much time talking about how those two practically flawless performances at the Olympics had been satisfaction enough that it was starting to feel like the truth. It helped that in almost every show he'd skated since then, he'd been the one getting the loudest applause, over actual Olympics medalists. And now he had an entire month of shows in Japan to look forward to, together with some of his favorite skaters, in one of his favorite countries. It was pretty easy to feel at peace with the world.
Evan was making an obvious effort to be friendly. Coming from Evan, that sort of thing always made Johnny a little suspicious, but he realized that he was probably being paranoid out of habit. They were both retired, Evan didn't have anything to gain by fucking with his head anymore. Anyway, he knew that Evan was a pretty different person away from competition, and Johnny thought maybe he got lonely on tour, too, when he didn't have a crazy training schedule taking up all his time. That was how their brief friendship during Champions on Ice had started, years ago.
Evan knocked on his door one night a week into the tour. It was late enough that Johnny had just been about to change for bed, and he was terribly glad that he hadn't gotten around to it yet. Whatever this was about, it probably wouldn't be a conversation he'd want to have in his boxers.
"Can I come in?" Evan said, eyeing Johnny's hand on the door a little nervously, as if he was worried Johnny was going to slam it shut on him again. Johnny hesitated for a second, but he was past the door-slamming phase of anger now, and he didn't want Evan to start arguing with him in the hall. He stepped back, waving Evan in.
Evan looked twitchy and nervous, and his hair was wildly tousled, as if he'd been tugging at it. At that moment, he reminded Johnny more of the awkward teenager he'd been friends with once than the hypercompetitive dick he'd ended up hating.
"Sit down," he said, perching on the edge of his bed and gesturing at the only chair in the room. "What do you want?"
"I, uh. I thought." Evan settled on the very edge of the chair, nervously wringing his hands, looking prepared to bolt. "What we've been doing, uh, before the competitions? I thought maybe we could do that again, but, like, for fun. If you wanted to." His voice got all high and nervous in the middle, before he made an obvious effort to flatten it out again.
Johnny sighed. He did kind of want to, was the thing. He just wasn't sure it would be all that great an idea. "Evan, we're not friends. We don't do things together for fun."
"We used to be!"
"Yeah, and there's about a million reasons we're not anymore, and you know it. Look, I don't want to get into all this old shit, but you recently told the press I wasn't a good enough skater for freaking Stars on Ice, for one thing. We're not friends."
Evan hunched his shoulders. "Would it help if I apologized?"
"Um, yes." Duh, Johnny thought, but he prided himself on not being a guy who said that sort of thing out loud. "We're still not doing stuff just because you apologized, though."
"Uh, should I-" Evan started, making a helpless gesture that Johnny was pretty sure was meant to signify get on my knees.
"Evan, no." If they were going to do that - which they weren't, because it was still a stupid idea - he certainly didn't want to get all that old baggage tangled up in it. Or not any more than it was always going to be, anyway. "Just-"
"I'm really sorry about saying that," Evan blurted out. "It's not true, and I shouldn't have said it. I wasn't prepared for that question, and I was still pissed about you almost outing me, and you know I say stupid shit when people suddenly stick a microphone in front of me. I'm sorry. And, uh, for the other stuff I said, too. You know. Over the years."
Johnny had really thought he was past the point where he needed an apology. He'd done so well at moving on. So he was a little blindsided by how satisfying it as to hear Evan say it. It still wasn't easy to return the apology, but he wanted to, now; he wanted to put all of this behind him. "I'm sorry for that thing on Chelsea. That was petty, and I shouldn't have."
"That's okay," Evan said, too quickly. "So, uh, ceasefire, right?"
"Yeah," Johnny said, feeling something ease inside his chest.
"So now can we…?" Evan trailed off into a vague gesture, but he was leaning forwards eagerly, and it struck Johnny how much he obviously wanted it. Why now? And why Johnny, of all people?
"Tell me what's going on in your head," he said, and when Evan hesitated, "Tell me, and I'll think about it."
There it was again, that strange desire to push Evan just to see if he'd give. Evan was biting his lip. "I just want to get out of my head for a while," he finally said. "I spent four years going to the rink every single day and working off Frank's training plan, and now suddenly I have to make all these decisions. I don't even know what I want to do with my life anymore, and whatever I decide on now is going to change my life for like the next ten years. I put it off while I had all those shows to do, but my mind keeps going in circles, and I'm so tired of it."
To Johnny, the first few months after he'd decided to retire had felt like freedom. For the first time in his life, he could do whatever the fuck he wanted to do. He could do any shows he wanted, he could take full advantage of all the chances to have silly fun that being a D-list celebrity offered, he could go back to school, and if he wanted to eat an entire fucking ice cream cake, he could do that, too. But of course Evan wouldn't like it. He'd always been all about firm rules and set schedules.
Evan was watching him anxiously, waiting for a decision, and it was such a sudden rush, knowing that right then, he was the one with all the power. His cock was starting to press against his jeans. Oh, fuck it. What was the worst that could happen, him and Evan ending up resenting each other again? Big fucking change. He really could do whatever he wanted, now.
"Come here," he said, snapping his fingers and pointing at the floor in front of his legs. Evan was out of his chair almost before Johnny had finished talking, sinking to his knees, his entire body slumping in relief as if Johnny had taken a weight off his shoulders. There was something faintly ridiculous about the pose - Evan was just too tall to look natural on his knees, and the way he folded himself up just drew attention to his awkward gangliness. But he was clearly trying to make it look submissive.
Johnny had always gotten a kick out of the stuff they'd done, even thought about it when he was jerking off, occasionally; but it was so much hotter now, when he wasn't half out of his mind with nerves before a competition. It surprised him, how turned on he suddenly was.
He tangled his hands in Evan's hair and pulled him a little closer. Evan obediently curled forward, gratefully leaning his cheek against Johnny's knee and twisting his head to look up at him. Johnny looked away for a moment, fighting his conflicting impulses. The way Evan was watching him with his eyes half closed, stupidly trusting, was making him feel bizarrely protective, as if he should be stroking Evan's hair and kissing him gently. It was a silly, annoying impulse. Evan was a big boy, he didn't need coddling, and anyway he didn't even want it. Years worth of anger and hurt pride made him thrill at Evan's easy surrender, a mean, petty little feeling that Johnny didn't really want in the bedroom, and it scared him a little.
But mostly, he was painfully hard, and desperately curious what else Evan was willing to do, if he told him to; what he'd let Johnny do to him.
Johnny tightened his grip in Evan's hair and pulled his head a little further back, making him arch his back. Evan shuddered, eyes wide and dark.
"So what do you want me to do, then?" Johnny asked.
Evan hesitated. Johnny twisted his grip until Evan hissed with pain, but he stayed loose under Johnny's hands, not struggling at all.
"You want me to hurt you? Smack you around?"
Evan's face was flushed a deep, blotchy red. He obviously wanted it, but he just as obviously couldn't bring himself to say so out loud. Johnny was fiercely glad for the casual way his family talked about sex. He'd always found it perfectly easy to talk about the things he wanted, even if they were a little on the outrageous side. Usually he found other people's prudishness amusing at best, annoying at worst, but watching Evan struggling with himself like this was fucking hot. "Come on, you gotta tell me, how else am I going to know?"
"Yes. Please," Evan gasped, his voice tight, from embarrassment or from the unnatural position Johnny had him in. Johnny's cock twitched.
"You want me to make you come like that? While you're in pain?"
"Yes," Evan said immediately, and Johnny realized that he probably should have asked about that before they'd started. He's just assumed that if they did this, it would be sexual; but Evan hadn't ever asked for that before, and he was getting the uncomfortable feeling that he could make Evan say yes to pretty much anything right now. He let go of Evan's hair, gently carding it flat where he'd twisted it all out of shape, and pushed him back until he was sitting on his heels, eyes glazed.
"You want to take a moment to think about it? We don't have to do that, if you're just into the pain."
Evan looked up at his tone of voice, and seemed to shake himself out of the daze a little. "No, I. I want to," he said, his voice cracking a little, as if it was even harder to say it now that he was thinking a little clearer again.
"Did you want to at the competitions? Did you go and jerk off after I was done with you?" Johnny asked, curious. He'd always wondered about that.
"No! That would have been too much of a distraction," Evan said immediately, but there was something shifty about his tone. It wasn't that hard to guess what he wasn't saying.
"So you waited until you got home?"
"…Yeah," Evan reluctantly admitted.
Johnny laughed, delighted. Evan was looking off to the side, shoulders tense. Johnny grabbed him by the hair again, pulled until Evan's eyes were watering, watching with a sense of awe as his entire body relaxed.
He let go, stroking Evan's cheek. "You know, I'm really glad you came by. This is fun," he said, and then he pulled back and backhanded Evan so hard his knuckles stung, not holding back for once. This time it didn't matter if he marked Evan up a bit. They didn't have anywhere to go tomorrow, there'd be time for the bruises to fade.
Evan made a pained sound that had Johnny's chest clenching up nervously, but before he could say anything, Evan bent down and pressed a kiss against his hand. "Thank you," he said. Johnny blinked down at him, blindsided all over again by how much this turned him on. He pressed his hand against his cock, stroking himself through his pants. Evan was following his every movement with his eyes. It felt kind of weird, having him watching; more intimate than what they'd been doing so far. So Johnny smacked him again to distract him, feeling his cock twitch at Evan's little gasp. Again, and again, until Evan's breath was hitching with every slap, tears spilling over his cheeks.
Evan's cheeks looked red and bruised when he stopped. Johnny gently stroked his fingers over the marks, feeling how hot the skin was. He turned his hand over, pressing the cooler side against the bruises. Evan leaned into it with a grateful sigh. "Don't stop," he said quietly, turning his face to muffle the words against Johnny's hand.
Johnny kept petting him, considering. He had no real idea how quickly those bruises were going to fade. For all he know, they'd be gone two hours from now, but right now, they were pretty damn obvious, and he didn't think Evan would thank him if he had to answer any awkward questions the day after tomorrow. There was plenty of other stuff he wanted to try if Evan let him, though.
"Take your clothes off and get on the bed," he said, nudging Evan's cheek when he hesitated. He thought about keeping his own clothes on, because the mental image of being fully-clothed with a naked Evan was pretty hot, but he was starting to feel sweaty and gross like this, so he stripped after all.
Evan had a pretty good body, despite the gangliness; strong and lean, nicely muscled figure skater thighs, his abs sharply defined. His cock was hard and damp with precome at the tip. Johnny trailed a finger over the lines of muscles on his stomach, feeling the skin twitch. Evan made a protesting sound, pulling away, ticklish, and Johnny casually reached out and slapped his cock.
Evan actually squeaked at that, staring down at Johnny with wide eyes. Johnny gently flattened his hand against his stomach. "Too much?" he asked.
"No," Evan said after a moment.
"Hold still and let me touch, then," Johnny said, dragging his nails lightly over Evan's stomach, trying to get it to twitch like that again. Evan groaned, his entire body tensing up, trying not to pull away. Johnny slapped his cock again. "I told you to hold still."
He really liked the response he could get from Evan that way, a sort of full-body wince, as if Evan had to fight the instinctive urge to curl up to protect his junk. Johnny did it a few more times, playing around with the intensity, but he didn't actually want Evan too sore to jerk off. Although that sounded like something that might be fun some other time - if there was another time. Which he wasn't even going to worry about right now.
Evan was tying himself into knots trying to hold still for the tickling, but couldn't quite manage. The next time he twitched away, Johnny raked his nails down his sides, hard, leaving five raised, bright red lines. Evan moaned, curling into the touch, which was so hot Johnny immediately had to try it again. He put a lattice of angry lines all over Evan's stomach, but although Evan was clearly getting off on it, Johnny couldn't make him react like that again. He was keeping himself very still, biting his lip trying to hold back his sounds, obviously trying to be all stoic and manly about the pain.
It was kind of pissing Johnny off. They were naked together, in the middle of kinky sex, and Evan still couldn't stop trying to be his stupid fake persona. It made Johnny want to push harder, force him to give a real reaction.
There was a bunch of clothespins on his bedside table, left over from Johnny's attempt to get his clothes sorted out despite the hotel's lack of hangers. He grabbed a red one and experimentally put it on his little finger. It didn't really hurt, but it did pinch down pretty firmly. "That one's got quite the bite," he told Evan, smirking. "Want to try it?" He grabbed Evan's hand and stuck it on his finger without waiting for an answer. Evan glanced from Johnny to his finger and back, watching him warily.
"Think about how that would feel on your nipple," Johnny told him, grinning when Evan sucked in a breath. "Think you can take that one on your nipple, or do you need me to find a lighter one?"
He hadn't meant it to be a challenge, but Evan clearly took it that way. "I can take it," he said immediately.
Johnny shook his head at him. "Tell me if it gets too much," he said. He didn't put the clothespin on all at once but instead let it close very slowly, gradually increasing the pressure. Evan started getting restless about halfway through, not trying to get away, but shifting around, clutching the sheets with his hands. "Say stop if you need to," Johnny reminded him.
"Don't stop!" Evan said immediately.
Johnny shrugged and increased the pressure a little more. Evan was trying to curl in on himself, shoulders and legs coming up. Johnny put a knee on his hip and his free hand on the opposite shoulder, forcing him flat again. Evan was panting. Johnny could feel Evan's cock twitching against his leg, slicking a wet trail over his calf.
Evan almost screamed when Johnny let go of the clip entirely, letting it close around his nipple as tight as it would go. It took Johnny's entire strength to hold him still. "Leave it on," he gasped, when Johnny started reaching for it, concerned. "I can do this, I can."
Johnny thought about taking it off anyway, because he didn't want Evan challenging himself past his own limits, but Evan was still obviously hard, so apparently he was getting something out of this.
Evan was slowly settling down, relaxing a little, not fighting Johnny's hold on him anymore. Johnny wondered if the pain had eased up, or if Evan had just figured out how to control it better. Either way, he thought, it would probably get worse the longer he left it on. He flicked the clip with a finger, and Evan's muscles instantly tightened up again. Johnny watched him, the way he was shuddering, trying to breathe through it; there wasn't anything fake about Evan's reaction now.
He waited until Evan had settled down again before giving the clip a little twist. Evan actually screamed this time, one hand blindly clutching for Johnny, clinging to his shoulder. Johnny stroked him, murmuring soothing nonsense, but the pain didn't seem to ease up anymore. "Fuck, ow, take it off," Evan finally said, panting.
Johnny did. Evan screamed again, bucking up, almost dislodging Johnny, who hadn't expected it this time. He grabbed Evan's shoulder tighter, forcing him back down. "Fuck, it's worse when it comes off, I didn't expect that," Evan said, laughing shakily. Johnny hadn't expected it either, or he would have been more careful. Damn it, he had no real idea what he was doing here.
He gently stroked Evan's sweaty hair back from his face, kept on petting him until he was melting into the mattress. "Johnny, can I…?" Evan said, tugging on Johnny's hip, pulling him up towards his face. He was licking his lips.
Johnny thought about making him ask for it, but he didn't really feel like pushing much farther right now. He shuffled up the bed, planting his knees on either side of Evan's chest, and then Evan was lifting his head, straining so he could lick the head of Johnny's cock. Johnny moaned shakily, putting one hand behind Evan's head, taking some of the strain off his neck muscles, and leaned forward, pushing into Evan's mouth.
He couldn't get very deep like this, but that didn't matter. Evan was sucking him eagerly, making pleased little sounds to himself. It felt amazing. Johnny leaned forwards a little further, pushing in just a little more. His arms were trembling. "God, you're amazing," he muttered, thumb stroking behind Evan's ear. Evan moaned.
Johnny pulled out just before he got too close to stop, sitting back on Evan's chest, taking deep breaths and trying to get himself under control again. Evan's lips were still wet and glistening. Johnny wiped his thumb over Evan's mouth, and Evan darted his tongue out to catch it, tilting his head, trying to suck it into his mouth. Johnny drew his hand back. "Quit it, you're fucking distracting," he said. He lightly squeezed his cock, telling himself to settle down. It didn't work very well. He was still so close; it was hard to think about anything but how much he wanted to come.
"If you could have me do anything you wanted to you right now, what would it be?" he asked. Evan was staring at his cock. He blinked sluggishly at the question, distracted. Johnny snapped his fingers in front of Evan's face. "Pay attention. I'm taking requests right now, if you've got one."
"I, uh," Evan started, blushing, obviously struggling with himself. Johnny rolled his eyes, slapping him lightly across the face. Evan moaned.
"Come on, you just had my cock in your mouth. What are you so embarrassed for? Just tell me what you want. Offer expires in three, two-"
"I want you to come on my face," Evan blurted, hunching his shoulders and glaring up at him, as if he was seriously worried Johnny was going to freak out on him after everything they'd already done. Johnny bit down on the urge to laugh. It wasn't really his kink, but on the scale of weirdness, he thought this rated a lot lower than the slapping.
He knelt up a little and started jerking himself off, groaning with relief when he could finally get his hand on his aching cock. Evan tugged him forwards a little more, craning his head up so he could lick between Johnny's fingers, tongue sliding sloppily over his knuckles and the head of his cock. It felt slippery and weird and awesome. "Fuck, I'm close," Johnny gasped. He grabbed Evan's hair and pulled him back a little, his hand tightening on his cock. He came with a strangled moan, all over Evan's cheeks and mouth. Evan licked at his lips, making a pleased, grateful sound. Johnny's cock twitched, almost painful so soon after he'd come.
He let himself collapse sideways, curling up next to Evan, shuddering all over. Evan petted his shoulder in long slow strokes. Johnny closed his eyes, pushing into the touch like a cat. God, he felt good.
He picked himself up after a few minutes, pushing to his knees with a groan. Evan was still hard, his cock flushed so dark with blood it had to hurt, but he seemed content to wait for Johnny to recover. Johnny reached out to wipe the come off his face, but Evan twisted away. "Leave it," he said, blushing furiously. It was a little gross, but in an awesomely filthy way that Johnny would probably find a lot hotter if he hadn't just come.
"Jerk yourself off," Johnny told him. It was always really interesting to watch people bringing themselves off, the way everyone liked it differently. Unsurprisingly, Evan was pretty rough with himself. Johnny waited until Evan seemed to be getting close, breathing in ragged gasps, making little sounds under his breath, and then he slapped his cock, hard, catching Evan's fingers and the sensitive skin of the head. Evan made a startled sound, his breathing speeding up, and jerked himself faster. Johnny did it again, watching Evan's face twist with pleasure and pain, eyes squeezed shut, his cheeks still red and bruised.
"Would you… put the clip on again?" Evan asked, without opening his eyes.
Johnny grabbed it off the bedside table. "You can come whenever you want," he told Evan, and then he let the clothespin snap closed on Evan's nipple all at once, not giving him any time to adjust. Evan yelled and curled in on himself, his hand tightening brutally on his cock, coming all over his own stomach. Johnny tugged the clip off while he was still twitching with aftershocks, and Evan gasped, his cock jumping.
He drew a ragged, heaving breath and rolled onto his side, away from Johnny, pulling his knees up to his chest and burying his face in the pillow. Johnny watched him, uncertain. Evan wasn't making a sound, but he was shaking, his shoulders drawn up tight, and he was breathing in choked little gasps.
"Hey, you okay?" Johnny asked, tentatively putting a hand on his shoulder. Evan flinched away.
"I'm fine," he said in a tight voice, muffled into the pillow. Like this, Johnny could just barely see the raised scratches on his stomach, and that his nipple was swollen and red. He felt shaky and anxious, and he desperately wanted to do something - get a washcloth to clean Evan up, maybe, and disinfect those scratches, even though he hadn't drawn blood. Make Evan look at him, check that he was okay. But he had a feeling that if he made too much of a fuss, Evan was going to run.
Johnny carefully curled himself against Evan's back, putting an arm around him and holding on tight when he tried to pull away, until he finally, reluctantly relaxed into the embrace, slowly leaning back into Johnny's chest. Evan's skin was damp with sweat and already starting to cool. Johnny pulled the blanket over them. He could feel the convulsive shudders running through Evan in waves, the gasps he was trying to suppress. "Too much at once, hmm?" he said, pressing his lips to the back of Evan's neck. "Evan, are you okay? Come on, talk to me."
"I'm fine!" Evan insisted again, his voice shaking.
Johnny rolled his eyes. "Are you embarrassed about crying? I know you always have your head up your ass at competitions, but even you should probably have noticed at some point that I cry all the time. So does everyone else in this sport. So do you."
"I'm not crying," Evan said stubbornly. He tensed against Johnny's embrace. Johnny decided to let it go. He really didn't want to chase Evan away right now.
"Hey, it's okay," he said gently, nuzzling Evan's shoulder and petting his chest until he finally started to relax again. "That's it, deep breaths, it's okay."
"Stop it, I don't need you coddling me," Evan said tightly. Johnny sighed. It always baffled him a little when people got all embarrassed about what they liked in bed, but of course Evan would be uptight about it. He'd changed his entire public image to look manlier to people, and he'd been kind of repressed even before that. Of course he was ashamed that Johnny had seen him like that.
"That was really hot. I'm going to be jerking off to that for a while," Johnny said against the back of Evan's neck, feeling him shiver.
"Yeah?" Evan said, sounding hopeful.
"Sure. Usually I'm really more into someone else taking control in bed, but that was fun."
Evan was finally beginning to relax a little. Johnny kept stroking him until his breathing had evened out, and then slipped out of bed and finally let himself get that washcloth. He dropped it on top of Evan's hand. "Wash your face."
"I wasn't crying!"
Johnny rolled his eyes. "Honey, there's come on your face."
"Oh," Evan said sheepishly.
Johnny gave him a few minutes to scrub his face and press the cool cloth against his skin, before he firmly tugged Evan onto his back. "Let me see," he demanded. The redness in Evan's face was already going down, although his eyes were a little bloodshot and swollen. Johnny carefully disinfected the scratches he'd left on Evan's stomach, got him a glass of water and made him drink all of it, and then he could finally feel himself settling down, the anxious clench of his chest easing up. Evan watched him bemusedly, but he wasn't resisting, and he seemed a little calmer when Johnny was done, too.
He tiredly glanced over at the door. "I should probably go now," he said.
Johnny had his hand resting on Evan's chest. He could feel Evan's rapid heartbeat, the way he was still shaking a little when he breathed, and struggled with himself. "Stay," he finally said, imperious, looking away from Evan's startled expression. "Stop hogging the covers. And if you snore I'm kicking you out of here, so don't even try me."
He switched off the lamp and shoved at Evan until he could wrap himself around him again. Evan was giving off heat like an oven. It was kind of nice.
"Maybe next time, you could tie my hands," Evan said into the darkness, with very badly faked casualness. His muscles were tight as rocks under Johnny's arm.
"Maybe next time we'll take it a little slower so it won't be so overwhelming, and you'll tell me if it's too much," Johnny said pointedly, poking Evan's sore nipple. Evan winced.
"It was fine! Great! I've just-"
"…Never really done that before, and jumped in at the deep end like an idiot," Johnny said, shaking his head. He gentled his hands, lightly stroking Evan's stomach, feeling the warm skin around the slightly raised lines of the scratches. "Do you still have all those ugly ties? …Why am I even asking, of course you do. Bring them over next time."
"So you'll do it?" Evan asked eagerly.
"We'll see," Johnny said.
Evan picked up his hand and pressed a kiss to the back of it. "Thank you," he said quietly.
Johnny was suddenly very glad for the darkness. "Yeah, yeah, whatever," he said roughly. "Go to sleep now. And I mean it about the snoring." His hand was still curled on top of Evan's. Evan waited until Johnny was almost asleep, and then carefully laced their fingers together. Johnny didn't try to pull away.
END