Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/13088349.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Yuri!!!_on_Ice_(Anime)
  Relationship:
      Otabek_Altin/Jean-Jacques_Leroy
  Character:
      Otabek_Altin, Jean-Jacques_Leroy, Alain_Leroy
  Additional Tags:
      Jjbek, Underage_Sex, Smut, Recreational_Drug_Use, Underage_Smoking,
      bipolar_JJ, Christmas_Gift_Fic, Angst
  Stats:
      Published: 2017-12-21 Words: 4977
****** Shriner's Park ******
by annabeth
Summary
     Sometimes, it's time to drown.
     Sometimes, it's time to reach for the life preserver.
Notes
     Written for Blownwish for Christmas. I hope you enjoy it, darling! ♥
     Father Dubois is actually her creation; I'm just borrowing him with
     her permission.
     Title from Melissa Etheridge; that song was the inspiration for this
     fic.
See the end of the work for more notes
Jean was giggling, whooping even, as he drove. Otabek was more reserved, but he
could feel himself smiling from Jean's sheer joy.
"Seriously, Jean, be quiet. Someone will catch us."
"Not likely, Beks! Don't be a spoilsport! The windows are rolled up and—"
"But it's 3am," Otabek reminded him. "And you only just got your license. I'm
not even sure you're supposed to be driving me ar—"
"It doesn't matter, Beks. Nothing does!" He whooped again, raising one fist.
The car jolted and swerved. "Everything is great!"
Otabek suspected that Jean hadn't taken his meds again, but there wasn't
anything he could do about that. Jean's parents watched him take them, but Jean
was an expert at concealing them in his mouth and then spitting them out
somewhere. He never did it front of Otabek, but he'd confessed once, high as
fuck on adrenaline and mania.
Otabek greatly admired Jean's ability to skate, the effortless way he launched
into his jumps, the easy way he landed them. He admired even more the way that
Jean had been spending time with him, and his terrible quad sal, trying to
teach him to land it.
But Otabek knew Jean had problems, and that the skating was sometimes in spite
of them, and sometimes because of them.
"Try not to wreck your dad's car," Otabek said. "He'd kill us both. And
besides, the cops could pull us over for thinking you're drunk."
"Okay, okay," Jean said, reaching over and clapping a warm, heavy hand on
Otabek's thigh. "I'll try to be good. For you. Besides, look, we're almost
there."
Jean pulled the car off the road. He directed it into a tiny side lot, and
stopped. They were in Jean's favorite place besides the rink: a park with big,
leafy, towering trees.
Jean had wanted a friend so badly when Otabek had arrived that he had wasted no
time showing off his secret place. It was a public park, but no one really knew
that Jean loved any place at all besides the rink. He had confessed that, as
the oldest of ten siblings, he had to find a place to be himself.
"C'mon, Beks," Jean said, visibly trying to control his enthusiasm. Jean was
tall, somewhat slender, but his personality matched his frame, and sometimes it
seemed like his mania was going to overwhelm him despite his size, drown him in
it. Otabek hated times like now. He wanted his friend to be well—even if things
could be exciting with him when he was like this.
Otabek climbed out of the car. He watched, hands in his pockets, as Jean fished
for something concealed under the seat. He sighed and rolled his eyes when he
saw that Jean had pilfered yet another pack of his father's Marlboro Lights.
"We doing this again? Jean, Alain almost killed you when he caught us last
time."
"He won't catch us," Jean said with confidence that Otabek wasn't sure he
actually felt. It could be—but Jean distracted him by barrelling into him,
shoving his back up against a tree. The cigarettes went into Jean's pocket for
the moment, as he lowered his head and captured Otabek's lips.
This, oh, this. He often felt like Jean was a kite with a broken string, flying
too high, never coming down—but then Jean would kiss him, and things would
settle somewhere deep down inside Otabek. Jean's kisses were like drugs, potent
and demanding and mind-altering. Otabek did things from kissing Jean that he
never imagined he would do, like start smoking cigarettes.
Jean's lips were warm and slightly chapped, his breath sweet from toothpaste,
and Otabek consigned himself to the fire of the kiss, the raging inferno inside
Jean that pulled Otabek along for the ride.
It might have lasted all night, except Jean broke away, his eyes reflecting
moonlight, a silvery blue in the dark.
"Okay, Beks?"
Otabek nodded; now his head felt like that kite: high and floating, caught by a
strong wind. He'd never thought he'd love so hard as this. He'd never told
Jean, but his emotions sometimes got caught up in his throat until he thought
he couldn't breathe.
Jean produced a cigarette for Otabek, then a lighter, and then, as if Otabek
was the girl Jean fancied—Isabella—he lit it for him. But as Otabek smoked the
cigarette, Jean was doing something with his hands in the darkness.
"Jesus, Jean," Otabek said when he saw what Jean held. Jean had brought the
Marlboro Lights for Otabek, because in his hand was a joint. "You're smoking
pot now?"
"Don't take the Lord's name in vain," Jean said, eyebrows drawn down. Then he
laughed, an almost maniacal cackle. Otabek grabbed his arm and yanked him as he
sat down on the ground, pulling Jean with him.
"Quiet!" Otabek hissed. "It's the middle of the night."
"Beks," Jean said, his eyes focused so fucking intently on Otabek. They made
Otabek feel almost too naked, like even his skin had been stripped away. Times
like these, Otabek wondered—no, he hoped—that Jean felt the same way about him.
"Open your mouth."
Jean lit the blunt and inhaled the smoke. Then, he leaned forward, caging
Otabek against the tree, and gently cupped his hand around Otabek's face,
sealing his lips over Otabek's again, like the kiss they'd shared.
He poured some of the smoke into Otabek's mouth, and Otabek sucked it into his
lungs. And then they were kissing again, but Otabek felt even more drugged by
this kiss than usual. And Jean repeated the action over and over, until the
joint was gone, and they were simply kissing, frantically, pulling at each
other's clothes.
Otabek knew he was stoned, but nothing seemed to matter anymore. He felt so
relaxed he didn't even stop Jean when his hand dug into his jeans, his belt
undone and loose, and stroked his hand along Otabek's cock.
He was hard, hard like the tree trunk behind him. He was aching and desperate
and he wanted—
"Don't scream," Jean said, as if Otabek was the one prone to loud noises. And
he unzipped Otabek's jeans and lifted his cock out. He began to stroke him
furiously, with no rhythm or finesse. It wasn't the best handjob Otabek had
ever gotten—his own hand had felt better in the past, and that one memorable
time in this park before, when Jean hadn't been stoned, had been pretty mind-
blowing.
But Otabek was high, and he felt like laughing. He tried to cup the giggles in
his mouth, to tamp them down, but they felt dragged out of him.
Jean let go.
"The heck is so funny?" he asked, suddenly petulant. His lips were shiny. They
were swollen, too, especially at the corner, where Otabek remembered biting
him.
"I'm high," Otabek said, then dissolved into giggles. He fell to the side,
flopping onto the grass, staring up at the sky. "Those stars… like your eyes,
Jean."
"Hey, Beks," Jean said, sounding somehow boisterous and yet shy. His tone of
voice was a seesaw back and forth, unsure of what it wanted to be. "Suck me
off?"
When Otabek had gotten to Montreal, Jean had been the biggest virgin. He'd been
repressed, too. But one night Otabek had crept into his bed and rubbed him
until Jean had gotten hard—he had seen the longing looks Jean had been
bestowing on him for days—and then, when the lights in the hall had gone out,
he'd showed Jean how to give a blowjob.
Now he was the biggest slut for sex. Not that Otabek would ever tell him so.
Jean could barely reconcile his lust for Otabek with his God. He
compartmentalized and, Otabek thought, his illness helped him to do it. When he
was at his highest highs, that's when he sought out Otabek; he would later say
if he had been feeling "right" he wouldn't have done wrong. He told Otabek once
he'd confessed to Father Dubois about their exploits.
Otabek didn't care about Jean's God. To him, it was just one more restraint his
parents had used to shackle him with. The Catholic guilt that would send him,
hours after messing around, sobbing disconsolately into his pillow, often made
Otabek furious with his religion.
No one should suffer the way Jean did; but times like now, he was open and free
and willing to do whatever, and Otabek just… well, he loved. He knew it would
end badly someday. But Jean was like a Fourth of July sparkler, gorgeous to
look at, liable to burn you, and yet impossible to resist.
Now Otabek's cotton-fluffed thoughts swirled back around to Jean, who had taken
his dick out, and was kneeling above Otabek where he lay on the ground. He
opened his mouth, and Jean pushed his cock between Otabek's willing lips.
He tasted salty, like sweat, and a little like the last piss he'd taken—maybe
just before they left. His underwear were snugged up under his balls, and
Otabek could smell them: rank like sweat and sex too long confined. It should
have been gross. It probably was gross. But Otabek didn't mind. He loved the
musky scent of male, he'd learned at his last training rink in America. He even
loved the bitter taste of the piss and precome and sweat that lingered on
Jean's cock.
He fastened his lips tight around that length, taking as much as he could; he
licked at the vein, then flicked his tongue over the head as Jean began to move
his hips, jerkily at first.
Otabek reached up and squeezed Jean's hip. It was a signal.
Jean gasped, groaned like he was dying, and began to thrust, to fuck into
Otabek's mouth hard, and demanding, and almost violently. Otabek swallowed
around his fiercely pumping cock, sucking, using his other hand to jack his
shaft where he couldn't fit it into his mouth. The flavor was dissipating
somewhat, becoming nothing more than the salty fluid that dripped from his slit
onto Otabek's tongue.
Otabek's lips were being rubbed raw from the constant push of Jean's hips, but
he relished the way they'd burn later when licked. He slid his tongue along
Jean's slit, drinking the precome from it, and Jean made a noise somewhere
between a grunt and a cry and fisted his hand in Otabek's hair, jamming his
cock practically down Otabek's throat and coming so hard, it made even Otabek
see stars—mostly from lack of oxygen in Jean's enthusiasm.
Jean pulled back right away, though. He shifted and wiggled until he could kiss
Otabek again. His mouth tasted of cigarettes, but Otabek imagined his did,
too—along with Jean's come.
"You're so awesome, Beks," he said, with wonder in his tone. He reached between
their bodies, gripping Otabek's cock and—well, Jean got off on being rough, and
Otabek got off on being handled roughly. Two tugs and that was it, streams off
hot come jetting white into the darkness, glistening in the moonlight.
Jean rolled off and collapsed next to him, his mouth slack when Otabek turned
his head, his dick still hanging out of his pants. They both smelled like weed
and cigarettes, and Otabek knew they'd have to stop at a convenience store to
get mints, unless Jean had brought some of the Extra gum he favored. There
wasn't much they could do about their clothes, but Jean, even if he went to bed
at four in the morning, would be up by six. He'd throw their stuff in the
washer with his younger siblings' things and tell his mother he'd done the
laundry for her.
And his mother would smile and thank him.
It was kind of disgusting how easy it was to get away with this.
"Shit," Otabek said, tucking himself away and grimacing at the come streaked
sticky and drying on his jeans and shirt. "Jean, it's almost four. We have to
get back before your dad wakes up at five."
"In a minute," Jean mumbled. "'m sleepy."
"You can't sleep out here. C'mon." Otabek hauled him up. Jean was a deadweight,
and even handling his soft cock to stuff it back into his pants didn't rouse
him, not even sexually. Jean was too fucked to drive, so Otabek, who'd learned
but had no license yet, had to do it for him while Jean's head lolled against
the seat in a drowsy doze.
++
Otabek stumbled out of the bedroom, wiping sleep from his eyes. True to form,
Jean was already up. He was standing, in the bathroom he shared with his
brothers, in boxer shorts and socks. Otabek smothered a sleepy grin. Jean
looked kind of ridiculous with the socks but only in his underwear.
"What are you doing, Jean?" Otabek asked, blinking his bleary eyes at him.
"What does it look like?" Jean tilted his head, smoothed the skin of his face
taut, and ran the razor down along his cheek.
"You don't have facial hair yet, Jean," Otabek said. He peered in close, but
the Old Spice shaving cream obscured his view anyway.
"I do have some!" Jean stroked the razor along his face again, pausing to rinse
the blade in the running water.
The running water reminded Otabek why he'd woken, and that he had to piss so
motherfucking bad. He'd drunk so much water and juice before they'd fallen
asleep, trying to combat the munchies that tempted him to stray from his
training diet.
He squeezed around Jean in the small bathroom, groping Jean's ass on his way
by, and lifted the toilet seat.
The piss sounded especially loud in the small space. Otabek would have been
embarrassed, but it had been quickly apparent that you learned to share, and
while Otabek hadn't even been willing to piss in front of Jean's little
brothers, he wasn't really shy in any case, not around Jean.
He finished up and, as he shook off the droplets, he turned to watch Jean
finish using the razor to shear away the shaving cream on his face. It was
somehow strangely erotic.
He flushed the toilet.
"Let me know when you're done," Otabek said. "I need to wash my hands."
Jean ducked his head down and splashed water on his face from the sink, rinsing
the rest of the foam off. He straightened and patted his face dry with a towel.
He put too much Old Spice aftershave on, and then, smelling like a cloud of
MAN, he sailed towards the door.
"All done!" he said, grinning, and Otabek thought, as he washed his hands, that
maybe this time there would be no crash.
++
Otabek was wrong, of course. There was always a crash. Four hours later, after
he and Jean had had breakfast and gone to the rink, Jean was falling down on
his quad sal again. He looked worse than Otabek usually did, and Otabek could
hear him saying, to his father,
"I'll never get it right again. I'm hopeless."
"Now, son, that's no attitude to have! If you keep working hard, you'll be
landing it again in no time."
"No, it's stupid. I'm stupid." He skated away from his father before Alain
could say anything else, and over to Otabek. "I can't teach you to land it.
Everything's wrong. JJ Style, it's so stupid, I'm just gonna let my mom pick
something and I'm sure I'll skate it all wrong."
"Jean, look. Let's go to the locker room and—" Otabek was reaching for him, to
clap him on the shoulder, but Jean evaded him with a neat skating maneuver.
Otabek whistled. "For someone who supposedly sucks as badly as you do, that was
a pretty crossover."
"Shut up, Beks. You don't know anything." And Jean did head for the locker
room, but he didn't ask Otabek to come along. Otabek sighed and ran his hand
through his hair. It was true he didn't understand Jean's highs or his very
very low lows, but that didn't mean he loved him any less. Or that he held it
against him, even though he wished Jean would just actually swallow his meds.
God knew he swallowed everything else.
Otabek trailed him to the showers anyway, where Jean was seated naked beneath
one, the water running, his shoulders hunched and shaking. He wasn't crying.
Jean never cried. No, he was just shaking as if his sadness would cause him to
vibrate right out of his skin.
When Otabek stripped to the skin and crawled over to Jean, he bit back a cry;
the water was freezing! He reached up and twisted the dial to hot.
"Are you mad, Jean? You'll catch your death of cold."
"What does it matter. I'm a disappointment. I'll never be good enough." Jean
wrapped his arms tighter around his knees. He looked so damn pathetic, and that
was a horrible look on Jean, like a sweater that was misshapen and too big. It
drowned him in his depression. Otabek didn't know what to do. He never did,
when Jean got like this.
"You were the top Canadian skater in Juniors! And, c'mon, Jean, help me out
here."
Jean made a huffing sound against his soaked knees. His hair was plastered down
over his forehead. Otabek sighed. There wasn't anything he could do.
So he sat next to Jean, settling himself in, and shrugged an arm around Jean's
shoulders, pulling him against Otabek's side. They sat like that, silent, Jean
so small and shrunken inside his own body, till the water ran cold again and
Jean's parents came looking for him.
Later, when Jean was asleep, Otabek crept out the back door and sat, staring at
the stars, smoking a cigarette and thinking how easy it was to fall in love
with Jean, but how hard it was to actually love him—it was like trying to soar
into the sky and bring back one of those distant stars. But he did, oh, how he
did. And Jean didn't even realize it.
It was almost enough to make Otabek depressed.
++
Otabek is biting his lip, trying to keep his cool as Jean rubs him out behind
St. Anne's. They're here so Jean can confess, and Otabek isn't sure if this
handjob is Jean getting his rocks off one last time before he has to do
penance, or what, but Jean's face is dark, shuttered, concentrated as he
focuses on Otabek's dick like it's a particularly difficult puzzle he has to
solve.
He wants to tell Jean that dicks aren't complicated, that he's gotten Otabek
off plenty of times, but his expression is so closed off that Otabek just shuts
his mouth, grinds his cock against Jean's hand, and leans his head back against
the bricks.
Jean strokes him towards orgasm, into it, and through it, only pulling his hand
back when Otabek's done coming. He licks the drops that cover his hand, then
shoves that hand into his pocket, like it's offended him.
"I'll be back soon," Jean says. He avoids Otabek's attempt at a kiss. He darts
inside the cool, darkened church, leaving Otabek behind it, hurriedly stuffing
himself back into his briefs and jeans. There's jizz spattered on the grass,
sparkling in the sunlight, and Otabek wonders how long it will take to dry and
disappear into the grass.
He sighs, pulls out a smoke, and watches the clouds in the sky, blowing smoke
clouds up towards them, as he waits for Jean.
++
"Five Hail Marys, and I'm supposed to resist your 'sinful' influence," Jean
says twenty minutes later. "I didn't confess to the fooling around, Beks. I was
too ashamed."
Otabek stares at him.
"You're ashamed of me?" Otabek doesn't know why this is what bothers him out of
the whole situation. After all, Otabek had known that Jean intended to confess
about him, too. But it still hurts. "And if you didn't confess to the fucking,
Jean, what did you tell him about me?"
"I said we smoked pot," Jean whispers with his head lowered. "He just assumed
it was your idea and I, uh, I didn't correct his misconception."
"Jesus, Jean. Isn't that lying?" Otabek knows from listening to Jean talk and
talk that lying is a sin in his religion, and not just outright lying, either.
"And that wasn't my idea. I wouldn't have—"
"But wouldn't you? Tell me you never considered it before me." Jean finally
meets his eyes, the blue of his overwhelming, like falling into a pool and
going under—and staying under.
"There are a lot of things I never considered before you," Otabek says, raw in
his honesty. His throat burns. He had known that Jean was fucked up. It's not
like anything has changed.
"Yeah, I bet," Jean says, and scuffs his sneaker against the concrete.
"Don't you feel anything for me?" Otabek asks desperately. He'd promised
himself he would never burden Jean with his feelings. But every successive day
in his house, bunked in his bedroom, intoxicatingly close, has warped Otabek's
ability to consume his own desire until it doesn't trouble him.
Now, it troubles him.
"Yeah," Jean says. "You're my best friend." He kicks his sneaker against the
curb this time. Otabek fixates on that sneaker until he can't see it anymore
from the blur of tears—from the bright sunshine, from holding his eyes open so
long. Not from a broken heart.
Certainly not.
++
Now Otabek wonders if it wouldn't be better to surface, to beg for rescue,
rather than sink to the bottom. There are no lifeboats here. If he doesn't get
out of the water, he's not going anywhere but down.
And Jean doesn't even realize it.
++
"Just come with me," Jean says, pulling at Otabek's arm. "I really want you
there." Jean's pleading face is almost impossible to ignore; he's got puppy
written all over him, from the downturned tilt of his lips to the darker blue
of his eyes.
"You won't even tell me where we're going," Otabek says. It's been two weeks
since Jean's last Confession, and in that time, they haven't messed around at
all. Like Jean is really taking that "bad influence" shit seriously. Jean has
been strangely reserved; his moods are still mercurial, but the highs haven't
been in evidence as much lately, and his depression is more of a baseline,
harder to tell if Jean is really down, or sad.
It's been two weeks since Jean's last Confession, and even if Jean had tried to
initiate something, Otabek is resolved to turn him down, to push him back, as
if forcibly shoving Jean away will help him shove his feelings back to where
they can't trouble him anymore.
But then again, he's been trying to shove these feelings away for six months.
He's been in some kind of lust—then love—with Jean from almost the moment they
met, and it hasn't worked to try to hide from the feelings. His saving grace is
that he really doesn't think Jean realizes how Otabek feels.
"You'll see soon enough," Jean promises. He waggles his finger at Otabek.
"Pinky swear."
"Are you still ten years old?" Otabek asks with a faint smirk. "You gonna
drive?"
"Yes. Now come on. Don't spoil it." Jean takes both of Otabek's hands, and he
smiles again. It's so pure, that smile, without the tinge of mania to it,
without the edge of sadness to it. So Otabek sighs and gives in, because saying
no to Jean is like telling a wave not to crash on the shore. The wave will do
what it will, heedless of your tiny, purposeless existence.
Otabek allows himself to be led to the car, and Jean drives carefully, not the
crazy wild ride of that three a.m. night when they got high and messed around.
Otabek hasn't been able to stop thinking about that night, or any of the nights
that preceded it, or any of the nights afterwards, when he had Jean all to
himself, and Jean was still receptive to them getting each other off.
"No," Otabek says, when he sees the candy cane turning sign that says, Barber.
"Your parents will kill you, Jean, if you get your hair cut. Doesn't your mom
always cut your hair?"
"Yes, and it looks ridiculous. I want it to look cool, like yours." Jean pauses
before they get out of the car, taking a moment to run his fingers through
Otabek's hair, then he pets the shaved sides and back. "What's it called, Beks?
I wanna know what to ask for."
"An undercut," Otabek says, because reluctance can't stop him from admiring
Jean, from feeling a little curl of pleasure that he wants the same haircut.
Jean throws open the car door, and he bounds towards the door of the shop.
Otabek gets out more slowly. Jean is starting to soar, and Otabek never knows
just how high he'll go. What if one day he gets too high to come down?
++
They're kissing, feasting on each other's mouths, Otabek's hands in Jean's
hair, because he can't stop reveling in the tactile sensation of Jean's new
haircut.
They're kissing, and Jean's grinding against Otabek, his mouth soft and sweet,
his cock hard and wanting, and Otabek is just thinking that this might go
somewhere, hiding behind Jean's barn, kissing and kissing, tongues trapped in
each other's mouths—
"Wait," Jean says, suddenly yanking away from Otabek, jerking from his arms. "I
can't do this. Father Dubois says premarital sex is a sin."
"It's not sex, Jean," Otabek says, because right now all they're doing is
kissing. "And you never told Father Dubois about us."
"I can't, Beks," Jean says. "I'm sorry." His face is red, so red, and he puts
his head down and takes off running towards the house, leaving Otabek with a
raging hard-on and a case of confusion. He doesn't know what to think now.
There is a pack of cigarettes in his pocket, Jean's cigarettes, but Otabek
doesn't care. He pulls out the pack. He stares at them, thinking about smoking
one, but no, he has to go in to dinner soon.
In a fit of pettiness that he knows is just going to bite him in the ass as
much as Jean, Otabek digs a hole and buries the pack. He kicks dirt over it and
tromps towards the house.
++
Jean is grounded because of the haircut. His mother's feelings were hurt and
his father was angry because he didn't ask permission and he took some money
from the jar in the kitchen to pay for it.
"That money is for emergencies, son, if we're away from home. You know that."
Alain passed the sentence, and now they're lying on their respective beds,
staring at the ceiling, quiet as obedient, chastised mice.
"I'm keeping it this way," Jean says suddenly. "They can do what they want. I'm
gonna make it part of my JJ Style."
"Will you Confess?" Otabek asks. He wants to touch Jean; he wants those kisses
that feel better than any high from an drug. He wants—but Jean is distant now.
He hasn't been able to look directly at Otabek since he ran from their kisses
that afternoon.
"I'm gonna tell Father Dubois," Jean says softly. "About us. I think I have to,
Beks. You understand that, right? I feel like I'll die if I don't. I'll die,
and I'll go to Hell. No. Beks?"
"Whatever you need to do," Otabek says, but he has his answer now. Jean isn't
in love with him, not if he's willing to give him up over a guy dead for over
two thousand years. Not if he tells Father Dubois—no. This is the end. For all
of Otabek's hopes and dreams, earning Jean's love is perhaps the greatest one
of his life at fifteen years old, even more than skating.
"It'll be okay," Jean mumbles, but Otabek doesn't know who he's trying to
convince. "He can't tell my parents, but—Beks, you do understand, don't you? My
JJ Style, my sponsors—I can't have this stain my reputation."
Otabek rolls over on the bed so Jean can't see his face or the tears running
down his cheeks.
Not only doesn't Jean love him, he's a fucking stain on Jean's reputation.
That's all. He's never going to live down this humiliation, and he's never
going to get out from under the swells that pin him under, breath stolen, as he
flounders in the undertow.
His tears feel like an ocean, and his heart feels like a desert. He'll never
love anyone like this again—the pain is too great to bear, knowing that he
loved someone but never had their love in return.
"Beks?"
++
They meet at the Grand Prix Final, part of the final six skaters that advanced.
Otabek comes off the ice to see Jean standing there, that huge, manic smile in
place—a smile his fans see as JJ Style, but that Otabek knows to be the edges
of the veneer beginning to crack, the kite snapping from its strings—and he
scowls, because JJ is smiling at him, like he never broke Otabek's heart, like
he never caused Otabek to sink and drown.
His fucking hair is still styled in that undercut. Otabek wants to rip at the
strands.
He hasn't smoked a cigarette since he was fifteen years old. He hasn't gotten
high since he was a teenager drinking the pot smoke from Jean's lips. He hasn't
touched another boy since before he left Canada.
But he's older now, and he'll be damned if he lets Jean get under his skin
again. Not this time.
Not this time. He repeats it over and over. Not this time.
Maybe someday he might believe it.
end.
End Notes
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