Chapter Text
Jean Francois is chewing on a pen. And he has those creases on his forehead that deepen when he’s taxing them like that, those that run so deep they’re even visible through the poor webcam-feed over Skype. He takes the pen out of his mouth before he speaks, a testament to his pristine manners.
“Do that again,” he says.
Scott groans. Tessa soothingly pats his leg under her coffee table where they’re sitting in front of her MacBook. Just a little longer, her drumming fingers say.
“So, what can you tell us about your relationship,” she prompts and turns to look at him.
“Well, it’s been twenty years,” Scott starts, sounding like an old and overplayed record, fixing his gaze on her routinely. “And it’s been great to go through all of that together and I swear I will hurl myself out of the window if you ask me anything more about this.”
“Sco-ott,” she admonishes, a bit of the exasperation in her voice definitely real.
“I know,” he says and sighs. “I know the lines, just don’t make me say them again.”
“I’d say use the practice,” JF advises from his own couch in Montreal and the lucky sod has it easy. He’s not going to be spending his next week with cameras in his face being asked to disclose every last detail of his personal, private, none-of-anybody’s-business-god-damn-private life. “If you want to change over from the business partners angle, you have to know the new bridge by heart. We’ve talked about this.”
“I said I never want to say the term ‘business partners’ again in my life, I didn’t say I want a new script,” Scott complains but it’s useless.
He can tell by the determined look on Tessa’s face. She is going to be prepared for the press days and he better get prepared with her or he will live to regret it.
But before she can launch into the next play-pretend question, JF interjects, giving her pause mid-breath.
“Scott, you’re not too happy about this,” their mental prep coach says and Scott winces.
He really isn’t in the mood for an impromptu therapy session. He has signed up for media training, not soul-searching today. Tess looks at him quizzically from the side and he buries his face in his hands for just a second to escape the burn of her gaze on his cheeks. When he comes back up to find her still watching him, he shoots her an apologetic look. She knows. She knows he hates this but she is too stubborn to let him off the hook. Not that he would have anywhere to go if she did.
“You wanted this change,” Tessa says under her breath, not quite an accusation but not quite the gentle reminder she surely intended it to be either.
“A different one, eh,” he mutters and she pretends she didn’t hear him.
“If you don’t want to do the sentences, let’s do bullet points,” she says. “Just so you’ve said it in your own words.”
“Fine,” he says. “Twenty years together, amazing partnership, nurtured and built this over the years and we still enjoy working together and going to the rink together every single day.”
Somewhere around the third rattled off bullet-point, his hand has landed on her knee and her fingers had laced with his, her thumb drawing circles around his knuckles.
“So special to have had all this support and worked hard on this partnership with mental coaches and marriage counsellors and therapists,” Tess continues with an even voice, “and we’re really so fortunate to have done this together.”
“So what’s the pivot?” Jean asks.
“It’s such a great compliment,” Scott starts.
“-to our skating, means that we’re doing our job,” Tessa continues.
“We’re portraying characters,” Scott picks up and feels his soul ascending from his body, floating overhead and looking down at himself, literally. “So we’re also actors at the end of the day-“
“-and if people see that connection and feel invested, that’s really wonderful.”
“Good,” JF says. “Now the bridge again.”
“You know, what’s really great is that we’ve had this wonderful partnership together for the last twenty years,” Scott shoots, with no hesitation. “And so on and so forth.”
“Good,” JF says. “Now the last resort?”
“I love her, it’s all true,” he says without missing a beat and Tessa grunts out a laugh she can’t help beside him but when he looks at her, he doesn’t miss the flicker of panic that crosses her face. “I’m not actually gonna say that, you know? Not that it would come as a surprise to anybody.”
“Oh and whose fault is that?” She asks and her tone is light but her eyes are serious. Serious enough for him to get a little offended.
“Look, I’m not trying to be obnoxious-,” he starts the same time as her.
“I’m not saying it’s bad-,” she says simultaneously.
“-it’s just a bit much,” they say in unison and he shakes his head, trying hard to keep the grin off his face. He doesn’t want to turn the moment around to humour or cuteness now, not now that he has started to say what he really means. That always takes him a while so now he’s here, he’d rather have it out. Tessa must sense this because she doesn’t giggle at all, instead just keeps her focus on him and waits, ever patient and calm as a winter morning.
Scott takes a deep breath to centre himself and looks at their coach in the laptop screen who just nods encouragingly. The three of them have been here often enough to know that bracing breath comes right before Moir-stuff that will need unpacking.
“I don’t know where the line is,” Scott says and meets two pairs of understanding eyes. This has come up before. “I don’t know when I cross over into the no-go zone. And I don’t want to tell people but I also don’t know how to stop telling them?” His eyebrows fold up and he waves his hands about to illustrate that he’s not quite sure if what he’s saying is making any sense but T’s hand flies back to smooth out the jeans hugging his thigh, so something about it must’ve been okay. “It just hurts to deny it all the time. It’s just…,” and he looks for the word but can’t find it.
“…hard to comprehend the dissonance,” Tessa supplies. Completely on point as usual.
“Yeah,” he agrees. “Between the official version and what the truth is. It’s hard for me to keep pretending I don’t love you like that when I do,” he says turning back to only her. “And I know what we said and all but I can’t help but…doubt, to hear you spin it. Because it comes so easily to you.”
“It doesn’t come easy at all,” Tess says, with a firm shake of her head. “But I’ll take it over the alternative of having this broadcasted. I don’t want our relationship to be a commodity, not any more than it already is.”
“And I don’t want it to feel like a dirty secret,” Scott admits, which is really the heart of the matter. “I don’t want to feel like we’re ashamed of anything.”
“I’m not ashamed,” T says adamantly. “I’m protective. I don’t want anybody who is not our family or friends to have this. And if you’re uncomfortable speaking on it, I will.”
There is a moment of silence, an impasse where they look at each other and the world falls away to leave only them at opposite sides of the issue and then Tessa speaks again.
“We’ve not really denied anything, I never said I don’t love you” she says because she knows that had been important to him from the get-go. “And now with the questions that’ll keep coming, we just need this strategy in place. I’m not asking you to deny it, I’m just asking to keep it down. We’ve got the pivots and the bridges and we’ll be alright, okay?”
“And remember the last resort,” Jean Francois cuts in and Scott remembers that the other man still exists and has been watching that whole exchange with the patience of a mother probably. It takes a hot second there for Scott to pry his eyes away from Tessa and acknowledge him. “If you feel like you’re being backed into a corner, you just say…”
“…We would like to focus the conversation on our career together and keep our personal lives out of it,” Scott says and he can live with that. As far as last resorts go, this one is good, this one is true. No lies there, none whatsoever. And no denying either.
“And for everything else, ignore the worst questions, deflect the rest and you’ll be fine,” JF soothes. “You don’t owe anybody anything. And don’t forget it’s a very stressful situation and very unique. It’s normal to feel overwhelmed and confused, so long as you know between the two of you how you feel. —On that note, let me just leave you guys alone. Homework is to know how you really feel, you can start right after I hang up.”
Once he is gone and Tessa has shut the lid of the laptop, she sinks back into the couch, onto his outstretched arm and tilts her head to look at him, close enough to go a little cross-eyed.
“You know I love you,” she says. “Beyond romance too. I love every last little thing about you.”
“Me too,” he says and closes his eyes to touch his forehead against hers. “Just promise me I don’t have to lie about it forever.”
“Not for forever, I promise,” she whispers. “Just for a little while longer. Until the dust settles.”
“Yeah,” he agrees. “Until the dust settles.”
And then he kisses her, because for once, they’re alone and also just because, for once, he can.