Chapter Text
(2014 - Sochi, Russia)
She’s shaking, and whether it’s from the cold or from nerves, she doesn’t know. Rhys knows, though - he always knows - and runs a hand down her back before gently taking hold of her hip and turning her so she has to face him.
“Feyre, darling, listen to me. Once we get out on that ice, it’s just us in the rink, just like practice. Nothing else matters. No one else matters.”
His voice washes over her and Feyre shuts her eyes tight for a second, nodding as Rhys pulls her close, her forehead connecting with where his shoulder meets his neck. He’s effectively shielded her from the crowd and the glare of the lights on the ice and as she breathes in the familiar smell of him, she allows herself to relax.
“I’m good. I’m ready,” she says, and is rewarded with a wide grin before they both slip into the roles of their characters, their masks for the night as they step out onto the ice.
Somehow, Feyre stops herself from looking out into the crowd, stops herself from seeking out a face that she knows won’t be there. She won’t dwell on it, won’t dwell on the way he had scoffed when she’d asked if he’d be cheering her on in Sochi, won’t dwell on the way he had never kept his promise about celebrating her birthday late because she’d been stuck at the rink with Rhys the day of. She won’t let Tamlin ruin this, not today.
Instead, she focuses on Rhys.
Rhys, with his steadfast reassurance, with his casual touches and the quick kisses he places on her cheek, her shoulder, her forehead, wherever he can reach, both on and off the ice. Rhys, along with his inner circle of friends that she knows are cheering for her as much as they are for him, with his overwhelming and unfailing support through it all.
Feyre takes a deep breath, and then the music starts.
-/-
They go back home with silver.
She tries not to be discouraged; they had skated what she considers their personal best, and besides, she’s always had a fondness for silver - it reminds her of their skates, the rhinestones adorning her costumes, the stars, and now, the necklace Rhys had given her on her birthday, just a few months ago.
She’s pretty sure that was the first and only time she’d ever seen Rhys blush, him practically shoving the box at her and skating away before she’d had time to even say thank you. She’d caught up to him with ease, crashing into him from behind and wrapping her arms around his middle, and promised she’d never take it off.
Feyre doesn’t like to think about what she’d do without him.
She’d put on her first pair of skates at the age of five in a desperate attempt to keep up with Nesta and Elain and earn their mother’s approval, and when their mother had died not two years later and both of her sisters quit, only Feyre kept with it. That was the year she’d been paired with Rhys, and she’s been stuck with the annoying prick ever since (not that she’s complaining).
Tamlin’s look of disapproval flashes in her mind as Rhys expertly fields yet another question about their (lack of a) romantic relationship. She bites back a comment about how chemistry during a routine doesn’t always translate to chemistry in real life; Rhys has always been better with the press anyways. He starts talking about how she’s his best friend, how she’s been his best friend for all of the thirteen years they’d been skating together, when he was just a scrawny nine year old and she’d been an even scrawnier seven year old.
“Practice must be extraordinarily time-consuming for the two of you to build the kind of chemistry you have on the ice. Do you have any tricks for getting through a particularly grueling session?” the reporter asks, and Feyre snorts as she recalls the time Rhys had shown up to practice on Halloween a few years back with bat wings and devil horns.
“We joke a lot, especially if one of us is having a bad day, just to ease the tension,” Rhys says, nudging Feyre with his elbow as if he knows exactly what memory she’s thinking of (he probably does - sometimes she thinks he can read her mind).
“People have noticed that you tend to be the jokester, while you, Feyre, tend to be a little more serious.”
“Feyre’s actually hilarious. I think some people would be surprised,” Rhys says before Feyre can bark out whatever sarcastic reply is on the tip of her tongue. “A lot of people know she’s a genius. She’s very smart. But she has a great drive as well. So she has a pretty good combo, fun to work with, best business partner ever."
Feyre smiles, Rhys effectively dissolving all traces of her annoyance the way that only he can. She turns her head to face the reporter, her grin suddenly slipping into something much more conspiratorial, as she says, with a dramatic sigh, “The sad thing is after thirteen years I still find Rhys hysterical. You should hear some of his puns.”
The reporter tries to mask her shock at Feyre’s quip, but Feyre doesn’t notice because her eyes are on the ridiculous faces Rhys is making.
Her eyes are always on Rhys.
-/-
Another day, another interview.
While Feyre tolerates these meetings and handles them with just as much professionalism, if not ease, as Rhys, today is different. Today, she’s in a bad mood.
Today, the last thing she wants is to talk about her love life, so of course that’s the very first question she gets asked.
She feels, more than sees, Rhys’s annoyance, because they both know how sexist this is, they’ve both noticed how she’s always the one who gets drilled about her relationship status while he gets asked the questions about the technical elements of their skating and their partnership, but he’s smart enough to let her fight her own battles.
That doesn’t stop him from trying to come to her rescue.
Feyre’s blindsided by the question, because why in the name of the Mother does anyone care if she’s introduced Tamlin to Rhys? Don’t these people have anything else to concern themselves with?
Rhys clears his throat, all too aware that Feyre is one second away from (metaphorically) ripping out the reporter’s neck. (At least, he hopes it’s metaphorically, because he’s seen how creative Feyre can get with her skates.)
“I think Feyre just tries to keep her personal life and her skating life separate. I know I personally struggle with balancing skating and a semblance of a social life.”
And just like that, Rhys redirects the journalist’s attention back towards him, giving Feyre enough time to catch her breath and cool her head. All the reporter gets after that are short, clipped answers, none of the laughing and teasing that interviews with Feyre and Rhys normally contain, none of the banter that they are known for, and she feels a small sense of smug satisfaction that the article will suffer because of it.
That small sense of smug satisfaction disappears when Tamlin texts her about the article a few weeks later, a text which includes a line about how she should get a new skating partner because he just isn’t comfortable with her spending so much time with Rhys.
Feyre gapes at her phone, sputtering even though Tamlin can’t see or hear her, and starts typing furiously, backtracking more than once as she tries to fully convey the sheer idiocy her boyfriend’s rather unfortunately showcased. She starts with the fact that not a year ago, Tamlin had made a dismissive and downright homophobic comment about how all male ice skaters had to be gay, and goes into a rant about how difficult it is to find a partner like Rhys, how much time and energy she’d have to put into cultivating that kind of chemistry with someone else, without the benefit of skating with them since childhood there to ease along the process. She skips over how, with Rhys, the connection had been instantaneous, and instead includes several paragraphs about how Tamlin has no right to dictate who she does and does not spend time with, especially (but certainly not limited to) when it comes to her career.
Tamlin shoots back a few paragraphs of his own, and it’s when he disparages their Sochi silver medal that she snaps and breaks up with him.
Rhys finds her in the rink, even though it’s 5 in the morning and their practice doesn’t technically start until 7. He watches silently as she tries - and fails - to land a triple axel, and when she finally skates over to him, he presses a cup of coffee into her hand and a kiss to her forehead and doesn’t ask any questions. Instead, he grabs her phone and opens up her playlist (his had been the first fingerprint programmed in when she’d caved and finally upgraded), and plucks the still steaming cup of coffee from her hand. Feyre opens her mouth to protest, but then Stay by Rihanna comes on and she’s rolling her eyes but taking his hand nonetheless.
He lets her skate out her frustration and heartbreak, and at the end of their routine, when they’re pressed flush against each other and they’re both trying to catch their breath, Feyre allows herself to reflect on the unexplainable, natural, instinctual connection between her and Rhys for quite possibly the first time ever.
-/-
(2018 - Pyeongchang County, South Korea)
This time, they’re the favorites to win gold.
Feyre tries to focus on that instead of the flip in her stomach every time Rhys lifts her so that her legs hang over his shoulders, her hands cupping his face for the briefest of seconds before he’s whirling her back towards solid ground again. They had agreed together - always together - that the original move was a bit too suggestive for an Olympic audience and decided to tone it down, but even the edited version is enough to leave Feyre aching with want.
Ironic, considering how much praise they’d received for all of their unbridled chemistry on the ice for the entirety of their professional career, emphasis being on the ice .
She’s struggling to slow her heart rate down when she glides to a stop in front of their coach, affectionately known as tiny ancient one , and while Amren is small in stature, Feyre has no doubt she can still out-skate the majority of the Olympians competing this year.
There’s a light touch on her waist, followed by Rhys suddenly appearing by her side and tugging her closer to him until her head is on his chest and his nose is in her hair. Their runthrough of their routine had been absolutely flawless, and she’s just as proud of him as she knows he is of her. Amren leaves them to it, muttering about how they’re disgusting and complaining about their unprofessionalism without any real heat behind her words. Feyre feels more than hears Rhys chuckle and presses even closer.
“Careful, or you’ll prove all of the conspiracy theories about us being secretly married right,” Rhys teases, even as his hands ghost over her sides and he kisses the top of her head.
Feyre chokes out a laugh and catches one of his hands, interlocking his fingers with hers as she leads him out of the rink. “They are right, prick.”
“Yes, but they don’t know that.”
-/-
They break the world record and the first thing Rhys does is launch himself onto the barrier of the rink because tradition is important, Feyre darling.
It’s a close call between them and the team from France, but they’ve done it, they’ve won a gold medal, and now they can finally relax.
After the press interviews, of course.
But Feyre feels like she is flying , and not even the most obnoxious reporter can bring her down. Rhys peppers her face with kisses once they’ve both got their guards on, and while he keeps it chaste in front of the cameras, she sees the intent in his eyes as he makes his way to her neck just long enough to let her know what his plans are once they’re safely back in their room (his room, technically, because no one knows about the rings tucked away in her makeup bag and locked up in the safe, but what the officials and the public don’t know won’t hurt them).
The first thing everyone does is congratulate them on their spellbinding performance, a few reporters purposefully mentioning the way they’d both sung the words to Moulin Rouge as they skated their personal best. It’s Feyre who laughs away this comment, informing everyone that it’s a good thing nobody else could hear Rhys while they were on the ice, because for all of his talent interpreting and being moved by music, her partner is hopelessly tone-deaf.
“You two have previously called the other your best friend in interviews - what’s it like skating with someone who knows you better than you know yourself?”
“She’s a pretty fantastic person,” Rhys says, positively beaming at Feyre while she ducks her head. “I would never even think about skating with someone else. She’s my partner, my equal in every way.”
Feyre thinks that’s the end, and it’s pretty obvious from the way the flashes of cameras start going off that the media had thought so too.
“She’s creative, from the beginning of time,” Rhys continues, either completely oblivious to the blush rising in Feyre’s cheeks or actively ignoring it. “She can move like nobody I’ve ever seen. She's very, very selfless; she's a people pleaser. But my favourite things I think have really just gotten even better in the last couple of years and that's her drive, that's her commitment to being an athlete.”
“Rhys, you’re known for only ever having good things to say about your partner, but Feyre, you’re usually a little more reserved in your interviews. What do you have to say about Rhys?”
“Rhys is the most disciplined, driven athlete I've ever met. There's a fierce competitor deep within and the passion and the raw talent that is there — the ability to move and hear music and interpret it — is unlike anyone else I've ever seen on the ice,” Feyre admits, and she means every word. Rhys is surprised, and he’s never surprised, so she plows on. “And I think because he wears his heart on his sleeve people feel so drawn in and captivated by his performances. He's generous, thoughtful and extremely insightful. He's able to understand the glide of the blade differently. It’s been amazing to live this Olympic journey with my best friend.”
Rhys twines his fingers with hers and pulls her hand up to his mouth, pressing a lingering kiss to it as the photographers snap as many pictures as they can.
“Someone pointed out a while back that you always hug each other before every routine, without fail. Is that to calm nerves, reassure each other?”
“That’s actually something we’ve done for several years now really just to feel our timing together, find that synchronicity and get our breathing in unison. Just really to feel that connection and to emphasize the chemistry and togetherness that we hope to create on the ice,” Feyre says, more than happy to answer a question about something other than her feelings about Rhys.
“Well, I think I speak for everyone when I say you certainly achieved that. Congratulations again.”
Feyre and Rhys thank everybody and pose for a few more pictures, and when they get their medals and he kisses her temple, she knows that’s the image that’s going to make the headlines.
-/-
“So I’m generous, am I, Feyre darling?”
Feyre rolls her eyes and threads her fingers through Rhys’s hair, tugging his head back down against her thigh as she squirms underneath him.
“Don’t make me seem like a liar now.”
Rhys’s chuckle is low as he finds her free hand and takes it in his, the gold glint of their wedding bands shining in the dark.
“Wouldn’t dream of it, wife.”